The Colors of Infamy Read Free Page B

completely mad. You have warmed my heart.”
    He could make out real relief on the girl’s face; a yearning to
teach this exemplary neophyte his conception of the world welled up in him. But
the impulse did not last long. Popularizing such a subversive concept for the
benefit of a creature as hopeless as Safira seemed like offering pearls to a
dying old woman.
    â€œTell me,” he began again in an amusing, conversational tone, “do
you speak with your mother often?”
    Ossama wanted primarily to keep the dialogue going and not give his
companion the impression that she bored him. To be honest, the girl’s problems
fascinated him against his will, as if all the injustices from which she
suffered — all that she had inherited from her ancestors since the beginning of
time — had their roots in distant lands and not in his immediate surroundings.
Since he had ascended to thief heaven, he no longer paid any attention to the
plaintive songs or moans of a fatalistic people who continued to believe in a
mythic heavenly paradise. As he listened to Safira, he could hear the faded but
enduring echo of the past when he, too, had been suffering in a world of
triumphant falsehood. Although he couldn’t admit it to himself, he was hoping to
hear her complain and lament, thereby opening his heart to the lost paths of his
childhood with its trail of misfortune and cruelty — everything that in his
new-found wisdom he had relegated to the ranks of insignificance. Th is vague nostalgic longing, however, did not
distract him from his main purpose, which was to keep an eye on the club
entrance, which waves of passersby sporadically blocked from his view. Until now
he had only caught sight of servants in uniforms coming out one at a time to
inhale the sweltering air of the street and cast reproachful glances at the
never-ending stream of people strolling lazily beneath the sun, excluded from
the club. No doubt the club members — the notables themselves — were in the
process of whetting their appetites by swilling their alcohol of preference
while fomenting new, shady deals. But lunchtime was drawing near and Ossama knew
that none of these bastards would miss a meal; filling their bellies was the
only work to which they devoted themselves with competence and honesty.
    â€œYes, I speak with my mother, but not often. It pains me to see
her get all confused when we talk. I wind up feeling dizzy.”
    â€œWhat do you talk about?”
    Safira hesitated a moment before answering. She looked at Ossama
with atypical boldness and said, in an almost sardonic tone of voice:
    â€œWell, just what is it that poor people talk about, in your
opinion?”
    It was a low blow, a perfidious move on the girl’s part, and
Ossama was momentarily mortified by his tactlessness. He was sure that the two
women could only talk about money — or more specifically, the lack of money —
and he decided to change this thorny subject quickly by making a little
joke.
    â€œI know that poor people only talk about money, but talking about
money never made anybody any richer.”
    And he emitted a pleasant and contagious little laugh to encourage
the girl to follow him down the path of cheerfulness.
    But Safira stubbornly refused to laugh; on the contrary, Ossama’s
unfortunate joke only succeeded in making her more despondent in regard to the
young man’s feelings about poverty.
    â€œI don’t care about money,” she said. “What good is money if
there’s not a little love in life?”
    She lowered her eyes and stayed completely still with an
expression of dread on her face, as if she were expecting an earthquake. Ossama
didn’t fall for it; he could easily see her message and he had to pretend it
wasn’t directed his way. Feminine wiles, even in this girl who had barely
reached puberty, always amused him because they were such a fragile weapon, at
best good for confusing the