Ismail Kadare: The Concert

In the growing light of dawn they saw the waste lot was typical of those you get near big cities. The muddy ground, the scattered rubbish, the old tin cans, the dew as viscous as rain at night on a rubber cape — all combined to create a kind of lunar landscape. Not a real one, like what we see on our friendly old moon, but one of the sinister kind transmitted by cameras on space flights.

“Come on, let’s get to work,” said the man who appeared to be in charge, levering open one of the crates. “And mind it doesn’t all blow up in your faces!”

He took a rocket out of the crate and carefully applied his cigarette lighter,

“Hell, it must be damp!” he growled. “Pass me another one.”

The rocket suddenly started to sputter, then, to the shouts of the workmen, flew up into the air and landed a few yards away. It gave out a little flame, and a few sparks, then started to whirl round on its own axis with a stifled hiss. Another leap, and then it exploded, shedding a lurid glow all over the waste lot.

“Apparently they make all sorts of patterns — dragons and snakes — if you can get them to go high enough,” said one of the men.

“That’s why they decided to destroy them,’ said another.

“That’s enough philosophizing,’ shouted the boss. “Get on with the job — we’re already behind time. Only be careful not to get burnt!”

Cautiously at first, then more and more recklessly, the workmen let off the crackers and rockets, directed now by a couple of experts, The hitherto dreary waste lot began to glow with all kinds of wild and peculiar illuminations,

Just then the train whose passengers had seen the oil strike Earning in the distance was slowly approaching the central station. The workmen turned to look at it. The passengers all looked back out of the windows,

“What are you doing?” called a girl traveller gaily. The fireworks were reflected in her fair hair, streaming in the wind.

“We’re destroying the Chinese fireworks,” answered one of the younger workmen, forgetting they’d been told not to tell anyone what they were doing,

“What?”

He repeated his reply, but the train had moved on and the girl couldn’t hear. Someone else waved at them from another coach. From the last coach but one a voice shouted:

“Have you heard? They’ve struck oil!”

The workmen stood discussing the good news for a while after the train had gone,

“I thought they might tell us something about the blast furnace,” said one of them, “I’ve got a brother working there.”

Then they returned to their labours, reflecting that the news of the oil strike ought to be celebrated with something less sinister than Chinese fireworks.

Meanwhile the train reached Tirana, at the same time as the news of the joyful column of flame,

The early part of the day was very tense. Rumours had reached the capital about the unblocking of the blast furnace and the finding of a new oil-field — perhaps the same train had brought both stories — bet these mingled with the latest rumours about a plot said to have been discovered by Enver Hoxha in person. He was supposed to have surprised the putschists conspiring in a villa, or in the cellar of a villa, and they’d all flung themselves down on their knees and begged for mercy.

Far-fetched as all this was, one fact was corroborated by more or less reliable sources: the plot really had been discovered by Enver Hoxha. It was even said that at a meeting of the Politbureau he’d asked the Minister of the Interior why conspiracies were always uncovered by the Party and never by the state security services. The minister had turned pale,

By the beginning of the afternoon, everyone was talking about the plot, although the situation still wasn’t clear. In the bar at the Dajti Hotel the foreign diplomats, who’d got wind of something, exchanged the latest news, vague and incoherent though it was. Even vaguer and more incoherent was the form in which the various embassies transmitted it by radio. Then, faster even than in the days when the ancient gods had their own messengers, the news spread far and wide through celestial space via spy satellites, some of which indeed bore the names of Greek gods.

What’s happening? It seems very odd. Intelligence experts everywhere kept taking off their headsets and putting them back on again, just as perplexed as their superiors by seeing a national hullabaloo being made about such relatively trivial incidents as the discovery of a new oil-field and the unblocking of a blast furnace. Bet if you looked at it more closely — wasn’t it really perhaps another plot? No, no, there was no possibility of confusion of that kind. It was really a question of property. What? What kind of property? Private property was consigned to the dustbin a long time ago…But I’m talking about public property, collective property…Oh, you still believe in that , do you? And so it went on, the satellites exchanging their strange cheepings and twitterings, like the cries of some prehistoric bird that had got stranded in time and was struggling to get back into the world.

The boss had been summoned to see the vice-minister. Silva and Linda had been looking forward to having a private chat. Yet they sat at their desks and said nothing. The more Silva tried to find a way to start a conversation, the more foolish she felt, which made her annoyed first with herself and then with her colleague… I can’t talk to her as I used to since I saw the two of them together like that, she thought. But what’s the matter with her? She might at least jest behave as usual… Anything would be better than this…

But she found she couldn’t be angry with Linda. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her profile — expectant, touching. And touching in a rare way: not because it was sad, but because it was happy, Silva decided she herself must take the responsibility for the present awkwardness. She had guessed Linda’s secret, and must have given out waves which the other girl, anxious as she was, had interpreted as negative. In any case, the fact that Linda found she couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened proved that she didn’t want to be deceitful Poor kid, it’s not her fault, thought Silva. It’s quite understandable that she shouldn’t have told me about her affair, if that’s what it really is. Any woman in her position would have felt embarrassed about it.

If only she knew I don’t mind at all! On the contrary, it would be the ideal solution for Besnik It had occurred to Silva more than once that perhaps she ought to broach the subject herself, quite plainly and straightforwardly. But she hadn’t liked to.

In similar circumstances, before, she would have got out of such difficulties by some sort of polite evasion^ like pretending she hadn’t seen them that afternoon. She was just considering this, glancing occasionally at the door in the hope that someone would come in and help break the ice, when the silence was interrupted by the telephone. It sounded so loud she almost cried out. When she picked up the receiver and heard Besnik Strega’s voice, she nearly exclaimed, “What a coincidence!” She would indeed have done so, if Linda hadn’t been there …But there was something odd about his voice…

“Listen,’ he said. “The Bermemas are in trouble. One of the family, a young engineer called Max — perhaps you’ve met him — was killed this morning at the steel complex.“

“What?” gasped Silva. “How…?

“And that’s not all Victor Hila… “What, him too?”

“He’s still alive, but he’s been blinded.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” Silva cried.

The words were so flat, so inexorable, like the woes that prompted them. Death, blindness — things that stretched back to ancient tragedy,