Taher’s face bore an expression of manifest displeasure, even repulsion; he was all shrunken up, like a man surrounded by rats. His comrade, the cobbler, had loaned him some sandals belonging to a client who had died, and his toes wiggled nervously under leather straps. He didn’t know how to begin. He hadn’t expected such a courteous reception, or the undeniable charm of his host, who, draped in his purple dressing gown, held court on the sofa across from him like a great lord receiving the respects of a humble visitor. Worst of all, Taher was conscious of his poverty, and for the first time in his life he felt the indignity of it. He was lost in this well-appointed bourgeois living room with its furniture gleaming with cleanliness, its gilded, red velvet — covered chairs in a hideous, outdated style that were for him — having spent his whole life in slums and prisons — the height of affluence and leisure. What Taher objected to was this opulence, rather than the man who was hosting him in his house — for Heykal’s ideas disconcerted him; he had to admit that he’d never encountered anyone like him. The man wasn’t one of the executioners and he wasn’t among the condemned. Somehow he fought power in his own way — a way that was an insult to those who paid for revolt with their blood. Taher couldn’t imagine the possibility of a revolution that lacked a certain dose of hatred, and he was growing impatient, since Heykal appeared to be without a trace of the vengeful anger inherent in every oppressed being. He seemed to recognize the bloody-minded stupidity of the adversary and even to rejoice in it. Taher was exasperated by his host’s calm simplicity; it offended his unflinching determination to fight or die. But maybe all this was only for show; maybe Heykal was just trying to seduce him, to lure him into his tenuous, fragile universe. Taher wasn’t going to let that happen. The whole purpose of being there was to deflate the pretensions of this aristocrat with his insinuating charm. Karim was courting disaster, and he had to save him.
“Heykal effendi,” he began. “I came here—”
“I know why you came,” Heykal interrupted, speaking in a soft voice, raising his hand in a gesture of peace. “That can wait. First let me simply enjoy the pleasure of your company.”
“What infinite generosity!” Taher resumed. “But that’s enough for now, I’m sorry to say. What I want is an explanation. I’ve already told this turncoat”—he pointed at Karim—“just what I think of what you’ve done. It’s a complete disaster. The police think we did it, and that’s an insult to our honor as revolutionaries. What kind of game do you think you’re playing?”
Heykal bore up under this brutal, but impulsively frank, attack with a smile of exquisite politeness. So Taher had come to defend his revolutionary honor! He didn’t want the police to take him for a joker — that was all he cared about. And what ardor and enthusiasm his voice revealed when it came to the insult to his honor! He needed those criminals to respect him! How pathetic for a rebel! Even he couldn’t break out of the vicious cycle of power. He played the game of honor and dishonor, just as he’d been taught to do. He’d never escape. He was more of a prisoner than a prisoner in a cell because he shared the same myths as his adversary; they grow and grow and surround everything like unbreachable walls. Heykal hoped that his gaze wasn’t too visibly ironic; he didn’t want to let his guest down.
“Games,” he said, looking pensive. “You’re right to talk about that. Because we’re all playing a game, aren’t we, Taher effendi? I profoundly regret that my game has given you offense and caused you trouble. But any man has the right to express his rebellion in his own way. Mine is what it is; at least it doesn’t harm the innocent.”
“How infantile!” Taher retorted disdainfully. “I don’t doubt your intelligence, Heykal effendi, not in the least. But excuse me if I tell you that you’re just having fun while the people are suffering from oppression. Fun is no way to fight. Violence must be met with violence. And forget about innocence!”
“Violence will never get to the bottom of this absurd world,” Heykal responded. “That’s just what these tyrants want: for you to take them seriously. To answer violence with violence shows that you take them seriously, that you believe in their justice and their authority, and it only builds them up. But I’m cutting them down.”
“I don’t see how! There is no historical basis to what you do — to your insipid farces!”
“How? It’s easy. By letting the tyrants lead the way and being even stupider than they are. How far will they go? Well, I’ll go farther. They’ll have to prove themselves the greatest buffoons of all! And my pleasure will be that much greater.”
“But the people!” cried Taher. “The poor people! You forget about them. They’re not laughing!”
“Teach them to laugh,” Taher effendi. “Now that is a noble cause.”
“I don’t know,” said Taher in a strangled voice. “I’ve never learned to laugh. And I don’t want to.”
He said it regretfully, as if ending a painful and impossible love. Heykal felt his happiness melt away. It was true Taher didn’t know how to laugh — one look at him and you could see it. In a state of constant tension about the battles to come, always plotting and scheming, worried out of his mind by the thought of the misery of the people — he was doomed to unhappiness. He was the perfect manager of the revolution. Nothing mattered apart from his job: that of a predestined savior, walled in by self-regard. Pure egotism! The worst kind of egotism, since by definition it depended on a multitude of other people — whole groups of people — in order to thrive and prosper!
“Well,” Heykal said, “I’m afraid the tyrants will make a fool of you. One of you is going to be the butt of a joke.”
“What nerve, Heykal effendi! Has it never occurred to you that we might actually defeat the tyrants?”
“I prefer a laughable tyrant to a dead one. The pleasure lasts longer.”
Taher wrung his hands and squirmed in his chair, convulsed with shame. He was certain that Heykal’s cynical paradox-mongering words were solely intended to humiliate him. Joy and pleasure — to dare to speak of such things to him, he who had known nothing but the exquisite pangs of hunger. Finally he was showing his true colors. Taher’s shame turned into indignation at the intolerable thought that this man, disguised as an apostle of pacifism, had conquered Karim with his tricks. Karim had a generous heart; had he sunk to the point of becoming an impostor’s accomplice? Taher glanced at his old comrade frantically, as if hoping for assistance in the name of some long-ago pact that no treachery could undo. But Karim appeared to take no note of his suffering. Almost gasping, a smile hovering on his lips, he had eyes only for Heykal, whose every word seemed to emerge from the mouth of an oracle. His subordination was complete. It made Taher sick.
“Don’t you have anything to say, you traitor!”
Karim turned toward his comrade, cut to the quick, torn from the state of ecstasy into which Heykal’s last reply had sent him.
“What am I supposed to say,” he replied angrily. “I’m in complete agreement with Heykal. A child would understand what he just said. But you, you’re deaf! You boast of your revolutionary honor like a pregnant woman displaying her belly! It’s painful to watch.”
“Look where your treachery has led you — you insult everybody you once held dear. You’re worth less than a dog!”
“Taher effendi, do not condemn my friend Karim,” interrupted Heykal. “Maybe he used to be different, but he has the right to change. Do you deny that thinking evolves?”
“But he doesn’t think at all,” exploded Taher. “He’s a hypocrite; I understand that now. He pretended to love the people for the pleasure of making fun of them. He betrayed them and he betrayed me at the same time!”