Ismail Kadare - The Concert

“In other words," said Hava Preza, “relations with China are set fair again. Let’s hope we shall be the better for it! We were talking about it just before you came. And I thought to myself that you, Ekrem, were the person best placed to tell us what’s what.”

As soon as the conversation turned back to China, the elderly couple seemed to perk up. Gradually everyone joined in, including Musabelli, and all agreed on one point: the improvement in relations with China was welcome^ and they only hoped nothing would happen to spoil it. Occasionally, as they spoke, they would turn to the portrait of old Nurihan, as if asking her for her opinion. She was made for this kind of debate! Each of them thought how surprised she would have been if she could have heard what they were saying! It had all been so different the last time, when Albania broke with the Soviets: for days on end they’d whispered together here in this room, hoping the crisis would get worse and the two governments scratch one another’s eyes out as soon as possible, shaking with fright at the least sign of a rapprochement and breathing sighs of relief when such signs turned out to be wrong. Now it was quite the opposite: they trembled at the smallest hint of a rapture, and wished with all their hearts that Albania’s friendship with China would last for ever.

As if to get old Nurihan on their side, bet also to reassure them-selves, they listed all the advantages they could expect to enjoy from such a relationship. How stupid they’d been to be so hostile to the Chinese at first! How sarcastic they’d been about the customs, dress and language of the Chinese, when in fact these same Chinese were really their salvation! It wasn’t jest a matter of their rapprochement with the Americans, which had come about only recently and served to open their eyes. Long before that there had been other, incredible scraps of information. At first they’d rejected them as absurd inventions, dreams or slanders. But after going into them further and seeking evidence from people who’d been there, they’d come to the conclusion that the Chinese were treating former capitalists very well: some had been made assistant heads of factories, and even, as a signal favour, given a percentage of the profits. This had produced many sighs among the old guard in Tirana: some former factory owners, their hands shaking with age or illness, even started to work out their possible future gains. But they soon had to yield to the facts: however delightful the effects of Sino-Albanian friendship, it was highly unlikely that such a state of affairs would exist here, at least for another couple of generations. After that, who could tell? Their morale then plunged to a very low ebb, until a fresh crop of rumours came to pep them up. Forget about your percentages and other such foolishness, they were told, All that’s over and done with. Consider instead the real advantages we can get out of the Chinese. Haven’t you heard what’s going on there? A storm has been unleashed, sweeping all before it. And recently they’ve turned on the Party, and they’re trampling it underfoot. Imagine, a communist country smashing its own Party! It’s a miracle, and that’s putting it mildly! That’s what you want to watch in China, never mind about the rest. The Party’s the key to everything. When you attack the Party you attack the very foundations. And after that, there’s nothing left standing. All is disintegration and chaos. It’s only people like us, in our little corner, who are left in peace. And you dare to complain? Hush! Keep quiet! Not a word! We’re in the front seats, watching the show. In Shanghai and Peking the communists cut one another’s throats. The class struggle, the war between the schools of thought and the party lines or whatever the hell they call them now — all this has been transposed to within the Party itself. Their hatred is directed against one another now. And who performed this miracle? The Chinese themselves! And you have the cheek to criticize them? You don’t realize what it means to have the communists tearing one another to pieces? Perhaps you’d rather they turned against us? So stop ranting on about the Chinese — just bow your heads and say a prayer for them! They’re a godsend to us, the instrument through which divine Providence has chosen to help us!

Such were the arguments that had been bandied about before and that they now adapted to the present situation. That was the truth, and time had confirmed it even beyond their expectations. But now, as then^ enthusiasm was punctuated by doubt: would the Chinese continue in the same vein? Mightn’t it be a false spring, one of those shows they’re so good at? When they’d finished settling scores amongst themselves, mightn’t they round more furiously than before on the ex-bourgeois? “You rejoiced too soon! You thought we’d forgotten you, did you? Well, now we’re going to hit and club and decapitate any of you we can lay our hands on.”

“I’ll never forget when they launched the slogan, Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools compete among themselves,” said Hava Preza. “That gave us all a flicker of hope again. At last they’re loosening their grip a bit, we told ourselves. But what happened? It was only a monstrous trap, one of the most extraordinary ever. The unfortunate butterflies flocked to the meadow covered with daisies, but instead of nectar they found only poison.”

“Alas!” sighed Musabelli.

“That was the whole object of the exercise,” said Hava Preza. “To attract the butterflies to their doom.”

“Alas!” sighed Musabelli again.

“And do you remember what happened next?” The hand holding Hava Preza’s cup shook so much that a couple of drops of coffee splashed unnoticed on her dress. “Instead of having a meadow with a hundred flowers in front of us, we were confronted by the Gobi Desert, as poor Nurihan used to say.”

“She wasn’t often wrong,” murmured Musabelli.

But for some time, without venturing actually to interrupt, Ekrem Fortuzi had been shaking his head to show he didn’t agree with what Hava Preza was saying.

“Allow me to contradict you,” he said finally, as Hava Preza stopped to take a sip of coffee. “It’s quite natural that you should be sceptical: we’ve often been deceived, sometimes quite cruelly, as in the case of the break with the Soviets, on which we’d built such hopes. But this time, believe me, things are different,”

“Ekrem’s right,” said one of the other visitors. “It’s not the same this time. Who would ever have thought the Chinese would invite the American president to go and see them? And yet that’s what’s happened.”

“True enough,” agreed the others.

“Maybe,” Hava Preza conceded. “I only hope you’re right! Don’t you think I want the same thing as you do? I’ve wished a thousand times that it should be so!”

“Believe me!” said Ekrem Fortuzi again. He was now quite carried away. “There’s no one in the whole of Albania, perhaps in the whole of Europe, who has studied the philosophy of Mao Zedong as thoroughly as I have, I have unravelled all his secrets, understood all his hints, worked out all the symbolical implications of his slogans in a way that is only possible if you study the original texts. While all of you were making fun of me for learning Chinese, that was what I was doing: trying to find the key to the enigma,”

“As far as learning Chinese is concerned, you were right,” said Hava Preza. “On that subject you were certainly wiser than the rest of us.”

“Thanks very much!” said Ekrem. “But where was I?”

“The philosophy of Mao Zedong.”

“The enigma.”

“Oh yes! Well, after going deeper and deeper into Mao’s doctrine I was convinced of one thing: it would be hard to find anyone this century who’s done as much for us, the dispossessed bourgeois, as he has. I suppose that sounds paradoxical to you?”