The Jokers - Albert Cossery [58]
“Tell me. I’m listening.”
“It happened today. The governor came to see my father, and they had a terrible fight. I heard everything. The governor still can’t believe that my father has nothing to do with that business about the statue; he blames him for the situation.”
“He has good reason to be furious,” said Heykal. “You can’t hold that against him.”
“He has an even better reason to be furious—though you don’t know it: the governor has at most a week left. The prime minister summoned him and demanded his resignation. Happy?”
Heykal pondered the news. He was surprised that he didn’t really feel any joy. It was more like a sense of emptiness now that the governor was gone—as if someone had taken away his toy, a special toy that only he knew how to play with and only he could really enjoy. For a while the governor had been the bottomless source of his every earthly delight. His salvation! He was the sap that made Heykal’s critical spirit grow and thrive. Heykal dreaded that he would be replaced by some mid-level bureaucrat, a petty tyrant without any aspirations, lacking even the absurd fantasies of his predecessor; the banality of tyrants was even more disheartening than their crimes. A period of mediocrity and boredom—that’s where things were headed—one lousy choice among the various candidates for governor and it would all be over. Heykal groaned inwardly to think that his future pastimes hung by a thread of chance. But there it was.
Soad looked at him with enormous eyes; she was expecting a triumphant outburst. She couldn’t understand his silence.
“Why don’t you say something?”
“Well, that’s an exceptional piece of news. I’m sorry. You deserve a reward.”
He reached across the table, took her hand, and gave it a polite kiss. That was when he saw the giant topaz ring on her finger—an extraordinary jewel that leaped out at him like a flash of light in darkness. But he betrayed no surprise as he set the young woman’s hand down on the table. The ring was like a living thing, and Soad gazed at it with hideous delight. Without turning her head from the brilliant stone she murmured:
“Aren’t you surprised to see me with this ring?”
“Why surprised?”
“Oh, I know! Nothing surprises you! You don’t care about me. But I’m so unhappy!”
“Unhappy? With all that jewelry?”
“I haven’t told you everything. In this thing with the governor—I’m the real victim.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my father acted suspicious about that check. He must have inquired about it at the newspaper you sent it to. He didn’t say anything to me about it, not explicitly at least, but he keeps going on about how badly I’ve treated him.”
“And that’s why you’re unhappy?”
“No, but now he wants to get rid of me. He demands that I get married. Now that’s a terrible punishment, you have to agree.”
“But what does the jewelry have to do with it?”
“Well, I didn’t compromise. I told him I didn’t want to get married. He started off by threatening terrible things, and then to bring me around, he gave me all the jewelry that after my mother died had been locked away to give to me when I was older. But it was time, he’d decided, for me to look like a marriageable woman; he wants his future son-in-law to appreciate the fortune that I’ll bring.”
“He’s quite right. He understands the kind of man he’s dealing with. You should rest easy: you’ll find a husband before you know it.”
“So you aren’t sorry for me?”
“Don’t play the victim. You’re perfectly happy to get married.”
“What choice do I have, since you don’t want me?”
“I don’t like jewelry,” said Heykal, in a cutting voice.
And so the idyll had reached its end—the most ridiculous end imaginable. Heykal hadn’t had any expectations, and he felt no disappointment. Everything was falling into place. A few jewels, and the love-struck little girl was gone, leaving nothing but a woman with an attachment to comfort and money, to the security that comes from material possessions. All of a sudden she’d given up doing things for fun and had gone back to her rotten world. The truth was, her only way forward was through