The Jokers - Albert Cossery [38]
The mood in the room had changed in the last few minutes. There was an imperceptible nervousness among the personnel; the waiters and maître d’s were running around looking confused. Several customers had risen hastily and gone into the game room. Around him Heykal could feel the ripples of an underlying tension, a gust of mysterious panic. People who’d been speaking loudly suddenly began to whisper among themselves; others fell silent altogether. Only the orchestra sustained its deafening clamor, but then some mistakes in keeping time made it clear that the musicians, too, were aware that something terrible had happened. Someone, Heykal concluded, must have discovered the dead body on the bathroom floor. His heart fluttered as he thought of what would happen next.
“Hello, Heykal.”
Before him was a young man as beautiful as a wild gazelle; his slender face swayed gracefully at the end of a long neck, which set off the extreme prettiness of his delicate features. He had big, bedroom eyes with soft eyelids, and he used them to dazzling effect. He was a particular kind of social climber, a borderline gigolo often seen with women of a certain age and a certain fortune. His name was Riad. One of Riad’s ambitions was to get into Heykal’s circle, for he admired Heykal without reserve and tried to imitate him whenever he found himself talking to people who were unacquainted with the original. Heykal didn’t enjoy his company and kept him at a distance, but Riad’s obsessive interest in the goings-on among the city’s elite made him valuable; he kept Heykal abreast of the gossip and rumors that were spreading through government circles. Riad flaunted his connections shamelessly; he hoped to dazzle Heykal with the depth of his penetration into the most sophisticated milieu. It never occurred to him that such people disgusted Heykal, that his sole interest in them was as fodder for his cruel humor.
“Heard the news?” Riad said, sitting down at Heykal’s table.
“No, but I hope you’ll be kind enough to tell me.”
Riad paused, batted his eyelashes, and his neck swayed as it always did when he set about charming a reluctant audience. He soon realized that he’d better hurry up. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t afford fancy phrases; Heykal might hear the news any minute, and Riad would lose the benefit of bringing it to him. But it pained him to omit the preliminary niceties, so he allowed himself to be just a little mysterious.
“Well, the governor’s going to be very happy!”
“Why?” asked Heykal. “Isn’t he happy enough already?”
“His worst enemy just died,” Riad finally blurted out. “You know, Abdel Halim Makram, the rich industrialist. He had a heart attack in the bathroom of the game room.”
“He deserved it,” Heykal said. “What an imbecile! How could anyone be the enemy of the governor—such a delightful man!”
“You don’t know the story? A few months ago the governor stole his mistress from him—that old relic, Om Khaldoun, the singer. Now she’s the governor’s trophy.”
“But everyone knows Abdel Halim is impotent.”
“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t know everyone knew. On the contrary, he was worried the singer had told the governor—she was a woman, it was inevitable. So he developed a virulent hatred for him. Old men can be terrors when it comes to their virility.”
While talking with Riad, Heykal never lost sight of the governor’s box. The moment was approaching when the death of Abdel Halim would become common knowledge. He couldn’t wait to see how the governor would react. Soad had renounced her magnificent plan to make the governor dance and was sitting quietly next to her father, listening with a bored expression as the two men carried on an energetic discussion. The governor looked