The Concert

by Ismail Kadare

  She had made inquiries about his former fiancée: the reason why he had broken off the engagement — like many other things about him — had never been clear. Linda had heard that a month ago, at some engagement party where the conversation turned to the break with China, Besnik’s ex-fiancée had stopped her ears and shouted almost hysterically, practically in tears, “Stop it! I can’t bear to hear any more about it! Please, please, stop!” The person who told Linda about this incident treated it a§ a mere anecdote,. but Linda guessed at once what lay behind it. The mention of the Chinese must have reminded the young woman of the break with the Soviets, and the days when her hoped-for happiness had been destroyed.

  Now that, as she though^ she was seeing things more clearly, Linda decided to let matters take their course. He was bound to ring up one of these days. She imagined some variations on the ensuing conversation. “Hallo — is that you, Silva?” “No, if s her colleague, Linda.” “Oh yes - haven’t we met?” “Yes.” “How are you?…is Silva there?” “I’m afraid not.” - Linda pulled a face at her owe hypocrisy — “She’s away on a mission.” “Oh.” This was the critical moment. The pause that seemed to cut the world in two. “Can I be of any use?’’ “Well…I wanted to speak to her…I don’t know if…” “I’m at your service!” “Well, could I see you,thee?”

  Oh no! That wasn’t it at all! Far too banal Neither of them could be so tedious as that. They mustn’t be! And that awful, coy “At your service!” Absolutely not!

  As if winding back a tape recorder, she made a fresh start. “Suva’s away on a mission.“ “Oh,” A pause. Fragile; precarious; they could hear one another’s breathing. “So how are you managing, all alone in the office?” “Oh, working as best I can. Getting bored,” Yes, that was much better. “And what do you get up to in the afternoon?” “What?” “I asked what you did in the afternoon.” “I heard what you said, bet I don’t quite know what to answer.”

  Linda’s imagination then leaped forward a few hours, and saw them sitting opposite one another having tea in the Café Flora. “To tell you the truth, I’d been wanting to meet you for a long time. I thought you were so interesting…” Ugh! That wouldn’t do at all! Much too direct. It might be better to talk about Silva to begin with. “Silva told me about you — we’ve been working in the same office for a long time, Silva and I…” No — that sounded as if she was one of those timid souls who dragged her friend along to a date to give her courage. “Whenever the break with China comes up, Silva and I talk about you…” That wasn’t too bad, either. It gave him a chance to say something interesting about current events, like a character in a modern novel.

  Suddenly it occurred to Linda that the phone hadn’t rung all the morning. Perhaps it was out of order! She flew over and picked up the receiver. No, it was all right — she could hear the dialling tone, She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry.

  Four days went by like this. The team that had gone to the steel complex might be back at any moment. Linda felt she would look back with regret on all these lonely, fruitless but in a way thrilling hours. On the fifth day, just before two o’clock, when she had already given up hope, the phone rang. Superstitiously, she let it ring three times, thinking that would turn any call into a call from “him”. When she picked up the receiver she was almost sure of it. Yet strangely enough her hand was quite steady, and her face showed no emotion even after she recognized his voice, But the phone felt as if it weighed a ton, and everything else in the world seemed grey and monotonous.

  They exchanged a few words: Silva … I remember meeting you…afternoon…Nothing of what she’d imagined.

  She put down the phone as calmly as she had picked it up, thee stood there for a while by the empty desk. It looked preternaterally bare, like something on the eve of great changes.

  The hotel lift was out of order, and Silva, late already, ran down the stairs. Her colleagues were waiting for her by the minibus. They looked glum.

  “Good morning,” said Silva. “Anything new?”.

  “The Chinese have gone,” said Illyrian.

  The rest of them just went on smoking. From their expressions they might have been at a funeral.

  “When?” Silva asked.

  “Perhaps during the night. Perhaps just before dawn. Well soon know,’ said the boss, climbing into the bus.

  As it drove along, Silva looked out at the frozen plain. A few sombre-coloured birds swooped low over the landscape. In the distance she was somewhat reassured to see smoke still pouring from the furnaces. Bet one of these days it won’t be there any more, she thought. It’ll be like when someone holds a mirror to a dead man’s lips.

  The comings and going at the complex seemed different today, but perhaps that was just because everyone knew what had happened. The Chinese had vanished without warning, like ghosts. Albanian technicians had already taken their places. Everyone seemed to have gone deaf and dumb. But all eyes asked the same question: What are we going to do now? In the head office, a group of engineers gazed blankly at shelves full of files containing the complex’s production plans. They were all in Chinese. The shriek of a passing locomotive expressed the engineers’ anguish better than any human voice could have done.

  A vice-minister had just arrived from Tirana: the minister for heavy industry would have come himself, but he was said to be ill. Rumour had it he’d been dismissed.

  The panting of the furnace could be heard everywhere. Or perhaps everyone thought they could hear it, because they knew it was ailing. Whenever Silva heard someone say, “The furnace is going out,” she remembered Gjergj’s frozen snakes in the snow.

  Back at the hotel, her room seemed more desolate than ever. She felt like writing to Gjergj, and even got her pen and writing pad out of her briefcase, but instead of starting a letter she found herself tracing the words, “winter’s day”. She remembered the snakes again, and realized she was falling into the same trap as Gjergj and Skënder Bermema in their hotel rooms in Peking. Nevertheless her hand still continued with, “It’s not true I killed Duncan for his throne,” She laughed and crossed it all out. Then sat for some time, pen poised, wondering whether to follow “Dear Gjergj” with “I miss you” or “What a pity we didn’t have more time together…”

  Forty-eight hours after the Chinese left, the situation was still the same — simultaneously paralysed and nervous.

  Concern about the furnace had gradually distracted attention from everything else in the complex, though the other units had their problems too. Even in the town there was only one subject on everybody’s lips: how were they going to get rid of the slag? Would the furnace go out?

  A batch of reporters had come from Tirana, followed by a horde of young poets. Red-eyed with lack of sleep, they all roamed round the bars and workshops, showing one another their verses and articles. They often compared the furnace to the medieval citadel in the town, claiming that the “new fortress of steel” was even more impregnable than the old one. Others composed odes entitled “The flames will never go out,” or “We will throw our hearts into the furnace,” or “To Fire…” ln the last, the flames of the furnace were a positive symbol, but in “Back, clinkers!”, slag was used to represent revisionists and every other influence inimical to socialism, including decadent art

  Meanwhile, as it was absolutely necessary to consult the production plans in the original Chinese, a group of students just back from China was sent for from Tirana. As they tumbled noisily off the train they told all and sundry they were sure they’d be equal to the task: they’d eaten dishes made up of sharks’ ears and cobras’ innards, among other abominations, and they were familiar with all the tricks of the Chinks and the snares of their language. Some gave themselves nicknames like The Three Scourges of the Country or Look before you Purge.

  But after a few hours in head office, the students had to admit they were flummoxed. One was said to have asked his friend, The Seven Demons of the City, “Can you make head or tail of these hieroglyphics?”
By way of reply, The Seven Demons swore horribly in both languages. And that was the end of their reputation as translators. The authorities were for sending all the students back, but some of them had already joined up with the young poets, and they all roved round the bars together. Two got engaged to a couple of lab assistants, and so that they shouldn’t be sent away, someone had the bright idea of co-opting them into the workers’ amateur theatricals. The students were cast as Chinese baddies in their current show.

  Silva and her colleagues went to see it, and as they came out afterwards, still laughing, she heard someone calling her name. But when she turned round, she didn’t recognize the two youths who had hailed her. Or they might have been men, for their faces were quite black,

  “Don’t you know who I am?” said one of them. “Of course, like this, it’s not surprising…I look more like Othello!”

  “Ben!” cried Silva, surprised to find it was Besnik Strega’s brother. “No, I really didn’t recognize you! How long have you been here?”

  “Several weeks. Let me introduce my friend — Max Bermema, We work together,”

  The other young man’s face was even blacker.

  “Are you related to Skënder Bermema?” asked Silva.

  “I’m his cousin,”

  She was going to ask why their faces were so black, but Ben spoke first.

  “Max and I work in the blast furnace - that’s why we look like delegates from the Third World!”

  They all laughed, but Silva was embarrassed that the two young men had met her coming out of such a low form of entertainment.

  “Does an engineer called Victor Hila work with you?” she asked,

  “Yes, we’re all on the same shift.”

  “And how are you going to deal with the furnace?”

  “We’ve put forward a suggestion. Let’s hope it’ll be accepted.”

  “So you’re going to unblock it?”

  “Yes. With an explosion. We’ve been up several nights working out the figures.”

  Silva looked from one to the other.

  “Isn’t it dangerous?”

  They smiled, but their black faces made their smiles so weird that Silva was quite taken aback. She looked round at them after they’d gone, to reassure herself, but it was too late. Their faces had already vanished into the dark.

  Silva walked on and caught up with her colleagues. But for some time she couldn’t get those shadowy smiles out of her mind.

  17

  UNDER THE SHOWER, Silva decided she wouldn’t tell Gjergj the news she’d brought back with her in the order in which she’d gone over it in her mind on the journey back.

  She had arrived home suddenly by the last train, to her own and her daughter’s delight. As she turned off the shower, she knew that Gjergj, back in their room, would be imagining the water pounding on her skin. She wiped the mist off the bathroom mirror, and saw the rejection of the joy that filled her own body.

  This time she was the one back from a journey. She was even bringing as many stories about China as if she’d been to a miniature version of that country itself.

  She said as much to Gjergj when she went back into their bedroom and bent over him,

  “Did you miss me? Really? Very much?”

  She went on murmuring sweet but earthy nothings into his ear until laughs and whispers changed into choking gasps, in accordance with the great paradox of nature that expresses the height of human pleasure by the sounds of suffering.

  Only afterwards did Silva get round to telling her husband the other half of her news. Then:

  “And what about here?” she said, “Anything new?”

  He told her what had been happening while she was away - in particular, about the sacking of high-ranking officials. More dis. missals were expected, even some punishments. Although the last plenum of the Central Committee had taken place quite recently, another was likely to be held quite soon, and the signs were that its decisions would be more severe. Silva was about to ask about the fate of the minister in charge of her own department when Gjergj mentioned the word “plot”.

  “What?” she exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

  “People say they’ve uncovered a plot, but for the moment it’s top secret”

  For some reason, Silva thought of her brother, but she didn’t say so. If anything had happened concerning Arian, Gjergj would have told her.

  “They’re holding meetings all over the place,” he said drowsily, Thee, before he dropped off again:

  “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  That was what she usually said to him.

  The meetings went on well into the evening, especially in government offices. Those who had to write their owe autocritiques stayed up later still, sometimes even till dawn. Meanwhile venerable scholars and academicians slept, as did writers, even those who went in for novels and other lengthy genres, and lecturers who’d had to prepare their lectures for the next day, not to mention translators from ancient Greek, lexicographers, graphologists, writers of anonymous letters, people who wanted divorces, and even writers of love letters, though they usually lay awake for a couple of hours at least after putting the last touches to their billets-doux. In short, everyone whose work, feelings or circumstances made them use pen and paper eventually slept, except the people who had to write their autocritiques.

  For some it was the first time they’d gone through this ordeal, and their sufferings were particularly horrible. But even the veterans had a hard time. They were used to the traumatic experience of the self-examination itself, but it no longer brought them the relief the novices experienced. They knew how terribly depressing it was to read out a confession you were sure would have moved your audience deeply, only to meet with looks of complete incomprehension, usually followed by the question, “Is that all, comrade X? You don’t think you might have left something out? Dig deeper, dig deeper !” The novices knew nothing of this. They themselves were so moved by their own outpourings they expected their judges to be equally affected, and already saw in their mind’s eye the sympathy and pity that would no doubt earn them clemency and forgiveness. The mere thought of this made some of them actually shed tears in anticipation, weeping over their autocritiques as slighted suitors might weep over their love letters.

  A window that still had a light ie it after midnight seemed to radiate an aura of guilt. Some people who had never been criticized or rebuked for anything whatsoever woke up in the eight, rummaged blearily for pencil and paper, and started to write an autocritique that had never even been asked for!

  As the meetings went on and all sorts of people made their confessions, a great similarity began to emerge in the autocritiques, even though their authors’ circumstances, professions and offences had nothing in common. So much so that rumour had it that, for a modest sum, certain hacks were ready to churn out autocritiques to order. No one could prove it, but humorists and song-writers found it a very fruitful subject for satire.

  In such a context the unfortunates still poring over their own confessions felt more isolated than ever.

  As time went by there came to pass what they had striven above all to avoid: they became more and more cut off from ordinary people, and were drawn closer and closer to the world of the guilty. Even when, as was usually the case, they didn’t know one another, their names were more and more frequently quoted together in accounts of what was going on. They’ started to exist in a universe apart where they drifted about together in groups, like ghosts. And it was when they were in this misty, twilight world that memories painfully recurred, or seemed to recur, to them: an official reception at which a Chinaman had reminded them of a conversation they’d had together in China, in the Hotel Peking; a party at the house of an unnamed Albanian minister; a conversation about the abandoning of former oil-fields or the encircling of a Party committee. And so on.

  The vagueness and solitude of the realm they inhabited caused their autocritiques, even when written in a perfectly normal style, to be
fell of confusion and irrelevance, with answers to anticipated questions, admissions of deeds they’d resolved never to reveal, the most fearsome hypotheses, together with countless suspicions, anxieties, hopes and outbursts of anger. And at the actual meetings, even though they still hoped to be able to keep something back, their interrogators always came quite close to at least part of what they were trying to suppress. Moreover, in their reports to the Central Committee, the people appraising their cases would sometimes add their own comments, even their suppositions about what the speaker was allegedly trying to hide; and while some of these hypotheses were correct, others were not.

  Notes designed to supplement the Central Committee records, by a delegate to meetings of various Party organizations in the Army. The question at issue; what is known as AN UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO HAVE THE PARTY COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN OF X— SUEEOUNDED BY DETACHMENT N— OF THE TANIS. Follow-up to previous analyses, which arrived at mo definite conclusions.

  N.B. These noies are not set out here in their final order. For further information see accounts of the meeUngs themselves.

  Extracts from the autocritique of staff signals officer S—: 1 am guilty, absolutely guilty, e?en though it might be said that I am only a vehicle, a cog in the machinery of command. That’s what it says in army regulations, though I personally think they should be reviewed. In our army, no one can be happy to be a robot. That’s what distinguishes it from the armies of bourgeois and revisionist countries. When I was given- an order that harmed the Party, Î ought, though I’m only a simple soldier, to have blocked the order, sent it back to where it came from, said to the person who sent it: I will not send it, for this, that or the other reason. But, comrades^ I didn’t do that. Like a mindless robot, not thinking that I was unwittingly helping to strike a blow at the Party, I transmitted the order to the tanks. My lack of ideological maturity, my merely superficial study of Marxism-Leninism, and so on,e,