He began to walk slowly, giving Taher the chance to spy on him at leisure. It tore at his heart to find himself in Taher’s company again; he had no desire to discuss social and political problems with him: their estrangement was permanent. And Taher must resent him for his defection—he might treat him harshly. Still, he couldn’t help but recall old memories. He and Taher had spent every minute plotting subversive actions; they were arrested together and taken to the same prison. He was the friend who had been closest to him in spirit, loved and admired for his noble sense of justice and his courage in the face of adversity. He was a smart boy from a family of poor workers who’d forgone food to give him an education. After successfully finishing school he’d refused to take a respectable job, devoting himself entirely to the revolution. His hatred of the powerful was nonnegotiable.
Suddenly Karim recalled a visual detail—something he’d noticed and forgotten. He’d seen that Taher was carrying a package under his arm, and now it came to him that his friend had had a habit of walking with a homemade bomb. Whenever someone asked him what he was planning to do with it, he’d snarl: “There’s no shortage of bastards—I’ll find somewhere to throw it!” Karim felt certain that Taher hadn’t abandoned his strange ways—the package he was carrying had to be a bomb—and he was scared now that he might be attacked. Taher was fully capable of throwing a bomb in his face without a shred of pity, even more so because he considered him a traitor. Karim knew his mentality and his revolutionary code of honor. Taher wouldn’t hesitate to throw a bomb at his own mother if she happened not to share his opinion about something. With growing unease, Karim looked for a way to escape his pursuer. Anxiously he inspected the long deserted road without finding a single dark corner to hide in. Just the corn-vendor’s cart on the sidewalk lit by the streetlamp. Hide behind the cart? Idiotic. It would roll away without him—the merchant was getting ready to close up shop, as if he’d had a premonition of impending disaster. Karim picked up his pace, feeling vaguely ridiculous and not daring to turn around to see if Taher was still following him. A coarse voice addressed him, stopping him dead.
“Hey, Karim! You don’t have to run away from me!”
Karim turned around, a forced smile on his lips. He was as nervous as a woman seeing an old lover she’s betrayed and abandoned. He opened his arms in a sign of welcome.
“Hello, Taher, my brother! What a happy coincidence. How are you?”
He wanted to embrace Taher, but his former friend flinched and made a point of pulling back.
“I’m doing very well,” replied Taher. “And you? Still having fun?”
“Yes, I’m all right. Believe me, I’m happy to see you. It’s been a long time since I’ve laid eyes on you.”
“I’m sorry,” said Taher, “but I was in prison. It was hard for me to make it out to the salons and cafés.”
Taher’s face, gaunt and creased from hardship and a lifetime of trouble, made his outcast state all too clear. His eyes glinted with a wild intransigence common to those who fight for a hopeless cause. He scrutinized Karim suspiciously but with a sense of suppressed tenderness, too, a feeling of sympathy for his comrade—a traitor to the cause, but someone who was still present in his memory. Basically he was as nervous as Karim, even though he was playing the roles of accuser and pitiless judge. His clothes were preposterous for a man in his straits. In every season, he wore a tight brown suit in quite decent condition, a shirt with a starched collar, and a dark tie—the austere outfit of a low-level office worker and a striking contrast to his starving revolutionary’s face; he was like two characters superimposed on each other. But that was Taher’s great principle: a real revolutionary must dress correctly! The bohemian attitude of some of his comrades made him beside himself with anger; he’d often attacked Karim for not wearing a tie.
Karim was at a loss for words at his friend’s news. Prison couldn’t have been fun for Taher, who took everything so hard. Karim felt a flash of guilt for standing there, the picture of health and happiness, in front of this man who had escaped from the deepest dungeons in order to accuse him and curse him. Despite himself, he couldn’t stop eyeing the package that Taher still held in his hand. He was ashamed of his fear, but it was stronger than he was; he trembled, thinking of the bomb. Taher noticed his nervousness with a withering sigh. Finally something had amused him.
“Don’t worry about the package,” he said sarcastically. “It’s not a bomb. These are my old shoes that I’m taking to the cobbler. The soles have completely come off. You can see: I’m walking barefoot at the moment.”
“How could you think...!” Karim protested feebly.
Still, he lowered his eyes to be sure that Taher was telling the truth: in fact, his friend’s feet were bare. For an instant he was transfixed, unable to look away from Taher’s feet. To wear a starched collar and no shoes, how strange! Karim didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“I’m truly sorry, brother!”
“Don’t be; it’s not at all important. I’ve endured every possible misery. I don’t need to live in an apartment with a terrace. I love palaces—I love to destroy them!”
“It’s a servant’s quarters!” Karim exclaimed. Then, more quietly: “How do you know where I live? You’ve been spying on me!”
Taher smiled mockingly, as if Karim was a naive child who needed everything explained.
“We know everything about you,” he said. “You think you’re so clever, but we know everything you’re up to, you and your friends. Did you know that the police suspect us for your nonsense? We won’t tolerate it much longer. That’s why I want to speak to you.”
Without thinking, he adopted a conspiratorial voice—inexplicably, since the road was devoid of a single human soul.
“What nonsense?” asked Karim, irritated by his hissing.
“The posters sucking up to the governor—you think I don’t know where they come from?”
“What is it about them that bothers you?”
“They make us look ridiculous to the police. And I don’t like that. We’re not pranksters!”
Taher was outraged at the thought that the police took him for a clown for using such primitive means to overturn the government. To impute these types of inanities to him was to attack his honor as a revolutionary. It besmirched his entire past as a militant, all his years in prison. He saw himself sinking in the esteem of the police, and he fumed with rage. And at the same time his pain was tinged with sorrow because it was his old comrade in arms, this traitor turned puppet, who was responsible for the affront.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Karim. “The police don’t suspect you one bit. They know perfectly well that you’re a serious bunch.” He added, as if for his own sake: “Just like them. Let me tell you something. You’re out of the loop. The police aren’t ignorant of the fact that your brand of revolutionary would never do something like this. Don’t you know they’re making progress all the time? Thanks first of all to what your people leaked during interrogations, but also to the fact that the government has given manuals to the secret police, in which they explain your psychology and how to combat your theories. So you see, they know all about you now. They know that you could never change your ways so drastically.”
“In any case, you’ve changed,” Taher responded bitterly.
By mutual agreement, they’d sat down on the parapet, facing the sea. They were quiet, their gazes lost in the immense black void. Karim was savoring this moment of reconciliation. But Taher’s mania, his need to win or die, could know no peace. Slowly he turned toward Karim, awaiting a gesture, a word of repentance or regret. He felt the sadness of a terrorist pressed into action, having to go about his bloody work despite the love and tenderness that still drew him to his victim. His heart bled, and he wanted to beg Karim to renounce this foolishness, to resume the idealism of his past. Sweat drowned his shrunken features; he might as well have been covered in tears.
Taher’s look pierced Karim like a dart. His he
art bled, too. He was angry at his old friend for having reappeared to remind him of those dark times, which stank of pain and suffering. He had made his peace with this laughable, detestable world. He didn’t want to change anything; he took it for what it was, and its blind and lame inhabitants with it. It was like a giant gesture of love. He no longer believed in the impoverishment of the people. Was he rich? He was the poorest of the poor, and yet happy for it. Suddenly his feelings rebelled against this scowling ghost that had come from the past to rip away his joy, and in a provocative, proud voice he said:
“Yes, I’ve changed. And I’m glad of it.”
Taher leaped upon him. He grabbed him by the back of his jacket and held him against the parapet.
“Do you know that our comrades are imprisoned and tortured, while you’re out happily postering the walls of the city with praise for their executioner?”
“Listen, Taher! It’s not like I slept with your sister! What I did do, you’ll never get. But it’s the only way to fight the governor, believe me.”
“A funny way!” snickered Taher. “I know your master, you know. I’ve heard all about him. He’s the governor’s sort: a landlord who lives like a prince. What can he know about the pain of the people?”
“Leave him alone!” Karim shouted. “I love that man, understand! Believe me, not only will I never leave him, but if he asked me to, I’d die for him!”
Taher felt his blood drain away. The violence of Karim’s passion suffocated him; it was blasphemy. For him it was only possible to love the people. And because Karim was part of the people, he’d never completely lost his feelings of affection and confidence. He’d pardoned Karim’s turpitude, always hoping that their separation was only temporary, that Karim would be faithfully driven to the revolution once again. But now he saw how far his comrade had strayed—from him, from the idea for which he’d fought and suffered. Taher saw that he was acting in an entirely new universe, in which he was not only excluded but was an object of mockery. Jealousy pierced him, opening a gaping wound in his heart. The night was poisoned; neither the stars, nor the sea, nor the pearly necklace of streetlamps lighting the glittering curve of road could save him from the sharpness of this death. But this feeling only lasted for a moment—then the immanent reality of the revolution tore him out of his painful torpor. Morbid curiosity made him want to encounter this man whom Karim—full of hellish pride—placed higher than the oppressed people. If for only an instant he could confront him before Karim, he’d be able to destroy the idolatrous image set up in his comrade’s mind. He’d expose the vanity, the nihilism, the false seductiveness of this perfidious soul, who wallowed in luxury while proclaiming subversion, like a magician at a fair. Maybe then Karim would understand that he was deluded, that all these stupid initiatives for overthrowing the government were destined to fail, and he’d return to the respectable precepts of real combat. The idea was wildly tempting. In fact, he had no choice: he needed Karim for a hazardous exploit—one the revolution demanded—things he hadn’t dared to speak of yet. In his current state of mind Karim wouldn’t even have stopped to listen. Taher summoned up all his powers of persuasion; he was going to employ a subtler tactic than those he used to inspire revolutionary faith in a roomful of the unemployed.
“I want you to do something for me,” he said with surprising calm.
“What?”
“I’d like to meet this man you love so much. You and I go way back, and all I’m asking is for you to put me in touch with him—I want to speak with him.”
Karim smiled slightly, and his face relaxed; the request visibly enchanted him.
“With pleasure,” he said. “I’m sure that he’d like to meet you, too. You know, he’s very open-minded. He’s interested in every kind of human activity.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” said Taher, surprised by how easy it had been (and smelling a trap). Can you take me to him tonight?
“If you like. You’re in luck—I was planning to go see him. Taher, I hope that we can join forces again. I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”
Just then the shadowy form of a patrolling policeman—he’d been slowly working his way along the length of the parapet—came to an abrupt halt in front of them. The two young men were startled. This representative of order looked like a hungry ogre in search of stray infants on the cliff road. They waited in silence for him to reveal the nature of their offense.
“Public assemblies are forbidden,” he growled. “Go on, walk!”
“But there are only two of us,” said Karim, delighted at this interruption.
“Two or a hundred, it’s all the same," the policeman went on. "Get going!”
He skulked away from them silently.
“Did you hear that son of a bitch!” Karim burst out.
“He’s just a poor sucker following orders,” said Taher. “It’s not his fault that he doesn’t know better. It’s up to us to teach him.”
“You really are crazy! Do you think I’m going to live a thousand years? I’ve only got one short life and you want me to spend it educating this gun-toting assassin?”
Taher shook his head sadly, like someone who no longer expects to be understood. He couldn’t wait to see Heykal and tell him face-to-face just what he thought of him.
“Well, let’s go,” he said. “But first I have to take these shoes to the cobbler.”
“At this time? Nothing’s open.”
“What do you think, that I’m going to leave my shoes with a capitalist cobbler! I have a friend who keeps his shop open all night—it’s one of our meeting spots. It’s not far from here; come with me.”
Karim made a gesture of assent, then slipped his arm through Taher’s and they set off. They crossed the road and made their way into the city’s sordid depths, leaving behind the cliff and its enchanted scenery.
Once the introductions had been made, the three of them sat in Heykal’s living room. They were silent, waiting for Siri, as slow and sleepy as ever, to serve them drinks. It took Siri a long, almost interminable time to acquit himself of his task, but nobody was paying any attention. They were too caught up with their extraordinary meeting to be distracted. Finally Siri set three glasses of rose water on the small low table, then left the room. But the silence refused to break.
Heykal observed Taher with the curiosity of an antiques dealer assessing a rare piece. He wasn’t displeased by the visit; it was an opportunity to thoroughly examine this old friend of Karim’s—one of the most dangerous revolutionaries in the city. He could tell Taher was ready to bite, but that he was still too polite to interrupt the silence with hostile words. He sat unhappily on the edge of his chair, as if ashamed to find himself in such contemptible company. There was no mistaking the glances he continued to shoot at Karim, as if holding him responsible for the whole painful situation. Heykal meant to wait patiently until Taher was thoroughly prepared to state his grievances. He was already fairly sure he knew what Taher had come all this way to find out, and he was curious to see him at work. What arguments would he bring to bear on Heykal’s perfect serenity? In this confrontation of two concepts, different both in essence and application, Taher had already lost. He was out of his element. Heykal felt a twinge of pity; the fight was plainly unequal. What aberration had led this caveman, this violent fanatic, to think that he could come here and get away with provoking Heykal? What was the temptation? Heykal grew positively dizzy at the thought that this stubborn, spiteful revolutionary had been unable to resist the magnetism of his scorn. Conscious of his own influence, he felt a flash of tenderness for his visitor, as if Taher had come bringing love instead of hatred.
Taher’s face bore an expression of manifest displeasure, even repulsion; he was all shrunken up, like a man surrounded by rats. His comrade, the cobbler, had loaned him some sandals belonging to a client who had died, and his toes wiggled nervously under leather straps. He didn’t know how to begin. He hadn’t expected such a courteous reception, or the undeniable
charm of his host, who, draped in his purple dressing gown, held court on the sofa across from him like a great lord receiving the respects of a humble visitor. Worst of all, Taher was conscious of his poverty, and for the first time in his life he felt the indignity of it. He was lost in this well-appointed bourgeois living room with its furniture gleaming with cleanliness, its gilded, red velvet–covered chairs in a hideous, outdated style that were for him—having spent his whole life in slums and prisons—the height of affluence and leisure. What Taher objected to was this opulence, rather than the man who was hosting him in his house—for Heykal’s ideas disconcerted him; he had to admit that he’d never encountered anyone like him. The man wasn’t one of the executioners and he wasn’t among the condemned. Somehow he fought power in his own way—a way that was an insult to those who paid for revolt with their blood. Taher couldn’t imagine the possibility of a revolution that lacked a certain dose of hatred, and he was growing impatient, since Heykal appeared to be without a trace of the vengeful anger inherent in every oppressed being. He seemed to recognize the bloody-minded stupidity of the adversary and even to rejoice in it. Taher was exasperated by his host’s calm simplicity; it offended his unflinching determination to fight or die. But maybe all this was only for show; maybe Heykal was just trying to seduce him, to lure him into his tenuous, fragile universe. Taher wasn’t going to let that happen. The whole purpose of being there was to deflate the pretensions of this aristocrat with his insinuating charm. Karim was courting disaster, and he had to save him.
“Heykal effendi,” he began. “I came here—”
The Jokers Page 12