The Concert

3

THOUGH SILVA WALKED as fast as she could, she still arrived at the ministry slightly late for work.

Greeting, as she rushed past, a porter almost invisible behind his window, she hurried on up the stairs, and in the first-floor corridor almost collided with Victor Hila, an old acquaintance she hadn’t seen for a long time,

“How are you?” she asked him, still out of breath. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

He looked at her rather vacantly, and only then did Silva notice how tired and depressed he looked, and how ill-shaven.

“I’m here on business,” he muttered with a vague wave of the hand. “Can you tell me where the chief vice-minister’s office is?”

“I’ll take you there. Come along.”

She led the way, glad to be of help. Though she didn’t see him very often now Ana was dead, she tried to be nice to him, as to all the friends whom the two sisters had once had in common and who now represented a subtle link with the past.

“Here we are, Victor,” she said kindly.

He mumbled his thanks and knocked at the door without even offering to shake hands.

He must be out of sorts or upset about something, she thought as she made her way to her own office. Such behaviour would have offended her, coming from anyone else; but not from him…

“Good morning,” she said as she opened the door.

“Good morning, Silva,” answered her boss.

His addressing her by her first name suggested he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t on time, but as she hung up her raincoat she apologized anyway.

“I’m afraid I’m a bit late…”

Linda, looking over from her desk, treated her to a mischievous wink. She’d done her hair differently, and looked even younger than before. She’s only twenty-three, thought Silva as she opened a drawer and took out the files she needed. Why must she try to make herself seem younger still?

No one spoke. It was now, first thing in the morning, that the silence that usually reigned in government offices weighed most heavily on the people that worked there, preventing them from exchanging a few words about what they’d done the night before, repressing their comments on the latest interesting bit of news. The panes in the tall baroque windows seemed to filter out all the interesting whims and fancies of the weather, admitting only such light as was needed to work by. Beneath his sleeked-back hair the boss’s smooth expanse of brow hung motionless over his desk. Silva, sitting close to Linda, could feel almost physically how eagerly her friend longed to turn and talk to her.

As the morning wore on, Linda’s impatience communicated itself to Silva, and every time the phone rang or someone knocked at the door they both waited with bated breath for their boss to be called away.

But though he answered several phone calls they never heard him say, “Very well — I’ll be right along.” Then, when they’d almost given up hope, he just got up of his own accord and left the room.

“Thank goodness!” said Linda as soon as he’d gone, “I don’t feel a bit like work today.”

“I like your hair-do — it suits you!”

Linda’s face lit up.

“Really?”

“When I came in just now I thought to myself, ‘Why does she want to look even younger than she is?’“

“I’m not as young as all that!”

“You don’t know how lucky you are!” Silva exclaimed. “My God, if you’re not young, what am I?”

Linda looked at her.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind changing places with you,” she said.

“What?” exclaimed Silva, feeling herself start to blush for some reason or other.

Linda smiled.

“I said I wouldn’t mind changing places.”

“You must be joking!”

“No — I mean it.”

Silva knew her cheeks were still flushed. Why was she being so foolish?

Luckily the door opened, and in came a plump secretary from the protocol department.

“Brr! Isn’t it cold today!” said the newcomer. Then, putting her hand on the radiator: “Your heating’s working! It’s freezing in our room! Where’s your boss?”

Linda kept her eyes on the door until it was safely closed behind the intruder, then turned back to Silva again.

“Curiously enough,” she said, “I really did mean what I said just now. But it’s not all that strange.”

“I think we’d better drop the subject,” Silva answered, who really had no idea what she was saying.

“Why?” asked Linda, with a mixture of cajolery and regret.

There was another knock, a more peremptory one this time, and without waiting for an answer a head appeared round the door.

“All Party members to meet at ten!” it announced. “Oh, sorry! There aren’t any here, of course!”

The door was briskly shut again, and the voice could be heard receding along the corridor, repeating, “Short meeting of Party members at ten…”

That’s how they’ll announce the meeting at which Arian is expelled, thought Silva, and was immediately engulfed in a wave of sorrow. He’d said it was bound to happen soon; he didn’t think there was any hope of avoiding it. You know, Silva, he’d told her, expulsion is the mildest possible punishment in a case of this kind. There had been neither regret nor resentment in his voice — that was what had frightened her most. “A case of this kind” — she kept repeating to herself. But what kind of case was it? “What is it really all about?” she’d asked him for the umpteenth time. But his answer had been as reticent as ever.

From the corridor there came the muffled sound of doors opening and shutting. Perhaps it was the official still going round calling the meeting. Silva felt a pang. What if, unknown to her, the meeting dealing with Arian’s case had been held already, and she knew nothing about it? No, that was impossible, she thought. Even if Arian himself hadn’t let her know, Sonia would have done so. Unless…

The door opened and the boss came in, looking even more gloomy than usual. He couldn’t help assuming this expression whenever a Party meeting was announced during working hours. He wasn’t a Party member himself, and it was common knowledge that this stood in his way. “What do you expect? — I haven’t got a red one,” he would say to his friends, referring to the Party card, whenever the question of his promotion came up. Caught up in the routine of office life, absorbed in the giving of orders to his subordinates and by his owe position as boss, he could usually forget that he wasn’t a member of the Party, and thought others forgot it too. But when, as today, someone announced a Party meeting, he felt horribly uncomfortable. His embarrassment lasted all the time the meeting was in progress, for he was afraid of coming face to face with someone who’d exclaim in astonishment — and this had actually happened several times — “Good heavens, why aren’t you at the meeting? Oh, sorry — I was forgetting…You’re not a member, are you?”

These really were his worst moments. He never knew what to do. To avoid being found in his office he would go and wander round the corridors, sometimes managing to disappear altogether. He felt worst of all at open meetings of the Party, when, after the customary pause, the secretary would say, “Would comrades who are not Party members kindly excuse us? We have a few internal matters to discuss.” Then, wishing that the ground would open and swallow him up, he would hang his head and slink out with the rest, the picture of dejection and humiliation, as if to say, “You’d have done better not to ask us to come at all.” After such scenes he would go on feeling mortified for a couple of days at least.

He was now poking about crossly among the papers strewn over his desk.

“Where’s the report from the planning office got to?” he demanded at last.

“You must have put it away somewhere,” said Linda affably.

It was obvious he wasn’t looking for anything in particular: he was just opening and shutting drawers at random. In desperation he got out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter — for some strange reason he kept them in a drawer — put a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it, thee left the room.

“He looks furious,” said Linda.

Then Silva went out, to take some papers to the minister’s secretary. All was quiet in the corridor. A phone was ringing unanswered in one of the offices: the person concerned must be at the meeting. Once again Silva thought fleetingly of the meeting that would seal her brother’s fate, bet she repressed the idea. But she made up her mind to phone him that day.

Back in her office she found Linda in conversation with Illyrian, from a neighbouring room. They were laughing over something they’d been saying. Why didn’t they see more of each other, Silva wondered. They’d make a handsome couple.

“I was telling him about the boss,” explained Linda. “And how he’s all on edge whenever there’s a Party meeting.”

“Today’s is probably about our relations with China,” said Illyrian.

“Really?” said Linda.

“I think so. Because of the visit of the American president, In some ministries the subject’s already been raised with members of the Party, and even with executives who aren’t members of the Party.”

“Our attitude on the subject was made quite clear from the outset,” said Silva. “You’ve only got to look at the papers to see that.”

“Absolutely,” said Illyrian. “Everywhere else in the world the press and the radio hyped the trip up like mad, while our own papers dismissed it in three or four lines. Our television didn’t show a single shot of it.”

The sound of doors opening and closing came faintly from the direction of the corridor. A telephone, perhaps the one Silva had heard earlier, shrilled insistently in the distance.

“In other words,” observed Linda, “all we’ve heard about China lately is true.”

“Apparently,” said Illyrian.

“And it could actually come to a breach?”

As Linda spoke she blinked incredulously.

Illyrian shrugged and turned to Silva as if for her opinion.

“I don’t know what to think…”

She gazed at the top of her desk.

“… Perhaps a peaceful severing of relations. Which is quite different from-”

She was interrupted by the entrance of Simon Dersha from the office next door.

“May I use your phone?” he asked. “Ours is out of order.”

“Of course,” said Silva.

She was just about to turn back and resume her conversation with Illyrian when she realized they couldn’t discuss a subject like that in front of the newcomer. Although he worked in the adjoining office he’d always remained a kind of stranger: they never noticed he even existed except on payday, when he sat beside the accountant, subtracting the union dues from everybody’s wages. His presence didn’t make any difference to them one way or the other, but even so Silva didn’t like talking about anything whatever when he was there. So she just sat watching his hand as it dialled its number, and she could have sworn Linda and Illyrian were doing the same.

“Hey, Simon!” said Linda. “You’re wearing a new suit! It does look good on you!”

“Thanks,” said Simon, pressing the receiver to his ear, “but I’ve had this suit for ages!”

“I haven’t seen you wearing it before.”

Simon smiled faintly and hung his head. The dark blue of his suit made his face look even more gloomy than usual

It was the first time Silva had really looked at him. He had always struck her before as narrow-minded and withdrawn, and she was surprised to see on those wan features, drawn after what had probably been a sleepless night, what looked like a flash of joy. Was it love? Silva wondered, almost with disgust at the thought that Simon Dersha could ever have anything to do with such a feeling.

The room had fallen silent except for the distant ringing of the phone at the other end of the line, in some other, empty office. Thee Simon finally hung up, thanked them, and left.

“He tried the same thing on in our office a quarter of an hour ago,” said Illyrian, who had shown no sign of moving.

“He has his own life to live,” said Silva.

“Yes — he has a perfect right… But what were we talking about? Oh yes — the Chinese. And a peaceful severing of relations with them…”

“Not like the rupture with the Soviets!”

“Why? Was that more dramatic?” asked Linda,

“No comparison!”

Iliyrian had gone over to the window and was looking outside.

“Come and have a look,” he said,

“What is there to see?”

“Chinamen in Skanderbeg Square!”

The other two got up and went over to the window. There were indeed groups of Chinese scattered all over the broad pavement of the square. Some were still arriving, while others were standing near the marble columns of the Palace of Culture or the Skanderbeg monument not far away.

“I’ve never seen so many Chinese all at once,” said Iliyrian.

“There are more of them still coming,” Linda observed. “Look, over by the main boulevard!”

“Perhaps there’s a meeting at their embassy,” suggested Silva.

“Yes, that must be it.”

They stood for a while, gazing at the scene without speaking.

“The square’s absolutely full of them,” said Linda. “What a peculiar sight!”

Silva looked uneasy. That sudden mysterious mass of humanity surging slowly around the square somehow filled her with deep misgivings.

“When they see the new Chinese Embassy starting to go up, people think history is repeating itself,” said Linda. “It was the same with Moscow — our relations with the Soviets worsened while they were building their new embassy.”

“True,” agreed Iliyrian.

“Just now you were saying this was a peaceful severing of relations, Silva,” said Linda. “How was it different before?”

“With the Soviets, you mean?…Oh, there was a sort of threat hanging over everything. A sort of anguish. It was another kettle of fish altogether,”

“And how was it in the case of Yugoslavia?” said Linda — and immediately could have kicked herself for asking. The break with Yugoslavia had happened a quarter of a century ago, and the question seemed to underline the difference in their ages. She felt herself flush slightly. “But maybe you don’t remember?” she added, trying to cover up her blunder.

“Yes, I do,” Silva answered. “I remember quite well” An inward smile seemed to light up her face. “I was still in primary school It was a cold, rainy morning, and we were all standing in line in the playground waiting for the bell to ring. Then the headmaster came to the door and said, ‘Children, I have an announcement to make. Tito has betrayed us!’“

“It was the same when we broke with the Soviets,” said Illyrian. “When that happened I was still at school too.” Then, turning to Linda: “But I don’t suppose you can remember either occasion?”

“No,” she said, sounding rather puzzled. “All I can remember is something about Krushchev…”

“You must still have been in kindergarten then,” said Silva with an attempt at a smile.

Linda admitted it, flushing guiltily.

“I suppose you two think I’m still just a kid,” she said. “I remember us taking down the portrait of Krushchev from the classroom wall. One of the other children wanted to trample on it, but the teacher said there was no need to exaggerate.”

“Do you really remember, or did you just read about it?” said Illyrian, teasing her.

“Don’t be so horrid!” replied Linda sulkily, sounding as if she really was still just a kid.

“You couldn’t have been more than seven in 1960,” Silva reckoned.

Linda shook her head.

“A bit older than that.”

“Well, I got married soon afterwards!”

“Really?” exclaimed Linda.

Silva gazed dreamily out of the window.

“It was just at the beginning of the blockade. And it was then that I gave up archaeology and went into construction.”

“If I remember rightly, lots of engineers were directed into construction about then, weren’t they?” said Illyrian.

“Yes. Construction was the first sector to be affected.”

Silva went on looking through the window. The memory of the ancient theatre at Pacha Liman came back to her cold and clear, as if from another world. With it came the image of the deserted excavation site, and the thought of how jealous she had been of a good-looking Russian girl who’d suddenly fallen for one of the male archaeologists in the team. “There’s nothing more awful than being jealous while you’re working on a dig,” she’d told Ana, later. “You feel as if all the trenches are being carved in your own flesh.”

Her sister had listened rather absent-mindedly. Silva knew Ana didn’t know the meaning of the word jealousy, and so was unaware of the suffering it could bring. Even so, she had tried to help. “The Soviets will go away now, so it’ll be all right again,” Ana had said. But that was no consolation to Silva: she thought the sudden parting would only make the man love his Russian all the more. “I just don’t understand you,” said Ana. “Well, go on suffering, then, if that’s what you really want.” But she’d been glad later on, when Silva met Gjergj and forgot her anguish overnight. Ana herself had just met Besnik…But why, Silva wondered, was she thinking about Besnik more and more often these days?

“So it was all quite different then,” said Linda.

Silva nodded.

Steps now approached along the corridor, and the door opened to admit the boss. Though his attitude was still gloomy enough, he also looked somewhat relieved. The meeting must be over, and, thought Linda, he’d probably adopted the expression of some Party member who’d just been released and whom he’d passed in the corridor. He seemed to want to speak, but something was holding him back, Illyrian, who knew he was persona non grata, tiptoed out.

“I was right about the meeting,’’ said the boss, without looking up from the papers on his desk. “It was about China.”

“Really?” said Linda.

“It seems they’re changing their policy," Thee, turning to Silva: “I expect your husband will give us some first-hand information on the subject. When will he be back?”

Silva shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him.”

She hadn’t sat down at her desk again yet, and for some reason or other she found herself straying back to the window overlooking the square.

“Linda!” she said. putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Look!”

Linda turned round and pressed her forehead against the glass,

“How strange!” she exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?” asked the boss.

“A little while ago the square was fell of Chinese, and now they’ve all gone…”

“As if the earth had opened and swallowed them up!” added Linda.

“You can never tell what they’re going to do next,” said the boss. “It was the same with Nixon’s visit. They kept it secret right up to the last minute.”

“Better to break once and for all with people like that,” said Linda.

The boss looked up.

“Easier said than done. This isn’t one of your cheap romances, where if one character hurts another person’s feelings they have a row, say they wish they’d never set eyes on one another, and flounce off…”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Linda, looking him straight in the eye.

“I mean foreign relations are not like people’s private affairs: you love me, I don’t love you any more, and so we part…This sort of thing goes much deeper, There are objective considerations and all sorts of other factors to take into account…”

“Do you think I’m such a feather-brain that I reduce everything to the level of a domestic row?” asked Linda icily.

The boss stared at her, taken aback.

“Calm down! I didn’t say that!”

“But that’s what you were insinuating!” she replied, her eyes flashing angrily.

He waved his hand vaguely, then turned to Silva as if to seek her help. But, unsure she was willing to come to his aid, he threw up his arms as if to say, “That’s all I needed!”

For a few moments he busied himself opening and shutting the drawers of his desk, as he usually did when he was nervous. Then he lit a cigarette. And promptly stubbed it out again.

“Right, that’ll do,” he said mournfully. “I didn’t mean to be disagreeable, for heaven’s sake! I suppose, at the end of the day, I’m allowed to make a bit of a joke! I am the boss, aren’t I?”

He leapt up, stuffed his packet of cigarettes into his pocket, and left the room.

“He really is a case,” said Linda. His annoyance had displaced her own. “I’m the one who ought to have been annoyed!”

Silva smiled indulgently.

“Shall we go down to the cafeteria?”

“Do you think I went a bit too far?” Linda asked as they went down the stairs.

Silva smiled at her again. Vaguely. She was thinking of something else.

The cafeteria was in the basement, and the stairs leading down to it were crowded with people coming and going. This was the time most of the clerks took a coffee break. Silva noticed Victor Hila at the far end of the counter with a glass of brandy. He looked worn down.

She went over.

“Did you get to see the vice-minister?” she asked.

He waved his hand.

“Yes, Much good it did me!”

“Do you know each other?” she asked as she introduced him to Linda.

“Delighted to meet you,” said Victor, still staring into space. “May I offer you a drink? Sorry, I’m like a bear with a sore head today…”

“What’s the matter?” asked Silva. “I noticed something was wrong when I met you first thing…”

“I didn’t take it seriously at first, but now I see I’m in trouble. I’ve been running around all morning trying to find out what’s up, but no one will tell me anything definite…Anyhow, what’ll you have?”

“Perhaps it would be better to leave that till another time,” said Silva, “You look a bit low.”

“All the more reason for you to help cheer me up! Come on, do have something! I insist!”

Linda glanced at Silva, as if to ask if Hila was quite right in the head.

“All right,” said Silva. “Coffee for us, please.”

Victor Hila emptied his glass. Then:

“I’m in trouble over a Chinaman,” he said.

“What?” exclaimed Silva.

“We were just talking about the Chinese,” said Linda, looking at Victor curiously.

“Yes,” he went on. “A Chinaman! A particularly lousy Chink!”

Linda put her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Victor went and fetched their coffees from the counter and set them down in front of them.

“I was told yesterday that I’d been suspended. Do you realize what that means? I’m neither still employed, nor sacked! Just suspended! And all because of this Chinaman! I’ve spent all the morning combing the ministry trying to sort it all out, but it’s no good. I’m absolutely fed up. You’d think they’d all gone deaf.”

“But what happened with the Chinaman?” asked Silva, after taking a sip of her coffee. “Did you have a row with him?”

“Worse! I trod on his toes!”

This time Linda wasn’t the only one who couldn’t restrain her mirth.

“Are you serious?” she chuckled.

“Yes,” growled Victor. “I thought it was funny at first, too! Then I found out the Chinaman had lodged a complaint, and now the fact that I laughed is being held against me!”

Linda was still so amused she had to put her cup down on the counter to avoid spilling her coffee.

“And then what happened?” asked Silva.

“Don’t talk about it!” sighed Victor. “The Chinaman alleged I’d trodden on his toes deliberately. Of course I swore black was blue I hadn’t done it on purpose. But the whole business went up to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Chinese Embassy insisted I must be punished. When they heard nothing had been done to me, the Chinks protested again. Apparently they’ve sent the file to Peking, together with an X-ray of their citizen’s foot. We’re still waiting for the reply. So you see what a jam I’m in?”

“But it seems our relations with China are not what they used to be,” said Linda, wiping away tears of laughter. “That may work in your favour…”

“Oh, I know how it is with affairs of this sort,” said Victor. “Of course, all kinds of things may happen. Someone might set fire to the Chinese Embassy. But no one will ever forget I trod on those toes. Just my luck!”

He looked around the room.

“The worst of it is, everyone tries to give me advice. ‘Keep calm, Victor, and don’t criticize the Chinese — it’ll only make matters more difficult for you!’ The Party secretary, the director — they all say the same thing: The Chinese people are like this, the Chinese people are like that…’ ‘Right,’ I tell them, ‘I haven’t got anything against the Chinese people. I haven’t even got anything against China itself. All I want to know is, what’s going to happen to me?’“

Still the same as ever, thought Silva. Impulsive, hot-headed, a magnet that attracted every kind of trouble — just as he’d been when she first got to know him at the time of the break with the Soviets, when she and Ana used to go to some of his famous dinner parties. If she remembered rightly, it was on one of those occasions that Ana had met Besnik…

“X-rays of the chap’s foot, diplomatic notes — you get the picture?” Victor went on. “For a whole week I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat! And why?” He lowered his voice. “Because of a lousy Chink! A saboteur!”

“What?” cried Linda. “That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone call a Chinaman a saboteur!”

Victor looked from one to the other of them.

“I suppose you both think I'm exaggerating a bit. Perhaps. I was reprimanded once for being too excitable. Maybe I'm wrong — I admit it’s quite possible. The government knows more about these things than I do. Bet as far as I’m concerned, the Chinese…”

“Be careful! Don’t go putting your foot in it again!” teased Linda.

He smiled.

“I know I must seem a bit crazy. Instead of concentrating on things that really matter, I just keep wondering if that confounded X-ray has got there.”

The other two started to giggle again.

“Why should you worry about that?” said Linda. “If you really trod on his foot by accident, it couldn’t have left much of a bruise…”

Victor lowered his eyes and smiled into his beard.

“That’s the trouble,” he said. “I did it on purpose.”

Linda’s peal of mirth made two or three people tern round.

Victor knocked back his glass of brandy.

“What else could I do?” he said, glowering. “For a whole month he’d been driving me up the wall, the swine, keeping me waiting for some papers I needed. Every day he had some new excuse for putting it off. ‘I didn’t have time yesterday,’ he’d say. I was busy reading the works of Chairman Mao… And today 'I have to think over what I read yesterday…' I don’t know how I kept myself from strangling him! That’s right — laugh! It’s obvious you two have never had to deal with a Chinaman!”

As they laughed, Linda kept her eyes on his drawn, ill-shaven face.

“Ping — that’s the bastard’s name,” said Victor, “comes and walks round the factory every morning with his foot done up in a bandage or a plaster or some Chinese old wives’ concoction. Can’t you just see him, pacing up and down for everyone to see? Perhaps he expects someone to put up a statue to Ping the hero, victim of Victor Hila, the Albanian bandit? You think that’s funny? Well, it leaves me suspended — do you hear? — suspended! Neither on earth nor in heaven. And no one will answer my questions!.. Still,” he sighed, “perhaps it’s not the government’s fault. I suppose the Chinese keep pestering them about what they’ve done to punish me. A few days ago my boss said, ‘What got into you, Victor? A nice mess we’re in because of what you did …”

The women, finally said goodbye and left the cafeteria.

“A nice chap, isn’t he?” said Linda as they went upstairs. Silva nodded.

“He’s been like that all the time I’ve known him. He’s hardly changed at all.”

Silva’s face wore a hesitant smile.

“Really nice,” she murmured, as if to herself.

Back in the office, the boss still hadn’t returned. Linda collected some papers and took them along to the typists. Silva sat for a moment with her elbows on her desk. She didn’t feel like working. She got up and went over to the window, looking out at the square with its surrounding ministries and the grey, rainy day. She moved across to the radiator. It felt only lukewarm. “I only hope there won’t be any shortages…” Why had that phrase come back to her? From what recess of her consciousness had it arisen, the hope that Ana had so often expressed at the beginning of that inauspicious period when the future had seemed so unpredictable? It was a hope doomed to remain unfulfilled, for shortages were to become part of their way of life…And if history were to repeat itself, thee they might expect more of the same gloomy medicine…But still, it couldn’t have happened as fast as all that! And it was common knowledge that the boiler responsible for the central heating was unreliable — there’d been talk once or twice of replacing it. No, she was letting her imagination run away with her, she decided, going back to her desk. This time everything’s different. It’s all so quiet.

The door opened and the boss came in, followed by Linda. Strangely enough, the boss looked quite cheerful now, and when Linda asked Silva something, he volunteered the answer himself — a tacit sign of reconciliation. He started to talk about the Chinese, and Linda told him about Victor Hila. He was still roaring with laughter at the story, his mirth punctuated with his characteristic yelps, when there was a knock at the door and Simon Dersha reappeared.

“May I use your telephone for a moment, please?” he asked.

Still laughing, the boss nodded towards the phone, and Dersha went over and dialled a number. Silva and Linda exchanged glances. At each tern of the dial, the boss’s laughter grew less. Finally, as before, they heard a phone ringing at the other end of the line, but again there was no reply. Simon’s face, though anxious, still wore its previous blissful expression. It looked as if it had been left there by mistake. At length he hung up.

“So what did he do then, this Victor?” said the boss. “That is his name, didn’t you say?”

Simon Dersha was still sitting there as if trying to make his way into the others’ universe, but the unwonted expression on his face prevented Silva from speaking freely. She made an effort and made some comment on Victor’s plight, at which the boss began to laugh louder than ever. Stealing a glance at Simon, she thought she now saw a tinge of irony in his happiness.

He slipped out of the room unobtrusively when the boss’s hilarity was at its height.

“What’s the matter with him, wandering around all morning like a sleepwalker?” said Linda, not even bothering to lower her voice.

“Don’t pay any attention.”

“No, but did you take a good look at him? I’ve never noticed that navy blue suit before, and I think it makes him look very weird!”

Silva nodded.

The boss sighed, as he usually did after he’d been laughing. Then the whole office lapsed once more into silence.

“You think you’re so wonderful, don’t you?” said Simon Dersha inwardly in the neighbouring office. And he indulged in a condescending smile. As recently as yesterday the laughter still ringing in his ears would have made him feel lonely and excluded. But now the mirth, the larking about that had once tortured him like something precious for ever beyond his reach, seemed tarnished and worthless. He felt completely free from the inferiority complex he’d always suffered from in relation to his colleagues. And this miracle had come about in a single night, like something out of a fairy tale.

If they only knew where I was yesterday evening, he thought. All morning he’d been tore between the desire to tell them where he’d dined the previous day and a kind of inexplicable reticence. He’d seen from the way they looked at him that they were wondering what was the matter. And at the thought that what had happened to him was beyond anything they could possibly have imagined, he was filled once again with delight.

The previous evening he’d been to dinner with one of the best-known members of the government. It was like a dream; sometimes he couldn’t even believe in it himself. Perhaps that was why, this morning, he’d tried three times to phone the friend who’d introduced him to the minister in the first place, and then taken him to the dinner party: he just wanted to exchange a few words with him about it, in order to convince himself that the miracle really had happened. But as ill-luck would have it, he hadn’t been able to get through.

The miracle had taken place in stages. It had begun a week before with a phone call from a man with whom Simon had remained on friendly terms since they’d worked together in a commercial firm, and who had since risen to become a vice-minister. The man had told him that one of these days — he’d tell him the exact date in due course — he’d take him to dinner in a place he’d never even dreamed of. When the two of them had eventually met for coffee and the other man had said what that place was, Simon had been dumbstruck. Was it really possible, he kept stammering, that an ordinary pen-pusher like him, a person of no importance…?

“But that’s just it,” the other had replied. “Ordinary people, honest unassuming workers, are the very backbone of both the Party and the State. Do you see, Simon?”

Then, lowering his voice:

“I don’t mind admitting I don’t know myself why the minister suddenly felt the need, or the desire, whichever you like, to set up more direct relations, outside ordinary office routine, with workers from various areas of activity. If you ask me, politicians think that kind of contact helps them keep their finger on the pulse of public opinion. Well, a few days ago he told me he’d like to meet someone from the Ministry of Construction, an ordinary worker, not a senior official — he was already up to his eyes in senior officials! In short, when he told me he wanted to find out what went on from just a humble, honest, ordinary worker. I thought straight away of you.”

As he remembered these words, Simon felt as if his eyes were still misty with tears. He’d spent days afterwards waiting anxiously for a phone call from the vice-minister. Sometimes it seemed to him their conversation had never taken place. Other doubts followed. What if the minister had changed his mind? What if he really had said that about wanting to get to know ordinary people, but had only been speaking generally, and Simon’s friend had been mistaken in trying to invoke him? At one point he decided it was all wishful thinking on the part of his friend, and foolish naivety on his own. He’d almost given up hope when his friend finally phoned. Not only had he thus kept his promise, but he also gave Simon the exact date and time of the dinner party they were to attend together. Even now, several days later, it gave Simon a pleasant glow inside to think of that phone call.

He was alone in his office now. He could hear the sound of doors opening and shutting along the corridor, but they seemed very far away. He thought again of his colleagues in the other office, and it filled him with sardonic satisfaction to remind himself that from now on it was they who should be envying him, and not the other way round. Henceforth he could look down on their humdrum existence, with its chatting and joking and noisy laughter over their morning coffee. Up till today, when they passed him — greeting him, if they did so at all, as if he were almost beneath their notice — they’d probably asked each other how the devil the poor wretch managed to get along, apparently devoid of any object in life. The contrast was so striking he’d often agreed with them: “They’re quite right, really — I wonder, myself, why I’m alive at all.” And he used to reflect thus quite humbly, with a resignation untinged with resentment, placidly accepting the role of unobtrusive spectator of other people’s lives. Sometimes, seeing them burst gaily in and out of one another’s offices, he’d try to imagine the relationships that existed between them. If one of them looked especially bright or tired first thing in the morning, he scented a special significance in the fact, as in the tone of his colleagues’ voices when they exchanged furtive phone calls. Sometimes his imagination ran away with him even further, and he had visions of them naked in one another’s arms, their faces buried in shadow and mystery. Then he would heave a sigh, and say to himself under his breath: “No, I can’t be cut out for that sort of life.”

But now the situation was reversed, A single dinner party, and everything was turned upside down as if by an earthquake. And he could feel within himself not merely a combination of euphoria and scorn, but also the first stirrings of blind rage. He couldn’t have said whether his anger was directed against the others or against himself. It was a frustrated wrath, provoked by the length of time he’d been living in a kind of limbo because of his own submissiveness and lack of jealousy. And it was accompanied by the dim stirrings of a desire for revenge. But this feeling was still very faint indeed: it was alien to his nature, and found it hard to take root there.

They’d been talking about China, he mused. He’d heard other discussions on that subject lately: it had been mentioned at the dinner party itself, though he hadn’t been able to concentrate sufficiently to catch exactly what was said. Everything seemed dim and vague, apart from what had actually been happening to him, which he couldn’t get out of his mind. It must be like that, he thought, when you were in love. Not that he’d ever been in love himself, but other people were always going into such raptures on the subject it must be pretty wonderful But he was sure his present feelings were more wonderful still, and more lofty, because more rare.

Most people, if not all, had been in love. But very few had had the experience of dining with a minister.

Yet again he recalled what he’d felt like just before it was time for him to set out. He’d decided to wear a navy blue suit which he’d had made some years back out of some expensive Polish material. He’d kept it for special occasions, and in due course it had come back into fashion again. He remembered trying to select a shirt, and how his wife had hovered around him with an expression that struck him as somehow disagreeable. Looking at himself in his dressing-table mirror, he’d been struck by something rather pitiful about the rawness of his carefully scraped cheeks and the redness of his neck inside its stiffly starched collar. Just as he was leaving, his wife asked him for the umpteenth time if he’d remembered to take a handkerchief, and all the way to his destination he’d worried about what he would do if he suddenly sneezed in the middle of dinner. He tried to dismiss the incongruous thought from his mind, but it was no good: he kept remembering a story he’d read at school, about a minor official who sneezed in the presence of some bigwig. The grown-up Simon quickened his pace and told himself he was a civil servant in a socialist country: his situation had nothing in common with that of a bourgeois pen-pusher who swooned away in terror because he’d sneezed in the presence of a superior.

Simon Dersha’s nervousness subsided somewhat when he was joined on the way to the party by the vice-minister, then grew again as he noticed that his protector too had lost some of his usual self-assurance. The nearer they got to the minister’s residence the more their conversation languished, until at last the only sound to be heard was that of their footsteps. Several times one of them said “What?” though the other hadn’t said anything. The street was only faintly lit, which made the damp surface of the road and the iron railings round the gardens look even darker than usual “This is it,” said the vice-minister in a scarcely audible voice as they came to a two-storey villa.

Memory is governed by laws of its own. Simon’s mind was a blank as to the time between the moment when the vice-minister said “This is it” and the moment when they entered the villa. But he could remember the dinner itself quite plainly: some parts of it seemed engraved in his memory for ever, while others were still suspended in a kind of mist, a tantalizing cloud of vagueness.

There were four or five other guests, all distinguished officials who would have been the centre of attention at any public gathering, but who were here reduced to mere ciphers in comparison with their host.

Alone in his office, Simon Dersha lit a cigarette. No, he really couldn’t recall the miracle in its entirety. It was like something you can only swallow if you break it up into pieces; otherwise it might choke you. Simon sighed. Fortunately, he thought, it all passed off without my dropping any bricks. And he was right. The minister had turned to him a few times, asking how the building of the big factories was getting on, especially the power stations in the north where the Chinese were working. Simon had answered as best he could.

He would have been hard put to it to endure any more particular attention, especially as, during the dinner, he had a feeling that every dish was a trap. He couldn’t relax until they came to the cheese and the fruit: then, thank God, the problems were over — he was in no further danger of splashing himself with some elaborate sauce. He hadn’t needed to use his handkerchief, though he’d taken it out of his pocket a couple of times and pressed it mechanically to his nose: the smell of clean, well-ironed linen was pleasant and reassuring. Yes, things really couldn’t have gone any better. Not the slightest thing had happened that might have made one say, as is so often the case, if only this or that hadn’t happened; perhaps I ought to have answered such-and-such a question differently.

There’d been only one incident, but it was nothing to do with him — so far from it, indeed, that even now he couldn’t have said whether it was a good thing or a bad. It consisted of a telephone call. At about half-past ten, just as they had finished the second course — the one that was the most difficult to handle without any spills — one of the phones had started to ring…Even though so much time had elapsed since, Simon had the feeling, every time he recalled the phone conversation which had followed, that recalling it was his last hope of jolting his memory into lucidity, for it must have been the most significant part of the whole evening. But it hadn’t seemed so at the time, and his memory of it was as of something distant and irrelevant.

When the phone rang, the host had risen from the table to answer it, leaving his guests still laughing at some pleasantry.

“Yes… Hallo, Comrade Enver…”

The guests exchanged glances. It must be Him. This would anyway have been an important, an unforgettable occasion. But such a phone call, at such a late hour, made it doubly important. A memorable dinner, during which Comrade Enver had rung up…Even now Simon felt his heart miss a beat at the thought of it, though he wondered whether something significant really had occurred, or whether it was merely the product of his own anxiety. But no, he decided: his uneasiness had been a reaction to something outside himself. The first thing that had alerted him was the way the minister spoke. His voice had been quite calm to start with, but then there’d been a sudden check, and he’d looked as though he’d suffered a shock. The change in the minister’s voice produced an even deeper silence among his guests, so that the belated clatter of a fork on a plate made every head turn towards it. As for the phone conversation itself, it had apparently concerned the most unremarkable of subjects: the caller was asking for explanations about the expulsion of certain tank officers from the Party. This was a subject of relatively minor importance, certainly not enough to render the minister speechless. Still, as Simon had reflected later, on his way home, it was rather astonishing that the leader of the Party himself should phone up so late at night on so insignificant a subject. But then perhaps it wasn’t so surprising after all. The fact that he’d rung up at that hour might just as easily mean that the subject of the conversation was one of those minor matters one puts off till the end of the day — maybe it had suddenly occurred to him after dinner.

Throughout the rest of the evening Simon had done his best to dismiss that phone call from his mind, and it seemed to him that everyone else, including his host, was doing the same. The minister was still very affable and vivacious, but every so often, in the midst of the conversation, he seemed to freeze, and his eyes went dull and vague — like Simon’s recollections. But when he took the trouble to think things over for a moment he felt reassured. The phone conversation and the minister’s twinge of anxiety seemed quite normal The sort of thing that happens all the time, he told himself: you’d need to be really looking for trouble to think it unusual And that, though his first reaction was always one of doubt and resentment, was the conclusion he always came to eventually whenever he looked back on the incident.

Walking home with the vice-minister, his general state of euphoria was disturbed two or three times by the memory of the phone call. He even allowed himself to refer to it once, but his companion only said, “Yes, quite…” This made Simon think his own experience hadn’t been purely subjective. But after a little while he managed to put it out of his mind.

And now, here in his office, he did so again. I really am hopeless, he told himself. I had that incredible stroke of luck, that wonderful opportunity, and all I can do is look for complications! All his calculations about the phone call seemed utterly absurd. Waves of exultation swamped his uneasiness yet again, and he started to think once more of the office next door and the trivial conversations of its occupants. Even his official superiors all seemed less important than before. And this time his feeling of triumph lingered: everything seemed easier, more within his reach. At one point, though, his eye lighted on the telephone that wasn’t working that morning. He remembered the unanswered ringings in the vice-minister’s office, and sighed.

The day’s work was nearly ended. He went over to the window and stood for a while looking out at the comings and goings in the square. The air felt damp, bet the weather looked too bright for rain.

He heard a key being turned in the lock of a nearby office. Footsteps echoed along the corridor. He looked at his watch and took his owe keys out of his pocket. And a few minutes later he was walking across Government Square as usual, another anonymous pedestrian amidst the crowd of clerks hurrying home.