Ismail Kadare - The Concert

Silva looked at her watch.

“He’s late,” she said.

There was a sound of tyres outside.

“That must be him,” said Skender’s wife.

She was right.

“I knew I'd find you here!” exclaimed Skënder as soon as he saw Silva. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but they sent for me urgently. Last-minute instructions, as usual There’s no end to it. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” said Silva. “It’s I who should apologize — coming on a day like this …”

“I asked you to! It’s no bother at all The only thing is" — looking at his watch — “we ought to leave right away …I know, Silva — why don’t you come with us to the airport? There’s room in the car, and we’ll have more time to talk there. Otherwise I'm afraid we might be late. What do you think?”

“I'm quite ready to come, but are you sure there really will be room? I don’t want to — ”

“Of course! Plenty of room!”

“Yes,” agreed his wife. “And then we two can drive back together.”

Again Silva felt like falling on her neck.

“You’re both very kind,” she murmured.

“Let’s go, thee!” said Skënder, grabbing his case and his overnight bag.

“Sure you’ve got everything?” said his wife as they were getting into the car, “Did you remember to pack the notes for your book?”

He nodded.

“Oh, are you writing another book?” said Silva.

“Mmm,” he replied, his usual way of implying he didn’t want to go into it.

“He hasn’t actually started yet,” said his wife. “I gather it’s going to be a subtle kind of a novel But I don’t know why he’s taking his notes with him. I shouldn’t think he’ll have much time for writing.”

“Come on!” he cried. “We’re late already. If the delegation’s cancelled because of me, I don’t like to think what the Chinese will say!”

“When they asked you to go to the ministry just now I thought the trip was going to be postponed again.”

He laughed.

“I don’t blame you. I’ve never heard of a mission being put off so many times.”

“One can see why,” said Silva.

“It hits you in the eye!” he agreed. “But since, as no doubt you’ve heard, there seems to a bit of an improvement in the relations between the two countries, the Chinese informed us that they were expecting us. But even so, it wasn’t easy. They needed time to re-cast the invitation. And do you know in honour of what the delegation of Albanian writers is finally going to Peking? You’ll never guess if you rack your brains for a hundred years! In honour of the Day of the Birds!”

Silva burst out laughing.

“You’re joking!”

“Am I joking?” he said, turning to his wife.

“No, it’s the truth,” she told Silva. “I laughed when he told me.”

Skënder started to explain how the man at the foreign ministry who was in charge of the delegation had also said “You must be joking!” when the Chinese cultural attaché handed him the invitation. But the attaché had replied that he was quite serious. When the vexed Albanian official observed that his country wasn’t in the habit of sending delegations abroad on such topics as birds, he pointed out that the Day of the Birds was a perfectly serious occasion, which also figured in the Albanian calendar. He thee produced one, pointing out the date in early spring when the day occurred,

“I don’t suppose either of you knew that, did you?” said Skënder. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

He went on to describe how the Albanian official had asked why this was the occasion for which the delegation was to be invited, and the Chinese attaché explained that the Chinese Union of Writers, abolished under the Cultural Revolution, hadn’t yet been revived. So they had to find another peg on which to hang the forthcoming visit, and the Day of the Birds was the best that could be found. He thought it was an excellent idea: the connection with airiness, the sky, inspiration…Very subtle, no?

Skënder’s wife and Silva laughed again.

“You have to have dealt with them to believe it!” said Skënder. “It’s enough to drive you crazy. And as a matter of fact, I can’t look at a bird now without feeling a kind of affinity…What do they say about being as free as a bird?”

That set the other two off again.

“Who else is going?” asked Silva,

Skënder pulled a face.

“A chap I pointed out to you one day…C–V— …”

“Oh! Why him?”

“Apparently the Chinese like him. This is the second time he’s been invited.”

“It’s not hard to see why,” said Skënder’s wife.

Soon after that they arrived at the airport, which seemed busier than usual. There were a number of Chinese in the departure hall and around the customs areas.

“You can tell there’s been a change in our relations with China, can’t you?” said Skënder as they made for the cafeteria, “You should hear what the foreign radio stations say about it! Some of them say Mao Zedong knew nothing about the cooling off, and that when he found out he flew into a rage, gave his aides a dressing down, and ordered Zhou Enlai to see to it personally that all the goods that had been held up should be dispatched right away.”

“The sort of tale they usually spread!” commented his wife.

“Still, something has changed,” said Skënder, with what looked like a rueful smile.

At the cafeteria, they bumped into C–V—.

“So here you are!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.”

“Well go all right, don’t worry!” said Skënder, not looking at him.

Silva frowned. It didn’t look as if Skënder was going to have a chance to talk to her about her brother. Sometimes he seemed to have forgotten all about it.

She heaved a sigh of relief when C–V— went over to a group of relations who’d come to see him off.

“What would you like to drink?” Skënder asked the two women, “We can talk better here,” he said, turning to Silva. “I preferred not to say anything in the car because of the driver.”

“I understand,” she said faintly.

He suddenly looked serious. Silva felt a chill run down her spine,

“It took me some time to discover what it’s all about,” he said, fiddling with his plane ticket, which was lying on the table. “It’s a strange business — mysterious, you might say, in some ways. But what’s certain is that your brother and some other tank officers were arrested for refusing to obey an order.”

“I knew that,” said Silva. “Arian told me…”

“Yes, but listen,” Skënder went on, still toying with his ticket, “It was an order that Î myself, and most other people, would have disobeyed.”

“What?”

“And since we’d all have done the same as he did, and we’re all free, he ought to be free too, even though they’ve put him in the nick for the moment.”

Silva was about to say, “For the moment…?”, but he didn’t give her time.

“Don’t ask me anything more,” he whispered. “I don’t know any more myself. But what I have told you is absolutely true. For the present, the whole affair is shrouded in mystery…But there’s no need for you to worry …”

It was gradually sinking in. At first what she’d heard had seemed very unremarkable, because she’d been expecting something more detailed, more precise. But now she realized there were some important bits of information buried in what Skënder had told her. In short, she told herself, Arian is innocent! Innocent!

“You do understand, don’t you?” he said, putting his hand on hers. “There’s no need for you to worry. Perhaps when Î get back from China…”

“Thank you, Skënder,” she faltered. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me."