Albert Cossery - Proud Beggars

Gohar let himself fall onto the couch, set his cane beside him, and prepared to write the letter. He waited for her to dictate what he should write, but she seemed to have forgotten why he was there. Her behavior was that of someone waiting to have a glorious time. She still had the smile of a depraved young girl.

“You wanted to see Yeghen?”

“Yes,” said Gohar. “I need him for something.”

“Is it very urgent?”

“Extremely urgent. But that’s all right, he’ll come eventually.”

“I’m sorry he’s not here. He might not be long now.”

Gohar’s suffering had become intolerable. It radiated throughout his body at the sound of Yeghen’s name.

“You know him well?” he asked.

“Who? Yeghen? Oh, he amuses me. It seems he’s a poet; he told me so.”

“It’s true,” said Gohar. “He’s even a great poet.”

“How funny! Tell me, is it customary for poets to ask girls for money?”

Gohar was suddenly very interested. He didn’t know Yeghen also practiced the trade of pimp. That was news!

“Why? He asked you for money?”

“Yes. He told me a whole story about his mother. It seems she died and that he needs money for the burial. He swore to me that he’s kept the corpse for a week. What do you think of that?”

Despite the tragedy of the situation, Gohar nearly broke into laughter. He was sure there wasn’t a shred of truth in the story; he knew Yeghen well enough to believe him capable of dreaming up anything to worm money from his numerous admirers. When it came to finding money, especially for buying drugs, Yeghen’s imagination sometimes reached madness.

“And you gave him some?”

“I’m not stupid,” said the girl. “I send all the money I make to my uncle who raised me. He warned me to watch out for pimps.”

“You’re a responsible girl,” said Gohar.

“You’re making fun of me.” The girl laughed.

“Not at all. I’m quite sincere.”

Gohar reflected. His passionate interest in Yeghen’s busy life led him to examine the workings of his mad ventures in great detail. Beyond this story, with its incontestable element of black humor, there was a reality of poverty and deprivation that was impossible to ignore. For Yeghen to resort to hustling money with his mother’s false corpse didn’t especially surprise him; he suspected him of even more cynical things. It could simply mean he was at the end of his resources. There was even a strong possibility that he was out of drugs. Gohar was stunned by this discovery. He suddenly wanted to flee the room in search of Yeghen, but he did nothing.

He looked at the girl.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs parted, her dressing gown loose on her body, her firm breasts pointing through the silk like two ripe pomegranates. Gohar looked at her indifferently, though perplexed by the girl’s beauty. In this half-light scented with recent wantonness, she acquired a surprising importance. The smile playing on her painted lips seemed to want to lure him into a trap. Gohar was suffocating. The proximity of this young flesh so boldly offered aroused a vague, almost abstract desire in him. It had been ages since he’d wanted to sleep with anyone and had rejected all carnal involvement with people. His life was confined to the simplest things: no longer subject to the violence of passion, it ran smoothly like a placid dream. There was only the drug. Again the intolerable need for hashish assailed him, made him gasp for breath. How long would he have to wait? He felt that his vital organs had grown soft and mushy. He struggled to hold on and managed to overcome the convulsions racking his body. He had to clear up one doubt immediately.

“When did he ask you for money?”

“This morning,” answered the girl. “We chatted for a while. He looked sad and discouraged.”

Doubt was no longer possible. Yeghen only looked sad and discouraged when he was deprived of drugs. That was the only time his optimism faltered. Gohar was almost ready to succumb to despair, but his confidence in Yeghen’s boundless genius saved him. Yeghen always managed to find drugs in the end; he had a thousand ways to escape disaster. Gohar believed in miracles. Not in grandiose, faraway miracles, but in the simple miracles of daily life. And drugs were such a miracle.

“What do I say to your uncle?”

Arnaba dropped her lascivious smile and little-girl pose to assume a profound and thoughtful air.

“The usual thing,” she said. “Tell him that I’m doing well, that I’m happy here, and that I’m working a lot. I think that’s enough.”

Gohar lowered his head and made as if to begin to write, but, in truth, he still wasn’t able to. Holding the pencil with a trembling hand, he put the paper on his knees and racked his brain for an opening phrase. After all, this man wasn’t his uncle. How would a whore write to her uncle? Gohar hesitated among several possible openings. He knew nothing at all about family sentiment.

He raised his head again and looked at the girl. The desire that had skimmed over him a moment ago hadn’t left a trace; this languid body provocatively abandoned on the pistachio eiderdown had ceased to interest him. Something else had captured his attention — the golden bracelets covering her bare arms.

These golden bracelets had unleashed a powerful emotion in him, and his eyes wouldn’t leave them. For a few seconds he was dizzy; he touched his forehead and shook himself, fighting with all his power against the spell of a terrible thought that was worming its way into him against his will. With wild despair he tried to drive it away, but it resisted his supplications. All that gold represented the value of an infinite quantity of drugs, a source of serene delights for months or even years to come. Gohar tried to figure the exact quantity of drugs he could buy with such a fortune, but the immensity of the task stymied him, and he abandoned his calculations. His dream of traveling returned, not as a distant project but with all the intensity of a feasible action. The journey to Syria became a near and tangible reality. In great detail he imagined this journey to the land of his dreams, where hashish grew in the fields as freely as common clover. The seductive effect that these images of another world had on his brain made him nearly delirious. Suddenly he saw himself attacking the girl to snatch away her bracelets, but just then Arnaba moved her arm, and the jingle of the gold bracelets in the room’s silence terrified him. He quickly came out of his torpor and feverishly began to write.

Arnaba felt proud and amused; she was certain Gohar’s bizarre look was the manifestation of his carnal lust. She knew she was pretty, and so his trembling could only be a sign of his desire for her. She was a village girl, ignorant and primitive, devoid of nuance, stuck in the ways of a primal sexuality. For her, Gohar’s desire was the only reason for his confusion, and she promised herself she would sleep with him to thank him.

Gohar wrote silently, struggling to concentrate. Despite the triteness of the words used, he had trouble composing his sentences. He was plagued by a new torment, completely foreign to his nature. A moment ago he had gloried in the absurd temptation to surrender to violence. Yet violence was the farthest thing from his way of thinking. How then had he come to consider it? He felt he was no longer himself, that someone had taken his place to commit a crime that he condemned with all his heart. It seemed that an unwonted fate was bent on pushing him out of his path, into the insane adventure of man.

“Don’t forget to tell him that I’ll send him money soon.”

Gohar gave a start; while he hadn’t been paying attention, the girl had surreptitiously slid next to him on the couch. Her sudden presence terrorized him; a horrible fear seized him.