“I never discussed it with you, but I want you to know that I was greatly relieved when I learned the truth about your exemplary conduct during those years of absence. You don’t know how impatiently I waited for you to return. I cherished the hope that you would come back as pure and intransigent as you were before you left. I did not want to lose you.”
“You doubted my strength of character. And yet you knew me better than anyone. How could I have fallen short of your expectations?”
“Stronger men than you have been appropriated by power. I was right to fear for you.”
“I didn’t go over there to learn anything. I already knew everything I wanted to know. But it was essential for me to realize that deceit is rife everywhere.”
Medhat got out of his chair and took a few steps around the room. His agitation had subsided and he was reflecting calmly on their decision to keep their startling discovery to themselves. He had calculated all the risks, and even the possibility of their going to prison seemed a rather tempting experience.
“Even if we had to go to prison, I wouldn’t mind. On the contrary, it would be a change from our routine. You can meet fantastic sorts in prison.”
“I think we should tell Imtaz. I believe he’d share our view.”
“We’ll go to his house shortly. Then, tonight I intend to go to Wataniya’s. I want to kiss her hand and thank her for everything she has done and will do in this city.”
“Why would you want to kiss that horrible woman’s hand?”
“Wouldn’t you kiss the hand that rids you of the plague?”
“But this plague is endless. It would take more than those miserable assassinations. At this rate, it will take millions of years to get rid of it.”
“Patience, my dear Teymour. I agree that it’s a small-scale enterprise. But the bastards don’t get along among themselves and they’ll soon be killing each other from one end of the planet to another using vast and violent means. Still, we should not look down on those who are taking the initiative to begin the slaughter with their own meager means. The tiniest bomb that explodes somewhere should delight us, for behind the noise it makes when it explodes, even if barely audible, lies the laughter of a distant friend.”
The afternoon was coming to an end and the gloomy winter dusk was stealing over the city as they set off for the former actor’s house. Crossing the iron bridge, they were suddenly overcome with uncontrollable laughter and they began to run, turning in circles and chasing one another, filled with wonder at their freedom and as if intoxicated by the immensity of their fearsome secret. Soon, in the corner of the square, they came across a band of schoolboys kicking a ball around, and they heaped curses on them for participating in this stupid game that had been promoted as the ultimate social activity by government propaganda and that was responsible for a large portion of the mental deficiency of the people. Now the statue of the peasant woman in her stylized dress towered before them and, as night fell, her raised arm no longer seemed to be asking the nation to awaken from slavery; rather, it seemed to call down her anathema upon the infamous powers that extended far, very far throughout the world.
Note from the Translator
The original title of this work is Un complot de saltimbanques. “Saltimbanque” is a lovely word, and Cossery, who carefully chose all his words, used it in this book in a variety of ways. The literal translation would be something along the lines of “street artist” or “street entertainer”; you can see images of saltimbanques in Picasso’s “rose period” painting from 1905 entitled Family of Saltimbanques. The description of this painting that appears on the National Art Gallery’s website reads in part:
“From late 1904 to the beginning of 1906, Picasso’s work centered on a single theme: the saltimbanque, or itinerant circus performer. The theme of the circus and the circus performer had a long tradition in art and in literature, and had become especially prominent in French art of the late nineteenth century. Circus performers were regarded as social outsiders, poor but independent. As such, they provided a telling symbol for the alienation of avant-garde artists such as Picasso. Indeed, it has been suggested that the Family of Saltimbanques serves as an autobiographical statement, a covert group portrait of Picasso and his circle.”
Except in the title, then, which was chosen by the publisher, I have retained the word in French wherever Cossery uses it. It existed in English at one point as “saltimbank,” but whereas the Romance languages have kept it, it seems sadly to have fallen out of favor in English, like a trapeze artist tumbling from her trapeze, without a net.
I would like to offer my thanks to the co-conspirators/saltimbanques who helped make this translation possible, or better:
To Donald Nicholson Smith, Sarah Barbedette, Barbara Epler; to Guy Walter, Adélaide Fabre, Isabelle Vio, Emmanuelle Bellissard, and Cédric Duroux of the Villa Gillet; to Mona de Pracontal; to Bassem Shahin; to Liz McGill; to the Centre national du livre; to Fabrice Gabriel, Anne-Sophie Hermil, and Mathilde Billaud of the Book Office of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York.
And finally, thanks, as always, to my parents, Connie and Elmer Waters, and to Gwenaël and Margot Kerlidou, my loves, my life.
— Alyson Waters