The Concert

6

EKREM FORTUZI DREW BACK the curtain and looked outside. It was a damp, grey day. I’d better wear my galoshes, he thought. He pondered for a while before a heap of shoes that he kept in a cupboard beside the bathroom door, then bent down and rummaged among a mass of sandals, slippers and boots, most of them with holes in the sole, broken straps or missing heels. Eveetually he found his galoshes, dropped them on the floor, and was about to put them on when he heard his wife’s voice calling from the bedroom.

“Ekrem — where are you going to so early?”

“It’s not early, Hava — it’s nearly ten o’clock. I’m going round to the ministries to see if there’s any work.”

“You still haven’t given up hope?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’ve lit the stove,” he said after a moment. “And the milk has been boiled. So I’ll see you later, my pet.”

“All right, my love.”

A feeling of relief came over him as he went out into the street. The shutters of the house opposite, warped and weatherbeaten by the rain, were still shut. Sunday, he thought — people are having a lie-in. But he had to do the rounds of government departments to see if anyone had left any translation jobs for him to do. So that his employers wouldn’t need to seek him out, he’d got into the habit of calling at the various offices after working hours or on Sundays to pick up files containing documents to be translated from Chinese. They’d be left at the door for him to collect, usually with a note attached saying when the job was to be finished — in most cases far sooner than was reasonable. Nor did he go in and receive his fees personally: he waited for them to be sent by post. For his friend Musabelli had given him some useful advice when he first started to translate from Russian, in the days of the Soviets: “Be careful not to be seen too much around government offices — the communists don’t like falling over us ex-members of the bourgeoisie every time they go out into the corridor.”

Ekrem had stuck to this rule. Whenever he came upon a crowd of people outside a ministry or other government building at the end of the day, he would turn away and not come back until everyone else was gone. Sunday was usually the best day. Not only could he pick up the files then without any bother, but he could even exchange a few words with the man on duty. They all knew him now. Most were ex-servicemen, and though Ekrem felt rather shy with them, he was grateful for their friendliness. Some even seemed to admire him. One day the man at Albimpex said, “You must be pretty clever, eh? How did you get to be so good at Chinese?” “Somebody had to, I suppose,” he’d answered. “You’re right there,” said the man, gazing at him respectfully. “Good for you, comrade!” Ekrem blushed, but any kind of display embarrassed him and he hurried away.

It was almost with affection that he thought back now to those afternoons, those snatches of conversation by the porters’ lodges and the smell of the chestnuts the inmates roasted over their little electric stoves. Work had grown scarcer and scarcer lately. And now the demand for translations had almost completely dried up.

Ekrem had reached Government Square. The wide grey pavements, more sombre than ever in the rain, were deeply depressing. The lofty portals of the Ministry of Construction, with their heavy bronze door-knobs, stood ajar. He peered through the opening at part of the cold, empty, dimly lit hall, then slipped inside. The man on duty was in his usual cubby-hole, warming his hands over a stove. “Good morning,” said Ekrem. “Chilly, isn’t it?”

“Good morning,” answered the man. “Yes — it’s the time of year. Is it raining?”

“Just spitting.”

“There isn’t anything for you, I’m afraid.” Ekrem felt his heart miss a beat. “I’ll have a look in the drawer to make sure, but I don’t think there’s anything.”

For a few seconds Ekrem looked on dully as the man fumbled in the drawer among a few odd papers.

“No, nothing,’ said the man.

“Right, then. Goodbye,” said Ekrem.

“Goodbye, Better luck next time.”

“Next time…” Ekrem thought to himself as he went out into the square, He trudged on for a while without thinking. Where should he go next? To Agroexport or to the Ministry of Trade? But wait a minute! If he went to both those places, mightn’t that be seen as a kind of investigation, as if he were checking up on things? He had a sudden vision, a memory of the prison yard on the day parcels were handed out, together with, for some reason or other, the dirge-like singing of a common law prisoner convicted of incest. But the next moment: how ridiculous, he thought. Why should anyone need to be checking up? For days people had been talking about it almost openly. To hell with precautions! Not only would he go and ask if there was any work for him at the two places he’d jest thought of, but he’d also present himself at Makina Import and Aibimpex, and even the Planning Commission. He’d go the whole hog. He realized he’d started to walk faster …He began to calm down. Perhaps he wouldn’t go to the Planning Commission for another couple of days, he thought, but he’d certainly go to the other places.

Isn’t all this just my luck! he said to himself as he made his way towards the Agroexport building. He felt very down, though he did try to tell himself all wasn’t yet quite lost. But in fact he was sure he was the unluckiest person in the world. He’d just arranged to do a new translation — from the original, this time — of the libretto of Tricked by Tiger Mountain when the first rumours of disaster had started to spread around. It had been the same with Russian: just as things had seemed to be going better than ever, the catastrophe had happened. But it was much more annoying to see his Chinese going to waste: thousands of people had known Russian, but he was one of the few Albanians who knew Chinese, and he’d gradually emerged as the best. That opera translation would have opened up new possibilities for him. But now everything was collapsing. When he’d told Hava about the first hints of a break with China, she’d said casually, “Don’t pay any attention to such gossip! Weren’t you disillusioned enough after the break with the Russians?” “That’s not what bothers me," he’d replied. “I'm not crazy enough to have any hopes about politics! What I'm worried about is my knowledge of Chinese — it won’t be any use any more!”

The Agroexport offices, with their hermetically sealed shutters, looked far from inviting. Ekrem went and stood just inside the great door.

“No, nothing for you,” called the man behind the little window brightly,

“I thought I’d just take a stroll, to see,” said Ekrem, almost apologetically.

“No, not a thing.”

“Of course not,” said Ekrem, cursing himself for not being able to shut up. What a fool he must look. “I didn’t really expect to find anything, but I just dropped by in case. You can easily call in for nothing, but then again, sometimes a translation’s needed just when no one shows up to do it!”

He forced a laugh. The man seemed surprised. Ekrem tried to look unconcerned.

“Well, goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye.”

Once outside he gave way to his dejection. There was nothing. No point in trying anywhere else. No point at all… Just the same, he felt his legs carrying him back towards Government Square. He was jest going round in circles. Like an ass on a threshing Moor.

The man at the Ministry of Trade was new, and took some time to understand what he wanted, Then, mortifyingly, he didn’t even leave Ekrem time to invent an excuse: he just said no one had left anything to translate into any language. Ekrem even got the impression the man suspected him of being up to no good! That was the last straw! he thought as he left. He probably ought to have stayed and explained that he came here regularly to collect work. But he didn’t go back. What was the good? Let the oaf think what he liked! But Ekrem couldn’t help sheddering at the thought that the man might have picked up the phone and spoken to a colleague at the Ministry of Construction: “Hallo? Has a shady-looking individual been there asking if you still need translations from Chinese?” In other words, had he been there trying to find out the effect on international relations of the recent rumours — rumours well-known to have been put about by ideological agitators.

He shivered and came to a halt. Should he go on? Then he started walking again. Let the oaf phone his colleague! The other man would sort it all out and there wouldn’t be any problem. What an idiot I am! It’ll be all to the good if he does phone!

The Albimpex and Makina Import buildings were both in the same street. Ekrem hadn’t yet decided which he’d go to first. He could feel the damp air chilling him to the bone. He’d never imagined that one day he’d be reduced to running from one government office to another begging for a bit of translation. In his wildest dreams he’d never imagined his Chinese ending up like this! All those friendship meetings and delegations going back and forth had seemed to promise just the opposite.

His Chinese…When he thought of all the sarcasms, the sneers and the bitchiness he’d had to put up with from his acquaintances! One day Hava Preza had said, “There’s no harm in learning Chinese, but I don’t like to see you putting all your eggs in one basket and using up all your spare time on that gibberish. Supposing — God forbid! — they put you ie prison again? The last time you learned Russian. What would you do this time?” “Don’t be so spiteful!” his own Hava had answered. “My Ekrem certainly won’t be going to prison again!” “You never know,” retorted Hava Preza. “As the unfortunate Nurihan said, anyone can land up in jail whether they’ve been there before or not.” After that, she would sigh and add: “Still, there are plenty of other languages left to learn, I suppose!”

At first even his own Hava had made fun of Ekrem, but at least she’d also been the first to understand the point of his efforts, and had even begun to encourage him. When he’d managed to learn the first eight hundred ideograms they celebrated by going out to a restaurant for supper. There, as she looked at him with a mixture of excitement and regret, Ekrem, his cheeks slightly flushed with wine, described what their future would be like under the new dispensation: how successful his first translations from the Chinese would be; how celebrated he’d become as the best in the field; the fat fees he’d earn; how he’d probably be asked to do a new version of the poems of Mao Zedong. These would no doubt be followed by invitations to the Chinese embassy, and then — why not? — after he’d done some particularly important translation, for instance Chairman Mao’s complete works, he might be sent on a trip to China, with stop-overs — heavens above! — in Paris and Rome…

She went on looking at him with the same despondent eyes, almost tragic with their heavy mascara and puffy, painted eyelids.

“Why are you looking at me like that, my darling? Don’t you believe me?”

“Yes, I believe you,” she answered. “I’m jest sorry all these things won’t be happening to us because of a more civilized language — English or Spanish, say. Chinese strikes me as — how shall I put it? — a dud sort of language.”

“Never mind,” he’d answered cheerfully. “One can find happiness even with the language of the devil!”

Later, when he’d begun to receive his first fees, Ekrem realized that his involvement with Chinese brought him a certain amount of political security as well as material advantages. It brought him closer to officialdom and to the régime in general. Not for nothing was Chinese called the language of friendship. As soon as people found out what he did, a feeling of mutual trust was generated which wiped out his bourgeois past But now, alas, all this was being reversed. He would be made to pay dearly for that partial rehabilitation. The excellence of his Chinese, of which he had been so proud and which had acted as an antidote to his past, would now tern into an exacerbation, if it hadn’t done so already. Henceforward he would be doubly undesirable, as a survivor of two detested eras — that of the bourgeoisie and that of the Chinese. People would point at him in disgust as the worst of time-servers, the most servile and shameless of turncoats. God! he groaned. Suddenly everything looked black. Every door was closed to him. And to think he’d still had the heart to go begging for translations out of that accursed lingo! He’d do better to shut himself up at home and never go out again, in the hope of being left in peace and forgotten.

He shouldn’t have let himself crawl from door to door like that. It would have been wiser to go to the opposite extreme: even if anyone offered him some translations left lying about by mistake, he ought to have said, “Sorry, I gave up that sort of thing a long time ago. I don’t feel sure of myself now. The ideograms have impaired my sight, and although I’ve had two sets of new glasses I still can’t see them properly any more.”

That’s what he ought to say even if they came and implored him. Instead of going looking for trouble! “Take yourself off while there’s still time,’’ he exhorted himself, “and shut the door in their faces! The break with China is the signal for you to make a break of your owe.”

He felt like bursting into tears, A day like this was enough to make you weep, anyway. The bare rows of trees lining the streets made the grey frontages of the ministries look even more dreary than usual. Ekrem imagined the porters and duty officers inside, warming their hands over their stoves. He noticed he was passing the vast offices of the Makina Import company, and began to walk faster as if he were guilty of some crime. Take yourself off! he told himself. Go away, you wretch, before it’s too late!

As he slunk along with his chin sunk in the fur collar of his coat, his attention was caught by a familiar symbol on a poster. No, not a symbol — a line of ideograms. He slowed down to decipher it: “Exhibition of Porcelain”. What’s this, he wondered, going nearer. Yes, it was Chinese all right, though underneath the text there was a translation into Albanian. The poster looked as if it had been there for some time, but the wind and the rain and the street cleaners had failed to tear it down.

But it didn’t look as old as all that. An elegantly dressed couple had stopped in front of it. The man, whom Ekrem thought he’d seen somewhere before, was smiling and talking to the woman as he examined the words on the poster.

Ekrem looked at the pair. He felt as if the man’s smile invited him to join in their conversation, as often happens when strangers meet by chance at some unusual sight or incident. He felt an almost irresistible desire to speak to them. To say, for instance: “Fancy leaving that poster up now! What a joke, eh!” And in spite of his natural shyness he might actually have spoken, but for the feeling that he’d seen that face before. On the way up to the Kryekurts’s first-floor apartment? Or somewhere else? On television, perhaps?

He moved a step forward. Perhaps I should look at the date? he thought. Abandoning all precautions he peered closely at the poster. He thought he must be seeing things. Could it be possible? He took off his glasses and got another pair out of his pocket. Then he read the date, first in Chinese and then in Albanian, then in Chinese again. No doubt about it. The poster bore today’s date. It also said where the exhibition was being held. The Palace of Culture, Impossible!

“Today?” he asked the man, his voice faltering with emotion.

“Yes,” replied the other, looking him straight in the eye. “Today.”

Ekrem thought he could discern a kind of amused mockery in the man’s voice and expression — a mockery aimed not only at him. But this was of no interest to him now.

“Thank you,” he said. And then he made his way back across Government Square towards the Palace of Culture. A surge of pleasure made him almost stagger. He felt his chest suddenly expanding — his old lungs couldn’t cope with it. So things weren’t as bad as all that, he thought. One of the tunes that generally came back to him in moments of euphoria tried to make itself heard. But this time it wasn’t O Sole mio. No, it was The East is Red. He recited the words to himself in Chinese as he approached the Palace of Culture.

Skënder Bermema looked after the stranger for a few moments, thee turned back to the poster.

“Just look!” he said to Silva, whom he’d met by chance in the street a little while ago, “An exhibition like that at a time like this! How exciting! I love it when this sort of thing happens on the eve of great events. Come on, let’s go and have a look.”

“All right,” said Silva. “I’m late already, but I can’t resist!”

The Palace of Culture, where the exhibition was being held, was quite close by, and on the way Silva told Bermema some details about Gjergj’s recent trip to China. He was highly amused.

“He’s dying to see you,” Silva told Skënder. “He tried to phone you but you weren’t there.”

“Really? Well, I’m eager to see him, too…I say, look at all the people!” They had almost reached the Palace of Culture, and Skënder was pointing to the crowd around one of the entrances.

The atmosphere was much as he had expected. The exhibition was probably attracting far more visitors now than it would have done six months ago. Most of their faces wore a strange smile, an unnatural mask-like expression of curiosity mingled with bewilderment. Among the rest there were several Chinese and some officials from foreign embassies.

“I’ve noticed that just before a breaking-off of relations they always put on an exhibition,” said Skënder, turning his own smiling mask towards Silva. “Or perhaps ‘mystification’ would be a better word for it.”

Silva, finding it hard to concentrate, was gazing at a mass of terracotta objects, unenticingly displayed. Her companion’s warm bass voice reached her through loud background music. Chinese music.

“Someone told me,” he was saying, “that in accordance with their habit of conveying political messages by means of symbols, the Chinese have placed a couple of pots in a particularly significant position here.”

“Really?” said Silva. “Where?”

Skënder laughed.

“Ah, there you have me! First we have to find them, and then, if we do, we have to try to guess what’s meant by their placing.”

“Could it be those?” asked Silva after a while, pointing out a couple of vases of unequal size on which a weedy little man seemed to be feasting his eyes.

They both burst out laughing and let themselves be swept along by the crowd.

“There’s a pair of yesterday’s men,” said Skënder, indicating two visitors wearing off-white raincoats as wan as their smiles. “I shouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them didn’t still cherish the hope of our getting together with the Soviet Union again. I don’t believe in argument by analogy, but they remind me of the time when we broke with Moscow. Do you remember? — everyone was asking when were we going to take up with the West again.”

“Yes, I remember."

“Just watch their faces when they look at some Chinese vases. They seem to be saying, ‘Did you really think these objects were ever going to take the place of Anna Karenina and Tolstoy?’“

Silva put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“I don’t know why they don’t just say it outright. And look at the way they dress. Always in the same colours the Soviets wear on their rationalist Sundays — pale grey and off-white. I don’t know if you remember the first New Year after the break — the idiotic way some of them behaved?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Silva again. For some reason or other she was thinking of Ana. Perhaps he was too, for he was silent for a while. Then:

“Look, there’s one of our China fanciers — a genuine connoisseur!” he exclaimed, “I knew we’d find examples of every species here!”

“I didn’t know there were such people.”

“Oh yes,” he said, his tone suddenly harsh. “They’re rare, but they do exist…Do you know that one over there?”

“No,” she said. The person he meant was short and swarthy.

“That’s C–V—, the critic.”

“Is it? I’ve read some of his articles, but this is the first time I’ve seen him in the flesh. Does he really like the Chinese?”

Skënder’s grey eyes went cold.

“After the break with the Soviets he was all poised to step into the breach and fill Albania with Chinese theories on literature and art. And he was the first to suggest our adopting the Chinese habit of not putting authors’ names on the books they write.”

The crowd seemed to have grown since Silva and Skënder arrived. It was quite difficult now to move about the long room, which every so often was lit up by a camera flash.

“Two years ago in this very hall,” Skënder said, “they exhibited the famous sculpture, Outside the Tax Office — a real piece of rubbish, as you may imagine. There were plenty of sarcastic remarks about it, but in those days the people who swallowed Chinese art hook, line and sinker were still in the ascendant."

Silva’s smile told her companion she thought he was overdoing it a bit.

“And look at them now,” he went on, “prowling around those vases, or whatever they are, making disparaging remarks. The whole thing is a cold-blooded war in which neither side really gives a damn about anything. But of course, in present circumstances, the enthusiasts are in the minority…”

“Look over there,” said Silva, interrupting him.

A group of people were gathered around a showcase. A press photographer, who from his equipment looked like a foreigner, kept crouching down to take pictures.

“I should think that’s where the fox is lurking, shouldn’t you?” said Skënder.

But when they got near enough to see, the vases the group was looking at turned out to be quite ordinary.

“Sorry I interrupted,” said Silva. “You were saying the China enthusiasts are on the wane…”

“Ye-e-es…But that sort of riffraff don’t give up easily. To start with, they still hope the rift with China can be mended. But the main thing is, they think that even if the Chinese do go they’ll leave a useful amount of their jiggery-pokery behind.”

“How can they possibly hope such a thing?” said Silva indignantly.

“Because they’re swine!” he answered. “Still, you ought to know there’s a difference between the two camps. The first lot’s love of Russia was to a certain extent understandable — it was connected to a part of their life that they’d spent there. To Russian literature, the Russian winter, and so on. And especially Russian girls — as you may have heard, Russian girls are very charming. But the other lot’s love of, or rather craze for China is completely base. It hasn’t got anything to do with China really, with Chinese art or the Chinese view of the world…It’s inspired by ignoble considerations that have only to do with themselves …”

Silva shrugged — a gesture he liked, because it reminded him of Ana — to indicate that she couldn’t quite follow.

“Let me put it another way,” he said. “While those who felt a kind of nostalgia for things Russian stayed loyal out of conviction, or misapprehension, or sentimental attachment, those — a smaller group — who went crazy about China did so not out of love for the place but because things Chinese provided them with something that disguised their own deficiencies — inefficiency, lack of talent, envy, inferiority complex and spiritual poverty. It provided them with an outlet for their fundamental wickedness, and! don’t know what else!”

“Phew! You don’t mince your words!”

“Perhaps, but such are their motives, and that’s why it’ll be difficult to turf them out, even after the Chinese have gone… Just look at C–V—!” he said, turning towards him. “The perfect embodiment of…”

Silva turned round, but the shoulders of other visitors hid the critic from view.

Skënder leaned closer.

“I expect you think I’m fanatically anti-Chinese, Be frank — you do, don’t you?”

“Well…”

He stifled a laugh.

“Well, you’re quite wrong!”

She rolled her eyes mockingly.

“I’m serious,” he exclaimed, looking at her evenly as if waiting for her to stop smiling. “In fact I’d regard myself as an ignorant boor if I did entertain such views!”

Two or three people nearby turned to look at them.

They think we’re quarrelling, thought Silva, and tried to draw him away. Someone must have accused him of being anti-Chinese before, she thought. There was no other explanation for this sudden outburst.

“I have a great respect for their culture, as anybody must have if they’re in their right mind,” he said. “We’ve talked about their culture before, haven’t we?”

“Of course.”

“And who created that culture, that poetry, and so on, but the people you thought I was denigrating?”

Silva felt like saying she’d never thought any such thing, but knowing what he was like she restrained herself.

“If I get worked up and talk like this, it’s because it’s the Chinese people who suffer most when things go wrong.”

“I do understand, ‘Skënder,” said Silva soothingly.

He was talking now without even looking at her.

“People in this country are always telling stories and jokes about the Chinese, and I expect they always will. But it’s got nothing to do with racism, whatever some may think.”

“No…Good heavens, what a crush! It’s like being packed in a tie of sardines!”

The visitors were cruising around in complete disorder. They seemed to have come there to meet one another rather than to study Chinese ceramics. Everyone was beaming, contributing to one great meaningful smile. They came and went, eyes sparkling, ready to burst out laughing at the slightest excuse.

“And there’s the old guard for you!” said Skënder.

“So what’s their position?”

“They’re gaga. If they still had all their faculties they’d be lamenting now instead of exulting as they did when we broke with the Soviets.“

“But why should they be downcast?” asked Silva. “Perhaps they’re cherishing some hopes, now as then?”

“They’ve no reason to hope. We’re drawing away from China at the very moment China’s moving towards America. And so…”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“But they’re completely past it, and can’t understand the situation. Unless they’re only pretending…”

Silva started to laugh.

Then, from their right, there came a sudden noise, followed by cries of “What is it?” “What’s happening?” Heads turned, but no one could make anything out from a distance.

The crowd drifted towards the centre of interest. The more impatient elbowed their way forward. Others could be seen coming back in the other direction, wearing smiles of satisfied curiosity.

“What’s happened?” Skënder asked one of these.

“Someone’s broken a vase.”

“Good gracious!” Silva exclaimed,

“A Chinaman knocked it over by accident,” said the man. “I don’t know what would have happened if it had been one of us!”

Silva thought for a moment of Victor Hila. Scraps of conversation could be heard all round: “That beautiful vase — smashed to smithereens!”…“I was sure someone had knocked it over!”, “What? Who’d have dared?”…“Well, Ï never!”…“It was very valuable, too!”…“Still, I suppose it’s a good sign”…

Silva, turning round to see who’d spoken the last few words, was surprised to see the man they’d noticed a little while ago, looking at the poster. He was rubbing his hands, and his face was flushed with satisfaction.

“Let’s slip away,” said Skënder.

And after having strolled around for a little longer, they left. He went with her for part of the way, and as they parted she could feel on her lips a trace of the collective smile worn by the visitors to the exhibition. It was colder now and she walked faster. As she strode along she wondered if she’d been right not to tell Skënder Bermema that her brother had been expelled from the Party. Perhaps he might have been able to give her some explanation? Anyhow, she’d contrive to mention it to him another day.

As she was passing the Café Riviera, where the lights were on because of the overcast sky, a sudden intuition made her turn and look in through the window. And her whole being was invaded by a deep, burning sensation, spreading like ripples when a drop of water fails into a tank. There, sitting on a bench near the front of the café, Gjergj was sitting with a young woman. “What could be more natural?” she told herself. And then, as if to check the waves of pain that were pulsing right through her body, “So what?” So what if he was sitting in a café with a woman — that wasn’t the end of the world! But some blind force, stronger than her own will, made her do something that offended against her owe code of conduct and her own dignity: she looked again. The young woman — or girl — sitting with Gjergj was pretty. In the course of the two or three seconds that Silva had spent looking at her (I only hope I didn’t look again] she thought later), her mind took it all in: their pensive look, the way the girl was toying with her coffee cup, the smoke from his cigarette, and, worse still, the dangerous silence that reigned between them. How shameful! Silva reproached herself, swiftly turning her head away. How horrible! But between “shameful”, which applied to herself, and “horrible”, which applied to what she’d just seen, there was an enormous distance. “How horrible!” she said again, forgetting her own unseemly behaviour. It seemed to her a mere drop compared with that other ocean of evil.

The farther she left the café behind, the more irreparable seemed what she had seen there. The long light-brown hair, the whirls of cigarette smoke lazily enfolding them both…She’d have to be very stupid not to see there was something between them. She realized how fast she was walking by the sound of her own heels on the pavement. It seemed to come from far away. Then she felt a temporary calm descend on her, though she was well aware it was false respite, a grey, barren flatness bound in the end to emphasize the underlying pain. This was the reason, then, for his over-affectionate telegram. For that over-insistent “fondest”. Of course, a part of that effusion, perhaps the main part, was really directed towards the other woman! She saw again in her mind’s eye the intimate moments of their first night together after his return, moments cruelly lit by the thought that he’d done the same things the next day, or the day after that, in some anonymous room with the other woman.

She was overwhelmed by a jealousy all those long years of happy marriage could do nothing to modify. She made a last effort to throw it off, contain it. Wait — perhaps it isn’t really like that, perhaps it was only a coincidence. But the stronger, the dominant part of herself soon stifled that appeal to wisdom. You had to be very naive not to suspect Gjergj and that woman were up to something. Blind as she was, she’d told herself that sort of thing happened only to other people, never to Gjergj and herself. She’d believed like a fool in her happiness, and all the time it was rotten to the core. She’d shut her eyes to ail possibility of danger, smug as the most empty-headed of women. All the signs had been there, but with an unforgivable lack of shrewdness she hadn’t even noticed them. Hadn’t she found him, several times lately, lying on the sofa reading love poetry? Once she’d even asked him, “What are you reading that for? I’ve hardly ever seen you open a book of poems…” He’d answered, “I don’t really know why…No particular reason…” She must be quite bird-brained not to have thought about what might lie behind such a change. Nor was that all. After he got back from China, not content with reading poetry he’d also taken a liking to chamber music. Quiet pieces mostly, the kind that promotes daydreaming. Yesterday evening she’d found him lying on the sofa, his head leaning on his right arm, listening to some Chopin. What more did he have to do to proclaim that he’d fallen in love? she raged inwardly. All there was left for him to do was draw hearts and arrows on the walls of the apartment. If he did she’d probably ask: “What are those funny symbols, Gjergj? Could they have anything to do with your feelings?”

If at least the two of them had been cowering at the back of the café, she wouldn’t have seen them, she thought bitterly. But no, regardless of what anyone might think they’d sat right by the window, as if to exhibit themselves to the whole of Tirana. The anger she’d been feeling against herself now turned on him. He might at least have refrained from trying to pull the wool over her eyes with his sham affection, his sugary telegrams and what followed. He ought to have had the guts to show his indifference openly, to go off the deep end, throw scenes, make all the neighbours come running — it would have been more honest than that deceitful calm.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had the opportunity to deceive him! Her jealousy suddenly mingled with a thirst for revenge. Against her will she imagined herself hurrying to a secret rendezvous. Some day as full of treachery as today, she would take off her clothes for a man, swiftly, impetuously, without shame, to make her vengeance more complete. Scenes followed one on another in her mind, but they gave her no satisfaction…She knew she could never behave like that. But what else could she do?

She was no longer heading for home. She’d changed direction, as if working out another, more cruel way of punishing him. And she did have an idea now. It only remained to put it into action. She soon found herself near a bus-stop. She was still in a state of shock, and didn’t ask herself why she was waiting there. It wasn’t until the bus came and she got on it that she realized where she meant to go. To the cemetery. To Ana’s grave.

Her tear-filled eyes distorted everything that passed before them. She felt as if she was about to burst out sobbing, not so much because of what had just happened as at finding herself in one of those periods in her life when Ana’s absence seemed particularly terrible. How irreplaceably wonderful Ana would have been in such circumstances! Silva imagined herself having a cup of tea with her sister in some shop, and telling Ana her troubles. She would have been ready to endure much worse sufferings if only she could have told Ana about them.

The bus was full and drove along slowly. Silva was impatient. She thought she glimpsed a familiar face amongst the crowd, and turned her face to the window to avoid being spoken to. For many of those she knew, she was still one of the inseparable Krasniqi sisters, and their names were always linked together in people’s conversation. Today Silva didn’t want to talk to anyone.

The bus arrived at the terminus. The cemetery was only a few minutes’ walk away. Once through the iron gate, Silva almost ran along the path leading to Ana’s grave, as if her sister were waiting for her. The cemetery was almost empty, but Silva slowed down so as not to attract attention. At last she came to the grave: its pale marble tombstone seemed to contain the last gleams of day. A bunch of fresh pink roses had been placed beside the faded ones from last week. Who could have brought them? Silva bit her lip with vexation: her mind was in such a whirl she’d forgotten to bring any flowers. She sighed. Some scattered white rose-petals, languishing on the grave, seemed to have melted into the marble. Everything was quiet. A few paces away to the right there was an old woman whom Silva had noticed there several times before: as usual, she had brought her dear departed a cup of coffee. She’d put the cup on the top of the grave, and was either weeping or just bowing and lifting’ her head, Silva knelt down, and for something to do used the handkerchief crumpled up in her hand to polish the porcelain medallion on the headstone, it acted as frame to a photograph. Ana smiled out at her, her hair blown slightly by a wind off the sea; you could see the waves in the background. Besnik had taken that snapshot the first summer they spent together at the beach, at Durrës. Yet again Silva felt her eyes brim over, and tears as well as petals now patterned the marble slab. She couldn’t take her eyes off the petals: for some reason or other they conjured up more strongly than anything else could have done the idyllic affair between Ana and Besnik, Ana had often told her about that perfect felicity, during thrilling hours they’d spent together in the tea-shop on the third floor of the palace of Culture, when Ana came to collect Silva from the reading room of the library. Later on, after Ana’s death, seeing Besnik facing life’s ups and downs with such calm indifference, Silva had wondered whether this was because he had already had his full quota of happiness.

Whenever she visited her sister’s grave Silva recalled parts of the story of Ana’s second marriage. It wasn’t because of the grave, with its pale marble vaguely suggesting a bride’s veil, the wreath of flowers, and the traditional handfuls of rice. These things belonged to Ana’s first marriage rather than her second, for which she had dressed very soberly. No, it was because of something else, something that in a curious way erased the memory of the interminable days of Ana’s illness, the months in hospital, the anxious waiting, the operation. Ana’s first marriage, to Frédéric, had somehow been swallowed up in those sad memories — had been stripped of its veil, its lights, of everything that was joyful, and had made way for Ana’s second marriage as one house may give up its contents in order to furnish another.

“Silva, I’m going to divorce Frédéric…” She well remembered hearing Ana say that. It was on a cold grey day like today, without mercy for anyone who stepped out of line. Ana’s face had been paler than usual as she spoke. Before Silva had time to get over her astonishment, her sister had continued, even more amazingly: “I’m going to marry someone else.” “Marry someone else?” gasped Silva. Then she tried to speak more moderately. “Have you gone out of your mind? Haven’t you said yourself that for you men are only interesting at a distance, and as soon as they get near you they lose most of their attraction?” “Not this time,” said Ana, “I’ve been with him — or rather I’ve been his, as they say — for a week.” “I can’t believe it!” Silva had cried. She seemed to say nothing else all those icy weeks. “Fred thinks I’ve betrayed him lots of times,” said Ana, “but I never did, as you know. Never, Except perhaps once, in circumstances where I…where we both…”

Silva had sat staring at her sister. She was probably referring to her relations with Skënder Bermema which had been the talk of the town but which no one — including Silva. — really knew anything about, Silva was tempted to say, “What’s all the mystery about Skënder Bermema? You might at least tell me! You’re always making enigmatic references to it …Unless you only met him in a dream, or vice-versa, or unless the gossips themselves dreamed it all up …” But that day Ana had been talking about somebody else, a third man, and that wasn’t the moment to try to find out about Skënder Bermema. Nor did a suitable occasion present itself later. Ana never told Silva her secret; she was to take it with her to the grave.

Anyhow, that day, the subject of conversation was somebody else. “Who is it you want to marry?” Silva had asked, finally. And thee, for the first time, Ana had uttered the name of Besnik Straga.

“The man who was in Moscow and has jest broken off his engagement?” Silva asked.

Ana nodded.

“Yes. Perhaps yoe remember me going to dinner with Victor Hila a few weeks ago? Well, it was there I met him.“

“And what are you going to do now?”

“I’ve told you. I’m going to marry him.”

Silva, perched now on a corner of the rose-strewn marble slab, huddled up to keep out the cold, felt a great emptiness inside her. Scraps of memories whirled around her indistinguishably; none emerged more distinct than the others. Then vaguely, distantly, they formed into a kind of television film with the sound turned off: first came the scandal caused by the announcement of Ana’s divorce; thee the legal proceedings, with Frédéric coming into court carrying an armful of books by Skënder Bermema in which he’d marked all the passages he alleged referred to the author’s affair with Ana; the gossip; Ana’s dignified behaviour throughout. The storm, which Ana, with her talent for making everything around her light and airy, transformed into a spring shower, was followed by a fiat calm: her marriage to Besnik Strega; the little dinner party with just a few close friends. When, after the first few weeks, they assessed the damage this earthquake of theirs had caused among their circle, they realized there hadn’t been any great upheavals, apart from one loss that affected them deeply: they couldn’t see the Bermemas any more.

Silva remembered a bright rainy afternoon when she and Ana were walking past the puppet theatre, and her sister nudged her and whispered, “Look, Silva — that’s the girl who was engaged to Besnik …” The girl was hurrying along under a transparent umbrella which cast pale mauve reflections on to her face. In that lavender light her expression struck Silva, who had never seen her before, as full of mystery. There was no trace of resentment in Ana’s eyes or voice. She just said, “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”, when the girl had gone past, Silva didn’t know what to say. She agreed. When she saw the girl again later, after she’d got married to an engineer, she still seemed just as mysterious as on that first day, through that mauve mist. But perhaps this was because Silva had heard people say that although she was so attractive to men, she was also proud and self-willed; it was even whispered that she was very cold towards her husband. But Silva was rather sceptical about that. Perhaps because of all the tittle-tattle about Ana, she tended to discount rumours about women’s infidelity. There was much more to be said about the infidelity of men.

Silva sighed. In the end, what did it all matter? She’d come here for something else. She stared at the wet marble; her eyes were so tired they hurt. What would she have said to her sister if she’d still been alive? “Ana, I’m going to divorce Gjergj”? She shuddered. Oh no, she thought. Never! She’d heard someone else use such words, and now she wanted to give them back, like something she’d borrowed that didn’t suit her. Like most younger sisters, she’d often imitated Ana, but the time for that had gone by. They had been as one, like sisters in the ancient ballads, and they still were one. But now they were like twin water-lilies, the invisible roots of one of which were dead. Even though people still spoke of them together, the old symmetry was no more. The words Silva had been on the point of saying were quite alien to her.

She glanced around. No one. When she looked at her watch she couldn’t believe her eyes: it was after two o’clock. At home they’d have been wondering where she was. She felt her lips curve in a bitter smile. Perhaps she’d smile like this when she first spoke to Gjergj. It was late, but she hadn’t yet bothered to think what she’d say to him. She stood up, smoothed her skirt down, and started to make her way out of the cemetery. The worst would be if he tried to hide the truth, and degraded himself in her eyes with petty lies. How horrible! thought Silva, as if a new misfortune had suddenly been revealed to her. I only hope it won’t be like that, she thought as she got on to the almost empty bus. Then she wondered what it would be like if he simply admitted he was having an affair; at this idea she wasn’t quite so shattered. She sighed again. Whichever way she looked at it, she couldn’t see any solution. What horrible chance made me go by that cursed café, she wondered. It would have been better for me not to know. I'd a hundred times rather not have seen anything.

The bus picked up passengers at every stop. It was almost three o’clock by the time she got off. She still hadn’t thought what she would say to Gjergj, She ought at least to have an answer ready when he asked where she’d been. But she felt too worn out to think about anything. She was almost surprised to see a couple of young men unloading crates of mineral water from a lorry outside a bar in the street where she lived. They whistled as they staggered across the pavement to the shop, the bottles clinking. Was life really still going on as if nothing had happened?

She paused for a moment outside the apartment as if to muster her strength. Then she took her key out of her bag, and trying, heaven knows why, to make as little noise as possible, opened the door. In the hall she took her coat off and waited for Gjergj to come and ask where she’d got to. But a suspicious quiet reigned. What if he hadn’t come back? It vaguely occurred to her that he might still be there in the café with the girl, or lunching tête-à-tête with her in some restaurant. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She snatched the scarf from round her neck almost violently — it seemed to cling on — and propelled by fury at the possibility she’d just been considering, she burst into the kitchen. And there was Gjergj, standing by the French window that opened on to the balcony. She was so astonished she almost cried out, “You’re here!” He was smoking. The face he turned towards her, though it showed no surprise, wore a frown. What was he looking like that for? Perhaps he knew…Perhaps he’d seen her though the window of the café… And now…Attack was the best form of defence! All this flashed through Suva’s mind in less than a second. Then something made her look at Brikena, who was busy at the dresser: she wore the same sullen expression. The explanation must be worse than that, she thought, stunned. But what could it be? That he had indeed seen her and had no intention of defending himself, even by attacking her, but would calmly, cruelly, lethally tell her he loved someone else, and… and…that he’d told his daughter about it …so that she could choose between her father and mother…So there was something worse, much much worse (“Fondest fondest love”‘)…Perhaps…perhaps…(the word “separation” came into her mind with the harsh tearing sound of someone ripping a length of cloth). And all that had taken no more than another second…

“What on earth has happened?” she managed to stammer. Exactly what she had expected them to say to her.

Gjergj looked back at her fixedly. He too looked rather surprised, but his main expression was one of consternation. He seemed to be saying, “Never mind about us — what about you?” He glanced towards the sofa, and it was then that Silva realized there was someone else in the room. Sonia, her sister-in-law, was sitting on the sofa, white as a sheet and with tears streaming down her cheeks and even into her shoulder-length hair.

“Sonia!” said Silva, starting towards her. “What’s happened?”

Sonia’s brimming eyes seemed to have aged suddenly.

“Arian…” she murmured.

Silva nodded encouragingly.

Yes, but what, she wondered, half wanting to know and half too worn out to care. Had her brother had an accident? Committed suicide? For a moment she thought this might be the answer, but no — if so, Sonia would have stayed at home…

“What?” she repeated,

“Arrested,” sobbed Sonia.

“What!”

Silva turned first to Gjergj and then to Brikena, as if to ask them if she was in her right mind. Of all the possible misfortunes, this one had never occurred to her. What a day!

“When?” she asked, trying to keep calm,

“This morning at ten o’clock."

Just when she was laughing at Skënder Bermema’s comments at the exhibition, and while Gjergj…

He went on smoking, standing by the French window leading out on to the balcony, Brikena was now setting the table. The mere idea of eating struck Silva as barbarous. Bet as if she found some temporary respite in catching up with duties she’d thought she’d skipped, she started coming and going with unnatural assiduity between the table and the stove, where the meal had got cold and been heated up again several times.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had any lunch, Sonia?”

“I haven’t even thought about it!”

“Anyhow, sit down and eat something…”

“It was frightful!” Sonia groaned. “Fortunately Mother and the children weren’t in!”

“I was just going to ask you what had become of them,” said Silva.

“They don’t know anything about it. Aunt Urania had called for Mother to go and see some friend of theirs. The children were out.”

“They mustn’t know!” said Gjergj. “Tell them he’s been sent on a mission.”

“This is the last straw!” Silva exclaimed, “Come and have something to eat now, and well talk about it all later.”

She was about to start serving when she remembered the salad hadn’t been prepared. She asked Brikena to see to it, while she herself went to the refrigerator for the cheese, and something else out of a tin which she then replaced. She performed all these actions feverishly, her mind in a whirl. These plates wouldn’t do for taking food to a prisoner — you’re only allowed to use tinfoil containers…Snap out of it, she told herself, grabbing a handful of forks from the dresser.

Sonia was still weeping silently on the sofa.

“When they expelled him from the Party,” she said, “I thought that would be the end of it. Who would ever have thought things would go so far?”

“Don’t cry, Sonia,” said a voice Silva recognized as Gjergj’s.

She felt she hadn’t heard it for a long time…ever since…ever since the disaster. But this wasn’t the moment to think about that; it would be indecent.

“I’m not just saying it to console you,” Gjergj went on, “but I'm sure it’s only a misunderstanding. Besides, Sonia, being arrested when you’re in the army is not the same as if you’re a civilian. It’s not nearly so serious — not a catastrophe at all. Any soldier can be put under arrest for disobedience or some such offence, and afterwards go on just as before. It’s in the regulations — you must have heard about it… You’ve seen it happen in films, don’t you remember? Some triling misconduct, five days in clink, fall out!”

“Gjergj is right,” said Silva. “To be put under arrest in the army is nothing! When our colleagues at the ministry come back from reserve training they’re always full of stories about it. Arian has merely committed some minor offence for which army regulations prescribe arrest!”

“But they came to the house to arrest him!” cried Sonia, “And I don’t know if it was done according to the rules — I’ve never seen an arrest before. But it didn’t look like a disciplinary matter.”

“Did they have any authorization?”

“Yes, of course. They had a kind of warrant, and one of them showed it to me as well as to Arian. Not that I could read what was written on it, I was so upset. There was someone else with them — a member of the local committee of the Democratic Front.”

Gjergj and Silva exchanged a surreptitious glance. Sonia noticed it, but she still didn’t know whether the warrant and the member of the Democratic Front were good signs or bad.

Gjergj finally moved away from the French window, but to Silva he seemed to do so more rapidly than was natural, and this added to her uneasiness. He too started coming and going around the kitchen, helping to get the meal ready.

“Don’t worry, Sonia — I’m sure my explanation is right, Sit down and have something to eat,” he said, shifting chairs about noisily, “Brikena, where’s the pepper? Come along, Sonia…Why were you so late, by the way, Silva?” He sounded as if he wasn’t sure it was possible to say anything so ordinary here any more.

Silva stared at him for a moment.

“I’ll tell you later on,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Come on, Sonia — come and sit down.”

“I don’t want anything to eat! I couldn’t swallow a mouthful!”

“Don’t be silly,” said Silva. “I’m sure it’ll all be explained. We mustn’t give in. And don’t forget the family, Sonia…Most of them are senior Party members…It’s not as if we hadn’t any influence any more …”

But it seemed to her that the more she said the less she believed it. Take those stupid remarks about the family. She knew the arrest of a member of a communist family was just as serious as the arrest of someone connected with the old guard. More serious, in fact, because it was so unusual As for the warrant and the member of the committee, they showed this was no routine matter.

But it was precisely what Silva said without believing in it herself that persuaded Sonia to come to the table.

During the meal, though everyone did their best to avoid long ‘silences, they couldn’t und much to say. So they made much play with china and cutlery. When they’d finished, Silva made coffee — the only thing that was welcome to everyone.

“I must go,” said Sonia. “Heaven knows what’s going on at home,”

“In any case, don’t say anything to his mother or the children,” Gjergj advised her.

“But how long can it be kept from them?” replied Sonia. “It’s impossible!”

Impossible, thought Silva… Gjergj, for all his advice to Sonia, knew that as a Party member himself he would have to inform the next meeting of his cell that his brother-in-law had been arrested. Out of the corner of her eye, Silva could see Brikena’s hair almost falling in her plate, as she ate without looking up at the others. She hadn’t uttered a word throughout the whole meal: heaven knew what she might be going through…Her textbooks were full of enemies of the people who were finally unmasked and arrested, and now that world, which had been as distant for her as ancient myth, was irrupting into her owe life. And this wasn’t all! Silva bit her lip at the thought of the forms her daughter would have to fill in to join the youth movement, then to go to the University, and so on throughout her career. To the question, “Has any member of your family been arrested or imprisoned under the present régime?” most of her friends would be able to write “No,” but she, with a trembling hand, would have to write, “I have an uncle who…”

Sonia stood up.

“I must go,” she said.

They saw her to the door, with flustered reassurances which, though they may have soothed Sonia, had the opposite effect on themselves.

“Phew!” exclaimed Silva, collapsing on to the sofa when Sonia had gone. She wept for a moment in silence, while Gjergj went over to the French window again and stood with his back to her, smoking a cigarette.

“I’ll have one too,” she said, between sobs. She asked Brikena to go to her room, and the girl went without a word.

“Do you really believe what you said about the arrest?” Silva asked.

Gjergj still didn’t look round.

“I’m more inclined to think it’s a misunderstanding. One soldier does as he pleases, and his superiors give him the boot…”

“Do you really think that?”

“I did wonder whether it hadn’t got something to do with the Chinese question …It may seem ridiculous, but at times like these the key to the inexplicable often lies in current events…And if this particular business were connected, even indirectly, with China, I'd be tempted to think it was very serious. But I can’t see any evidence for it. Especially as he was expelled from the Party for disobedience — in other words for being a bit of a rebel. And the reason for his arrest must be the same as the reason for his expulsion from the Party.”

“That would make it just an ordinary detention, as you said from the beginning.”

“But being expelled from the Party makes it worse,’ said Gjergj, “and other things may get drawn into it too. When the charge of disobedience is being examined, perhaps the officers inquiring into it will discover aggravating circumstances — insubordination towards his superiors, or insolence…”

The phone rang. Silva shuddered. Gjergj answered, and as soon as he spoke she sensed that the call had nothing to do with what had flashed through her mind. As he went on talking, it occurred to her that the time might come when they’d call or be called by her brother much less often, or not at all, and of course stop seeing him. And it wouldn’t end there. If Arian was in prison for long, it wasn’t impossible that Sonia would divorce him. There were cases where not only a prisoner’s wife but all his relations too dropped him completely.

Gjergj hung up and went over to the French window again. They remained as they were for some time. Silent. Outside, time seemed suspended.

“When you came in just now i thought you knew,” said Gjergj. “You were so pale.”

Silva looked up.

“No. That was for another reason.”

She didn’t want to talk now about her anxieties that morning.

“What reason?”

Silva plucked at her brow, where her eyebrows met. If he insisted on knowing why she had come home looking distraught^ she was going to have to tell him. But perhaps this was the moment to have it all out. Now or never. At any rate it would take their minds off the other business.

“I saw you this morning in the Riviera,” she said finally, giving him a sidelong glance. “You were with a young woman.”

He didn’t flinch. He was still looking out through the window. The mist on the panes made the grey of the late afternoon more dismal still.

“Perhaps you’re going to tell me you met her by accident,” she said, unable to bear his silence any longer.

He didn’t answer straight away. Then:

“Not exactly," he said.

Silva felt her heart thumping. Perhaps she was probing too far. Wasn’t all this too much for a single day? She’d been sure he would stammer out something to deny the facts, or minimize them, or,…But now, instead of justifying himself, by lying if necessary, he was telling her he hadn’t been with that woman in that café by accident. That’s ail this awful day needs,’ she thought: my husband calmly admitting he’s deceived me!

“This isn’t a very good moment for me to explain,” he went on.

“Perhaps not,” said Silva, feeling a great icy wave sweep over her. “Maybe it would be better to leave it till another time.”

She’d spoken quite sincerely. All she wanted now was for the matter to be closed. She was even ready to ask him not to mention it again,

“You’re right,” she added. “It’s not the right moment. I shouldn’t have started it.”

“Not at all,” he answered. “Perhaps it’s just the right moment…”

Just the right moment, she murmured to herself, shattered. What did that mean?

“Gjergj,” she murmured faintly, “Please…I’m terribly tired…Why do you want to add to my torment?”

“I want exactly the opposite. I want to explain, to relieve you of any kind of doubt…”

What a ghastly day — would it ever end? thought Silva. But she felt just a twinge of relief.

“It’s not easy to explain, but I’ll try,” said Gjergj. “It all began in China,…”

What all began in China? Had the girl been there too? Had they met in a hotel? The anguish Silva thought she’d thrown off gripped her again.

“I’ve already mentioned the spiritual barrenness you can experience there, but you know I don’t talk much — I didn’t want to go into detail.” He was still staring at the window. “You feel a kind of void, an indescribable panic. It’s impossible to have a genuinely human conversation. You begin to long for simple, authentic phrases — ‘It’s raining,’ ‘How are you this morning?’ But they don’t exist. As soon as you remark on how windy it is, the person you’re talking to says, ‘The wind from the East is stronger than the wind from the West.’ If you complain that it was foggy, he’ll answer, ‘Chairman Mao says fog suits the imperialists and the revisionists.’ ”

Gjergj shook his head as if dismissing further examples put forward by his memory.

“Empty words and tedious slogans everywhere. 'Though far apart, our peoples are friends’ — that’s what they say instead of ‘good morning’. One monotonous refrain peppered with endless quotations. Wherever you looked there was nothing but placards with ideograms scrawled all over them…For nights now I’ve been dreaming the world has been invaded by billions of Chinese characters, like ants. How I used to long to hear a human sigh over a cup of coffee. What was the name of that chap who went through the market in the daytime, carrying a lantern and looking for a man? Diogenes, I think …Well, in the middle of that ocean of banners and placards, we were looking for a man…Not that there was any shortage of people, but we didn’t really have any contact with them. We were isolated from them by a cordon sanitaire of guides, officials, and all those wretched slogans. If we ever had a normal conversation with someone on our embassy staff, it was immediately swallowed up in that sloganomania. What I clung to in my mind was our life here, I told myself, as soon as I get back I’ll do this and that, and above all I'll live closer to other people. I was dying, dying to talk to human beings — even if they were surly or exasperating, so long as they were human beings! That was why when I got back I wanted to stay with you as long as possible, with you and with our daughter. Do you remember the first night I was home, when I was half-dead with fatigue and yet I asked you to talk to me a bit longer, and you said, “Don’t be so childish — do you need a fairy-tale to seed you to sleep?’”

Even if she couldn’t quite manage a smile, Silva could feel her face relaxing. It had all happened just as he’d said, and he had dropped off to sleep while she talked to him about something she’d now completely forgotten.

“I expect you remember finding me reading a book of poems the day before yesterday,” said Gjergj, “and the day before that, listening to music. That too was because of my craving for warmth. The cold had penetrated so deep inside me — to my very bones — that I felt nothing could ever warm me up again. So I wanted to build up reserves, just as someone who’s been through a famine hoards bread. That’s more or less how I felt. And then, this morning…”

Gjergj paused for a few seconds, lit a cigarette, and started to describe that morning, his first Sunday since he got back from China. He’d gone to a café, then strolled along the main boulevard as far as the avenue Marcel-Cachin — near the Dajti Hotel and the bridge with a marvellous view of the falling leaves. Thee he suddenly felt an urge to visit the cemetery. For no reason at all he’d got it into his head that the Chinese had abolished cemeteries! He’d bought a bunch of flowers to pet on Ana’s grave, and thee he’d set out.

“Pink roses,” said Silva.

“Yes,” he answered, with no sign of surprise. “Were you there too, then?”

She nodded,

“There were quite a lot of people at the cemetery,” he went on. “I stood by Ana’s grave for some time, remembering things about her life, and about ours. Thee I came away. When I got back into town it was still early and I felt like having another coffee. But not alone, nor with a mere acquaintance — no, it had to be someone with whom I felt a bond. In China I’d come to think no one ever remembered anything: of course that couldn’t be true, but it was the impression you got from the outside. So I felt like having a coffee with someone who did remember things.”

Silva recalled the old woman in the cemetery, with her cup of coffee.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but that was what was missing from my Sunday, So I did what I haven’t done for a long time — I phoned an old student friend whom I hadn’t seen for years. I tried to explain to her over the phone what had made me call her up, and she somehow managed to understand my ramblings. She was a very nice girl, the girl-friend of one of my fellow students — we’d had a brief romance in our first year. She’s married now. That’s all, Silva — neither more nor less. I just wanted to talk about another part of my life…I was like someone who’s been ill and is on the brink of convalescence…I don’t know if I’ve managed to make you understand at all…I’m afraid I probably haven’t.”

Silva couldn’t take her eyes off his face: it looked suddenly haggard. Her own expression was full of tenderness.

“How awful it must have been for you over there,” she said gently, Then, to herself: “But perhaps the situation that caused his suffering will soon be over?”

Outside, it was getting dark. ln the dusk, everything was growing distant and insubstantial: the balconies of other apartments; the first lights lit inside them and twinkling faintly; the pigeons swooping over the roofs, their grey and white wings merging into the general pallor.

Silva gazed at the man standing there by the window: he was not only her husband but also a mythological messenger raised into immortality, bearer of a missive to a terrifying foreign state. A letter severing relations…She suddenly felt an irresistible desire to comfort him after his journey into that alien universe.

As if he’d read her thoughts, Gjergj left the French window, then came slowly and quietly across the room and sat down beside her on the sofa. She ran her fingers through his hair and down to the nape of his neck. Then started to stroke his hair rhythmically. And so they sat on, side by side, through the end of a day that might well prove to be the beginning of an era.