Ismail Kadare - The Concert

His friend looked at him sympathetically, but with eyes still cool and severe.

“I understand all that. Nevertheless, the hour of the right has come, Vun Fu. In fact, the things you’ve just told me about are so many warning signs.”

“How can you still believe that?” said the other, buttoning his shirt up slowly, as if wanting his scars to be seen one last time.

“They’re going to allow private shops and reopen the churches,’ said the other.

Autumn in Peking

A flock of wild geese rises into the sky.

The last golds of autumn are dimmed for ever.

Winter approaches bearing cold and frost.

Its dreary greys, and a plenum to liven it up…

The datsibaos in Peking on a rainy day. The long wall covered with dozens of posters fluttering in the wind. Dreariness by the mile. Bits of rain-soaked paper full of thousands, millions of horrible insults. Genuine anti-autumn!

AND YET…I have to write this in capital letters. And not just once, but over and over, three, three hundred times. And yet. And yet. And yet…

And yet, yes, they’re a great people, and it would be small-minded not to bear witness to that in these notes. Though they make up only a quarter of the human race, the Chinese have probably endured half of all its sufferings. If anyone ever wrote a History of Hunger, the Chinese would be the main characters. The immense poverty, the immense hunger, the immense backwardness of an old world. The strength that could change all that must have been immense too.

The Chinese have had that strength. You’d have to be insane or reactionary not to admit it. They demolished that old world, and the dust from its ruins now floats over their country. On the one hand are the ravings of the Cultural Revolution, on the other the ancient ghosts, in what immemorial archives did they find the model for their current relations with us? From what imperial chancelleries did they derive these factional struggles for power, the icy guides and officials who separate us like a wall from the ordinary people?

And yet. And yet. And yet…Strange — I think I’m going to miss this country.

SKENDER BERMEMA PUSHED his notes aside and rubbed his aching forehead. He found it hard to turn away from one last manuscript, though. Should he read it or not?

He’d dashed it off in three nights in a dreary hotel in Chang Ha, on the basis of an incident he’d been told about. Now he was as curious to see what he’d made of the story as if someone else had written it.

And his eyes had started to read it without waiting for him to make up his mind:

SPIRITUALIST SESSION IN THE TOWN OF N —.

SYNOPSIS FOE STORY.

1

The little boat dropped anchor in the river port at N—, just to unload a few crates marked “Insecticide” in black letters. It was late on a cold September afternoon, and by the time the boat had plunged back into the mist, the crates, together with the two men who seemed to be guarding them, were on a Xin Fu track driving hell-for-leather towards the town centre. Later, when a lot of people claimed they could dimly remember that distant afternoon, they found it difficult to specify any details. As a matter of fact, apart from the man in charge of the little port and his two clerks, no one had witnessed the unloading of the crates from the boat or their swift loading on to the lorry. And not even the men in the port had been in a position to notice the strange fact that the Xin Fu truck, instead of pulling up outside some farm commune or municipal office or depot for hotel supplies, had disappeared into the yard at the back of the Department of Public Safety.

It seemed to be expected. No sooner had they seen the door of the truck fly open than Tchan, the director, and his assistants rushed over. From the way they all bowed, it was clear that the men guarding the crates were extremely important.

“We would have come to the port to meet you, but we were instructed …by wire…”

“I know,” interrupted one of the new arrivals coldly, “Is everyone here who ought to be here?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Let’s get them all together, then,” said the other, leading the way to the entrance. “I have a few words to say.”

Sitting round the table in the director’s office, the local officials gazed at the stern-faced envoys from the capital with a mixture of respect, uncertainty and terror.

“As you may imagine, we’ve been sent here by the Zhongnamhai , the General Bureau — in other words, directly by Chairman Mao,”

“As you may know,” said the other envoy, “the Zhongmanhai ,despite its unpretentious name, occupies a special place: outside the Party, outside the state, outside the army, and outside yourselves. And in this context, ‘outside’ means ‘above’. The Zhongmanbai is above everyone because it’s the instrument of Chairman Mao, an extension of his hand and mind.”

He paused for a moment, half-closing his eyes, as if not wanting anyone to meet his gaze and distract his thoughts.

“More than once,” he went on gravely, “our enemies have tried to infiltrate the Bureau in order to encourage hostile tendencies. They’ve tried to draw our people into foreign plots, they’ve slandered us, asked for the Zhongnanbai to be abolished, but the Chairman has always defended us. He has defended us because we are blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh.”

He suddenly banged his fist on the table, making the others jump.

“Now Chairman Mao, our great helmsman, wishes to have at his disposal direct and accurate information from all over our great country, unmodified by any intermediary. And that’s why, from today on, he’s going to sow, to distribute these…”

He gestured at the crates, which he’d had deposited at their feet.

“These microphones, which we’ve brought here today in those crates, are his ears…”

There was a pause.

“Do you see?” he went on. “So long as these ears hear properly, China will have nothing to fear. But if they get stopped up, China will be lost. That is the message we are bringing you today.”

The others were still stunned by what they’d just heard. Ever since they’d been told that mysterious envoys from the capital would be coming to see them, bringing crates containing secret equipment, they’d imagined this would be something very out-of-the-way, and they were dying to know what it was. Though the crates were marked “Insecticide”, they’d expected them to contain special weapons — explosives, new kinds of hand-guns, tear-gas or electric truncheons. The idea of microphones had never entered their heads.

“Qietingqi, qietingqi” they muttered to themselves, as if repeating the name of the things would make them seem more real. Now they understood why some electrical engineers had been told to come here today too. Up till a few minutes ago they’d been looking down their noses at these eggheads. Now they began to treat them more affably.

So the boxes were full of mikes. The ears of Chairman Mao. Hundreds of thousands of them. God alone knew how many, installed all over China …They felt the first faint stirrings of delight.

The other envoy then described the workings of these devices, and how they were to be installed. He spoke very quietly, as if through one of the microphones he’d been working with so long.

As he spoke, the two electrical engineers made notes. The visitor first told them the crates contained various kinds of microphones: fixed ones, portable ones, and very small ones for attaching secretly to a suspect’s clothes. Then he instructed them in the various ways of setting them all up, in connecting and disconnecting them (the envoy used the words “sowing” and “harvesting”), in remote control, in the treatment and editing of tapes.