Arabs

One A Collision of Cultures Gamal Rasmi slumped into his chair and glanced about the dance floor, his fingers tapping a nervous beat on the tabletop. The Playboy Disco was nearly full, but he recognized not a soul. "I used to know everyone here, absolutely everyone," he said with a sigh, signaling the waiter for a German beer. The waiter didn't see him and hurried by to fill another order. The music grew louder. Gamal's fingers moved faster. "This getting married in Cairo, it may be a very stupid thing I am about to do," he said. "I may never be able to dance again." Until recently Gamal had come to the Playboy almost every evening to dance and drink a beer or two, acting out his fantasy that he was John Travolta in the movie Saturday Night Fever. Then trauma entered his life: he got engaged. His fiancee, Manal, was a plump, silent woman who spent her time watching television and would not get into Gamal's car until he had plugged his portable TV into the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. Having only recently become conspicuously pious, Manal did not dance and did not condone the consumption of anything stronger than fruit juice. She also had started veiling--covering her hair and shoulders, but not her face, with a scarf--thus tacitly announcing that she had made her peace with God and would display her religion as a badge, which said, Look! This is who I am! This did not greatly please Gamal, but I noticed that he soon stopped drinking beer and started observing noontime prayers, bowing toward Mecca on the floor of our dining room, which we had turned into an office. "This makes me feel better inside," he said. Gamal, who earned $175 a month as my Los Angeles Times Cairo bureau manager, was twenty-eight years old. He had a university degree in business, although he had never attended any classes. (College students are taught to memorize, not reason, in Egypt, and class attendance is not mandatory, so he crammed until dawn with the help of tutors before each exam period.) He had fulfilled his two-year military obligation, although I don't think he ever actually put on an army uniform--he had an influential friend in the army who had made some arrangement on his behalf. At heart Gamal was a rug merchant, always trying to cut a corner and turn a profit by swapping cars or investing in a boutique or cooking up some business deal. He was also an engaging young man totally devoid of spite or malice. He was impeccably honest and considered his job with me to be a contract of friendship. I would have trusted him with my life. What most worried Gamal about getting married was the cost. First, he could not marry, or even spend time alone with Manal, until he had a fully furnished condominium. Then he would have to make a substantial dowry payment to his bride's parents. And finally, there was the lesson of his father, who divided his time between Egypt and Saudi Arabia as a used-car salesman and was supporting four wives, an acceptable arrangement in Islam as long as he remained financially responsible for them all. Gamal swore that he intended to have only one wife, but just to cover himself, he had written into his marriage contract that if he ever divorced Manal, he would owe her only twenty cents. Gamal, still wanting his beer, signaled for the waiter again. The club was dark, and the light of candles on each small table bounced off the faces of young Egyptian couples. They wore smart Western attire, and their conversations slipped easily in and out of Arabic, English and French. The disco music had reached torture levels of intensity, and Gamal could stand it no more. "Do you want to see me dance?" he asked, and without waiting for a reply, he was up and strutting across the dance floor, alone, arms pumping, head back, lost in the flashing lights and memories of his fading bachelor days. He was a man torn, like theLamb, David is the author of 'Arabs' with ISBN 9780394544335 and ISBN 0394544331.