Ismail Kadare - Twilight of the Eastern Gods

As I was crossing Pushkin Square on my way to the Institute, I noticed that people queuing for tickets at the Central Cinema were deeply absorbed in their newspapers. That must mean the press has started its campaign, I thought.

The wind was cold, with something blind and unforgiving about it. I crossed Gorky Street at the junction, went into the pharmacy on the other side and bought some aspirin, then hurried on — I didn’t want to be late for my lecture.

The professor had just come into the lecture hall. I pushed the door open very quietly, and when I entered, I noticed the room was almost empty. It was very dark and I wondered why nobody had put the lights on. Was there a power cut? I could make out two shapes near the windows and a third in a corner; maybe it was Shogentsukov.

The lecturer looked at his watch, brought his wrist closer to his eyes to make out the time, then looked around as if to ask, ‘What’s going on?’ Half out of his briefcase, I saw a morning paper with Pasternak’s name on the front page.

I soon recognised one of the shapes near the window: it was Antaeus. The other one, in the corner, was indeed Shogentsukov. He never missed the first lecture of the day: it was a habit, as he said, that he’d adopted when he was prime minister and held meetings with his cabinet at seven in the morning. Now he was hunkered down in the corner as if he had turned to stone.

The door swung open and the ‘Belarusian Virgins’ made their entrance, with Yuri Goncharov behind them. They were all holding a copy of Literaturnaya gazeta , the organ of the Writers’ Union. Then, on the threshold of the lecture hall, the plump, solemn and drab figure of Ladonshchikov appeared.

‘Morning, comrades,’ he said, in a peculiar voice that seemed to combine a sigh and a threat, concern for the common cause and mournful meditation, executive emotion and the gnashing of teeth.

As they came in each one flicked the light switch and, after looking either at the ceiling fixture or at the lectern, mumbled something about there being no power. Ladonshchikov did likewise, then slumped into his seat and opened his newspaper. ‘ Vot podlets! What a scoundrel!’ he barked, after a while. His face and the unfolded newspaper then engaged in a curious mirror-dance: his eyebrows moved in lock-step with the headlines, his lips responded and his teeth ground in harmony with the printed words.

The lecturer had begun. It was already half past nine but the hall was still in deep twilight. Daylight from the windows cast illumination only as far down as the print of a Repin picture hanging on the wall opposite me. I’d never even read the caption on the painting, which showed a few wooden faces belonging to high officials or to the editorial board of a journal that would never appear, or perhaps they were a military high command that had never gone to war and never would. Any time you were feeling depressed, that picture made your mood even darker.

‘What happened to you?’ Antaeus asked me, in the break. ‘What’s that graze on your forehead?’

I put my hand to my head and discovered that it was a bit sore. ‘I don’t know!’

I really didn’t. Maybe I’d scratched it on the lift cage — or had somebody done it with their nails?

‘Did the drinking go on late last night?’

‘Don’t bring that up.’

Antaeus lived on his own in an apartment on Neglinnaya Street and had not yet caught up with what had gone on at the hall of residence.

‘You’ve heard about the Pasternak affair?’

I nodded. There was a sarcastic gleam in his intelligent eyes.

The rest of the group slowly trickled in. Pale and dishevelled, some looking grey as steel, others with puffy cheeks and narrowed eyes, a few more simply haggard, they burst into the hallway and took off their heavy winter coats. They were all holding a newspaper in one hand. In the state they were in, it was surprising their eyes were still capable of deciphering a headline, let alone an article. It struck me that any normally constituted individual would have shivered with dread on seeing them all loom up like that. They looked as though they had torn their eyes out during a night of tormented sleep, thrown them at random on top of their discarded clothes, and on waking this morning, had fumbled around to find them, stuck them back in any old how, then dashed, squinting, to the Institute.

The next lecture was on art history.

As we trooped back into the hall, the lecturer came up to me and smiled brightly.

‘Your topic was just wonderful,’ she said.

‘What topic?’ I replied, almost scared. ‘I haven’t prepared anything.’

She went on smiling. ‘A living army commanded by the ghosts of a dead general and a dead priest. A fantastic invention!’

‘No, that’s not it,’ I murmured, though I had no wish to elucidate. ‘It’s more like the other way round. A dead army commanded by a living general and a living priest.’

‘Really?’ she said, tipping her head to one side, while I racked my brains, trying to remember when I had told her about it. I had no recall. ‘But that’s even better,’ she went on. ‘I think it’s even more beautiful. Are you aware of the Pasternak business?’

‘Yes.’

She began her lecture, but nobody was paying attention. Minds were elsewhere.

At the next break most students went outside. The courtyard was packed and there was much more excitement than usual. Everybody, from first-year students to seniors, postgraduates and professors, was holding an open or read and refolded copy of Literaturnaya gazeta . Some were reading Pravda or Izvestia , both of which carried front-page attacks on Pasternak. One of the Shotas had an economics magazine that also denounced Pasternak on its front page.

Nobody talked about anything else. Some spoke harshly, others more timidly. The Nobel Prize? ‘Out, damned spot! Out, I say!’ A Scandinavian plague. ‘Even though Sholokhov takes a trip to Sweden every year to make sure the Academicians haven’t forgotten about him?’ someone behind me blurted out.

‘Keep your voice down!’ a friend warned. ‘You talk too much!’

‘What is the Nobel Prize, then?’ Taburokov asked one of the ‘Belarusian Virgins’. ‘I must have heard something about it…’

‘A poisoned gift of the international bourgeoisie,’ she explained.

‘And what does that old running-dog Ilya Ehrenburg say about the business?’ Maskiavicius mumbled behind me. He seemed to be looking for someone to talk to. I kept clear of him as discreetly as I could but, after he’d exchanged a few words with people I barely knew, he decided to launch into Ping, the Chinese student.

‘What do you think of Pasternak?’

Hundred Flower Bloom stared at him in bewilderment.

Maskiavicius asked him a couple more questions but Ping did not open his lips. Then Maskiavicius swore at him. Apparently Ping didn’t grasp the meaning because, as soon as Maskiavicius had turned his back, he pulled a concise dictionary from his pocket and started leafing through it, as he always did when he heard a word he did not know.

Somebody switched on a transistor. Yet more on Pasternak.

‘Looks like the campaign is being conducted throughout the length and breadth of the Soviet Union,’ I said to Antaeus.

‘It’s a joke. A farce.’

‘Why so?’

He looked around, then lowered his voice and whispered, ‘Do you remember the ballad by Goethe where someone calls on the spirits to help him fetch water from a well and then can’t get rid of them?’

We’d already had a conversation about that. For some time nothing had been heard from either Stalin’s supporters or his detractors. The state had been reassuring each side alternately so it could turn on either without warning.