ABSENT BRIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 220, 16 September 1940, Page 5

ABSENT BRIDE.

EGYPTIAN WEDDING. ABDUL TAKES FOURTH WIFE. (By R. T. MILLER.) (By Air.) CAIRO, Aug. 27. The babble of voices the room, mingled with the shuffle of slippered feet on the stairs and the sensual throb of native dance music in the alley beneath the window, at times almost drowned the priest's swift flow of words. Charlie, sitting with hie hand clasped in that of his prospective father-in-law, gave me a disrespectful wink as he mopped the perspiration from his face.

Charlie wae either very hot or very! nervous—but I had to ask myself whether it could possibly be nervousness when this was the fourth time he had been through the marriage ceremony of his native Egypt. Besides, the Egyptian wedding knows no endless straightening of ties, no frightening walk up the aisle, no frantic efforts at remembering- which pocket holds the ring. At the ceremony proper there is even no eign of the bride. It was drawing close to midnight that! night when Charlie, whose real name is Abdul, promised again in 4-he fashion of his people to love, honour and obey. Of the fate of his first three wives I cannot be certain; death or divorce may have claimed them, or perhaps h« is "keeping them on," which he may lawfully do if he can afford it. £"io For Bride. Charlie won his fourth bride, a girl I of 17, by gaining her father's good will i and paying him £10 in cash. The deal, however, wae not the commercial affair that it may sound, since the purpose! of the money was to outfit the bride.l If Charlie ever decides he is through with her, he will pay her another £d' and show her the door. Had we happened unknowingly on the ceremony, I and the four other New Zealanden who were nude the guests

of honour might never have suspected that it was a wedding-. Even now I'm not clear on the significance of evert phase of it; I could never ask a question without getting two entirely different answers. Until I try to sort them out, my recollections of the night are jumbled visions of a happy crowd; in a brightly lit street, long fingers' whipping a wild, primitive rhythm from a goatskin drum, a fat dancing woman relaying the same wild rhythre. through her quivering body, shy *ey«>s staring from dark corners, plates neaped with strange food ... /

Two of us T>egan the adventure by keeping a rendezvous with a pair of the groom's friends in a dark and ehabby village outside the city of Cairo. The colourful gowns which Mahomet and Gamould ha#l donned for the occasion made it difficult for us to recognise in them the two cheerful rascals whom we knew in daylight hours as refuse contractors in the New Zealand camp. Wedding Party's Ride. With additional passengers to be carried to points along the route, the wedding party wae packed into a car of an almost extinct speciee—packed so tightlv that until the car began to move it was hard to say whether we were in it or not. A body draped itself over the bonnet.! others fastened themselves to the sides! of the car and if I had been able to turn! my head I would have seen others still, perched on the rear bumpers. Buti Salani, the driver, proved to be the most! amazingly skilful and carelessly confident of his kind. How he steered us safely around those impossible corners in Cairo's native quarter, through that maze of narrow mud streets where the buildings seemed to converge on us, and past those cyclists r.nd pedestrians who yelled angry protests at his assumption of the right of way, is beyond my understanding.

Salani slid his car to a stop where a blaze of light contrasted wtih a surrounding dinginess that even the night jcould not hide. Charlie had walled W jthe street outside liis house by ereotinjr a brightly-coloured curtain and had thus, |converted the alleyway into a setting foi| jthe entertainment which he wa* dutvi bound to provide. His entertainer*—,' |organ, drum and tambourine players, a 1 youth who sang and the fat, heavilypainted dancing woman—had installed! themselves against the curtain. The street was crowded with a neighbour I hood audience of men and cMldreq. '

Charlie pushed through the throng to greet us. There wae an exchange of handshakes all round, two of the bridal lmuquets were pressed upon us, and we were led into the house to watch the entertainment from an upstairs balcony.

A sudden hush in a room in which we waited with Charlie's relatives and closest friends announced the arrival of the priest--tall, elderly, stubble-bearded —who brought with him a young scribe. The youth bowed a narrow and weirdlyshaped head over a table, and at hie master's dictation eent a' fountain pen flying across his papers. Charlie and hie bride's father faced each other in front of the wriest, their hands clasped under & pink silk handkerchief. Priest's Smart Work. Measured by its reverence, or rather the lack of it, the ceremony seemed the most casual affair possible* I gathered that it all hinged on a point at which the bride's father voiced his acceptance of the groom as h« daughter's husband, and the groom announced that he wae prepared to take the girl as his wife. As the priest's rapid monotone droned on, Charlie perspired more and more.

The ritual came to an abrupt end with a concerted surge towards the handkerchief which lay over the clasped hands. Apparently a desirable souvenir, it was jumped at by almost everyone in the room. The priest won the race by a finger's length and tucked the square of silk away in his robes.

! We now drank a toast to Charlie in m. reddish, syrupy liquid, while the smiling jrroom embarked on another routd of I handshaking. Descending to the street again, we sat amid the crowd to watch at close quarters the wriggling and swaying of the dancing woiuan, who pressed up to each of us in tarn until we dropped a coin into her hand. Tie youth sang a comic song about Hitler and Mussolini, with a halting English translation for our benefit, and the crowd roared with deliyht.

The la?t scene took us hack to the :iip>tair<i room, to a taliJe laden with foods of which cold <-hi<-ken and maoareni wore the only two I c<»i)]d name with certainty. I tasted di-]jp« which I |Won"t attempt to down}*-: it 5* enough 'to say that we Xcw Zealander* were unable to make a very deep impression on the feast. But when we rose it was tie eign for the knives and forks to be cleared away and only a matter of minutes before every crumb had vanished under the raid launched by Charlie* Juujlgrier friecda,