Just as an ugly woman grows no uglier with age, the El Huseini district had not undergone further degradation over the years. Having parked his car far from where his meeting was to take place, Suleyman walked through a night illuminated by the lights of cafés and stalls and the torchères of peddlers more than by the municipal streetlamps lost at the ends of muddy alleyways. He felt as if he had left the neighborhood only yesterday, so clearly did he remember certain hovels with their cracked walls, and certain crevices that adorned the sidewalks, especially one in particular — still in operation — that had almost maimed him a very long time ago. Still, what he found surprising, new, and incomprehensible was the atmosphere of rejoicing that he sensed around him, a rejoicing that seemed to defy the ordinarily quaint and somber face of poverty. Yet it was not a holiday. All these people noisily calling to one another, jeering and laughing loudly as if simply being alive were enough to make them happy, deeply irritated him. He quickened his pace, not wanting to get mixed up in this orgy of shouts and joyous discussions — this booming cheerfulness was an offense to the delicate joys of the rich. A man in a barbershop, his bare feet slipped into sandals, was getting a shave from a young apprentice in swimming trunks. The sight of a poor wretch indulging in the luxurious pleasure of freshening up his face at this hour increased Suleyman’s irritation and inspired a variety of hypotheses about the fellow’s motivations. The man was getting a shave before going to meet a birdbrain of a mistress (she was obviously a birdbrain) in some local dive. Or, another conjecture, this one a bit on the macabre side: the man had been warned of his death the previous night and wanted to arrive attractive and clean at the gates of heaven. The absurd behavior of this esthete of the slums continued to nettle Suleyman until he was approached by a boy of about ten dressed in a brand-new saffron-colored robe who seemed very impatient to know the time.
Suleyman looked at the child with visible disgust, and his words came out of his mouth like spittle.
“Why do you want to know the time? Do you have a date?”
“No, I don’t have a date,” the child answered.
“So what good will the time do you?”
“I just wanted to chat. I’m looking for my father.”
“I don’t understand. What’s the relationship between my watch and your father?”
“Well, you see, my father left my mother and me when I was very small, so I don’t know him. My mother said that one day he’ll come back and that he’s very rich. So every time I see a person like you, dressed like a rich man, I think that maybe he’s my father.”
“And what did your father do?”
“He was a thief,” the child said with pride.
“You little devil! Get away! I’m not your father.”
“Too bad. You’re his spit and image.”
Suleyman attempted to give the child a kick, but he fled, vanishing into the crowd.
This nighttime stroll through nauseating streets long ago banished from Suleyman’s memory — he only wished to dwell on the sumptuous décors of grand hotels and on liqueurs imbibed around luxurious swimming pools — was becoming unbearable. Again he thought of Abdelrazak, who was responsible for his distress, and he made a wish: that Abdelrazak would see his own mother prostitute herself in a brothel for lepers when she was ninety. (And that was really a quite charming wish compared to what Suleyman held in store for him in the near future.) Suddenly he stopped to listen to a voice that had come out of nowhere, but that he had known since childhood. A radio was playing the much-loved songs of the mythical chanteuse whose voice would accompany men in their daydreams and unappeased desires for a long time to come.
The Mirror Café had lost the better part of its original footprint and its terrace now occupied merely a small parcel of sidewalk. A few moldy mirrors with gilded frames — survivors of the disaster — were still hanging on the walls, as if to provide the café with proof of its identity. Suleyman was not put off by its decline; he had expected it. He was contriving to look affable and good-natured for his meeting with the young stranger who had telephoned, and who had assured him that he’d easily recognize Suleyman because, being an avid newspaper reader, he had often admired his picture on the front page when the topic was some financial scandal or an indictment for premeditated murder. This information, despite its anecdotal and slightly insolent character, had reassured Suleyman as to the young man’s social milieu and level of education. If the young man knew how to read, he would know how to act in a respectful, honest way toward an elder. Suleyman was a great believer in education, despite not having received any. In fact, he could already imagine this admiring and obedient stranger entirely devoted to him. He walked onto the café’s terrace with his head held high and an authoritative pout on his face, as if he were posing for a newspaper real estate ad.
Ossama caught sight of him and was about to wave to him, but Karamallah held him back by the arm. The master wanted to study the infamous man in action from afar and, if only for a moment, to observe his bearing among a public particularly steeped in disrespect for wealth. He was in for an astonishing sight. Suleyman was inspecting the terrace with the eye of a boss who had come to hire day laborers and who suddenly realizes that he has before him a gang of fainéants who have nothing better to do than smoke hookahs, play backgammon, or rant against the government with huge bursts of laughter. All these men sprawling about in languorous lethargy had a knack for exasperating him. Suleyman looked like a man who had fallen to the bottom of a pit and was awaiting the advent of improbable saviors.
At last Ossama stood up and invited him to sit at their table. The sight of the young man reinforced Suleyman’s favorable opinion of his education and his family’s social standing. The alleged student was dressed very stylishly, and the older man sitting next to him seemed to be his equal in the sartorial arts. A sour note in this display aroused Suleyman’s suspicion, however: the two elegant men who had met with his approval were accompanied by a third with a shaved head and a black beard that hid half his face. This character was wearing a raw silk robe open at his thick neck and glasses with tinted lenses that made him look like a hit man in a comedy. It was to be feared that this unexpected guest would disrupt the idyllic interview Suleyman had imagined, and it was imperative to know for what reason the presence of this intruder — a blot on the gathering — had been deemed indispensable. If it were as a neutral observer, a better choice could have been made. With this thorn in his side, Suleyman moved toward the table where the fearsome leaders of an uproarious game awaited him.