52
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
marked me as a European. I unpacked my second camera, a
flat folding type,8 put it inconspicuously in my coat pocket and
sallied out again. At a near-by sidewalk cafe I took a scat and
ordered a jet-black, sickly sweet demi-tasse.
Cairo's daily life swirled around me. Men in gallabiya went
by with swishing skirts. Copper-skinned Bedouins walked past
in native burnous (muslin cloak, sweeping down to their feet)
and khaffiya (a linen headdress, usually white, worn over the
head, and falling over the neck.) Rare, white-skinned, unveiled Egyptian beauties mingled with parchment-faced orthodox Moslem women wearing their black yashmak, veil. Swarms
of urchins who apparently hadn't bathed since birth ran about
looking for opportunities to beg or pilfer. Hawkers peddled
combs, wallets, contraceptives, and whips. One peddler who
came to my table was particularly insistent, although I repeatedly waved him away. He was a keen-faced young man.
"You will maybe like this!" the Arab demonstrated. What
seemed to be an ordinary whip suddenly became a vicious,
four-sided, ten-inch dagger tapering to a fine point. "This
knife for Yahood. But maybe you Amerikans like Yahood,
yes?"
I took no chances. "No, I hate Jews. Allah's curse on them."
"Ah," he grinned triumphantly. "Then you buy knife to
kill Yahood?"
"No. I have one bigger, a Turkish knife. I kill Armenians
and Jews with it."
Sly money-changers sidled up to me. A beggar in tatters and
the face of a mummy stretched out a palsied hand in the name
of Allah. Cabmen drove with one hand on the wheel, the
other on the horn, shouting at jaywalkers. Donkeys hee-hawed
interminably from every quarter. Powdered horse-dung, finely
ground under the wheels of carriages, was wafted by every
passing breeze into my nostrils and into my cup of coffee.
Swarms of green-black flies patronizingly came to my table
8
Weltur, with Zeiss Tessar f/2.8 lens, taking 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 pictures. With
it I took most of my subsequent photographs.