Panayotti’s face changed. “What integrity are you talking about?” he asked coolly.
“I’m an honest man, and that’s what’s upsetting you. That’s why you won’t testify that I’m innocent.”
“How can I testify that you’re innocent, how can I testify that you’re not innocent? I don’t know if you are innocent, and I don’t know if you aren’t. That’s all there is to it!”
“You know I’d never do a thing like that!”
“How could I know that?”
“Because even when you made your ugly proposal, offering me sums of money that would corrupt the pope, I refused to cheat the spectators. Is that not proof enough?”
“Cheat the spectators? That’s why you wouldn’t take our bribe? That’s news to me.”
“Why else would I say no?” Joseph felt his face filling with blood. He barely held back from unleashing his anger on the small Greek man with the mongoose face.
Panayotti gave him a quick, ridiculing look, and began a merciless verbal assault: “You can’t stand to see your son lose. That’s the truth. On that blessed day when my Arab devil won, you were devastated. You can’t watch your David come in second. That’s your illness, that’s your obsession, damn it. Is it any wonder that you drugged Al Buraq, too? If he could only talk, he would have told everyone. How you came to him at night, syringe in hand! All so that your son could win, all so that your Jewish papa’s boy could win!”
Panayotti stopped for a moment to catch his breath. To Joseph, everything sounded abstract and unreal. “You want me to testify in court? You want me to tell them you’re a raving fanatic, you have no true sportsmanship? That you’re a sore loser? That you’d do anything for your son to win, even provide him with prostitutes? You think people don’t know about that?”
These words pierced Hamdi-Ali’s heart like a poisoned arrow and he cursed the thought of that Maltese waiter. One more so-called friend who sold me out for greed!
“Maybe you’ve been drugging the boy, too? To give him extra stamina? What wouldn’t you do to win … always to win! Always! Always! Always!”
Joseph stood before him, unmoving, each word a sledgehammer. It wasn’t very long ago that he’d almost strangled Ahmed Al-Tal’ooni. Why not do the same to this man here? But he stood there paralyzed. He, Yusef Hamdi-Ali, the king, doesn’t dare! Panayotti wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking to him like this a few weeks ago. Had things really changed that much? How low has he sunk, for a nobody like Panayotti to feel he no longer needs to fear Joseph Hamdi-Ali?
Tears ran down Joseph’s face. Real tears, warm and salty, like a woman’s — oh, the shame! Joseph hadn’t cried since he was a child. He didn’t even cry when Leila died, and now he was crying. He almost wanted to laugh at himself.
Panayotti was filled with pity but also with glee. He was seeing before him the downfall of the king of the racetrack. Not knowing what else to do, he walked away.
Joseph did not approach Toto and Sisso to persuade them to testify on his behalf. Suddenly it was all so unimportant, silly and sad, and he, he was the saddest of them all. There he was, naked to the world, and laughing. Laughing. He’d accepted the worst. He would be found guilty! Prison? A fine? A conviction would mean the end of his career. Then he realized. The end of his career meant …
This might have been when the idea first occurred to him.
At home, the heat and the suffocation were unbearable. The night was heavy and dead. He went out into the street, wearing only an undershirt, no fez, just like that, as if fleeing, but walking very slowly. His feet led him to the track. There was no one there but the guard, who knew him and let him in.
He walked into the fenced off area, like a veteran fighter returning to the battlefield.
He knew he’d lost the race, but he didn’t care. He tried to conjure a memory of Leila, but she seemed to have foresaken him as well. He despised himself, hated his old body, his weakness, this burden on his shoulders — the family. He hated himself for having cried that day, and the more he hated himself, the more he pitied himself and the more he cried, without restraint, like the frightening symptom of some malignant disease. At first you don’t take it too seriously, brushing it aside, thinking everything will be all right. But when the symptom appears a second time … and Joseph cried and cried. Along with his tears, the great distress that had been building up in him also came pouring out, and he felt relief. He was ready to live again. He regretted only that his body was so old.
Walking slowly, he stepped out of the gate and paced the sidewalk along Rue Delta, toward the sea.
37. BLANCHE
Joseph Hamdi-Ali was acquitted.
“Innocent for lack of evidence,” said the honorable judge. Joseph’s attorney shook his hand with satisfaction and said, “We’ve sweated a lot, but you see, we got results, al-hamdul-Illah!”
His wife and eldest son were among the cheering crowd. They hugged him lovingly, and David said he felt like he’d just woken up from a bad dream, and that a celebration was in order.
Joseph was embarrassed. His mind was bothered by the lack of clarity in the term “innocent for lack of evidence.” Well, is he innocent or not? Innocent, but … does that mean he’s guilty, God forbid? It was neither here nor there. Joseph raised his eyes to the heavens and smiled — up there, can one also be innocent for lack of evidence? And he, who’d been prepared for the worst, even for imprisonment, he who’d hoped and prayed for a full acquittal, for the clearing of his name, was suddenly finding himself drowning in a swamp of legal jargon. Only a full clearing of his name would have lessened the suspicion gnawing at his heart: that he’d been made a pawn of God and men.
David made a reservation at the Auberge Bleue, a pleasant club with a homey feel, where the performances featured both professionals and amateurs. Victor was ecstatic when he heard the entire family was going out together. When Joseph saw the happiness in his young son’s eyes, he felt pity for the child, as if he’d finally been able to see the little outcast, who lived his life barely regarded. No one had meant to reject him, and yet it was as if he had been born an outsider, separate and pushed away, perhaps … perhaps just like himself! He noted the sharp features, the long, slim neck, that twisted smile that seemed to be marking his own lips now, and he felt his insides yearning for this little man, his heart souring with compassion. Maybe this was his son, his kind of son, and he never knew it? Was it too late? At first Joseph thought of canceling the outing to the club, but Victor’s joy changed his mind. Was he wrong about his fate? Maybe what he’d lost on the racetrack he would now find in the human race, in the family he’d neglected for so many years …
An intimate band played a quiet tango, drawing several couples onto the dance floor. David danced with his mother. Joseph remained alone at the table. Not alone, exactly — with Victor. As ever, fate leaves him alone with this strange boy who calls him Papa, and each time he wonders if he really means it. What he wouldn’t give to start a conversation with this creature, his own flesh, growing wild, wandering free and lonely through the maze of adolescence. But what would he tell him? Would they talk about horses? Does the boy even care about horses? Maybe he should tell him about himself, about his childhood and youth in Turkey? But one cannot just open with these things with no apparent reason, and he craved so badly a conversation with his son. He began: “You … you want some gelata?”