The Jokers - Albert Cossery [32]
“Your behavior has changed. It’s as if you don’t agree with us anymore. Don’t you like our new projects?”
“I share your ideas entirely,” said Urfy with the vigor of a disciple accused of lack of enthusiasm. “If I’m bitter, it’s nothing to do with our projects. It’s personal.”
“Well then, listen to me. When these posters are plastered on the walls of this city, people will be stunned—they won’t know what to think. Even the regime will wonder if it’s a publicity stunt pulled by the governor. There’ll be terrible confusion. And it makes no sense to stop there. We’ll put up posters in every corner of the city, and after, we’ll put up others. Starting now, we are all devotees in the cult of the governor—even in casual conversation. Can I count on you?”
But Urfy didn’t have the time to respond. Suddenly they heard the booming laugh of Khaled Omar, who was lounging in a chair while listening to Karim read from the poster. The businessman couldn’t get enough of the panegyric; he asked his young friend to read it again right away, which Karim did. Urfy looked at Karim and thought of the scene at the school between the young man and his mother. He was overcome with shame. Would Karim tell Heykal? Of course, he’d brag about it as a victory. The thought chilled Urfy’s heart. He felt no rancor toward Heykal, only regret at not being able to love him unconditionally. He admired Heykal; he could sacrifice his life for such a man. Heykal with his impeccable appearance and his aristocratic manners was always the same; personal problems could never rattle his cold determination. Urfy envied him this sheer indifference to unhappiness. He felt alone, attached by a thread to Heykal’s madcap world. Would the thread break?
“Everything’s ready for tonight?” Heykal asked Karim.
“Yes, everything’s ready,” Karim replied. “I made an appointment with some friends and they’re supposed to join me here soon. We’ll form groups and divvy up the neighborhoods.”
“Excellent. You’ve been wonderful!”
“When I think about the posters I pasted up a few years ago, attacking the government...”
“And now you’re praising it. What a nice change!”
“I’ll come along,” Khaled Omar proposed. “I want to put up at least one.”
“Not a good idea,” said Heykal.
He didn’t say why, but he was thinking that Khaled Omar’s wild getup and booming laugh would attract attention to the group.
“I bow to your orders,” said the businessman, not in the least put out.
Heykal smiled at him. Then said:
“You must excuse me—I have to go.”
He walked over to the pile of posters and took one, stared at it for a while, then folded it up and slipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket.
“I might need it tonight,” he said enigmatically. “Goodbye!”
He left the warehouse and walked out into the empty street, happily inhaling the invigorating scent of the sea.
8
THE SCENT of the sea mingled with the perfume with which Soad had doused her wispy, half-developed adolescent body. She rolled on the sand, striking lewd poses as if to seduce the stars; no one else was in sight. She was on the beach at the end of the deserted casino promenade, in a sheltered spot away from the twinkling lights of the open-air disco. By the time it reached her, the music’s deafening beat had died down, acquiring a ghostly resonance as ethereal as her own presence on this abandoned stretch of sand. She froze for an instant, her face set in a childish pout; then she scooped up a fistful of sand and let it sift over her hips, enjoying the sensation of it pressing down on her, heavier and heavier, massaging her like a deep caress. She repeated this trick a few more times, hovering on the brink of ecstasy, resisting the desire that flooded through her body. Suddenly she stopped; with a supple flick of the hips, she shook the sand from her dress and turned to look at the lights of the disco.
The world at the end of the deserted promenade looked eerie and vaguely fantastical: she could have been watching the scene from a planet thousands of kilometers away. On the dance floor, surrounded by greenery, fountains,