Ismail Kadare - Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

He was tempted to turn his mind to files dealing with less scandalous cases: a man wounded on the high plateau in a boundary dispute; a case of extortion and threats inside the town hall itself; the discovery of a prostitution ring strongly suspected of being based in Vlorë, the port nearest to Otranto…. But, for God knows what reason, he couldn’t get the deep storage business out of his mind. Week after week he had kept on interrogating the only worker to have been arrested after the archive store had been closed. The others had slipped from his grasp. But the one they had shed hardly any light on the business. He just made it seem more mysterious.

“But you were actually present when the newly appointed head of state arrived late at night?”

“Sure, I was there.”

“You must have been surprised to see him turn up like that, in the middle of the night, without any ceremony or fanfare, all alone with his two bodyguards?”

“Sure, it was unexpected, Your Worship.”

“Especially as that particular April day had been very wearying for the head of state. The meeting of the Politburo that had given him supreme power had just finished. Urgent matters awaited his attention; the files were already on his desk. The whole country was still reeling from the late dictator’s funeral. Europe had its eye on Albania, waiting to see what path it would follow. In the army, in the Sigurimi, among the malcontents, the mood was dark and deathly, and all sorts of rumors were spreading like wildfire. Most of them gave guesses about the composition of the next government. Other questions also required immediate answers. But in the midst of all this, the man took his two guards on a seven-hour drive, to trek up a mountain path all the way to your cavern. Bizarre, wasn’t it?”

“It sure was, Your Honor.”

“Presidents are not in the general habit of rushing through the night to consult the Secret Archives, are they? Especially not in the first hours of holding office, right?”

“No, they’re not, Officer.”

“So it must have made you curious. More than curious. What was this man looking for in such haste? Or should I say, in such a fluster? I suspect you wondered, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know how to explain. Of course, I admit that it puzzled me, but, to be honest, it didn’t plunge me into the kind of anxiety you seem to imagine. I thought it must be one of the things that are ordinary for people belonging to higher circles. And that’s all.”

“All the same, once you became aware of the puzzling nature of the event, you must have paid attention, and you did, didn’t you? So whether you like it or not, you tracked the comings and goings of your august visitor.”

“Of course.”

“So can you tell us what they were, precisely?”

“The ones where I was actually present, you mean?”

“Of course, the ones you observed … Do you mean there were other things happening that you didn’t actually see?”

“Of course there were…. Neither I nor anyone else could have observed what he did in the Bat Room.”

“The Bat Room, I understand, has the highest security rating in the entire deep storage depot?”

“That’s right. We call it the Bat Room because a bat once got into it. Up to that time, in fact, the room had no name.”

“Please go on…. If I understand you correctly, the head of state, once he got into the deep storage facility, asked to be taken to that room?”

“Quite so.”

“Without even stopping at the office of the director of the archives? Without even saying ‘Good evening, Comrade’ to you?”

“That’s how it was, sir.”

“Then do go on. Try to remember exactly each of the president’s acts and movements.”

“Well, I’ll try. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, looked at it, and it was then that he asked to be taken to the notorious Bat Room. All the while I kept my eye on the small crowd that had gathered at the metal barrier door. Then the director took two keys from his pocket, and turned one after the other in the two keyholes in the door. There was a third key — but that was one the president himself brought with him. That key was always kept in Tirana, at the Center. So the president took it out and opened the door.”

“And then?”

“He pushed the door open, went into the Bat Room, and closed the door behind him. And after that, nobody can say what went on. Everyone else, including the bodyguards, stayed outside. After a while, the head of state opened the door an inch or two and asked for the director. So the director went in, but came out again after only a couple of minutes. We all just stood there, in silence, at the door.”

“And then?”

“And then, nothing. Our visitor spent nearly three hours in the secret room. He was white as a sheet when he came out. He left with his bodyguards without saying a word. It must have been around 3:00 A.M.”

“So he was white as a sheet when he came out. He came out looking white after spending three hours searching for something. And he left for Tirana immediately. Didn’t that puzzle you? Give you insomnia? Make you want to scream inwardly, ‘This is an enigma! A dark and mysterious enigma!?

“Well, sure it did. We’re human beings too, you know. The whole thing struck us all, but maybe not as hard as you say, when you call it a dark and mysterious enigma or whatever.”

“Really? I see! You don’t like things to be ‘mysterious,’ then?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What was in the secret file? Answer me!”

“But I have no idea! I’ve never even seen it.”

“Has anybody seen it? Answer!”

“No, nobody has seen it.”

“What do you mean, nobody? Someone must have worked on it. Someone must have brought it to the archive, someone must have filed it, someone must have put in the page numbers. Answer!”

“Well, yes, someone did work on it.”

“But you just said nobody had seen it!”

“All right, all right, there was someone, and his name was Shpend Simahori, but he is no longer of this world. He drowned last year in the Strait of Otranto, when he was trying to get to Italy.”

“Aha, the Strait of Otranto! You can lose a lot of things in the big wide sea! When you re looking for someone you really have to find, you never have to wait very long for that familiar tune to come on again: He’s down with Davy Jones, at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea! Now listen to me! This is my last question. Look me straight in the eye and answer!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you ever hear of some strange, not to say horrible, photographs in the files stored down in the Bat Room?”

“No, sir.”

“Keep your eyes on mine! … Did you ever hear tell of a snapshot of the Politburo, standing over the corpse of one of their present or former colleagues, with guns in their hands, delivering the coup de grâce? Answer!”

“No, sir”

“Did you ever see a photograph of the new head of state firing a gun at the lifeless body of a former member of the Politburo?”

“Oh, no, sir!”

“And you did not see the selfsame president looking for that photograph in particular, on that night in April, down in the Secret Archives? This is your last chance. Answer!”

“Oh, God, I would have done far better to drown in the Adriatic!”

… Mark held his forehead in the palms of his hands. This inquiry was wearing him out like no other inquiry ever had. He looked at the clock. It was 3:00 A.M.There was still some time to go.

The whole business was like an infinite set of cogs: files within files within files, with no end to it. He stayed for a long while with his head in his hands, without moving. Then, like a diver who fills his lungs before jumping in, he took a deep breath and plunged back into the paperwork on his desk.