Proud Beggars Read online

  El Kordi’s present torments stemmed from the poignant face of a young prostitute dying of consumption in a nearby brothel. It was a poor brothel whose clientele was made up of petty bureaucrats and shabby revelers from the native quarter. At first, the young man had slept with her two or three times without attaching any importance to the act; it was only when he learned she was sick that El Kordi, always alert to social injustice, fell madly in love with her. He decided to free her from the brothel and to save her from an ignominious death, but he didn’t have enough money for such a rescue. So he never stopped imagining sublime solutions to his desperate love. Now he had chosen suicide, but it seemed that his decision wasn’t final, because he asked, “What should I do?”

  Gohar was silent; he seemed to be enjoying himself in a strange way. On his impassive face, only the eyes reflected his inner joy. After a moment, he said, “Listen, I’m going to tell you a marvelous story.”

  “What is it?” asked El Kordi.

  Gohar told him the story of Barghout, the donkey elected to the post of mayor by the great wisdom of some peasants in Lower Egypt.

  El Kordi had begun to smile but caught himself in time. This was surely not the time for gaiety. Instead, he had to take the opportunity to show Gohar that there were serious matters in life. He suddenly became vehement.

  “It’s dreadful!” he said. “What barbarians!”

  “You think they’re barbarians?”

  “Yes, and the government exploits their ignorance.”

  “But they just taught your government a superb lesson.”

  “First, Master, it’s not my government,” El Kordi said hotly. “And then, I envisage other methods for fighting oppression. You will admit that there are serious matters in life.”

  “Where do you see anything serious, my son?”

  Instinctively El Kordi looked around in search of an example of austerity or grandeur, but his gaze found only a little cigarette-butt scavenger, dirty and covered in rags, roaming near their table listening to their conversation. He was performing his work with the solemnity of a meticulous rite and carrying his search for cigarette butts into the most out-of-the-way corners. Irritated by this behavior, El Kordi rose and placed his chair so as better to allow him to inspect the ground. But the child didn’t go away; he seemed tied to them with a cord. El Kordi sat back down, and, looking at the child, said with stinging irony, “Well, my friend, are you going to have coffee with us?”

  “No, thank you,” the child answered. “I just had coffee at the Bosphorous Café.”

  The Bosphorous was a swanky café where El Kordi had never set foot.

  “Son of a bitch!” he bellowed. “Get out of here or I’ll strangle you.”

  The child left, making a disdainful face.

  When he was some distance away, El Kordi broke out laughing. “Did you hear that, Master? What spirit! That child is fantastic.”

  Gohar smiled and looked at the young man with gentle irony. What pleased him was his utter frivolousness. El Kordi was a revolutionary. He had ideas about the future of the masses and the liberty of the people, but he was frivolous, for he couldn’t get beyond this absurd world. Believing that he and his people were persecuted, he would fight against oppression—but in vain, for as soon as he was left to his own instincts he became superficial, delighting in the most trivial actions.

  Now he seemed relieved of his bitterness. The incident with the little scavenger had soothed his worries; he abandoned himself to a childish joy. He was intensely happy with Gohar; everything became easy with him. Gohar’s presence rendered illusory all of life’s difficulties; the worst catastrophes assumed an air of extravagant drollery. El Kordi rediscovered his childhood in his company.

  “And this journey, Master?”

  “I’m considering it, my son.”

  “You should go,” El Kordi said fervently. “It would be marvelous for you.”

  When anyone mentioned this journey, Gohar would close his eyes, as if the yearning for a distant countryside demanded all his attention. To leave, to take the train for Syria! This was the dream he’d long cherished, the only dream he allowed himself, because it was linked to the very source of his bliss. Drugs were legal in Syria. Hashish grew abundantly in the fields like ordinary clover; one could grow it oneself. One day Gohar had learned these extraordinary facts by chance and had not stopped dreaming about it ever since. This little neighboring country seemed like paradise. It was truly unjust to be condemned to live here, when only a few hours away drugs were at everyone’s doorstep. Gohar considered the full extent of this injustice; he could never forgive fate for his having been born on this side of the border. He was firmly convinced he would never go there, yet he already lived there in his mind. For him, Syria consisted of a verdant pasture, whose grass was nothing but the drug in its raw form, its first growth. At certain difficult moments, when he’d been long deprived, the evocation of this simple landscape was enough to intoxicate him.

  “I can see you planting immense fields of hashish,” El Kordi said.

  “First, I’d have to go there,” said Gohar. “It isn’t easy.”

  “Oh, yes, the money! Listen, Master, I’d like to ask your advice.”

  “I’m at your service.”

  El Kordi struck a conspiratorial pose and said, “I must save that poor girl! Even if I must steal. Do you hear me? Even if I must steal! What do you think of that?”

  Gohar reflected. He had nothing against stealing; everyone stole. There were simply methods and nuances that escaped El Kordi. He liked this young man; he didn’t want to see him end up in prison. He would miss him. Moreover, El Kordi wasn’t capable of appreciating the security of a prison; he would destroy his own soul and acquire foolish ideas about liberty. But Gohar saw it was useless to explain all that to him.

  “You surprise me,” he said. “A respectable official like you.”

  “The respectable official, as you say, has lost his pen,” said El Kordi. “That’s right, my boss took away my pen. ‘This poor government pen is growing rusty in your company, my dear El Kordi Effendi. I think that others will make better use of it.’ That’s what he said to me. So you see, I am a clerk without a pen.”

  “All the better for you,” Gohar said. “I congratulate you.”

  At a nearby table, two blind old sheiks were discussing the artistic qualities of a famous mosque. One of them wound up calling the other a fake blind man. This insult broke up their conversation. They immediately left their table and went off in different directions, muttering invectives of high literary merit. El Kordi seemed to have forgotten his plan to become a thief, as he had forgotten to commit suicide. It was already two o’clock and he didn’t know how to spend the afternoon.

  “Will you have lunch with me, Master?”

  “No, I never eat at this hour,” Gohar said. “Besides, I’m not hungry.”

  He had to find drugs; his craving had become intolerable. He realized that all this time he had been waiting for Yeghen to arrive.

  “Have you seen Yeghen today?”

  “Yes, I saw him at Set Amina’s, when I went to see Naila. He was sleeping on the sofa in the waiting room. I didn’t want to wake him; I think he spent the night there.”

  Gohar was seized with panic. The thought that Yeghen might be nearby and that he could find him made him jump up.

  “I must leave you, my dear El Kordi. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “What, you’re leaving me to my sad fate?” El Kordi said, assuming his most woeful expression.

  “I’m sorry, but I must go. Peace be with you.”

  Gohar traversed the café with feverish haste. Customers invited him to sit down, but he courteously declined their offers. A little farther on, he spit out the mint lozenge that had begun to nauseate him. The thought of hashish nearby filled him with new energy. With a spring in his step, he disappeared into the maze of alleys bordered by rickety hovels on the verge of collapse.

  2

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p; SUDDENLY bright daylight brutally attacked him, stopping his mad flight. His eyes had grown used to the shade of the covered terrace, and he was now disoriented by the luminous, shifting universe that rose up before him like an impassable obstacle. The alley he was in was particularly narrow, with “keep out” signs everywhere. People, slouched against the walls or standing in immutable poses, were generously spending their age-old inertia to discourage traffic. In hovel doorways the ground was strewn with young children with glairy, fly-covered eyes who resembled little crawling animals. Squatting women washed their clothes in big tin tubs; others were cooking on a kerosene stove that smoked like a locomotive. The abuses they intermittently hurled at their unruly children were so loud and powerful as to exclude all possibility of forgiveness.

  Gohar felt dizzy faced with all these barriers blocking his path. He would never manage to push his way through this compact mass, denser than a chain of high mountains. But the thought of the drug and the fear of missing Yeghen made him overcome his weakness. It was a matter of life and death for him, so without waiting any longer, he set off like a blind man and forged ahead oblivious to the cries and curses he stirred up along the way. He felt only that the air around him was growing heavy and that the human debris that barred his route was animated by malicious listlessness. The brothel wasn’t far, but in a strange way it seemed to Gohar that the distance was growing. He advanced like a sleepwalker, one hand gripping his cane, the other stretched in front of him in a childish gesture of defense. A radish vendor called to him by name and invited him, with words filled with nobility, to help himself. Gohar paid no attention; he had better things to do than eat radishes. In his haste to find Yeghen he had even forgotten his usual courtesy.

  A moment later he saw the house in the distance and felt somewhat reassured. Set Amina’s brothel was not a place of pleasure for Gohar. He never went there as a client, but only to fulfill an important literary function. Actually, it was an exceptionally amusing job to which he attached a symbolic value. To draw up Set Amina’s business accounts and sometimes write the love letters of illiterate whores seemed to him work worthy of human interest. So despite his superficial decline, he still retained the role of a powerful intellectual that had been his glory in the past, when he had taught history and literature in the biggest university in the country. But his academic side, already so odious then, here no longer had any excuse for existing. In this milieu where life appeared in the raw, unspoiled by established conventions, Gohar fooled no one; he no longer recited the endless philosophical lies he himself—alas!—once believed. The freedom of thought that accompanied his new job was an inexhaustible source of joy, a boundless, generous joy. The infinite human resources of a brothel in the native quarter kept him in perpetual ecstasy. How far he was from the sterile, deadly games of men and their hazy idea of life and reason! The great minds he had so long admired now appeared to him as vile corrupters, stripped of all authority. To teach life without living it was a crime of the most detestable ignorance.

  From this work—which he accepted as a lesser form of servitude—he made only a slight profit; for his exalted services Set Amina gave him only a ten-piaster piece from time to time. This was his sole income and more than enough to live on. His lodging was cheap and local merchants were happy to give him all the food he needed. They were enchanted by his conversation; some even considered him a prophet and cherished his peaceful vision of the world. But Gohar never took advantage of their kindness. He never asked for anything. If he happened to accept, it was so as not to offend his generous donors.

  Out of breath, he stopped.

  Behind the gate covered with climbing plants, which hid it from indiscreet eyes, was a yellow, two-story, middle-class house with a narrow façade. A little dirt courtyard full of rubbish separated it from the street. Gohar opened the gate, gripped his cane, straightened his tarboosh, then climbed the steps to the first floor with all the assurance he could muster. The door was closed from the inside; he knocked twice with his cane and waited, holding his breath. Nothing moved; the house seemed deserted. An ominous silence weighed on Gohar’s soul. Clearly no one was there. Yeghen might have left long ago! A wave of anxiety swept over him, and all of his organs stopped at once, as though from a fatal injection.

  Finally the door opened, and Gohar breathed again. The girl before him was decked out like a candy doll at a country fair. She was wearing a short-sleeved, rose-colored silk nightgown embroidered with green flowers; she was heavily made-up, and her arms were covered in gold bracelets. Long, brown hair framed her face, strange and primitively beautiful like the portraits on local café walls. Her eyes, exaggeratedly blackened with kohl, seemed fake. Gohar knew her; she was a new girl just arrived from her home village. She was named Arnaba and was perhaps sixteen. Since she’d come, all the clients fought over her and waited hours till she was free.

  Gohar greeted her, and she smiled. When she smiled, she looked like a young girl disguised as a woman.

  “It’s you,” she said. “Come in. No one’s here. Set Amina went shopping in town with the girls.”

  Gohar entered the vestibule that served as a waiting room. Again he returned to the shadows, and his jangled nerves calmed down. But he wasn’t completely reassured; he didn’t see Yeghen anywhere.

  “Yeghen isn’t here?” he asked.

  “He was sleeping on the couch just now,” the girl said, looking around. “He must have gone.”

  The disappointment made Gohar pale. He was about to ask her if she knew where Yeghen had gone, but changed his mind.

  “I’ll wait for him; perhaps he’ll come back.”

  “Wait if you like.”

  “You’re alone here?”

  “Yes. I didn’t go because I wanted to wash my hair. I’m sorry now; they took a carriage.”

  She seemed to hesitate a moment, then entered one of the rooms off the vestibule and closed the door. Gohar was left alone. He looked around for a chair. The bare-walled waiting room was furnished in an improvised, temporary style. There was only a couch with a plain slipcover, four or five rattan chairs, and a big ashtray perched on a round table. This was the banal decor of brothels in the native quarter. Just now, without its disparate clientele and its atmosphere of stupor and facile gaiety, it was depressing. Gohar sighed, found a chair, and sat down. The waiting room’s gloomy sadness acted on him in a treacherous, almost offensive manner. He’d never before come at this hour; everything seemed strange and hostile here. He tucked his cane between his legs, took another mint lozenge from his pocket, and began to suck it with a kind of disgust.

  His drug craving had somewhat subsided, as if the fact of being in a place touched by Yeghen constituted an assurance, a moral guarantee against fate. He thought of him with real tenderness. Drugs were not the only thing behind his affection for Yeghen; he loved him like a living idea. Yeghen was an impoverished poet; he led a life without honor or glory, made up of begging and joyful mishaps. Immoderate use of drugs had led him to prison several times. An infamous legend clung to him; he was suspected of betraying his own drug suppliers to the police. This reputation as an informer plagued him with dealers; they all mistrusted him. Actually it was difficult to find the truth to this story, as Yeghen hadn’t bothered to clear himself. Whatever he was, Yeghen remained himself, full of humor and generosity, even in betrayal. His ability to disregard mental torment and pangs of conscience made him a delightful companion. He was never demeaned by the indignity of his acts; he accepted with fierce optimism all the abjectness that fate brought him. He was without dignity, but that didn’t prevent him from living. Gohar especially admired his true feeling for life: life without dignity. Just to be alive was enough to make him happy.

  Gohar smiled at the thought of El Kordi, at his exaggeration of his troubles, more fictitious than real, and his constant search for human dignity. “What is most futile in man,” he thought, “is this search for dignity.” All these people trying to maintain their dignity! For wha
t? The history of mankind is a long, bloody nightmare only because of such nonsense. As if the fact of being alive wasn’t dignity in itself. Only the dead are undignified. Gohar only valued living heroes. They, at least, were not burdened with dignity.

  There was no question of returning to his room; the mourners would be caught up in their demonic screams. The vision of those monstrous females in the midst of mercenary grief made him shiver. His head felt heavy, and his eyes began to close. The house had fallen into an insidious silence that seeped into Gohar like a narcotic. It if weren’t for his desire to see Yeghen arrive, he would have let himself go to sleep. Nevertheless, to collect himself, he closed his eyes and tried to overcome his growing uneasiness.

  A long moment passed; he didn’t hear the girl open the door.

  “You’re asleep?”

  Gohar opened his eyes. Arnaba was standing still in the doorway. The bright daylight that bathed her bedroom traced the lines of her firm, naked body through her dressing gown. Gohar hesitated, thought he was dreaming, then said, “No, I was only resting.”

  “I’d like you to write a letter for me,” said the girl.

  She now came toward him, still framed by the luminous doorway. As she advanced, the light around her faded, and soon the vision of her nakedness was swallowed by shadow. Gohar rubbed his eyes; he was extraordinarily aroused by this voluptuous apparition. The girl finally stopped before him, an enigmatic smile on her painted lips. She truly had the look of a depraved young girl.

  “Who is the letter to?”

  “To my uncle; he lives in the country. I haven’t written him since I arrived. He must be worried.”

  Gohar was silent. Just now it wasn’t an easy matter to write a letter; he couldn’t concentrate or hold a pencil. All the same, he hated to refuse a service. Arnaba sensed his hesitation and interpreted it in her way.