The Jokers

by Albert Cossery

  From time to time, his eyes fell on one of the posters he’d put up the night before in anticipation of today’s walk. Strewing his path with pictures of the governor had seemed brilliant then, when he’d been filled with the delighted anticipation of today’s walk, but now he regretted having anything to do with this hideous thing that accosted him with every step, like a billboard from hell. The posters made him sick; it was all too depressing. Already a few of them had fallen victim to local vandals, with eyes scratched out or a beard scribbled in. These perfidious flourishes hadn’t ruined the governor completely; he was still recognizable. Since the appearance of the posters, he’d become as famous as a movie star. Even children cursed him, like the villain of an action film. But that didn’t bother the authorities in the least; what bothered them was when crowds gathered around to look and laugh, peppering their laughter with jibes and snide asides. More than once the police had to intervene, arresting a few individuals who were laughing especially loudly, charging them with public drunkenness. Which was, come to think of it, more or less true. And then there were always two or three hash smokers around, and for them the governor’s picture triggered explosions of transcendent glee. Nothing could temper their hysterical outbursts—not even the billy clubs of the policemen, who were furious to see the effects of drug use spreading to contaminate the lives of clean-living citizens, who no doubt were stunned by such unmerited praise of the governor but still maintained appearances as best they could. These bouts of collective hilarity—which would spring up at the most inopportune moments, sometimes causing traffic jams—were putting the authorities to the test. The government’s henchmen waited dejectedly, utterly confounded by the treacherous initiative, which seemed unworthy of real revolutionaries and bordered on being a hoax.

  Karim stopped abruptly. A few meters ahead, under the shade of one of the trees lining the avenue, a traveling barber had set up with his tools. Karim wondered if he should get his hair cut. Suddenly it seemed vital that he appear well-groomed when presenting himself to the authorities, so that they would recognize the esteem in which he held them. A haircut was essential: long hair suggested the tortured spirit of a bitter revolutionary. And his scruffy neck and sideburns—not respectable. What a serious mistake he’d almost made! How would they know he’d reformed when he had a mop on his head befitting a dirty intellectual? A good haircut—an almost shaved head, like a convict’s—that would make the right impression! That would be concrete proof of his loyalty! And only one man could perform this miracle: this ignorant barber, with his clippers of mass destruction.

  Karim sauntered up, delighted with his decision.

  The barber was in the midst of shaving an earnest young man wearing a dark, tattered suit, with a morose expression and an air of dignified poverty. He sat on a wooden stool with his back pressed against a tree and his eyes closed, and the impression he made was one of exquisite agony. On his knees was a paper folder on which he had laid his threadbare tarboosh, the distinctive sign of a public servant—he looked like he was afraid of being dragged into the surrounding human scum. The barber squatted and, with the meticulous gestures of an embalmer preparing a corpse, shaved his customer’s cheeks with a razor so old and broken that it rasped like a power saw. Karim’s arrival didn’t disturb them at all; neither of them answered his greeting. Surprised, but as confident as ever of his plan, he sank down on the second stool the barber provided for waiting clients. Right away he felt a subtle change in the atmosphere, filling him with an incredible happiness, irresistibly nudging him little by little toward sleep. The cool shade and the scent of the shaving soap mingled with the violet perfume of various oils and tonics were like the sweet air of the countryside. It was hot as a furnace, but the barber’s spot—though still outdoors—was a garden of delights, a place to draw you into dreams. Karim would have liked to stay as long as possible, motionless, only half-conscious as people swirled about, writhing like the damned in the eternal fire. He was still savoring this exquisite respite when he was brutally torn from his torpor by a donkey cart coming to a screeching halt at the curb. The driver leaped to the ground, unhitched his donkey, and, grabbing it by the neck, hauled it into the shade practically right under Karim’s nose.

  “Master Abadou,” the driver croaked, “are you going to be done soon? This son of a bitch needs grooming!”

  “Right away,” the barber responded, tossing a glance at the four-legged client. “Just a minute, and I’ll take care of him.”

  The donkey, either out of vanity or because he understood that they were talking about him, started to bray without interruption, which Karim found very disagreeable. After a moment of this, the young man couldn’t restrain himself from addressing the driver:

  “Does it bray like that all the time, or is it his birthday?”

  “He’s hot,” said the driver. “He’s an old donkey, but a good one.”

  The driver was a fat brute, incapable of appreciating sarcasm. Karim was deeply pained; he’d hoped for a wittier reply. Faced with his interlocutor’s intellectual paucity he looked put out, saying:

  “I’m sure he is. But try anyway to make him shut up. It’s unbearable!”

  The driver patted the donkey on the back, soothing it like a mistress with tender words, promising it unheard-of heaps of alfalfa. In response to these false vows, the donkey gradually calmed down and began to chew at the air. By this time the barber had finished with his client, who donned his tarboosh and slipped away, folder under his arm, aware that an altercation was brewing. Clearly he didn’t want to be implicated in a fight over a donkey.

  Master Abadou grabbed his clippers and approached the donkey with the nervous look of an artist finally taking on his great subject. But before he could get to work, Karim stopped him with a gesture and stood up from his stool.

  “What’s this, man! I was here first. And I’m in a hurry!”

  “Excuse me, effendi,” said the driver. “But he’s a regular, I can’t make him wait.”

  “He’ll wait. I’m telling you: I’m in a hurry.”

  “This donkey is in a bigger hurry than you, young man,” said the driver.

  “Why?” said Karim. “Is he going to a wedding?”

  “We don’t have time for weddings,” came the driver’s grandiloquent reply. “We work!”

  The donkey started braying again, as if proud of the prerogative he enjoyed. Singing sweetly to nobody, the barber ran the clippers along his back. Karim, though only feigning indignation, was increasingly exercised by the care that was being lavished on the donkey. What was this beast? A government donkey—a minister, perhaps, traveling incognito to gain insight into his subjects’ state of mind? That wouldn’t be at all surprising, given the exceptional treatment he was enjoying at the barber’s hands. What a crazy situation! Karim had gotten trapped in a maze and he’d have to find a clever way out that wasn’t going to cause too much damage. But he couldn’t leave, just like that, without making some kind of scene—abandoning such a fertile terrain just waiting for the seeds of conflict to be sown. This could be his only chance all day to have some fun.

  He lifted his cuff, pretending to check the watch on his wrist, and addressed the barber once more:

  “Do you realize, man, I have a meeting with the governor. And you’re making me wait behind a donkey!”

  “Which governor?” said the driver, as if frankly stunned to learn of the existence of such a person.

  “What do you mean, which governor?” exploded Karim. “The governor of this city!”

  “This city is governed?” said the driver. “Don’t tell me that, young man; I won’t believe you.”

  “No wonder things are falling to pieces!” cried Karim. “You and your kind are turning us into a bunch of savages!”

  The craziness had reached its peak, but Karim wasn’t capable of stopping the mechanism he’d set off. A familiar demon goaded him to push things even further, to see just how far this absurd conversation could be taken. On
top of that, he was reluctant to leave the cool shade and launch out into the torrid atmosphere of the avenue and the hassle of a police interrogation.

  “I’m leaving,” he said with conviction. But he didn’t leave. He was waiting for something—as if expecting some dazzling beam of light revealing the secrets of humanity to emerge from the situation.

  “Wait, effendi,” said the barber, as he clipped big tufts of fur from the donkey. “I’ll be finished soon. It’ll be your turn in a minute.”

  “I will not follow a donkey,” responded Karim proudly. “You don’t seem to have any idea whom you’re speaking to!”

  The barber thought for a moment, clippers in suspense, his features twisted in apprehension. Intrigued, he asked:

  “Well, who are you, effendi?”

  “I’m not going to waste my time telling you,” Karim flippantly responded. “Go on and take care of that donkey—that’s your kind of customer!”

  “Did I just hear you insulting my donkey?” cried the driver, wild-eyed. “Who do you think you are to insult someone who works for a living?”

  The word was out: a worker! So as far as this pathetic bunch was concerned, the donkey had the right to be respected, not as an animal but for its noble status as a worker. For a few seconds, Karim was blinded by the sheer deliciousness of this—a recompense at last for his long wait. He turned his back on the two men and hurled himself deliberately into the furnace: all was well with the world.

  He had to resist further experimentation. After the scene at the barber’s he was running late, and he’d have to hurry to get to city hall at the appointed hour. He felt cheerful, full of optimism—in good enough shape, in any case, to confront the sadistic, power-hungry officers who would be assigned to his interrogation. Moved by this feeling of joy, he broke into a trot, making his way with difficulty through the careless crowd clogging the avenue.

  He stopped, out of breath, to examine the big white building topped by a flag—city hall and the seat of the governor. It was a long time since he’d been here. He hesitated before crossing the threshold, remembering his brash attitude on previous visits, when he’d been a reckless and arrogant revolutionary. He felt ashamed recalling his former foolishness. How could he have failed to understand that they were stronger than he was, that all his bluster only played into their hands, hurting his cause by putting him on the same level as his enemies? Happily, things had taken a new turn since that far-off time; he would shock them silly. He lowered his head and tried to look humble and timid, then entered through the monumental double doors, which opened wide like a trap ready to snap up its prey. He shivered, and a cold sweat ran down his back—it was not fear but the effect of suddenly coming into the cool air of the great building. He tried to shrink away even more, camouflaging himself as a citizen without ideas or ambitions, a creature who submitted to fate and trembled before every kind of authority. In this character he was no different from the other people who filled the vast room on the ground floor, coming and going like figures in a nightmare, eyes fixedly staring as they shuttled from one office to another, delivered into the caprice of the vindictive machine. Karim acted like someone who was familiar with the place; without bothering to ask directions he headed straight to the flight of wide stone stairs and climbed to the second floor. An orderly, seated behind a table, was reading his newspaper without moving a muscle on his face; probably he couldn’t read and was only pretending. Karim handed him his summons. The man took it, gave it a sideways glance, and murmured:

  “Follow me.”

  Karim followed him silently, staying in character as a poor, harmless wretch. The orderly opened a door, let Karim in, and closed it behind him softly, as if to avoid waking a sleeper. Karim noticed the typical smell of an interrogation room: an undefinable scent, mental more than olfactory, as if human absurdity emitted a nauseating stench. People of all types and from all over waited on benches along the walls, their expressions frozen with resignation so excessive that it looked put on. They seemed to have been there forever, covered in dust, their clothes all worn out; they were like sculptures from another era that had just been dug up. Karim gazed at them briefly, stupefied, like someone viewing a catacomb and its relics for the first time. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat off his forehead to prove to himself that he was still alive, but already he knew the sinister truth: all these people were playing the same game he was. If they were mute and looked lifeless, it was in the hopeless hope that they would be taken for dead. This, of all possible attitudes, was the one that was least exposed to tyranny’s talons. Karim admired their act of dissimulation and, only too happy to get a close-up look at these models of humanity, found an open spot on one of the benches and sat down, mimicking their pitiful posture. For a moment he stayed there, neutrally still, playing dead in this disparate gathering of mute victims; then, with an abundance of circumspection, he risked a glance toward the back of the room. Seated behind his desk, a uniformed security officer was exhaustively interrogating a bleary-eyed man with the look of a piecemeal skeleton, apparently a spy from some miserable desert country. Just behind them, two policemen with military mustaches stood at attention. Karim recognized the officer: it was Hatim, the one who’d taken care of him back in the day. This discovery surprised and irked him at the same time; he thought the new regime would have had the good sense to change their policemen. How naive! And yet he should have known: the simple truth, enduring and unchallenged, was that the power of the police outlasted every regime.

  From the back of the room he heard Hatim’s voice, scathing and angry; the officer seemed to be having some serious problems with an informant. Karim heard the latter let out a long sigh in response to his torturer’s repeated interrogations, as if advanced tuberculosis prevented him from articulating a single word. Hatim made a strange face in front of this mute, emaciated stool pigeon. To keep from bursting into laughter, Karim had to remember his own situation—it was far from stellar. He was going to have to revise all his plans. How could he play his game with Hatim, who knew all about him? Hatim wouldn’t walk right into his trap. Karim’s moral and physical transformation—even after all these years—would make him highly suspicious. Perhaps he should refine his act, introduce a modicum of dignity, the kind of dignity that Hatim, in his barbaric cruelty, would relish breaking. Karim decided to offer him this paltry gift as a sign of his esteem.

  Hatim suddenly seemed to have had enough of his stool pigeon; with a furious gesture he turned him over to one of the guards. For a moment he appeared to relax and breathe more easily, as if set free; then he started scrutinizing the people seated on the benches. He seemed to be looking for somebody specific and kept shaking his head with a disappointed frown. Suddenly a spark lit up in his eyes; he’d just recognized Karim in this heap of human garbage. His nostrils flared, a thin smile fluttered on his lips, and he seemed to bloom with renewed vigor and aggression.

  “Karim effendi!” he yelled, pointing to the young man.

  Karim rose and went to stand in front of the police officer.

  “Hello, Your Excellency!” he said in his humblest voice, his eyes lowered, and in a posture of uttermost contrition.

  The officer looked taken aback; he stared closely at Karim as if perhaps he’d mistaken his identity.

  “I must be dreaming!” he said. “You never acted like this before. What’s happened to you?”