Ismail Kadare - The File on H.

They spent the whole afternoon sorting out their notes and file cards. Outside, the light was failing by the minute, and there came a time when their conversation flagged. On this late winter’s afternoon, they felt completely cut off, swaddled in silence, in a faraway inn. Would every day be the same?

Max was the first to think how to shake off the encroaching glooms he lit the oil lamp, whose beam kept at bay the somber dusk that had now covered the face of the world outside like a death mask.

THE FIRST RHAPSODE put in at the Buffalo Inn four days laten Windswept rain rattling the shutters had been getting on the Irishmen’s nerves.,When Shtjefen appeared in the doorway, they realized from the expression on his face that their keenest wish had been granted.

"He’s downstairs,” the innkeeper whispered, as if imparting a secret.

The rhapsode was on his way to a different part of the country on personal business; he would come back by the same route in a fortnight; if Shtjefen had understood the scholars correctly, this was exactly the kind of circumstance they were seeking in order to record twice over the singing of the same bard.

“Lahuta players are not easygoing people,” Shtjefen continued," and it wasn’t simple to persuade this one to stay. ‘It’s dreadful weather,' I told him, 'and it’s getting late. Believe me, I have no stake in this, and of course you’ll get free lodging. five got only one request to make …,’ and that’s when I told him about you two.“

In the common quarters on the ground floor, there sat a handful of highlanders, all soaked to the skin. Before making out which of them was the rhapsode, the scholars noticed the labuta propped against the wall Then Shtjefen put his hand on the shoulder of one of the men (just at the spot where the cut-off ribbons were sewn to his cloak), and the man turned around. They reached agreement on the spot. The rhapsode looked hard at one of the foreigners for a long moment, seemingly to remove a doubt from his mind. The Irishmen had rarely seen eyes so fair or so piercing, with what seemed like a crack running through them, as if they were staring through a broken mirror. The innkeeper kept talking to the rhapsode, who did not appear to be listening, but then he lowered his head sharply, a gesture signifying yes. In accordance with ancient custom, he would not accept any reward. It was understood only that he would not pay for his night at the inn.

Getting the tape recorder downstairs was a troublesome business, just as getting it up to the room in the first place had been. The highlanders watching from the ground floor were intrigued.

Night had fallen, and Shtjefen lit the tall oil lamp, the one used for important occasions. There was a special, party atmosphere at the inn this evening. Only the rhapsode, who was aware of being the hero of the night, stood aside, looking calmly at the tape recorder. Bill kept glancing at him, trying to imagine what feelings this ultramodern device aroused in the rhapsode: bewilderment? apprehension? guilt about betraying his predecessors, the singers of yore? In the end, he concluded that the rhapsode’s calm masked inner turmoil. It would be the first time that the sound of his voice and of his labuta would not be lost to the air. as sounds had always been, but instead would be collected inside this metal box, like rainwater in a cistern or like … He suddenly feared that the rhapsode might change his mind.

Bill was reassured by the sight of the company, sit. ting in a semicircle, mostly on the floor. The ritual had already begun, and nothing and nobody would halt it now.

At last the rhapsode took up his labuta . It made a monotonous sound that seemed to draw the listener on into some all-embracing dream. Bill and Max glanced at each other. The rhapsode began to sing, in a voice quite unlike his speaking voice. It was unnatural, cold, unwavering, full of an anguish that seemed to come from another world. It made Bill’s spine tingle. He tried to follow the meaning of the words, but the monotonous delivery of the singer made that impossible. It felt as if he were being emptied from inside, as if his guts were being drawn out of him, as if his inner being were slowly being wound along a woolen thread turning on a distaff. The rhapsode’s voice had the ability to hollow you out. If he went on much longer, everyone here was going to dissolve on the spot. But the labuta stopped in time.

In the sudden silence, the tape machine’s soft purring could be heard, and it was Max who reached out a hand to switch it off. Then the crowd came back to life, as if emerging from a trance. Congratulations came from every side. Bill and Max chimed in with their thank-yous in Albanian, but they sounded weak indeed alongside the ritual formulations the highlanders lavished on the rhapsode.

Before the rhapsode began his second song, Max checked the quality of the recording. When the machine reproduced the rhapsode’s voice a little more resonant that it had seemed on first hearings everyone was struck dumb. The man was there, with his mouth shut and his lahuta at rest’ yet you could hear the sound of his voice and of his instrument. There was something quite horrifying about this disconnection this removal of a man from the attributes that gave him his distinct and independent existence.

They all huddled around the machine and gaped at the two reels turning like a pair of grinding wheels. Their eyes were full of questions they did not dare to put into words. So the voice was now stored inside the box, but in what form?

After a short interval the rhapsode sang a second ballad.

“Won’t the two songs get muddled inside there?" one of the traveling highlanders asked in the end pointing to the machine.

Bill tried not to laugh aloud.

It was late at night before they switched off the tape recorder and thanked the rhapsode.

“In a fortnight"’ Shtjefen told him, “when you pass by here again, you’ll sing the same songs. As I told you that’s what interests these gentlemen. They want to make comparisons and I’m not sure what else. Besides you gave me your word as a man, and you’ll keep it.”

“Fear not," said the singer in a somber tone.

“So the voice can be kept in there for a fortnight?” asked one young Highlander. “It doesn’t rust?”

“Not a bit,” Bill replied, “It can stay in there for months, even years.”

The labuta player was staring hard at the case of the recorder. From the glow in the man’s eyes, Bill reckoned that there was something troubling him. What if he changes his mind? Bill wondered anxiously. What if he has found it a bad omen to leave his voice locked and trapped in a box?

The two foreigners bade good night to all and went back up to their room. Shtjefen, for his part, put out the oil lamp and left the large room in darkness.

Bill felt as if the troubled and fitful sleep of the ground-floor guests had followed the two of them upstairs. Tomorrow, he thought — as if he needed to fasten his mind on something clearer and more logical in order to dispel a profound sense of fear caused by he knew not what — tomorrow we’ll have our work cut out! He wrapped himself in his blanket and gave a deep sigh.

Bill woke several times in the night, thinking it was dawn, but each time sunrise seemed to be ever further off. When finally he woke up properly, it was quite late.

Going downstairs, the Irishmen discovered with surprise that the main quarters of the inn were entirely deserted.

“They’ve gone,” Shtjefen said when he noticed their amazement. “Highland folk get up very early.” Through the open door you could see the dark, rain-heavy sky.

"And just think." the innkeeper continued, “they’re traveling in that weather!”