Zakiya first went to deposit a bag of groceries in the kitchen area, then turned to Ossama and exclaimed in a loud, manly voice:
“Here he is, the handsomest, the most illustrious of princes! May Allah be with you, Excellency.”
She threw herself at Ossama like a bloodthirsty ghoul and grabbed his hand to kiss it. But the young man swiftly pulled it away and drew back, horrified by her abominable touch.
“Well now,” he said. “Since you are here, I’ll be going. I have much to do today. Take good care of my father; otherwise I’ll slit your throat.”
As soon as he stepped into the street, Ossama felt the elation of a man on death row receiving a last-minute pardon. He picked up his pace, eager to get as far as possible from the disaster-stricken house. Freed at last from his fear of undergoing the same fate as the fifty tenants of the building erected by the despicable developer, he recovered his caustic humor on contact with the crowd moving through this working-class neighborhood, open to every miracle. His code of ethics prohibited him from practicing his trade on these poorest of the poor; he was mostly thinking about the letter that, once its contents were divulged, would surely shatter the already severely compromised reputations of its addressee and his even more valiant collaborator — the minister’s brother — whose crimes for the time being were still unknown to the public.
Though filled with wonder at the fact that he held in his hands such evidence against the brother of an eminent member of the government, Ossama despaired about his inability to make use of it. By some divine decree, he had become the repository of a scandal on the ministerial level, and he felt it his duty to disseminate this information throughout the entire country, and even beyond its borders, with the aim of amusing others less well-informed about the villainy of their leaders. But how did one go about getting such an ambitious project off the ground? To offer the letter to a newspaper was a facile solution that would definitely put him at risk. It would be quite naïve to introduce himself with this bomb to some editor-in-chief, by nature terrified of losing his job. Since all newspapers rely on money to survive, the affair would no doubt be hushed up, and he would be indicted by obedient and corrupt judges who were themselves friends or relations of the grand thieves. Ossama’s innate distrust of all the upper classes was forcing him to seek out some new scheme, one that would allow him remain completely anonymous. Having run through all sorts of possibilities, to no avail, he realized he could never mange the business alone and would have to share this secret that, over the hours, had become too heavy to bear on his own. It could not be imparted to just anyone; he had to be someone with no other obligations, neither wife nor child nor job to protect. He knew no one who fit the description other than members of the underworld, a mob who cared little about politics and on principle preferred the dark shadows of a clandestine life to the unsavory suns of fame. Motivated by some foolish hope, he began to stare at everyone around him, trying to flush out of the swarm of people resolutely indifferent to his problem the unrecognized genius who would be able to counsel him. Everywhere he saw nothing save the flunky-like faces of a people subject to the most urgent, concrete needs; one politico-financial scandal more or less had absolutely no chance of altering their vision of the world. Ossama quickly became fed up with his ridiculous endeavor and he hurried on, determined to get out of this sordid neighborhood that could offer him no comfort in his bitter solitude as a carrier of scandal.
Tormented by his inability to entertain his compatriots with such an amusing affair, Ossama was quickly wending his way — to the detriment of his handsome suit — through the ragged crowd when he saw, sitting at a sidewalk café, the incomparable Nimr, his master in the trade. The man’s head was shaved and a bushy beard hid half his face, but these little modifications of his appearance meant to dupe a police force all too familiar with him could not fool Ossama, who retained an indelible image of his old master as he had appeared when they first met. He hadn’t seen Nimr for several months because the master — despite his proverbial dexterity and precisely because of this reputation — was often in prison. With the joy of a child discovering a toy he thought he’d lost for good, Ossama approached the man who was cautiously sipping a glass of tea like a penniless soul granting himself a fleeting and rare pleasure.
“Peace be upon you, Nimr! Allah has granted my prayer. I was looking for you, my worthy master.”
Nimr raised his head and stared at Ossama with the gaze of someone who despises false words.
“Son of a dog! You knew I was in prison, so how could you have been looking for me? Aren’t you ashamed of lying to your old master? And, besides, what are you doing in this flea-bitten neighborhood?”
Seeing his former teacher disguised as a member of a religious brotherhood, Ossama felt somehow responsible for this distressing conversion. Nimr’s sudden piety had all the hallmarks of a mental breakdown precipitated by a slowdown in business. He thought it wise to reawaken the consciousness of a man whose unfortunate circumstances had plunged him into mysticism by using words that were entirely untrue: “On my honor, I was looking for you. The papers I read every morning informed me of your release without mentioning where you were now residing. But I knew I’d find you in these parts.”
Despite the enormity of his lie, Ossama had no need to fear being contradicted — the master, being illiterate, was no great fan of newspapers. Nimr seemed to weigh the plausibility of this unverifiable account, and it happened that his vanity got the better of his mistrust. He was several years older than Ossama and he reveled in his incontestable authority in their professional community. He had to his credit the training of an entire generation of pickpockets who pillaged the city while blessing his name. Parsimoniously clothed in rags that bordered on the indecent, he looked with scorn upon his favorite student’s disloyal chic. For a long time this stylishness, incompatible with Nimr’s ethos of an emancipated proletariat, had offended him as if it were some sort of treason. Ever since Ossama had begun to frequent the posh districts in order to track down his victims among the capital’s grand thieves, the young man had distanced himself from Nimr’s sphere of activity and Nimr regretted, not without some rancor, the loss of such a promising pupil. Ossama’s intelligence in the trade that Nimr had taught him seemed to have extended well beyond his instruction and this was unforgivable to a master who believed himself unsurpassable in his field.