36. TEARS

Panayotti was shocked and agitated, pacing the room. “How could I, Joseph, mon ami, ya habibi, how? Have you thought about what you’re asking me?”

“I didn’t have much faith in you anyway,” Joseph said drily and got up to leave. He paused for a moment to look at the large photo on Panayotti’s office wall—Al-Tal’ooni atop Al Buraq, the horse rearing high on his haunches.

“No, Joseph, hold on. That’s no way to behave. You come to see your friend Panayotti Helikos, because I’m sure you see me as your friend in spite of everything, so you’ve come to ask me for a favor, and what do I do? I say no! Why? You must think I’m saying no because I am working for your rival, right?”

“Isn’t that the case?”

“Look, ya habibi. Business is business, that’s true, all well and good, but a friend is not a thing you find just every day!” Helikos grabbed Hamdi-Ali’s shoulders.

“You’re telling me?” Joseph said and turned to leave. The sun was about to set on the horizon, and he blinked his tired eyes and asked himself what he was doing there. Panayotti caught up with him by the stables and grabbed his arm, pulling him inside.

“You don’t understand me. You’re my brother, Joseph. The fact that I work for that bloody Bedouin has nothing to do with it.”

“Very nice.” Joseph shook his head and tried once more, in spite of his growing exhaustion. “In that case, why won’t you testify on my behalf in court?”

“I will, all right? I’ll testify and say that, to the best of my knowledge, you’re an honest man, and that I myself find it hard to believe that —”

“Hard to believe!”

“You want me to present him as a liar? Don’t forget, old boy, he’s my boss. Kirio Hamdi-Ali, you sure are putting me in an uncomfortable position. He’ll destroy me, that Arab. I have a wife, Joseph, and children!”

“I’m not asking you to say Ahmed lied,” Joseph said with a gloomy face. Shadows stretched along the empty track, climbing the white fences, falling down somewhere at the bottom of the stable wall. “I only asked that you tell them what happened at the club, when you and Toto and Sisso —”

“What?” Panayotti jumped up. This was too much. “You want me to tell the court that I was prepared to bribe you to help your son’s horse lose the race?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“But … but it’s illegal! Do you really expect me to tell a thing like that to the entire world, and in a court of law, no less?” Panayotti burst out laughing, picked up a handful of straw and deposited it in Al Buraq’s mouth. It was strange to see this horse, the animal at the root of all this commotion, eating so peacefully, oblivious to the goings-on of humans.

“You’re taking your revenge on me,” Joseph answered darkly. “You’re getting back at me for not giving into you then. My integrity unnerved you. Now you won’t testify on my behalf in court because you resent my integrity, my decency. You’re all jealous of me, all of you.” A smile began lighting Joseph’s face, making him appear like a martyr confident that justice and God are on his side, taking pleasure in being burned at the stake.

Panayotti’s face changed. “What integrity are you talking about?” he asked coolly.

“I’m an honest man, and that’s what’s upsetting you. That’s why you won’t testify that I’m innocent.”

“How can I testify that you’re innocent, how can I testify that you’re not innocent? I don’t know if you are innocent, and I don’t know if you aren’t. That’s all there is to it!”

“You know I’d never do a thing like that!”

“How could I know that?”

“Because even when you made your ugly proposal, offering me sums of money that would corrupt the pope, I refused to cheat the spectators. Is that not proof enough?”

“Cheat the spectators? That’s why you wouldn’t take our bribe? That’s news to me.”

“Why else would I say no?” Joseph felt his face filling with blood. He barely held back from unleashing his anger on the small Greek man with the mongoose face.

Panayotti gave him a quick, ridiculing look, and began a merciless verbal assault: “You can’t stand to see your son lose. That’s the truth. On that blessed day when my Arab devil won, you were devastated. You can’t watch your David come in second. That’s your illness, that’s your obsession, damn it. Is it any wonder that you drugged Al Buraq, too? If he could only talk, he would have told everyone. How you came to him at night, syringe in hand! All so that your son could win, all so that your Jewish papa’s boy could win!”

Panayotti stopped for a moment to catch his breath. To Joseph, everything sounded abstract and unreal. “You want me to testify in court? You want me to tell them you’re a raving fanatic, you have no true sportsmanship? That you’re a sore loser? That you’d do anything for your son to win, even provide him with prostitutes? You think people don’t know about that?”

These words pierced Hamdi-Ali’s heart like a poisoned arrow and he cursed the thought of that Maltese waiter. One more so-called friend who sold me out for greed!

“Maybe you’ve been drugging the boy, too? To give him extra stamina? What wouldn’t you do to win … always to win! Always! Always! Always!”

Joseph stood before him, unmoving, each word a sledgehammer. It wasn’t very long ago that he’d almost strangled Ahmed Al-Tal’ooni. Why not do the same to this man here? But he stood there paralyzed. He, Yusef Hamdi-Ali, the king, doesn’t dare! Panayotti wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking to him like this a few weeks ago. Had things really changed that much? How low has he sunk, for a nobody like Panayotti to feel he no longer needs to fear Joseph Hamdi-Ali?

Tears ran down Joseph’s face. Real tears, warm and salty, like a woman’s—oh, the shame! Joseph hadn’t cried since he was a child. He didn’t even cry when Leila died, and now he was crying. He almost wanted to laugh at himself.

Panayotti was filled with pity but also with glee. He was seeing before him the downfall of the king of the racetrack. Not knowing what else to do, he walked away.

Joseph did not approach Toto and Sisso to persuade them to testify on his behalf. Suddenly it was all so unimportant, silly and sad, and he, he was the saddest of them all. There he was, naked to the world, and laughing. Laughing. He’d accepted the worst. He would be found guilty! Prison? A fine? A conviction would mean the end of his career. Then he realized. The end of his career meant …

This might have been when the idea first occurred to him.

At home, the heat and the suffocation were unbearable. The night was heavy and dead. He went out into the street, wearing only an undershirt, no fez, just like that, as if fleeing, but walking very slowly. His feet led him to the track. There was no one there but the guard, who knew him and let him in.

He walked into the fenced off area, like a veteran fighter returning to the battlefield.

He knew he’d lost the race, but he didn’t care. He tried to conjure a memory of Leila, but she seemed to have foresaken him as well. He despised himself, hated his old body, his weakness, this burden on his shoulders—the family. He hated himself for having cried that day, and the more he hated himself, the more he pitied himself and the more he cried, without restraint, like the frightening symptom of some malignant disease. At first you don’t take it too seriously, brushing it aside, thinking everything will be all right. But when the symptom appears a second time … and Joseph cried and cried. Along with his tears, the great distress that had been building up in him also came pouring out, and he felt relief. He was ready to live again. He regretted only that his body was so old.

Walking slowly, he stepped out of the gate and paced the sidewalk along Rue Delta, toward the sea.