The Colors of Infamy Read Online Free PDF Page B

toward his son, focusing on him with the intensity of a man trying to find his way in the dark, as if he were attempting to make out some signs of joy or sadness. His eyes still looked normal, for only his optic nerve had been damaged by the notorious club. Still, over the years Moaz had acquired the mask of solemnity and profound wisdom that can be observed in blind men with sunken eyes, and that so fascinates and distresses most of the sighted. Ossama often wondered if blindness made men wiser, or if that was nothing but a silly superstition. He had never managed to resolve the question.
    â€œWelcome, my son. I was just thinking about the gains of the revolution. I have the sense that there is more movement, more activity in the neighborhood. I hear people laughing and joking with each other, as if life had become agreeable to them. It comforts me every day to realize that happiness no longer belongs exclusively to the powerful.”
    Ossama sat down on a chair near his father and cast a disabused glance out the window. Th e blind man was right, except that what seemed to him to be a kind of energy resulting from the benefits of the revolution was in fact merely the hum of a population growing uncontrollably. No doubt Moaz had forgotten that his compatriots always kept their sense of humor regardless of ideological considerations. It was as if the blow from the club had not only blinded him but also dimmed his memory. As usual, Ossama avoided any discussion of the merits of a revolution that existed only in his father’s mind. He thought it more reasonable to bring the conversation around to some trivial matter, and he asked about the absence of the maid, that awful Zakiya who did as she pleased during working hours.
    â€œHasn’t Zakiya come yet?”
    â€œShe’ll be here soon. She’s a good woman and she tends to me with great compassion.”
    Ossama had to admit that the room was clean, the furniture nicely polished, and his father’s robe meticulously washed and pressed. Nonetheless he suspected the “good woman” of having matrimonial designs on the invalid. With all the money Ossama provided for his father’s care, she probably thought old Moaz was a banker or a counterfeiter. And on top of all that, she had the repellent face of a woman who had been successively repudiated by all the husbands she’d managed to hoodwink with her magic spells. Th e idea of having Zakiya for a stepmother was so repulsive that he didn’t hesitate to caution his father — by means of an aesthetic opinion — against the schemes of this female all too happy to wed a blind man.
    â€œI only have one thing against her. She’s simply too ugly.”
    â€œWhat do I care about her ugliness? Her beauty wouldn’t matter to me either. You forget, my son, that I am blind.”
    Th is reminder of the obvious plunged Ossama into a bitter reverie. He did have moments of forgetfulness about his father’s infirmity, but to have imagined that Moaz could care whether his maid’s features were charming or repulsive was cause for alarm. He sought to make up for his blunder by getting to the point of his visit without further delay.
    â€œForgive me, Father, for not having come sooner. I was swamped with work. Even today I had to talk for hours with a real estate developer, a man of national importance and a very tough negotiator, regarding a large cement order. I managed to close the deal, and so I brought you a little money.”
    Ossama pulled out the crocodile-skin wallet he had stolen from the developer and removed a few ten-pound notes that he placed on his father’s lap with some embarrassment, as if his father could divine their origin. Sometimes Ossama had the feeling that the blind man was not fooled by his social success and for a few seconds he scrutinized his father’s face, believing he might glimpse a smile of complicity on it. But the austere face, ennobled