The Concert

10

SUDDENLY THERE WERE SIGNS of an improvement in relations with China. These signs were cried up not only by those to whom this development was welcome, but also by those to whom it was not, but who wanted to see the situation cleared up one way or the other. To the satisfaction of the first group and the chagrin of the second, the signs turned out to be not without foundation. They rejected part of the truth, a truth increasingly clear to certain ministries: the Ministries of Construction, Télécommunications, Foreign Affairs and Planning, and above all the Admiralty, which received information about the movement of ships. It was said that after a long wait in Chinese ports, ships belonging to the Sino-Albanian company Chal had at last set sail for Albania. According to some they had already passed through the Straits of Gibraltar. Others said they were still near the Cape of Good Hope, But in any case it seemed certain that the ships in question had set out with their expected cargoes. No one was prepared to deny that.

When Gjergj came in he found Silva preparing the salad for lunch. He talked to her over the sound of the tap as she stood at the sink washing lettuce leaves. She kept laughing at what he said,

“You ought to find out how Victor Hila stands now,” she said, “I think I’ve told you about him…He’s our best guide to China’s present attitude towards us.”

Gjergj burst out laughing.

“And how’s he getting on?” he asked.

“Not all that well, as far as I can make out. A few days ago he wanted to come and see me at the office. I believe he’s been chucked out of the factory where he was working.”

“Really? That’s a definite sign that we’re cosying up to China!” said Gjergj, laughing.

“I doubt it.”

“So do I. I think it’s out of the question.”

The telephone rang in the hall. Gjergj went to answer it.

“Silva — it’s for you!”

She hastily dried her hands and hurried out into the hall It was Skënder Bermema.

“I’m sorry to bother you at lunch-time,” he said, “but I absolutely must talk to you.”

Silva felt her heart beat faster.

“Whenever you like,” she said.

“It concerns the matter you came to see me about.”

“Yes — I thought as much…”

“The trouble is that I leave for Peking this afternoon — unfortunately I couldn’t ring you earlier…”

“How’s that?”

“I was busy all morning…You do believe me?”

Silva felt herself blush, and tried to explain.

“I didn’t mean that! I was wondering why you’re going to China!”

“it is surprising! But in spite of all the talk, they notified us yesterday that our delegation had to be ready to take off without delay.”

“And you leave this afternoon?”

“Yes — at a quarter past five. On the London — Shanghai Might of Pakistani Airlines. Listen, Silva — it’s twenty past two now and I have to leave for the airport at four o’clock at the latest if I want to be there by half-past. Could you come to my place at half-past three?”

Silva thought for a moment.

“Half-past three? All right. No problem,” she said.

“Good. I’ll be waiting for you. So long!”

Silva hung up, then went slowly back into the kitchen.

“It was Skënder Bermema,” she told Gjergj, who as usual was standing by the window. “He’s got something to tell me about Arian.”

“Is that so?”

Silva hadn’t told Gjergj she’d been to Skënder’s studio a few days before to get news of her brother.

“I gather he’s just leaving for China?”

“Yes — this afternoon.”

“Another sign…”

“I have to be at his place by three-thirty,” said Silva.

Gjergj looked at his watch.

“You’ve got plenty of time. We can have a snack lunch. But where’s Brikena?”

“Now you mention it, I have no idea.”

Silva set about laying the table, but something prevented her from doing it as automatically as usual

“So the exchanging of delegations has started up again,” said Gjergj, still looking out of the window,

Silva was thinking of how awkward she’d feel, coming face to face with Skënder Bermema’s wife again. For years they’d pretended not to see one another if they met in the street.

“Unless it’s just the dying throes…”

“What are you talking about?”

Gjergj looked at her affectionately.

“The only thing you can think of is this business about your brother…But don’t worry …I have a feeling it will all be sorted out.”

“Do you really think so?” she said, looking at him but still busy around the table.

He nodded emphatically, and winked for good measure.

“That must be Brikena,” she said, going to the front door.

Out in the hall, their daughter could be heard making breathless apologies for being late.

Gjergj turned away from the window and sat down to lunch.

The closer she got to the street where Skënder Bermema lived, the more doubtful Silva felt about going to see him so soon before his departure. True, she’d been there before, but his wife hadn’t been at home then. It was unlikely that she’d be out today. If Silva hadn’t been so worried about her brother she would probably have turned back. The most difficult moment would be meeting Skënder’s wife. It wouldn’t have been so embarrassing if they’d never met before, but unfortunately they’d known each other well in the past and then gradually drifted apart, I only hope she doesn’t actually open the door! thought Silva as she went up the stairs. If she did, could Silva say she wouldn’t come in as she knew they must be busy getting ready for Skënder‘s trip? Then she could hear what he had to say at the door, or if necessary just inside the hall.

She rang the bell, determined not to go in. It was exactly half-past three. Surely he would come to the door himself? — he must find the situation as awkward as she did herself.

But the footsteps approaching the door were too light for a man. For a second, Silva was tempted to rush back down the stairs. But it was too late: the door opened and Skënder’s wife appeared. He might have had the tact to open the door himself, thought Silva briefly. Her hostess was standing with her back to the hall light, so Silva couldn’t make out her expression.

“How are you?” Silva asked, flustered.

Should she introduce herself, as if they were strangers? That didn’t seem right, though.

“How are you?” she said again. “I'm sorry to bother you at a time like this, but Skënder phoned me…”

“Yes, I know,” said the other woman. “Unfortunately he had to go out.”

Silva was taken aback.

“But come in,” said the other woman affably. “He had an urgent call from the foreign ministry — they probably wanted to give him some last-minute instructions. Well have seen everything by the time this delegation takes off!”

She smiled so naturally as she spoke that half Suva’s embarrassment melted away.

“I do hope you’ll forgive me,” she said again, “It’s not a very good day…”

“It doesn’t matter in the least,” said her hostess placidly, sitting down opposite Silva. “We can wait together. The children are away skiing near Mount Dajti — they don’t even know Skënder’s leaving today.”

Silva covertly examined the other young woman’s oval face, ash-blonde hair and bright eyes: her expression might be interpreted as either serenity or indifference, according to the attitude of the observer. So we’re going to wait for him together, thought Silva. As if we were both at a concert. She suddenly felt she’d done the other woman an injury, and had an almost irresistible desire to apologize. But almost immediately she thought, Why should I? I never did her any harm…And yet, and yet…Not only had Besnik Struga ditched this woman’s niece on account of Suva’s own sister, but for a long time Skënder’s name too had been linked to Ana’s, This must have had a profoundly disturbing effect on this other woman’s life: she must have considered it an outrage, and it might well have given rise to painful domestic scenes,

Silva went on looking at her hostess with an expression unusual for her.

“Skënder said something to me about your brother, but he’ll prefer to tell you himself.“

“Is it serious?” asked Silva.

“No — just the opposite, as far as I can tell.”

Silva felt like flinging her arms around the other woman and asking her forgiveness again — forgiveness for everything. But perhaps she’d forgiven everything already, now that Ana was dead. That was what her expression seemed to convey — her whole face, and the smooth curls that moved almost musically. That placid look seemed to be saying: “All those wild passions, all those problems and suspicions, for nothing! For the day must come when we have to quit the stage and leave it empty…”

Silva looked at her watch.

“He’s late,” she said.

There was a sound of tyres outside.

“That must be him,” said Skender’s wife.

She was right.

“I knew I'd find you here!” exclaimed Skënder as soon as he saw Silva. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but they sent for me urgently. Last-minute instructions, as usual There’s no end to it. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” said Silva. “It’s I who should apologize — coming on a day like this …”

“I asked you to! It’s no bother at all The only thing is" — looking at his watch — “we ought to leave right away …I know, Silva — why don’t you come with us to the airport? There’s room in the car, and we’ll have more time to talk there. Otherwise I'm afraid we might be late. What do you think?”

“I'm quite ready to come, but are you sure there really will be room? I don’t want to — ”

“Of course! Plenty of room!”

“Yes,” agreed his wife. “And then we two can drive back together.”

Again Silva felt like falling on her neck.

“You’re both very kind,” she murmured.

“Let’s go, thee!” said Skënder, grabbing his case and his overnight bag.

“Sure you’ve got everything?” said his wife as they were getting into the car, “Did you remember to pack the notes for your book?”

He nodded.

“Oh, are you writing another book?” said Silva.

“Mmm,” he replied, his usual way of implying he didn’t want to go into it.

“He hasn’t actually started yet,” said his wife. “I gather it’s going to be a subtle kind of a novel But I don’t know why he’s taking his notes with him. I shouldn’t think he’ll have much time for writing.”

“Come on!” he cried. “We’re late already. If the delegation’s cancelled because of me, I don’t like to think what the Chinese will say!”

“When they asked you to go to the ministry just now I thought the trip was going to be postponed again.”

He laughed.

“I don’t blame you. I’ve never heard of a mission being put off so many times.”

“One can see why,” said Silva.

“It hits you in the eye!” he agreed. “But since, as no doubt you’ve heard, there seems to a bit of an improvement in the relations between the two countries, the Chinese informed us that they were expecting us. But even so, it wasn’t easy. They needed time to re-cast the invitation. And do you know in honour of what the delegation of Albanian writers is finally going to Peking? You’ll never guess if you rack your brains for a hundred years! In honour of the Day of the Birds!”

Silva burst out laughing.

“You’re joking!”

“Am I joking?” he said, turning to his wife.

“No, it’s the truth,” she told Silva. “I laughed when he told me.”

Skënder started to explain how the man at the foreign ministry who was in charge of the delegation had also said “You must be joking!” when the Chinese cultural attaché handed him the invitation. But the attaché had replied that he was quite serious. When the vexed Albanian official observed that his country wasn’t in the habit of sending delegations abroad on such topics as birds, he pointed out that the Day of the Birds was a perfectly serious occasion, which also figured in the Albanian calendar. He thee produced one, pointing out the date in early spring when the day occurred,

“I don’t suppose either of you knew that, did you?” said Skënder. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

He went on to describe how the Albanian official had asked why this was the occasion for which the delegation was to be invited, and the Chinese attaché explained that the Chinese Union of Writers, abolished under the Cultural Revolution, hadn’t yet been revived. So they had to find another peg on which to hang the forthcoming visit, and the Day of the Birds was the best that could be found. He thought it was an excellent idea: the connection with airiness, the sky, inspiration…Very subtle, no?

Skënder’s wife and Silva laughed again.

“You have to have dealt with them to believe it!” said Skënder. “It’s enough to drive you crazy. And as a matter of fact, I can’t look at a bird now without feeling a kind of affinity…What do they say about being as free as a bird?”

That set the other two off again.

“Who else is going?” asked Silva,

Skënder pulled a face.

“A chap I pointed out to you one day…C–V— …”

“Oh! Why him?”

“Apparently the Chinese like him. This is the second time he’s been invited.”

“It’s not hard to see why,” said Skënder’s wife.

Soon after that they arrived at the airport, which seemed busier than usual. There were a number of Chinese in the departure hall and around the customs areas.

“You can tell there’s been a change in our relations with China, can’t you?” said Skënder as they made for the cafeteria, “You should hear what the foreign radio stations say about it! Some of them say Mao Zedong knew nothing about the cooling off, and that when he found out he flew into a rage, gave his aides a dressing down, and ordered Zhou Enlai to see to it personally that all the goods that had been held up should be dispatched right away.”

“The sort of tale they usually spread!” commented his wife.

“Still, something has changed,” said Skënder, with what looked like a rueful smile.

At the cafeteria, they bumped into C–V—.

“So here you are!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.”

“Well go all right, don’t worry!” said Skënder, not looking at him.

Silva frowned. It didn’t look as if Skënder was going to have a chance to talk to her about her brother. Sometimes he seemed to have forgotten all about it.

She heaved a sigh of relief when C–V— went over to a group of relations who’d come to see him off.

“What would you like to drink?” Skënder asked the two women, “We can talk better here,” he said, turning to Silva. “I preferred not to say anything in the car because of the driver.”

“I understand,” she said faintly.

He suddenly looked serious. Silva felt a chill run down her spine,

“It took me some time to discover what it’s all about,” he said, fiddling with his plane ticket, which was lying on the table. “It’s a strange business — mysterious, you might say, in some ways. But what’s certain is that your brother and some other tank officers were arrested for refusing to obey an order.”

“I knew that,” said Silva. “Arian told me…”

“Yes, but listen,” Skënder went on, still toying with his ticket, “It was an order that Î myself, and most other people, would have disobeyed.”

“What?”

“And since we’d all have done the same as he did, and we’re all free, he ought to be free too, even though they’ve put him in the nick for the moment.”

Silva was about to say, “For the moment…?”, but he didn’t give her time.

“Don’t ask me anything more,” he whispered. “I don’t know any more myself. But what I have told you is absolutely true. For the present, the whole affair is shrouded in mystery…But there’s no need for you to worry …”

It was gradually sinking in. At first what she’d heard had seemed very unremarkable, because she’d been expecting something more detailed, more precise. But now she realized there were some important bits of information buried in what Skënder had told her. In short, she told herself, Arian is innocent! Innocent!

“You do understand, don’t you?” he said, putting his hand on hers. “There’s no need for you to worry. Perhaps when Î get back from China…”

“Thank you, Skënder,” she faltered. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me."

“And here’s the cultural attaché!” he cried, smiling at a Chinese diplomat who was coming towards them, together with the foreign relations secretary of the Writers’ Union. “How are you, comrade Hun? Well, I trust? Allow me to introduce you: my wife and a friend of ours…”

“Great pleasure,” said the Chinaman. “Come to wish you bon voyage,”

“Thank you, comrade Hun. So the birds are iying to Peking — tweet tweet tweet!”

The Chinese attaché laughed.

“Pretty little things, birds, eh?” he squeaked. “Good for inspiration! Where’s the other comrade gone?”

Silva could feel her relief at the news about her brother slowly turning into euphoria. She wanted to laugh and shout. The whole place was full of the buzz of conversation. What a lot of people seemed to be going to Peking…Suddenly, among all the travellers hurrying to and fro, she noticed a Chinese with one foot in plaster. Victor Hila’s Chinaman! It could only be he!

“Look at that Chinaman over there,” she whispered to her friends.

“The one with his foot in plaster?”

She nodded.

“If he’s the one I think he is, that foot is behind an absolutely fantastic story.”

And to the accompaniment of giggles from Skënder’s wife and guffaws from Skënder himself, she told them about the incident between Victor Hila and Ping, the Chinaman.

“Wonderful!” said Skënder, “Incredible! An X-ray of a Chinese foot mixed up with diplomatic notes!” Then, with a sigh: “To think of the country I’m about to be transported to through the air, like Nosferatu!”

His wife’s face fell even before she stopped laughing, and Silva recalled the presentiment she herself had had sometimes when Gjergj was in China. I hope to God he never has to go there again! she thought.

There was an increased stir of activity in the hall.

“The plane has just got in,” they heard someone say.

Outside, it was getting dark.

Over the public-address system a woman’s voice asked all passengers travelling to Shanghai to be ready for embarkation.

The three of them stood up and went over to the glass door. Skënder’s wife, stifling a sob, kissed him goodbye; Silva did the same. Then both women stood by the window, watching the stream of passengers make their way over to the huge aircraft. Some turned and waved. Perhaps because of the heavy bags they were carrying in either hand, they looked as if they were tottering rather than walking. Through the dusk, Silva made out the figure of C–V—, thee that of Ping, hobbling as he brought up the rear. He and Skënder will be travelling together, she thought regretfully.

The passengers were beginning to disappear into the plane. Skënder turned at the top of the steps and waved to them, though probably he couldn’t actually see them from all that distance.

“Look!” his wife suddenly exclaimed. “Look who’s going up the steps to the plane!”

“Yes,! noticed him before,” said Silva, trying to smile. The other woman looked terrified.

“I have a feeling he’s a bad omen,” she whispered.

Silva wanted to protest, but couldn’t find any words.

“Why did they both have to go on the same plane?” asked Skënder’s wife fearfully.

The two women stood with their faces pressed against the cold glass until the plane lifted off the runway and vanished into the eight.

By the time they got back into the car it was quite dark. They sat for a long time in silence. Silva could see how upset her companion was, but what was there to say? She felt very tired herself. Something Skënder Bermema had said came back to her vaguely — ”It looks as though there’s something going on in the army” — mingled in her mind with the sound of aircraft engines and the sight of a lone Chinese hobbling after the rest of the passengers on to the plane.

“Well,” she thought sleepily, “after all that fuss, all those diplomatic notes and radio messages, after having caused another man’s misfortune — how are you really any better off?” She shuddered at the thought that Skënder Bermema might tread on the Chinaman’s foot by mistake as they were finding their seats on the plane, and trigger off another scandal …“A subtle kind of a novel…” — that’s how Skënder’s wife had described his new book…She knew that if she’d been alone in the back of the car she’d have nodded off to sleep.

“Drop in and see me one of these days,” said Skënder’s wife as the car stopped and Silva prepared to get out. “We can keep each other company for a while.’’

“Thanks,” said Silva. “I’d love to.”

They said goodnight, and Silva hurried towards the front door of the apartment block where she lived. Only thee did it occur to her that Gjergj must have been worried at her being away so long.

Rumours went on multiplying about an improvement in relations with China, though the press was silent on the subject, apart from a couple of articles in a literary review about the discovery near Peking of the tomb of an early emperor. None of the large freighters said to have set sail on the express orders of Mao Zedong had yet reached the port of Durrës. There wasn’t even any news that they’d passed through the Straits of Gibraltar.

The matter of the freighters was the main subject of all conversations, and accounts of their long voyage were so many and various that people came to imagine a vast ieet of ghost ships wandering through the mist. Some observers maintained that it was all deliberately engineered by the Chinese to keep the Albanians in a state of doubt and anxiety,

Enver Hoxha referred to the matter in his speech closing the current plenum of the Central Committee. As he spoke his eyes ranged slowly over the side of the room occupied by members of the government responsible for economic affairs. Everyone else was so quiet you could almost hear their eyes turning towards the group Enver Hoxha was addressing.

Some members of the army were visibly relieved. So the others are in for it, thought Minister D—. Just so long as the thunderbolts don’t fall on us!

“In order to modify their general line — in other words, to draw closer to American imperialism — the Chinese have had to prepare the ground and remove any obstacles to such a turnaround. One of the obstacles was the Party. So they made it a puppet of the army, subjected it to the terror of the Red Guards — so much so that they practically annihilated it…”

Here Enver Hoxha paused for a moment. His eyes seemed to be seeking out someone. Minister D— felt as if all the columns on the other side of the room were tilting towards him.

“Here too there are some people,” Enver Hoxha went on, “not just anyone, but people who have risen to high places, who, perhaps in imitation of the Chinese, perhaps at their instigation — time will tell — have tried…”

He paused again. The group of soldiers he was now looking at directly shook in their shoes.

“To try to encircle a Party committee with tanks is tantamount to rehearsing for a military putsch…”

This is the end, groaned Minister D—. He’d never have dreamed it could all finish so suddenly. The columns that had hitherto seemed to be leaning towards him now appeared to be falling on top of him. Between the blows the voice of Enver Hoxha came to him, at once distant and deafening.

“I can’t say for certain that it was done with evil intent. I’d prefer not to have to believe such a thing. But that’s not the point…The point is that the order was not carried out, and such orders never will be carried out in Albania, no matter who issues them. And that’s what’s so marvellous, comrades! It is not through decrees and orders, but if necessary against them, that our great popular mechanism, acting of its own accord, without being commanded by anyone, defends our glorious Party!”

Popular mechanism! moaned Minister D—. Acting of its own accord…He couldn’t imagine anything more frightful

But could he himself escape its tentacles? Was all hope lost? “I can’t say for certain that it was done with evil intention. I’d prefer not to have to believe such a thing…” He felt like yelling out, “That’s right, comrade Enver! I didn’t mean any harm!” But he was buried beneath all those columns, his mind was reeling, neither his breath nor his voice would obey him,

“The Chinese have recently shown signs of desiring a rapprochement,” Enver Hoxha continued. “They’ve even expressed regret for some of their attitudes. For our part, we have no wish to add fuel to the flames. If anyone holds out the hand of friendship to us, we hold out our own hand in return. But time will tell if these gestures are sincere or not. At all events, we are prepared for anything either way,”

The plenum ended late in the afternoon. As the members of the Central Committee drifted out of the room in groups, Minister D— muttered to one of his pale-faced aides:

“Should we free the tank officers right away?’’

“Isn’t it a bit late for that?” said the other faintly,

“Let ‘em out at once!” said the minister through clenched teeth,

Ekrera Fortuzi stood on the edge of the pavement watching a convoy of cars drive up the central boulevard. He concluded there must have been a meeting of the highest importance somewhere. A plenum, perhaps, he thought, patting his briefcase as if to check how nice and full it was.

When the traffic thinned out he crossed over. They could have as many plenums and congresses as they liked, so long as his case had plenty in it! He stroked it as he might have stroked his stomach after a good meal.

He was in a very good humour. After a month and a half without any requests for translations from Chinese, he’d suddenly been given four different jobs at once — all urgent, too! He was hurrying home to give his wife the good news.

“Oo-ooh!” he called from the hall. But he could tell from the sound of running water that his wife was in the bathroom. “I’ve got good news for you, darling!”

She didn’t hear, so after hanging up his coat and hat he went to the bathroom door. But before letting her know he was there, he bent down and had a look through the keyhole. H’mra, pretty well-stacked, especially from this angle …He waited until a chance movement showed him her pubic hair, looking darker and more bushy than it was in reality.

Then, as she emerged from the bathroom with a towel round her head:

“Good news!” he told her.

“Some translations?”

“Yes!”

“Good! That means they’re patching things up?”

“It looks like it.”

While she was plucking her eyebrows in front of the mirror, he paced up and down telling her about his successful tour of the various offices.

“Is the work you’ve got worth twenty thousand leks?” she asked.

“Well, I couldn’t really say. I think …”

“Don’t try to pell the wool over my eyes, Ekrera!”

“Pull the wool over your eyes! For heaven’s sake!”

“I repeat — is it worth twenty thousand?”

“How should I know? Perhaps,”

“My astrakhan coat is completely wore out,”

“Hmph!”-

“Never mind about ‘hraph’! I’m sick of wearing that horrible old thing!’’

“Just as you say, my dear.”

“I don’t want to look like one of those floozies at the National Theatre playing some aristocratic dame from the past …I want a nice new fur coat…”

“As you wish, my love. And in return, what about letting me have this little fleece, eh? The more you use it the sweeter it is…”

She was glad he’d said “The more you use it” rather than “The older it gets …” For some reason he couldn’t explain, Ekrem found the word “use” arousing. As arousing as the image of her sex being penetrated by another had been a few years ago, when he’d been sure she was deceiving him.

He leaned 0ver and whispered something in her ear, at the same time breathing in the perfume from her neck.

“All right, all right!” she said. “There’s no need to grant like a pig. God, — when will you manage to be a bit more elegant?”

He prowled round her chair in delight.

“And don’t whisper rude words in Chinese at the critical moment, either! I don’t like it!”

“But Chinese works me up, my pet!”

She pulled a face.

“You’ve got a positive gift for sullying everything!”

He opened his satchel to take out the papers that had to be translated.

“Keep those horrible hieroglyphics out of my sight!” she shouted. “And don’t go getting undressed — we’re going to see the Kryekurts. We haven’t congratulated them yet on Mark’s engagement.”

“Whatever you say, my owe.”

Half an hour later they were going through the Kryekurts’ gate, bearing a large cake. As usual, Hava Fortuzi glanced at the outside staircase leading up to the first floor of the villa. The vines that twined all over it looked pretty lifeless at this time of year.

Inside the house, in addition to Hava Preza, Musabelli, and several other of the Kryekurts” usual guests come to offer their congratulations, there was an elderly couple the Fortezis hadn’t met before. The newcomers got the impression they were interrupting a very pleasant conversation,

“Forgive us for being so late,” said Hava Fortuzi. “We couldn’t help it. Ekrem’s up to his eyes in work as usual, and I had a headache…Still, we’re here now! All our best wishes to Mark!..But isn’t he here?”

“Thank you, thank you!” said Emilie. “Mark’s in the other room with his fiancée. He won’t be a moment…”

“Don’t disturb them on our account,” laughed Hava Fortuzi, with a wink.

“He’s teaching her French.”

“Oh, French! I think I can speak that kind of French myself!” Hava Fortuzi gurgled, “Ekrem, do you remember the French lessons you used to give me when we were engaged?”

The elderly couple looked shocked. Emilie pursed her lips.

“And to think it’s Chinese that you’re trying to teach me now!” Hava Fortuzi’s mirth had suddenly turned to tears.

“There, there, Hava, my dear…” whispered Ekrem, who knew his wife was subject to these mood swings.

It wasn’t the first time she’d lost control of herself, But her host and hostess and their guests were taken aback. Only Musabelli wore his inevitable smile,

“Please forgive me!” said Hava Fortuzi, taking a handkerchief and pocket mirror out of her bag.

“It doesn’t matter in the least, my dear,” said Hava Preza, “It can happen to anyone.“

“It’s so sad to see how fast time Hies.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“She’s hypersensitive,” Ekrem explained to the elderly couple. “She may react like this to anything, good or bad. She’s always been like this."

Hava Fortuzi was peering into her compact and trying to repair the damage her tears had done to her mascara. When she had made herself presentable again, she cheered up.

“We’re so glad about Mark’s engagement,” she said, shutting her compact with a snap, “Ekrem and I often wondered what he was waiting for…”

“His poor grandmother used to worry too, when she was alive …”

Ekrem looked at a large photograph hanging on the wall

“Poor Nurihan, how happy she would have been if she were here today!”

Now it was Emilie’s turn to burst into tears.

“And what about you? How’s the work going?” asked Hava Preza to change the subject. “From what Hava says, I gather you’re very busy.”

“Well…I did have a slack period, bet now, yes, I am pretty occupied.”

“In other words," said Hava Preza, “relations with China are set fair again. Let’s hope we shall be the better for it! We were talking about it just before you came. And I thought to myself that you, Ekrem, were the person best placed to tell us what’s what.”

As soon as the conversation turned back to China, the elderly couple seemed to perk up. Gradually everyone joined in, including Musabelli, and all agreed on one point: the improvement in relations with China was welcome^ and they only hoped nothing would happen to spoil it. Occasionally, as they spoke, they would turn to the portrait of old Nurihan, as if asking her for her opinion. She was made for this kind of debate! Each of them thought how surprised she would have been if she could have heard what they were saying! It had all been so different the last time, when Albania broke with the Soviets: for days on end they’d whispered together here in this room, hoping the crisis would get worse and the two governments scratch one another’s eyes out as soon as possible, shaking with fright at the least sign of a rapprochement and breathing sighs of relief when such signs turned out to be wrong. Now it was quite the opposite: they trembled at the smallest hint of a rapture, and wished with all their hearts that Albania’s friendship with China would last for ever.

As if to get old Nurihan on their side, bet also to reassure them-selves, they listed all the advantages they could expect to enjoy from such a relationship. How stupid they’d been to be so hostile to the Chinese at first! How sarcastic they’d been about the customs, dress and language of the Chinese, when in fact these same Chinese were really their salvation! It wasn’t jest a matter of their rapprochement with the Americans, which had come about only recently and served to open their eyes. Long before that there had been other, incredible scraps of information. At first they’d rejected them as absurd inventions, dreams or slanders. But after going into them further and seeking evidence from people who’d been there, they’d come to the conclusion that the Chinese were treating former capitalists very well: some had been made assistant heads of factories, and even, as a signal favour, given a percentage of the profits. This had produced many sighs among the old guard in Tirana: some former factory owners, their hands shaking with age or illness, even started to work out their possible future gains. But they soon had to yield to the facts: however delightful the effects of Sino-Albanian friendship, it was highly unlikely that such a state of affairs would exist here, at least for another couple of generations. After that, who could tell? Their morale then plunged to a very low ebb, until a fresh crop of rumours came to pep them up. Forget about your percentages and other such foolishness, they were told, All that’s over and done with. Consider instead the real advantages we can get out of the Chinese. Haven’t you heard what’s going on there? A storm has been unleashed, sweeping all before it. And recently they’ve turned on the Party, and they’re trampling it underfoot. Imagine, a communist country smashing its own Party! It’s a miracle, and that’s putting it mildly! That’s what you want to watch in China, never mind about the rest. The Party’s the key to everything. When you attack the Party you attack the very foundations. And after that, there’s nothing left standing. All is disintegration and chaos. It’s only people like us, in our little corner, who are left in peace. And you dare to complain? Hush! Keep quiet! Not a word! We’re in the front seats, watching the show. In Shanghai and Peking the communists cut one another’s throats. The class struggle, the war between the schools of thought and the party lines or whatever the hell they call them now — all this has been transposed to within the Party itself. Their hatred is directed against one another now. And who performed this miracle? The Chinese themselves! And you have the cheek to criticize them? You don’t realize what it means to have the communists tearing one another to pieces? Perhaps you’d rather they turned against us? So stop ranting on about the Chinese — just bow your heads and say a prayer for them! They’re a godsend to us, the instrument through which divine Providence has chosen to help us!

Such were the arguments that had been bandied about before and that they now adapted to the present situation. That was the truth, and time had confirmed it even beyond their expectations. But now, as then^ enthusiasm was punctuated by doubt: would the Chinese continue in the same vein? Mightn’t it be a false spring, one of those shows they’re so good at? When they’d finished settling scores amongst themselves, mightn’t they round more furiously than before on the ex-bourgeois? “You rejoiced too soon! You thought we’d forgotten you, did you? Well, now we’re going to hit and club and decapitate any of you we can lay our hands on.”

“I’ll never forget when they launched the slogan, Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools compete among themselves,” said Hava Preza. “That gave us all a flicker of hope again. At last they’re loosening their grip a bit, we told ourselves. But what happened? It was only a monstrous trap, one of the most extraordinary ever. The unfortunate butterflies flocked to the meadow covered with daisies, but instead of nectar they found only poison.”

“Alas!” sighed Musabelli.

“That was the whole object of the exercise,” said Hava Preza. “To attract the butterflies to their doom.”

“Alas!” sighed Musabelli again.

“And do you remember what happened next?” The hand holding Hava Preza’s cup shook so much that a couple of drops of coffee splashed unnoticed on her dress. “Instead of having a meadow with a hundred flowers in front of us, we were confronted by the Gobi Desert, as poor Nurihan used to say.”

“She wasn’t often wrong,” murmured Musabelli.

But for some time, without venturing actually to interrupt, Ekrem Fortuzi had been shaking his head to show he didn’t agree with what Hava Preza was saying.

“Allow me to contradict you,” he said finally, as Hava Preza stopped to take a sip of coffee. “It’s quite natural that you should be sceptical: we’ve often been deceived, sometimes quite cruelly, as in the case of the break with the Soviets, on which we’d built such hopes. But this time, believe me, things are different,”

“Ekrem’s right,” said one of the other visitors. “It’s not the same this time. Who would ever have thought the Chinese would invite the American president to go and see them? And yet that’s what’s happened.”

“True enough,” agreed the others.

“Maybe,” Hava Preza conceded. “I only hope you’re right! Don’t you think I want the same thing as you do? I’ve wished a thousand times that it should be so!”

“Believe me!” said Ekrem Fortuzi again. He was now quite carried away. “There’s no one in the whole of Albania, perhaps in the whole of Europe, who has studied the philosophy of Mao Zedong as thoroughly as I have, I have unravelled all his secrets, understood all his hints, worked out all the symbolical implications of his slogans in a way that is only possible if you study the original texts. While all of you were making fun of me for learning Chinese, that was what I was doing: trying to find the key to the enigma,”

“As far as learning Chinese is concerned, you were right,” said Hava Preza. “On that subject you were certainly wiser than the rest of us.”

“Thanks very much!” said Ekrem. “But where was I?”

“The philosophy of Mao Zedong.”

“The enigma.”

“Oh yes! Well, after going deeper and deeper into Mao’s doctrine I was convinced of one thing: it would be hard to find anyone this century who’s done as much for us, the dispossessed bourgeois, as he has. I suppose that sounds paradoxical to you?”

“We’re past finding anything paradoxical as far as the Chinese are concerned,” said Musabelli.

“Mao is our only hope,” Ekrem went on. “He’s the one who’ll save us from the cursed class struggle that hounds us like the Furies!”

“The class struggle!” said Hava Preza with a shudder. “To think of spending all our lives in the shadow of those three awful words!”

“And you see them everywhere!” cried Musabelli. “On walls, in shop windows, even in love songs sometimes! Sorry, Ekrem — if you ask me, if there’s one thing well never get free of it’s those words!”

“With the help of the Chinese I think we shall,” Ekrem answered.

“I doubt it.”

“It doesn’t seem very likely to me either,” said Hava Preza,

“You mark my words,” Ekrem insisted. “Especially in the last few years, when they’ve undergone constant modification, Mao’s thoughts have accorded less and less importance to the class struggle — in the end it’s become as insubstantial as an opium smoker’s dream. Believe me — Mao’s philosophy now secretes a kind of drug that brings oblivion, where everything is reconciled with everything else as on the plains of Purgatory…”

“Religion deals in reconciliation too,” said Hava Preza. “It’s been talking about it for two thousand years. Not to mention hundreds of philosophers and poets. So there’s nothing new about your Mao.”

“There’s nothing new about reconciliation itself, I know,” Ekrem admitted, “but you can’t deny that to hear a communist leader talking about it is a bit of a novelty! When religion and philosophy preach general harmony it doesn’t help us a bit — on the contrary, the more they talk about it the worse things go for us! But when Mao Zedong talks about it, that changes everything!”

“Yes indeed!” chorused the elderly couple.

“Mao, pastor to a billion human beings, the great helmsman, the red sue of the peoples of the earth, the fourth or fifth great classic of communist doctrine, ha ha!”

“Ekrem is right!” Musabelli conceded.

“Absolutely,” said the others.

“And take this challenge to the Party that we’ve talked about before…Don’t forget the Party’s the main thing, the foundation of everything else. And when the foundations start to crumble you can expect the rest to follow.”

“Talking of which, I heard something about some manoeuvres here where some tanks, I think it was, encircled a Party committee…”

“What? What?”

“For heaven’s sake don’t pay any attention to that kind of thing! Tanks, Party committees…forget it!”

“Hava’s right! Let’s get back to the Chinese!”

“Mao!”

“Are we really going to owe our salvation to him? Did we have that treasure all this time without realizing its value?”

“People never appreciate things till they’re oe the point of losing them.”

“No question of losing him!”

“Out of the question!”

“Relations are getting better.”

“Things always get sorted out in the end.”

“I thought I’d have a fit when I first heard the rumours about a cooling-off! Was the Lord going to abandon us again? Just as fate was smiling on us for once, God seemed to be turning his back on us.”

“Ekrem has shown he’s got more intuition and perspicacity than any of us.”

“That didn’t stop you making fun of me!”

“Forget all that now, and recite something to us in that wonderful new lingo of yours.”

“By the way, where’s Mark got to? He hasn’t even put his head round the door!”

“Leave him alone — he’s all right where he is! Come on, Ekrem — they tell me you’re jolly good at Chinese!”

“Well…”

“Now then, Ekrem, don’t be coy!”

They could tell that with a bit more persuasion he would perform.

All this could be dimly heard in the next room, by Mark and his fiancée.

“Il fait froid,” she read from the textbook open in front of her. Then they both looked up and gazed into one another’s eyes. Hers looked rather tearful and troubled. Il fait froid” she said again faintly, looking at him as if she expected something from him,

As a matter of fact, soon after they first met and just before they first had physical relations, he had told her about his one previous affair, with a married neighbour whom he’d taught French some years ago. This adventure was closely linked with the words his fiancée had just spoken: when his cliente (the only word he could think of now to describe the young woman) had reached the phrase Il fait froidj they had abandoned the textbook and made love. The brief episode remained his most vivid memory.

To his astonishment he saw that any reference to this incident upset his fiancée, to whom also he’d started giving French lessons. Every so often she would ask him to tell her about it again: she wanted to know as much as possible about his former neighbour and about his life in general in those days. What is she doing now? she would murmur, imagining one of those lovely, enigmatic creatures who, having had some ups and downs in their love life, are not supposed to be excessively attached to their husbands. Mark told the little he knew, and promised to show the other girl to her when she came back to visit the house (she had grown up in an apartment on the first ioor). And what about him — the husband? What did he do afterwards? Was that why they separated? Mark shrugged. He didn’t know. He wouldn’t have thought so. If it hadn’t happened for that reason it might well have happened for another. They were both distant and elusive people, seeming to live in another world. As a matter of fact, perhaps it was all really like that then…

“What do you mean — ‘it was all really like that’?” asked Mark’s fiancée.

He tried to give her some idea of that unforgettable period when everyone lived in a state of wild hope and expectation…The atmosphere was incomparably more intense then than now, though of course things were the other way round. In those days they (he nodded towards the other room) longed for sudden change, whereas now they wanted things to stay as they were…

“The two periods seem to have quite a lot of things in common, though,’ mused Mark’s fiancée.

He almost told her that the similarity between the two situations might have been the cause of their own engagement, but decided to put it off till later, when they knew one another better. But he himself was convinced that this more than anything else was what had made him want to get married.

“Il fait froid,” she repeated softly, still with the same imploring expression. “Tell me some more about those days.”

“What else is there to tell? As I said, it was like being in a fog…”

“Don’t you remember some particular incident?” she asked, undressing so slowly she looked as if she might freeze like a statue.

“Il fait froid — don’t you think it’s rather cold?”

“I suppose you think the world’s turned upside down?”

“What do you mean?” She had been almost panting. Now she held her breath.

He’d thought he’d only said the words to himself.

“That’s what she said,” Mark answered,

“Why haven’t you told me before? What does it mean?”

He tried to explain, but the harder he tried the harder it got.

“What she said applied to the situation in general: she thought I wanted to see her people stripped of power after the break with the Soviet Union; but she thought it wouldn’t happen like that; she thought that by having an affair with me she’d…”

“… she thought she’d lowered herself?”

“Something like that, I believe…She was very proud by nature, the daughter of a veteran communist who was also a vice-minister…To her, it was sinking pretty low…”

“Tell me what else she said.”

She brought her moist, imploring eyes closer. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told her about all that, he thought. But the next moment it seemed to him his earlier affair probably made him more interesting to her.

After a while, when their breathing had slowed down somewhat, they could hear the old clock ticking, then the hum of the visitors' conversation in the next room.

“Muttering away just the same as before!” he said.

“Just the same as before,” she murmured to herself.

He imagined the older people sitting in the same old row on the sofa, like waxworks in a museum.

“All life long the same eternal whisperings!” he exclaimed. “Don’t they ever get tired of it?”

“Ssh! I’d like to hear what they’re saying. I’ve never heard what the old guard say to each other before, when they’re alone.”

“Haven’t you?” he smiled. “Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunity now! It’ll be coming out of your ears!”

“Be quiet!”

She strained to listen, then pulled a face because she couldn’t hear properly.

“Put your ear to the wall,” Mark suggested.

She got up from the couch and followed his advice. After a few moments she beckoned him to join her.

“Listen!” she breathed, looking surprised and a little bit scared.

He put his ear to the wall. A couple of seconds later:

“Good grief!” he whispered. “They’re speaking Chinese!..This time they really are losing their marbles!”

Silva had made the necessary preparations for the next day’s lunch and was curled up wearily on the living-room sofa when the doorbell rang. She got up with some annoyance, thinking it must be some unwelcome visitor. But when she saw it was her sister-in-law her face lit up,

“Sonia! I’m so glad to see you! Come in!”

As Sonia was taking off her coat, Silva noticed she’d had her hair done very becomingly. She was just going to tease her about making herself beautiful now her husband was back. But, hair-do apart, Sonia looked rather down.

“What’s the matter, Sonia? You look upset.”

Sonia chewed her lip, but didn’t contradict.

“Well, I must say!” exclaimed Silva. “Aren’t you two ever satisfied? Instead of being happy that things turned out all right, you still go around with faces like fiddles!”

“Don’t you think I’ve told Arian so?” Sonia retorted, “Bet I might as well talk to a brick wall!”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. But he spends all day moping. I hardly know him.”

“Perhaps he’s worrying about being expelled from the Party? But I expect they’ll reinstate him, don’t you?”

“That’s what people say.”

“But that doesn’t cheer him up?”

Sonia shook her head.

“There’s something more serious bothering him.”

A surge of pity made Silva forget her momentary annoyance.

“I suppose it’s understandable. You do your job properly and all of a sudden there’s a bolt from the blue and you find yourself chucked out of the Party and into prison. It’s horribly unfair — disgusting. But there’s no point in letting it get you down…”

Sonia sighed.

“That’s what I keep saying, but it doesn’t stop him being depressed…And that isn’t all. There’s something else…and it frightens me…”

“What do you mean?” cried Silva, going cold.

“I’m half dead with fear,” said Sonia. “One day, when he let himself go for once, he said something terrible …. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“What did he say?”

“We were just sitting talking, and for the umpteenth time I’d said more or less what you just said, and he interrupted me. ‘Do you think I’m like this because of what happened to me? Well, it’s something quite different that’s bothering me! What I can’t accept is that both sides, ours and theirs, come out of the business unscathed…’“

“What did he mean?” cried Silva.

“Let me finish telling you. ‘One side or the other must be declared guilty/ he went on, ‘otherwise it’s all a lie and the world has been turned upside down.’“

“I don’t understand, What other side was he talking about?”

“The people who had them arrested.”

“Oh,” said Silva, going pale. “But they say it was the minister himself who gave the order for their arrest…”

“That’s who he means,” answered Sonia, “And that’s why I’m afraid.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“You’re right,” said Silva. “It’s enough to make your hair go white.”

“If he goes around saying things like that he’ll be back in jail before he knows where he is. And next time…”

“Shall I try to talk to him?” asked Silva. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to say, I doubt if it’ll be any use. But you can always try…”

Silva remembered Arian’s almost untouched, plate at Brikena’s birthday party. It all seemed to have happened in another age. Bet now, as then, she felt a pang of anguish.

Minister D— put his name to the fourth document, thee stared at his signature. It looked strange. What was happening to him? He picked the paper up and held it closer to his eyes, but it made no difference — his writing was smaller and more cramped, and his surname tailed away pitifully.

How can this be? he wondered. He’d thought a person’s signature was always the same — witness the evidence of handwriting experts in court, and the model signatures kept in Swiss banks…Perhaps there was something wrong with his sight?

He reached out for the other documents he’d just signed. All the signatures looked alike — shrunken, as if withered by the cold. He remembered that he’d had cramp in his arm yesterday evening. His fingers were still numb. That must be the explanation.

He put the paper down and decided to think no more about the matter. But after a moment he found himself looking at the documents again. Could there be something wrong with his pen? Yes, of course, he admonished himself, shaking his head reprovingly. And he’d almost believed it was that wretched affair that was at the root of everything, altering his voice, his breathing, his taste and finally his signature!

He pressed a bell for his secretary.

“What use are these pens supposed to be? The nibs are as fine as needles — absolutely no use for signing things! Please get me some that are broader — twice as broad, as broad as possible!”

“Very well,” said the secretary. He came back soon afterwards with a handful of other pens. “Try these,” he said, putting them down carefully on the desk. “They should be all right."

The minister tried one of them on a scrap of paper, then signed his name several times with some of the others, examining each signature closely and trying to persuade himself it was the same as usual

“What are you still here for?” he asked his secretary rudely, when he noticed him watching placidly. “That’ll do — I don’t need you any more!”

When he was alone again he put his head in his hands. It wasn’t the signature. Something else was wrong. He knew very well why he was anxious, but he refused to think about it. Every morning he hoped the new day would deliver him from his anguish, but it wouldn’t let him go. He tried everything. But no matter how many meetings he called, how loudly he pounded on the table and upset the flowers, how fierce the threats he uttered or how severe the punishments he handed out, it made no odds. Every word and gesture seemed somehow muted, the people he chastised seemed to be trying not to laugh. The sound he made when he banged the desk sounded so dull he’d looked under the red plush cover to see if the wood had changed into some other substance.

Was he or was he not still a minister? If other people were asking the question, they had only to dismiss him as soon as possible and put a stop to the whole affair. But who really had the power to do this? Those who were against him were his inferiors — some of them had never sacked anyone in their lives, not even a protocol clerk or a porter. So how could they get rid of him? Nevertheless he felt they’d cast a spell on him.

He vaguely remembered colleagues in other parts of the world not in Lade America, where a mere handful of colonels could conspire to terrorize a government, but in more serious countries, where ministers of defence were held in respect, not to say fear. Whereas he, far from inspiring fear in anyone else, was scared of everyone, not only people he knew but also the humble civil servant whose name he couldn’t recall and the crowds in the streets who were all the more terrifying because they were anonymous.

How had it all come about? Those manoeuvres, those tanks, had been enough to loosen the mysterious screw on which his whole life depended. What secret, irreversible mechanism had thus been set off? Hadn’t Enver Hoxha spoken of a formidable popular mechanism that started up of its owe accord? Was the cause of his own harassment real or subjective?

The tank officers had been released, but that hadn’t helped either. On the contrary, his anxiety had only increased. He’d expected they’d write to him, and even calculated how long their letters would take to write and then to reach him, allowing a margin of error. But there was no sign of any letters. Perhaps they’d seen the error of their ways? Again, instead of soothing his fears, his ingenuity only increased them. Why on earth didn’t they write?

At this point, as if reading his thoughts, his aides suggested his going on a tour of inspection that had been put off because of the problems with China, He greeted the suggestion with open arms. For the first days he was almost happy, sitting there in the back of his limousine whizzing along the roads, escorted by his staff-cars and bodyguards. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

He hurried from one regiment or depot to another as if afraid to slow down, one day visiting a fort on the coast, another dropping in on a tank brigade, the next on a military airfield. Looking back through the rear window at barracks, hangars and anti-aircraft batteries disappearing on the horizon, he told himself he must have been out of his mind to think other people had doubts about him. He felt like laughing at the very idea now. How could anyone throw the least suspicion on him, when he had all these guns and tanks and planes at his disposal — a Latin-American colonel could over. throw any number of governments with only a tenth of them! He himself had never used them except for manoeuvres, for a mere game. Could he have set people against him just for that?

He almost choked with resentment. Instead of looking askance at him they ought to be grateful! Anyone else in his position would have been aggrieved. Like anyone falsely accused and tempted to get his own back by committing the very crime that had been wrongly attributed to him, he was almost ready to organize a putsch! They were almost forcing him into it, instead of thanking him for abstaining.

He gazed out at the bare winter landscape, ruminating. If he came to a decision, would he be capable of translating his ideas into reality? He didn’t have to think twice about that!

But on the fourth day of his tour, he felt his confidence wane once more. He remembered the speech about a popular mechanism that triggered itself off like the system for restoring the current when the electricity breaks down. Again he found himself wondering where, in which offices, the levers of command were to be found.

By the roadside, at the crossroads, outside railway stations and at the entrance to almost every village, his eyes met with slogans: Party-People-Unity…No power on earth can break the unity between Party and people … Some were handwritten on walls, others on metal hoardings, but a few were picked out in stones, or cut out on the grass, on hillsides. He had the impression there were more of them now. Sometimes it occurred to him that invisible hands had put them there the day before, especially for him. Where did their orders come from…?

The thought of that mechanism terrified him more every day. He imagined it in various different forms, bet finally saw it as a mass of telephone wires, weather gauges, snares, hidden microphones and rusty old fox-traps, the whole lot stowed away on some distant stretch of wasteland. Perhaps its dilapidated appearance was only a camouflage…And it was all controlled from some unimaginable place — he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the orders came from underground, from the kingdom of the dead. And so he couldn’t consider it as a source of salvation.

Whoever attacks the Party devours himself! He looked back to check whether the slogan had been real or only an illusion. But the plain was shrouded in fog and he couldn’t see anything, I’m seeing things, he thought. The slogan hadn’t been in the usual style. He turned round again, rubbed his eyes, but the fog hid everything. He wouldn’t have been all that surprised to find he was having hallucinations. He felt like shouting, Stop writing messages to me on the hills! Can’t you see I can’t do anything about them?

On the fourth afternoon of his tour he felt his voice going different again. And he noticed again a certain slackness in the soldiers’ salutes, a certain lack of polish on their helmets and even on the barrels of heavy artillery pieces and anti-aircraft gens. He had a feeling that if he’d given the latter the order to fire, they’d only have produced silent flashes and blank projectiles, the sort you sometimes see in dreams.

What if it was all a nightmare? Anyhow, he couldn’t give orders to the army now. He pleaded indisposition and interrupted the tour.

And there on his desk in the office there lay the long-awaited letter with its dozens of signatures. He sat and looked at them for a long while, as if to say, Now what am I going to do with you?