The Jokers - Albert Cossery [51]
“We know everything about you,” he said. “You think you’re so clever, but we know everything you’re up to, you and your friends. Did you know that the police suspect us for your nonsense? We won’t tolerate it much longer. That’s why I want to speak to you.”
Without thinking, he adopted a conspiratorial voice—inexplicably, since the road was devoid of a single human soul.
“What nonsense?” asked Karim, irritated by his hissing.
“The posters sucking up to the governor—you think I don’t know where they come from?”
“What is it about them that bothers you?”
“They make us look ridiculous to the police. And I don’t like that. We’re not pranksters!”
Taher was outraged at the thought that the police took him for a clown for using such primitive means to overturn the government. To impute these types of inanities to him was to attack his honor as a revolutionary. It besmirched his entire past as a militant, all his years in prison. He saw himself sinking in the esteem of the police, and he fumed with rage. And at the same time his pain was tinged with sorrow because it was his old comrade in arms, this traitor turned puppet, who was responsible for the affront.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Karim. “The police don’t suspect you one bit. They know perfectly well that you’re a serious bunch.” He added, as if for his own sake: “Just like them. Let me tell you something. You’re out of the loop. The police aren’t ignorant of the fact that your brand of revolutionary would never do something like this. Don’t you know they’re making progress all the time? Thanks first of all to what your people leaked during interrogations, but also to the fact that the government has given manuals to the secret police, in which they explain your psychology and how to combat your theories. So you see, they know all about you now. They know that you could never change your ways so drastically.”
“In any case, you’ve changed,” Taher responded bitterly.
By mutual agreement, they’d sat down on the parapet, facing the sea. They were quiet, their gazes lost in the immense black void. Karim was savoring this moment of reconciliation. But Taher’s mania, his need to win or die, could know no peace. Slowly he turned toward Karim, awaiting a gesture, a word of repentance or regret. He felt the sadness of a terrorist pressed into action, having to go about his bloody work despite the love and tenderness that still drew him to his victim. His heart bled, and he wanted to beg Karim to renounce this foolishness, to resume the idealism of his past. Sweat drowned his shrunken features; he might as well have been covered in tears.
Taher’s look pierced Karim like a dart. His heart bled, too. He was angry at his old friend for having reappeared to remind him of those dark times, which stank of pain and suffering. He had made his peace with this laughable, detestable world. He didn’t want to change anything; he took it for what it was, and its blind and lame inhabitants with it. It was like a giant gesture of love. He no longer believed in the impoverishment of the people. Was he rich? He was the poorest of the poor, and yet happy for it. Suddenly his feelings rebelled against this scowling ghost that had come from the past to rip away his joy, and in a provocative, proud voice he said:
“Yes, I’ve changed. And I’m glad of it.”
Taher leaped upon him. He grabbed him by the back of his jacket and held him against the parapet.
“Do you know that our comrades are imprisoned and tortured, while you’re out happily postering the walls of the city with praise for their executioner?”
“Listen, Taher! It’s not like I slept with your sister! What I did do, you’ll never get. But it’s the only way to fight the governor, believe me.”
“A funny way!” snickered Taher. “I know your master, you know. I’ve heard all about him. He’s the governor’s sort: a landlord who lives like a prince. What can he know about the pain of the people?”
“Leave him alone!” Karim shouted. “I love that man, understand! Believe