Ismail Kadare - The File on H.

THE DIPLOMATIC BAG from the Royal Albanian Legation in Washington, D.C., arrived on a gloomy winter’s day, of the kind that nature bestows with particular prodigality on the capital cities of small and backward states. It contained visa applications from two Irishmen settled in New York, together with a covering note, which described the applicants first as “folklorists,” then as "alleged folklorists.” Everything else about them was rather sketchy. It seemed they knew a little Albanian, that they were intending to travel the country in search of ancient Albanian heroic songs, and that they would bring a quantity of filing cards and maps relating mainly to the Northern Zone, the area where they proposed to base themselves. In addition, and this was the most amazing thing, they would be bringing with them instruments that recorded voice and sound — weird, previously unheard-of contraptions that were called tape recorders and that, as the legation officials explained, had only just been invented and made available. The covering note concluded: “One cannot rule out the possibility that the two visitors are spies.”

Two weeks after the arrival of the Washington bag, and just a week before the Irishmen were due to land, the Minister of the Interior wrote to the governor of the city of N, repeating more or less exactly what the legation staff had written to him, except that where the legation staff had said: “One cannot rule out the possibility that…,” he wrote: “Apparently these visitors are spies.’ All the same, the minister went on, the men should be observed with the greatest discretion so as not to alert them in the slightest., and generally speaking, the authorities of N— were to behave in such a manner as to make the foreigners feel quite at home.

The minister smiled to himself as he thought of the surprise the governor would have on reading his last sentence, “You nincompoop!" he said to himself. “In your godforsaken hole, how could you understand anything about affairs of state?” The window of the minister’s office allowed him to survey the roof of the Foreign Ministry. He was well aware that envoys from the neighboring ministry were scouring the capitals of Europe in search of some hack writer or pseudohistorian who might be commissioned to write a biography of the king. “Sure, sure." he was fond of repeating, “those guys at the Foreign Office are all properly educated types. So they get to do the glamorous jobs, like tracking down a biographer, but when there’s business to be done, like picking up high-class tarts in Paris bars for the monarch, or finding a catamite for the Speaker, or sorting through all manner of sleazy business, then who do they turn to? Why, to me, the Minister of the Interior!” In spite of everything, he would end up scoring a point over those Foreign Office pansies. If it was he and not they who managed to turn up the king’s prospective biographer, then that would shut them up once and for all! He thought of it every time there were foreigners in Albania, but no really promising opportunity had turned up so far. These Irish scholars, though, seemed just about made for the job, especially as they were suspected of being spies. He would leave them alone for a while to get on with their business, and then, with a bit of luck, he would catch them in flagrante (the phrase summoned up a mental picture of a conjugal bed in which one of the foreigners would be discovered in the very most rudimentary attire, in the company of a woman). Then it would be his turn to deal with them. “Come this way, my lambs. Let’s forget about heroic songs, tapregorders , and such for a while, all right? Sit down, let’s talk things oven You’re going to do something for your friend. You don’t want to? Well, upon my soul, you’re going to force me to show you how angry your friend can get. Ah, I see you’ve decided to be reasonable. That’s just fine! Now we’re talking. What your friend needs won’t be hard for you to do at all You’re scholars, aren’t you? Your file says that you studied at Har … Har … Harvard. Yes? Excellent! Take a seat, please. Your friend will bring you paper and pencils, he’ll get you candy, girls, whatever. But take care! You mustn’t make him angry! You’re going to write the life — the biography, as people say these days — of the monarch. That’s what your friend needs you to do.” With a sense of satisfaction, the minister sealed the envelope addressed to the governor of N—, and then he hit the wax so hard that the seal jumped and made two imprints. The governor received the envelope two days later about ten in the morning and glanced at the seal for a second before breaking it. Experience had taught him that marks of that kind were only ever made by a hand moved by fear, or by anger.

When he read the note inside he felt relieved. "Nothing of the sort,” he said to himself, then he lifted the receiver to give his wife the news.

The cloud of melancholy under which she picked up the telephone was condensed from dozens of disappointments when, having heard it ring, she had rushed to answer in hopes of receiving some uplifting news that would relieve the monotony of her life, only to be greeted through the perforated Bakelite by her husband’s trivial interrogations — What are you doing at the moment? “Is lunch ready?" — or even by the postmaster’s wife, with whom all possible subjects of gossip had long since been exhausted, asking some silly question about making jam.

This time it turned out to be quite different. What her husband had to say was truly unbelievable, to such a degree that in her astonishment, and fearing she had misheard, she said twice over out loud, "Two Irishmen, here? Is that what you said?"

Yes, yes. They’re even going to stay quite some time.”

“How wonderful!” she said, unable to contain her glee. “What good news! I was feeling so low….”

She had indeed spent an unutterably drab morning. The windows were streaked with rain, as they had been the day before. Seen through the dripping-wet panes, the chimneys on the other side of the street all looked crooked. My God, another whole day just like yesterday, she had thought, sighing as she lay on her bed. Not a single idea managed to take shape in her mind: for the likeness of this day to the last seemed to her the clearest proof that it would be another quite useless day, a day she would gladly have done without. For a moment she thought that a day like this would be pointless for anyone on earth, then abruptly she changed her mind as she realized that thousands of women, after a hard week’s work, or a family quarrel, or even after catching a cold, would envy her just for having the leisure to rest in comfort.

Such were her thoughts. Not many people would easily have accepted that, with all her material blessings, the attractive wife of the governor of N— was miserable in that little town. But all of a sudden the telephone had rung, and the day, wound up like a string by that bell, had been transformed from a slack stretch of time into its opposite — a day full of surprise and mystery.

“Two Irishmen here for quite some time!” she muttered, repeating to herself her husband’s words. "What a miracle! This winter will be different!" Her husband had given her to understand that he had received orders to make the foreigners feel completely at home. But of course, she thought as she pictured the cards laid out for bridge, the fire in the hearth, the glint of flames reflected in the crystal glasses. The governor had gone on to explain that the Irishmen were bringing strange contraptions, something like gramophones but much more modern, and she imagined herself in the arms of the one, then in the arms of the other, dancing the tango to the tune called "Jealousy,” They must be pretty young to be lugging around all that gear.