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it slowly and set it down on the plate. Selma took it
    from me and handed it out the door to a waiting servant.
    After the coffee, conversation lagged. A baby began to cry,
    a thin baby with horrid-looking red sores on its face and neck,
    and the mother pushed aside her foota , or chin scarf, pulled
    out her breast and gave it to the child. The women regarded
    me fixedly. I smiled. They smiled. A very small girl with
    tousled hair and tiny gold earrings got up and touched my
    skirt, then buried her head in her hands in confusion. The
    women laughed. I laughed.
    For some reason this set off a convulsion among the
    children, who all along had been fidgeting but subsiding at
    slaps from the nearest woman. But now they were stirred to
    greater pummeling and quarreling—so much so that Selma
    rose, took a stick and set about them in earnest.
    “Out, out, out!” she cried, and several ran out with mock
    screams and yelps of pain.
    “They are so difficult, children,” said Selma, and sat down
    near me again.
    She offered me another cigarette and I declined. When was
    lunch, I wondered? I had been in the room more than an hour
    and simply could not think of another thing to say, even if I
    had been able to remember any more Arabic. I crossed my
    ankles; a dozen pair of eyes followed the movement. I
    uncrossed my ankles; there was a short silence. My hostess
    flung herself into the breach and asked me how much my
    nylon stockings had cost, whether my skirt was ready-made
    and if my earrings had come from my family or were a present
    from my husband. I unscrewed them and handed them around;
    one of the women scratched to see if the gold would come off.
    All of these questions took time and had to be repeated again
    and again so I could understand. When my faltering replies
    came out in Arabic the women could not help laughing, but,
    out of politeness, they did so behind their abayahs.
    I asked Selma how much her ankle bracelets cost.
    “Forty pounds,” she said proudly, “for one,” and pulled out
    the pin so that it could be taken off and examined. It must
    have weighed at least half a pound. “All gold,” she added.
    The women began pointing out her individual necklaces
    and bracelets, telling me the cost and the Arabic name of each.
    Later I estimated that Selma wore on her person at least $1000
    worth of gold. She said that the pieces of jewelry had been
    presents from her father and from the sheik, and repeated,
    “It’s mine, my own.”
    This was literally true, I found. A woman’s jewelry is her
    own insurance against disaster, and the community may take
    action against men who attempt to seize their women’s gold.
    At the door a great commotion was under way, as a
    maidservant tried to break through the crowd, stepping over
    women and children to bring me a copper basin and ewer,
    soap and a towel. She indicated that no, I was not to put my
    hands in the basin, she was to pour the water over my hands.
    Slight giggles at my clumsiness were silenced by a look from
    a tall girl with many gold teeth, who introduced herself as
    Alwiyah, the sheik’s oldest daughter.
    After I had finished washing, Selma rose with Alwiyah and
    handed me my abayah.
    “It is time for lunch, ahlan wusahlan,” she said.
    In my abayah I followed Alwiyah and Selma across her
    little private courtyard to another larger room where a table,
    covered with a white cloth, was laden with plates of food.
    Selma shut the door ostentatiously but the children and
    women clustered around the windows to watch. One chair was
    drawn up to the table. “Am I to eat alone?”
    Selma and Alwiyah nodded and smiled.
    “Oh, no,” I protested, “this is too much—you must eat with
    me.”
    Selma and Alwiyah exchanged startled glances, whispered
    together and then Selma called for two more chairs. She sat
    down opposite me and Alwiyah sat at the side. Selma shook
    with inner laughter, and the crowd at the windows roared, for
    what reason I could not fathom.