“I do,” he said. “I’ve always noticed. You’re right. There are unsuspected beauties in this city.”
Rezk seemed to hesitate; then he said, with the embarrassment of a young girl confessing her passion to a stranger:
“Do you know that I was thinking of you a while ago?”
“You fill me with honor! May I ask why?”
“Precisely in regard to this city. I know you like it here. You are the only person among my acquaintances who seems to love this city with all his heart. It’s as if you had found an inexhaustible source of joy here. I confess that for a long time this seemed incomprehensible to me. I realize now that I was simply blind.”
“My dear Rezk, not every man is capable of appreciating what is around him. Most men imagine they will find what they are seeking somewhere else, and yet it is right in front of them, laid out under their very eyes.”
“I, too, was like that. But I had an excuse, and I can tell you what it was. It was my hatred of one man that blinded me. This hatred weighed on me like a curse. It took me years to put it out my mind.”
“What do you mean?”
Rezk giggled, as if Medhat must already have known the answer and had merely asked the question to be polite.
“I realized that this man was no more than a buffoon.”
“It took you so many years to figure that out! But all men are buffoons. Bloodthirsty buffoons, but buffoons nonetheless. Well, congratulations.”
So that was the explanation. Medhat did not ask who it was who had deserved such dogged hate. It could be anyone. The majority of humanity was quite obviously hateful to anyone who had once indulged in a belief in mankind. And poor Rezk had believed, inevitably.
“I was sure you would understand.”
“Why were you so sure? You don’t really know anything about me. We’ve never had the chance to talk.”
“You don’t know it, but I am aware of many things that have to do with you. In truth, I have great admiration for you and your friends. I consider you to be the only living beings in this city.”
“Why, then, did you always avoid me? Was I ever disdainful or indifferent to you?”
“Quite the opposite. You have always been remarkably noble. I admit the fault is mine. But I wasn’t avoiding you. It’s just that circumstances were not favorable. And it was a matter of conscience. I was reluctant to commit an act of disloyalty. ”
Now that the mystery of Rezk’s bizarre behavior had been cleared up, Medhat would have liked to urge his companion to be more open, and to take advantage of his confessional mood to force out of him some hint as to the mental state of the police who suspected him and his friends of being dangerous revolutionaries. Rezk was the one who’d been appointed to keep an eye on them and he was aware of almost everything they’d done. Why, then, did Hillali, knowing their innocence, persist in believing they were plotting against the government? This was one of the police chief’s many eccentricities that Medhat had long wanted to comprehend. But he had to act prudently and above all not scare off the young man with questions that were too forthright.
“I don’t see where the disloyalty is,” he said with mischievous simplicity.
“One day I’ll tell you everything, and I hope you will forgive me.”
Rezk’s tone had become serious, and the joyful flame in his eyes had gone out. Medhat took pity on him; he smiled and once again patted him on the shoulder.
“I know everything, Rezk, my brother! And I have nothing to forgive you for.”
Rezk’s countenance showed neither surprise nor the mortifying pallor of someone accused of treason, but rather an air of sweet deliverance, as if at last the mask had fallen and he could now show his true face. With a kind of calm resignation, he said:
“So, you knew. I should have realized it.”
“Yes, I knew you were working for the police. But it doesn’t matter! I also know what a man is reduced to in order to earn his daily bread. Your profession is no different from any other. By whatever means you participate in this despicable world, even by the tiniest job, you inevitably betray someone. We live in a society based on betrayal. That’s why your job as an informant never seemed dishonorable to me. I’ve always liked you.”
“I don’t understand. You knew what I did and yet you did not despise me!”
“One’s got to survive. In any case, you couldn’t harm us. You have too much integrity to tell the police chief nonsense, like an ordinary informant filling his report with unverifiable rubbish in order to make himself look good. You could only tell the truth. With you, we were sure to be able to prove our good behavior. You were in a position to know we weren’t plotting against the government in any way.”
“That’s what I always told the police chief. But he never wanted to believe me. He claimed I was too naïve when I’d say that all you were thinking about was sleeping with girls and having a good time.”
“And this didn’t seem odd to you?”
Rezk turned around slowly and leaned his elbows on the parapet, then began to look at the river in silence. He had thought a lot about the question preoccupying Medhat and he had reached the conclusion that the police chief, for personal reasons, had decided that this city was concealing a revolutionary organization. Hillali’s insistence on supporting his hypothesis about a plot hatched by these young men to overthrow the government could only stem from some mental decline caused by his thwarted ambition. This cruel and cynical analysis of a man whom he revered shocked Rezk’s sense of honor, but he found himself forced into this ultimate betrayal. He felt obligated to give Medhat an explanation that would clarify his true role in the whole affair and exonerate him from eternal shame. He was convinced that this explanation would meet with Medhat’s approval, since Medhat was by nature prone to admiring the absurd side of all human undertakings.
“I think you are his drug.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sure you know that he was assigned to this city only a few years ago. Before, he held an important position in the capital. So the old man is bored. He can’t get used to it here.”
“Don’t tell me he’s inventing conspiracies to amuse himself!”
“No, not exactly. He thinks his job as chief of police in a small city like ours is a disgrace and a travesty. He is a man of superior intelligence who constantly needs to put his intellectual faculties to the test. Ordinary thieves and murderers don’t interest him; in his job, that sort of delinquent can only offer him the sad privilege of investigating the basest instincts of the rabble. He would like to be able to fight more refined criminals, ones motivated not by lucre but by some political ideaclass="underline" an invisible and crafty enemy advocating disorder and violence worthy of his deliberation. I don’t think his goal is a selfish one, or that he wants to take credit for some spectacular action by quashing a conspiracy in the hopes of earning the government’s gratitude. I know him well enough to be sure that he is very contemptuous of the men in power. His only aim is to dwell in a place inhabited by living souls. In his mind, a city without revolutionaries is a dead city, or simply a city without history.”
“Does he realize how absurd that is?”
“No, not at all. He truly believes there is a conspiracy. It’s even his main preoccupation.”
“How extraordinary! I am enchanted by what you’ve just told me. I suspected something, but I never imagined that. Tell me, does he also think we are responsible for the notables’ disappearance?”