The Concert

by Ismail Kadare

  Then Besnik had told Suva how he’d been out in the street on the night of the first reception held after the rupture.

  “Everyone was waiting to see a firework display, with rockets that had just arrived from China: they’d been the main topic of conversation for days. The whole sky suddenly erupted, and people looked up in delight and astonishment. For these were no ordinary fireworks — they were foreign, and as they fell they let out an eerie whistle that seemed to say, What crazy sort of a world is that down there? And as if that wasn’t enough, another kind of rocket followed, producing shapes like mythical Chinese serpents: first they all hung in a kind of curtain or fringe, then they disappeared one by one, leaving the sky black as pitch. People started shouting, 'Snakes! Snakes!’ and my own heart began to thump. 'What, more serpents?' I thought. 'Another evil omen?’ Because, don’t forget, Silva, this was the first public celebration after the crisis…”

  Silva, huddled under the blankets, remembered all these incidents, and for the umpteenth time asked herself why Gjergj’s journey had had to take place just now. In her mind’s eye she saw again the black briefcase containing the secret documents he had to deliver — documents that were keeping the two of them poles apart tonight. What was that briefcase Gjergj was carrying across the sky without even knowing what was inside? And this journey…She remembered the sudden notification, the summons to see the minister, the rapid issuing of the necessary visa. The mere thought that her husband had been sent on a special mission was unnerving. He shouldn’t have gone, she told herself. And as she felt herself dropping off, her mind was filled again by visions more vivid than ever of Besnik Struga’s rockets, her brother’s imminent expulsion from the Party, and Gjergj’s mysterious briefcase. She woke up again several more times, and always those images seemed linked together by threads invisible in the darkness of the room. But soon the first gleams of an autumn dawn began to creep in through the window.

  2

  THE SKY WAS UNIMAGINABLY EMPTY that late October eight, A few hundred planes landing at or taking off from airports, some millions of birds, three forlorn meteorites falling unnoticed into the immensity of the ocean, a few spy satellites orbiting at a respectful distance from one another — all these put together were as nothing compared with the infinite space of the sky. It was void and desolate. No doubt if ail the birds had been rolled into one they’d have weighed more than the planes and taken up more room, but even if every plane, meteorite and satellite were added to those birds, the result still wouldn’t have filled even a tiny corner of the firmament. It was to all intents and purposes empty. No comet’s tail, seen by men as an omen of misfortune, blazed across it this autumn night. And even if it had, the history of the sky, rich as it was not -only with the lives of birds, planes, satellites and comets but also with the thunder and lightning of all the ages, would still have been a poor one compared with the history of the earth.

  Against such immense vacuity the signals sent out by a certain spy satellite seemed desolate indeed. It was relaying in their most recent order, as drawn up for some official ceremony, the names of the members of the Politbureau of the Chinese Communist Party: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Wang Hoegwen, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Chunqiao, Wei Guoqing, Liu Bocheng, Jiang Qing, Xu Shiyou, Hua Guofeng, Ji Dengkui, Gu Mu, Wang Dongxieg, Chan Yonggui, Chen Xilian, Li Xiannian, Li Desheeg, Yao Wenyuan, Wu Guixian, Su Zheehua, Ni Zhifu, Saifudin and Song Qingling. In comparison with the size of the sky through which they were travelling, these names, despite their attempts to ape the names of gods, were just a wretched handful of dust, and those on the complete list of senior officials which wafted with them through space were no better. Nevertheless, hundreds of people in scores of ultra-secret offices studied the list as carefully as the world used to scan fiery comets, double stars and other celestial signs, trying to penetrate their mystery. As the experts pored over the handful of ideograms which had just dropped out of the chilly darkness, they compared them with the previous list, seeking portents concerning the future of a large part of the human race, if not the whole of it. Meanwhile the Earth and all the bodies gravitating around it rolled on regardless. Two or three meteorites plunged, as if trying to escape pursuit, into a remote stretch of sea, leaving no trace behind. In different parts of the sky, hundreds of lightning flashes discharged their electricity. Birds dropped down exhausted. And through it all sped a letter addressed by a small country to a large one.

  The letter was in the briefcase belonging to Gjergj Dibra, a diplomatic envoy travelling on the night plane from Paris to Peking. For some time now he had been flying over the Arabian desert. If it had been so dark that you couldn’t see anything, Gjergj would have found the resulting sense of isolation quite bearable. But it was a clear night, and the moon revealed not only the empty sky stretching out beneath the plane but also the equally arid expanse of barren sands below.

  Every so often Gjergj would turn away from the window, resisting the lure of all that emptiness, but after a few moments he couldn’t help turning back again. Thousands of feet below, the moon seemed to be wandering over the surface of the desert like a lifeless eye — a coldly mocking eye holding the image of the sky prisoner, just as the retina of a dead man is said to retain the image of his murderer. And indeed, thought Gjergj, the sky had killed this part of the earth, turning it into a wilderness.

  He drew sharply away from the window, and for want of anything better to do asked the stewardess to bring him a coffee. It was his fourth, but what did it matter? He had no intention of trying to sleep.

  When he’d finished his coffee he had to make an effort to prevent himself from turning back to the window again. But even without actually looking down at it, he could feel the pull of the desert. For the umpteenth time he tried to distract himself by imagining himself back in his apartment, among the guests at the little party his wife was giving for their daughter’s birthday. He looked at his watch. They must have left the table by now, he thought. But he could still conjure up the various phases of the dinner itself: the comings and goings from room to room of Silva and Brikena, the vase of flowers on the table, the cheerful bustle of the guests arrival, the clinking of glasses. They’d certainly have thought about him. He tried to imagine what they’d said, but that was difficult — it was easier to imagine their smiles and laughter. He reviewed the probable list of guests: his sisters, their husbands, the children, Suva’s brother, his owe mother, his niece Veriana, and either Beseik Strega or Skëeder Bermema. He spent some time wondering which of the two had been there. It didn’t seem possible that either should be absent. Perhaps they’d both come, he thought — and before he could stop himself he found he was looking out of the window again. The empty darkness gaped beneath him, wanly lit by the moon, like an X-ray photograph. Yes, Besnik and Skënder probably both went to the party, he thought dully. All human passions seemed small and trivial compared with that great void.

  He sat for a while with his eyes closed. Every so often his hand brushed against the metal lock of his briefcase, reinforced by the red seal of the foreign ministry. Throughout this whole dreary journey he hadn’t let the briefcase out of his sight for a second. He knew it contained an official document of the utmost importance, though he hadn’t the faintest idea what it was about.

  Drowsy though he was, he made another attempt at summoning up his daughter’s birthday party in his mind’s eye, but something prevented him from actually entering the flat. Every time he tried, he found himself lingering wistfully outside the door, like a stranger. At the thought of suddenly appearing in the doorway with all those people eating and drinking and talking; of all the familiar gestures he’d have to go through to ring the bell, kiss Silva and their daughter, and then greet the guests, his fingers grew numb and powerless. He realized this was because he was still gripping his briefcase. What is it, Gjergj? their eyes all seemed to be asking. What have you got in that briefcase?

  He shook his head and opened his eyes. He must have dozed off,
and his hand, clutching on to the handle, had gone to sleep too. He sat on for a while without moving, trying not to look out at the void, then briefly nodded off again, though more lightly now than before. The same sequence of images as before, but swifter this time, led him back to his daughter’s birthday party.

  Once again the briefcase prevented him from going in and mixing with the guests. I shouldn’t have kept it on my lap, he thought — thee remembered the iron rule decreeing that he must always have it with him wherever he went. It had been decreed that there was nowhere else in the whole world for the briefcase to be except with him.

  Opening his eyes again, he saw a kind of break in the sky, ahead of the plane and on the same level, but far away in the distance, perhaps over central Asia. The dawn.

  He asked the stewardess where they were, and she told him they were already over China. The sun was rising. Below them, hidden by a layer of mist, lay the largest and most ancient country in the world. Gjergj gazed out of the window. The sun, a ruddy patch strangely resembling the wax seal on his briefcase, seemed to be struggling over the horizon. Two or three times he thought he glimpsed the earth, but he couldn’t be sure. The engines of the plane throbbed as if with great effort. Still staring out of the window, Gjergj asked himself how was one supposed to deliver a letter to a country like this? Surprised by his own question, he felt like some mythical envoy of antiquity, charged with delivering a message to an empire that was deaf. He went on trying to catch a glimpse of the earth, but in vain: he almost doubted if it still existed.

  More than a thousand metres below the belly of the plane lay the land of China, with its population of nearly a billion. Other billions lay beneath the land itself, most of them changed long ago into handfuls of mud. But that autumn morning, out of the billions of Chinese still alive, one had chosen for his own peculiar reasons to be under the earth already, hidden away in a cave. This one was Mao Zedong, Chairman of the People’s Republic of China.

  He had gone back to his underground isolation some days before. He knew very well that every time he did so the people always found out about it eventually, and that they wouldn’t rest until they found out why he was there. His enemies said it was because he was in a blue funk, as he had been when he hid here during the Cultural Revolution. That was understandable enough at the time, others argued, but why was he down there again, now that things had settled down? Perhaps in order to get used to the idea of death, suggested a third group: hadn’t he sensed its approach a long time ago? Others shrugged their shoulders:, that might be the correct explanation, but then again there might be some other reason known only to Chairman Mao himself…

  One thing was certain: for some time he had resumed this old habit: perhaps he himself didn’t quite know why. He scoured reports on the rumours circulating about it so eagerly you might have thought he’d forgotten why he’d gone down there, and felly expected to read the explanation in the reports. In fact, he’d come to believe that a head of state’s most useful actions were those which remained incomprehensible not only to others but also to himself. They lent themselves to such a vast range of different explanations. There were always people ready to suggest a meaning for some enigmatic piece of behaviour, while others sprang forward to contradict them and offer another interpretation. Then came another group who thought they were the ones who knew best. And so on and so forth ad infinitum. Meanwhile the action in question was kept alive precisely because it was veiled in obscurity, while hundreds of others, clearer, more logical and more useful, were consigned to oblivion.

  The reports informed Mao that many of the rumours put forward religious or mythological reasons for his retreat. One view was that as he already knew all that was said about him on earth, he wanted to find out what was whispered about him underground, where his supporters were no longer in the majority. On the whole he preferred the mythological theories to those that stuck to fact. He liked to think of himself sleeping under the earth for a while and then, like some ancient god, reawakening with the lush new grass of spring.

  To tell the truth, the half-death he seemed to experience down in that cave struck him as the state that suited him best. The strange days he spent there, divided between existence and non-existence, enjoying the advantages of the one and avoiding the traps of the other, partook of both heaven and hell. His thoughts became clear and strove to pierce to the uttermost depths of consciousness. He was surrounded by nothing but mud and stones; the only things present were the earth and himself - the leader of the biggest country in the world in direct contact with the terrestrial globe, without any intermediaries, theories, books or officials between them. Where else could the expression “Middle Kingdom” be better understood? As time went by, mornings and evenings merged into one, whole days were reduced to a single afternoon, and a eight might vanish altogether, or else consist only of midnight itself, like a dish containing only the choicest parts of the most delicious fruits. He slept and woke, drowsed and dropped off again. There were times when he felt as if he were dead; others when he felt as if he’d been resurrected, drugged, or made into a saint or a god.

  He had given orders that he was not to be disturbed on any account, but now through his half-sleep he became aware of a kind of whispering coming from the entrance to the cave. The guards must want to tell him something. What could have happened? he wondered. War? An earthquake? The murmur came nearer. It must be something important for anyone to dare to come and spoil his peace and quiet.

  “What is it?” he asked, without opening his eyes.

  He heard them mumbling something about a letter. Didn’t they know he didn’t receive mail down there in his Cave? But they went on muttering, and he eventually distinguished the name of Jiang Qing. So the message was from her.

  “Leave the letter with me, then,” he said. Or rather thought he said. ln fact he’d formed the words only in his head.

  A letter from out there, thought he, as if it were a missive from another world. What are they up to? Aren’t they tired of it all yet?

  There in the depths of the earth, amid the rocks of the cave, the letter seemed like some alien object, charged with hostility. If it hadn’t been from his wife he’d never have opened it: as it was, it was some time before he made up his mind. The message was brief, informing him of the latest events in the capital and of Zhou Enlai’s illness, and ending up with the information that the president of Albania had written to him…

  Featherbrain, he thought to himself, averting his eyes from his wife’s writing. Who ever heard of anyone sending letters underground?

  Letters go to every corner of the Universe,

  But nobody ever saw one go underground…

  He wasn’t sure if he’d read these lines somewhere or if he’d just made them up.

  “How often have I told you the thing I hate most when I’m down here is getting letters! And now, not content with writing yourself, you have to tell me about another letter from someone else! … The world must be going mad up there!”

  The rustle of the paper in his hand made him look at it again.

  So the president of Albania had written to him, had he? An official letter, it seemed, but without any of the usual pleasantries. On the contrary, the whole thing was downright disagreeable. Outrageous, even.

  The concluding phrases were the most caustic, Albania objected to the U.S. president’s forthcoming visit to China, and was more or less openly asking for it to be cancelled.

  Mao Zedong fumed. Why hadn’t the stupid woman told him that to begin with? The anger which in other circumstances would have filled him by now seemed merely to hover around him like some chilly breath, not knowing how to gain admittance. The earth and the rocky cave had done their work.

  A letter from Albania, eh? It must have taken some time to get here. H’mm…He realized it would take him at least thirty-six hours to get really angry. That would give him time to think about it. So - he said to himself yet again, trying to get his thoughts in order — this
is a letter from Albania. He must consider things as simply as possible, Not that he could have done otherwise down here, even if he’d wanted to. Sometimes he would speak his thoughts aloud as if to explain them to the earth and the rocks. That was one of the reasons he liked coming here: being able to expound things in the most elementary fashion to the cave, making it understand the affairs of the world…So this letter came from a long way away. From Albania. A little country on a contemptible continent called Europe, inhabited for the most part by white men-who dislike us as much as we dislike them. The one exception is Albania, our ally. Our only ally on that evil continent. And now Albania, a mere one-thousandth of the size of China, has the cheek to write me a letter. Not an ordinary letter - a positively belligerent one, in which that tiny country not merely refuses to obey but actually tries to impose its will on me. Albania is asking for punishment, and I shan’t fail to oblige.