“I’ve always done as you taught me — and the ‘distinguished set’ can mostly be distinguished by the fatness of their wallets. I steal from them and they respect me. And every policeman whose path I cross greets me with deference.”
“I don’t doubt it. Those people are too stupid to read your profession on your face.”
“How could they? I’m wearing all the finery of prosperity. They think I’m rich. In their world, only poor people are thieves. That superstition goes back to antiquity, and it suits my business perfectly.”
“So, this is what learning is for! I see now that an intelligent boy like you could never be content with petty larceny! By Allah, you are the thief of the future! All those years of school served your ambition well.”
“School taught me only to read and write. And that sliver of learning set me on the surest road to starving to death in honesty and ignorance. You were the first to open my eyes to widespread corruption. To have understood that the only forces that drive humanity are thieving and swindling — that’s real intelligence. And you didn’t even go to school. Ever since I met you, I have stolen with a clear conscience and a happy heart. Better yet, I have the feeling that my activity contributes to the country’s prosperity because I spend the money I steal from the rich in a variety of shops that would perish without me and my peers.”
The certificate of civic-mindedness that Ossama was bestowing upon himself seemed to go beyond — well beyond — Nimr’s basic teachings. His student had simply swept away the prejudices tied to his profession and had fashioned a philosophy that ennobled the thief, raising him to the rank of a nationalist activist. Nimr didn’t dare believe it, but on reflection, he had to admit the accuracy of this transcendent view of every kind of thievery. It was true that thieves caused money to circulate, money that without their ingenuity would always remain in the same pockets — a deplorable situation that would cause a country’s economy to suffer greatly. By moving money from one pocket to another, theft, by means of this unilateral transfer, allowed completely depressed markets to revive. Having attained the far reaches of this realistic line of reasoning, Nimr was exhausted and eager to rest his brain, which had been dulled by several months in prison. He began to study Ossama with the eyes of a tourist scrutinizing the Sphinx in expectation of a final prophecy.
Humility not being his long suit, Ossama pictured himself as a solid gold statue for having dazzled his former teacher with his analysis of theft as patriotic virtue.
“I could become a government minister if I wanted,” he announced with the air of someone hesitating to accept a job in a grocery store.
“On my honor!” Nimr exclaimed. “Your success has driven you crazy! May Allah protect you from such a scheme!”
“I’m not crazy and it could very well happen. Listen, I’m going to let you in on something unbelievable. For hours I’ve been looking for someone to discuss this with. Tell me what you think.”
Ossama cast a glance at the few customers in the café and chased away a young cigarette butt collector lurking around their table with an insult that took in his entire family; then, leaning toward Nimr, with the excitement of a neophyte bomb carrier, he told him the story of the letter found in the real estate developer’s wallet — the man behind the genocide against some fifty tenants.
“So you see that the Minister is implicated in this scandal. What’s to say he isn’t in collusion with his brother? And if he is, then why shouldn’t a thief of my caliber be a candidate for a ministerial post as well? Minister of Finance would, I think, suit me best.”
“You’re right,” Nimr agreed. “But you’ve no gift for lying. Can you lie like a minister every day including holidays?”
“It’s just a question of habit. With your guidance I think I could manage, my dear Master.”
They broke out laughing, and in their exuberance woke an old man sleeping on a bench against the wall of the café who then lectured them about shameless youth who did not respect the sleep of workers. The outburst of this old man resting from his labors as a former worker only increased their merriment. Nimr waited for the man to go back to sleep before warning Ossama about the dangers of holding on to such a volatile letter.
“That letter spells disaster. What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know yet. I need advice. But I don’t know anyone besides you whom I can trust.”
“The only advice I can give you is to burn the letter. The sooner the better. Let all those bastards devour each other. What do we care about one more scandal?”
“Well, I’m not going to burn it, that’s for sure. I hope to at least get some amusement from it.”
“What sort of amusement?” Nimr asked, alarmed.
Ossama did not answer; he was wondering if the same kind fate that had chosen him as the emissary of such a scandal would also suggest an entertaining solution to the problem of disseminating it. As he waited for fate to oblige, he watched condescendingly the sovereign people moving about beneath the sun, indifferent to world affairs in general and to his problem in particular. An argument could be heard at a nearby table between two destitute workers who were probably unemployed. Ossama understood by the invocations to their respective ancestors that one of them had wanted to pay for the other’s drink and that the latter was rebelling by denying that his companion came from a family richer than his own. The dispute finally ended in a friendship pact stipulating that each man would pay for his own drink. Having settled their business, they vanished from the café.
“By Allah!” Nimr cried. “Those idiots with their ridiculous quarrel have made me remember the man who can advise you — he would surely have found the behavior of those two vermin enchanting. He is the most extraordinary man I know — but what’s the point of talking about him. It’s better to see him and hear what he has to say.”
“I’d be curious to know just how you could have met such a man,” Ossama said.
“I met him in prison. It might seem unbelievable to you, but there are lots of cultivated men rotting in prison for their beliefs: revolutionaries who want to change society.”
“I’m suspicious of most revolutionaries. They always end up as tame politicians defending the same society they vilified in the past.”
“Not this man. On the contrary, he’s working toward eliminating all politicians. He’s a well-known author and journalist. In his writings he does nothing but mock all the powers and the grotesque people who assume those powers. In one article he swore that the president of a great foreign nation was an illiterate idiot, which caused a most serious diplomatic incident. For this latest prank he was sentenced to three months in prison and a large fine. Really, he’s an extraordinary man, one of a kind. Even when he was being tortured, he joked with his torturers.”
“Why was he tortured?”
“The police wanted to know who had informed him about the idiocy of the president in question. They were convinced he couldn’t have figured it out by himself.”
“By all-powerful Allah!” Ossama laughed. “Those policemen have a sense of humor!”
“How can you credit those torturers with a sense of humor? They were serious, let me tell you. I could see it from the marks of the blows he’d received. For days, they did everything to try to find out his informant’s name. Just to amuse himself, he gave them the name of a journalist very supportive of the authorities. That calmed them down and they left him alone.”
This story filled Ossama with such enthusiasm that a prison term seemed suddenly necessary to help eliminate the gaps in his vision of the world.
“I envy that man,” he said. “I would have liked to be in his place. To have such close contact with stupidity is prodigiously enriching for the mind.”