“It’s quite possible,” he said with conviction. “I’ll do my best, Excellency, to find out who this girl is.”
“Watch out for yourself. If they suspected what you’re up to, they’d be capable of killing you. Act circumspectly. I would hold myself responsible if something were to happen to you.”
Suddenly they heard the sound of footsteps and almost at the same time the figure of a man turning out of an alleyway appeared with the unreality of a ghost in the sliver of a streetlamp’s light. Hillali and Rezk stood still, speechless. Walking some ten yards in front of them with the wavering gait of a drunkard who’s had more than he can handle, the man seemed doomed to an ephemeral fate — a fleeting vision in the noiseless night. When he arrived beneath the streetlamp, he stopped and pulled from his pants pocket an object at which he glanced rapidly as if he simply wanted to reassure himself that it was still in his possession, then moved off into the distance, staggering toward an unlit zone. He reappeared a little farther away, in the pale light of another streetlamp, and began to look in every direction, wheeling around with panicky gestures as if seeking his way through a maze. He could be heard pouring out curses in a muffled voice, then softly singing the words of a sweetly moving popular tune. Still, he did not appear to be a beggar; rather, he was a young man dressed decently and even with some refinement. This was what alarmed Hillali, for it was this type of individual he expected to see loom out of the oppressive night: a revolutionary clothed in the showy rags of the bourgeoisie — the ultimate disguise in which to appear innocuous — ready to massacre the entire world. But this man was at odds with any system of belief. His uncanny, debilitating drunkenness placed him in the class of outcasts and implied a massive dose of desperation.
Rezk had recognized the young drunkard.
“Who is that?” asked Hillali. “Do you know him?”
“Yes,” replied Rezk. “He’s a young man who has been in the city for a few days. He’s just come into an inheritance.”
“What inheritance?”
“His aunt, who was from here, bequeathed him some money when she died. He’s come to collect it.”
“Is he planning on living here?”
“I don’t think so. He’s a veterinary student. He’s studying in the capital. His name is Samaraï. I don’t know anything else about him.”
“A student. Is he in touch with the others?”
Rezk would have wanted to keep silent about Samaraï’s relationship with the suspect group, but under the noble and inquisitive gaze of the police chief, he found it painful to lie.
“The city is small. They must have run into each other. I’ve seen them once or twice together.”
“You never mentioned this Samaraï to me. Why?”
“I didn’t see the point. He was supposed to return to the capital once he got his inheritance.”
“So why didn’t he leave?”
“Maybe he missed his train.”
“You’re talking nonsense, my son! Several trains leave for the capital every day. He stayed for a particular reason and one that I assume has to do with this business that’s on our minds. I will at least have learned something about this individual during our stroll tonight.”
Rezk did not know what more to say. In the end all this was becoming tedious. Once again Hillali was going back to his mania for relating everything to a plot against the government. Rezk knew about Samaraï’s affair and consequently was aware of the ties that kept the veterinary student in the city. But this too-simple explanation would certainly have trouble penetrating the skeptical and suspicious mind of the police chief. So Rezk tried to find a more rational motive for Samaraï’s prolonged stay in such an uninviting province.
“Maybe he hasn’t got his inheritance yet? I’ve heard that some heirs wait for years for their money and often die in poverty.”
“I don’t believe it for a minute. This young man’s behavior is shady to say the least. First he hangs around this city instead of going back to the capital and getting on with his studies. Then he spends his nights getting drunk and lurking about the streets as if he were protected from unpleasant encounters. Did you see the object he took out of his pocket? He looked at it anxiously, as if it were some dangerous thing he wanted to get rid of.”
“In any case it wasn’t a bomb,” said Rezk without thinking. “It was too small to have been a bomb.”
“How would you know? A carefully made bomb can be the size of a pinhead and still do a great deal of damage. There is nothing that proves that this veterinary student — and why did he choose this field, I wonder? — isn’t carrying one in his pocket. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were part of the plot. Follow him. And give me your report tomorrow.”
“As you wish, Excellency.”
“Try not to catch cold,” said Hillali with a touch of fatherly affection, as if he felt remorse sending his companion to an almost certain death.
Samaraï was in an advanced state of drunkenness, but alcohol was only one act in his tragedy since the afternoon’s break-up with Salma. This apparently definitive break-up, coming after a long series of arguments, had destroyed his vital reflexes, reducing him to nothing more than a human wreck devoid of any instinct for self-preservation. With no experience in the inconstancies of love and the suitable remedies for them, Samaraï was suffering from having been brutally wrenched from his sensual pleasures, like a fatally wounded animal unable to express its suffering except with squeals. His relations with Salma had suffered from a dismal lack of understanding since that momentous evening when he had caused a scandal by attacking Chawki, his mistress’s protector, with his shoe. The assault, described as “stupid” by everyone in attendance, had disrupted a very pleasant gathering, and had also increased the implacable animosity Salma felt toward all men in general, and toward Samaraï in particular, as if he were now the prototype for the whole nasty crew. She no longer spoke to him except to respond to his slightest touch with curses, and seemed to fly into a rage as soon as she saw him in her vicinity. In reality, the young woman’s reckless outbursts served to release the resentment that had built up in her since Chawki had abandoned her; since the notorious shoe incident that had almost put out one of his eyes, Chawki had not reappeared. Although he got off with only a slight lump on his temple, Chawki — with the excuse of a head injury that doomed him to an early death — had found the pretext to disentangle himself from his obligations to his mistress and to stop the allowance he had been paying since their amicable separation. The defection of her loathsome protector, apart from its financial implications, was intolerable to Salma’s pride and had the disadvantage of depriving her of a vengeance perpetually fueled by new grievances; she felt robbed of the presence of a reliable enemy from a superior social class, and for whom she had a solid respect. And so she took out all her spiteful anger on poor Samaraï—a mediocre and insubstantial character in her personal tragedy — and used him as a pale substitute for the veritable object of her hatred. The worst was that she refused to sleep with Samaraï and he, with his primitive, unsubtle mind, grasping at the adage that a guest is due every consideration in the home of his host, became more passionate as he was confronted by the exemptions — which offended his sense of hospitality — from this rule. He had tried to drown his sorrow in alcohol while continuing to harass Salma and begging her to leave with him for the capital, describing it as a place of endless delights where they would be happy and fruitful. These tendentiously alluring descriptions of their future life together affected the young woman like those terrifying bedtime stories that prevent children from falling asleep. So that afternoon, while Samaraï was spouting his monstruous plans for their future, Salma spit all her scorn in his face, enjoining him to vanish from sight and go make love to one of those mangy beasts with which he had become acquainted through his studies. This last insult relating to his profession had oddly excited Samaraï, as if Salma’s allusions to bestial love had awakened in his unconscious an unexplored form of eroticism. He had thrown himself at her to rape her, with all the ardor and clumsy weight of a bull toiling away for the preservation of the species. In the struggle that ensued, Salma defended herself like a virgin being attacked by an army of roughneck soldiers, screaming that her throat was being slit and shouting for the neighbors to come see the carnage. Dazed and defeated by this paroxysm of brazenness, Samaraï fled the house seething with furious thoughts and still trembling with unappeased desire. After walking aimlessly for a very long time, he regained some self-control and decided what any feeble-minded man who had been rejected by his female would have decided in such an instance. He would forget his frustrated passion by abandoning himself to a night of nonstop revelry in that sumptuous brothel inhabited by ravishing creatures about which Medhat had spoken to him when they first met in front of the train station. To calm his nerves that had been shattered by his mistress’s murderous frenzy, he had begun his evening by drinking in various bars and cafés around the city while he awaited the auspicious hour for licentiousness. He always kept the money from his inheritance in his pocket; approximately a thousand pounds, it formed an easily transportable wad of bills. With such a sum he imagined he could pay an entire harem for an unlimited amount of time and this feudal dream, which had become obsolete in this miserable civilization, gave him a sense of power he had never before experienced. At the moment when Rezk and the police chief had seen him moving like a funambulist in the stagnant glow of a streetlamp, he had been looking for Wataniya’s brothel, which could not be found under any sign. So he was walking along blindly, led only by his drunkard’s instinct, hoping to meet someone who could point him toward this den of debauchery. It seemed, however, that even the stray dogs sensed the anguish contaminating the city and had decided to shut themselves in for the night.