The Palace of Dreams Read online

  THEPALACE

  OF DREAMS

  ALSO BY ISMAIL KADARE

  The Concert

  Elegy for Kosovo

  The File on H.

  The Pyramid

  Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

  The Successor

  The Three-Arched Bridge

  THEPALACE

  OF DREAMS

  A NOVEL

  ISMAIL KADARE

  TRANSLATED FROM

  THE FRENCH OF JUSUF VRIONI

  BY BARBARA BRAY

  ARCADE PUBLISHING • NEW YORK

  Fifteen hundred copies of the Collector’s Edition of

  Palace of Dreams

  have been specially printed on 100 gsm Chinese Yulong Cream paper. Each copy has a ribbon marker, decorative endpapers, and is bound in wibalin with gilt stamping on the cover and spine.

  Copyright © 1990, 2011 by Librairie Arthème Fayard English-language translation copyright © 1993, 2011 by HarperCollins Publishers

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  First published in Albania in 1981 under the title Nepunesi i pallatit te endrrave

  Arcade Publishing books maybe purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected]

  Arcade Publishing® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.arcadepub.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-61145-327-0

  Printed in China

  CONTENTS

  i Morning

  ii Selection

  iii Interpretation

  iv A Day Off

  v The Archives

  vi The Dinner

  vii The Coming of Spring

  THEPALACE

  OF DREAMS

  MORNING

  The curtains were letting in the uncertain light of dawn, and as usual he pulled up the blanket in the hope of dozing on a while longer. But he soon realized he wouldn’t be able to. He’d remembered that this sunrise heralded no ordinary day, and the thought drove away all desire for sleep.

  A moment later, as he groped by the bed for his slippers, he felt an ironical grimace flit briefly over his still-numb face. He was dragging himself from his slumbers in order to go to work at the Tabir Sarrail, the famous bureau of sleep and dreams. To anyone else the paradox might have seemed wryly entertaining, but he was too anxious to smile outright.

  A pleasant aroma of tea and toast floated up from downstairs. He knew both his mother and his old nurse were awaiting him eagerly, and he did his best to greet them with some show of warmth.

  “Good morning, Mother! Good morning, Loke!”

  “Good morning, Mark-Alem. Did you sleep well?”

  There was a gleam of excitement in their eyes, connected, no doubt, with his new appointment. Perhaps, like himself not long before, they’d been thinking this was the last night when he’d enjoy the peaceful sleep of ordinary mortals. From now on his life was bound to be different.

  As he ate his breakfast he couldn’t concentrate his thoughts on anything, and his anxiety continued to grow. When he went upstairs to dress, instead of going back to his room he went into the big drawing room. The pale blue tones of the carpet had lost their power to soothe. He went over to the bookshelves and, just as he had done the day before in front of the medicine cabinet, stood for some time gazing at the titles on the spines of the books. Then he put out his hand and took down a heavy folio volume bound in dark-brown, almost black, leather. It was years since he’d last opened it. It contained the history of his family, and on the cover some unknown hand had inscribed the title, The Quprilis from Generation to Generation, followed by the French word, Chronique.

  As he turned the pages he had difficulty following the lines of manuscript, the style of which varied with the different authors. It wasn’t hard to guess that most of the writers had been old men, or else younger ones confronting the end of their lives or on the brink of some great misfortune—the sort of occasion when people feel an irresistible need to leave some testimony behind them.

  The first of our great family to attain high office in the Empire was Meth Quprili, horn some three hundred years ago in a small town in central Albania.

  Mark-Alem heaved a deep sigh. His hand went on turning the pages, but his eyes paused only on the names of viziers and generals. Lord, they were all Quprilis! he thought. And when he woke up he’d been stupid enough to wonder at his own appointment! He really must be a prize idiot.

  When he came upon the words Palace of Dreams, he realized he’d been trying both to find and to avoid them. But it was too late to skip to the next page.

  Our family’s connections with the Palace of Dreams have always been very complicated. At first, in the days of the Yildis Sarrail,which dealt only with interpreting the stars, things were relatively simple. It was when the Yildis Sarrail became the Tabir Sarrail that they began to go wrong….

  Mark-Alem’s anxiety, which a short while ago had been distracted by all those names and titles, now seized him by the throat once more.

  He started leafing through the Chronicle again, but this time roughly and fast, as though a gale had suddenly started to blow through the tips of his fingers.

  Our patronymic is a translation of the Albanian word Ura (qyprija or kurpija); it refers to a bridge with three arches in central Albania, constructed in the days when the Albanians were still Christians and built with a man walled up in its foundations. After the bridge, which he helped to build, was finished, one of our ancestors, whose first name was Gjon, followed an old custom and adopted the name of Ura, together with the stigma of murder attached to it.

  Mark-Alem slammed the book shut and hurried from the drawing room. A few moments later he was out in the street.

  It was a wet morning, with a light sleet falling. The tall buildings, looking down on the bustle in the streets with their heavy doors and wickets still shut, seemed to add to the gloom.

  Mark-Alem buttoned his overcoat right up to the neck. As he glanced at the swirls of delicate flakes fluttering around the wrought-iron streetlamps, he felt a cold shudder run down his spine.

  As usual at this hour of the day the avenue was full of clerks from the ministries hurrying to get to their offices on time. Mark-Alem wondered several times as he went along whether he ought to have taken a cab. The Tabir Sarrail was farther away than he’d thought, and a thin layer of half-melted snow was making the pavements slippery.

  He was now walking past the Central Bank. A little farther on, a line of frost-covered carriages stood outside another imposing building. He wondered which ministry it was.

  Someone in front of him skidded on the pavement. Mark-Alem watched him as he tried to recover his balance, fell, picked himself up, examined—muttering an oath as he did so—first his bespattered cape and then the place on which he’d slipped, and finally continued on his way, somewhat dazed. Keep your eyes open! Mark-Alem said inwardly, not quite sure if he was warning the stranger or himself.

  As a matter of fact, there was no need for him to worry. He hadn’t been told to present himself at the office at any particular time; he w
asn’t even sure he had to be there in the morning. He suddenly realized he had no idea of the hours that were kept at the Tabir Sarrail.

  Somewhere in the mist, away to his left, a clock let out a brazen chime, addressed as if to itself. Mark-Alem walked on faster. He’d already turned up his fur collar, but now involuntarily made as if to turn it up again. In fact, though, it wasn’t his neck that was cold, but a specific place in his chest. He felt in the inside pocket of his jacket to make sure his letter of recommendation was still there.

  He suddenly noticed there were fewer people about than before. All the clerks are in their offices already, he thought with a pang. But he soon calmed down; his position was quite different from theirs. He wasn’t a civil servant yet.

  In the distance he thought he could make out a wing of the Tabir Sarrail, and when he got nearer he found he was right. It really was the Palace, with its faded cupolas which looked as if they’d once been blue, or at least bluish, but which were now almost invisible through the sleet. This was one of the sides of the building. The front must face on to the street around the comer.

  He crossed a small, almost deserted esplanade, over which rose the strangely slender minaret of a mosque. Yes, here was the entrance to the Palace. Its two wings stretched away into the mist, while the main part of the building stood back a little as if recoiling from some threat. Mark-Alem felt his anxiety increase. Before him lay a long series of identical entrances, but when he got nearer he realized that all these great doors, wet from the sleet, were closed, and looked as if they hadn’t been opened for some time.

  As he strolled by them, examining them out of the comer of his eye, a man with a cowl over his head suddenly materialized beside him.

  “Which is the way in?” asked Mark-Alem.

  The man pointed to the right. The sleeve of his cape was so ample it remained unaffected by the movement of the arm within, and his hand was dwarfed by the enormous folds of cloth. Good heavens, what a strange getup, thought Mark- Alem as he went in the direction indicated. After a while he heard more footsteps nearby. It was another hooded man.

  “Over here,” he said. “This is the staff entrance.”

  Mark-Alem, flattered at being taken for a member of staff, finally found the entrance. The doors looked very heavy. There were four of them, all exactly alike and fitted with heavy bronze knobs. He tried one of them and found it, strangely, lighter than he’d expected. He then found himself in a chilly corridor with a ceiling so high he felt as if he were at the bottom of a pit. On either side there was a long row of doors. He tried the handles of all of them until one opened, admitting him to another, less icy corridor. At last, beyond a glass partition, he saw some people. They were sitting in a circle, talking. They must be ushers or at least some kind of reception staff, for they were all wearing a sort of pale blue livery much the same color as the Palace cupolas. For a moment Mark-Alem thought he could see marks on their uniforms like those he’d noticed in the distance on the cupolas themselves and ascribed to damp. But he didn’t have time to pursue his examination, for the people he was observing had stopped talking and were looking at him inquiringly. He opened his mouth to greet them, but they were so obviously annoyed at having their conversation interrupted that instead of saying good morning he merely mentioned the name of the official to whom he was supposed to present himself.

  “Oh, it’s about a job, is it?” said one of them. “First floor on the right, door eleven!”

  Like anyone entering a large government office for the first time, but all the more so because he had arrived in a state of numb uncertainty, Mark-Alem would have liked to exchange a few words with someone. But these people seemed so impatient to resume their confounded conversation he felt they were actually ejecting him back into the corridor.

  He heard a voice behind him: “Over there—on the right!” Without looking around he walked on as directed. Only the tension he was under and the cold shudders still running through his body prevented him from feeling annoyed.

  The corridor on the first floor was long and dark, with dozens of doors opening off it, tall and unnumbered. He counted ten and stopped outside the eleventh. He’d have liked to make sure it really was the office of the person he was looking for before he knocked, but the corridor was empty and there was no one to ask. He drew a deep breath, stretched out his hand, and gave a gentle tap. But no voice could be heard from within. He looked first to his right, then to his left, and knocked again, more loudly this time. Still no answer. He knocked a third time and, still hearing nothing, tried the door. Strangely enough it opened easily. He was terrified, and made as if to close it again. He even put out his hand to clutch it back as it creaked open wider still on its hinges. Then he noticed the room was empty. He hesitated. Should he go in? He couldn’t think of any rule or custom that applied to this situation. Finally the door stopped creaking. He stood gazing wide-eyed at the benches lining the walls of the empty office. After lingering a moment in the doorway he felt for his letter of recommendation, and this restored his courage. He went in. Dash it all, he thought. Seeing in his mind’s eye his large house in Royal Street and the influential relatives who often gathered there after dinner in the huge drawing room with its tall chimneypiece, he sat down on one of the benches with a comparatively casual air. Unfortunately, the image of his house and relatives soon faded, and he was once more seized with apprehension. He thought he detected a muffled sound like a whisper, but couldn’t tell where it came from. Then, looking around the room he discovered a side door, from beyond which seemed to come the sound of voices. He sat still for a moment, straining his ears, but the murmur remained as indistinct as ever. By now his whole attention was concentrated on this door, on the other side of which he for some reason supposed it must be warmer.

  He put his hands on his knees and sat like that for some time. At any rate he’d managed without too much trouble to get inside a building to which very few people had access. It was said even ministers themselves weren’t allowed in without a special pass. Two or three times he glanced at the door where the sound of the voices came from, but he felt he could stay there for hours or even days without standing up and going over to open it. He’d just sit on the bench and wait, thanking his stars for letting him get as far as this anteroom. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. But had it really been as easy as all that? Then he reproached himself: a walk through the drizzle, a few closed doors, some ushers in copper- sulfate—colored liveries, this empty waiting room—you couldn’t really call that difficult.

  And yet, without quite knowing why, he heaved a sigh.

  At that moment the door opened. He stood up. Someone poked his head in, looked at him, then vanished again, leaving the door ajar. Inside, Mark-Alem heard him say: “There’s someone out in the anteroom!”

  Mark-Alem didn’t know how long he waited. The door remained ajar, but instead of human voices he could now hear a strange crackling sound. The man he’d glimpsed before finally reappeared—a very short man holding a sheaf of papers which fortunately, as Mark-Alem said to himself, absorbed most of his attention. Nevertheless, he did dart a searching glance at Mark-Alem, who was tempted to offer some apology for having made him leave what was probably a nice warm office. But the midget’s expression froze the words on Mark-Alem’s lips. Instead, his hand slowly plucked the letter of recommendation from his pocket and held it out. The other seemed about to take it when he suddenly snatched back his arm as if afraid of being burned. He craned forward and scanned the letter for two or three seconds, then drew away. Mark-Alem thought he detected a mocking gleam in his eye.

  “Come with me!” said the little man, heading for the door that led into the corridor.

  Mark-Alem followed him out. At first he tried to memorize their route so as to be able to find his own way out, but he soon gave up the attempt as useless.

  The corridor was even longer than it had seemed before. A faint light reached it from other passages branching off it. Mark-Alem and his g
uide finally turned along one of these. After a while the little man stopped in front of a door and went in, leaving it open for the visitor. Mark-Alem hesitated a moment, but when the other beckoned, he entered too.

  Even before he felt the warmth he recognized the smell of red-hot coals coming from a big copper brazier in the middle of the room. A square-faced man with a morose expression was sitting at a wooden table. Mark-Alem had the feeling he’d been sitting waiting for them with his eyes fixed on the door before they’d even crossed the threshold.

  The midget, with whom Mark-Alem reckoned he’d by now broken the ice, went over to the other man and whispered something in his ear. The man sitting at the table went on staring at the door as if someone were still knocking at it. He listened a moment longer to what the little man was saying, then muttered a few words himself, but in such a way that his face remained completely immobile. Mark-Alem began to think his enterprise was coming to nothing; that neither the letter of recommendation nor any of the other intercessions on his behalf carried any weight in those eyes, whose only interest seemed to reside in the door.

  Then suddenly he heard himself being spoken to. His hand groped nervously inside his coat and brought out the letter of recommendation. But he immediately had the impression that he’d done the wrong thing and changed the atmosphere for the worse. For a split second he thought he must have misheard, but just as he was about to put the letter back in his pocket the midget reached out for the envelope. Mark-Alem, reassured, held it out nearer, but his relief was premature, for the other, as before, drew back and wouldn’t touch the letter. Instead, he waved his hand in the air as if to indicate its proper destination. Mark-Alem, somewhat taken aback, realized he was supposed to hand the letter directly to the other official, who was no doubt superior in rank to his escort.