“We must agree on something in the end. I’m not going to stay here all night, despite the pleasure I find in your company. I am a businessman and my time is precious. Kindly tell me what it is you require to return the letter to me.”
“I’ve already told you; I don’t want a thing. I have this letter on me and it will never leave me. It is my amulet. Since I found it, I no longer fear anything. I’ll let you be the judge: the very day I picked it up on the sidewalk, a taxi that was driving by as usual with the hope of doing away with a few pedestrians almost mowed me down. I realized then that I had been saved from a horrible death by the magic radiating from this letter.”
“The nerve! I forbid you to fool around with my letter!”
Ossama opened his shirt and exhibited a leather case hanging around his neck on a thin silver chain.
“Your letter is here. I’m still too young for my honor to be credible. So I am counting on you and your honor, which has been legitimated and recognized by all the authorities, to serve as my alibi should anything go wrong.”
Suleyman was overcome with anger; his face became swollen and took on a greenish cast. He looked like a balloon inflated with the breath of hell. He leaned over the table and, in a voice that threatened Ossama and, beyond him, all the rebels of the planet, said:
“Tell me, Prince. Are you not a thief?”
Ossama stood up, bowed ceremoniously, and answered in a humble voice filled with contrition:
“A very small thief compared to you, Excellency!”
Nimr burst out laughing, and his laughter was like no other — a revolutionary laughter, the laughter of someone who has just discovered the ignoble and grotesque face of the powerful of this world.