The Jokers - Albert Cossery [37]
The clamor in the casino made Heykal think the news of the stranger’s death had already spread, but he soon realized his mistake. Someone had hit the jackpot, and the gamblers were celebrating this outbreak of luck. Heykal took advantage of the sparkling mood to cross the room unnoticed and go out onto the promenade. When he got to the disco, he claimed an empty table next to a dwarf palm and sat down to wait for events to take their course.
There was no doubt the man had suffered a heart attack while looking at the governor’s portrait. This death wasn’t part of the plan, but Heykal didn’t mind—it was the hand of fate (and proof of its sense of humor). The first man to see the poster had dropped dead! As long as the rest don’t follow him down this path—in which case we’ll be looking at a wholesale slaughter! Heykal didn’t want that. Alert to the slightest development, he turned a benevolently ironic gaze on the complacent bourgeoisie gathered there, all pumped up with their pathetic privileges. The casino was the most fashionable spot in the city, with admission restricted to members of the elite. But fascinated though Heykal was by the inanity of the crowd he soon came to a glum realization: these people were all intolerably ugly—an ugliness that was unforgivable, unremitting, and untempered by even a trace of kindness. They weren’t even having a good time! They were stuck in their roles, unwitting players in the lugubrious comedy that was unfolding around them. Humanity is ugly: Heykal had always known that. But this—this was almost more than he could bear.
He turned to look at the governor’s box, something pleasant to latch onto. There was Soad with her father and the governor. The others had disappeared; even the governor’s mistress was gone, probably off to sing in one of the nightclubs. The young girl was seated on the armrest of the governor’s chair, and she seemed to be begging him to grant her some favor, using all the charms of her precocious femininity. She leaned toward him and stroked the back of his hand softly, the way people stroke hunchbacks for good luck. The governor, clearly struggling to resist her juvenile attempts at seduction, looked mortified. Heykal couldn’t tell what Soad wanted from the governor. It intrigued him, and he continued to watch with curiosity.
The governor was the sort of public figure who stumps even the cleverest caricaturists. What could they do that nature hadn’t already accomplished? Short and potbellied, with stubby legs, he had a squashed nose and huge bug eyes ready to pop out of their sockets. Under his gaze, you became a miscreant microbe, magnified a thousand times over by those monstrous, staring orbs. But in fact the governor was only trying to show that in this city of chronic sleepers he was awake. No one could deny that. He saw everything that went on around him; he took himself for an eagle and acted as if he had an eye to match. He’d been appointed governor by one of his army pals (who was promoted to a government minister as a reward for his perfect mediocrity) and jumped at the chance to make up for years of inactivity. He governed the city as if he were commanding a troop of new recruits, inventing prohibitions each day, always with painful consequences for the long-suffering people. You would think he wanted to break a record. The only thing he hadn’t dared to outlaw yet was the playing of trictrac in cafés. He was said to be considering it all the time, but so far his advisers had dissuaded him by arguing that trictrac was an essentially reactionary institution that deserved government support.
Soad was standing next to the governor’s chair, tugging at his sleeve and gesturing with her head toward the dance floor. At last Heykal understood what she wanted; she wanted the governor to dance with her. But the governor was stubbornly refusing, trying to wrest his arm free while a look of comic alarm spread over his gnomelike face. Heykal felt a flash of admiration for Soad; the girl was going out of her way to put on a great show. At