Albert Cossery - The Colors of Infamy

“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. The government has ordered publishers and newspapers to turn down everything he writes. He still owes several thousand pounds in fines. They’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.”

They 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.

It 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. This 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. The 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. This 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. This 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.

The 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. The 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. The 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.