Green Shirts and Red Fezzes
71
"Hussein, our leader; Hussein, our savior; Hussein, protector of Egypt!"
Once again the monsters thundered into the night, the
echoes reverberating from Cairo's moon-bathed rooftops.
The briefing was over. The Holy War was launched. The
emotional crescendo on which this rally had ended found
everyone perspiring, ecstatic, savage, ready to dismember any
Jew, or bum his home. I could understand now how it was
possible, after such meetings, for inflamed mobs to pour into
Cairo's Jewish quarter, and smash and destroy Jewish shops.
Hussein himself had incited a number of such riots on Friday, the Moslem Sunday, after his prayers. Cairo police with
black shields and long black whips stopped such riotings—
after the "patriotic" fury had spent itself.
MY MEETING WITH MOUSTAFA
LATER in the night I met Moustafa. He was to remain my
friend throughout my sojourn with the Arabs, and save me
from many a dangerous situation. I believe that if I were to
meet Moustafa today—despite my many references to him,
some uncomplimentary—he would embrace me as a friend,
and not thrust a knife in me.
Moustafa wasn't much to look at, and my nose usually told
me when he was near. He was a tall, well-muscled man of
twenty-eight, with a deep-olive skin, a flat nose and a. long
upper lip covered with a bristly mustache that always looked
like an untrimmed hedge. His eyes were like blazing coals,
even when he was relaxed. He could become savage, as I was
to witness on the Palestinian front later. The best I can say
about Moustafa's sex life is that, although he was fully normal
in the Western sense, he was also normal in the Arabic sense.
Moustafa had the usual vices common to man and soldier.
What made him unusual were the virtues of loyalty, honesty,
and a kindliness that he displayed unfailingly toward me.