“I see,” said Imtaz. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. We live in a world where everything is false.”
“I know. And it wasn’t my scruples that stopped me. A few days ago I was still willing to accept the job at the refinery. You can imagine that the prospect of living in this city after six years abroad seemed worse than death to me: what more could I have done for myself — better to be swallowed up by the daily grind and forget my misery — but now I have a feeling that I must remain totally available. It’s as if I’m waiting for something. But what it is I’m waiting for, I cannot explain.”
Teymour fell silent and looked at Imtaz as if he held the key to all the mysteries that flourished in the city. But Imtaz was incapable of perceiving the question in Teymour’s gaze; his myopia made him impervious to this kind of quiet desperation.
“I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I had thought for a moment that we were going to lose you.”
“Lose me?”
“That diploma was somewhat of a challenge to my affection. I must confess that I expect nothing from someone with the mentality of a chemical engineer embarking on a career as a conscientious and responsible civil servant. That certainly would have come between us.”
“You thought I had a real diploma,” said Teymour with a hint of reproach in his voice.
“Forgive me. It was’t very shrewd of me. I should have realized that a man such as you has no use for a diploma.”
“A man such as I has nonetheless committed a serious error. I came back here. With a little courage, I could have managed otherwise. And my cowardice is costing me dearly.”
Imtaz moved slowly, as if against his will, and returned to sit across from his guest. He hated playing the teacher, the most outmoded role of all. What he had to say to Teymour now was based on a simplistic idea, one that could seem insignificant and trite if he did not manage to infuse it with enough brotherly warmth to guarantee its true magnitude. Imtaz had no need to simulate this warmth; he felt it so violently that it burst forth from each of his words. From the moment he had seen Teymour again, Imtaz had been charmed by the young man he had known as a teenager and who wore the signs of his fleeting triumph in the reputed dives of the West with a kind of sad nobility. Now, his esteem and tenderness for Teymour had only increased, learning how casually he had bought himself a diploma, the way one buys a melon at the grocer’s, thereby rejecting all the hallowed notions attached to this piece of paper. It was an important revelation, for it indicated a nature hungry for joy, far removed from any preconceived ambitions. Imtaz could see that Teymour was anxious and uncertain about the questionable future the city held in store for him, and he would have liked to cheer him up with his own optimism and affection.
“I am more sensitive than anyone to your distress,” he said, “but I am sure you will get over it easily. Life is the same everywhere.”
He pronounced these last words with difficulty, as if he were ashamed of proclaiming such an obvious truth.
“The same everywhere!” exclaimed Teymour. “How can you say that, Imtaz my brother! You have lived in the capital; you know very well that life there is completely different.”
“There is no difference to a critical mind, for it can find sustenance for its joy everywhere.”
“Even in this town! You’ve got to be joking.”
“I’m talking about mankind. When you live among men, they will always offer you the spectacle of their sordid appetites and their idiocies. It’s an incessant stage show, supremely pleasing to the lucid observer. And it is the same everywhere.”
“But men’s lives are not the same everywhere. And that, for me, is where all the difference lies.”
“That’s an illusion as well. You are still blinded by the ways of a boisterous, eclectic world. This is a small city. So the comedy takes place on a reduced scale and is played without pomp. You have to seek life below the surface — you can’t stop at appearances. With patience and love, amazing things can be discovered.”
“You’re asking too much of me,” said Teymour wearily. “I have neither patience nor love at the moment. I think the only thing left for me to do is to move to the countryside.”
“What a nightmare!” cried Imtaz. “There’s nothing gloomier than nature. You’ll only lose your sense of humor in the country. Unable to criticize the trees, your intelligence will lose its edge as you contemplate the plowed fields, and then, it’ll be very easy for you to sing the praises of your fellow men because you won’t be here to see and listen to them. Don’t make that mistake. You should never cut yourself off from mankind because, with distance, you’re more likely to grant men extenuating circumstances. I love you too much to let you succumb to that weakness.”
The afternoon was drawing to a close and the sky was growing darker through the windows, plunging the room into a hazy gloom from which the mute shapes of the furniture emerged. Imtaz could barely see anything around him. He felt as if he were sitting in a cemetery, alone among the tombstones, addressing his precepts to a ghost. Moving like a sleepwalker, he rose and flicked a switch; then he remained standing with his lovely profile defying the mirror in the distance, dazzled by the partial return of his eyesight and the clarity of the familiar outlines beneath the lamplight. This sudden light drew Teymour out of his dream of a bucolic escape. He gazed at Imtaz, eyes moist with gratitude, and said in a quiet voice filled with emotion:
“I know you’re trying to help me, and I thank you for your concern.”
“My concern,” said Imtaz, “is in direct relation to my feelings of friendship for you. From now on you are part of the love and joy that governs our existence in this city. We would be in despair if we were to lose you.”
“I am deeply touched. But I am afraid I won’t be able to contribute much to your goal.”
“And I am sure of the opposite. You’ll see. Stop cursing this city; it has surprises in store for you.”
“The first and most wondrous is your friendship! It’s making me believe in other surprises.”
“Come,” said Imtaz, “I must get dressed now. I want to take you to Chawki’s tonight. You’ve got to meet that man.”
“That bastard!” Teymour protested.
“Bastards are the salt of the earth,” Imtaz replied. “And Chawki is a genius of a bastard. Let us not deny this bunch the opportunity to entertain us.”
Imtaz disappeared into his bedroom and came out ten minutes later dressed, as always, with discretion and elegance. He resembled one of those refined portraits of him that had appeared in theater magazines at the time of his notoriety. Walking toward Teymour, he held out to him an old gold pocketwatch, its delicately carved case inlaid with rubies, and said simply:
“Allow me to offer you this gift in friendship.”
Teymour took the watch and looked at it with increasing wonder.
“It’s much too valuable,” he stammered. “I cannot accept it.”
“Its value is mostly sentimental and that’s why I’d like you to have it. It belonged to my deceased father. I’d like you to be his heir, just as I am. Aren’t you my brother?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Teymour replied humbly.
“Don’t say anything. Accept it, and you will make me happy. Come on, let’s go now.”
Trembling with emotion, Teymour slid the watch into his vest pocket, stared at Imtaz in silence, nodded as a sign that he had understood and then headed decisively toward the apartment door.
It was obvious that the city’s residents had no intention of increasing the prestige of the evil sorcerer responsible for the disappearance of several prominent citizens by playing into his hands with nighttime strolls. As soon as dusk set in, they deserted the badly lit streets to shut themselves in at home and take stock, in the calm and security provided by locked doors, of the disasters occurring outside. The fact that until now all the victims had been rich did nothing to allay the fears of the poor. There was nothing to prove that, in the dim shadows, the infamous abductor had the ability to discern an individual’s economic status before attacking him. Only the shopkeepers — a notoriously greedy race — dared leave their doors open during these nerve-racking hours; they felt that their merchandise provided them with a protective shield. From time to time one could see the smoking torches of a few street peddlers sleepily pushing their carts in anticipation of potential customers. The fleeting outline of the occasional passerby, either a reveler or a beggar, sometimes appeared, crossing the bleached zone of a streetlamp. In this lugubrious atmosphere, Teymour fell prey to wild thoughts. The mystery that hung over the city, these houses with their closed shutters, these soundless streets, these thick black clouds sweeping across the night sky all made him feel as if he were on the threshold of a strange and incomparable adventure. His companion’s presence encouraged his phantasmagoric tendencies: Imtaz was advancing at Teymour’s side holding him firmly by the arm; he seemed to communicate through this contact the warmth of his friendship, all the while guiding Teymour through the labyrinth of the night of fascinating horrors opening, infinite, before them.