Albert Cossery - A Splendid Conspiracy

And so it was with some trepidation that Teymour prepared himself for this meeting with his old friend. In what state of moral decrepitude would he find Medhat? He knew vaguely the Medhat was working for the local newspaper, that he had married, and that he had even had a child. Teymour found this information, obtained from domestic sources, surprising and thought it indicated a regrettable decline of Medhat’s intellectual faculties, to say the least. Had Medhat perhaps become a civil servant, a petty bourgeois bogged down in a provincial routine, a gloomy soul doomed to insignificance? This possibility was not to be excluded, for who could resist this city’s annihilating atmosphere? Yet Teymour had difficulty reconciling the image of Medhat, married and head of household, with the young man with a splendid sense of humor he had known, whose only goal had been to hunt down ephemeral, undiscovered pleasures in this stinking necropolis. Medhat had been the only one among the friends of Teymour’s youth with whom he had been able to form a bond of unfailing complicity based on an acknowledgment of their shared taste for a pointless and joyful life. He still remembered their mad thirst for thrills, their mania for inventing, despite the aridity of a hostile territory, all kinds of elaborate projects for the sole purpose of having a good time. It had been really such a pitiful era, and yet grandiose, too, because managing to have a good time was for them a real feat. Teymour hoped that Medhat had, after all these years, been able to keep intact his mischievous spirit and his devilish ability to discern a delicious detail even in a cartload of trash. In fact, this rash hope had never left Teymour; Medhat was absolutely vital for surviving the misfortune striking him. Yet his desire to believe in the unchanging character of his old friend was on occasion tinged with mortal fear. At those moments, it seemed to Teymour that he had arrived too late and that Medhat’s mind had already been infected by the revolting mold eating away at the city.

The sound of a voice coming from the next table made him start; he turned his head slightly to see a customer who looked like a well-to-do peasant speaking with gentle authority to the waiter. He was a middle-aged man, still very dashing, enveloped in a loose-fitting black wool caftan lavishly embroidered with gold thread at the collar and sleeves, and wearing a spotless white turban; his enormous mustache with its turned-up tips, dyed an ochre color, seemed false, as if he were trying to conceal his identity. It was too heavy for his face, and this absurd adornment reminded Teymour of a surrealist painting. In order to pay for his drink, the man had opened and placed before him a fat goat-skin wallet bloated with bank notes, and he ostentatiously let it remain on the table as witness to his total solvency. The waiter responded with touching obsequiousness and bowed to him as if he were a great feudal lord visiting the dregs of his kingdom. Despite the convoluted structure of their conversation, Teymour grasped that the man was looking for amusement. He was utterly astonished.

When the waiter left, the man put his swollen wallet back in the pocket of his caftan, then turned to Teymour and said, with the courtesy of a noble traveler asking for information from a high-ranking native:

“Do you live here? My god!”

“Yes,” sighed Teymour.

“You are so lucky!” said the man, for whom Teymour’s sigh seemed filled with contentment. “Allow me to envy you. I live in the country; I only come here on business from time to time. What a beautiful city!”

Teymour did not answer; holding a discussion about the beauty of the city with this poor ignoramus was, given the circumstances, equivalent to suicide. He simply nodded his head with a pained, tragic air, as if this mute agreement had been dragged out of him by a torturer.

“Today is my lucky day,” said the man as he got up. “I intend to take advantage of the pleasures of the city before going back to the country. Peace be with you!”

He walked away with the determined steps of someone about to paint the town red, and with a confidence that nothing, not even a desert, could demoralize.

Teymour was making every effort to pierce the mystery of this robust optimism when, once again, he was drawn from his thoughts by a charming and unexpected sight. This time it was not a carriage transporting delirious females, but a simple bicycle ridden by a fourteen-year-old girl who burst into the square at top speed. Decked out like a saltimbanque , the girl was wearing a flesh-colored maillot that hugged her body and was cinched at the waist with a belt of red fabric; a short tunic of dark-red velvet decorated with sequins clung to her youthful bust, allowing the tiny mounds of her breasts to be glimpsed beneath the maillot. Her makeup was but two pink spots on her cheeks and turquoise eye shadow, giving her impassive face the appearance of a mechanical doll. The young street entertainer pedaled effortlessly, relaxed and graceful, swaying every which way, letting go of the handlebars occasionally and crossing her arms, maintaining control of her machine with small motions of her legs. When she was a few meters from the café, she slowed down and began to make circles and figure eights, maneuvering inside a smaller and smaller area until at last she came to a halt, locking her wheels, in a wobbly equilibrium. Then, suddenly, she took off again, carefree. When she passed in front of Teymour, she smiled and made a sign of welcome, as if she had just recognized in him a dear friend for whom she had been waiting a very long time. Teymour, surprised and delighted, returned her greeting, but the young saltimbanque had already soared away on her bicycle. He searched with his eyes in every nook and cranny of the square, hoping to see her loom unexpectedly back into view; he clung to this fleeting apparition like a castaway to the smallest bit of flotsam. In the girl’s warm smile he had made out a hidden, tender, familial complicity. Whatever happened from then on, he knew that some tiny shard of joy lay concealed for him in the dark recesses of this city. He got up and left the café, haunted by this magical memory as if by some vague promise of happiness. As he approached the statue, he had the curiosity to study the stylized peasant woman standing on her pedestal. Examined at close range, she brought to mind a beseeching creature whose raised arm seemed to accuse invisible executioners. Teymour admired the skill of the sculptor who had managed to incorporate obvious and terrible oppression in the stone’s curves. For anyone at all sensitive to irony, the artist had left behind an ingenious message. Teymour’s heart overflowed with gratitude for this anonymous humorist who must have had some good laughs, making this piece that the government had commissioned.

Teymour started over the metal bridge across the river; after a few steps, he stopped to breathe in the damp, cool air filled with the scent of the sea. Overloaded feluccas with white triangle sails were moving slowly over the muddy water, rekindling in him the rapture of departures. On the bank he had just left, massively ugly detached homes flaunted their pathetic luxury in front of the opposite bank where, beyond the shoreline flecked with palm trees, stretched the poorer district with its tumbledown hovels, its shacks, and its filthy alleyways. It was in this wretched part of the city that Medhat, in the spirit of revolt against the bleak conformism of the wealthier neighborhoods, had set up house shortly before Teymour had left the country. Teymour hastened across the bridge, spurred by the belief that in this poorer quarter some traces of boisterous life perhaps might remain; he hadn’t forgotten that the masses are always more amusing than their masters. Unfortunately, his hopes were misplaced; there was no liveliness of any kind in this tangle of rickety houses and deserted alleys. The silence was even more impressive here: it was the ritual silence of poverty, in which the slightest sound took on a tragic resonance. The few open shops were plunged in darkness and it was impossible to guess what they were selling since there was no visible sign of merchandise. A solitary, mangy nanny goat followed Teymour with the persistence of a prostitute, coming to rub lasciviously against his leg, as if she were accustomed to fornicating with men. It was in the company of this charming young lady that Teymour headed toward his old friend’s home, being careful not to lose his way.