35. NO ES A LA MODA HOY

Joseph sat low on the bench, separate and solitary. He’d heard the words spoken around him only dimly: What difference did it make, he thought, if it was assault or attempted murder? He didn’t care about the legal implications. He was much more upset about the other accusation, the allegedly lesser one, that he’d tried to drug the horse. Any dignified man might lose his mind once and try to strangle his opponent. It’s natural, it’s human, there’s no disgrace in that. But drugging a horse—that is a pathetic act of fraud which tarnishes the name of the perpetrator. Whenever anyone mentioned the matter in passing, Joseph felt a pang in his heart.

Should we infer from this that Joseph was innocent? That he was not the one to inject the horse with an anesthetizing, paralyzing drug? A blood test performed on the horse found a considerable amount of some such substance. That’s why Al Buraq had not performed according to his natural abilities, and since he lost only by a head, people were sure he would have won if not for this fact. But can we conclude from this that Joseph Hamdi-Ali was the one to do the deed? And if not him –who? Maybe his son David? But that would be almost the same. And if we begin guessing, we might even argue that Tal’ooni himself, or better yet, his trainer, that conniving Greek, fearing they might lose the race, and in order to sabotage their opponent, were the ones doing the drugging. True, this conjecture was overreaching, but no more absurd than some of the others voiced.

At any rate, Joseph denied the allegations fervently. He calmly described his years of working at the track and his irreproachable past. When asked whether he in fact tried to murder Al-Tal’ooni, he said, “I’m sorry they pulled us apart!”

His attorney complained to Joseph’s wife and son that Monsieur Hamdi-Ali wasn’t cooperating and wasn’t helping himself. “Il est excessivement honnête!” he said, shaking his head. He’s being too honest!

“No es a la moda hoy de ser tanto honesto.” Meaning, it isn’t fashionable to be too honest these days. That was grandmother’s opinion on the matter, expressed to her card-playing friends. Renée Marika agreed wholeheartedly, “Only fools are too honest. Take my Vita for example …” She began ranting about her husband Vita’s legendary integrity, her voice full of both admiration and ridicule, the way we discuss prophets or heroes. Then Aunt Tovula called out, “So is my Moïse,” and began describing the lofty character of her late husband, her words saturated with yearning and pain. But she didn’t get a chance to finish either. Robby’s grandmother chimed in, praising the vaunted sincerity of her husband, may he rest in peace, until she finally returned to her thesis on how it is unfashionable to be too honest these days.