Ismail Kadare: The Concert

Silva nearly dropped her fork.

“What?” she stammered. “But why?”

“Please don’t ask any questions. It’s very complicated,"

“But how is it possible?” she murmured, as if to herself.

“It’s a very complex business,” he repeated, “And there’s nothing to be done about it. But at least it can’t hurt the rest of you."

“How could you imagine we’d think of ourselves?” Silva protested, “You ought to be ashamed!”

He gave a wry smile, stabbing with his fork at a piece of meat that he’d picked up and put down again several times already.

“But why?” said Silva again. “What’s it all about?”

Arian stared in silence at his almost untouched plate, as if he expected to see something there that would help him decide whether or not to confide in his sister.

“As you know, there were some army manoeuvres recently,” he said at last, “Well, in the course of them I disobeyed, or rather refused to obey, an important order.”

So that’s all, said Silva to herself: at first Mesh it didn’t seem as awful as she’d feared. But her brother went on, as if he’d guessed what she was thinking;

“When there’s a war on, that’s enough to put you in front of a firing squad. But as it’s peacetime I shall just be thrown out of the army. And out of the Party too, of course. That’s all. I don’t think there’ll be any other consequences.”

Silva sighed. But of course …what other consequence could there be? Wasn’t it bad enough already?

Arian made another attempt to pick something up from his plate, but his fork seemed incapable of dealing with it. Silva felt terribly sorry for him.

“Is anybody else being punished?”

“Four out of the six officers in our unit. All those who refused to obey.”

He made another stab at his plate, but gave up and refilled his glass.

“So why did you do it?” asked Silva.

“Do what?”

“That order — why did you refuse to obey it?”

He turned his head away abruptly. His eyes were blazing with anger.

“Don’t ask me about it. I shan’t tell you.”

“All right, all right,” said Silva. “What’s done is done. Don’t torture yourself.”

He picked up his glass and drank.

“Just one last thing,” Silva went on. “Do you feel guilty about it?”

“Absolutely not!”

Silva glanced absently round the table. She couldn’t make up her mind whether his not feeling guilty was a good thing or not.

“Forget it now,” he said, raising his glass. “Here’s to alt of you, and to Brikena’s very good health!”

“And the same to you!” Silva replied.

He waved his hand dismissively, as if to say “For me it’s all over — you’d do better to concentrate on other people!”

Silva set down her glass and looked round at her guests. The dinner party was going on just as it had before her attention was distracted from it. Perhaps her brother’s problems weren’t as bad as all that, she thought, and made an effort to dismiss it from her mind. Everyone was in the best of humours; the red wine sparkled in the glasses; the peaceful buzz of conversation and laughter was punctuated only by the sound of bottles of mineral water being opened. It was hard to believe evil could go on claiming its victims after such a gathering.

Silva woke up with a start. At first she thought the brightness flooding in through the window was the dawn, but then she realized it was the cold glow of moonlight. Brr, she was freezing! But of course that was what had made her wake up! She stretched out a hand and switched on the bedside lamp. A quarter past four. She lay there for a moment, staring at the bare ceiling. Then she felt cold again. All the glass in the room was covered with frost. It must be freezing hard outside. She thought of Brikena and Veriana, asleep in the next room.

She got out of bed, pulled a woollen cardigan round her shoulders and went quietly out into the corridor. The door of the other bedroom was ajar. She pushed it open cautiously and went in. By the bluish light filtering in from outside she could see the two girls’ hair mingling on the same pillow. No doubt because of the cold, Veriana must have left the divan and snuggled into bed beside her cousin. Smiling to herself, she went over and looked down at the two serene faces. Then she remembered her mother’s injunction: never look at anyone while they are asleep. She pulled the covers up over the girls’ shoulders, fetched another blanket from the divan and spread it gently over them, then tiptoed out into the passage.

But there, instead of going back to her own room, she felt somehow impelled to take another look at the scene of the dinner party. When she switched on the light she was dazzled at first, but her eyes soon adjusted. The table was just as it had been left at the end of the meal. Plates, glasses and dishes stood empty and half-empty where the guests had abandoned them to go and have coffee in the living room. Silva looked at it all, trying to remember where everyone had been sitting. It all seemed very far away. She noticed Arian’s almost untouched plate, and sighed. She didn’t feel in the least sleepy now, but couldn’t concentrate properly, either. Reviewing the plates and glasses, she recalled scraps of the conversation that had ebbed to and fro over them, interspersed with jesting and laughter. But during part of the discussion — the debate over Albania’s relations with China — laughter had been only an outward mask disguising inner anxiety. One of the guests believed that these relations had worsened lately, as they had during the Cultural Revolution some years back, but that the deterioration was only temporary and the dark clouds would soon disappear. Someone else had answered that things looked more serious this time, and the crisis wouldn’t be overcome so easily. There was no way we Albanians could approve of the rapprochement between America and China, so a certain amount of tension was only to be expected. Silva scanned the table as if imagining the trajectory of these exchanges. The opinions they expressed had been over-simplified and not very interesting, and two or three times Silva had caught Arian smiling rather condescendingly. It was the smile of someone who is in the know, and prefers not to join in the conversation of those who are not.

The crisis was only to be expected, repeated the husband of one of her sisters-in-law. Bet someone else reminded him that relations with China, unlike those with the Soviet Union, which were over for good and all, were subject to ups and downs: this last hitch was merely one of a series. Don’t you remember? — we went through it all before, when the National Theatre proposed to put on Chekhov’s The Seagull in the middle of the Cultural Revolution!

Silva remembered it very well It was a winter afternoon: it looked as if it was going to snow. All Tirana was in a high state of excitement; no one could talk about anything except the play. People were feverishly getting ready to go to the theatre; telephones kept ringing. Was the opening really going to take place this evening? — there was talk of cancellation… Then the theatre itself, and more discussions with friends in the cloakrooms. It was rumoured that the Chinese had tried to have the production suspended (Chekhov, like Shakespeare, was banned in China), and some officials at the Ministry of Education and Culture were on their side. Nevertheless, to the satisfaction of everyone there, the performance did take place…

But ever since thee, Sonia herself had pointed out last eight, it had been evident that our ideas were diverging from those of the Chinese, If I had my way, Gjergj’s youngest sister had put in, we’d break with them altogether — I can’t stand the sight of them! It’s not as simple as that, answered one of the men; and what they look like has got nothing to do with it…I agree, said another: I think it’s shocking the way so many people have started looking down on them. There’s no denying they’re a great people with a marvellous culture…Yes, indeed! was the reply, but, say what you like, China will always be an enigma. Zhou Enlai once said that if you want to understand Chinese politics you should go and see the Peking Theatre…But that’s full of incomprehensible symbols, monkeys and snakes and dragons …!