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minutes
    the room was full of sweetish smoke, unlike any cigarette
    smoke I had smelled before. Kulthum said nothing, but I
    noticed she did not smoke.
    I looked around me at the scrupulously clean room. Its
    mud-brick walls were newly whitewashed. I pointed upward,
    trying to indicate that the beams here were the same as the
    ones in my house. This was a fairly complex idea to get
    across, for at first the women thought I had seen something
    lodged in the beams and everyone peered and whispered. One
    woman stood up to get a better look. When they finally
    realized what I was struggling to communicate, they laughed,
    no doubt at the simple-mindedness of the conversational tidbit
    I had contributed. Later I found that every house in the village
    was built in exactly the same manner, so obviously my house
    had beams like this one!
    “Haji Hamid’s bed, the sheik’s,” said a girl, pointing to the
    large double bed.
    “And Selma’s,” said one of the girls, snickering. She
    showed me in mime how they lay together in a close embrace.
    Everyone laughed and Selma blushed with pleasure. I glanced
    at Kulthum, but her wrinkled face showed nothing.
    The intricate ironwork of the high-posted bedstead had been
    gilded, suggesting an opulence which was reinforced by the
    bright pink satin spread falling in flounces to the floor. The
    same pink satin had been used to cover a small radio on the
    night table. Over the bed hung an oil painting of a mosque;
    above that was a large faded photograph of Emir Feisal, father
    of the Iraqi dynasty, on horseback. A pair of large crossed
    Iraqi flags topped the king.
    Selma noticed me looking about and got up to identify the
    many photographs and pictures which covered the walls. The
    man with the strong bearded face was Abdul Emir, Hamid’s
    father. I had heard of Abdul Emir, for he was a famous
    warrior in Iraq who had led the 1933 insurrection of the
    Diwaniya tribes against the British-backed Iraqi Government.
    The rebellion had been so nearly successful that the British
    had been obliged to cut the area’s water supply in order to put
    the tribesmen down. According to Bob, people in Diwaniya
    still spoke of this event, and it was whispered that the
    government continued to punish the tribal confederation by
    refusing to pave roads and by delaying electricity and other
    modern services as long as possible.
    In another photograph Abdul Emir sat in a chair in a
    garden, flanked by nurses and surrounded by well-dressed
    tribesmen. He looked thin and ill, but he sat rigidly forward,
    gripping his knees with long, bony hands. The men in the
    picture were leaders of the tribes united in the confederation
    led by Abdul Emir, Selma told me, reading aloud their names
    from the caption and thus demonstrating her education, for—
    although I did not realize it then—she was the only woman in
    the room who could read fluently. Selma added that Abdul
    Emir had died soon after the picture was taken, and Hamid
    had succeeded to the sheikship. Four portraits of Hamid, taken
    at various periods in his life, attested to his present eminence.
    Selma now began to rummage in a wardrobe, the only other
    large piece of furniture in the room. There were two chests
    with padlocks and, against the far wall, mats, blankets, rugs
    and long narrow pillows were piled nearly to the ceiling.
    “For the mudhif,” said Kulthum, following my eye. “Many
    tribesmen stay at the mudhif when they come to market, and
    many strangers stop here too.”
    Tradition decrees, Bob had said, that any guest may expect
    food and a bed for three days without any questions asked.
    Since these tribal guest houses are the only hotels on the bare
    southern plain, two or three guests an evening was usual. But
    from the pile of bedding it looked as though Sheik Hamid
    could easily sleep thirty or forty people.
    Selma, who had gone out, returned now with a tiny cup of
    coffee which she presented to me on a green cut-glass plate. I
    sipped