Ismail Kadare - The Concert

“Here’s something based on what he told me. I’ll leave it for you to give to him when he gets back. You can read it yourself if you like, and if you have time.”

“I certainly shall!” she said.

“Twelve Versions of the Arrest of Jiang Qing!” someone quipped.

But Skënder Bermema wasn’t so cheerful now. A hidden preoccupation of his had risen to the surface again. He’d do better to concentrate on the different versions of his own death, he told himself. Three days before he’d received an anonymous letter full of threats. The second in a month.

“What would you like to drink?” Silva asked him,

“Anything!”

They talked for a while about the mysteries of China in general, then discussed what was going to happen to Jiang Qing and the likely repercussions of current events on relations between China and Albania. Silva said she couldn’t believe Mao’s widow was in prison; Skënder said he couldn’t believe she was still alive.

“You always go to extremes!” Silva told him,

“Gjergj will satisfy our curiosity when he gets back,” said Sonia.

“I don’t think anyone could satisfy my curiosity about China,” said Skëeder, looking at his watch. “Don’t let’s miss the late-night news, There’s bound to be something new.”

But though Silva tried all the channels, none of them was showing any news.

Arian Krasniqi woke with a start, as if someone had shaken him. For a moment or so he didn’t know where he was. Then he heard his wife breathing ie and out beside him. It must have struck midnight long ago. He had the feeling that something he couldn’t identify had been weighing down on him in his sleep, something he’d tried to thrust away, only to find his hands pinned down by it. They were still quite stiff and cramped. He even had difficulty separating them from one another. It was as if he’d emerged from the horrible sensation of being handcuffed.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had this sensation while he was asleep. The shrill whistle of a train was fading away in the distance, it must have been that which suggested the feeling of handcuffs: he’d heard the whistle of a train when he’d first had to wear them, the night after his arrest.

He turned over in bed, but he couldn’t get back to sleep. Fragmentary memories of the past evening kept coming back to him. Dinner at Suva’s; people talking about the arrest of Jiang Qing…Sonia had asked bluntly if these new developments could mean more trouble for her husband. If her question hadn’t been addressed to Skënder Bermema, Arian would have insisted on changing the subject, He didn’t want to hear any more about China. If my life is going to depend on what happens there, he thought, then God help me!

As a matter of fact it did sometimes seem to him, especially at night, that his fate depended on the vagaries of a political mechanism that now affected more than a single country — a terrifying international juggernaut! Chained to those chariot wheels, how could you tell which direction misfortune would strike from? The chains you were bound with might come from as far away as the forges of Normandy — or from even further: from those of the Golden Horde. “Will you sleep with me, floozie? — you won’t get even a walk-on part unless youdo!” These words, spoken backstage in some theatre in Shanghai, far away in time and space, might one day influence his own destiny. For didn’t people say that it was the memory of some such ancient insult that had made Jiang Qing pursue the Cultural Revolution so ferociously, especially in Shanghai?

“Do you think we’re living in Shanghai?” The weary eyes of the examining magistrate bored into his. Why had he shouted such a thing on the telephone, during the famous manoeuvres? What had Shanghai got to do with it? Why had he been thinking about Shanghai?

Arian turned over again in bed, and again he felt the weight of handcuffs. They felt so real that once more he flung his arms about to try to throw them off.

The telegram announcing Gjergfs retern reached Silva the next day, just before people left their offices, it left her in some confusion, as it didn’t give the number of the iight or the time of arrival She phoned the foreign ministry, but the people who should have been able to give her the information she needed were not available. The airport was not much better: they weren’t expecting any direct flights from China today — so the passenger she was interested in might come either via Belgrade or on the flight from East Berlin.

Fearing Gjergj might arrive just as she was wasting time on the phone, she got her boss’s permission to leave early and rushed downstairs and out through the rain to the taxi rank in front of the State Bank. She was lucky: there was a taxi free.

“To the airport,’ she told the driver. “As fast as you can, please!”

On the way, she scanned the telegram to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. But no, Gjergj couldn’t have known himself what plane he was coming by.

The airport building was half empty. There was practically no heating in the arrivals hall The sound of the rain streaming down the windows added to the sense of desolation.

The plane from Yugoslavia had landed some time ago; no one knew when the flight from East Berlin would arrive. Why? Because of the bad weather? Silva asked. Perhaps, said a woman at the information desk.

Silva sat in a corner and ordered a coffee. The rain went on pouring down. She clasped her arms round her knees and sat there thinking, staring at the windows. She was cold. Her thoughts were growing numb, and as they did so her impatience and alarm also faded. Was this because of the monotonous patter of the rain on the windows, or because she herself was so tired? It occurred to her that, to anyone outside looking in, she must look as vague and inaccessible as the landscape looked to her, inside looking out. It was an apt image for her, sitting here alone on this dreary day in this draughty airport, scanning the sky as she waited for a plane to emerge from the clouds, bringing back her husband by an unknown route from a far-off country racked by plots and shrouded in mystery.

She didn’t know how long she sat there. At one point she came out of her reverie and saw that her coffee was cold and untouched. She hadn’t noticed the waiter bringing it.

She went home very demoralized. The plane from East Germany had been cancelled, and no one knew if it would be coming the next day or the day after.

She wandered round the kitchen for a while, but hadn’t the heart to do anything. As she was sitting down on the settee, she suddenly remembered the envelope Skënder Bermema had given her, and got up again to fetch it. She’d left it on Gjergj’s bedside table, for a surprise when he got home.

As soon as she’d read the first few lines, she realized these notes might have been written specially for such a day as this.

Peking… Winter’s day. Some international airlines have suspended their flights because of Mao’s death, I'll have to wait a week, perhaps a fortnight, for them to start up again. You can imagine how fed up I am. Shut up in my hotel. Alone. Surrounded by people in mourning.

I looked again at the notes for my novel, half hoping that it would come to life again. But no…my hope was still-born.

Notes written in a state of boredom …I don’t know where! read that. The author was probably some Japanese monk who lived in the early Middle Ages.

I spent all day, in spite of myself, thinking about the death of Lin Biao. Probably because of the new rumour going around about the circumstances of his death.

I went over and over what Gj— D— told me about it, It’s quite interesting to compare what was said thee with what is being said now. According to what we’ve heard so far, it’s generally admitted, both in China and abroad, that Lin Biao really did foment a plot aimed at assassinating Mao. So in a way Mao’s riposte was quite justified. What we don’t know is whether the marshal’s plot to kill Mao was the same as Mao’s plot to kill the marshal