Ismail Kadare - The Concert

His visit to China had been much less upsetting. There no outside force had threatened his own universe. He was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of official phrases designed to protect him against the trivial attacks of what people usually called life. Against harmless, humane utterances like “Cooler today, isn’t it?” or “What a boring afternoon!” a great barrier had been erected of new sayings and slogans: the two just and the three unjust things, the four chief recommendations, the seven faults, the five virtues and the ten evils, etc. These all acted as patrols, keeping Krams’ world from being infected.

When the first rumours began to circulate about a cooling off in the relations between China and Albania, the first question that occurred to Krams and his comrades was whose side they should be on. Since the worsening of the situation arose from the rapprochement between China and the United States, Krams and his friends should logically have sided with Albania, who could be relied on to stand up for pure and inviolable principle, and to reject any dialogue or compromise.

But a kind of sixth sense made Krams jump the other way. China might be moving towards the West, but his own universe — what his adversaries called the “Krams-world” — would probably survive longer in China than in Albania. He hadn’t yet identified the fundamental reasons that had led him to this conclusion (history, the geo-political situation, mental outlooks, ethnic origins, perhaps even the Albanians’ racial characteristics), but he was sure his intuition wasn’t leading him astray. He never forgot his visit to the cemetery in Tirana that memorable Sunday. The Albanians have very good memories. But Mao had told him clearly: “People who remember too much are a danger to us.”

That was what Mao had told him during their one and only tête-à-tête, when they had spoken at length about the possibility of world communism.

Krams had listened fascinated as Mao said it might take ten thousand years. This, after the hare-brained Krushchev’s assertion that communism would be fully realized in the U.S.S.R. by 1980, sounded like a Titanic challenge. Everyone knew the advent of communism lay far away in the future, just as they knew that nevertheless — distant and Utopian as it might be, like any great hope — it influenced the destiny of the world. People were also aware that at the coming of the communist paradise after thousands of years of tension and hardship, the human race might grow soft and degenerate. But none of these considerations — especially the last — had ever been formulated by the communist leaders. Mao was the first to dare to do so. In his interview with Krams he had clearly intimated that communism not only was but bad to be unattainable, and so would never be realized.

“Communism is like a star,” he had said. “One of the most beautiful of stars. It looks as it does to us because it’s so far away. Have you ever thought what it would be like if a star came close to us? The collision would be a catastrophe …”

So the star had to remain inaccessible. Anything that seemed to bring it close — wellbeing, culture, emancipation — only put it in greater danger. That was why those things must be attacked without mercy, together with all who tried to bring the star nearer. They must be sacrificed in order to keep it at a distance.

“It may seem tragic,” Mao had continued, “to strike at the very people who are most — even excessively — devoted to your owe ideal Bet it has to be done. There is no other way.”

“What about the enemies of communism, then?” Krams had asked. “Were its opponents better for communism than its supporters?”

“Yes,” said Mao, “Communism has always needed enemies above all else. And it always will. So much so that…”

Then he’d smiled without finishing the sentence. But Krams knew what he meant: “So much so that if necessary it would have to create them.”

How magnificent! thought Krams, every time he recalled that forgettable conversation. He even said it aloud, especially at the time of the Cultural Revolution. It was then that he was able to verify the perfect cogency of Mao’s argument: the break-up of people’s lives, destruction, brainwashing…The star was farther away, and thus safer, than ever.

Cambodia begins in you…Yes, he thought to himself, Cambodia, and probably lots of future crimes as well.

For a moment he was filled with euphoria at the thought that he himself was also a fundamentally tragic character.

He had now emerged into the Place de la Concorde, but he was still so much absorbed ie his own mental state that he wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had whispered in his ear, “Look out! there are three kings’ heads on pikes in the middle of the square!” He’d just have steered the car around them.

He really did see himself as a tragic figure, but he accepted his fate. He knew deep down inside that he’d chosen what side he was on in this new schism. Even if the Chinese would one day disappoint him, he’d made up his mind to support them. The third world was territory where he could sow his ideas: and if they failed to take root in the towns and the country, he would take them into the desert, among the primitive tribes where it would take at least a thousand years to make people understand the meaning of “autumn sadness”. Cambodia starts in you …“But what is it that starts in you , then?” he cried angrily, narrowly avoiding a collision with a car in the next lane. The other driver put his index finger to his forehead and yelled, “Are you crazy or something?” “It’s all of you who are crazy!” Krams bawled back. “All of you without exception! Crazy and small-minded!”

He had never acted out of base self-interest! Even when, during his visit to China, the small community of resident Europeans had bristled with rumours, half amused and half sarcastic, that Mao Zedong was going to make him his pao pe or godson. The rumours weren’t entirely without foundation, but even so Krams hadn’t indulged in dreams of power or hoped for any other vulgar advantages. True, he had sometimes imagined or even hoped he might one day become a leader — but no ordinary leader. He agreed with those who thought a real leader shouldn’t have any power: but he went further still. Marx, Christ, Buddha and Che Guevara hadn’t wielded any power, yet they had ruled, in a way, through their books, their ideas or their words. Krams thought a leader should be without even those adjuncts: he should be a kind of demiurge of the international workers’ movement, half committed but half anonymous, without books or ideas of his own, and if possible without a name. But this was all a long way off still …For the present he was just the militant leftist Juan Maria Krams, an ascetic according to some, for others the Don Quixote of the movement. Some people called him Huan Mao Maria, or Marihuana for short, since his trip to China and the first accounts of Mao’s plan to subvert Europe through drugs. The nickname had been pinned on him out of malice, but all in all he didn’t really mind.

He was now driving towards the grands boulevards . He hadn’t yet decided whether to go to the Café de Madrid, where the Latin American militants usually met, or to the bar frequented by the Portuguese, But finding himself near the latter, he parked the car and went in. The place was fairly empty, and as he looked around for a familiar face he suddenly froze. It must be telepathy! he thought, going over. The other man looked up, seemed equally surprised, and came forward to greet him.

“Great minds think alike!” exclaimed Krams, holding out his hand. “Fancy finding you here! …I was just remembering some of our earlier meetings.”