Albert Cossery - A Splendid Conspiracy

“My word,” he said. “You are the most ungrateful person I know. What will you do in the capital?”

“I have to continue my studies,” said Samaraï pitifully. “Time is passing and every day I realize I’ve begun to forget everything I learned.”

“Oh, no!” said Medhat, almost with revulsion. “I don’t care a whit about veterinarians. Anyone who tries to obtain a degree from such a corrupt society has a vile soul himself. To tell you the truth, my dear Samaraï, you disgust me. You really are beyond redemption.”

“It’s for her I have to study,” Samaraï whined. “How can I possibly earn a living if I don’t get my diploma? I love that woman and I’d like to save her.”

“Save her from what, you imbecile!” cried Medhat, furious. “Who said she wants to be saved? She wouldn’t leave the privileged spot she holds in this city and the kind of pleasure she finds playing her part as the seduced and dishonored girl for all the gold in the world. It’s become her reason for living. With all your diplomas you will never be able to give her such a fine reason.”

Samaraï was taken aback by Medhat’s explanation.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he confessed candidly. “You think she is happy!”

Salma was following with her eyes the young men’s conversation from the sofa; and although she could not hear the words, she could easily divine the gist of the secret confab. She was aware of the danger hanging over the group because of Samaraï’s intemperance, and when she saw him get up from his armchair and fling himself, reeling, into the room, she expected something reckless; her fear subsided, however, when she saw he had chosen Medhat as the confidant for his grievances; she had no doubt that Medhat, with his mischievousness and his sarcasm, would quickly reduce Samaraï to a harmless fly.

Suddenly Samaraï stood up, hesitated a moment, then headed toward the sofa where he sat down humbly next to the young woman.

“Don’t you come near me, you son of a dog!” said Salma with repressed fury. “What are you up to this time, you monster!”

“You can insult me,” answered Samaraï in the voice of a drunkard with intractable determination. “It will not stop me from killing that Chawki if he dares come here tonight. Then you will be freed from your vengeance and there will be nothing to hold you in this city any longer.”

“You won’t kill anyone, you poor, poor boy!” cried Salma. “Go live with your animals and leave the humans alone.”

Either Samaraï’s horrified expression put her in high spirits, or else she wanted to add crushing weight to her scorn, but suddenly Salma burst out laughing. For a moment Samaraï remained paralyzed by this laughter, as insulted as if someone had spat in his face: he looked like he had just been bitten by a poisonous animal. Then he stared at the young woman with a gaze filled with great indulgence, as if he were trying to ward off the evil spells contaminating his mistress’ soul with this new glimmer of tenderness. Far from experiencing the beneficial effects of this gaze, however, Salma gave into her demons and continued to roar with laughter, exaggerating her frenzy so much that she writhed about and clapped her hands as if she were seeing something irresistibly comic. Imtaz and Teymour, who had stopped their lovemaking with the young girls, were waiting coolly for this demented laughter to come to an end. For his part, Medhat had sat up, ready to intervene; he was afraid of any confrontation that might spoil the evening in some foul way. Against all expectation, however, everything went off in a dignified manner. Samaraï abruptly left his spot, walked through the living room with the stateliness of a humiliated monarch, and disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Salma immediately stopped laughing.

In the silence that followed, Teymour got up to start the record player again, and he and Boula began to dance once more.

It was then that a man appeared in the doorway, dressed in black and holding a cane with a chiseled silver knob in one hand and twirling his mustache with the other, smiling satanically. This was Chawki, eyes popping out of his head with lust who, using his own key to the apartment, had entered furtively in the hopes of surprising his friends in mid-orgy. He was cruelly disappointed by the austere atmosphere he found, for he had imagined that, by arriving at this late hour, he would at the very least see the young girls in a state of undress. Nonetheless, despite his disappointment, he retained his hypocritical smile and continued toward Salma to kiss her hand. Having performed this ritual, he greeted everyone else in turn, then went to sit next to the young woman, emphasizing with a conceited air his authority over the others. Then he began to stare at Boula’s hips as she swayed in her partner’s arms and he remained silent for a long spell; the contemplation of this phenomenon had made him mute and panic-stricken.

The physical perfection of those hips seemed to conceal all the obsessions of the universe and at last forced him to let out a sigh of distress.

“Forgive me for interrupting your conversation,” he said to hide the turmoil of his senses. “Do go on, please. What were you talking about? Or perhaps it’s none of my business?”

“On the contrary!” exclaimed Medhat. “We were waiting impatiently for you. We were wondering why humanity, after so many millennia, still remains as despicable as on the first day of its creation. We’d be curious to know your opinion.”

Medhat stopped speaking and rubbed his hands together like a student who has just baffled his professor by asking an inappropriate question.

Chawki reacted like a greenhorn. He had been expecting a frivolous, even obscene conversation, and the idea that these young people were talking about humanity seemed a kind of betrayal. It was a hard blow to his intellect that had gone soft from dissipation and become impervious to any thought that was not sensual. Nonetheless, the most basic politeness meant not quibbling about the choice of a discussion topic, especially in a group of such importance. He thought he could get away with simply spouting an idea that was rather commonly held — that not everything in man was so bad.

“But humanity isn’t as horrible as all that,” he said with the conviction of a man who believes in progress and civilization.

“What!” cried Medhat. “The proof of degeneracy is everywhere! Even a child can see it. I would be very pleased to hear your arguments in favor of an idea so at odds with the truth.”

At this point in the discussion, Teymour realized that dancing was no longer appropriate, and that other delights were in store. He went back to sit on the cushions but, confident that this interlude would be more than worthwhile, he stopped fooling around with his partner. He was now concentrating all his attention on the outcome of the ingenious trap Medhat had laid in the guise of philosophical debate.

Chawki wished he didn’t have to answer; the presence of the two damsels whose youthful charms he was going over one by one in his mind deprived him of all power of reasoning. He hadn’t come here to hold forth on humanity. Amazed that he was being forced to think at such a moment, he found the subject in very poor taste. But how could he make up for his gaffe? Even as he delivered his lame apologia, hopelessly ideological in character, and despite his foolhardy nature, he was hesitant to seem like one of the propagators of this considerably hackneyed falsehood.

“One cannot deny that humanity has progressed,” he said without overly committing himself. “It is constantly evolving.”

“Evolving in its instinct for lucre and plunder, I grant you,” replied Medhat, bowing as if to emphasize his deference to his interlocutor’s opinion. “But I’m speaking about spiritual progress. And in this matter I maintain that it has not progressed an inch.”