JUAN GOYTISOLO
57
the privilege of driving up and stopping next to the mosque. I notice
straightaway that the passengers are newlyweds accompanied by a small
number of friends and relatives. An old Cairo custom requires a ritual
photo of the betrothed in the entrance to the Gaama Hussein. The girls,
daubed with rouge,
khol
and lipstick look like models in Pronuptia sales
items: skirts with long or half-length flounces, gauze headdresses, spot–
lessly white stockings and shoes. The men sport modest off-the-peg suits
and clumsily fiddle with their bow-ties. Policemen, soldiers, passers-by
tirelessly watch fresh taxis arrive, the toing and froing of the boys who
open the car-door for the fiancee with her sprig of flowers, the groups
of hired singers, the swarm of photographers ready to immortalize that
moment of bliss. The small groups rapidly follow each other and the
pretty, young bride can point a brief withering look of contempt at an
elder, less well-endowed companion. The mosque porter - a young man
in a white tunic, with black turban and beard - waits leaning on his
broom-handle, next to the marble lobby where the betrothed must take
their shoes off before visiting the temple. His mission is to clean the dust
zealously from in front of the bride's feet in exchange for a tip. This la–
bor, the exclusive rights to which he defends with might and main,
obliges him to push the dirt from one corner of the doorway to another
throughout the day as new candidates for a photo turn up, but - and
this is vital - without ever removing it completely, as its existence is in–
dispensable to the completion of his task. Broom in hand, he hurriedly
sweeps the corner where the bride steps, energetically repelling the dust
to the opposite side, and reverses the operation when the next group ar–
rives. Thanks to a quantity of mobile if constant dust, the wily fellow
never ceases to tuck away twenty-five or fifty
piastre
notes, perhaps even a
pound, into the depths of his coat pocket with an expression of humble,
entranced bliss. His presence in the midst of fiances, relatives, morons and
photographers, clasping his emblematic broom like some fairy-tail witch,
turns him into a character in a comedy by the Quintero brothers or in
The Barber
if
LAvapies.
In any case, the spectacle of plebeian weddings in the Hussein
mosque makes a pleasant contrast to the pompous
nouveau riche
cere–
monies in the Hilton or Sheraton. As I had occasion to testify on a pre–
vious visit to Cairo, caricature there soars to unexpected heights, whilst
never attaining the redeemable vulgarity of
kitsch:
the wedding cohorts
process slowly to the light of fake beacons, applauded by a hired gang of
waiters and lackeys; a film director shoots the different episodes of the
festive event - the obligatory close-up of the bride's jewels - that will be
shown later on video to visitors to the newlyweds' sitting room, fur–
nished, of course, with Louis XXVI
fauteuils.
The pious, bearded sweeper
