“Come on!” he cried. “We’re late already. If the delegation’s cancelled because of me, I don’t like to think what the Chinese will say!”
“When they asked you to go to the ministry just now I thought the trip was going to be postponed again.”
He laughed.
“I don’t blame you. I’ve never heard of a mission being put off so many times.”
“One can see why,” said Silva.
“It hits you in the eye!” he agreed. “But since, as no doubt you’ve heard, there seems to a bit of an improvement in the relations between the two countries, the Chinese informed us that they were expecting us. But even so, it wasn’t easy. They needed time to re-cast the invitation. And do you know in honour of what the delegation of Albanian writers is finally going to Peking? You’ll never guess if you rack your brains for a hundred years! In honour of the Day of the Birds!”
Silva burst out laughing.
“You’re joking!”
“Am I joking?” he said, turning to his wife.
“No, it’s the truth,” she told Silva. “I laughed when he told me.”
Skënder started to explain how the man at the foreign ministry who was in charge of the delegation had also said “You must be joking!” when the Chinese cultural attaché handed him the invitation. But the attaché had replied that he was quite serious. When the vexed Albanian official observed that his country wasn’t in the habit of sending delegations abroad on such topics as birds, he pointed out that the Day of the Birds was a perfectly serious occasion, which also figured in the Albanian calendar. He thee produced one, pointing out the date in early spring when the day occurred,
“I don’t suppose either of you knew that, did you?” said Skënder. “I’m sure I didn’t.”
He went on to describe how the Albanian official had asked why this was the occasion for which the delegation was to be invited, and the Chinese attaché explained that the Chinese Union of Writers, abolished under the Cultural Revolution, hadn’t yet been revived. So they had to find another peg on which to hang the forthcoming visit, and the Day of the Birds was the best that could be found. He thought it was an excellent idea: the connection with airiness, the sky, inspiration…Very subtle, no?
Skënder’s wife and Silva laughed again.
“You have to have dealt with them to believe it!” said Skënder. “It’s enough to drive you crazy. And as a matter of fact, I can’t look at a bird now without feeling a kind of affinity…What do they say about being as free as a bird?”
That set the other two off again.
“Who else is going?” asked Silva,
Skënder pulled a face.
“A chap I pointed out to you one day…C— V— …”
“Oh! Why him?”
“Apparently the Chinese like him. This is the second time he’s been invited.”
“It’s not hard to see why,” said Skënder’s wife.
Soon after that they arrived at the airport, which seemed busier than usual. There were a number of Chinese in the departure hall and around the customs areas.
“You can tell there’s been a change in our relations with China, can’t you?” said Skënder as they made for the cafeteria, “You should hear what the foreign radio stations say about it! Some of them say Mao Zedong knew nothing about the cooling off, and that when he found out he flew into a rage, gave his aides a dressing down, and ordered Zhou Enlai to see to it personally that all the goods that had been held up should be dispatched right away.”
“The sort of tale they usually spread!” commented his wife.
“Still, something has changed,” said Skënder, with what looked like a rueful smile.
At the cafeteria, they bumped into C— V—.
“So here you are!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.”
“Well go all right, don’t worry!” said Skënder, not looking at him.
Silva frowned. It didn’t look as if Skënder was going to have a chance to talk to her about her brother. Sometimes he seemed to have forgotten all about it.
She heaved a sigh of relief when C— V— went over to a group of relations who’d come to see him off.
“What would you like to drink?” Skënder asked the two women, “We can talk better here,” he said, turning to Silva. “I preferred not to say anything in the car because of the driver.”
“I understand,” she said faintly.
He suddenly looked serious. Silva felt a chill run down her spine,
“It took me some time to discover what it’s all about,” he said, fiddling with his plane ticket, which was lying on the table. “It’s a strange business — mysterious, you might say, in some ways. But what’s certain is that your brother and some other tank officers were arrested for refusing to obey an order.”
“I knew that,” said Silva. “Arian told me…”
“Yes, but listen,” Skënder went on, still toying with his ticket, “It was an order that Î myself, and most other people, would have disobeyed.”
“What?”
“And since we’d all have done the same as he did, and we’re all free, he ought to be free too, even though they’ve put him in the nick for the moment.”
Silva was about to say, “For the moment… ?”, but he didn’t give her time.
“Don’t ask me anything more,” he whispered. “I don’t know any more myself. But what I have told you is absolutely true. For the present, the whole affair is shrouded in mystery…But there’s no need for you to worry …”
It was gradually sinking in. At first what she’d heard had seemed very unremarkable, because she’d been expecting something more detailed, more precise. But now she realized there were some important bits of information buried in what Skënder had told her. In short, she told herself, Arian is innocent! Innocent!
“You do understand, don’t you?” he said, putting his hand on hers. “There’s no need for you to worry. Perhaps when Î get back from China…”
“Thank you, Skënder,” she faltered. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me."
“And here’s the cultural attaché!” he cried, smiling at a Chinese diplomat who was coming towards them, together with the foreign relations secretary of the Writers’ Union. “How are you, comrade Hun? Well, I trust? Allow me to introduce you: my wife and a friend of ours…”
“Great pleasure,” said the Chinaman. “Come to wish you bon voyage,”
“Thank you, comrade Hun. So the birds are iying to Peking -tweet tweet tweet!”
The Chinese attaché laughed.
“Pretty little things, birds, eh?” he squeaked. “Good for inspiration! Where’s the other comrade gone?”
Silva could feel her relief at the news about her brother slowly turning into euphoria. She wanted to laugh and shout. The whole place was full of the buzz of conversation. What a lot of people seemed to be going to Peking…Suddenly, among all the travellers hurrying to and fro, she noticed a Chinese with one foot in plaster. Victor Hila’s Chinaman! It could only be he!
“Look at that Chinaman over there,” she whispered to her friends.
“The one with his foot in plaster?”
She nodded.
“If he’s the one I think he is, that foot is behind an absolutely fantastic story.”
And to the accompaniment of giggles from Skënder’s wife and guffaws from Skënder himself, she told them about the incident between Victor Hila and Ping, the Chinaman.
“Wonderful!” said Skënder, “Incredible! An X-ray of a Chinese foot mixed up with diplomatic notes!” Then, with a sigh: “To think of the country I’m about to be transported to through the air, like Nosferatu!”
His wife’s face fell even before she stopped laughing, and Silva recalled the presentiment she herself had had sometimes when Gjergj was in China. I hope to God he never has to go there again! she thought.
There was an increased stir of activity in the hall.
“The plane has just go
t in,” they heard someone say.
Outside, it was getting dark.
Over the public-address system a woman’s voice asked all passengers travelling to Shanghai to be ready for embarkation.
The three of them stood up and went over to the glass door. Skënder’s wife, stifling a sob, kissed him goodbye; Silva did the same. Then both women stood by the window, watching the stream of passengers make their way over to the huge aircraft. Some turned and waved. Perhaps because of the heavy bags they were carrying in either hand, they looked as if they were tottering rather than walking. Through the dusk, Silva made out the figure of C— V—, thee that of Ping, hobbling as he brought up the rear. He and Skënder will be travelling together, she thought regretfully.
The passengers were beginning to disappear into the plane. Skënder turned at the top of the steps and waved to them, though probably he couldn’t actually see them from all that distance.
“Look!” his wife suddenly exclaimed. “Look who’s going up the steps to the plane!”
“Yes, ! noticed him before,” said Silva, trying to smile. The other woman looked terrified.
“I have a feeling he’s a bad omen,” she whispered.
Silva wanted to protest, but couldn’t find any words.
“Why did they both have to go on the same plane?” asked Skënder’s wife fearfully.
The two women stood with their faces pressed against the cold glass until the plane lifted off the runway and vanished into the eight.
By the time they got back into the car it was quite dark. They sat for a long time in silence. Silva could see how upset her companion was, but what was there to say? She felt very tired herself. Something Skënder Bermema had said came back to her vaguely -”It looks as though there’s something going on in the army” -mingled in her mind with the sound of aircraft engines and the sight of a lone Chinese hobbling after the rest of the passengers on to the plane.
“Well,” she thought sleepily, “after all that fuss, all those diplomatic notes and radio messages, after having caused another man’s misfortune — how are you really any better off ?” She shuddered at the thought that Skënder Bermema might tread on the Chinaman’s foot by mistake as they were finding their seats on the plane, and trigger off another scandal …“A subtle kind of a novel…” — that’s how Skënder’s wife had described his new book…She knew that if she’d been alone in the back of the car she’d have nodded off to sleep.
“Drop in and see me one of these days,” said Skënder’s wife as the car stopped and Silva prepared to get out. “We can keep each other company for a while.’’
“Thanks,” said Silva. “I’d love to.”
They said goodnight, and Silva hurried towards the front door of the apartment block where she lived. Only thee did it occur to her that Gjergj must have been worried at her being away so long.
Rumours went on multiplying about an improvement in relations with China, though the press was silent on the subject, apart from a couple of articles in a literary review about the discovery near Peking of the tomb of an early emperor. None of the large freighters said to have set sail on the express orders of Mao Zedong had yet reached the port of Durrës. There wasn’t even any news that they’d passed through the Straits of Gibraltar.
The matter of the freighters was the main subject of all conversations, and accounts of their long voyage were so many and various that people came to imagine a vast ieet of ghost ships wandering through the mist. Some observers maintained that it was all deliberately engineered by the Chinese to keep the Albanians in a state of doubt and anxiety,
Enver Hoxha referred to the matter in his speech closing the current plenum of the Central Committee. As he spoke his eyes ranged slowly over the side of the room occupied by members of the government responsible for economic affairs. Everyone else was so quiet you could almost hear their eyes turning towards the group Enver Hoxha was addressing.
Some members of the army were visibly relieved. So the others are in for it, thought Minister D—. Just so long as the thunderbolts don’t fall on us!
“In order to modify their general line — in other words, to draw closer to American imperialism - the Chinese have had to prepare the ground and remove any obstacles to such a turnaround. One of the obstacles was the Party. So they made it a puppet of the army, subjected it to the terror of the Red Guards - so much so that they practically annihilated it…”
Here Enver Hoxha paused for a moment. His eyes seemed to be seeking out someone. Minister D— felt as if all the columns on the other side of the room were tilting towards him.
“Here too there are some people,” Enver Hoxha went on, “not just anyone, but people who have risen to high places, who, perhaps in imitation of the Chinese, perhaps at their instigation - time will tell - have tried…”
He paused again. The group of soldiers he was now looking at directly shook in their shoes.
“To try to encircle a Party committee with tanks is tantamount to rehearsing for a military putsch…”
This is the end, groaned Minister D—. He’d never have dreamed it could all finish so suddenly. The columns that had hitherto seemed to be leaning towards him now appeared to be falling on top of him. Between the blows the voice of Enver Hoxha came to him, at once distant and deafening.
“I can’t say for certain that it was done with evil intent. I’d prefer not to have to believe such a thing. But that’s not the point…The point is that the order was not carried out, and such orders never will be carried out in Albania, no matter who issues them. And that’s what’s so marvellous, comrades! It is not through decrees and orders, but if necessary against them, that our great popular mechanism, acting of its own accord, without being commanded by anyone, defends our glorious Party!”
Popular mechanism! moaned Minister D—. Acting of its own accord…He couldn’t imagine anything more frightful
But could he himself escape its tentacles? Was all hope lost? “I can’t say for certain that it was done with evil intention. I’d prefer not to have to believe such a thing…” He felt like yelling out, “That’s right, comrade Enver! I didn’t mean any harm!” But he was buried beneath all those columns, his mind was reeling, neither his breath nor his voice would obey him,
“The Chinese have recently shown signs of desiring a rapprochement,” Enver Hoxha continued. “They’ve even expressed regret for some of their attitudes. For our part, we have no wish to add fuel to the flames. If anyone holds out the hand of friendship to us, we hold out our own hand in return. But time will tell if these gestures are sincere or not. At all events, we are prepared for anything either way,”
The plenum ended late in the afternoon. As the members of the Central Committee drifted out of the room in groups, Minister D— muttered to one of his pale-faced aides:
“Should we free the tank officers right away?’’
“Isn’t it a bit late for that?” said the other faintly,
“Let ‘em out at once!” said the minister through clenched teeth,
Ekrera Fortuzi stood on the edge of the pavement watching a convoy of cars drive up the central boulevard. He concluded there must have been a meeting of the highest importance somewhere. A plenum, perhaps, he thought, patting his briefcase as if to check how nice and full it was.
When the traffic thinned out he crossed over. They could have as many plenums and congresses as they liked, so long as his case had plenty in it! He stroked it as he might have stroked his stomach after a good meal.
He was in a very good humour. After a month and a half without any requests for translations from Chinese, he’d suddenly been given four different jobs at once — all urgent, too! He was hurrying home to give his wife the good news.
“Oo-ooh!” he called from the hall. But he could tell from the sound of running water that his wife was in the bathroom. “I’ve got good news for you, darling!”
She didn’t hear, so after hanging up his coat and hat he went to the bathroom door. But
before letting her know he was there, he bent down and had a look through the keyhole. H’mra, pretty well-stacked, especially from this angle …He waited until a chance movement showed him her pubic hair, looking darker and more bushy than it was in reality.
Then, as she emerged from the bathroom with a towel round her head:
“Good news!” he told her.
“Some translations?”
“Yes!”
“Good! That means they’re patching things up?”
“It looks like it.”
While she was plucking her eyebrows in front of the mirror, he paced up and down telling her about his successful tour of the various offices.
“Is the work you’ve got worth twenty thousand leks?” she asked.
“Well, I couldn’t really say. I think …”
“Don’t try to pell the wool over my eyes, Ekrera!”
“Pull the wool over your eyes! For heaven’s sake!”
“I repeat - is it worth twenty thousand?”
“How should I know? Perhaps,”
“My astrakhan coat is completely wore out,”
“Hmph!”-
“Never mind about ‘hraph’! I’m sick of wearing that horrible old thing!’’
“Just as you say, my dear.”
“I don’t want to look like one of those floozies at the National Theatre playing some aristocratic dame from the past …I want a nice new fur coat…”
“As you wish, my love. And in return, what about letting me have this little fleece, eh? The more you use it the sweeter it is…”
She was glad he’d said “The more you use it” rather than “The older it gets …” For some reason he couldn’t explain, Ekrem found the word “use” arousing. As arousing as the image of her sex being penetrated by another had been a few years ago, when he’d been sure she was deceiving him.
He leaned 0ver and whispered something in her ear, at the same time breathing in the perfume from her neck.
“All right, all right!” she said. “There’s no need to grant like a pig. God, -when will you manage to be a bit more elegant?”
He prowled round her chair in delight.
“And don’t whisper rude words in Chinese at the critical moment, either! I don’t like it!”
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