The Concert

12

SKENDER BERMEMA PUSHED his notes aside and rubbed his aching forehead. He found it hard to turn away from one last manuscript, though. Should he read it or not?

He’d dashed it off in three nights in a dreary hotel in Chang Ha, on the basis of an incident he’d been told about. Now he was as curious to see what he’d made of the story as if someone else had written it.

And his eyes had started to read it without waiting for him to make up his mind:

SPIRITUALIST SESSION IN THE TOWN OF N —.

SYNOPSIS FOE STORY.

1

The little boat dropped anchor in the river port at N—, just to unload a few crates marked “Insecticide” in black letters. It was late on a cold September afternoon, and by the time the boat had plunged back into the mist, the crates, together with the two men who seemed to be guarding them, were on a Xin Fu track driving hell-for-leather towards the town centre. Later, when a lot of people claimed they could dimly remember that distant afternoon, they found it difficult to specify any details. As a matter of fact, apart from the man in charge of the little port and his two clerks, no one had witnessed the unloading of the crates from the boat or their swift loading on to the lorry. And not even the men in the port had been in a position to notice the strange fact that the Xin Fu truck, instead of pulling up outside some farm commune or municipal office or depot for hotel supplies, had disappeared into the yard at the back of the Department of Public Safety.

It seemed to be expected. No sooner had they seen the door of the truck fly open than Tchan, the director, and his assistants rushed over. From the way they all bowed, it was clear that the men guarding the crates were extremely important.

“We would have come to the port to meet you, but we were instructed …by wire…”

“I know,” interrupted one of the new arrivals coldly, “Is everyone here who ought to be here?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Let’s get them all together, then,” said the other, leading the way to the entrance. “I have a few words to say.”

Sitting round the table in the director’s office, the local officials gazed at the stern-faced envoys from the capital with a mixture of respect, uncertainty and terror.

“As you may imagine, we’ve been sent here by the Zhongnamhai, the General Bureau — in other words, directly by Chairman Mao,”

“As you may know,” said the other envoy, “the Zhongmanhai,despite its unpretentious name, occupies a special place: outside the Party, outside the state, outside the army, and outside yourselves. And in this context, ‘outside’ means ‘above’. The Zhongmanbai is above everyone because it’s the instrument of Chairman Mao, an extension of his hand and mind.”

He paused for a moment, half-closing his eyes, as if not wanting anyone to meet his gaze and distract his thoughts.

“More than once,” he went on gravely, “our enemies have tried to infiltrate the Bureau in order to encourage hostile tendencies. They’ve tried to draw our people into foreign plots, they’ve slandered us, asked for the Zhongnanbai to be abolished, but the Chairman has always defended us. He has defended us because we are blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh.”

He suddenly banged his fist on the table, making the others jump.

“Now Chairman Mao, our great helmsman, wishes to have at his disposal direct and accurate information from all over our great country, unmodified by any intermediary. And that’s why, from today on, he’s going to sow, to distribute these…”

He gestured at the crates, which he’d had deposited at their feet.

“These microphones, which we’ve brought here today in those crates, are his ears…”

There was a pause.

“Do you see?” he went on. “So long as these ears hear properly, China will have nothing to fear. But if they get stopped up, China will be lost. That is the message we are bringing you today.”

The others were still stunned by what they’d just heard. Ever since they’d been told that mysterious envoys from the capital would be coming to see them, bringing crates containing secret equipment, they’d imagined this would be something very out-of-the-way, and they were dying to know what it was. Though the crates were marked “Insecticide”, they’d expected them to contain special weapons — explosives, new kinds of hand-guns, tear-gas or electric truncheons. The idea of microphones had never entered their heads.

“Qietingqi, qietingqi” they muttered to themselves, as if repeating the name of the things would make them seem more real. Now they understood why some electrical engineers had been told to come here today too. Up till a few minutes ago they’d been looking down their noses at these eggheads. Now they began to treat them more affably.

So the boxes were full of mikes. The ears of Chairman Mao. Hundreds of thousands of them. God alone knew how many, installed all over China …They felt the first faint stirrings of delight.

The other envoy then described the workings of these devices, and how they were to be installed. He spoke very quietly, as if through one of the microphones he’d been working with so long.

As he spoke, the two electrical engineers made notes. The visitor first told them the crates contained various kinds of microphones: fixed ones, portable ones, and very small ones for attaching secretly to a suspect’s clothes. Then he instructed them in the various ways of setting them all up, in connecting and disconnecting them (the envoy used the words “sowing” and “harvesting”), in remote control, in the treatment and editing of tapes.

While the engineers scribbled feverishly, Tchan and the others listened open-mouthed. No one noticed that, outside, night had fallen long ago. A dismal night, wet and windy.

2

The same night, Van Mey, a citizen of N—, hobbled along the Street of the Red East on the way to see some friends. The street lanterns were few and far between, and blowing about in the wind and rain. But if he was worried it wasn’t only because of the weather, or because, in the mist, the light from the lamps was dimmer and gloomier than usual The same thought kept going round and round in his head: it was incredible that on this night in late September, in the town of N—, in the People’s Socialist Republic of China, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, he, citizen Van Mey, chemist in the laboratory at Factory No.4, member of the unions, praised for his zeal in studying the thoughts of Chairman Mao and his speeches at meetings held to denounce Liu Shaoshi, the liberalism of Deng Xiaoping, the idealism of Confucius, the four mysticisms, the seven demons of the country, and so on — that he of all people should have left home and gone out in order to take part in a spiritualist séance.

And on a night like this into the bargain! It might have been specially ordered!

A week or so ago a couple of his friends had given him a great surprise. For years they’d all been moaning and groaning about the boring life they led — a life without one heart-warming element, without restaurants, without traditional customs, without even the chance to flirt with a pretty woman; a life of chaff without wheat, insipid as canteen rice without salt or garnish; a life in which even fear was ugly, and anguish dry and calculated, nothing like the good old terror that used to be inspired by ghosts and spirits…Well, a couple of weeks ago these two pals of his had told him they’d organized a spiritualist séance.

Were they making fun of him? Could such a relic really still be found on Chinese soil? Even when they swore it was true, and said the medium they’d managed to find was only waiting to be told when they wanted to meet, Van Mey still couldn’t bring himself to believe them. Were they sure this man was to be trusted? That he wasn’t an agent provocateur, trying to lure them into disaster? Heavens, no, said Van Mey’s friends. Safe as houses.

And now here he was on his way to throw down the biggest possible challenge to that existence made up of meetings, slogans, quotations, empty phrases, hate and sterility. He was ready to swap the whole lot for a twinge of genuine old-fashioned terror.

He was drenched by the time he got to his friend’s house. He knocked at the door and went in. Both his pals were waiting for him. As was the medium. He was pasty-faced, with a flaccid skin, hair plastered down on his skull, and big bags under his eyes. Well, he doesn’t look like an agent provocateur\ thought Van Mey. He’s the old China all over.

The room was small and sparsely furnished: a plain wooden table, a few glasses, a thermos flask, and the inevitable anthology of quotations from Mao. The medium’s eyes seemed to be looking inward, not seeing anything in the external world. Nobody said much. The host poured tea from the thermos flask into the glasses.

“Well, Tchai Chang,” he said, smiling rather guiltily at the medium, “we’ve arranged this gathering…and we’re eternally grateful to you for making such a thing possible in this day and age…”

The medium listened impassively. Perhaps he had his doubts too: might they be pro-Pocateurs trying to lure him into a trap?

“I’ve got some candles — you said we’d need them,” said the host. “I don’t know if you want anything else…”

The medium glanced at the uncurtained windows.

“Oh, I get you… someone might see …And we’d need some reason for using candles instead of electric light. I thought about that. We’ll take the fuses out of the box, so that even if someone comes and knocks on the door…But I shouldn’t think they will It’s late, and in this weather…”

“No, there’s no danger,” said Van Mey’s other friend. “Even if some nosey parker did look in, he’d only see four people talking in the light of a couple of candles because there’s been a power failure.”

“And the windows are streaming with rain,” added their host. “It would be practically impossible to see in…What should we do now, Tchai Chang? You only have to say. We’re at your service.”

The medium nodded towards the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and spoke for the first time.

“Take out the fuses, as you said.”

His voice was normal, and less mysterious than Van Mey had expected.

Their host got two candles from the sideboard, lit them, and went out into the hall A few seconds later the whole apartment went black, until people’s eyes got used to the candlelight.

As they all looked at one another. Van Mey felt as if the iickering of the candle flames was communicating itself to his whole being.

“You are going to concentrate, concentrate very hard, and think about the person whose spirit you want to summon here tonight,” said the medium, looking round at them all “I can only make him come back with your help.”

“What?” said the host. “We hadn’t actually thought of anybody in particular…”

“You mean yoe haven’t chosen the dead person you want to speak to?”

They looked at one another,

“Well, I suppose…I suppose we could choose someone now …Sorry, Tchaï Chang — we were so excited we didn’t think about details …Does it matter if we decide now? Is it allowed?”

“Yes. It’s quite possible,” said the medium.

“No problem then. There are several dead people whose voice we’d like to hear. But the one we’d probably all choose first is Qan Shen, our dear Qan Shen, whose death caused us such sorrow and left such a void. What do you think, Van Mey?”

Van Mey had nodded in agreement even while their host was still speaking. Who else should it be but Qan Shen, with whom they’d had so many quiet chats until his sudden death the previous year? Van Mey’s grief was still quite evident.

“Especially as he died…in such suspicious circumstances…”

Van Mey wondered if they’d be able to question Qan Shen about his death. Brr — a chill ran down his spine at the mere thought.

“And hell really come, and we’ll be able to communicate with him?”

“I think so,’ replied the medium, “It depends on you. And on me too, of course.”

“Forgive our ignorance, Tchaï Chang,” said the host, “but may I ask you if it’s true, as I’ve heard, that sometimes one can not only hear the dead person’s voice but also see something of them? Excuse me if that’s a silly question.”

“Yes, it is possible to see the dead person,” the medium answered. “But not usually at the very first séance, and of course not completely. What you might see is a sort of ghost of his hand or face or some other part of his body — a vague image, rather like an X-ray photograph…”

“Of course,’ said the host in a quavering voice. “Of course…That’s a great deal, anyway… And what are we going to do now?”

“We’re going to begin,” said the medium.

What happened next Van Mey could never remember as a whole, but only in fragments that didn’t seem to belong in the same space and time. Perhaps this was due to the flickering light of the candles, or the rain streaming down outside, or the silence into which they poured their unspoken appeal to the dead man. “Qan Shen, it’s we, your bereaved friends, who are calling you from the depths of our grief. We can’t forget yoe…” Perhaps it was all those things together that blurred the outlines of everything so much at the time that Van Mey’s memory couldn’t join them together later.

His eyes were riveted on the medium’s face: the life seemed to drain out of it, leaving a mere mask. But as his face froze, his chest rose and fell in ever greater agitation until his breath came in one long groan, punctuated every now and then by a sort of stifled death rattle. He had entered into a trance. You could tell that all his strength was being beet to the task of summoning the spirit. It obviously wasn’t easy. Heaven knew what heights and depths his call had to travel through, not to mention the dark and the wind.

“Qan Shen, we’re waiting for you,” Van Mey silently implored. “Please do come down amongst us, who miss you so,’ His two friends were no doubt sending out the same supplication.

Finally, after what seemed a very long time, the medium’s breathing changed. In something resembling a silence, you could feel a presence.

“Are you there, Qan Shen?” muttered the medium. “You can speak to him now.”

But their lips seemed sealed. Neither then nor later did they know whether they actually managed to speak to Qan Shen or if they only thought the words: “Qan Shee, please forgive us for disturbing you on a night like this …”

“Don’t ask me questions!” said the medium curtly, transmitting the words of the dead man. “Don’t ask me questions about that day! It’s better for you not to know…It’s always too late…”

And those were the only words they heard. No matter how often they addressed the dead man again, they got no answer.

“He wasn’t here long,” said the medium, when he was himself again, “Perhaps he’ll stay longer the next time.”

The others stared in wonder as the medium’s ashen mask gradually changed back into its normal form and texture.

It was almost midnight when they all emerged from the apartment and set off for their various homes. The wind was still blowing, the rain was still falling, and the wan streetlights still swung back and forth overhead.

3

Four days later there was another meeting in director Tchan’s office. This time it included all those who were going to be involved in supervising the installation of microphones in the town of N—. The two representatives of the Zhongnanhai were there too.

After he had given a brief account of how the first technical teams were to be trained, director Tchan handed over to the man from the Zhongnanhai, who was going to talk about how the project was to be supervised.

The envoy from Peking gave a supercilious look at his audience, and opened his address with a question.

“No doubt, during all the time you’ve been studying this matter, you’ve wondered where the microphones are to be placed, and who is to be bugged, and according to what considerations? The Zhongnanhai's answer is quite plain: the qietingqis are to be placed everywhere. Is that clear? Right, now let’s go on. I expect there are some among you who think “everywhere” doesn’t apply to the Party, i.e. to party officials. The Zhongnanhai's answer to this question is equally clear: if any suspicion arises, microphones will be installed anywhere, from the office of the first secretary of the Party committee to the premises of the humblest individual No need to say more on this point. But before! conclude I should like to emphasize three things: first, the Zhongnanhai is subject to no restriction; second, nothing must escape the ears of Chairman Mao; and third, you must keep this operation secret, or pay for it with your lives.”

His audience assiduously wrote down what he said, their heads bowed over their notebooks. Although his message was so daunting, they felt the joy they’d anticipated at the previous meeting beginning to burgeon. They would soon be performing the magical process of listening to what people thought was quite private: outbursts of resentment against the state, gossip, confidences, things people said in their sleep, secret baseness, the things people said when they were making love.

Already the prospect made some of those present feel faint and parched and short of breath. Others thought of the possibilities concerning men they hated or envied, and women they hadn’t been able to attract and so dismissed as frigid or over-sexed. Others again dreamed of unmasking plots, winning medals, and having brilliant careers.

When the meeting was over, director Tchan stayed on alone in his office, staring at the ashtray. The thrill he, like the others, had experienced hadn’t lasted. It had been nipped in the bud by an as yet unspecified fear. Not fear of responsibility, or of uncertainty, or of the jealousy of other officials: no, something more vague than any of those, but which nonetheless made him shudder with apprehension.

He was going to listen to all that was going on in space, to plumb all secrets, go down into the utmost depths of the human heart. But good heavens! — that was like descending into hell, where no one else had ever gone! And if he was going into a forbidden realm, he was probably going to be punished for doing so.

4

The first mikes were put in place at the end of the week. The work started with those that were easiest to install: those destined for some rooms in the town’s main hotel, for certain offices, for the guest-house where foreign delegations were accommodated, and for two or three apartments whose occupants were away on missions.

It was normal to begin like that, without undue pressure, while the workmen involved acquired the necessary experience. But they knew it couldn’t continue indefinitely: they knew they wouldn’t always be able to take down a chandelier or unpick the upholstery of a settee at leisure, and introduce a microphone while a colleague kept watch at the door. They’d soon have to operate in more difficult circumstances, perhaps even in the presence of their victims, who would think they were repairing a switch or a tap.

In fact, by the following week, the number of mikes to be installed had quadrupled. (The operation, like everything else, was being carried out according to a plan.) The technicians, disguised as plumbers, painters or sweeps (what could be easier than to block someone’s chimney if you wanted to plant a’ bug on him?), embarked on a mass campaign. On two occasions they narrowly avoided disaster. The workers in question were almost caught redhanded, but fortunately, remembering their instructions, they pretended to be ordinary criminals and were taken, much to their relief, to the nearest police station.

At the same time as the permanent microphones were being installed, a series of tests was carried out with others operated by remote control But the placing of four small begging devices counted as the triumph of that week’s achievement. There were very few of them, and the workers had been told to handle them with particular care (they trembled at the mere mention of them). Bugs were as difficult to remove as to plant. If they were to accompany the suspect wherever he went, they had to be attached to his clothes. The state had spent a colossal amount of money on miniaturizing them for this purpose, said one of the envoys from the Xhongnanhai, However, unlike a kitchen cabinet, a bed or a W.C., which could be fitted with a mike in their owner’s absence, a person’s clothes were something he carried about with him. The only solution seemed to be to slip the bug into one of his pockets. But then, no matter how absent-minded or easy-going he might be, wasn’t he bound to notice you doing it? And even if you did manage to slip it in somehow, wouldn’t he find it the next time he put his hand in his pocket? And then, even if he was the type who never did put his hands in his pockets, how were you ever going to get the mike back again? (For they did have to be got back again once they’d performed their allotted tasks: first, because the Chinese state would never break the sacred rule of thrift and merely write them off; and second, because they were top-secret equipment, and as such mustn’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.)

Oh no, said the envoy, pockets were definitely out. He passed on to the possibilities offered by linings. For this you had to be able to unpick a seam and sew it up again, or else make a small and as near as possible invisible opening in the material. But you couldn’t do this when your man was actually wearing his clothes. So you had to get into his house when he wasn’t there, under the pretext of mending a tap, etc. Your problem was then solved, if the victim owned a spare suit. But most of them didn’t. Then what? You might put the mike in another garment that was just hanging in the wardrobe, waiting for the appropriate season. But that involved the problem of having to keep someone intended as a winter victim under surveillance the previous summer, and vice versa, which would make intelligence gathering impossibly complicated. There was only one solution, said the envoy from the capital, and that was to wait for, and take advantage of, the moment when the suspect took off some garment in a public place. This might be during a morning session of physical exercises, in a theatre or office cloakroom, while he was taking part in the mass cross-country run in spring, or in some private sport or other. You might have to follow him for months before you got a chance to slip him his qietingqi. As for getting it back again, you didn’t wait for him to go to the public baths or for the next spring marathon: yoe just watched till he went home one night, and then faked a burglary,during which you managed for a few moments to get hold of his jacket or trousers or whatever.

But your troubles weren’t 0ver even then, or if — ideally — you got access to the garment in a cloakroom, (By the way, a padded anorak was best for concealing things in.) Not to mention the fact that its owner might leave the meeting or office or factory before you expected him to (there were ways of avoiding this), you needed both skill and sangfroid to remember precisely where you’d placed the bug and extract it neatly without damaging the garment it was in. (This was referred to as “gathering in the fruit”.)

And all the aforementioned precautions had to be multiplied a hundredfold in the case of the rare and costly independent mini-mikes. These had their own recording spool, and were so expensive they’d only been produced in very small numbers so far. Their advocates argued the advantages of a device which could function independently of the listening centre, wherever the suspect happened to go, and which worked continuously day and night until its battery ran out. It was of course especially necessary to recover this type of microphone when its work was done.

Director Tchan knew all these dangers and difficulties, and more, so when the technicians came and announced that they’d placed five bugs and two independent mini-mikes in the anoraks of the relevant suspects, he rubbed his hands with glee.

“But don’t forget,’ he reminded his men, “that you’ve only done half the job so far. The other half may well be much harder!”

5

Despite strict and repeated exhortations to secrecy, a rumour grew up, vague and fearful at first, and then increasingly distinct, though still concealed: they were installing bugging devices, people said, in the town of N—.

Director Tchan tried in vain to trace the leak. His aides were equally unsuccessful though they resorted to threat and even actual arrests. What worried Tchan most was that the representatives of the Zhongnanhat were still in town. If the rumour came to their ears there’d be the devil to pay. He cherished a faint hope that they might leave before they suspected anything: after all, who were they going to End out from except him} But one day the sourer of the two ettvoys said curtly: “There’s a lot of talk in the town about microphones. How do you explain it?” Tchan quaked and tried to babble something. He couldn’t believe his eyes when the envoy smiled.

“Quite natural,’ he said. “It usually happens,’

Tchan still didn’t see what he meant.

“Isn’t it disastrous? Won’t it sabotage …?” he began.

Now I’ve put my foot in it, he thought. Why did I have to go and meet trouble halfway? But to his amazement:

“Oh no!” said the man from the Zhongnanhat. “It has advantages as well as disadvantages. The best thing is that it makes everything into a kind of myth. People invent so many fantastic stories about the microphones that in the end the rumour, which makes everyone vigilant to begin with, gradually lulls them into a kind of lethargy. And that’s when the hour of the qietingqis has come!”

Tchan was so relieved he lit a cigarette. He couldn’t wait to get the first results of this new intelligence technique. Meanwhile he went on receiving information through the earlier network — that is, via the human ear. His own spies, probably the first people to learn of the advent of the microphones, were sure to be annoyed, and afraid these newfangled devices would put them out of a job. Director Tchan had been told of murmurs to this effect, and eventually their resentment reached such a pitch he decided to summon his crack spies to a meeting. They were the fine flower of their profession, and their deeds would go down to posterity, Hun Hu had spent three days and three nights lying like a corpse in the morgue: he suspected his victim wasn’t quite dead, and hoped to extract one last word from him before he finally gave up the ghost. Xin Fung had been decorated by Chairman Mao himself for keeping a factory under surveillance for a hundred hours, while standing near a giant cutting machine. He was completely deaf ever after. Others had made other sacrifices in the service of their profession: some had deserted wives and children, others had renounced marriage altogether. Chan vung was perhaps the star of N—’s spying fraternity: he had’gouged his owe eyes out in order to Improve his hearing.

le view of all this, Tchan spoke to them with special warmth and consideration, invoking the glorious, three-thousand-year-old tradition of surveillance which in China had been put at the service of the people, No technique^ however advanced, could take the place of the ear, for the human factor was always the most important — only a technocrat or a revisionist could think otherwise. Then Tchan turned to the possibility of using listening devices. These were special appliances designed for special cases, above all those involving foreigners: they had nothing to do with their own great domestic surveillance. Just as agriculture used modern technology as well as beasts of burden; just as medicine relied both on highly trained specialists and on barefoot doctors; so intelligence too would employ not only microphones but also the human ear, which would still play the most important part in surveillance. Carried away by his own eloquence, Tchan embroidered on this theme, maintaining that a microphone was only a pale imitation of the human ear. This ear, reared on the quotations of Mao Zedong, was irreplaceable. And, he implied in conclusion, so were they, his audience.

The spieSj reassured, dispersed, and m the next few days sent in a mass of information unprecedented in both quantity and quality. As he looked through the weighty file oe the desk in front of hifn, Tchan meditated oe two possible reasons for this iniux. Either the spies themselves were working with extra zeal to show they were far from being mere has-beens. Or the ordinary people, confronted with a future in which rumour would be superseded because of the microphones, were taking advantage of what time remained to have a good gossip.

Tchan rubbed his tired eyes. Either of those two reasons would account for that fat file. Probably both.

The spies seemed to have taken particular care to report popular resentment against the qietingqis Tchan noticed, smiling sardonically. Perhaps they cherished a lingering hope that this might help get rid of the horrible things.

Tchan studied the various comments that had been made about the new device: it was an invention of the white foreign devil, and would bring nothing but trouble; it was a new dimension, but a bad one, and what use was that to humanity? it was the gateway to hell…Aeroplanes were prefigured by the flying carpets of legend, television by magic mirrors. But where were the precursors of the micro-spies? They were to be found in the voices of ghosts and vampires, in occultism, black magic, spiritualist séances and all kinds of other vestiges of the old world…

Yeah, said Tchan to himself, looking up from the file.

6

As he came out of the factory he heard someone calling him from the pavement

“Van Meyl”

He turned round, and was glad to see his two friends. They hadn’t met again since the famous night.

“How are you, Van? If s been a long time,’

“And you two — how are things?”

“Fine, fine. We were thinking of dropping in on you to say hallo …

“Good, good! I’ve been very busy in the evening lately…”

Why, after that evening, had they all avoided one another, rather than meeting the very next day to exchange their impressions? What had come between them because of the spirit they’d raised?

“I see you’ve bought yourself a new anorak!”

“Yes,’ said van Mey, “The old one was falling to pieces. So I counted up all the money Và saved last summer…’’

“Quite right. Winter’s early this year.”

They walked along for a while without speaking, but they all knew they were thinking about the same thing.

“I can’t get that eight out of my mind,” one of them admitted at last.

“Neither can I,” said Van Mey, quite relieved now the subject had been broached at last.

“What do you think — should we have another meeting?”

Van Mey looked at the other two.

“What do you think? And what about the medium…?”

“The medium said the spirit might stay longer next time.”

“I didn’t mean that — I meant can you get hold of the medium again?”

“Of course!” they said. “We wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.”

“I’m willing,” said Van Mey, with a shudder.

“What do they say about the micro-spies?” said one of the others, to change the subject.

“What don’t they say!” exclaimed Van Mey.

They told one another all they’d heard.

“I don’t mind betting things are going to get difficult/” said one. “Those qietingqis bode no good.”

“I expect you’re right,’ answered Van Mey absently.

In his mind’s eye he could already see the little flames of the candles at the next séance, and their own anguish as they waited for the spirit to come.

7

Director Tchan had imagined it quite differently, the fateful day when the mikes would reproduce the very first voices, when his spies of flesh and blood would be joined by an army of soulless instruments. But nearly a fortnight had gone by since the first microphones were installed, and no great day had arrived. On the contrary, the first time he’d listened in live to microphones installed in people’s homes he’d found it tedious and wearisome, as well as unproductive. The mikes in question weren’t those that had been placed in the villa reserved for foreign visitors: the villa was empty at present, and the mikes there silent. The ones Tchan listened in to were in the main hotel, but these transmitted snores more often than words, and if there was a conversation it was usually trivial and devoid of interest. The mikes in government offices conveyed nothing but endless discussions, and Tchan soon gave up listening: he had enough boring meetings himself in his own office!

Disappointed by listening in direct, he waited eagerly for the first “harvest” from the temporary mikes, the ones placed in private houses and bedrooms, and above all those fixed to people’s clothes. There were seven of these, almost the number prescribed in the bi-monthly plan. Tchan was sure that what was recorded on these tapes would prove to be the most important part of their work.

Everyone was waiting for them and trying to conceal the gleam of anticipation in his eyes.

One morning when he walked into the building where he worked he sensed that they had arrived. He couldn’t have said where he felt it first: by the box where the sentry stood; as he passed some of his colleagues on the stairs; or in the characteristic silence of the corridors. Anyhow, when his assistant came into his office, Tchan knew already what he was going to say:

“Comrade Tchan — the first tape …!”

“It’s come, has it? Bring it in at once.”

“I’ve got it here.”

Tchan had given orders that no one was to listen to it before he did. He was very excited. He locked the door, lit a cigarette, and asked his assistant to start.

After an hour’s listening he was even more disappointed than he had been by the permanent mikes. His assistant tried to catch something of interest by rewinding the tape several times, but it consisted mainly of silences with crowd and traffic noises in the background. There was an occasional hoot from a taxi, or a car door banging; the few odd scraps of speech were of no significance whatsoever. But what could be more natural? Tchan tried to reassure himself. He ought never to have listened to this tape just as it was, even before his closest assistants. It was like a great mass of mud and stones which would have to be carefully sifted if it was to yield the least particle of gold.

“The sound quality’s very good, isn’t it?” said his colleague,

Tchan nodded wearily. What more could you expect from a soulless piece of apparatus? He remembered his speech about the human ear. If he could have talked to his old spies now he’d have treated them with even more deference.

But his disillusion didn’t last long. Three days later his assistant received the first serious results, selected from tapes on mini-mikes that had just been recovered.

Tchan shut his eyes so as to concentrate better. The recording contained complaints about the state, the Cultural Revolution the unprecedented shortages and the universal chaos. Some people objected to the banning of ancient customs, others to anything that undermined the authority of the Party. Thee came some very dubious remarks made by the first secretary of the Party in N— to some dinner guests of his: he was being malicious and sarcastic at the expense of the central government Tee-hee, Tchan chuckled. His relations with the first secretary had cooled since he’d summoned Tchan to ask him for a report about the installation of the qietingqis. Tchan had refused to tell him anything, and the first secretary had flown off the handle. After they’d exchanged a couple of quotations from Mao Zedongs Tchan, realizing the first secretary had the advantage of him on that score, decided to tell him straight: “I’m not accountable to anyone but the Zhongnanhail” At the mere sound of that dread name the first secretary started to stammer so much that Tchan almost felt sorry for him. “I’m not even accountable to my minister,” he’d said to soothe him down a bit. And now here the fellow was, making fun of him to his guests: “He’s not a bad sort, old Tchan, but he really is as thick as two planks!”

Laugh away, thought Tchan grimly. His face showed no expression. His assistant stopped the tape and glanced at him to see if he wanted to go on listening.

“Perhaps more out of curiosity than for the actual content…?” suggested the aide. “It’s only a private matter…intimate, really…very intimate …Though perhaps one might detect something that’s-… Well, the way the couple try to imitate the West, even in. their physical relationship…a certain excess in their love-making… In short, they adopt capitalist ways of doing it, like …like…”

This last, unfinished phrase made Tchan’s mind up for him, and he signed to his assistant to start the tape again. They both listened in silence, as before. Not a muscle moved in the director’s face.

From the loudspeaker there came first the panting of the man, then that of the woman, quieter. She was almost sobbing as she implored him not to do something which she apparently at the same time desired: “No, not like that …No, please, not like that… It’s wrong…Don’t you think it’s wrong?…Ah…”

“Well, at last we’ve got something really important,’ said the assistant when the couple’s moans had ceased…

From the very first words, director Tchan had known why his aide had kept the next bit till last. He knitted his brow. This was what he called results! Just what he’d been waiting for all this time. Words hostile to Jiang Qing. He started to break into a cold sweat. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard people insult her…So why was he so worked up? …The black-souled Empress Vu was an angel of light compared with this one…The old dodderer must have gone soft in the head to put up with such a viper…Director Tchae had heard all this before, or rather read it in his spies’ reports, bet it was another matter altogether to hear the words spoken by human voices and accompanied by malicious laughter.

It wasn’t until his aide had left the room that Tchan began to feel a little calmer. He lit a cigarette, though there was another, still unfinished, resting on the ashtray. The material supplied by these mikes was clearly quite a different kettle of fish from the work of his spies. They merely reported things orally or in writing, relying on their memories, and the value of their evidence depended not only of the acuteness of their hearing but also on their training, talent, culture, and state of mind at the time. However reliable and devoted they were, there was always an element of uncertainty about their reports, which might exaggerate things or play them down, distort them wholly or in part, or even invent them altogether. It depended on the individual spy’s ambition, his recent successes or failures, and his personal relations with the suspect, if he happened to know him. The spies looked down on agents provocateurs and ordinary informers as underhand, unreliable, and often corrupt. “We don’t skulk around deceiving people,” they boasted. Our work is clean and straightforward: we put our ear to the wall or the ceiling and report truthfully. We heard this or that, or we didn’t hear anything at all Whereas informers and agents provocateurs — ugh! they make things up, they slander people, they settle personal scores…” Nevertheless, the spies themselves weren’t always entirely objective, whereas this new equipment was honesty itself, and reported everything exactly as it was, fully and impartially. Now Director Tchan really could pride himself on doing his job properly.

Now he really could listen in. The implications were dizzying. The whole chaos and tumult of humanity would now be wafted up to him. This morning’s work opened up vistas of light and darkness, ecstasy and horror. He thought of the mysterious power exercized by the demons of old. What could they do that he himself couldn’t do now?

8

Van Mey met his friends at the end of the week. They swapped the latest news as usual; as usual it was awful, and could only get worse. A fierce power struggle was said to be going on among the factions in Peking. The winter would only bring new waves of terror. Apparently Mao wasn’t well

“An Albanian delegation came to the factory yesterday,” said Van Mey, “and I had to take them round.”

“What were they like? What did they say?”

“Hard to say, really. I took them to the shop floor, as we usually do with foreigners, but they just looked and smiled. You couldn’t tell what they were thinking.”

“How can they like what they see? And they don’t know half the horrors we have to live with…”

“All they see is just window-dressing,’ said Van Mey.

“But it’s not very difficult to see past it.”

“Perhaps they do see past it, but they pretend not to,” said Van Mey. “In Albania, apparently, people go to concerts to listen to Beethoven — the women wear lipstick and jewellery. The delegation must have noticed how barren and monotonous our lives are here.”

“But they pretend not to notice. Partly for political reasons, partly because they think this sort of life is quite good enough for the Chinese.”

“Do you think so? Well, I think their own lives will gradually become just as arid as ours. Then they’ll understand how awful it is, but by then it’ll be too late.”

“All the time I was taking them round I wanted to say to them: ‘Are you blind? How can you possibly not see what’s going on here?'”

“That would have been sheer madness!”

“Maybe, but if I’d had the chance Pd have whispered a message to them in the few words of French I know. Pd have told them, ‘Don’t believe anything you see — everything is going to the dogs!’ But it was quite impossible! I only had about half a minute alone with one of them, and as soon as I opened my mouth the other guide showed up. But I think that Albanian guessed something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Almost certain.”

They went on trudging along the muddy road, amid the rats left by the wheels of heavy lorries. It was cold.

“Well probably be able to meet next week for you know what… The medium is going to get in touch. So on Thursday or Friday …”

“ill be there,” said Van Mey. “Without fail!”

9

Every morning now when he got to his office, Tchan, instead of looking at the papers, or any urgent reports, or his timetable for the day, sat straight down and listened to the tapes that had been recovered during the previous night.

After which, he usually looked very down in the mouth, and was in a bad temper for most of the morning. His assistants had noticed all this, and had tried to think of a way of getting him to listen to the tapes at the end of the day instead of at the beginning. But all their efforts were vain. And to think this was only the start! What would it be like when the weather got really cold and people got even more discontented? The qietingqis” tapes would overflow with complaints.

They were full enough now, in the middle of autumn. It was hard to see how they could hold more, or more sinister, grumbles. Everyone and everything was castigated, no one and nothing was spared. Insults were directed as much against members of the Party as against yesterday’s men. Supporters of Zhou Enlai bad-mouthed supporters of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing to the top of their bent, while the latter did the same to Deng Xiaoping, and all of them joined together to criticize Mao. Tchan couldn’t believe his ears. He wound the tape back. But there it was — he hadn’t been imagining things. What a diabolical racket!

On many a morning Tchan found himself burying his head in his hands, or clenching his jaw so hard he could scarcely feel it. What was all this clamour? According to the proverb, water must go murky before it can start to clear. Was this the explanation? He shrank from this hypothesis. But Chairman Mao couldn’t have made a mistake. It must be the Chinese themselves: they had been getting more wicked lately.

Tchan felt his own attitude hardening daily. He had sent one report to the Zhongnanhai via the two envoys, who had jest left N—, and he was now preparing another. When instructions came from the capital, he would strike. And he would strike without mercy, so that the citizens of N— would remember it for generations.

Later on, at the end of the day’s work, he pet his report in an envelope, sealed it, and sent it, together with two tapes, to the villa in Peking where foreign delegations were put up. The covering note read as follows: “As none of our staff speaks Albanian, we are sending you, for decoding, some tapes concerning the Albanian delegation which has just left N—.” Tchan was exhausted. He locked up his office and went out to the waiting car, “Home,” he told the driver.

The car had to stop in the Street of the People’s Communes. A crowd was blocking the road.

“Now what’s the matter?” growled Tchan.

The driver got out to see. He was soon back,

“A pedestrian’s been crashed by a bulldozer,” he said, starting up the car again. “A man called Van Mey.”

“Van Mey?”

It seemed to Tchan he’d heard that name before. But by the time the car had left the crowd behind, he’d forgotten it.

10

And so the winter went by, one of the worst director Tchan had ever known, full of work and worry. Far away in Peking the power struggle apparently still went on, though no one could say which of the two sides was getting the upper hand. Now one and now the other was borne upwards. Only the Zhongnanhai remained unmoved and unassailable, above the mêlée. Tchan felt his own star was hitched to it from now on.

He’d had to deal with plenty of problems during the winter. Once or twice he’d come quite close to disaster, but in the end chance had been on his side. The microphones were an additional complication. They had become the main cause of tension between him and the other local officials, giving rise to rivalries, intrigues and reversals of alliances. Sometimes Tchan felt he would never struggle free of this imbroglio.

Meanwhile the installation of microphones went on, with the inevitable ups and downs, pleasant and unpleasant surprises. But Tchan was more used to it now; he’d gradually become immunized, as to a poison, by his daily dose, The same thing seemed to be true of the population in general: the rumours about the mikes had died down, as the enYoys from the Zhongnanhai had said they would.

But time, though it sometimes hung heavy, was passing by, and Tchan was amazed when, at the first meeting held to exchange information about the qietingqis, one of his subordinates started his speech with the words:

“It was just a year ago that in accordance with direct instructions from Chairman Mao, our town began installing listening devices …”

The meeting was attended by two representatives of the Zhongnanhai, different ones this time, who took down copious notes about everything. The speakers dealt with every aspect of micro-surveillance, exchanging experience, drawing conclusions, and calling attention to successes and shortcomings.

The conference lasted two days, and after it had ended and the Zhongnanhai envoys had left, Tchan realized that everything was going to continue just as before. His attention had been caught by one out of the many speeches he had heard at the meeting. It had been delivered by a young technician, who had entitled his paper, “On some changes brought about in the way people speak by the introduction of qietingqis.” Tchan had noticed this phenomenon himself some time before, but it was like a revelation to hear it spoken of and see it written down in black and white. As a matter of fact the young man had only touched on the subject and not gone into it deeply. His main point was that the task of those whose job it was to transcribe the tapes was getting more and more difficult, for many of the conversations recorded now required decoding if they were to mean anything.

Tchan had already devoted some thought to this phenomenon, and he now paid it special attention. This was the people’s riposte in their duel with him: they were changing the way they talked so that he couldn’t understand it. It was no accident that the spies themselves had been complaining lately: “Our ears are perfectly all right — we’ve just had them tested. But we can’t make out a word of some of these conversations. Is this some new kind of Chinese that people are talking?”

Tchan paced back and forth in his office, which was heavy with tobacco smoke. This was more serious than he’d thought. By way of opposition to him, people were gradually inventing a new language, an anti-language. A growing proportion of the tapes was becoming unintelligible. Where would it end? What would happen?

Perhaps nothing would happen, thought Tchan after a while. If you looked at the matter calmly, it wasn’t so much a case of covert language changing, as of covert language coming to resemble overt language.

Was he going senile, inventing such ideas? But he couldn’t get it out of his head. Hadn’t the overt language been gradually filled with and eventually almost taken over by slogans and empty phrases? While the covert language, the one people spoke among themselves, had escaped that process and remained clear and precise. So what was really happening now was that the overt language was gradually infiltrating the covert one, The two were becoming one, and all because of micro-surveillance.

I’m raving, thought Tchan. If I go on like this much longer I'll end up in the madhouse or in jail. I shan’t listen to the blasted tapes any more. I’ll have a couple of months’ peace.

But he knew very well he couldn’t do without them for a single day. He was as addicted to them as he was to tobacco, and he’d never succeeded in giving up smoking.

And so winter went by, the second after the coming of the qietingqis, and then it was spring again. Director Tchan didn’t go crazy, and didn’t end up in jail. He was so busy he didn’t even notice the arrival of summer, and neither he nor his aides took any leave. One morning some dead leaves were blown against the window, followed by a gust of rain, He looked up from his desk for a moment, It was autumn.

In the same week as the first frost an urgent order came from the Zhongnanhai: in the new situation arising out of the cooling off of relations between China and Albania, top priority was to be given to collecting information about alleged acts of provocation committed by Albanian citizens in China, whether students, embassy staff or members of delegations.

11

An hour later, Tchan summoned his aides to his office to tell them about the new instructions.

“Here in N—,” he said wearily, “there aren’t any students or foreign embassies. That makes our task easier. As for the only Albanian delegation that ever set foot here as far as I know, I believe we sent the tapes recording their conversations to Peking for decoding, because we didn’t have anyone who knew the language?”

“That’s right,” said his aide.

“Regarding their contacts with people here, I think we have some reports on the subject. Is there anything in them that’s relevant to what this order asks? Some provocative phrase or other?”

“No,” answered his aide, but not very convincingly.

Tchan thought he looked rather uncertain too.

“What?” he said. “It looks to me as if certain things went on that I wasn’t told about.”

“No, no,” said the aide nervously. “There isn’t anything in the reports. I was thinking of something else.”

Tchan looked him straight in the eye. He squirmed.

“What were you thinking of, exactly?”

The aide gave up.

“Perhaps you remember that two years ago we lost a mike,” he stammered, “One of those special mini-mikes…”

“What’s that got to do with the present question?”

“There is a connection. Perhaps you also remember that the man whose clothes it was attached to was killed. Van Mey, his name was …”

“Van Mey,” Tchan murmured.

Yes, he did remember. That had been the only mike they lost, and Van Mey’s name had been mentioned…Yes, it was all coming back to him. They worried themselves sick about that lost qietingqi. The instructions about looking after them had been very strict, especially for the mini-mikes, and they’d had great trouble hushing the matter up.

“So what, then?” said Tchan. “What’s it got to do with this?” — pointing to the order.

His aide swallowed.

“The only person to act as guide to the Albanian delegation and exchange a few words with them was Van Mey,” he said, “If that mike hadn’t disappeared we’d have a tape of what he and the Albanians said to one another.”

“Really?” said Tchan.

Even after two years he could still remember their agitation about the loss, but he couldn’t remember the details. Had they written a report? he asked.

“Of course,” said the other. “Shall I go and get it?”

Tchan nodded.

When the aide came back and started to read out the report, Tchan remembered quite clearly the day he’d been told one of the independent mikes was missing because the person wearing it had been killed a fortnight ago. They hadn’t been able to recover the device from his anorak, for the simple reason that the anorak had disappeared. After searching the victim’s flat and finding out he’d had neither family nor close friends in N—, they tried the crematorium. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been functioning at the time of Van Mey’s death because of a fuel shortage: they’d had to bury the body in the old town cemetery, “To hell with him and his mike!” Tchan had cried, “Write a report and bring it to me to sign!”…And so the case had been closed.

“It was my fault,” he admitted now. “Bet how was I to know that our relations with Albania would sink so low, and that that cursed mike…”

“Of course,” said one of his assistants, “How could you have known?”

“What’s done is done,’ said another. “No point in talking about it now.”

“Wrong!” roared Tchan, “I’ll raise that mike from the dead if I have to!”

And he gave the gruesome order.

12

That very evening two lorries stopped outside the old cemetery, now used only for bodies that couldn’t be dealt with by the crematorium because of fuel shortages. Tchan and his two assistants got out of one truck, and a few municipal workers out of the other. The sexton was waiting for them at the gate, a lantern in his hand and his face dark with terror.

“Lead the way!” commanded Tchan.

They set off in silence along a path, the man with the lantern leading and the others occasionally shining their torches.

“Here it is,” said the sexton, pointing to a mound of earth.

The torches gathered round and then were switched off, leaving only the faint light of the lantern on the grave.

“Switch on the headlights of the lorries,’ ordered Tchan, drawing back a pace or two. “Then get cracking!”

They proceeded almost in silence. The headlamps came on quite suddenly., casting a white light tinged with mauve. The workmen spread a tarpaulin by the side of the grave.

Tchan watched the picks and shovels at work, while the sexton leaned over from time to time, presumably to tell the workers when to stop piling the earth at the side of the grave and start putting it on the tarpaulin. They’d decided to sift the earth that might contain, among the dead man’s bones and what remained of his clothes, the lost mike.

Tchan was so obsessed his head was splitting, though he had high hopes of getting his hands on the precious device. He’d show the Zhongnanhai what he was made of! Maybe Mao himself would come to hear about it. Tchan looked up from time to time: he hoped it wasn’t going to rain! Spadefuls of earth were starting to fall on the tarpaulin. Any one of them might hold the treasure. The sexton couldn’t remember Van Mey’s funeral now, but he did tell them that when someone died instantly in an accident and didn’t go into hospital (the bulldozer had practically cut Van Mey in two), they were usually buried in the clothes they were wearing at the time.

“Careful,” someone called. “You’ve reached the skeleton.”

The heap of earth on the tarpaulin went on growing. They were going to sift as much soil as possible to be on the safe side. Heaven knows how long this would have gone on if Tchan hadn’t suddenly called a halt.

“That’ll do,” he said. “No point in digging up the whole cemetery.”

The first drops of rain began to fall, and they hurried to remove the tarpaulin before it got any heavier. As it was it took six of them to lift it on to the lorry.

“Lucky we got away before the storm!” said Tchan as the lorries drew away.

It was raining hard by the time they got back to headquarters. There were lights in the windows of the lab, and the lab assistants were waiting in silence, wearing sinister long rubber gloves. Again it took six men to carry the load upstairs. Then they set about crumbling up the soil.

Tchan stood watching with folded arms. Bits of skeleton and stone were put on one side to be looked at again later if nothing was found in the earth. The skull seemed to be grinding its teeth at them. “Gnash away as much as you like,” Tchan muttered. “You won’t stop me finding your Yoke!”

Every so often a chill ran down his spine, either with unnamed apprehension or because it had been so cold and damp in the cemetery.

It wasn’t yet midnight when one of the lab assistants came on a button belonging to the anorak. That lifted their spirits. Twenty minutes later they found the mike itself. Only then did they notice that they and everything around them, including the floor and the tables, were covered with mud.

13

Was it really on the same night, or did people’s memories run the two horrifying and unforgettable events together and make them coincide? But even if the second spiritualist séance did take place a few days before or a few days after the finding pf the mike, it wasn’t surprising if people thought of the two things as happening together.

Be that as it may, Van Mey’s two friends, together with the medium, had met for another séance to commemorate Van’s death and summon up his spirit. The meeting they’d all planned, at which they were to have invoked Qan Shee, had of course not taken place.

They’d been sitting round the table for some time. The candle flames flickered more lugubriously than ever, and the medium’s face looked more pallid. He’d been in a trance for a long while, but his painful breathing, broken by occasional rattles^ suggested that something was preventing him from making contact with the dead man.

According to later evidence it must have been at exactly this moment that, in the lab not far away at Public Safety headquarters, Tchan and his assistants had started to play the tape taken from Vae Mey’s qietingqi. Their faces were ashen as they listened to the voice from — beyond the grave. It sounded slow and hoilow, like a disc being played at the wrong speed. And like a ghost.

“The tape must be damp,’ said Tchan, bending o?er the machine.

“Not surprising after being in the ground all that time,” said one of his aides.

The voice-was scarcely audible, and interspersed with dull thuds. Tchan wound the tape backwards and forwards to eliminate the blanks. Suddenly they all started. In the midst of the other noises there arose a shriek, abruptly cut off.

“The accident,” said Tchan.

He must have been right, for the sinister cry was followed by a hubbub that might well have been made by a crowd gathering round the dead man. Further on in the tape, thought Tchan, there must be a recording of the corpse being taken from the crematorium to the cemetery — perhaps even of the burial He wound the tape forward, and thought he heard the sound of spadefuls of earth falling on the body. After that there was an ever-deepening hush. My God, thought Tchan: that’s what they mean by silent as the grave …

He listened transfixed until the end of the tape. He must be the first person in the world to possess a sample of the silence of death. Now he could say he had gone down among the shades.

He was roused from his reverie by the click as the machine switched itself off. He wound the tape back again to find Van Mey’s voice, slimy-sounding and decayed after spending so long in the earth. It must have been after midnight now — according to later evidence, the same time as that at which, in a cold room a few hundred yards away, the medium, trying in vain to bring the voice of the dead man back to his two friends, gasped out, “I can’t, he doesn’t want to come — something’s preventing him…” Skinder Bermema stared at the last few lines as if he’d have liked them to go on of their own accord, It seemed to him this last part was written rather carelessly and didn’t fully exploit the possibilities of the subject.

It took him some time to remember what had happened next in that town in central China.

After he’d heard the evidence, Tchan had no difficulty finding out about the séances and the names of the people who’d attended them. Nothing was known about their arrest, but it probably took place without delay. It wasn’t certain whether Tchan had had them nabbed without more ado, or if he’d waited to catch them in the act during a séance. If the latter, he probably did make the macabre speech often attributed to him: after the door was smashed in and the conspirators were captured as they sat around the candles waiting in vain to communicate with the dead, Tchan is supposed to have said mockingly, “Were you waiting for his voice?” Then he burst out laughing. “Well, I’m afraid he’s stood you up, gentlemen! I’ve got both his voice and his soul — in here!” And he showed them the little bugging device.

It was the Albanian ambassador in Peking, an old acquaintance of his, who first told Skënder about the dreaded Zhongnanhai. And when he heard about the business of the microphones he was sure the General Bureau must have been mixed up in it. The same day he asked an embassy official who spoke the language what the ultra-secret mini-mikes were called in Chinese. “Qietingqi” was the word, he was told — pronounced “tchietintchi”.

“Are you going to write something about it?” the ambassador asked Bermema when he spoke to him about the séance. “China is still haunted by ghosts and spirits, despite all the denunciations of the old days.”

Skënder sat down on the bed and. gazed at the white curtains as he revolved all these memories. Various other incidents were now coming back to him …He lay down …A lunch near Tirana with some friends, after a rehearsal of one of his plays, and the maunderings of someone at a nearby table who’d had too much to drink: “In the third millennium, Albania will become Christian again, and if you want to survive you’d better change your name from Skënder to Alexander”, Going into hospital a year ago, the syringe in the nurse’s hand, and his own sudden doubt about it — a doubt that was somehow like the confusion he’d recently felt going into the Hotel Helmhaes in Zurich, because in Albanian the word “helm” meant “fish” …The women he’d loved, a tune, a balcony overlooking the sea, manuscripts and more manuscripts…An ashtray in a café, full of cigarette stubs of which only one had lipstick on it, symbolizing the disproportion between the emotion felt by the unknown man and that felt by the unknown woman…

He thought he must have drowsed off for a moment. And it was in a state between sleeping and waking that he imagined Ana lying in her grave. Or rather not her but a gold necklace which he’d given her once, and of which he’d caught a sudden glimpse as they closed the coffin.

He moved his head on the pillow to drive away the thought. But on the other, cooler part of the pillow Lin Biao’s question, ‘“Where are we going?”, seemed to be waiting for him, together with Lin Biao’s plot to kill Mao — strangely like Mao’s plot to kill Lin Biao.

Bet Skënder had had enough of these ruminations. His thoughts turned to the children’s skis in the hall of the apartment at home, and how his wife did her hair, sitting at the dressing-table, and a letter from a woman reader who was a bit cracked…And, for some reason or other, a poem he’d written long ago:

Like a Jewess exchanging her old religion for a new one,

There was a sudden shower of hail

Every time winter taps on the windowpanes

You will be back, even if you’re not here.

Even if you were changed into music, or mourning, or a cross

I would recognize you and fly to you.

And like someone extracting a pearl from its shell,

I would pluck you from music, the cross or death,

Alexander Bermema, he said to himself, trying out the new name the man in the restaurant had suggested. And again there went through his mind, like beads on a string, the coming of the third millennium, the ringing of bells, Ana’s tears, and the Place Vendôme in Paris on an afternoon so cold it intensified the shiver the prices of the diamonds in the shop-windows sent down his spine…

That was how Skënder spent the rest of the morning, sometimes lying down and sometimes pacing back and forth in his room. Every time he thought of his dead novel his hand went instinctively to his ribs, for it seemed to him something had been removed from his side.

At midday C–V— came and knocked at the door to tell him it was time for lunch. They went down together to the almost empty dining room, and hardly spoke to one another at all throughout the meal.

Back in his room, Skënder felt this Sunday would never end. For want of anything better to do he rang the bell, and when the Chinese floor waiter pet his head round the door he ordered a beer.

At three in the afternoon there was another knock, and this time it wasn’t C–V—. But before Skënder identified his visitor he noticed he was holding out a card with red ideograms inscribed on it: clearly an invitation, Skënder wasn’t sure whether it was by chance that he’d concentrated exclusively on the card, or if the messenger had trained himself to disappear as if by magic behind the proffered invitation.

As Skënder held out his hand for it he raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

“A concert,’ the man told him, smiling.

Skënder scrutinized the card. The Chinese characters made no sense to him, but he managed to pick out the figures 19,30, which was presumably the time the concert started.

Well, a concert would be a welcome distraction amid this sea of boredom. It wasn’t four o’clock yet, but he was so glad to have something to do he opened the wardrobe and started looking for a suitable shirt.