Proud Beggars by Albert Cosery

Author:Albert Cosery
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59017-463-0
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 2011-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

7

THE SORDIDNESS of the decor made him all the more sensitive to his feeling of having fallen low. This pastry shop was truly ignoble, but it had the advantage of being situated within the native quarter, in an area frequented only by stray dogs and the dregs of society. It was an ideal spot for the kind of meeting Nour El Dine was fond of; he’d chosen this one over several others to shelter his clandestine loves. Here, at least, he risked no indiscretion. True, his young friends didn’t share his point of view at all; they were scarcely happy to be invited to this unsavory hole that Nour El Dine persisted in calling a pastry shop, where they were served inedible cakes. Where was the pleasure? They wondered if Nour El Dine wanted to mortify them, and they strove to understand why. As a result, these rendezvous took on a sinister air, conducive to unhappy endings. Nour El Dine himself felt uneasy in these squalid surroundings. He deplored the circumstances that obliged him to hide as if he were a conspirator. But how else could he go about it? His police inspector’s uniform didn’t make things any easier; everywhere he went, he felt himself to be the target of all eyes. He would surely have been less noticeable walking around stark naked.

For greater safety, Nour El Dine had chosen a table at the rear of the shop. Seated across from him, young Samir maintained a stubborn, almost premeditated silence; since his arrival he hadn’t opened his mouth. On the table were two small plates each holding a vile-looking pastry. Neither man had yet touched his. It was always like this: they only ordered the pastry for the sake of appearances. They would have to be truly famished or at the end of their resources to resign themselves to ingesting that abomination.

“You’re not eating,” Nour El Dine finally said to break the silence.

That was the wrong thing to say. Young Samir quivered with disgust and glared at Nour El Dine with stinging contempt.

“You want me to eat that? Really, Inspector, what do you take me for?”

“Forgive me, my dear Samir. I said that without thinking. I beg you, don’t touch it.”

“I swear you’re doing it on purpose!”

“What?”

“Inviting me to such a disgusting place!”

“I’ve already explained it to you. I cannot permit myself to go places where I risk meeting acquaintances.”

“Why? Are you ashamed of me?”

“That’s not it, as you know very well. My dear Samir, please understand. It’s as painful for me as it is for you to stay here, but circumstances demand it.”

Samir broke into a sarcastic laugh.

“Circumstances! That’s what you call it—circumstances?”

“I beg you, calm down.”

Samir resumed his sullen expression and said nothing more. Nour El Dine’s basely conciliatory attitude filled him with disgust. He was an eighteen-year-old young man with fine, regular features not lacking a certain virile charm. He was bareheaded and wearing an open-collared shirt and a well-cut sports coat that denoted his bourgeois origins.

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