The Jokers

by Albert Cossery

  “Are you going to keep sending in your letters to the editor? That was a piece of diabolical genius! I’m still staggered!”

  Of late the newspapers’ sycophantic treatment of the governor had exceeded every precedent in the history of baseness and servility. If you believed the press, the whole city was singing the odious man’s praises; his initiatives and his commitment to their success were the sole topics of conversation. Even his militaristic side was singled out for praise, as if the city were a battleground on which the governor, a former general, was staging a victorious war. This was the situation that Heykal had resolved to exploit. His plan consisted of joining the most staunch celebrants and acolytes in their folly, one-upping them with even more outrageous flattery. So he had his people write letters that were so laudatory of the governor’s actions that none of the papers could possibly refuse to publish them: they were sure they were serving the glory of their master.

  “Not anymore,” said Karim. “Someone high up has forbidden the papers to publish our missives. The last ones we sent were never printed. We seem to have overstepped some limit. You remember the one I wrote myself, comparing the governor to Alexander the Great?”

  “I remember it well. You read it to me. It was an outstanding letter!”

  “Well, in a certain milieu that letter is still considered a masterpiece of its kind. The paper that published it saw its circulation go up by several hundred in one day. Believe me, it’ll go down in posterity as the essence of shameless servility. Government lackeys will mine it for inspiration.”

  “That’s what makes me wish I could read,” said Khaled Omar. “Then I could enjoy it whenever I want.”

  There was a knock on the office door and a young boy, dirty and disheveled and with a club foot, carried a tray with two coffees into the room.

  “Here’s your coffee, Omar bey!”

  “Set them there,” said the businessman.

  The boy emptied his tray, glanced furtively at the two men, and limped away.

  “Actually,” said Karim, picking up his cup of coffee, “a horrible thing has happened to me.”

  “What is it? You’re worrying me!”

  “Well, not that terrible. Though it’s enough to make you split your sides laughing...!”

  He told Khaled Omar about the asthmatic policeman’s visit—how the cliff road had been promoted to a “strategic route.”

  Khaled Omar’s laugh boomed out again.

  “The scoundrels!” he said, once he’d recovered. “Unbelievable! I’m speechless! Or did you just make it up?”

  “You flatter me! If only! I admit it took some serious effort not to burst into laughter when he said it. He was clearly a good man, the kind of cop who’s too much of a human being to succeed in that job. He must have been stagnating for years; he’s not young anymore and none too brilliant. I tried to corrupt him.”

  “How so?”

  “I asked if he had any children. When he said yes, I offered him a kite. He’d only accept a very small one. He chose it himself, then left, telling me that I’d receive a summons shortly.”

  “Blessed be the day I met you,” Omar laughed. “So what can I do to get you out of this little mess?”

  “Well, I think if you could reach out to him and make him accept a few kilos of sugar, he’d file a report in my favor.”

  “I’ll drown him in sugar, if that’ll help. Anything else?”

  “No, nothing. Thank you.”

  “I’m the one who’s thankful. You are gratifying my soul by introducing me to your friend Heykal. No matter what, I’ll be in your debt forever.”

  Khaled Omar had never been in love, but thinking about his meeting with Heykal he felt as impatient as a lover before an assignation. From their talk he anticipated a kind of secret, profound joy, more intoxicating than the most potent carnal pleasure. A man who had the imagination to combat violence and stupidity by praising an executioner to the sky must be something else! Khaled Omar had dreamed of this man for a long time.

  4

  DRAPED in a purple dressing gown, Heykal rose from the divan and, for the tenth time at least, walked to the window. He was at his wit’s end, but his expression remained impassive and his gait regal, as if specially learned for visiting royalty in their palaces. The chilly, unflinching glance he cast upon the street conveyed his resignation; for some time already, he’d given up hope of seeing his servant, Siri, appear. He might come back tomorrow or in a week—nobody could say, least of all Heykal. Early in the afternoon, Heykal had sent Siri with his only presentable suit to the neighborhood clothes-presser, and now, at six in the evening, he still hadn’t returned. The servant’s disappearance left Heykal in a terrible state; he felt like he’d been confined to his apartment with no possibility of leaving. All his other clothes were threadbare, more or less, and for Heykal to wear anything inelegant was out of the question. Such a demanding aesthetic would seem puerile if it hadn’t been the manifestation of his essential character. While young Karim liked to put on the airs of a lord with the whores he picked up on the street, Heykal was a lord—not by virtue of social rank but because he was endowed with a truly aristocratic nature. His striking manner of dressing, walking, and speaking wasn’t the result of rigorous training; he had been born to it.

  He moved away from the window, not letting his face betray any bitterness—head high, as if to defy destiny. Siri wouldn’t return anytime soon; he’d disappeared into the void, and Heykal’s suit with him. This formal suit, already several years old, and which at the moment Heykal could only imagine was being dragged through the filth, was an object of constant concern. What maniacal ruses he’d deployed to keep it safe! Much of his leisure time was consumed by careful efforts to protect it from the slightest speck of dust.

  It was an extraordinary suit, made from imported cloth in a discreet dark hue and cut with consummate art by the most capable tailor in the country. Despite the fact that Heykal wore it almost exclusively, it had held its shape well, and with age it had even acquired a certain beauty. It had cost him a pretty penny; but it had been well worth the price, for it fulfilled its role to perfection. When added to his own natural presence, the opulent suit gave Heykal undeniable cachet; he passed, even in the city’s wealthiest circles, for a young man of high rank. Though he wasn’t rich, he was also not without resources; a meager income from a small inherited plot of land was enough to let him live modestly. Nobody knew the amount of this income, and given his manners and the confidence he projected, he was usually taken to be a wealthy landowner. At thirty-two, he had yet to work; much better to make do on his meager rent than to get involved, even sporadically, with the league of bloodthirsty crooks who populated the planet. But Heykal was no idler; he was perpetually at work, uncovering the absurdity of human behavior. The world of fools pleased him. He would, in fact, have been unhappy to discover that something he’d seen or heard contained even a hint of sense. Sometimes, reading a vaguely sensible piece of news in the paper, he grew sick with annoyance. He delighted in the endless spectacle of man’s folly and, like a child at the circus, never failed to find life wildly entertaining.

  He glanced at the alarm clock on the chest of drawers. Seven already! The extra time he’d allowed to his servant was over; now he had no choice but to assume the worst. And yet even in private, Heykal didn’t let his rage come out in the open; he remained calm and serene, while the sarcastic smile that continually played on his lips turned just slightly ferocious. He lit a cigarette, lay down on the couch, got up again to return to the window. Nothing. He was beginning to get used to the routine. He imagined Siri crushed beneath a tram and felt a kind of peace in the face of the inevitable. His servant’s disappearance not only prevented him from leaving but would prevent his rendezvous with Khaled Omar—a man to whom he’d soon be subtly, inexorably linked. It would be deeply upsetting for him to miss this first meeting with the businessman. Ever since Karim told him about Omar—by relating the circumstances of their frien
dship—Heykal had wanted to meet him. And yet, he’d put it off again and again, wanting to make sure of certain facts about the businessman’s character before he did. Perhaps he’s also foreseen that one day he might need Omar’s help and was waiting for the propitious moment to make his acquaintance. In any case, he’d come to the conclusion that Khaled Omar would, without a doubt, be a valuable associate in a certain spectacle of mockery he had conceived and was preparing to set in motion. According to what Karim had told him, the businessman was hostile to all forms of political conspiracy. He hated politicians and considered them lower than dogs—not living dogs but stinking, dead dogs. Heykal’s conspiracy couldn’t help but seduce him, given that its goal wasn’t to stage a coup or throw a bomb at the governor’s head.

  This governor was a face—possibly the most ridiculous face—of the universal reign of fraud. Heykal knew him by sight, having often seen him at the municipal casino, surrounded by his most fervent supporters. They formed a sinister crowd of lackeys hovering around him and smiling earnestly at the stupidities he reeled off in an oracular tone. Heykal was so captivated by the man’s brute ignorance that he developed a true passion for him: here was someone so tragically stupid that you could only respect him for it. Magnificently and single-handedly he represented the inanity that ruled the world. Heykal was sometimes alarmed by the near-sadistic fascination he felt for him, a man who seemed to have been made governor entirely for Heykal’s own personal satisfaction. Each day brought more proof that in his initiatives and public speeches the governor dreamed of nothing so much as making Heykal happy by gratifying his sense of the absurd—as if he suspected that someone, somewhere in the city, was just waiting to rejoice over yet another nonsensical deed. As a buffoon he lacked for nothing; how could Heykal not love him? To kill him would be blasphemy. That’s what the pigheaded revolutionaries who fought him outright didn’t get: that they were giving him a reason to take himself seriously. To Heykal, the crimes of power were so obvious there was no need to shout them in the streets. Even a child could see.

  He walked toward the window again but stopped, hearing a faint noise from the corridor. Instantly his anger toward his servant disappeared; he’d been rescued. A few seconds passed before Siri appeared with the famous suit, suspended from a hanger, at the end of his outstretched arm.

  “This is what I get for counting on you?”

  Siri, the servant, looked at his master with a weary, fatalistic expression on his sleepy face. He never used drugs, but he resembled an addict permanently in need of a fix. With his half-closed eyes, he seemed to be sleeping standing up. This unbreakable bond with sleep that he’d maintained from birth predisposed him to be calm and gave him a generous spirit. Without opening his eyes, he said in a peaceful voice:

  “Prince, it’s not my fault. Things—”

  “What things, dammit! I have an important meeting. I might miss it because of you.”

  “Sorry, prince,” said Siri, cracking a lifeless eye. “But things—”

  “Shut up or I’ll strangle you,” said Heykal. “Now put the suit on the couch.”

  Siri didn’t respond but weakly bowed his head, as if to communicate the unfairness of his reception. With infinite care and soporific slowness, he deposited the precious burden on the couch; then he went to squat in a corner, waiting patiently for his master to deign to speak. But Heykal had stopped paying attention. He was getting dressed in front of the mirrored armoire, pleased at the last-minute reprieve. It was always like this; he just couldn’t stay angry at his servant for long. Beneath his moronic exterior, Siri possessed undeniable gifts. Heykal entrusted all material matters to him and could even go several weeks without giving him money; Siri continued to run the household as if money didn’t even exist. There would always be something to eat at mealtime. How he managed to make do was a mystery. Heykal suspected Siri of stealing food and staples from the neighborhood merchants, and one day he figured Siri would wind up in prison. Then, from time to time, Siri would adopt the tone of a sage and speak of money as of a necessity that could on occasion be of some value; he made it sound like a philosophical discovery—perhaps banal but not without its importance. This discreet allusion to financial difficulties never fell on deaf ears. Heykal understood by it that his servant had run out of resources. He would offer a bit of money, and Siri would pretend to refuse, protesting that there was no hurry, that he was not yet on the verge of ruin. Heykal would insist to the point of becoming angry, and finally, and always reluctantly, Siri would accept the sum.

  Seeing that his master had turned his back and was continuing to get dressed without calling for his services, Siri, head still bowed, started to mumble under his breath, as if defending himself against accusations lodged by imaginary characters who placed his loyalty in doubt. Heykal allowed him a moment to air his grievances before finally losing patience.

  “What now?”

  “Prince! It’s not fair!”

  “What’s not fair? Isn’t it enough you’ve made me late for my meeting? Now I’m expected to listen to your lamentations?”

  “Yes, prince, it’s not fair. I can’t bear for you to be mad at me. I’m late, it’s true, but it’s not my fault. I had to save the honor of our house!”

  “The honor of our house! What on earth—Can’t you leave me in peace? Go sleep in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t want to sleep. I have to tell you the whole story first.”

  Still buttoning his shirt, Heykal turned to look at his servant. He knew all about Siri’s stories—shaggy-dog tales, usually slow and hard to follow. But if you had the patience to listen, you’d be rewarded in the end—the ends were fabulous. At another time, Heykal would have listened with pleasure, but right now he was in a hurry to see Khaled Omar. He refused temptation.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he said.

  “I beg you, listen to me. In the name of Allah! I had no other choice. Would you have wanted us to lose face in front of strangers?”

  “I don’t understand a thing you’re saying. Why were we going to lose face?”

  Now that he’d aroused his master’s curiosity, Siri struck his best raconteur’s pose. Squatting comfortably, he cleared his throat and gazed upon his captive audience with a mysterious, world-weary expression.

  “Well, prince,” he began, “as you know, the shop that belongs to Safi, the clothes-presser, is a popular haunt for the neighborhood notables. They sit there all day philosophizing, smoking, and sipping tea. You’ll be happy to know that they hold me in high esteem. These are people of stellar reputation, and they are aware that I serve in your house.”

  Siri fell quiet and completely closed his eyes, as if the source of his inspiration had suddenly run dry.

  “And?” asked Heykal.

  “Prince,” Siri resumed, “this afternoon, I realized that the situation is serious.”

  “What situation, mongrel!”

  “Listen, prince! How could I let them think that we had only one suit? Every time, they see that it’s the same one. They were starting to look at me with pity and to shake their heads suspiciously when I mentioned our splendid dwelling. Don’t you understand, our reputation was beginning to slip! So to address the situation I invented a story.”

  “Go on.” Heykal spoke with icy rage. “Right now I have to assume you’re on something.”

  “God save me, no! Don’t be angry, prince! I wanted to dispel any doubts about our fortune, so I told them you were especially fond of this suit—despite having an armoire full of clothes—because it reminds you of a love affair that broke your heart. I told them this was the suit you were wearing when you first encountered the wonderful woman who was the greatest love of your life. But, alas! this woman being dead and your happiness gone, you maintain a special fondness for this suit, in her memory. That’s all, prince! Is there anything that’s not to your honor and credit?”

  “And it took you all that time to tell them these idiocies?”

  “They would
n’t let me go, prince! They wanted to know all the details of your love affair. For example: What was the name of the lady, how did she die, and were you married? I had to answer every question. I only got away by promising to tell them even more next time.”

  Looking lazier than ever, Siri rose, retrieved the clothes brush, and went to stand next to Heykal. Everything was settled, he thought. He awaited his master’s congratulations.

  “So, prince, you’re not mad anymore?” he asked.

  “It’s all right,” said Heykal. “I forgive you, though it’s the stupidest story I’ve heard in my life. From now on, leave the honor of the house alone. You nearly made me miss a very important meeting.”

  “How could I leave the honor of our house alone!” responded Siri, opening not just one eye but both at the same time. It was a sign of powerful emotion. “I’ll never let anyone insult you, prince!”

  “Give me a handkerchief,” Heykal snapped, realizing that the discussion could drag on forever. Honor was his servant’s favorite subject.

  From the dresser Siri removed an immaculate white handkerchief and presented it to his master, who grabbed it, checking carefully to see that it was spotless, then slipped it into the outer pocket of his jacket. He was now dressed. He inspected himself in the mirror one last time, and, finding himself impeccable in every way, prepared to leave.

  This abrupt departure was not to Siri’s liking. He would have preferred to talk longer with his master, to share some deep thoughts drawn from his sleepy brain. But sensing that there would be no indulgence this time—Heykal refused to talk—he accepted his cruel fate. Full of foreboding, he asked:

  “Your orders, prince?”

  “I don’t need a thing,” Heykal responded. “I’m dining out. Go to bed.”

  And he disappeared into the corridor, leaving Siri speechless.