The Jokers - Albert Cossery [3]
So the policeman, this zealous servant of a mighty state, threw himself at the beggar (whose very serenity was a kind of provocation), roundly berating him according to rules of a time-tested art. But the beggar failed to react to these insults, murderous though they were. He was an old man, hideously wrinkled, with a gray beard that swallowed up the whole of his face and a head that vanished under an enormous turban. His eyes were closed, and the thick black circles under them gave him an epicene appearance altogether unusual for a bum. What’s more, he was dressed in a fanciful multi-colored outfit better suited to a street acrobat than to a man in his condition. This eccentric old man, the ancestor of his eternally persecuted race, seemed sunk in a deep sleep that even the deafening roar of the countless cars fighting through the intersection could not disturb. At last, realizing the futility of his insults and orders, the cop gave the bum a kick, and then another kick, to knock him out of his infuriating inertia. He was just about to kick him again when he saw the beggar abandon his initial position and slump to the ground, where he assumed the proud and thoroughly disdainful attitude of the dead. For a moment, the policeman thought he’d killed him and was seized with panic at the thought of having lost his prey. A dead beggar was worth less than nothing; it might even get him fired. He needed this bum to be alive. Bending over the old man, he grabbed him by his turban, shaking him with savage fury in an attempt to bring him back to life. This action was both rash and irreparable: as if by magic, the beggar’s head became detached from his neck and remained stuck to the turban, which the policeman continued to brandish in the air like a bloody trophy. The crowd of gawkers that had gathered around the two protagonists let out a collective cry of horror and spewed an indignant stream of outrage at the policeman, who, dropping his trophy, stared at the baying pack of dogs with the look of someone suffering from stomach cramps. It took awhile before the high spirits that had been excited by the morning carnage succumbed to the realization that it was all a hoax. What had at first appeared to be a genuine flesh-and-blood beggar was in fact only a dummy, ably made up by a skilled artist, that had been left out in this respectable neighborhood precisely in order to provoke the police. Far from calming the crowd, this discovery incited it to an opposite extreme; people began to snigger and sneer at the unfortunate cop, who stood there stunned. Faced with this jeering mob, their jibes piercing his uniform like so many darts, the poor man took up his regulation whistle and let out a series of shrill blasts in the hopes of attracting some of his more courageous colleagues from nearby patrols. But his summons went unheard, and in any case the crowd was already dispersing, having had its fun for the day. People returned to their private difficulties and disappointments, each recounting the story in his own fashion, but always with the sense of gleeful malice that is felt on the street whenever some representative of authority is dealt a blow.
2
A KILOMETER away, in a room located on the roof terrace of a six-story building by the sea, young Karim, the instigator of this farce, was hardly gloating over his attack on the governor’s authority. He wasn’t even thinking about it. Lying on his bed, shirtless, his fingers busily twisting a lock of hair on his forehead, he looked as lazy as a bored monarch, glutted with wealth and pleasure. Karim gave himself up to a feeling of delicious languor, while enjoying the voluptuous vision of his mistress from the night before getting dressed in the middle of the room. From the patronizing smile that played on his lips you would have thought he was observing a procession of dancers, lasciviously swaying their hips for his pleasure alone,