He absolutely must find something to say. It wasn’t enough just to explain what he’d done as due to lack of political foresight on the part of a technocrat who hadn’t gone into Marxism-Leninism properly. If he wanted to be credible he would have to make a greater sacrifice than that. Perhaps the best thing would be to admit a bit, just a tiny little bit, of the truth? People always said the most plausible lies were those that contained something of the truth. For example, he could say that the idea of encircling a Party committee had probably been suggested by the events of the Cultural Revolution in China - an incorrect interpretation of the struggle against Party bureaucracy or the anarchist slogans of Mao. Also, admittedly, by his own imperfect acquaintance with the classics of Marxism-Leninism. All this would hp exposing himself to criticism, but he had to take some risks to avoid complete disaster. Let them think what they liked of him. Let them call him a Sinophile, a half-wit. Let the Party mete out some punishment or other. He was prepared to put up with anything so long as the real truth never came out.
At least he didn’t have to worry about Zhou Enlai. He was as dead as a doornail — and he didn’t even have a grave! Sometimes the minister felt a surge of resentment: if all Zhou wanted to do was end up as a handful of ashes scattered into the sky, why had he bothered to get him, the minister, into such a scrape? But on the whole Zhou’s death could be regarded as a blessing.
Perhaps after all the situation wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. He’d certainly have to go before the plenum of the Central Commit-tee, but the meeting was supposed to be chiefly concerned with the economic situation. And everyone knew the economy was in a bad way. Moreover, he wasn’t the only person who was in trouble, and when old colleagues found themselves all in the same boat they could always be counted on to help one another. They did it instinctively, without being asked, like a pack of wolves-each looking chiefly to his own interests.
Yes, the economic situation would probably distract attention from his case. When the economy goes wrong people forget everything else. Material concerns soon bring everyone to their senses. They take everyone by the sleeve and say, Just look at these statistics — never mind about the encircling of Party committees, and all that other symbolic carry-on…
And after all, leaving aside the evidence of the man he’d just interviewed, the fact that the tank officers had explained their disobedience couldn’t be laid directly at his door. The signals people had come into it long before he did, and they could be held responsible. And then there were his owe “aides, and the bad weather, the wind, the thunder and lightning! Oh, they weren’t going to get him as easily as that!
He turned his head. Something had banged against a window-pane. Probably a dead leaf. The wind was howling outside. The minister returned to his meditations, still concentrating on those that were most reassuring…
Mao’s death and the troubles that had broken out in Peking would come in useful…He looked at his watch. Time for the television news. There was alarming news from China every day,and that could only help to distract attention from him.
He stood up, stuffed his autocritique into his pocket, and went out of the office. Outside, the wind had almost emptied the streets. His car seemed to waft him home more swiftly than usual As he alighted, a column of black dust appeared before him, and he let out a shriek of terror.
Arian Krasniqi wrapped his scarf round the lower part of his face to keep out the dust. He regretted having stopped off at a bar for a cup of coffee after coming out of the ministry, instead of going straight back to Suva’s place. He hadn’t expected such a nasty wind to spring up. It made him feel depressed and light-headed.
But, going into the building where his sister lived, he breathed more easily and felt better.
“Well?” said Silva, opening the door. “How did it go?”
He smiled noncommittally.
“Is Sonia still here?”
“Of course — we’ve been waiting for you. What happened?”
“Nothing,” he said, taking his coat off.
The voice of the television newscaster could be heard in the living room,
“Don’t worry about me,” said Arian, smiling again.
Silva felt as if a load had been lifted off her shoulders: he looked quite serene.
“Have you heard what’s happened?” she said. “Great upheavals in Peking!”
“Really?”
“Yes — Mao’s wife and some of her cronies have been arrested. They’ve jest announced it on the news.”
“How strange,” he murmured, looking at the TV screen, though the images no longer had anything to do with China.
Like Silva a few minutes ago, Sonia now looked at Arian’s placid face and heaved a sigh of relief.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” said Silva.
“What? Jiang Qing’s arrest?”
“Of course. I can hardly believe it,”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Arian,
“Why not?”
But Silva couldn’t catch his eye.
She’d have liked to ask him why nothing surprised him any more. She was more worried by his present indifference than she had been by his previous agitation.
“I'm worried about Gjergj,” she said. “What bad leek to be over there just now!”
“Father ought to have been back the day before yesterday,” said Brikena, who had slipped into the room unnoticed.
“Yes - all the plane timetables have been upset because of what’s going on.”
Silva went over to the television and changed the channel The Italian TV was showing the same thing: the arrest of Mao’s widow. Then came shots of the Cultural Evolution - meetings, chanting crowds, people running in all directions, Commentators put forward various theories about what was going to happen next. Silva was getting nervous.
“Don’t go,” she ‘said when her brother and his wife got up to leave. “Stay a bit longer - please!”
They exchanged glances, Silva made no attempt to conceal her anxiety.
“You’ve no need to worry,” Arian told her, still looking at archive “shots of the British embassy burning.
“Father says our embassy is only a few yards away,” said Brikena.
Arian tried to say something to distract them from what was going on on the screen, but they were mesmerized.
“Hell!” he murmured.
“What?” said Silva.
“Nothing…What a business!” he improvised, pointing at the screen.
He’s all right for the moment, thought Silva, but he nearly got it in the neck before because of China. Hadn’t his reference to Shanghai made things worse for him? She couldn’t help feeling that her nearest and dearest were still in danger.
The longer she thought about it the more impossible it seemed that her brother’s fate could have anything to do with what was happening now. But she couldn’t make out whether this was a good thing or not.
“Do stay,” she pleaded. She didn’t want herself and Brikena to have to spend the evening alone.
So the visitors took their coats off and sat down again. They tried to talk about other things, but kept coming back to the events they’d just seen depicted on the screen, and the interpretations put on them by the various commentators.
The phone rang. It was Skënder Bermema, “Is Gjergj back?” he asked, “No,” said Silva. “When’s he arriving?” “I don’t know -why do you ask?” “Eh?” “I meant, what made you suddenly think of him?” “Oh, I see.” “I suppose you watched the news?” “Of course.” “So you didn’t just phone by chance…”
They could all hear him laughing at the other end.
“Why don’t you come round for a coffee?”
“What, now?”
“Yes!”
A moment’s silence.
“All right, I’m on my way.”
Silva came back into the room, delighted. She obviously wanted to be surrounded by as many people as possible.
“It was Skënder Bermem
a …I think ! introduced you to one another, Arian…”
“Yes. But he probably doesn’t remember me.”
There was an unmistakeable note of reluctance in his joke.
When Skënder came in about twenty minutes later Silva noticed that her brother still looked rather put out. He wouldn’t scowl like that, she thought, if he knew the trouble Skënder went to on his behalf when he was in jail. But she soon forgave him: what brother would be at ease in the presence of a man whose alleged affair with his sister had been the talk of the town?
“Were you worried because I asked if Gjergj was back?” the newcomer asked Silva, laughing. “I soon guessed why! But though it was the latest news that made me think of him, it wasn’t for any sinister reason. ! just wanted to see him. Do you know the first thing that came into my head when I heard that Jiang Qing had been arrested? I thought, well, as in the case of Lin Biao’s death, Gjergj will bring us back at least a dozen different versions of what happened!”
They all laughed, including Arian.
“Are his versions useful, then?” asked Silva.
“I should think so! And I can prove it!”
He reached for his briefcase and got out a large envelope.
“Here’s something based on what he told me. I’ll leave it for you to give to him when he gets back. You can read it yourself if you like, and if you have time.”
“I certainly shall!” she said.
“Twelve Versions of the Arrest of Jiang Qing!” someone quipped.
But Skënder Bermema wasn’t so cheerful now. A hidden preoccupation of his had risen to the surface again. He’d do better to concentrate on the different versions of his own death, he told himself. Three days before he’d received an anonymous letter full of threats. The second in a month.
“What would you like to drink?” Silva asked him,
“Anything!”
They talked for a while about the mysteries of China in general, then discussed what was going to happen to Jiang Qing and the likely repercussions of current events on relations between China and Albania. Silva said she couldn’t believe Mao’s widow was in prison; Skënder said he couldn’t believe she was still alive.
“You always go to extremes!” Silva told him,
“Gjergj will satisfy our curiosity when he gets back,” said Sonia.
“I don’t think anyone could satisfy my curiosity about China,” said Skëeder, looking at his watch. “Don’t let’s miss the late-night news, There’s bound to be something new.”
But though Silva tried all the channels, none of them was showing any news.
Arian Krasniqi woke with a start, as if someone had shaken him. For a moment or so he didn’t know where he was. Then he heard his wife breathing ie and out beside him. It must have struck midnight long ago. He had the feeling that something he couldn’t identify had been weighing down on him in his sleep, something he’d tried to thrust away, only to find his hands pinned down by it. They were still quite stiff and cramped. He even had difficulty separating them from one another. It was as if he’d emerged from the horrible sensation of being handcuffed.
It wasn’t the first time he’d had this sensation while he was asleep. The shrill whistle of a train was fading away in the distance, it must have been that which suggested the feeling of handcuffs: he’d heard the whistle of a train when he’d first had to wear them, the night after his arrest.
He turned over in bed, but he couldn’t get back to sleep. Fragmentary memories of the past evening kept coming back to him. Dinner at Suva’s; people talking about the arrest of Jiang Qing…Sonia had asked bluntly if these new developments could mean more trouble for her husband. If her question hadn’t been addressed to Skënder Bermema, Arian would have insisted on changing the subject, He didn’t want to hear any more about China. If my life is going to depend on what happens there, he thought, then God help me!
As a matter of fact it did sometimes seem to him, especially at night, that his fate depended on the vagaries of a political mechanism that now affected more than a single country - a terrifying international juggernaut! Chained to those chariot wheels, how could you tell which direction misfortune would strike from? The chains you were bound with might come from as far away as the forges of Normandy — or from even further: from those of the Golden Horde. “Will you sleep with me, floozie? - you won’t get even a walk-on part unless youdo!” These words, spoken backstage in some theatre in Shanghai, far away in time and space, might one day influence his own destiny. For didn’t people say that it was the memory of some such ancient insult that had made Jiang Qing pursue the Cultural Revolution so ferociously, especially in Shanghai?
“Do you think we’re living in Shanghai?” The weary eyes of the examining magistrate bored into his. Why had he shouted such a thing on the telephone, during the famous manoeuvres? What had Shanghai got to do with it? Why had he been thinking about Shanghai?
Arian turned over again in bed, and again he felt the weight of handcuffs. They felt so real that once more he flung his arms about to try to throw them off.
The telegram announcing Gjergfs retern reached Silva the next day, just before people left their offices, it left her in some confusion, as it didn’t give the number of the iight or the time of arrival She phoned the foreign ministry, but the people who should have been able to give her the information she needed were not available. The airport was not much better: they weren’t expecting any direct flights from China today - so the passenger she was interested in might come either via Belgrade or on the flight from East Berlin.
Fearing Gjergj might arrive just as she was wasting time on the phone, she got her boss’s permission to leave early and rushed downstairs and out through the rain to the taxi rank in front of the State Bank. She was lucky: there was a taxi free.
“To the airport,’ she told the driver. “As fast as you can, please!”
On the way, she scanned the telegram to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. But no, Gjergj couldn’t have known himself what plane he was coming by.
The airport building was half empty. There was practically no heating in the arrivals hall The sound of the rain streaming down the windows added to the sense of desolation.
The plane from Yugoslavia had landed some time ago; no one knew when the flight from East Berlin would arrive. Why? Because of the bad weather? Silva asked. Perhaps, said a woman at the information desk.
Silva sat in a corner and ordered a coffee. The rain went on pouring down. She clasped her arms round her knees and sat there thinking, staring at the windows. She was cold. Her thoughts were growing numb, and as they did so her impatience and alarm also faded. Was this because of the monotonous patter of the rain on the windows, or because she herself was so tired? It occurred to her that, to anyone outside looking in, she must look as vague and inaccessible as the landscape looked to her, inside looking out. It was an apt image for her, sitting here alone on this dreary day in this draughty airport, scanning the sky as she waited for a plane to emerge from the clouds, bringing back her husband by an unknown route from a far-off country racked by plots and shrouded in mystery.
She didn’t know how long she sat there. At one point she came out of her reverie and saw that her coffee was cold and untouched. She hadn’t noticed the waiter bringing it.
She went home very demoralized. The plane from East Germany had been cancelled, and no one knew if it would be coming the next day or the day after.
She wandered round the kitchen for a while, but hadn’t the heart to do anything. As she was sitting down on the settee, she suddenly remembered the envelope Skënder Bermema had given her, and got up again to fetch it. She’d left it on Gjergj’s bedside table, for a surprise when he got home.
As soon as she’d read the first few lines, she realized these notes might have been written specially for such a day as this.
Peking… Winter’s day. Some international airlines have suspended their flights because of Mao’s death, I'll have to wait a w
eek, perhaps a fortnight, for them to start up again. You can imagine how fed up I am. Shut up in my hotel. Alone. Surrounded by people in mourning.
I looked again at the notes for my novel, half hoping that it would come to life again. But no…my hope was still-born.
Notes written in a state of boredom …I don’t know where ! read that. The author was probably some Japanese monk who lived in the early Middle Ages.
I spent all day, in spite of myself, thinking about the death of Lin Biao. Probably because of the new rumour going around about the circumstances of his death.
I went over and over what Gj— D— told me about it, It’s quite interesting to compare what was said thee with what is being said now. According to what we’ve heard so far, it’s generally admitted, both in China and abroad, that Lin Biao really did foment a plot aimed at assassinating Mao. So in a way Mao’s riposte was quite justified. What we don’t know is whether the marshal’s plot to kill Mao was the same as Mao’s plot to kill the marshal
If Mao knew about the existence of Lin Biao’s plot, he may also have found out how it was to operate, and being thus in possession of a ready-made scenario, he may have turned it back on its originator. But why? Did he do so to save himself trouble; for the unique delight, the excitement tinged with irony, of having his victim entirely in his power; out of sadism; or out of a superstitious sense of poetic justice? No one knows that, either.
I was dying to get back so that I could tell you all about it, Gj— D— said to me on his return from China. And now ! feel the same, I’ve noticed that when one is abroad, and especially when one’s alone, one enjoys imagining that kind of conversation.
“Do you know the real truth about Lin Biao’s death? It’s finally been brought to light. In some ways it resembles and in other ways it differs from the versions you brought back to us. Today everyone knows Lin Biao wasn’t shot, or stabbed, or poisoned. He was shot down by a rocket,”
The Concert Page 42
