Just then, Taher caught glimpse of something: what was this, a mirage? some sort of vision perfectly designed to seduce him and squash all his vengeful zeal? He stood there, shocked and furious, staring at the girl who was in the doorway of Karim’s bedroom. It was Amar, the little prostitute, who’d come out in search of her lover but, seeing a stranger on the terrace, had then retreated. She was as shocked as he was. She’d taken a bath and appeared cool and elegant, and her young body, glimpsed through the thin fabric of her dress, made her uncannily desirable. Taher averted his eyes with disgust, as if from the very image of debauchery and corruption.
“You live with a woman now!” he thundered at his friend.
“She’s my mistress,” said Karim. “Come on, let me introduce you.”
“I don’t want to. She must have heard our conversation!”
“Don’t worry about that. She won’t denounce you. She’s one of the governor’s victims. His ordinances prevent her from soliciting.”
“This kind of victim means nothing to me! She means nothing—she’s just the trash of our oppressive social system!”
“What!” roared Karim. “You think she’s trash! But she has the most beautiful breasts in the world! I’d be perfectly happy with trash like this.”
Only a second earlier, Taher had still held out a faint hope of convincing Karim, but after seeing this girl with all her vestal allure he knew it was hopeless—the man was a slave to lust. The girl controlled him with sex. He was a wreck drifting in the cesspool of the regime. Not even as a doormat could he serve the revolution.
“I’m going,” he said. “Not that I’ve wasted my time. You’ve shown me just how low a man can sink.”
“Wait!” called Karim. “I’m about to make some coffee. Won’t you have a cup?”
He’d just realized that he’d broken all the rules of hospitality by offering nothing to Taher; he was sincerely ashamed.
But Taher didn’t turn around to accept or refuse his invitation; the sound of his thick soles rang down the stairway, vanishing forever.
Amar walked across the terrace to her lover.
“Who was that guy? He was scary.”
“He makes bombs,” Karim replied.
“Bombs!” The girl was stunned. “What an awful day!”
“On the contrary, it’s a marvelous day!”
He put his arm around her shoulder and returned to the bedroom, holding her tight. After all that fuss about bombs, he wanted to make love.
***
The next day around noon Heykal opened the paper that his servant had brought him and learned about the governor’s assassination.
The picture on the front page showed the governor’s car ripped apart by the explosion; there was also a photo of Taher, his face swollen and bloody, his handcuffed fists held out in front of him in a gesture of supreme dignity. The details of the attack filled several pages, but Heykal read no farther. He crumpled the paper and threw it on the floor. He was appalled by the gratuitous violence. The governor had all but disappeared from the scene, and Taher had gone and made him a martyr. He had turned an executioner into a victim, a glorious example of civic virtue and self-sacrifice for generations to come, thus perpetuating the eternal fraud.
This is a New York Review Book
Published by The New York Review of Books
www.nyrb.com
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 2003 by Éditions Gallimard, Paris
Translation copyright © 2010 by Anna Moschovokis
Introduction copyright © 2010 by James Buchan
All rights reserved.
First published in France by Joëlle Losfeld, 1993
Cet ouvrage publié dans le cadre du programme d’aide à la publication bénéficie du soutien du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et du Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France représenté aux Etats-Unis
This work, published as part of a program of aid for publication, received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in the United States.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cossery, Albert, 1913–2008.
[Violence et la dérision. English]
The jokers / by Albert Cossery ; translated [from the French] by Anna Moschovakis ; introduction by James Buchan.
p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)
ISBN 978-1-59017-325-1 (alk. paper)
1. Government, Resistance to—Middle East—Fiction. 2. Satire. 3. Humorous fiction. I. Moschovakis, Anna. II. Title.
PQ2605.O725V513 2010
843'.912—dc22
2010013738
eISBN 978-1-59017-401-2
v1.0
Cover photograph: Abbas, presidential campaign poster, Damascus, Syria, 1991; © Abbas/Magnum Photos
Cover design: Katy Homans
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series visit www.nyrb.com or write to:
Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
Table of Contents
Cover
Biographical Note
Title Page
Contents
Introduction
The Jokers
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Copyright and More Information
The Jokers Page 16
