“I know why you came,” Heykal interrupted, speaking in a soft voice, raising his hand in a gesture of peace. “That can wait. First let me simply enjoy the pleasure of your company.”
“What infinite generosity!” Taher resumed. “But that’s enough for now, I’m sorry to say. What I want is an explanation. I’ve already told this turncoat”—he pointed at Karim—“just what I think of what you’ve done. It’s a complete disaster. The police think we did it, and that’s an insult to our honor as revolutionaries. What kind of game do you think you’re playing?”
Heykal bore up under this brutal, but impulsively frank, attack with a smile of exquisite politeness. So Taher had come to defend his revolutionary honor! He didn’t want the police to take him for a joker—that was all he cared about. And what ardor and enthusiasm his voice revealed when it came to the insult to his honor! He needed those criminals to respect him! How pathetic for a rebel! Even he couldn’t break out of the vicious cycle of power. He played the game of honor and dishonor, just as he’d been taught to do. He’d never escape. He was more of a prisoner than a prisoner in a cell because he shared the same myths as his adversary; they grow and grow and surround everything like unbreachable walls. Heykal hoped that his gaze wasn’t too visibly ironic; he didn’t want to let his guest down.
“Games,” he said, looking pensive. “You’re right to talk about that. Because we’re all playing a game, aren’t we, Taher effendi? I profoundly regret that my game has given you offense and caused you trouble. But any man has the right to express his rebellion in his own way. Mine is what it is; at least it doesn’t harm the innocent.”
“How infantile!” Taher retorted disdainfully. “I don’t doubt your intelligence, Heykal effendi, not in the least. But excuse me if I tell you that you’re just having fun while the people are suffering from oppression. Fun is no way to fight. Violence must be met with violence. And forget about innocence!”
“Violence will never get to the bottom of this absurd world,” Heykal responded. “That’s just what these tyrants want: for you to take them seriously. To answer violence with violence shows that you take them seriously, that you believe in their justice and their authority, and it only builds them up. But I’m cutting them down.”
“I don’t see how! There is no historical basis to what you do—to your insipid farces!”
“How? It’s easy. By letting the tyrants lead the way and being even stupider than they are. How far will they go? Well, I’ll go farther. They’ll have to prove themselves the greatest buffoons of all! And my pleasure will be that much greater.”
“But the people!” cried Taher. “The poor people! You forget about them. They’re not laughing!”
“Teach them to laugh,” Taher effendi. “Now that is a noble cause.”
“I don’t know,” said Taher in a strangled voice. “I’ve never learned to laugh. And I don’t want to.”
He said it regretfully, as if ending a painful and impossible love. Heykal felt his happiness melt away. It was true Taher didn’t know how to laugh—one look at him and you could see it. In a state of constant tension about the battles to come, always plotting and scheming, worried out of his mind by the thought of the misery of the people—he was doomed to unhappiness. He was the perfect manager of the revolution. Nothing mattered apart from his job: that of a predestined savior, walled in by self-regard. Pure egotism! The worst kind of egotism, since by definition it depended on a multitude of other people—whole groups of people—in order to thrive and prosper!
“Well,” Heykal said, “I’m afraid the tyrants will make a fool of you. One of you is going to be the butt of a joke.”
“What nerve, Heykal effendi! Has it never occurred to you that we might actually defeat the tyrants?”
“I prefer a laughable tyrant to a dead one. The pleasure lasts longer.”
Taher wrung his hands and squirmed in his chair, convulsed with shame. He was certain that Heykal’s cynical paradox-mongering words were solely intended to humiliate him. Joy and pleasure—to dare to speak of such things to him, he who had known nothing but the exquisite pangs of hunger. Finally he was showing his true colors. Taher’s shame turned into indignation at the intolerable thought that this man, disguised as an apostle of pacifism, had conquered Karim with his tricks. Karim had a generous heart; had he sunk to the point of becoming an impostor’s accomplice? Taher glanced at his old comrade frantically, as if hoping for assistance in the name of some long-ago pact that no treachery could undo. But Karim appeared to take no note of his suffering. Almost gasping, a smile hovering on his lips, he had eyes only for Heykal, whose every word seemed to emerge from the mouth of an oracle. His subordination was complete. It made Taher sick.
“Don’t you have anything to say, you traitor!”
Karim turned toward his comrade, cut to the quick, torn from the state of ecstasy into which Heykal’s last reply had sent him.
“What am I supposed to say,” he replied angrily. “I’m in complete agreement with Heykal. A child would understand what he just said. But you, you’re deaf! You boast of your revolutionary honor like a pregnant woman displaying her belly! It’s painful to watch.”
“Look where your treachery has led you—you insult everybody you once held dear. You’re worth less than a dog!”
“Taher effendi, do not condemn my friend Karim,” interrupted Heykal. “Maybe he used to be different, but he has the right to change. Do you deny that thinking evolves?”
“But he doesn’t think at all,” exploded Taher. “He’s a hypocrite; I understand that now. He pretended to love the people for the pleasure of making fun of them. He betrayed them and he betrayed me at the same time!”
“That’s not fair,” Heykal said. “Karim hasn’t betrayed anyone. That would require a great deal of ambition—and Karim doesn’t have any. He dreams of a life of love.”
“So he says. But if I were you, I’d watch out. Did you know, Heykal effendi, that he told me he’d lay down his life for you if you asked him to? Crazy, no? And yet he was sincere. And he was sincere when he wanted to give his life to the revolution.”
“It’s not the same thing!” Karim yelled. “You’re confusing everything, it’s unbearable! My love for Heykal is free of politics. I don’t love him to deliver him from oppression; he’s already free. It has nothing to do with your kind of love—like an accountant distributing future happiness to the poor!”
Taher looked at Heykal with a mocking sneer.
“I’d like to know just what kind of man you are to inspire such passion in this cretin.”
“A very simple man, Taher effendi. Only I never inflict my notion of honor and dignity on others. I look for other things from my fellow human beings. My friend Karim is free to change his way of thinking tomorrow. I wouldn’t hold it against him, because no matter what he does, he’ll never be a bore. Which is the important thing.”
“So what do you think is important in a man?”
“That he gives me a sense of wonderful plenitude, even when caught up in life’s trivialities. The breadth of joy he conveys. That’s how you recognize the richness of a man’s love.”
The odious, detestable mania of the man! Talking about joy again! Did he really believe in it? Was that all there was for him on earth? On this ravaged earth, which men burn to ashes again and again—how could anyone find love and happiness here? You’d have to be a slob to settle for such inanities. Or a grinning idiot. But Heykal wasn’t a slob or an idiot. He wanted to amuse people, to teach them how to laugh at the tyrants. Easy enough to say! But the people needed to learn other lessons. Taher thought about everything that remained to teach the people, and the immensity of the task made him sick with despair.
Heykal gave him a sympathetic glance, stirred to the depths to detect, in this model manager of the revolution, a budding awareness of the vanity of his struggle—barely budding, true, but appreciable all the same. The tight jacket, the stiff collar and threadbare tie were emblematic
of his perfect domestication. The rags of a society that he wanted to fight against—he made it a point of pride to wear them. A revolutionary, but with dignity—dressed in the same uniform as the adversary and ready to take his place. What a magnificent specimen of the era! And ripe for reinvention still; Heykal would have liked to adopt him, to have him around all the time, the living image of irony. But it was a dream for a king—an object so precious was beyond his means.
The silence, and Heykal’s affectionate gaze—as it seemed to Taher—made Taher get a grip on himself. He broke in:
“These virtues you speak of, Heykal effendi, could just as easily belong to a rat. Would you accept the breath of joy from a rat?”
“Rats kill any breath of joy,” responded Heykal, “and whatever side they’re on, I hate them. But that’s not the kind of man you are, Taher effendi. I know how to recognize a man’s true character, beneath the appearances. Why do you stubbornly put on a mask that makes you suffer? I’m sure you could learn to be happy and to embrace the frivolous and the vain. I’d like to see you when that happens.”
Taher was growing confused, even as the full horror of the man’s honeyed words dawned on him. That Heykal saw him as a frivolous man was the greatest conceivable insult to his fighter’s pride. He averted his face as if to escape this badge of shame, and at last to understand how useless it was to argue with a shadow. He couldn’t wait to get back to the world of iniquities that awaited him outside; there, at least, he might be defeated, but he was never unhappy.
Heykal lifted his glass of tepid rose water from the table and addressed his guest:
“To your health, Taher effendi!”
Taher appeared not to understand. Mechanically, he picked up his own glass, meaning to lift it to his lips, hesitated, then abruptly threw it on the floor. It smashed and he looked proud, almost arrogant—his dignity had been restored.
Karim was too stunned to react. He remained in his chair, waiting to see what Heykal would do. But Heykal was impassive, as if indifferent to his visitor’s scandalous provocation. His face bore a look of indulgence. He even seemed to regard Taher with a certain respect.
Having heard the noise, Siri entered the room and, without a word, began to pick up the broken glass. Nobody spoke; they seemed to be waiting for Siri to finish cleaning up. When he finally left, Taher rose. For a moment he looked at Heykal. He gave a slight nod and slowly made his way to the door.
Heykal rose from the sofa and followed. For a few seconds, they hesitated at the door. Heykal said:
“The rose water was not poisoned, Taher effendi! It was offered in friendship.”
Taher didn’t respond. Suddenly Heykal grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close.
“Taher, my brother, you are brave, but you are lost. It’s too bad!”
“Lost to whom?” asked Taher in a voice like a stifled cry.
“Lost to me, to me alone,” said Heykal. “Now go. And may peace be with you.”
Then he turned to Karim, who looked on, speechless.
11
THE LITTLE girl ate her ice cream while peering over it at Heykal; there was nothing coy about her look, which was somehow arch, timid, and discreet in a self-consciously feminine way. She sucked the spoon slowly—carefully attending to it with a kind of blissful gluttony. Heykal was pretending not to see; his love of seduction drove him to feign indifference even with a child. This one must be about eight years old; a big green ribbon was tied around the single braid that hung down her back. She was extremely beautiful, but not with the detestable beauty of the rich, well-fed children that Heykal loathed on first sight. Her features were refined and there was a profound sadness in her eyes; already the world had taken its toll. What had piqued Heykal’s interest had been her childish melancholy, verging on despair. She was accompanied by her mother, a nagging battle-ax with foolishness written on her face, steeped in social status and exhibiting heavy gold bracelets on her arms. When she addressed her daughter, Heykal thought he saw the girl shrink up, as if ashamed to be associated with the ignoble creature seated across from her. Apparently the mother suspected her antagonism; her voice bore traces of that special hatred parents feel for rebellious children. Unconsciously she resented the girl for belonging to a different breed. This mother—Heykal would have liked to kill her, to see her disappear through a trapdoor. Horrible person! He suffered for this little girl and, given her complicitous look, he began to love her.
Customers were few in the luxurious tearoom, located in an elegant neighborhood, where Soad had asked to meet. There was the little girl and her mother, and apart from that just two other tables occupied by ladies gorging themselves on cake and blabbing quietly to each other. Heykal was nauseated by the women’s voraciousness. He drank a mouthful of tea to keep from throwing up and resumed his silent dialogue with the young girl. He could tell that he intrigued her, that she felt a strange link uniting them. Inside he trembled to think that he had become the object of her childish imagination. What could she be thinking? Suddenly he’d had enough of feigned indifference; changing tactics, he stared straight at her. Quickly she lowered her eyes and a blush rose to her cheeks. Heykal relaxed. Then he had a crazy notion and felt a thrill of action: he’d take the girl by the hand and, right in front of her mother’s horrified eyes, they’d walk out. He was sure that she would do it.
The girl’s eyes grew even sadder; they looked misty with tears. Did she suspect that he wanted to save her, to tear her away from her monstrous mother? She seemed to be waiting for a sign from Heykal to get up and follow him. But he knew it was all a fantasy. He’d never give in to the wild desire that took hold of him whenever he saw a child of his own kind in the company of unworthy parents. He smiled regretfully at the little girl. And—extraordinary thing—she seemed to understand, for she bowed her head slightly, looking sweeter yet. Heykal’s heart fluttered, and he closed his eyes to savor her innocence and her divine understanding.
Suddenly Soad was standing in front of him. Heykal didn’t recognize her right away; she’d changed. She was wearing her hair in a high bun; her eyes were blackened with kohl and she’d put on lipstick. She carried herself like a lady, and there was an unexpected hardness about her features—quite a disguise. Heykal noticed something even more surprising: the girl was wearing expensive earrings with large precious stones. He didn’t comment, as she clearly expected him to do.
She sat across from him and, for a moment, she staged a grotesque scene, like someone in a silly mask making wild faces in order to be recognized. But Heykal maintained a detached, almost cold attitude; he seemed altogether unaware of her transformation. Vexed by this lack of curiosity, she glanced around in the hopes of exciting some public admiration, only to be disappointed by the lack of customers; she turned back to the young man. She could no longer resist asking:
“How do I look?”
“Superb!” Heykal responded. “You remind me of my grandmother!”
She pouted like a sulky little girl, a look that didn’t suit her new brand of beauty at all—she could tell right away from Heykal’s icy glance. She had just voluntarily crossed the border that separated her from childhood; from now on, she would no longer be able to move him. She was a woman now, and she knew how well he was defended against the ploys and the duplicity of her sex.
She stopped pouting and said in the tone of a poised and very confident young woman:
“Be nice to me. I have some fantastic news for you.”
“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 minist
er 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!”
The Jokers Page 13
