The Jokers - Albert Cossery [27]
There was still a quarter of an hour left before the end of class, but Urfy cut the session short.
“All right, children, be off!”
“But it’s not time yet, sir!” protested several students, waking up with a jolt.
“No protests,” interrupted Urfy. “I’ve seen enough of you for today.”
With heavy hearts, dragging their feet as much as they could, the children succeeded in gathering all their belongings and left the classroom. But they didn’t go far; they just scattered into the narrow street, searching for dark corners not too far from the school. When the last student had left, Urfy stepped down from his desk and went over to Karim, who hadn’t budged from his seat.
“I didn’t expect you so early,” he said, by way of an excuse.
“I had nothing else to do,” Karim admitted. “And I couldn’t wait to read what you’d written. You’ve finished, I hope?”
“Just,” responded Urfy. He pulled a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and offered it to Karim: “Here, read.”
“You’re happy with it?”
“That’s a question to ask His Excellency the Governor. I am but his humble biographer.”
Wanting to indulge fully in the delight he anticipated from this reading, Karim assumed a comfortable position. Then he unfolded the paper, and what he read made him almost crazy with pleasure. A storm raged within him, it seemed, making him shake with insane, unstoppable laughter. Urfy hadn’t expected such a success; he was passably proud of the text but was still surprised. Some of the children, overhearing this bout of hilarity, crept out of the shadows of the nearby houses and spied on them through the basement windows. Seeing the beardless wonders preparing to jeer at them, Karim calmed down immediately. He wiped the tears from his cheeks and turned to the schoolmaster.
“It’s...sublimely grotesque,” he said, jubilation in check. “With the portrait above it, this will make a sensational poster!”
“Do you really like it?” asked Urfy.
“It’s...well...monstrous! I can’t wait to print it.”
“That’s your domain. But tell me: How do you know about printing?”
“By chance. I worked for a few months as a typesetter in a printshop. It was during the time when I wanted to live among the people. So I took different jobs.”
Urfy slumped onto a bench and stretched his legs, which were numb from inactivity. His gaze fell on his worn-out shoes, and he noticed something strange: one was more worn than the other. Briefly the mystery absorbed his mind, then he snapped back to attention and placed his hand fraternally on the young man’s shoulder.
“You were very young,” he said, “and you wanted to defend the cause of the people, is that it? And you got sent to prison.”
Urfy wasn’t asking a question but stating a simple fact. Everyone knew that defending the cause of the people led straight to jail.
“Naturally,” responded Karim. “Not that I regret it, because at the end of the day, it was in prison that I did get to mix with the people. See, in a factory you slave away like beasts—there’s never time to talk to your co-workers. All your conversations come back to the job, the awful pay, or the contagious misery that tears families apart. Nothing but painful subjects. But in prison there is downtime; you talk for the pleasure of getting to know one another. It’s funny, but a prison is less sinister than any