Ismail Kadare - The Concert

This last, unfinished phrase made Tchan’s mind up for him, and he signed to his assistant to start the tape again. They both listened in silence, as before. Not a muscle moved in the director’s face.

From the loudspeaker there came first the panting of the man, then that of the woman, quieter. She was almost sobbing as she implored him not to do something which she apparently at the same time desired: “No, not like that …No, please, not like that… It’s wrong…Don’t you think it’s wrong?…Ah…”

“Well, at last we’ve got something really important,’ said the assistant when the couple’s moans had ceased…

From the very first words, director Tchan had known why his aide had kept the next bit till last. He knitted his brow. This was what he called results! Just what he’d been waiting for all this time. Words hostile to Jiang Qing. He started to break into a cold sweat. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard people insult her…So why was he so worked up? …The black-souled Empress Vu was an angel of light compared with this one…The old dodderer must have gone soft in the head to put up with such a viper…Director Tchae had heard all this before, or rather read it in his spies’ reports, bet it was another matter altogether to hear the words spoken by human voices and accompanied by malicious laughter.

It wasn’t until his aide had left the room that Tchan began to feel a little calmer. He lit a cigarette, though there was another, still unfinished, resting on the ashtray. The material supplied by these mikes was clearly quite a different kettle of fish from the work of his spies. They merely reported things orally or in writing, relying on their memories, and the value of their evidence depended not only of the acuteness of their hearing but also on their training, talent, culture, and state of mind at the time. However reliable and devoted they were, there was always an element of uncertainty about their reports, which might exaggerate things or play them down, distort them wholly or in part, or even invent them altogether. It depended on the individual spy’s ambition, his recent successes or failures, and his personal relations with the suspect, if he happened to know him. The spies looked down on agents provocateurs and ordinary informers as underhand, unreliable, and often corrupt. “We don’t skulk around deceiving people,” they boasted. Our work is clean and straightforward: we put our ear to the wall or the ceiling and report truthfully. We heard this or that, or we didn’t hear anything at all Whereas informers and agents provocateurs — ugh! they make things up, they slander people, they settle personal scores…” Nevertheless, the spies themselves weren’t always entirely objective, whereas this new equipment was honesty itself, and reported everything exactly as it was, fully and impartially. Now Director Tchan really could pride himself on doing his job properly.

Now he really could listen in. The implications were dizzying. The whole chaos and tumult of humanity would now be wafted up to him. This morning’s work opened up vistas of light and darkness, ecstasy and horror. He thought of the mysterious power exercized by the demons of old. What could they do that he himself couldn’t do now?

8

Van Mey met his friends at the end of the week. They swapped the latest news as usual; as usual it was awful, and could only get worse. A fierce power struggle was said to be going on among the factions in Peking. The winter would only bring new waves of terror. Apparently Mao wasn’t well

“An Albanian delegation came to the factory yesterday,” said Van Mey, “and I had to take them round.”

“What were they like? What did they say?”

“Hard to say, really. I took them to the shop floor, as we usually do with foreigners, but they just looked and smiled. You couldn’t tell what they were thinking.”

“How can they like what they see? And they don’t know half the horrors we have to live with…”

“All they see is just window-dressing,’ said Van Mey.

“But it’s not very difficult to see past it.”

“Perhaps they do see past it, but they pretend not to,” said Van Mey. “In Albania, apparently, people go to concerts to listen to Beethoven — the women wear lipstick and jewellery. The delegation must have noticed how barren and monotonous our lives are here.”

“But they pretend not to notice. Partly for political reasons, partly because they think this sort of life is quite good enough for the Chinese.”

“Do you think so? Well, I think their own lives will gradually become just as arid as ours. Then they’ll understand how awful it is, but by then it’ll be too late.”

“All the time I was taking them round I wanted to say to them: ‘Are you blind? How can you possibly not see what’s going on here?'”

“That would have been sheer madness!”

“Maybe, but if I’d had the chance Pd have whispered a message to them in the few words of French I know. Pd have told them, ‘Don’t believe anything you see — everything is going to the dogs!’ But it was quite impossible! I only had about half a minute alone with one of them, and as soon as I opened my mouth the other guide showed up. But I think that Albanian guessed something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Almost certain.”

They went on trudging along the muddy road, amid the rats left by the wheels of heavy lorries. It was cold.

“Well probably be able to meet next week for you know what… The medium is going to get in touch. So on Thursday or Friday …”

“ill be there,” said Van Mey. “Without fail!”

9

Every morning now when he got to his office, Tchan, instead of looking at the papers, or any urgent reports, or his timetable for the day, sat straight down and listened to the tapes that had been recovered during the previous night.

After which, he usually looked very down in the mouth, and was in a bad temper for most of the morning. His assistants had noticed all this, and had tried to think of a way of getting him to listen to the tapes at the end of the day instead of at the beginning. But all their efforts were vain. And to think this was only the start! What would it be like when the weather got really cold and people got even more discontented? The qietingqis” tapes would overflow with complaints.

They were full enough now, in the middle of autumn. It was hard to see how they could hold more, or more sinister, grumbles. Everyone and everything was castigated, no one and nothing was spared. Insults were directed as much against members of the Party as against yesterday’s men. Supporters of Zhou Enlai bad-mouthed supporters of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing to the top of their bent, while the latter did the same to Deng Xiaoping, and all of them joined together to criticize Mao. Tchan couldn’t believe his ears. He wound the tape back. But there it was — he hadn’t been imagining things. What a diabolical racket!

On many a morning Tchan found himself burying his head in his hands, or clenching his jaw so hard he could scarcely feel it. What was all this clamour? According to the proverb, water must go murky before it can start to clear. Was this the explanation? He shrank from this hypothesis. But Chairman Mao couldn’t have made a mistake. It must be the Chinese themselves: they had been getting more wicked lately.

Tchan felt his own attitude hardening daily. He had sent one report to the Zhongnanhai via the two envoys, who had jest left N—, and he was now preparing another. When instructions came from the capital, he would strike. And he would strike without mercy, so that the citizens of N— would remember it for generations.

Later on, at the end of the day’s work, he pet his report in an envelope, sealed it, and sent it, together with two tapes, to the villa in Peking where foreign delegations were put up. The covering note read as follows: “As none of our staff speaks Albanian, we are sending you, for decoding, some tapes concerning the Albanian delegation which has just left N—.” Tchan was exhausted. He locked up his office and went out to the waiting car, “Home,” he told the driver.