The Jokers - Albert Cossery [53]
“At this time? Nothing’s open.”
“What do you think, that I’m going to leave my shoes with a capitalist cobbler! I have a friend who keeps his shop open all night—it’s one of our meeting spots. It’s not far from here; come with me.”
Karim made a gesture of assent, then slipped his arm through Taher’s and they set off. They crossed the road and made their way into the city’s sordid depths, leaving behind the cliff and its enchanted scenery.
Once the introductions had been made, the three of them sat in Heykal’s living room. They were silent, waiting for Siri, as slow and sleepy as ever, to serve them drinks. It took Siri a long, almost interminable time to acquit himself of his task, but nobody was paying any attention. They were too caught up with their extraordinary meeting to be distracted. Finally Siri set three glasses of rose water on the small low table, then left the room. But the silence refused to break.
Heykal observed Taher with the curiosity of an antiques dealer assessing a rare piece. He wasn’t displeased by the visit; it was an opportunity to thoroughly examine this old friend of Karim’s—one of the most dangerous revolutionaries in the city. He could tell Taher was ready to bite, but that he was still too polite to interrupt the silence with hostile words. He sat unhappily on the edge of his chair, as if ashamed to find himself in such contemptible company. There was no mistaking the glances he continued to shoot at Karim, as if holding him responsible for the whole painful situation. Heykal meant to wait patiently until Taher was thoroughly prepared to state his grievances. He was already fairly sure he knew what Taher had come all this way to find out, and he was curious to see him at work. What arguments would he bring to bear on Heykal’s perfect serenity? In this confrontation of two concepts, different both in essence and application, Taher had already lost. He was out of his element. Heykal felt a twinge of pity; the fight was plainly unequal. What aberration had led this caveman, this violent fanatic, to think that he could come here and get away with provoking Heykal? What was the temptation? Heykal grew positively dizzy at the thought that this stubborn, spiteful revolutionary had been unable to resist the magnetism of his scorn. Conscious of his own influence, he felt a flash of tenderness for his visitor, as if Taher had come bringing love instead of hatred.
Taher’s face bore an expression of manifest displeasure, even repulsion; he was all shrunken up, like a man surrounded by rats. His comrade, the cobbler, had loaned him some sandals belonging to a client who had died, and his toes wiggled nervously under leather straps. He didn’t know how to begin. He hadn’t expected such a courteous reception, or the undeniable charm of his host, who, draped in his purple dressing gown, held court on the sofa across from him like a great lord receiving the respects of a humble visitor. Worst of all, Taher was conscious of his poverty, and for the first time in his life he felt the indignity of it. He was lost in this well-appointed bourgeois living room with its furniture gleaming with cleanliness, its gilded, red velvet–covered chairs in a hideous, outdated style that were for him—having spent his whole life in slums and prisons—the height of affluence and leisure. What Taher objected to was this opulence, rather than the man who was hosting him in his house—for Heykal’s ideas disconcerted him; he had to admit that he’d never encountered anyone like him. The man wasn’t one of the executioners and he wasn’t among the condemned. Somehow he fought power in his own way—a way that was an insult to those who paid for revolt with their blood. Taher couldn’t imagine the possibility of a revolution that lacked a certain dose of hatred, and he was growing impatient, since Heykal appeared to be without a trace of the vengeful anger inherent in every oppressed being. He seemed to recognize the bloody-minded stupidity of the adversary and even to rejoice in it. Taher was exasperated by his host’s calm simplicity;