“What’s going on?” asked El Kordi.
“I’ll explain everything to you in a minute. Sit down. Above all, be quiet.”
El Kordi shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his tarboosh, and looked over at the couch; the girls were still pressed against Set Amina, now confined to mute despair. At the sight of Naila, her face pale and ravaged by tears, he recovered his passionate fire and rushed toward her. He already saw himself in the role of defender, saving her from the clutches of the police.
“Make room for me.”
The girls pressed together a little to give him room; El Kordi sat down next to Naila, took her hand, and held it tightly. But this touching attention didn’t seem to comfort the young woman. On the contrary, her lover’s presence seemed to irritate her and even to add to her distress. For Naila had dignity! Ed Kordi’s schemes — eccentric and impracticable — to remove her from a cheap whore’s life exasperated her. She was realistic enough to know that El Kordi was incapable of saving anyone. Sometimes she wondered if he were sincere, or if he weren’t playacting. Besides, she didn’t want to owe her life to anyone. Her relations with El Kordi degenerated into arguments each time he mentioned his desire to see her leave this degrading life.
“Tell me, girls,” asked El Kordi, “what is this raid in honor of?”
“It’s not a raid,” explained Salima. “Arnaba was murdered.”
“Murdered! How and where?”
“This afternoon. She was strangled on her bed.”
The announcement of this crime left El Kordi stunned for a moment, then his tragic sense awoke, and he took on the air of someone highly conscious of the drama around him. He looked at Naila, touched her as if to assure himself of her presence, and felt his heart gripped with pity. “It might have been her!” The thought filled him with sadness, and he did his best to cry. But all this lasted only an instant. Then he began to look with growing interest at the inspector, the recording clerk, the two policemen — the whole machinery of justice. Curiosity had replaced his anguish; unconsciously, he now thought only of enjoying himself.
“Have they arrested the killer?”
“No,” answered Naila.
“What a frightful story!” said El Kordi. “When I think that it could have been you.”
“That would have been a happy event; no one would have cried for me.”
“Don’t say such nonsense. I will never leave you alone, my darling. From now on, I will always be close to you.”
“By Allah! You’re the one talking nonsense. What will happen to the ministry deprived of your superior mind?”
“The ministry can go to hell! I’ve found another way to make money. I’ll tell you about it later.”
The medical examiner returned, looking less feverish. Nevertheless, he seemed anxious, still under the influence of a carnal vision that would affect his life.
“Nothing new?” the inspector asked.
“For the moment, nothing,” answered the examiner. “I’ll send you my report after the autopsy tomorrow. I’m going now. Peace be with you.”
“Would the good doctor like a cup of coffee?” offered Set Amina. “You can’t leave like that. By Allah! Do us the honor.”
“Thank you very much,” he replied. “But really, I’m in a hurry; another time.”
“Tell me, woman!” Nour El Dine exploded. “When will you understand that this is not a courtesy call. I already told you to be quiet.”
“Very well, Excellency. I understand. After all, I’m only doing my job; I wanted to be pleasant.”
“Shall we start the questioning?” asked the clerk.
Nour El Dine looked at him vacantly, as if he didn’t understand. What questioning? He had totally forgotten that abject, ridiculous comedy. Still, he would have to begin; routine demanded it. It was especially this dirty, depressingly ugly clerk who sickened him. Nour El Dine dreamed of a beautiful young man for his clerk; with this sinister fellow, justice made no sense.
He motioned for one of the customers to approach, the so-called friend of the minister. The man stood up and marched toward the inspector with a robot’s jerky step, mumbling unintelligible words. He was a skinny fellow wearing a threadbare suit and a dirty, crumpled tarboosh. He planted himself reproachfully before the inspector.
“You can’t do this to me,” he cried. “You don’t know who I am.”
“Shut up,” Nour El Dine said calmly.
“You don’t know who I am, I tell you.”
“And I’m telling you to shut up. Only answer when I ask you to.”
“Me, shut up! Never. When you know who I am, you will beg my forgiveness.” He pounded his chest as if to show his importance.
“Well! Let’s be done with it. Tell me who you are,” Nour El Dine brought himself to ask.
The man breathed deeply and said in a voice trembling with pride, “I am a debt collector.”
For a moment El Kordi looked at the scene without fully grasping its burlesque side. He had an intuition that somewhere the mechanism of humor had been set in motion, but he remained a stranger to the thing, still refusing to understand. For a few seconds he hesitated to laugh, then suddenly, all the absurdity of the situation, all the savor contained in this professional pride burst on him, and he broke into an irrepressible laugh.
The so-called friend of the minister stopped gesticulating and shouting; he seemed to be struck with horror, as if El Kordi’s laugh had flayed his noble dignity. This new insult left him without a reply. He glared at El Kordi in complete incomprehension. The thought that anyone could laugh at him — a debt collector! — was an unspeakable outrage.
No one besides El Kordi laughed; moreover, no one understood the reason for this hilarity. At the very least, it seemed improper. To laugh in a house where a murder had just taken place, and in the middle of a police investigation, could only be the act of a madman. Naila herself was shocked by her lover’s unwonted impropriety. All of her supplications for him to be quiet were in vain. The young man seemed incapable of controlling the joyful delirium that possessed him; each time he looked at the fellow, he broke into new bursts of laughter.
As for the debt collector, he had draped himself in his dignity, waiting for the end of this explosion in order to resume his speech. He still understood nothing. Only Nour El Dine was able to appreciate El Kordi’s laughter; he too would have gladly laughed had he not been at the center of this grotesque discussion. He suspected that the laughter was also aimed at him, and he wasn’t in the mood to be laughed at.
“You, stop laughing!” he said. “We’re not in a brothel.”
“But we are, Excellency! We are in a brothel,” El Kordi answered, laughing even more.
Nour El Dine acknowledged the blow; he had just committed a monumental blunder. Boiling with rage, he shut up. It was true they were in a brothel. What was he thinking? At any rate, he would take revenge on this extravagant young man. He decided he would pay him back when it was his turn to be questioned.
During this interlude, the debt collector had recovered his arrogance.
“So now do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Where are you a debt collector?” the inspector asked.
“Listen, good people!” cried the debt collector, taking the audience as his witness. “What does he mean, ‘where’? I collect debts everywhere. You’ve never seen a debt collector?”
“Like you, no!” Nour El Dine admitted.
“Inspector, I protest against these insults. Furthermore, I intend to complain to the minister.”
Nour El Dine saw that he must act quickly or he would never get rid of this wretched person. All the machinery of justice was at stake; this interrogation was incontestably degenerating into vaudeville. He couldn’t risk allowing this fanatic to continue his buffoonery. Brusquely, he stood up and slapped the alleged debt collector twice with terrible force. The man spun around, uttering a little cry, then covered his face with his arms. But he was too late: Nour El Dine had already sat back down and was looking at him with hatred. All this had taken place in a second.