Ismail Kadarе - The Palace of Dreams

“What’s the matter?” he breathed. “Is it Kurt?”

Loke nodded.

“Isn’t he going to be freed? How many years’ imprisonment has he been sentenced to?”

Loke’s eyes, almost dissolving in tears, just gazed at him sadly.

“I asked you how long a sentence they’ve given him,” Mark-Alem repeated. But still she didn’t answer. Just went on gazing at him tearfully.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, then, gradually guessing what had happened, burst into tears himself.

Kurt had been sentenced to death and decapitated. The news had just arrived.

Mark-Alem went and shut himself up in his room, while his mother wept alone in hers. How could it have happened? he kept asking himself. How could it be that, when Kurt’s release had seemed just a matter of days, he could have been condemned to death and summarily executed? He clutched his brow. Did this mean that the Quprilis’ counterattack, their recovery of power and his own meteoric rise, were only illusions, a false triumph preceding some new blow? But he didn’t care about anything anymore. Let them strike, the sooner and the more cruelly the better, and get the whole business over once and for all.

Next morning, pale and wan, he went into the Tabir Sarrail, convinced he was going to be relieved of his new post and sent back to his former duties in Interpretation, or even in Selection. But his subordinates greeted him with the same respect as they had always shown since his promotion, and his pallor seemed to make them even more attentive. As they came and set various papers in front of him, he examined their expressions and their words for signs of mockery. Finding none, he felt reassured. But this didn’t last long. His anxiety revived at the thought that even if his dismissal or demotion had already been decided, his staff wouldn’t know about it yet. He thought up an excuse for going to see the Director-General, and when he was told the Director-General was unwell and not coming in that day, this merely seemed part of the elaborate joke that was being played on him.

Mark-Alem’s anxiety lasted several days. Then early one morning—he’d noticed that everything that happened to him did so when he least expected it—the Director-General sent for him. About time too! thought Mark-Alem as he got up to go. Strangely enough, he didn’t feel any emotion. It was as if he’d gone deaf and the only sound was that of his footsteps as he went along the corridor. When he presented himself in the Director-General’s office, he was struck by the extreme gravity of the other’s expression. Of course, he thought, it’s only natural he should be serious when it’s a question of dismissing a Quprili. In their family, both promotion and its opposite were always dealt with ceremoniously. The Director was talking to him, but he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t really interested in what he had to say. He just wanted to get out of this office as fast as possible and go to the section he was being sent to, whether it was Selection or even copying, and there take an unassuming place amid the hundreds of anonymous clerks. At one point he felt inclined to interrupt: Why not cut it short? What was the point of beating about the bush? There was no point in these long preambles. But apparently the Director enjoyed playing cat and mouse with him. Who knows, perhaps he wasn’t sorry to be getting rid of this young sprig from the Quprili family. Perhaps it had even occurred to him that he, Mark-Alem, might one day do him out of his job. As a matter of fact he’d once hinted at the possibility….

Mark-Alem frowned. How dared the man use such coarse sarcasm on him? It was going too far! Now the Director was actually offering him his congratulations! Easy for him to make fun of me! he thought. And then a moment later: I must be going crazy….

“Mark-Alem—don’t you feel well?” said the Director solicitously.

“Go on—I’m listening,” he answered coldly.

Now it was the Director’s turn to be astonished. He smiled tentatively.

“I must admit I didn’t expect you to react like this….”

“What do you mean?” said Mark-Alem as curtly as before.

The Director-General flung out his arms.

“Of course, everyone has the right to receive news like this as he thinks fit. All the more so in the case of someone like you, coming from an illustrious family of prime ministers…”

“I’d be obliged if you’d get to the point,” said Mark-Alem, who could feel the perspiration trickling down his forehead.

The Director-General stared.

“I thought I’d made myself perfectly clear,” he muttered. “To tell the truth, I still can’t take it in myself… calling someone to my office to tell them that…”

Mark-Alem could scarcely hear for the buzzing in his ears. What the other was saying was simply incredible. Gradually, bit by bit, it penetrated to his brain. The words “appointment,” “dismissal,” “replacing the Director-General,” “post of Director-General” really had been uttered, but with a completely different meaning from what he had at first supposed. For a good quarter of an hour the Director-General of the Tabir Sarrail had been explaining that he, Mark-Alem, while continuing in his post as head of the Master-Dream section, was also, by direct orders from on high, appointed First Assistant Director of the Palace of Dreams, and thus assistant to himself, the Director-General, who, as Mark-Alem knew, would often be absent for reasons of health.

The Director-General, as he slowly repeated what he had already said once, seemed to be trying to make out why this news should have met with such a cool reception. But his amazement was now accompanied by a tinge of suspicion.

Mark-Alem rubbed his eyes, then without lowering his hands murmured:

“I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very well today. Please forgive me.”

“No, no… don’t worry about it,” said the Director. “As a matter of fact, I could tell you were unwell as soon as you came in. You must take better care of yourself, especially now that you’re going to have all this extra work. I wasn’t careful enough myself, and now, as you see, I’m paying the price. Anyway, let me congratulate you! With all my heart! Good luck!”

Every time he recalled this tête-à-tête in the days that followed, Mark-Alem felt an almost physical pain. On top of that, he was overwhelmed with work. The Director-General was absent most of the time for health reasons, and Mark-Alem had to replace him for several days running. Burdened as he was, he’d become even more morose. The gigantic mechanism, which he was now to all intents and purposes running, functioned day and night. Only now did he realize how vast the Tabir Sarrail really was. Senior State officials were timid when they entered his office. The Assistant Minister of the Interior, who visited him often, was careful never to interrupt him when he spoke. In the Assistant Minister’s eyes, as in those of all the other senior officials, there was, despite their polite smiles, a constant query: Is there a dream about me?… Being powerful and laden with honors, holding important posts and enjoying influential support—all this was not enough to reassure them. What mattered was not merely what they were in life; equally important was the part they played in other people’s dreams, the mysterious carriages they drove in in those dreams, and the emblems and cabalistic signs carved on their carriage doors….

Every morning, when the daily report was brought in to him, Mark-Alem felt as if he were holding in his hands the previous night of millions and millions of people. Anyone who ruled over the dark zones of men’s lives wielded enormous power. And with every week that went by, Mark-Alem grew more aware of this.