The Concert

by Ismail Kadare

  The body of the plane creaked loudly as it descended through the semi-darkness. Gjergj was still holding his briefcase on his lap. The metal buckles gleamed faintly. The Soviets had been just as mysterious over Beria. He’d vanished more than twenty years ago, and his disappearance was still an enigma. People said there wasn’t even any trial or firing squad — he was just killed at a meeting of the Politbureau. One version said somebody had strangled him with his bare hands. Then the body was hastily buried. Whereas he, the amazing Mao, airily tossed corpses from one country to another as if with a catapult.

  Why can’t I get these images out of my mind, thought Gjergj. Again he peered out of the window, but all he could see was the damp impenetrable darkness. Where had the earth gone? How much longer were they going to have to wander around in space? He leaned his head against the cool glass, feeling the plane’s vibration run right through him. Then suddenly, a long way in front of him, he saw a multitude of little lights, not only mauve but also red and green and blue, winking and flickering in the darkness. He felt his heart grow warmer, he was filled with a delightful languor. The plane’s wing blotted out the lights on the ground for a moment, but he sat on with his forehead pressed to the glass as if he could still see them. His thoughts had drifted home again to his loved ones. Their faces, wreathed in smiles, succeeded one another in his memory until for some reason or other it came to a halt on ae episode he hadn’t remembered for a long time. What he recalled was his first moment of real closeness to Silva, in an avenue strewn with dead leaves - he still didn’t know its name. It lay between the main boulevard and Elbasan Street, and they’d just come away from an evening party - they hardly knew one another as yet. Under the streetlights the yellow leaves stretched out like a sumptuous expanse of gilding glowing with the patina of time. They noticed a scrap of paper amongst the leaves — a piece from a musical score, with the notes still legible. He pointed at it. “Look, some Mozart!” he said. She laughed. He glanced at the dark buildings bordering the avenue: “I think this is quite near the hostel for music students.”

  The memory of this interlude was almost painful. Gjergj thought of the moment just before they made love, when her eyes were about to cast off sight just as her body was about to strip itself of clothes. Then came the moment when he was bending over her white belly and that which was waiting, unbearably intense, below…

  The heavy fuselage jolted when the plane touched down on the landing strip. The engines shrieked as the pilot throttled back. Multicoloured lights quivered frenziedly on either side. “How wonderful to be going back!” he exclaimed. In three days’ time he would be in Tirana. The plane slowed down, panting heavily. What airport was this, then? He looked around in the hope of seeing some name among the lights, but they still jigged about drunkenly and were dumb. Anyhow, what did it matter? The main thing was that he would soon have left ail this behind. Then he remembered that he hadn’t even sent his family a telegram. How could he have forgotten? But never mind, it still wasn’t too late. He peered out of the window again in search of a name. The stewardesses had just announced something…But how did one write a wire in these parts — in Latin characters or Arabic?

  The plane came to a stop at last, and the passengers got ready to disembark.

  Gjergj smiled to himself as he stood up. He was going to send that telegram anyhow, even if it had to be written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Silva got the telegram the next day. It was growing dark and she was tidying up the refrigerator when there was a ring at the door. Then she heard Brikena calling from the hall:

  “A telegram, Mother! I think it’s from Father…”

  After a moment’s surprise she straightened up and ran out into the hall. Brikena had already opened the envelope and they both pored over the wire, reading it out almost in unison: “Arrive Thursday German plane. Fondest fondest love.”

  “How lovely!” cried Brikena, clapping her hands.

  At first they could think only of the message, reading it over and over and scrutinizing the date-stamps which said when it had been dispatched and when received. Then they rushed to consult Brikena’s atlas to find the town it had been sent from.

  “He’s still miles away!” said Brikena when they’d located it.

  A few moments later their apartment, which had been so quiet lately, suddenly came to life again. The lights were on in all the rooms. Silva went from refrigerator to stove and then to the cupboard in which she kept the crockery, where she promptly forgot what she’d come for. “What sort of cake shall we make?” Brikena asked. Of course, that was what Silva had gone to the cupboard for! But it was still too soon — he wouldn’t be home for another couple of days. They had plenty of time for everything. But if Brikena wanted to they could make the cake today. Silva was so happy she didn’t know what to do with herself. At one point she found herself wandering aimlessly around the apartment. Then, rather than starting on something that needed to be done and then putting it down again unfinished, she just picked up the telegram and went through it again slowly, as if to trying to read something between the lines. Her smile froze when she came to the words, “Fondest fondest love”, wondering why they made her feel vaguely anxious. What does it mean? she thought - and found herself crying out to something deep inside herself: “What’s the matter with me?” Nothing, replied the gulf within, But the uneasiness remained, distant, vague. Anyhow, that fit of sentiment wasn’t a good sign.

  In the end, the gulf within delivered its answer. Silva hadn’t been able to repress the memory of a very distressing funeral. The man being buried had died in a plane crash on the way back from China, and the man’s wife had said to Silva: “I don’t know - his last letter was so emotional I was quite disturbed …”

  Nonsense, Silva told herself - the post-office people often duplicate words in a telegram. She knew this wasn’t really true -they only repeated dates or figures. But why was she letting herself get upset like this?

  “What’s the matter, Mother?” asked Brikena.

  Silva took herself in hand.

  “Nothing, dear. I was just trying to think of something special we could cook for your father."

  And she started bustling around the apartment again.

  On Thursday morning Silva asked her boss to let her leave the office at eleven, though the plane wasn’t due until three in the afternoon. In any case, she couldn’t concentrate on any work. Linda kept glancing at her with a curious look in her eyes.

  “Have you missed him very much?” she asked, the first time the boss left the room.

  “Yes, very much,” answered Silva, without looking up from her desk.

  But she could tell Linda was still looking at her. It felt stiflingly hot in the office: had they turned the heating up too high, or was it just her imagination?

  “What do you feel like when he comes back from abroad?” her young friend asked, hesitantly. “Are you very happy?”

  “Of course,” said Silva, glancing at her.

  Linda’s cheeks were slightly flushed, though she was pale around the eyes.

  “Of course,” said Silva again, feeling her own cheeks going pink.

  Does Linda really not understand? she thought. But that was probable enough. Marriage altered everything - especially what people felt after a separation.

  There was a knock at the door. Illyrian. He’d heard Gjergj was arriving that day, Silva felt rather self-conscious. She had the feeling everyone was trying to imagine what she and her husband would be doing that afternoon and evening. As a matter of fact she kept thinking about it herself. Sometimes she thought about what underclothes she’d wear; sometimes she thought about the moment when she’d slowly take them off. He liked watching her do that.

  She began to wonder if it wasn’t she herself, with these thoughts of hers, who was making the others imagine her consumed with desire. She almost believed that if she stopped thinking about it the awkwardness between her and them would disappear. But no. The others were meeting her more than hal
fway. When she’d asked the boss if she might leave early, he’d laughed roguishly and said, “Oh yes! - today’s the day, isn’t it?”

  Illyrian didn’t take any such liberties. Dressed as elegantly as ever, but more serious than usual - almost solemn, in fact - he’d come to ask if she’d heard about the change in the plane’s time of arrival. And she, though she had in. fact been informed, thanked him without telling him she knew already.

  There goes someone,, at least, who knows how to behave, she thought as he shut the door.

  At a dance nearly a year before, just after he’d been taken on at the ministry, Illyrian had paid her some very meaningful compliments. Silva was used to masculine admiration and paid no attention, but when, a little later, he returned to the charge more iesisteet!y, she responded so tartly she surprised even herself. What had made her iy out was the thought that his boldness might be due to some image about her, and especially about her sister Ana, that he’d acquired from somewhere else. After that incident she’d expected him to bear her a grudge, but apparently he’d concluded it was his owe fault, and had swallowed her snub with surprising dignity.

  At eleven o’clock, as she was going down the stairs, she met Simon Dersha. He was still wearing his navy-blue suit, and his face was as drawn as before. One of these days this chap’s going to go off his rocker, she thought as she greeted him. The registry clerk in the planning department, who saw and heard everything, claimed that Simon had been invited to dinner one evening by minister D—, and that ever since thee he’d been wearing his only smart suit in the hope of being invited again.

  As soon as she was outside the ministry, Silva breathed in a gulp of fresh air and felt much better. It was a dreary, drizzling day, but Skanderbeg Square suited her cheerful mood. You could stroll along the pavement in front of the ministry, and facing you was a garden laid out in the form of an amphitheatre. The road overlooking the garden was wet, and shrouded in a seasonable veil of mist. But she had no time to waste. At half-past one, two o’clock at the latest, she and Brikena must leave for the airport, and she still had a few things to do. But nothing very important. Perhaps she should buy two or three bottles of wine and some cakes to be on the safe side. as a few friends might very well drop in in the course of the evening. But everything else had been ready since the day before.

  As she went by the local greengrocer’s shop she noticed some very fine apples on display outside, and went in. As usual the green. grocer, a great beanpole with a voice like disc jockey, was holding forth to the customers as he served them. There were eight or so of them, men and women, awaiting their turn. The greengrocer was tipping some apples into a string bag held out by a man who was rather carefully turned-out.

  “How’s the Chinese coming on?” asked the greengrocer, rummaging in the cash register for the man’s change.

  “I beg your pardon?” said the other.

  “I asked how the Chinese was coming on,” the greengrocer said again.

  “Well!” exclaimed the man, pursing his lips indignantly at the other’s lack of discretion.

  “I don’t reckon all the trouble he’s taken learning Chinese will do him a bit of good,” said the greengrocer when the man had left the shop. “He lives near here - one of those ex-bourgeois types who’ve changed their tune,” he explained as he weighed out apples for one of the women. “He used to be a translator from Russian — he’d learned it in prison. But after the break with Moscow he abandoned Russian for Chinese, and managed to learn it in two years! But what’s the point? It doesn’t look as if Chinese is going to be much use to him now!”

  “Those bourgeois devils could learn to talk in stomach rumblings if it suited them,” croaked an old man.

  “Still, poor chap,” said the greengrocer, “Imagine toiling away for years to learn a language, and then practically overnight it turns out to be no use any more! He must be seething with rage!”

  “That’s what you get for trying to be clever,” grunted the old man, “Why did he want to go and learn Chinese?”

  “He must have thought there’d be plenty of translation going,’ said a young man.

  “Well, he thought wrong!” crowed the ancient.

  Several of the bystanders laughed.

  Silva bought some apples and left. As she did so she could hear the old man saying something else, and the others laughing again.

  How strange, she thought. The people in that shop hardly knew each other, but they talked about China more or less openly. She walked on faster, In the last few days, preoccupied with Gjergj’s return, she hadn’t paid attention to what was being said about relations with China. So the conversation in the greengrocer’s had in a way taken her by surprise. Such comments would have been unthinkable at the beginning of the break with the Soviets, And now everything’s so quiet, she thought, shifting the heavy string bag from one hand to the other. Well, so much the better, I suppose. And she started thinking about Gjergj’s return again.

  At home Brikena was waiting impatiently. Silva asked her to stay by the telephone while she herself had a bath. As she lay in the water she couldn’t help remembering her boss’s arch remark and Linda’s pink cheeks and questions about her feelings. These recollections mingled with an acute sense of imminent happiness.

  At the airport there was a small crowd, but they were almost all foreigners.

  “Mother, did you see all those Chinese?” Brikena exclaimed in surprise as their taxi drew up outside the customs building.

  The taxi driver smiled.

  “The place has been full of them, the last few days,” he said. “They seem to take it in turns.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Silva, handing him a 50-lek note.

  “The usual thing — the first lot go and the next lot take their place,” said the man, feeling in his pocket for change.

  Silva thanked him and got out. The concourse was crowded with Chinese too.

  “We’re early,” she murmured. “We’re going to have quite a long wait.”

  “Never mind, Mother — I like it here.”

  They managed to find a free table and sat down. But between then and the moment when a female voice announced over the public-address system that the Berlin—Budapest-Tirana plane would be arriving in a few minutes, the time passed more quickly than they expected. Standing at the windows overlooking the airfield, they watched the plane land, the steps being wheeled up, and the first passengers begin to appear.

  “There he is!” cried Brikena, the first to spot her father among the small group of passengers, most of them Chinese. Gjergj started to walk in their direction: his bearing was as usual — upright. deliberate, his briefcase in his hand. He hadn’t noticed them yet, probably because of the reflections on the glass. It wasn’t until he was quite close that he saw them, and waved.

  “Did you have a good trip?” Silva asked while he was still hugging them both.

  “Yes, thanks. How’ve you two been getting on?”

  “Fine. Except that we were worried about you.”

  “Why?’’

  “Well…” Silva pointed to the apparently endless crowd of Chinese.

  He laughed.

  “You look tired,” she said when they were in the taxi.

  He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “Well…I must admit the journey was exhausting. And then there’s the time difference…Did you get my wire?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled to himself, as if remembering something.

  “Everybody’s talking here about the difficulties with China,” Silva said.

  “Are they? ! rather expected they would be.”

  “It’s the only topic of conversation!”

  “Where do you live?” the driver asked as they were reaching Tirana.

  Silva was going to tell him the address, but Gjergj spoke first.

  “I’d like to stop at the foreign ministry first, please, just for a minute.”

  He smiled and pointed to his briefcas
e, Silva leaned her head on his shoulder.

  He left them outside at the ministry, but they didn’t have to wait long, and a few minutes later they were home. Gjergj wandered around the apartment while Silva and Brikena laid the table.

  “Good gracious, the lemon tree’s flowered!” they heard him exclaim when he came to the French window.

  “Do you like it?” asked Silva,

  “It’s lovely.”

  When Silva came out of the kitchen a little while later to say the meal was ready, she found him standing in their bedroom gazing absentmindedly at the curtains.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” she said.

  He nodded towards the windows.

  “I was looking at the curtains,” he said. “I can’t get over it. Out there they don’t have any.”

  “Really?”

  “Strange how much one missed them! It was as if the windows were blind. Or dead…But that isn’t all One day a Chinaman told me, The reason why we’ve abolished curtains is that that’s where the trouble begins — the desire to keep private life secret.“

  Silva kissed him.

  “Stop thinking about it,” she said tenderly, leading him out of the room. “Come along, the meal’s ready.”

  “You’re right,” he said, following her, “I must get it all out of my head as soon as I can.”

  By the time they’d finished eating it was getting dark. One of those dusks in which day and night merge in perfect harmony.

  Silva glanced at her husband.

  “Would you like a little rest?” she asked.

  “Yes, that would be nice.”

  “You go and have a lie-down too, Brikena.”

  “But I’m not tired!”

  “Have a rest anyway…”

  “All right.”

  Brikena stood up, went over and kissed her father on the cheek, and disappeared.

  Silva and Gjergj looked into one another’s eyes, exchanging smiles as misty and mysterious as the approaching evening. Then, one after the other, without a word, they stood up and walked through the corridor — now quite dark — into their bedroom.