“You’d better not count on me,” Karim said, beginning to reel in the kite by tugging on the string and winding it around his wrist. “I’ll never agree to your scheme.”
“It is not my scheme!” Taher cried out, furiously. “We’re talking about the people! Don’t you love the people anymore?”
“I don’t love my own mother,” replied Karim, annoyed. “Why do I have to love the people?”
“You’re acting like an idiot. Admit that you’re afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid. What do you think? I like my life!”
“This is what you call a life?” said Taher, pointing to the kite.
“It might seem strange to you,” said Karim, smiling. “But for me, flying a kite is enough to make me happy. The governor does not interest me, apart from the fact that his foolishness makes me laugh. Why would I want him dead? I hate funerals.”
He continued to wind the string around his wrist, slowly bringing the kite down. Taher watched with fierce, cold hatred. This insolence of Karim’s was suffocating him; to conquer his indignation, he remained focused on his terrible mission. His one reason for living and for dying was now the attack on the governor. There was no humiliation and no indignity that he would not undergo to attain his glorious goal. To insist and to persuade — that was his role as a militant; and he was prepared to throw himself at Karim’s feet and beg for his assistance, turncoat and traitor though he was. Karim no longer meant anything to him, he’d torn him out of his heart for good; he was just a tool that Taher had to make use of in order to settle his score with the governor.
The kite was descending upon them, like an enormous wounded bird, resplendent in the sun. Karim brought it down skillfully, then ran over to pick it up and stash it in the corner of the terrace.
Just then, Taher caught glimpse of something: what was this, a mirage? some sort of vision perfectly designed to seduce him and squash all his vengeful zeal? He stood there, shocked and furious, staring at the girl who was in the doorway of Karim’s bedroom. It was Amar, the little prostitute, who’d come out in search of her lover but, seeing a stranger on the terrace, had then retreated. She was as shocked as he was. She’d taken a bath and appeared cool and elegant, and her young body, glimpsed through the thin fabric of her dress, made her uncannily desirable. Taher averted his eyes with disgust, as if from the very image of debauchery and corruption.
“You live with a woman now!” he thundered at his friend.
“She’s my mistress,” said Karim. “Come on, let me introduce you.”
“I don’t want to. She must have heard our conversation!”
“Don’t worry about that. She won’t denounce you. She’s one of the governor’s victims. His ordinances prevent her from soliciting.”
“This kind of victim means nothing to me! She means nothing — she’s just the trash of our oppressive social system!”
“What!” roared Karim. “You think she’s trash! But she has the most beautiful breasts in the world! I’d be perfectly happy with trash like this.”
Only a second earlier, Taher had still held out a faint hope of convincing Karim, but after seeing this girl with all her vestal allure he knew it was hopeless — the man was a slave to lust. The girl controlled him with sex. He was a wreck drifting in the cesspool of the regime. Not even as a doormat could he serve the revolution.
“I’m going,” he said. “Not that I’ve wasted my time. You’ve shown me just how low a man can sink.”
“Wait!” called Karim. “I’m about to make some coffee. Won’t you have a cup?”
He’d just realized that he’d broken all the rules of hospitality by offering nothing to Taher; he was sincerely ashamed.
But Taher didn’t turn around to accept or refuse his invitation; the sound of his thick soles rang down the stairway, vanishing forever.
Amar walked across the terrace to her lover.
“Who was that guy? He was scary.”
“He makes bombs,” Karim replied.
“Bombs!” The girl was stunned. “What an awful day!”
“On the contrary, it’s a marvelous day!”
He put his arm around her shoulder and returned to the bedroom, holding her tight. After all that fuss about bombs, he wanted to make love.
***
The next day around noon Heykal opened the paper that his servant had brought him and learned about the governor’s assassination.
The picture on the front page showed the governor’s car ripped apart by the explosion; there was also a photo of Taher, his face swollen and bloody, his handcuffed fists held out in front of him in a gesture of supreme dignity. The details of the attack filled several pages, but Heykal read no farther. He crumpled the paper and threw it on the floor. He was appalled by the gratuitous violence. The governor had all but disappeared from the scene, and Taher had gone and made him a martyr. He had turned an executioner into a victim, a glorious example of civic virtue and self-sacrifice for generations to come, thus perpetuating the eternal fraud.