Ismail Kadare - The Concert

For my wife and me the days and nights leading up to the visit were agonizing. We kept asking ourselves what misfortune it really was that was hanging over us. And then again, if Duncan had decided to destroy me, why had he chosen this way of doing it? There were many other questions, but what they all came down to was, what were we going to do?

It wasn’t too difficult to find the reason for the king’s deviousness. His position had become somewhat uncertain lately, and I had a lot of influence over the country noblemen, especially those whose seats were on the borders, A direct and unprepared attack on me might have been very dangerous for him. So it seemed to him — rightly, alas — that it would be best to damage my reputation before attacking me. It wasn’t the first time he had used this method. He had done the same thing, details of implementation apart, to the thanes of Cawdor and Garnis.

But our main preoccupation was what to do. Every hour that went by made the question more urgent. How were we to meet the approaching calamity? Just give in and resign ourselves to our fate? Hope the tyrant might change his mind? Run away?

As time went by our mood changed from agitation to apathy, i often found my wife scanning the horizon anxiously from the part of the terrace that overlooked the road. I could tell she too was hoping to see a messenger coming to cancel the king’s visit.

That messenger never came. On the contrary, four days before the fateful date, part of the king’s bodyguard appeared, riding towards the castle. Were they the ones who were supposed to provoke the incident?

My wife was the first to see them. She called me.

“Come and look!”

We stood together on the terrace and watched them approach. It was cold. My wife’s face was white as chalk. My earlier hesitations came back to me: should we yield to fate, try to escape, or hope for clemency?

No, none of those. I was going to choose another way; I myself would adopt Duncan’s wicked scheme. He had planned to put on a charade in my castle. Then he should die there himself, also as in a play.

Even before the approaching horsemen had ridden through the first gate, i had told my wife of my decision.

She didn’t answer. Only went paler still Her shoulders started to shake convulsively. “I’m wicked,” she kept repeating. “I’m a sinner…”

“Neither of us has the soul of a murderer,” I told her. “But if that’s what’s worrying you, I thought of it first.”

“No,” she answered faintly. “I did!”

I insisted that, even if I hadn’t spoken of it straight away,! had been brooding over the idea for days. It was quite true.

But instead of consoling her, this only made her smile sadly.

“You have been thinking of it for days. I’ve been thinking of it for weeks. Ever since…”

I hastily interrupted to assure her that the thought of murdering the tyrant had occurred to me thee too, and even before that.

But it was no good, and we vied with one another in a macabre attempt to go further and further back in time to claim the honour of being the first to conceive the crime.

It was at the banquet given by Lady K…The reception held by the Scandinavian ambassadors…The day it first snowed…

We propelled ourselves blindly backward, not noticing how close we were getting to the limiting point — the day when I was told about Duncan’s plan to destroy me. If we went back any further we’d be unable to plead self-defence. On the contrary, we’d reveal ourselves as having always harboured the idea of killing him. My wife realized the danger just in time.

“Stop!” she cried. “If we go on like this we’ll go mad!”

I leaned my head on her shoulder,

“You’re right,” I said. “We’re not murderers. It’s he who started this terrible thing. This murderous fever began in his brain, and he infected us …But enough of all that. As you say, if we go on talking about it we really shall go crazy. Let’s turn our minds to something else — to preparing for the ‘incident’.”

Until the deed was done, and even afterwards, we always referred to it as the “incident”. I suppose it was a way of trying to convince our consciences that we were only carrying out something that had been initiated by someone else. We were actors in a play written by another. Only, on our stage, the bloodshed, the wounds, the groans and death itself would be real

This parallel so stuck in my mind that I actually suspected some of the king’s escort of being not guards but actors hired for the occasion. I could have sworn they had even rehearsed their scene before they came; perhaps Duncan himself had taken part in the rehearsal

1 was so taken up with preparations for the royal visit that I had no time to be nervous, and by the time Duncan arrived I was perfectly composed.

As usual he wore the humble and penitent expression that, more than his army, his prisons, his money and his secret police, had helped him confound his enemies. It was this appearance of his that always divided conspirators, or made them hesitate and weaken at the critical moment. It was the most difficult thing imaginable to attack so crafty a tyrant.

“Are there any ghosts in this castle?” he asked, laughing, as he mounted the stairs into the great hall

Fortunately, my wife was talking to the queen, and didn’t hear Duncan’s question. It raised some general hilarity, and when this died down she asked, and was told, what the king had said. But hearing It like that was less of a shock than hearing it directly. I myself was able to go on guffawing like the rest without batting an eyelid, but I did wonder what Duncan was driving at. Was his question premeditated, the sort of things rulers say in such circumstances to Impress people? Had he had a sudden premonition? Or was It an omen, one of those messages from on high which men usually fall to read correctly?

“What was all that talk about ghosts?” my wife asked late that night, when we were In bed.

“Just nonsense.”

“It made me think of…”

“Go to sleep.”

But I doubted if I myself would be able to sleep. I lay there turning the details of my plan over and over in my head. There were still a few points I hadn’t settled. The chief of these was when to act. Should I stick to Duncan’s scenario and wait till the third night? Or would it be better to take the initiative and go into action sooner, before he took it into his head to make some change in his plan that might undo my own?

Then there was the question of the guards. Did they already know of the part they were supposed to play, or would they be incited to it at the last minute by force, or guile, or wine and wassail? And, most important of all, what was to become of them afterwards? Did Duncan mean them to be slain there and then outside his door, or spared to give evidence against me?

Duncan must have pondered over their fate just as deeply as I myself was pondering now. I couldn’t make up my mind. Should I have them slain outside my guest’s door as irrefutable proof of their guilt, or let them live and get them to say what! told them to say when the matter came to trial?

What would I not have given to know what Duncan had decided to do!! was fascinated by his plan, and if I'd had it in my hand I would have followed it to the letter. The most idiotic ideas occur to you when you’re under great strain: I found myself wondering whether to get up in the middle of the night, go and knock on Duncan’s door, and say: “Your Majesty, just let me have a look at your plan and you’ll see how good I am at carrying it out… The only difference will be that you’re the victim!”

Dawn duly broke, and the second day took its course towards evening. I was still a prey to various uncertainties. Of these the chief was the one that had tormented me from the start: should I act tonight, or wait until the third night? I was ready to bet that Duncan too was tempted to change his timetable. Then there was the question of the guards, the intended provocateurs. What did thanking mean to do with them after the “incident”? What was I going to do with them? Moreover, I had to decide how to deal with my own servants, those who were going to help me do the deed. Should I reward them, as I had promised? H’mm… Keep them in reserve in case there was some sort of trial? Or just kill them outright?