Ismail Kadare - The Concert

Gjergj Dibra gave the briefcase a shake and scrutinized its complicated locks. Things probably hadn’t happened like that at all. This doubt had been expressed several times during his long evenings with his embassy friends. None of the foreign diplomats in Peking ever talked about anything else. Most of them inclined towards some other version of the story.

And every eight what Gjergj had heard, instead of fading from his memory, merely grew clearer before he fell asleep in his hotel room. What has it got to do with me, he would ask himself — to hell with them and their mysteries! But in spite of himself he would always lie awake revolving all kinds of theories,

In all probability Lin Biao hadn’t boarded the plane in order to flee, but simply to fly to Peking — and he’d been killed on the way. He must have quarrelled with them about something. Perhaps about the visit of the American president…And so they’d hatched a plot against him. They sent for him — said it was urgent. On the plane, seeing that the flight was lasting an unexpectedly long time, he became suspicious and asked where they were going. Through the window he could see a landscape that resembled the Mongolian desert…

Although he had made up his mind not to look out, Gjergj couldn’t help leaning towards the window. Below, through the gathering dusk, the deserts of Arabia were still visible. Not unlike Mongolia, he thought, “Well, where are we going?” Lie Biao had asked. And thee, recognizing the country below, he and his men had taken out their guns and shot themselves.

The light was fading swiftly, as if drawn down by the sands. Oe an evening such as this a few Soviet soldiers, struggling through the desert, had found the wreckage of the plane. Among the débris was the charred body of the man who had once been the second glory of China, Mao’s expected successor. The man of all those presidiums, those meetings, those appearances on colour TV, was now reduced to ashes, a blackened ghost like the image on a photographic negative. After a thorough inquiry, during which spent cartridges were found in the wreckage of the cabin, the question immediately arose: who had fired the shots, and why? The theory of attempted escape was now eliminated.

Gjergj went on fiddling with the handle of his briefcase. Perhaps the Soviets held the key to the mystery, But how could they know? Was it Lin Biao who had fired first, as soon as he realized he was being removed by force from China; and had the others fired back? Or had the others shot him when he asked where they were going? Or had both groups — if there really were two groups — opened fire at the same time? Gjergj Dibra no longer tried to extricate himself from the maelstrom of hypotheses in which he was plunged once more, as in his sleepless nights in Peking. He just let out an oath from time to time, wishing them all to the devil But he did so only mechanically — he knew this nightmare would last throughout the journey.

Well, someone had fired shots inside the aircraft. And thee the plane had crashed. Why? Because of the shots? (Perhaps some vital piece of mechanism had been hit. Or had the pilots been killed?) Anyway, the drama had taken place prematurely, unexpectedly.

But what would have happened if no shots had been fired? Where would the plane have gone to? And, most important of all, where and how would the drama have ended?

As often happens when one dreams that one is flying, Gjergj’s imagination was drawn towards the earth.

Apparently the plan was that the matter should be settled on the ground — on foreign soil, evidently, to make people think Lin Biao had been trying to escape. Otherwise, there were plenty of deserts in China where he could have been eliminated without any difficulty.

So the intention was that Lie Biao should be found on foreign soil (Soviet soil, as it happened). Aboard the plane on which he’d fled. Dead.

The plan implicit in this hypothesis was clear. The plane was to land somewhere in Mongolia. Before the Soviet frontier guards arrived, the killers would have plenty of time to shoot the marshal, either inside the plane — they could pepper the body with impunity now it had landed — or outside, on the ground.

In the latter case the marshal and the people with him would have been made to disembark, and then shot beside the aircraft. When the Soviets came on the scene they’d have been told: “This is Lin Biao, our minister. We were his guards. He was trying to escape. We are loyal to Mao. So we shot him.”

But this fine plan had been foiled by Lie Biao himself, with his question about where they were going, the shots, etc. Unless what triggered things off was the guards’ attempt to disarm him (“As soon as you cross the frontier, take away his gee!”).

Gjergj shook his head. Was it likely the meticulous Chinese would embark on so crude a plan? The perfunctoriness of it was obvious, but quite apart from that it involved enormous risks. There were two groups of armed men aboard the plane, and Lin Biao’s escort was at least as likely as not to get the upper hand. Then he would have got clean away.

No! Gjergj told himself. It couldn’t have been like that. Such an unsound plan could only have been set up by someone certain that whatever happened inside the plane — even if Lin Biao did get temporary control — the end of the story would be the same. For the simple reason that both parties would be burned to ashes.

The plane would be shot down. Someone was sure of that.

Gjergj leaned his forehead against the window, bet the vibrating of the glass only made him more agitated than ever.

There were two groups on that plane, and each group thought it knew the truth. Lin Biao’s party thought he was being flown to Peking, His potential murderers knew they were going to murder him in Mongolia. But over and above all this there was someone else, not on the plane, far away even, who really knew what was what: who knew that the plane was doomed to be burned to ashes.

H’mm, thought Gjergj. So they planned to shoot the plane down. Easy to say, but not so easy to do. If the marshal had been summoned to Peking he would have travelled either on his own plane, or on a government aircraft, or on one belonging to the general staff, Whichever it was, all such aircraft were guarded day and night: it was unlikely anybody could plant a bomb aboard them or interfere with their landing gear. Even if that were possible, it would still be difficult for the killers to get themselves aboard. Lin Biao’s escort would challenge any unknown faces and order them to be thrown off the plane without more ado.

H’mm…Not really very plausible, Even if such a plan had gone smoothly to begin with, how could the bomb be timed to go off at a precise moment, after the plane had crossed the frontier? The marshal was the second most important man in China, and in charge of his own comings and goings. He could have delayed his flight by an hour, by two hours even, if he felt like it. No, it must have happened differently. Or perhaps all the theories rejected the facts in some way, only in a different order and in pursuit of a completely different purpose.

But what does it matter anyway? thought Gjergj to himself in a last effort to get the business off his mind. There was no point in cudgelling his brains over something that was bound to remain a mystery no matter how much one tried to puzzle it out. He was already depressed enough after spending all that time surrounded by mask-like faces inhabiting a seemingly lifeless world, He’d felt his own vitality draining away as the days went by. And now he was leaving it all behind he meant to forget those empty countenances and all the stress he’d endured. To hell with them and their mysteries! Aeyway, this might be his last trip there.