“Of course it wasn’t me. What are you imagining? I didn’t kill anyone.”
Frowning, he reflected with Naila’s head resting on his shoulder. So she had suspected him of being the perpetrator of the crime. El Kordi was dismayed, but what most unsettled him was the diabolical idea that had begun to sprout in his brain. What if he let her think that he was the young prostitute’s murderer! What was he risking? It was an unexpected chance to clothe himself in romantic glory, to play the part of a shadowy hero.
He was so happy with his idea that he began to think of making love. Without moving he started to nibble at the young girl’s ear while murmuring joyous obscenities to her.
When he was ready to take her, Naila looked in his eyes and said, “Swear to me that it wasn’t you.”
“I swear to you. Now don’t worry. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
But there was something like an invitation to doubt in the tone of his voice, an evident desire not to be believed. Naila was so clearly aware of this that the blood froze in her veins; for a long time she remained inert and rigid in his arms.
7
THE SORDIDNESS of the decor made him all the more sensitive to his feeling of having fallen low. This pastry shop was truly ignoble, but it had the advantage of being situated within the native quarter, in an area frequented only by stray dogs and the dregs of society. It was an ideal spot for the kind of meeting Nour El Dine was fond of; he’d chosen this one over several others to shelter his clandestine loves. Here, at least, he risked no indiscretion. True, his young friends didn’t share his point of view at all; they were scarcely happy to be invited to this unsavory hole that Nour El Dine persisted in calling a pastry shop, where they were served inedible cakes. Where was the pleasure? They wondered if Nour El Dine wanted to mortify them, and they strove to understand why. As a result, these rendezvous took on a sinister air, conducive to unhappy endings. Nour El Dine himself felt uneasy in these squalid surroundings. He deplored the circumstances that obliged him to hide as if he were a conspirator. But how else could he go about it? His police inspector’s uniform didn’t make things any easier; everywhere he went, he felt himself to be the target of all eyes. He would surely have been less noticeable walking around stark naked.
For greater safety, Nour El Dine had chosen a table at the rear of the shop. Seated across from him, young Samir maintained a stubborn, almost premeditated silence; since his arrival he hadn’t opened his mouth. On the table were two small plates each holding a vile-looking pastry. Neither man had yet touched his. It was always like this: they only ordered the pastry for the sake of appearances. They would have to be truly famished or at the end of their resources to resign themselves to ingesting that abomination.
“You’re not eating,” Nour El Dine finally said to break the silence.
That was the wrong thing to say. Young Samir quivered with disgust and glared at Nour El Dine with stinging contempt.
“You want me to eat that? Really, Inspector, what do you take me for?”
“Forgive me, my dear Samir. I said that without thinking. I beg you, don’t touch it.”
“I swear you’re doing it on purpose!”
“What?”
“Inviting me to such a disgusting place!”
“I’ve already explained it to you. I cannot permit myself to go places where I risk meeting acquaintances.”
“Why? Are you ashamed of me?”
“That’s not it, as you know very well. My dear Samir, please understand. It’s as painful for me as it is for you to stay here, but circumstances demand it.”
Samir broke into a sarcastic laugh.
“Circumstances! That’s what you call it — circumstances?”
“I beg you, calm down.”
Samir resumed his sullen expression and said nothing more. Nour El Dine’s basely conciliatory attitude filled him with disgust. He was an eighteen-year-old young man with fine, regular features not lacking a certain virile charm. He was bareheaded and wearing an open-collared shirt and a well-cut sports coat that denoted his bourgeois origins. He had none of the effeminate mannerisms that characterized most inverts; in fact, he wasn’t one at all. His relations with Nour El Dine had nothing to do with passion or lucre; they were based on a feeling of wild, irrevocable hatred. This hatred was not merely an antipathy for Nour El Dine’s person; what Samir especially hated in Nour El Dine were the principles of the conformist morality from which Samir had suffered so much in his family and of which the police inspector seemed to be the perfect incarnation. After his father, the procurator — that righteous murderer — Nour El Dine was the person he most hated. To have in his power such an active representative of this tribe of hypocrites, to see him unmasking himself and wallowing in the basest passion, gave Samir an almost sadistic pleasure. Thus, his meetings with Nour El Dine were only meant to allow him to deepen his hatred, to get to know its multiple ramifications.
Several months ago, unbeknownst to his family, he had quit the university, where he had been studying law, with the intention of studying life, not in books but in the daily practice of the streets.
Nour El Dine couldn’t understand why the young man agreed to see him. That was still a mystery to him. So far he hadn’t managed to sleep with him, or even to gain his confidence. The arguments he usually employed to pull off this kind of conquest had only succeeded in stimulating the young man’s scathing irony. Samir defended himself by making sarcastic remarks with remarkable intelligence and cunning. That was the difficulty with him: he was too intelligent. Sometimes Nour El Dine had the impression that Samir was openly making fun of him, and that he came to see him only with the intention of provoking him.
“I’m sorry,” Nour El dine said contritely. “I know this place isn’t worthy of you. But why don’t you want to come to my apartment? We could talk much more easily there.”
“Talk! What an obvious trap, Inspector. Do you take me for a child?”
“Really, my dear Samir, you insult me. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” answered the young man, casting Nour El Dine a look filled with hatred. “But I will not come to your place.”
Nour El Dine grew pale under the shock of this hate-filled gaze. To be sure, he expected to contend with a certain aversion, even to suffer some wounds to his self-respect, but he never thought he would encounter such an exorbitant feeling as hatred in this distinguished young man. It was an obstacle he had not expected. Bewildered, he put his hand to his forehead like a man struck with a mortal pang. Nonetheless, he didn’t forget his critical situation. He continually kept glancing toward the door, fearing to see an acquaintance enter. This fear was stupid. None of his acquaintances would come to this sordid pastry shop. The two of them were quite alone, relegated to the borders of the world, escaping all gazes. Even the owner turned his back to them. He presided over the counter set up at the entrance to the shop, chasing away innumerable flies and vaunting the delights of his despicable merchandise to passersby. Most of his customers ate their pastry standing in the street; some of them took it away wrapped in a piece of newspaper. They were silent people, fallen into such decay that they seemed to be alive by a kind of miracle. Nour El Dine couldn’t quite believe in their reality. He closed his eyes, reopened them, contemplated the young man facing him, and sighed.
The pastries abandoned on the plates had attracted a swarm of flies. Samir tried vainly to chase them away; they whirled around, swooped down on his face, and nearly got into his eyes.
“These damned flies are going to kill me,” he said furiously. “Let’s get out of here.”