The Colors of Infamy by Albert Cossery Page A

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.
    â€œ Th at letter spells disaster. What are you going to do with it?”
    â€œI don’t know yet. I need advice. But I don’t know anyone besides you whom I can trust.”
    â€œ Th e only advice I can give you is to burn the letter. Th e sooner the better. Let all those bastards devour each other. What do we care about one more scandal?”
    â€œWell, I’m not going to burn it, that’s for sure. I hope to at least get some amusement from it.”
    â€œWhat 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. Th e 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.
    â€œBy Allah!” Nimr cried. “ Th ose 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.”
    â€œI’d be curious to know just how you could have met such a man,” Ossama said.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œI’m suspicious of most revolutionaries. Th ey always end up as tame politicians defending the same society they vilified in the past.”
    â€œNot 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.”
    â€œWhy was he tortured?”
    â€œ Th e police wanted to know who had informed him about the idiocy of the president in question. Th ey were convinced he couldn’t have figured it out by himself.”
    â€œBy all-powerful Allah!” Ossama laughed. “ Th ose policemen have a sense of humor!”
    â€œHow can you credit those torturers with a sense of humor? Th ey 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. Th at calmed them down and they left him alone.”
    Th is story filled Ossama with such enthusiasm that a prison term seemed suddenly necessary to help eliminate the gaps in his vision of the world.
    â€œI 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