The Colors of Infamy (6 page)

Nimr still had the disgruntled look of a man whose principles had just been violated. He planned on remaining in this ornery mood for a long time, but after a while Ossama's impish grin managed to exhaust his feigned sulkiness. Obviously the young man was not paying any attention to his scoldings and, worse, couldn't care less.

“I forgive you,” said Nimr, “because I think of you as my son — a son of a bitch, but my son nonetheless. I hope you have not been neglecting my teachings since you started working among the distinguished set.”

“I've always done as you taught me — and the ‘distinguished set' can mostly be distinguished by the fatness of their wallets. I steal from them and they respect me. And every policeman whose path I cross greets me with deference.”

“I don't doubt it.
Th
ose people are too stupid to read your profession on your face.”

“How could they? I'm wearing all the finery of prosperity.
Th
ey think I'm rich. In their world, only poor people are thieves.
Th
at superstition goes back to antiquity, and it suits my business perfectly.”

“So, this is what learning is for! I see now that an intelligent boy like you could never be content with petty larceny! By Allah, you are the thief of the future! All those years of school served your ambition well.”

“School taught me only to read and write. And that sliver of learning set me on the surest road to starving to death in honesty and ignorance. You were the first to open my eyes to widespread corruption. To have understood that the only forces that drive humanity are thieving and swindling — that's real intelligence. And you didn't even go to school. Ever since I met you, I have stolen with a clear conscience and a happy heart. Better yet, I have the feeling that my activity contributes to the country's prosperity because I spend the money I steal from the rich in a variety of shops that would perish without me and my peers.”

Th
e certificate of civic-mindedness that Ossama was bestowing upon himself seemed to go beyond — well beyond — Nimr's basic teachings. His student had simply swept away the prejudices tied to his profession and had fashioned a philosophy that ennobled the thief, raising him to the rank of a nationalist activist. Nimr didn't dare believe it, but on reflection, he had to admit the accuracy of this transcendent view of every kind of thievery. It was true that thieves caused money to circulate, money that without their ingenuity would always remain in the same pockets — a deplorable situation that would cause a country's economy to suffer greatly. By moving money from one pocket to another, theft, by means of this unilateral transfer, allowed completely depressed markets to revive. Having attained the far reaches of this realistic line of reasoning, Nimr was exhausted and eager to rest his brain, which had been dulled by several months in prison. He began to study Ossama with the eyes of a tourist scrutinizing the Sphinx in expectation of a final prophecy.

Humility not being his long suit, Ossama pictured himself as a solid gold statue for having dazzled his former teacher with his analysis of theft as patriotic virtue.

“I could become a government minister if I wanted,” he announced with the air of someone hesitating to accept a job in a grocery store.

“On my honor!” Nimr exclaimed. “Your success has driven you crazy! May Allah protect you from such a scheme!”

“I'm not crazy and it could very well happen. Listen, I'm going to let you in on something unbelievable. For hours I've been looking for someone to discuss this with. Tell me what you think.”

Ossama cast a glance at the few customers in the café and chased away a young cigarette butt collector lurking around their table with an insult that took in his entire family; then, leaning toward Nimr, with the excitement of a neophyte bomb carrier, he told him the story of the letter found in the real estate developer's wallet — the man behind the genocide against some fifty tenants.

“So you see that the Minister is implicated in this scandal. What's to say he isn't in collusion with his brother? And if he is, then why shouldn't a thief of my caliber be a candidate for a ministerial post as well? Minister of Finance would, I think, suit me best.”

“You're right,” Nimr agreed. “But you've no gift for lying. Can you lie like a minister every day including holidays?”

“It's just a question of habit. With your guidance I think I could manage, my dear Master.”

Th
ey broke out laughing, and in their exuberance woke an old man sleeping on a bench against the wall of the café who then lectured them about shameless youth who did not respect the sleep of workers.
Th
e outburst of this old man resting from his labors as a former worker only increased their merriment. Nimr waited for the man to go back to sleep before warning Ossama about the dangers of holding on to such a volatile letter.

“
Th
at letter spells disaster. What are you going to do with it?”

“I don't know yet. I need advice. But I don't know anyone besides you whom I can trust.”

“
Th
e only advice I can give you is to burn the letter.
Th
e sooner the better. Let all those bastards devour each other. What do we care about one more scandal?”

“Well, I'm not going to burn it, that's for sure. I hope to at least get some amusement from it.”

“What sort of amusement?” Nimr asked, alarmed.

Ossama did not answer; he was wondering if the same kind fate that had chosen him as the emissary of such a scandal would also suggest an entertaining solution to the problem of disseminating it. As he waited for fate to oblige, he watched condescendingly the sovereign people moving about beneath the sun, indifferent to world affairs in general and to his problem in particular. An argument could be heard at a nearby table between two destitute workers who were probably unemployed. Ossama understood by the invocations to their respective ancestors that one of them had wanted to pay for the other's drink and that the latter was rebelling by denying that his companion came from a family richer than his own.
Th
e dispute finally ended in a friendship pact stipulating that each man would pay for his own drink. Having settled their business, they vanished from the café.

“By Allah!” Nimr cried. “
Th
ose idiots with their ridiculous quarrel have made me remember the man who can advise you — he would surely have found the behavior of those two vermin enchanting. He is the most extraordinary man I know — but what's the point of talking about him. It's better to see him and hear what he has to say.”

“I'd be curious to know just how you could have met such a man,” Ossama said.

“I met him in prison. It might seem unbelievable to you, but there are lots of cultivated men rotting in prison for their beliefs: revolutionaries who want to change society.”

“I'm suspicious of most revolutionaries.
Th
ey always end up as tame politicians defending the same society they vilified in the past.”

“Not this man. On the contrary, he's working toward eliminating all politicians. He's a well-known author and journalist. In his writings he does nothing but mock all the powers and the grotesque people who assume those powers. In one article he swore that the president of a great foreign nation was an illiterate idiot, which caused a most serious diplomatic incident. For this latest prank he was sentenced to three months in prison and a large fine. Really, he's an extraordinary man, one of a kind. Even when he was being tortured, he joked with his torturers.”

“Why was he tortured?”

“
Th
e police wanted to know who had informed him about the idiocy of the president in question.
Th
ey were convinced he couldn't have figured it out by himself.”

“By all-powerful Allah!” Ossama laughed. “
Th
ose policemen have a sense of humor!”

“How can you credit those torturers with a sense of humor?
Th
ey were serious, let me tell you. I could see it from the marks of the blows he'd received. For days, they did everything to try to find out his informant's name. Just to amuse himself, he gave them the name of a journalist very supportive of the authorities.
Th
at calmed them down and they left him alone.”

Th
is story filled Ossama with such enthusiasm that a prison term seemed suddenly necessary to help eliminate the gaps in his vision of the world.

“I envy that man,” he said. “I would have liked to be in his place. To have such close contact with stupidity is prodigiously enriching for the mind.”

Nimr was not sure what these words meant. His former student continued to surprise him with his eloquent language. For a moment he thought that Ossama, to have attained such a high degree of intelligence, must have been smoking hashish.

“What about you?” Ossama went on. “Were you tortured as well?”

“I'm a thief. You don't torture the ones who keep you alive. Policemen's salaries depend on people like me. I've never dreamed of overthrowing the established powers and I'm happy with any and all governments. No political regime will keep me from stealing. I'm certain I'll always be able to practice my trade. And this guarantee doesn't exist in any other profession. Have you ever seen an unemployed thief?”

“Excellent reasoning,” Ossama admitted. “Unless they tortured you to find out who had taught you to steal!”

At this, they were overcome by frenzied laughter broken up by insults directed at all torturers and their evil employers.
Th
e irascible old fellow sleeping on his bench opened his eyes, looked sadly at the laughing men, but made no comment, no doubt because he was exhausted. A few people had stopped to gawk in front of the café, admiring this energetic display of hilarity as if it were a puppet show. Ossama told them all to go gape at the belly dancer exhibiting herself in a fashionable cabaret on the road to the Pyramids, which was his sarcastic, disdainful way of chasing them from his sight.
Th
en he turned back to Nimr.

“Where can we find this man? From what you've said, I've been searching for him my whole life. He's already my brother. Do you know where he lives?”

“Of course. He lives in the City of the Dead. I went to see him when I got out of prison. He inherited his parents' mausoleum and that's where he lives, because he has no income.
Th
e government has ordered publishers and newspapers to turn down everything he writes. He still owes several thousand pounds in fines.
Th
ey're looking for him to seize his goods. Since the mausoleum is the only property he has left, they'd have to sell the dead buried there. I'm sure he's waiting impatiently for that to happen.”

“When can we go see him?”

“Any time — he only goes out in the evening. We can go right now if your business allows.”

“I have no intention of working this afternoon. Besides, my clients take their naps at this hour.”

Th
ey rose as one and took a shortcut through the muddy alleyways cluttered with household trash piled up over the years like witnesses to past lives. Oddly, Ossama hardly seemed disgusted by this environment that was inflicting dreadful damage on his elegant attire. He hopped in puddles of viscous water, and stepped gracefully upon abominable refuse without worrying about splattering the hem of his trousers or his lovely suede shoes. All his thoughts were moving in the direction of this unknown brother, this prophet of derision who lived in a cemetery.

III

I
t was not because he had a predilection for funerary steles, nor because he wanted to perfect his knowledge of metaphysics by having subtle conversations with the dead that the highly educated Karamallah had chosen to live in a cemetery that had become known throughout the world when some thousands of homeless people had settled there without asking anyone's permission. Indeed, no one had dared take offense at this stampede of the downtrodden, with the possible exception of some of the atrabilious deceased, enemies of humankind. Behind Karamallah's choice of so austere a residence lay the despotism of a government impervious to humor and ferociously hostile to all information having any relationship whatsoever to the truth. He had been sentenced to prison and prohibited from publishing because he had insulted a foreign head of state; on his release, he found himself deprived of all remunerative literary activity and harassed on a daily basis by a pack of uneducated creditors. Although he was convinced that the outcome of every drama was ineluctable, it nonetheless seemed more pleasant to deal his oppressors the fatal blow of disappearing without leaving a forwarding address. In a moment of intense euphoria, he had recalled that he had inherited an inalienable piece of property, one that was safe from bailiffs and other lawful raiders.
Th
is inheritance, unfortunately nonproductive, was nothing other than the family mausoleum, erected in that famous cemetery that had recently become an attraction for foreign tourists weary of Pharaonic remains.
Th
e day after this realization, Karamallah left his apartment in the city center and, with the help of one of his acquaintances who was a carter, carried a few pieces of furniture to the mausoleum where he took refuge and waited for his problems to be diluted in the vast universal misfortune. One of the tenets of his philosophy was that problems solve themselves if you don't pay them any mind. Far from demoralizing him, the fact of living in a cemetery filled him with joy, like the start of a marvelous adventure. He was happy to abide among a rebellious lot, the living and the dead united in collective disregard for all authority. In this atmosphere of courteousness and compulsory condolences, he was at least certain to avoid the terrifying imbeciles who hounded him in sidewalk cafés, hoping to discuss their domestic difficulties. In addition, he had the satisfaction of not owing a cent to any crook of a landlord. After years of separation from his parents, Karamallah could again experience the pleasure of being with his relatives, but without the disagreements and altercations that inevitably arise during family reunions among the living.

His mausoleum was not conspicuously lavish and so its occupant was spared any malicious gossip or suspicion. Karamallah would not have wanted to spend his days in too sumptuous an edifice, and he was grateful to the architect who had designed this funerary monument with the limited imagination of a police officer. Standing on the threshold of the room that normally served as a reception hall for grieving families, smoking a cigarette, Karamallah gazed in the distance at Al-Mokattam Mountain, whose foothills, cloaked in mist, seemed to define the farthest horizon his eyes would ever see. He thought he would go live up there in a cabin one day, like a hermit calmly and compassionately watching humanity.
Th
is was just an idealistic plan, however; he knew he could never live far from men and their vile acts. He had reflected endlessly on people's cowardice and their capitulation to the effrontery of iniquitous rulers.
Th
is easy obedience to tyrants — an obedience that often verged on devotion — always surprised him. He had come to believe that the majority of humans aspired only to slavery. He had long wondered by what ruse this enormous enterprise of mystification orchestrated by the wealthy had been able to spread and prosper on every continent. Karamallah belonged to that category of true aristocrats who had tossed out like old soiled clothes all the values and dogma that these infamous individuals had generated over centuries in order to perpetuate their supremacy. And so his joy in being alive was in no way altered by these stinking dogs' enduring power on the planet. On the contrary, he found their stupid and criminal acts to be an inexhaustible source of entertainment — so much so that there were times when he had to admit he would miss these dogs were they to disappear; he feared the aura of boredom that would envelop humankind once purged of its vermin.

Th
e cemetery was stagnating in a precarious calm: it was the sacred siesta hour. Even the children, dazed by their mothers' imprecations, had stopped their noisy games and ceased shouting their obscene, insolent remarks. Occasional bursts of lamentations from the hired mourners, those zealous mercenaries given over to exaggeration, could be heard in the overheated air, like the echo of unspeakable suffering. Kite birds circled in the azure sky above the graves, miserable raptors reduced to seeking their sustenance in the trash cans of the destitute. An old man with a white beard dragging a rachitic donkey at the end of a rope passed in front of the mausoleum and greeted Karamallah with a slight nod befitting an exiled monarch. He was no doubt an unemployed carter strolling with his donkey to show the world his courage in the face of adversity. What disturbed Karamallah, however, was the donkey's gaze; it was both dejected and accusatory, as if Karamallah were at the root of its downfall.

He tossed away his cigarette and went back into the room to join his visitor.
Th
e girl, sitting in front of her teacher's desk, was studiously recopying the notes she had taken during their afternoon discussion. Her name was Nahed, and she was nineteen. She was planning on writing a thesis on Karamallah's philosophy of derision, and on his numerous troubles with the incurably ignorant authorities. And Karamallah, who despised everything that even resembled a diploma — a sure road to slavery — had, because he was polite, allowed the girl to visit as she pleased: she was not beautiful and he felt incapable of denying anything to someone so unattractive, even something as outrageous as a thesis on his work. For almost a month she had been coming every afternoon to dig deep into his ideas with the fevered frenzy of a patient questioning her doctor. She always wanted to know more, as if she were about to die. Karamallah responded to these febrile interrogations with kindness and amusement. To him, the girl's attempt to officially promote a philosophy that advocated a reality so different from the one imposed by those who handed out diplomas was a rather risky gambit for her future. Everything he was teaching her about his concept of the world was utterly contrary to what was being taught in the schools. He was sure that this strange work to which the girl was devoting herself, if ever it were to emerge from underground, would at the very least cause the police to open a file on her as a subversive element to be kept under close surveillance. Nonetheless, and despite his total skepticism, he hoped she would succeed in her mad endeavor and so he was gambling on the off chance that she would have to deal with examiners who were uneducated, or simply blind. He understood her ambition to free herself from her mediocre milieu by obtaining a prestigious degree.
Th
e diploma symbolized a sort of sacred relic for all those without access to legalized crime, even if it was good for nothing save being placed in your coffin after you'd starved to death.

Karamallah now knew the girl well enough to imagine that her fate would not be an ordinary one. Each time she came to visit, she would bring him humble gifts, objects of indeterminate value for which he had absolutely no use. Because she was from a very poor family, he suspected her of having stolen them in various shops in the city. He was more and more worried by these innocent, impractical offerings because of the risks the girl was taking. He had nothing against theft, an activity that enjoyed international approval in proportion to the amount stolen. But to get caught and to risk going to prison for such paltry spoils was a fool's game. He himself would surely have chosen to become a thief had he not been blessed at an early age with the insight that he could fight hypocrisy by means more intellectually satisfying than the classic homemade bomb. In any case, he had to put a stop to this profusion of plunder: his parents' mausoleum was turning into a pawn shop. It was a delicate matter. How could he speak to the girl without revealing his fears about the provenance of all the small gifts she was showering upon him? He drew near and placed his hand forcefully on her shoulder as though to wake her from an irrational dream. Nahed stopped writing and turned to smile at him. Her smile held some of the original affliction shared by all the destitute. It seemed to Karamallah that at times her face took on a kind of fleeting loveliness, the result of some alchemy as complex as the mystery of the Creation. Was it laziness or negligence that had made him incapable of divining this girl's hidden beauty? True, during their first meeting he had barely looked at the poor student for fear she'd detect the uneasiness he always felt in the presence of ugly women. Now he wondered with comic trepidation if he should attribute this unbelievable change in her to the mausoleum's air or, more specifically, to his heretical words. It was outrageous and unacceptable to his intellect to imagine that Nahed had blossomed on contact with his writings. But she had told him an apparently truthful story that deserved serious consideration: one day when she was sick and disgusted with everything and had decided to let herself die, a girlfriend had brought her one of his books. In order to please the friend who had suggested she read it, she took it and began to leaf through it unenthusiastically. Yet later, once she had finished, she felt an extraordinary well-being suffuse her entire body. She was no longer sick and had no desire to die. She got out of bed motivated by a burning desire to live and, putting on her prettiest dress, went out in the street to proclaim her deliverance and her joy. She thought she had learned something of exceptional gravity, but didn't know quite what — yet she was sure of one thing: her vision of the world had changed for good.
Th
en, after a moment, she added: it was like the day after a revolution, when the tyrant has died and people smile at you without knowing you because they are happy. Karamallah knew, however, that the death of a tyrant does not mean the end of tyranny; nevertheless, so as not to dishearten the girl, he decided not to disparage her naïve idea of revolution.

“I'm going to leave now,” said Nahed. “I've imposed long enough on you and your valuable time.”

“Don't worry about that. I'm not one of those people who believe they are taking part in some obligatory ritual by devoting themselves to work that is by and large pointless.
Th
e only valuable time, my dear Nahed, is the time that we use for reflection.
Th
is is one of those inconvenient truths that slave dealers despise.”

“It's just amazing that the truth isn't obvious to everyone!”

“You're quite mistaken. Everyone knows the truth, but something that everyone knows has no market value. Can you imagine the bastards who control information selling truths? In the best of cases, they would be made a laughingstock. For one simple reason.
Th
e truth has no future, whereas lies carry great hope.”

Nahed began to laugh. She often laughed in his company, as if to show him that she had absorbed his teachings and that henceforth she would look at life as an instigator rather than a docile tool. Again Karamallah was surprised by a fleeting spark that lit up the girl's face. He looked at her, his eyes suddenly filled with gratitude toward the invisible author of this moving transfiguration.

“Every time I come here you lift a weight from my shoulders. I always feel lighter when I leave this cemetery — it's become a magic place — everything seems so easy here.”

Karamallah took a few steps toward the door, looked at the alley deserted under the sun, then returned to the girl. In a jocular tone, he said:

“Do you know that a while ago a skinny donkey that was being led to the slaughterhouse by its owner cast a reproachful glance at me?”

“You're making fun of me, Master! How do you know it was reproachful?”

“Because all I need is to see an old woman struggling to walk, a man struck with a horrible infirmity, or simply a child crying, to feel guilty about what is happening to them. I think it's because I personally have no use for unhappiness, so the unhappiness of other people seems to denounce continually my own lack of seriousness. But let's leave the donkey to its fate. Let's talk about you a little. For some time now I've been meaning to tell you that you shouldn't feel obliged to bring all these gifts each time you come to see me. I don't know what to do with these treasures.
Th
ey are turning my mausoleum into a museum.”

“But you are rich, Master. All the gold on earth couldn't make you richer. What you call my ‘gifts' are only small tokens of friendship, to keep you from forgetting me. I know you're going to laugh at me again, but with all due respect, I confess I'm afraid of vanishing from your memory as soon as I've finished my work.”

“Why would I forget you? You will always be welcome in my home, here or elsewhere. So, tell me, where did you get this idiotic idea?”

Nahed was slow to answer; her features tensed, and her face became unsightly again, as though to underscore her painful confession. “Well,” she said, avoiding Karamallah's gaze. “I know you only like women who are very young and very pretty. And I am old and ugly.
Th
at's why I thought you wouldn't want to see me again.”

She stopped speaking and then looked Karamallah in the eye, awaiting his verdict.

Without the slightest warning, Karamallah was first stupefied and then beset by remorse, like a slowly spreading ache — remorse for his thoughtless cruelty. Had he wounded the girl by being aloof and perhaps even betraying his displeasure without realizing it? She had risked prison in order to leave him mementos of her, and Karamallah could not erase this fact through mockery of any kind.