The Palace of Dreams

by Ismail Kadare

  He felt two hands pushing him roughly toward the door into the other room. As he went in he caught a glimpse of the rhapsodists, still standing alone amid a small crowd of guests.

  “Mark!” He heard his mother’s gentle voice as soon as he entered the smaller salon. He would have expected a cry or a sob, but she sounded almost calm. “What’s happening in the other room?”

  He shrugged and didn’t answer.

  “I was worried about you,” she whispered. “What misfortune has befallen us now?”

  He could see that most of the guests had now moved into this room. Every so often a voice could be heard asking, “What’s going on in there? How much longer is this going to last?”

  “Have they taken Kurt away?” asked Mark-Alem’s mother.

  “I think so.”

  She’s keeping herself under control, he thought. She’s not a Quprili for nothing. But he noticed she was as white as a sheet.

  All of a sudden, through the communicating doors between the two drawing rooms, they could hear piercing cries, followed by a scuffle and a groan.

  Mark-Alem made to join those of the guests who were rushing toward the doors, but his mother held him back.

  From the other room came more cries, then the sound of a body falling to the floor.

  “Was ist los?” said the Austrian.

  “The doors are locked.”

  Every face was pale with fear.

  Mark-Alem felt his mother’s fingers gripping his arm like a vise. From beyond the door came another heartrending cry, cut off short.

  “Who was that?” someone asked. “That voice …”

  “It wasn’t the Vizier.”

  They heard the sound of a body falling heavily, and a terrifying “Ah!”

  “My God, what’s going on?”

  For a few moments everyone was silent. Then, through the silence, a voice said:

  “They’re murdering the rhapsodists.”

  Mark-Alem buried his face in his hands. From the other room came the clatter of boots receding in the distance. Someone started twisting the door handles.

  “Open up, for the love of God!”

  The door into the main drawing room was still locked. But another one opened, onto an inner corridor, and a voice shouted: “This way!”

  The guests filed out like shadows, except one who had fainted and slumped onto a chair. The corridor was feebly lighted and full of the sound of footsteps. “Have they killed Kurt?” asked someone. “No—but they took him away.” “This way, ladies and gentlemen,” said a valet. “You can get out this way.” “Wo ist Kurt?”

  The little procession of guests came out into the main corridor by the larger drawing room, in which some vague figures could be seen through the frosted glass in the doors. Mark-Alem wrenched free from his mother’s grasp and went over to find out what was happening. One of the doors was ajar, and through the gap he could see part of the drawing room. Everything was turned upside down. Then he caught sight of the lifeless bodies of two rhapsodists stretched out close together on the floor. A third corpse lay a little way farther off, near an overturned brazier; its face was half covered with ashes.

  The policemen had gone. Only the footmen were left, walking silently over a carpet strewn with broken glass. Mark-Alem caught a glimpse of a motionless image of the Vizier hanging on the wall, and by pushing the door a bit farther open he could see the Vizier himself, still in the same rigid attitude as before. My God, it all happened in front of his very eyes! thought Mark-Alem. And it seemed to him the Vizier’s eyes had something in common with the splinters of glass scattered all over the floor.

  Suddenly he felt his mother’s hand seize him and pull him resolutely toward her. He hadn’t the strength to resist. He felt like vomiting.

  The hall was almost empty. Through the open front door he could see the lights of the carriages driving away one after the other.

  “Everyone else has gone,” breathed his mother almost inaudibly. “What are we going to do?”

  He didn’t answer.

  One of the footmen put out the center lights. Beyond the doors of the main drawing room, still the same silent coming and going. After a few minutes the footmen brought out the corpses of the rhapsodists, carrying them by their arms and legs. The face of the third, the one that was half covered with ashes, looked particularly horrible. Mark-Alem’s mother turned her head away. He himself was hard put to it not to vomit, but despite everything, he felt he couldn’t leave. The last footman came out with the musical instruments. Soon afterward all the servants went back into the drawing room.

  “What shall we do?” whispered Mark-Alem’s mother.

  He didn’t know what to answer.

  The drawing-room doors were now wide open, and they could see the footmen rolling up the bloodstained carpet.

  “I can’t go on looking at this much longer,” she said. “It’s too much for me.”

  They were putting out the lights in the drawing room, too, now. Mark-Alem looked around, incapable of making any decision. The other guests must all be gone by now. Perhaps he and his mother would do well to leave too? But perhaps they ought to stay, as near relatives usually do when there’s a misfortune in the family. Even if they wanted to go home they couldn’t have done so. They lived a long way away—too far to walk, especially on a night like this. As for finding a cab, there was no point in even thinking about it.

  Most of the lights were out now. Just a few lamps were left burning here and there on the stairs and in the corridors. The huge house grew full of whispers. A few flunkeys came and went like shadows, carrying candlesticks which cast yellow gleams along the passages.

  Mark-Alem’s mother groaned from time to time. “My God—what was that ghastly business?”

  After a while a door creaked and the Vizier emerged out of the shadows of the drawing room. Moving slowly, like a sleepwalker, he went straight up the darkened staircase.

  Mark-Alem’s mother touched his hand.

  “The Vizier! Did you see him?”

  A few moments later a footman hurtled down the stairs and out of the front door. Almost at once they heard the sound of a carriage driving rapidly away.

  Mark-Alem and his mother stayed for some time in the semidarkness, watching the little flames of candles being carried hither and thither. No one bothered about them. In silence they went out of the front door, which had been left ajar, and made their way to the tall iron gate. The sentries were still on duty. Mark-Alem didn’t have a very clear idea of the way home. His mother remembered even less, having always made the journey in a closed carriage.

  After an hour they were still walking, and beginning to wonder if they were lost. Soon they heard the sound of carriage wheels approaching fast. They flattened themselves against the wall to let the vehicle pass, and as it did so Mark-Alem thought he saw a Q carved on one of its doors.

  “I believe that was the Vizier’s carriage,” he whispered. “Perhaps the same one that set out a little while ago.”

  His mother didn’t answer. She was shivering in the cold and damp.

  A short time later another carriage brushed by them equally impetuously, and although there were no street lights, Mark-Alem thought he saw the letter Q again. Despite the darkness he even waved his arms in the hope that the carriage would stop and drive them home. But it galloped off into the mist. Mark-Alem concluded it was foolish to expect help from anyone tonight, this night of anguish full of capital Qs swooping by like birds of ill omen.

  * * *

  It was long past midnight when they reached home at last. Loke, who’d had a presentiment that something was wrong, was still up. They gave her a brief account of what had happened and asked her to make some coffee to warm them up. There were still some embers left in the brazier, covered with ashes so that Loke could use them to start the fire up again in the morning. But the embers weren’t enough to warm their shivering limbs.

  Mark-Alem lost no time going up to bed; but he couldn’t get t
o sleep.

  When he got up at daybreak he found his mother and Loke just where he’d left them, huddled around the almost dead coals.

  “Where are you going, Mark?” said his mother in a terrified voice.

  “To the office,” he answered. “Where do you think?”

  “Are you out of your mind? On a day like this!”

  She and Loke both tried to persuade him not to go that day—just that day—to his wretched work; to say he wasn’t well; to give some more serious reason for his absence; but at all costs to stay away. But he wouldn’t be persuaded. They both implored him again, especially his mother, kissing his hands and bathing them in tears, and saying that on such a day the Tabir Sarrail might not even be open. But the more she begged, the more he insisted on going. Finally he managed to tear himself away and leave the house.

  Outside it was more than usually cold. He walked briskly along the street, which as usual at this hour was almost empty. The few passersby, their faces muffled up in shawls, still looked drowsy. His own head was no clearer than theirs. He still hadn’t got over the scene of the night before. Just as certain marine creatures secrete a protective cloud around them, so his brain seemed to have invented a way of avoiding lucid thought. Sometimes he even wondered if anything had really happened at all. It might just have been one of those wild imaginings that filled so many files in the Tabir Sarrail. But the truth finally pierced his brain like a needle, after which his mind fell back into a daze, followed by a lull, which in turn was followed by the shooting pain once more. He’d noticed that in attacks of this kind, the awakening after the first night was particularly disagreeable. He felt as if he were in some fluid intermediate state between sleeping and waking. And his own state seemed to be reflected in the world around him—in the walls of the buildings patched with damp, and the ashen faces of the passersby. These grew more numerous as he approached the middle of the town. He could tell by the way they hurried along—perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they all had the same office hours—which were the ones who worked in ministries and other government offices.

  And when he got to the Palace of the Sheikh-ul-Islam he saw there were more soldiers of the Guard on duty than the day before. Their helmets, wet with dew, glinted dully. There were soldiers posted at the crossroads by the bank. Apparently the state of emergency hadn’t been lifted. No, none of this was an illusion. And Kurt was in prison. Perhaps even … The bloodstained carpet that the footmen had rolled up kept enveloping his own thoughts. How would he ever be able to set foot on a carpet again without feeling faint? He felt the desire to vomit rising again… .

  So the Palace of Dreams is open, he said to himself when he saw the entrances from a distance. The employees were flocking around the doors. Most of them didn’t know one another and didn’t greet, let alone talk to, their colleagues. But in the corridor by the Interpretation Department Mark-Alem did see some familiar faces. And luckily his neighbor was already sitting at his desk.

  “So,” he said as soon as Mark-Alem had sat down beside him. “Have you found out anything?”

  “No, I don’t know a thing,” lied Mark-Alem. “I’ve only just arrived. What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know anything definite myself, but it’s obvious something important has been going on. Did you see the soldiers in the street?”

  “Yes—last night and today.”

  The other, while pretending to be busy with his file, leaned nearer to Mark-Alem and whispered:

  “It seems something has happened to the Quprilis, but no one knows what exactly.”

  Mark-Alem felt his heartbeats slacken.

  Idiot, he said to himself. You know all about it, so why do you let yourself be affected by what anyone else says? Nevertheless he asked:

  “What do you mean?”

  His voice had grown faint, as if he feared that to hear what had happened might make it real.

  “I don’t know anything definite. It’s only a rumor, perhaps mere gossip.”

  “Maybe,” said Mark-Alem, bending over his file and saying to himself, You silly idiot—do you think it’s all going to be sorted out as easily as that?

  His eyes were incapable of taking anything in. There in front of him was a senseless dream that he was supposed to explain, while he was ten times more crazy himself. The other clerks were all poring over their files. Every so often you could hear the rustle of pages being turned.

  “Even today you can feel a kind of uneasiness everywhere,” muttered his neighbor. “Something’s bound to happen.”

  What else can happen? thought Mark-Alem. His head felt as heavy as lead. It seemed to him he might easily fall asleep over his open file and drop a dream on it, like a hen laying an egg. What nonsense, he thought, rubbing his brow. My mind must be wandering. Perhaps after all I’d have done better to stay at home.

  Never before had he looked forward so eagerly to the bell for break. His eyes were half closed over the sleep of someone else, as described in the file. Before long his own sleep would merge with the other, as sometimes two human destinies blindly join.

  The bell for break startled him. He slowly followed the others down to the basement. The usual hubbub reigned there, as if nothing had happened. Of course, for the others nothing had happened. He tried to catch bits of the conversations going on around him, but none of them had anything to do with what had occurred. Anyway, he thought, what’s the point? No one knew as much as he did about what had taken place. He couldn’t learn anything from their senseless comments.

  He had a coffee and started slowly up the stairs again. Beside him the others went on chatting about this and that. Two or three times he thought he caught the word “siege,” and people asking, “Did you see the sentries last night?” But he walked on, asking himself what concern it was of his.

  He really thought he didn’t want to find out anything, even out of curiosity. But when he sat down at his desk he realized he was eagerly awaiting his neighbor’s return.

  Finally he appeared in the doorway. Mark-Alem could tell by the way he walked that he had news.

  “Apparently it’s a dream that’s behind it all,” the other man whispered as soon as he got near enough.

  “All what?”

  “What do you mean, what? Behind the disgrace that’s fallen upon the Quprilis.”

  “Oh! So it’s true?”

  “Yes, it’s been confirmed. They’ve been hit very hard. I suspected as much! People had a presentiment here yesterday evening… .”

  “What sort of dream was it?”

  “A strange one, dreamed by a street merchant. You always think that at first—you believe it’s about innocent things like vegetables or grassy plains, and then you find out there’s some great disaster behind it all. It was that kind of dream, with a bridge and a flute, or a violin—some kind of musical instrument, anyway.”

  “A bridge and a musical instrument?” gasped Mark-Alem all in one breath. “And then what? What else was there?”

  “Some animal going around in circles—but the main thing was the bridge, and the violin.”

  Mark-Alem felt as if an elephant were treading on his chest. He’d held the wretched dream in his hands, twice. “What’s the matter? You don’t look well… .”

  “It’s nothing. I felt rather off-color yesterday evening, and I was vomiting all night.”

  “You look like it. But what was I talking about?”

  “The dream.”

  “Oh yes … So it was the dream that acted as a clue. They deciphered its meaning, and everything was clear. The bridge stood for the Quprilis, you see—Qupri means bridge. And after that the whole thing unraveled of its own accord.”

  So that’s what it was! Mark-Alem felt his mouth go dry. He remembered now how he had tried in vain to find a link between the bridge and the raging bull, which certainly symbolized destructive force, and how he had put the dream in the file of those that remained undeciphered.

  Now that someone else had e
lucidated it—and so successfully!—perhaps he would be asked to explain why he had failed to do so? Perhaps he’d be suspected of setting it aside deliberately in order to cover things up. What could be more natural, seeing he himself was a Quprili? True, he could defend himself by saying that as he was working in Selection at the time, he could have eliminated the dream altogether if he’d wanted to, whereas in fact he’d sent it on to Interpretation. But he couldn’t help feeling that such excuses were likely to fall on deaf ears.

  “And then,” his neighbor went on, “the violin, or whatever it was, was connected to an epic they sing about the Quprilis in the Balkans. But hey, what’s up with you now? Are you feeling ill?”

  He nodded, unable to speak. To avoid arousing suspicion rather than because he really wanted to listen, he signed to the other to go on. Now that his neighbor had mentioned the epic, he lost all hope that this trouble might be the product of an unruly imagination. Kurt’s arrest and the murder of the rhapsodists were further reasons for thinking the epic had something to do with what had happened, and that the dream was at the root of it all. The meaning of the dream now seemed as clear as day: The Quprilis (the bridge), through their epic (the musical instrument), were engaged in some action against the State (the angry bull). Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? It had been in his power to avert the disaster, and he had done nothing. There had been nothing accidental about that dinner with the Vizier, or about his uncle’s vague warnings and exhortations to be on the alert. But he had been incapable of seeing the clue, he had gone to sleep over his files, and misfortune had descended on his nearest and dearest.

  “Do you feel a bit better now?” asked his colleague.

  “Yes, a bit.”

  “Good. Don’t worry—it’ll pass. As I was saying, the epic was apparently the cause of friction between the Quprilis and the Sovereign in the old days. The family’s supporters have been urging them for a long time to renounce it, but apparently they’ve always refused, although they’ve often had to suffer for it. And there’s something else; as if the Slav epic wasn’t enough, they invited some Albanian rhapsodists to come and perform their version! I ask you! They were digging their own graves. That was what really made the Sovereign fly off the handle. He decided to put a stop to the business once and for all—to root out the confounded epic altogether. It seems a group of officials is even being organized to rush to the Balkans and eliminate the Albanian epic, which is regarded as the cause of the whole trouble.”