So Yussuf's "Cafe Djemal Pasha" was the place to go to for politics, of the red-hot, death-and-dynamite order that would make Lenin and Trotsky sound like small-town sports. But first you had to get by Yussuf at the door.
Suliman led me by the hand down David Street, through the smelly- yelly moil of flies and barter, past the meat and vegetable stalls, beneath the crusader arches from which Jewish women peered through trellised windows, across three transversing lanes of the ancient suku,* and halted at Yussuf's door. [*Bazaar]
He rapped on it three times. When Yussuf's wrinkled face appeared at last Suliman demanded to see Staff-Captain Ali Mirza. Yussuf's blood-shot eyes peered at me for a long time before he asked a question.
"Atrash!—akras!—majnoon!!" [Deaf!—Dumb!—Mad!!] said Suliman. Describing me as mad seemed to give him particular delight. He never overlooked a chance of doing it.
"Staff-Captain Ali Mirza is not here. What should a Madman want with him?"
"He is not very mad—only stupid. He carries a message for the captain."
"But the captain is not here. He has not been here."
"He will come."
"How should a deaf-and-dumb man deliver a message?"
"It is in writing."