The Concert Page 5

  He’d discussed it with Zhou Enlai. He himself had made a few suggestions, and Zhou had met one of their ministers, a general, and was preparing to get in touch with various important elements in the Albanian economy. Zhou had come round to his own way of thinking: you couldn’t do anything in Albania without the Party, In fact, you had to start with it. And if you managed to mould it, to manipulate it a bit, everything else would follow. Things would take a new course, the ramparts of the citadel, as they liked to call their country, would be no more than camouflage, and their pride would turn into its opposite, their disobedience into docility. And from then on out they would never again dream of writing a letter to oppose an invitation to an American president.

  For a few seconds Mao lost the thread of his thoughts, but then he managed to find it again. All right, keep your Party thee, he said aloud, but on one condition: make a few alterations, I’m not asking anything very difficult - just a bit of a change, a little mutation, as the scientists say. You refuse? In that case the factories will stop going up, the blast furnaces will go out, the dams will crumble, everything will shrivel up into a skeleton. Usually, when a country is reduced to rubble, it’s because of a war, but in your case it will be the débris of peace, than which nothing is more horrible: bodies unburied, souls on the scrap-heap, epidemics, death itself…And Tartar hordes, wolves and jackals with scraps of fur and women’s finery in their jaws…

  Mao Zedong let himself burst out laughing at last, and went on stroking the wall of the cave as if he was trying to wheedle it. The time was now ripe for blackmail Our people on the spot could exploit the situation. According to reliable sources, China had open or covert supporters inside the Albanian government, on the Central Committee even. The “sleepers” could finally emerge from their slumbers. The real game was about to begin. Now you’re going to pay all your outstanding debts. I’m going to tighten the screw -slowly, week after week, month after month, season after season. Sometimes I’ll pretend to slacken off for a bit, so that it’ll hurt all the more when I tighten up again. And so it will go on until you’re at your last gasp, and you yourselves offer me more than I’ve ever asked of you. Ha ha!

  Unhurriedly, as if savouring a good wine which one keeps in one’s mouth as long as possible to enjoy the bouquet, Mao imagined the future Sinization of Albania. First the abolition of the intelligentsia and the downgrading of education, then the erosion’ of history, the consigning of heroes to oblivion, and the emergence of the first new men, the Albanian Lei Fens (what were the first new tractors in comparison?) Rumour had it that they’d already introduced some Chinese elements into the choreography of their ballets. Such portents were still as rare as the first spring flowers, but they would gradually multiply. After the deeds would come the words, and after the words the thoughts. Their reservations about being European would slowly dry up, like water in a citadel under siege. Then one last onslaught and Albania would surrender …It was inevitable…Asia first set its heart on Albania some seven centuries ago. And having acquired it, kept it for five hundred years. Early in the twentieth century, though, Albania, the cunning lynx, managed to escape. But that was the last time it did so, and now there was nowhere for it to go. Little by little, quietly, without any clash of swords, it would come back to Asia, this time for ever. It would be a magnificent moment in the age-old history of China. The first country in Europe to be “Sinified”. And like a patch of leprosy, “Sinification” would gradually spread northward, first to central Europe and then still further. It would be the first victory of Asia over Europe - a victory fraught with consequence. An epoch. making revenge. Therein lay the real significance of Mao’s owe achievement. Unfortunately very few eyes were capable of perceiving it. But great achievements are never seen from close to: only from a distance of years or even centuries can they be appraised justly. So moan away, you benighted fools, and write your anonymous letters: your sight is still as dim as that of a month-old baby. Whereas I am about to enter my eightieth year!

  Once again Mao lost the thread; once again, after some time, he found it again. He pondered about how long the process of “Sinification” would take. Perhaps the first results wouldn’t be apparent until he was ninety years old, or a hundred and forty; but that didn’t matter. Even if the change wasn’t complete until he was a hundred and eighty or three hundred and twenty years old, it still didn’t matter. He’d started seeing life and death as indistinguishable long ago. In his opinion there was only a trifling difference between the two: until a certain year he would go on breathing and moving about. Afterwards…But this was of no more importance to him than moving to a new house or a new job was in the life of an ordinary individual. He saw his life, or perhaps rather his life-and-death, as one and indivisible. Perhaps that was the main reason why every so often he buried himself underground.

  Again his mind wandered, and when he collected his thoughts it was the letter from Albania that came to mind. His anger seemed to be concentrated in his extremities, especially his hands. The one still leaning against the wall plucked at the stone as if to pull it down. Every time he did this he thought how earthquakes were caused. How silly of the Greeks’ god Zeus to think he could bring them about from a distance, from up in the clouds. The globe had to be shaken from below, from down among its foundations.

  Mao’s hand was still on the rock, as if he had no doubt that the earth had begun to tremble and that a cataclysm was about to take place up above.

  That’s the whole difference between you and me, said he, looking in the direction where he supposed Europe, the ancient Greeks, and the whole of white humanity to be.

  3

  THOUGH SILVA WALKED as fast as she could, she still arrived at the ministry slightly late for work.

  Greeting, as she rushed past, a porter almost invisible behind his window, she hurried on up the stairs, and in the first-floor corridor almost collided with Victor Hila, an old acquaintance she hadn’t seen for a long time,

  “How are you?” she asked him, still out of breath. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  He looked at her rather vacantly, and only then did Silva notice how tired and depressed he looked, and how ill-shaven.

  “I’m here on business,” he muttered with a vague wave of the hand. “Can you tell me where the chief vice-minister’s office is?”

  “I’ll take you there. Come along.”

  She led the way, glad to be of help. Though she didn’t see him very often now Ana was dead, she tried to be nice to him, as to all the friends whom the two sisters had once had in common and who now represented a subtle link with the past.

  “Here we are, Victor,” she said kindly.

  He mumbled his thanks and knocked at the door without even offering to shake hands.

  He must be out of sorts or upset about something, she thought as she made her way to her own office. Such behaviour would have offended her, coming from anyone else; but not from him…

  “Good morning,” she said as she opened the door.

  “Good morning, Silva,” answered her boss.

  His addressing her by her first name suggested he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t on time, but as she hung up her raincoat she apologized anyway.

  “I’m afraid I’m a bit late…”

  Linda, looking over from her desk, treated her to a mischievous wink. She’d done her hair differently, and looked even younger than before. She’s only twenty-three, thought Silva as she opened a drawer and took out the files she needed. Why must she try to make herself seem younger still?

  No one spoke. It was now, first thing in the morning, that the silence that usually reigned in government offices weighed most heavily on the people that worked there, preventing them from exchanging a few words about what they’d done the night before, repressing their comments on the latest interesting bit of news. The panes in the tall baroque windows seemed to filter out all the interesting whims and fancies of the weather, admitting only such light as was needed to work by. Beneat
h his sleeked-back hair the boss’s smooth expanse of brow hung motionless over his desk. Silva, sitting close to Linda, could feel almost physically how eagerly her friend longed to turn and talk to her.

  As the morning wore on, Linda’s impatience communicated itself to Silva, and every time the phone rang or someone knocked at the door they both waited with bated breath for their boss to be called away.

  But though he answered several phone calls they never heard him say, “Very well - I’ll be right along.” Then, when they’d almost given up hope, he just got up of his own accord and left the room.

  “Thank goodness!” said Linda as soon as he’d gone, “I don’t feel a bit like work today.”

  “I like your hair-do — it suits you!”

  Linda’s face lit up.

  “Really?”

  “When I came in just now I thought to myself, ‘Why does she want to look even younger than she is?’“

  “I’m not as young as all that!”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are!” Silva exclaimed. “My God, if you’re not young, what am I?”

  Linda looked at her.

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind changing places with you,” she said.

  “What?” exclaimed Silva, feeling herself start to blush for some reason or other.

  Linda smiled.

  “I said I wouldn’t mind changing places.”

  “You must be joking!”

  “No - I mean it.”

  Silva knew her cheeks were still flushed. Why was she being so foolish?

  Luckily the door opened, and in came a plump secretary from the protocol department.

  “Brr! Isn’t it cold today!” said the newcomer. Then, putting her hand on the radiator: “Your heating’s working! It’s freezing in our room! Where’s your boss?”

  Linda kept her eyes on the door until it was safely closed behind the intruder, then turned back to Silva again.

  “Curiously enough,” she said, “I really did mean what I said just now. But it’s not all that strange.”

  “I think we’d better drop the subject,” Silva answered, who really had no idea what she was saying.

  “Why?” asked Linda, with a mixture of cajolery and regret.

  There was another knock, a more peremptory one this time, and without waiting for an answer a head appeared round the door.

  “All Party members to meet at ten!” it announced. “Oh, sorry! There aren’t any here, of course!”

  The door was briskly shut again, and the voice could be heard receding along the corridor, repeating, “Short meeting of Party members at ten…”

  That’s how they’ll announce the meeting at which Arian is expelled, thought Silva, and was immediately engulfed in a wave of sorrow. He’d said it was bound to happen soon; he didn’t think there was any hope of avoiding it. You know, Silva, he’d told her, expulsion is the mildest possible punishment in a case of this kind. There had been neither regret nor resentment in his voice - that was what had frightened her most. “A case of this kind” - she kept repeating to herself. But what kind of case was it? “What is it really all about?” she’d asked him for the umpteenth time. But his answer had been as reticent as ever.

  From the corridor there came the muffled sound of doors opening and shutting. Perhaps it was the official still going round calling the meeting. Silva felt a pang. What if, unknown to her, the meeting dealing with Arian’s case had been held already, and she knew nothing about it? No, that was impossible, she thought. Even if Arian himself hadn’t let her know, Sonia would have done so. Unless…

  The door opened and the boss came in, looking even more gloomy than usual. He couldn’t help assuming this expression whenever a Party meeting was announced during working hours. He wasn’t a Party member himself, and it was common knowledge that this stood in his way. “What do you expect? — I haven’t got a red one,” he would say to his friends, referring to the Party card, whenever the question of his promotion came up. Caught up in the routine of office life, absorbed in the giving of orders to his subordinates and by his owe position as boss, he could usually forget that he wasn’t a member of the Party, and thought others forgot it too. But when, as today, someone announced a Party meeting, he felt horribly uncomfortable. His embarrassment lasted all the time the meeting was in progress, for he was afraid of coming face to face with someone who’d exclaim in astonishment — and this had actually happened several times — “Good heavens, why aren’t you at the meeting? Oh, sorry — I was forgetting…You’re not a member, are you?”

  These really were his worst moments. He never knew what to do. To avoid being found in his office he would go and wander round the corridors, sometimes managing to disappear altogether. He felt worst of all at open meetings of the Party, when, after the customary pause, the secretary would say, “Would comrades who are not Party members kindly excuse us? We have a few internal matters to discuss.” Then, wishing that the ground would open and swallow him up, he would hang his head and slink out with the rest, the picture of dejection and humiliation, as if to say, “You’d have done better not to ask us to come at all.” After such scenes he would go on feeling mortified for a couple of days at least.

  He was now poking about crossly among the papers strewn over his desk.

  “Where’s the report from the planning office got to?” he demanded at last.

  “You must have put it away somewhere,” said Linda affably.

  It was obvious he wasn’t looking for anything in particular: he was just opening and shutting drawers at random. In desperation he got out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter — for some strange reason he kept them in a drawer — put a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it, thee left the room.

  “He looks furious,” said Linda.

  Then Silva went out, to take some papers to the minister’s secretary. All was quiet in the corridor. A phone was ringing unanswered in one of the offices: the person concerned must be at the meeting. Once again Silva thought fleetingly of the meeting that would seal her brother’s fate, bet she repressed the idea. But she made up her mind to phone him that day.

  Back in her office she found Linda in conversation with Illyrian, from a neighbouring room. They were laughing over something they’d been saying. Why didn’t they see more of each other, Silva wondered. They’d make a handsome couple.

  “I was telling him about the boss,” explained Linda. “And how he’s all on edge whenever there’s a Party meeting.”

  “Today’s is probably about our relations with China,” said Illyrian.

  “Really?” said Linda.

  “I think so. Because of the visit of the American president, In some ministries the subject’s already been raised with members of the Party, and even with executives who aren’t members of the Party.”

  “Our attitude on the subject was made quite clear from the outset,” said Silva. “You’ve only got to look at the papers to see that.”

  “Absolutely,” said Illyrian. “Everywhere else in the world the press and the radio hyped the trip up like mad, while our own papers dismissed it in three or four lines. Our television didn’t show a single shot of it.”

  The sound of doors opening and closing came faintly from the direction of the corridor. A telephone, perhaps the one Silva had heard earlier, shrilled insistently in the distance.

  “In other words,” observed Linda, “all we’ve heard about China lately is true.”

  “Apparently,” said Illyrian.

  “And it could actually come to a breach?”

  As Linda spoke she blinked incredulously.

  Illyrian shrugged and turned to Silva as if for her opinion.

  “I don’t know what to think…”

  She gazed at the top of her desk.

  “… Perhaps a peaceful severing of relations. Which is quite different from-”

  She was interrupted by the entrance of Simon Dersha from the office next door.

  “May I use your phone?” he asked. “Our
s is out of order.”

  “Of course,” said Silva.

  She was just about to turn back and resume her conversation with Illyrian when she realized they couldn’t discuss a subject like that in front of the newcomer. Although he worked in the adjoining office he’d always remained a kind of stranger: they never noticed he even existed except on payday, when he sat beside the accountant, subtracting the union dues from everybody’s wages. His presence didn’t make any difference to them one way or the other, but even so Silva didn’t like talking about anything whatever when he was there. So she just sat watching his hand as it dialled its number, and she could have sworn Linda and Illyrian were doing the same.

  “Hey, Simon!” said Linda. “You’re wearing a new suit! It does look good on you!”

  “Thanks,” said Simon, pressing the receiver to his ear, “but I’ve had this suit for ages!”

  “I haven’t seen you wearing it before.”

  Simon smiled faintly and hung his head. The dark blue of his suit made his face look even more gloomy than usual

  It was the first time Silva had really looked at him. He had always struck her before as narrow-minded and withdrawn, and she was surprised to see on those wan features, drawn after what had probably been a sleepless night, what looked like a flash of joy. Was it love? Silva wondered, almost with disgust at the thought that Simon Dersha could ever have anything to do with such a feeling.

  The room had fallen silent except for the distant ringing of the phone at the other end of the line, in some other, empty office. Thee Simon finally hung up, thanked them, and left.

  “He tried the same thing on in our office a quarter of an hour ago,” said Illyrian, who had shown no sign of moving.