Ismail Kadare - The Concert

It could have been worse, she thought. He might have lectured her or told her to disavow her brother, even though she still didn’t know what he was accused of.

What had Arian really done?… How many times had she asked herself that? And what if he’d merely been detained for questioning as Gjergj had suggested, and all this anguish turned out to be unnecessary? That was what she’d wanted to talk about to someone, but she’d applied to the most unsuitable person. From now on she’d be able to tell the sheep from the goats.

She got up and went over to the telephone. Her boss watched her furtively as she dialled the number, as if trying to make out what unfortunate wretch was being drawn in now. He wouldn’t be in his shoes for anything! A private conversation in the office was one thing, but the phone was a completely different matter. Other people might be listening in, and might even pass on a distorted version of what was said.

“Hallo? Is that the switchboard?” said Silva. “I’d like to speak to Besnik Struga, please. Extension four-four-five, if I remember rightly…” She was standing there with the phone resting against her cheek, staring into space, when she met Linda’s inquisitive eye. It suddenly struck Silva that her colleague might be interested in her own former brother-in-law. “Hallo, is that you, Besnik? This is Silva.”

Linda listened with a mixture of envy and resentment to her colleague making an appointment with the man she herself so longed to meet. Then suddenly she caught her boss’s eye. What was the matter with him} She was tempted to laugh. Did the silly idiot think there was something immoral going on? She herself believed more than anything in the world in the integrity of the people who gravitated around Silva. Even Victor Hila, for whom, out of pity, she’d had a moment of weakness, had behaved very correctly, and far from trying to take advantage of her lapse he’d never made the slightest allusion to it since. Just once, a few days later, he’d phoned her up, apologizing over and over again for disturbing her, to stammer that he was calling to explain that he was on the point of leaving Tirana because of the business of the Chinaman’s foot. Not that he had any right to bother her with all that, but just to tell her he thought she was wonderful, and that he felt the greatest respect for her — really, the greatest respect imaginable — and that she was absolutely peerless and unique. She’d been genuinely touched by his decency and selflessness, and had thanked him. But what was this Silva was saying? Besnik Struga was going to drop in here? Yes, sure enough — Silva was repeating: “All right, I’ll be waiting for you in the office when you’ve left your meeting…” Now she had rung off.

“Is Besnik Struga coming here?” asked Linda, not trying to conceal her agitation. “Will you introduce me?”

“Of course,” said Silva. “He’s just leaving home to attend a meeting at the Ministry of Education, and when that’s over he'll come on here.”

Linda’s hands reached out of their own accord for her handbag and mirror, then something held her back. The wave of pleasure which had swept over her at the thought of actually encountering Besnik Struga, the man she’d dreamed of meeting for so long, seemed to call for some dissimulation, like everything else one holds dear.

Although it was Silva who kept looking at her watch, Linda waited just as eagerly as her friend for Struga to appear. At one point Linda almost asked her colleague why she seemed so anxious, but she was afraid this might reveal her owe nervousness.

Besnik Struga arrived just after midday. Silva introduced him both to the boss and to Linda as “a friend of mine”. The boss looked at him with a mixture of astonishment, contrition and irony. As for Linda, she didn’t try to hide the warmth of her feelings. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said as she held out her hand. “I’m very glad to meet you.”

“Me too,” said Besnik, looking at her with interest.

They immediately struck up an animated, even sparkling conversation, as often happens when two people take an instant liking to one another. She told him what she knew about him; it wasn’t much. His trip to Moscow with Enver Hoxha, to attend the great congress of communist parties which she had had to write about in her history exam,…He interrupted to point out how this underlined the distance between them — he meant the difference in their ages. Blushing a little, she hastened to explain that this hadn’t even occurred to her. On the contrary, he looked very young (at this she reddened again, but luckily this was partly camouflaged by her permanent smile). So young, in fact, that she found it hard to believe he’d met Krushchev. And since he’d taken part in that confrontation, it wouldn’t be surprising, would it, if the present situation brought him face to face one day with Mao Zedong? Besnik laughed. As she must know, dialectical materialism — perhaps she’d sat for an examination in that too? — said that situations never repeated themselves in exactly the same form. As a matter of fact, according to Marx, what occurred first as tragedy was very likely to recur as farce.

“Do you think this business with China might be regarded as a comedy, thee?” she asked. “Oh no, not at all. I was only referring to my owe role.”

Linda couldn’t help noticing that Silva was following this repartee with a cold, almost constrained smile, as though, its vivacity displeased her. This deflated Linda at once: her previous flow of words ended as suddenly as a spring shower.

“Shall we be on our way, then, Silva?” said Besnik, holding his hand out first to Linda and then to the boss.

The office seemed lifeless after they’d gone. But Linda’s face still wore a smile.

“Funny to think he was at that historic conference, isn’t it?” she said to her boss as if to justify herself. She felt she ought to try to explain the warmth of her welcome to their unexpected visitor. But the boss wore an expression of complete detachment. He was obviously thinking of something else, Linda felt reassured, and let her mind wander back to Besnik Struga. It was the first and most beautiful moment of an attraction between two people — the moment when nothing’s yet settled, no decision taken, no habit formed, no timetable established…there isn’t any hurry… Everything was as new as the creation of the world; time was eternal, free of the servitude of hours; all was vague, unconstrained by any material calculation.

Linda gazed thoughtfully at the faint gleams projected here and there by a meagre sun. The impression Besnik had made on her was no mere passing fancy. She’d felt attracted to him even before she met him, a month ago, in the corridors of the ministry. He was associated in her mind with a period for which she felt a strange fascination: he was that period personified. She opened her bag, and, seeing that the boss was buried in his papers again, got out her mirror and looked into it for a moment, trying to see her face through Besnik’s eyes. But she couldn’t.

Even before they’d reached the nearest café, Silva had told Besnik what had happened to her brother. They sat down in a corner of the Riviera, and Silva scanned her companion’s face. He looked thoughtful

“Strange!” he said at last. “Very strange indeed!” She began to recount in detail her conversation with her brother, when she heard for the first time that he was probably going to be expelled from the Party. But Besnik, instead of asking for further explanations, just exclaimed again, “Very strange!” Nor did he comment on Gjergj’s hope that the arrest was nothing more than an ordinary detention following some disciplinary offence. But he did convey that he didn’t really agree with this interpretation. Silva felt despondent, almost offended. Besnik’s mind seemed to be on something else. She was almost sorry she’d phoned him. But she didn’t say anything — just looked at him curiously. Was he taking the same sort of line as her boss? She began thinking of how she would apologize for bothering him: she’d adopt an extremely sardonic tone, implying that this was the last time she’d ask him any favours…Meanwhile he spoke, in a low voice, as if to himself.