Ismail Kadare - The Concert

Silva got home at about three o’clock. Brikena had put the lunch on, and was waiting.

“Did Father get off all right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Brikena was clearly disappointed that they hadn’t taken her with them to the airport. After a moment she said:

“Uncle Arian phoned,’’

“Did he? What for?”

Brikena shrugged.

“Did he sound all right?”

“I think so. He wanted to speak to Father. Perhaps to wish him bon voyage,”

“I expect so,” said Silva, feeling relieved.

They ate almost in silence. The apartment seemed unnaturally quiet. While Brikena did the washing up, Silva wandered round the rooms, not knowing what to do with herself. Usually, when Gjergj went away on a mission, she and Brikena embarked on some kind of work in the house that couldn’t easily be done except when he wasn’t there, such as washing the curtains or remaking the mattresses. But this time Silva didn’t feel like doing anything like that. She wasn’t even tempted by the big trunk in which she kept family possessions that had been passed down from generation to generation. Often, when Gjergj was away, she and her daughter would spend hours poring over bits of embroidery, the white dress and tiara which three generations of Krasniqi brides had been married in, and innumerable other mementos.

Silva went out on the balcony; walked along between the clotheslines, with their multi-coloured plastic pegs waiting for the sheets to be hung out to dry; and had a look at the lemon tree. But she couldn’t take any interest in the lemon tree either. She realized that the date for spraying it with insecticide was long past. She sighed. All the tedious things one was supposed to bother with…

She went back inside. Brikena was crouching down by the book. case in the living room. She felt a day like this called for some unusual occupation, and as her mother hadn’t said anything about the trunk or the mattresses, she’d, decided to look at some of the family albums. Silva sat down quietly beside her and watched. Brikena’s fingers looked more slender than usual, perhaps because of the care with which she was turning the pages. Silva thought of all the things they might be doing: seeing to the curtains or, the mattresses, admiring ancient embroidery. But a voice inside her told her to leave the afternoon as it was: empty. Perhaps it would find some way of filling itself.

EVERY EVENING SINCE Gjergj had gone away, Silva waited impatiently for the television news to see what was happening in China. But it was all very confused. They usually began with various speculations about what was going to be done with Mao’s remains. Some people said the body was going to be embalmed, others disagreed, and the commentators tried to link what was going to happen to the corpse with whether or not the Maoist line was still going to be followed in China. But it was obvious that all these generalities represented merely a transition to less important items of news, so when Silva heard the presenter talk of a “confused situation” and a “state of uncertainty”, she stopped listening for a while and used the interval to ask Brikena:

“Did anyone call from the foreign ministry?”

“No,” said her daughter.

Never had any of Gjergj’s absences seemed so long. Reason told Silva not to worry. As a foreigner he wouldn’t be involved, whatever might be happening in China. But Silva couldn’t help remembering his description of the charred walls of the British embassy in Peking, just opposite the Albanian embassy.

After they’d discussed every possible theory about developments in China, the television pundits would come back to the less ephemeral subject of the embalming.

In everyday life, conversation tended to concentrate on much the same topics. People started referring to ancient Egyptian mummies, even citing names like Ramses II and Tutankhamen, though in the past the dates of the Pharaohs had made them fail their history tests. The talk would then move on to schoolboy japes and anecdotes about examinations, and this would lead them back to Mao’s corpse again. There was always some worshipper of the past to maintain that the skills of our distant ancestors had never been surpassed in certain fields, and that there certainly wasn’t anyone today to rival them in the art of embalming.

“All this talk about a body!” said Arian Krasniqi, Silva’s brother one evening. “They’d do better to tell us what they’re going to do with his soul!”

Since Gjergj had been away he’d come to see his sister more often, and Silva was glad to see him joining in the conversation again.

“You’re right,” she told him. “Even if you have to talk about the body in these circumstances, it’s the soul that matters.”

“What?” said Brikena. “And supposing the soul doesn’t exist?”

Silva and Sonia burst out laughing.

“We were only talking about his ideas!”

Sonia stroked her niece’s cheek. Brikena had blushed after she’d spoken.

“My clever little girl,” Sonia whispered to her.

“Skënder Bermema got back from China a fortnight ago, and the day before yesterday he read us a poem about the embalming of Mao,” said Silva. “Wait, I think I’ve got it in my bag.” She went over to the sideboard. “Yes, here it is. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, yes!” cried Arian.

Silva unfolded the piece of paper, and even though she had heard the poem before she frowned as she saw it again, as if remembering she’d been shocked by it.

“It’s called The Old Embalmers.”

The old embalmers from the province of Kung Lie

started out on their way and are still on it.

On they march to Peking in the biting cold,

For there it’s said the Chairman is dead.

Among embalmers they have no equal

Peerless are they in their time.

One guts the body, the second empties the brain,

The third excels at preparing balms and spices.

They go gladly along the roads

knowing that the mortal remains

of the aged and illustrious departed

have been consigned to their zeal.

All three were so sad before

At never being summoned to Peking.

And now “The day of the immortals is over!” -

they sigh dejectedly.

Lin Biao was dead, Zhou Enlai too.

The bones of the Erst charred under a foreign sky.

The ashes of the second scattered in the wind.

And no one had thought of the three little old men.

“It looks as if we shall die without embalming anyone any more,’

They sighed as night enfolded them.

Then one day they saw someone coming:

A messenger from the distant capital

So they set out, driven mad by the good news.

Summer and winter they marched, year after year.

One guts the body, the second empties the brain.

The third excels at preparing balms and spices.

Silva looked up.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she said,

“It’s more than strange!” exclaimed Arian. “If I’m not mistaken it says at the end that the embalmers have gone mad.”

Silva checked,

“Yes, Here’s the line: ‘So they set out, driven mad by the good news.'"

She was just going to say something else when they heard the phone ring. It seemed to ring more loudly than usual Silva and Brikena both got up together.

“Arian — it’s for you,” Silva called from the hall.

“Who is it?” he asked as he came towards her.

But she jest shrugged as she handed him the receiver.

As he was speaking, everyone left in the room fell silent. When the women looked outside they could see it was dark. It was as if the ringing of the telephone had suddenly made night fall.

Arian was on the phone for a very long time. When he came back into the room his face looked drawn.