The Concert

by Ismail Kadare

  He wanted to turn away from the mirror, but he couldn’t. He felt his face slowly with his hand, as if it were a mask.

  Every time he had to go to a political meeting, an official gathering, a session of the Politbureau or a government reception, he glanced briefly in the mirror before he left home, to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to assume the necessary mask. The idea of a mask had been suggested to him either by the descriptions of his face in the foreign press, or else by the rumours about all the top leaders that the Zhongnanhai picked up all over the country. Zhou couldn’t remember which. But it didn’t matter. He was now so familiar with the idea that he wouldn’t have been surprised if, as they were going out, Dan Yingchao, his wife, had asked, “Zhou, are you wearing your mask?’’, just as you might ask someone if they’d remembered to take their gloves or their handbag.

  People had been talking about this for a long time, but Zhou took no notice. He had three masks: the mask of a leader, the mask of one who obeys, and the mask as cold as ice. The first two he usually wore to government and Politbureau meetings or committees. The third he kept for occasions when he had to appear in public.

  The clock on the wall behind him struck six. This was the first time he had gone out without one of his three masks. They were all out of date now. Instead he now wore a fourth. A death mask.

  On the chest of drawers below the mirror lay the envelope containing his will, which he intended to send to Mao that evening. How many people would have given anything to know its contents! Especially those who were waiting to step into his shoes. But it was not what they expected. It set out only a few general observations, followed by a request that his ashes be scattered in the sky over China.

  A handful of dust, he thought — that’s how everything will end. Other people would have liked his will to contain a list of names suggesting his successor, together with accusations and settlings of old scores. But he had left all that far behind. He had no connection with the world any more. All he had to do was go to the concert, and wait for the curtain to fall. Then nothingness.

  The invitation card lay just beside the will Perhaps I’ve already ceased to exist, he thought. Perhaps it’s only my ghost that’s going to the concert…

  Yes, perhaps so. The concert was other people’s affair - he was merely a visitor, a visitant, half living and half dead. It was his first and last concert. The last of his life, the first of his after-life.

  He would scarcely be any more present at tonight’s event than at future ones that might be attended by his ghost. There, that’s where he used to sit, people would say afterwards, looking at his empty box. (Would it really be empty?) Actually, he rather relished his present detachment. He would listen to this concert as if from a box in the beyond, set free at last from the passions and rivalries of the power struggle.

  The clock struck again. Sometimes the ghost, sometimes the real man seemed to prevail within him. Why don’t I go for one last walk round Peking before the concert, he thought, before dismissing the idea. He felt as if he could do anything he liked. As if he had only to wish himself in his box and he would be there without any need for a car or a journey or an escort.

  It was natural enough. A ghost had no use for such things. But still, he thought at last, I’d better get there somehow or other, or someone else might go and sit in my box. The box is occupied … Where had he heard that before?

  Juan Maria Krams took out his invitation again to check that he hadn’t made a mistake about the time of the concert. No, he still had plenty of time, he thought, settling back in his chair by the window. But he didn’t stay there long. He suddenly realized he hadn’t noticed any other figures but 19.30 on the card. He checked. Yes, it didn’t say the number of the seat, and as far as he could tell, with his meagre knowledge of Chinese, it didn’t say whether it was in a box or in the stalls. This seemed very odd, for an official concert.

  Juan Maria hurried out of the room and ran downstairs. As usual, one of his guides was waiting for him in the lounge on the ground floor of the villa. Juan Maria showed him the invitation and pointed out that the seat number wasn’t specified. To his surprise, the guide didn’t react.

  “Don’t worry, comrade Jean,” he said with a smile. “I know the numbers of the seats.“

  “You mean…?”

  “Yes, everything’s as it should be.”

  Krams went upstairs again, more slowly. It seemed very strange. His guide, though he hadn’t stopped smiling, had nevertheless refrained from telling him the number of his seat. This was obviously something to do with the security measures taken for an event at which top leaders were to be present, but still Krams was rather offended. Why were they showing so little confidence in him, Chairman Mao’s “European godson”, as friends and enemies alike called him, half-joking, half-serious? He’d learned to forgive the Chinese their little unpleasant surprises, but this time he thought they were going too far. But then, he reflected, this mystification probably applies to everyone. And in the present tense situation, extreme. precautions might really be necessary.

  Yes, that would be it. He mustn’t be too touchy. There were much more serious things than the number of his seat to worry about in connection with the concert. It gave him an opportunity to guess which of the two factions in the struggle for power had the best chance of getting the upper hand - which, for the moment, enjoyed to however small an extent the favour of Mao. It was upon the outcome of this confrontation that his attitude to China depended, together with that of his group.

  The Chinese guests were also getting ready to go to the concert. There were about seven hundred of them, all official figures — senior civil servants for the most part, ministers, members of the Central Committee, representatives of different nationalities, veterans of the Long March, members of the mysterious Zhongnanhai or General Bureau, and so on.

  The member of the Politbureau who always wore a towel wound round his head like a turban looked at his invitation, and sighed. His seat was in box number y. He wondered where his rival would be sitting - “Double-Barrel”-as he was called, the man who claimed to live on two barrels of chick-peas. It was some comfort to know that as all the top leaders took their places in the concert hall, dozens of others would be straining their eyes to find out the answer to this question.

  But it was only one preoccupation, and a small one it that, among the many that would be engaging the guests. The pulses of the Chinese would be beating fast over much more serious mysteries as they entered the hall. As most of them belonged to one or other of the various rival factions, secret or otherwise, such questions were a matter of life and death. They knew that all those rows of heads rising above the red plush seats were seething with plots, coups, putsches and massacres. All these projects depended on different eventualities: the death of Mao, the death of Zhou Enlai, or both, a seizure of power by Deng Xiaoping, or by Jiang Qing and her gang. Three deaths together, a single night of slaughter, or a blood-bath lasting for years?…There were other factors, too, that might trigger off a plot or coup — developments at home or abroad, natural phenomena. These categories might include provocative acts on the part of the United States or the U.S.S.R., a reversal of the situation in Vietnam, a famine decimating the population of India, a drought in northern China, floods, earthquakes, epidemics of cholera or smallpox, a plague of rats or locusts…

  Many of the guests “at the concert would be seeking signs that evening as to how they should take advantage of such events. They would look for symbols in the movements and gestures of the dancers, the dark red of the prima ballerina’s cloak, the white of the cloak worn by the dancer next in seniority, the undulations of the dragon’s tail, the antics of the little monkey, the horses sweeping through the dreadful desert and finally exiting covered in gore.

  But these signs wouldn’t be at all easy to decipher. You might easily get it wrong.

  * * *

  Ail the lights were on in the guest-houses for important foreign visitors built in
the western part of a large park. Two kings, four sheikhs, a sick imam, two regents living in exile and a widowed queen were all getting ready for the concert, together with their guides and bodyguards and concubines, Powerful whiffs of perfume floated out towards the cars that waited outside with their engines already turning over.

  In the last and most modest of the villas, set slightly apart from the others, Pol Pot, the master of Cambodia, was poring over a hefty volume about symbols, leafing through the pages impatiently. In the course of the last few days he’d been secretly thinking up a new massacre, greater in scope than anything that had gone before,not only in his own country but also in the whole of Asia, if not the world itself. He hadn’t told anyone about the scale of this project; this evenings at the concert, he would try to make out if the time was ripe for it. He’d started consulting this venerable tome as soon as he received his invitation, but there wasn’t much time, and the subject was extremely complex. He had a feeling that the answer to his question was to be found in the movements made and the colours worn by the second woman dancer, as these related to the figure of the ancient serpent; but he wasn’t quite sure. And if his interpretation was wrong it might cost him dear a few days later when he asked for Chinese backing for his plan.

  It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t at all easy, he thought, his fingers trembling nervously. His eyes hurt, he was tired, and felt rather sorry for himself. Instead of being able to look forward to the concert in peace, like everyone else, he had to go on working right up to the last minute.

  Behind the scenes in the theatre where the concert was to be held,there was the usual bustle before the show. People ran to and fro, Male and female dancers vanished into the make-up rooms, dressed as magicians, princesses, eunuchs, or priests preparing for human sacrifice. Not to mention those merely swathed in long strips of silk, who were to represent parts of the serpent or of the dragon’s tail. Former stars of the company, directors and the various technicians appeared and disappeared, looking worried. Some of their anxiety transmitted itself to the faces of their colleagues, even those of the dancers, which were covered with such thick layers of cosmetics you wouldn’t have thought they could reject any expression bet those that had been painted on them.

  It wasn’t surprising if they were worried, Like all official concerts this was a great event: in theory all the top executives of Party and state were coming, and so was the diplomatic corps. Moreover, rehearsals had been punctuated by visits from mysterious officials not usually seen in artistic circles. Some people said they were there on the orders of Jiang Qing, and even that she herself might come to the dress rehearsal Others suggested that the visitors were from the Zhongnanhai, and this really scared everyone. But no one had been able to find out for sure who the visitors were. What was certain was that changes had been made right up to the last minute - even at the dress rehearsal the night before — changes affecting certain scenes, the lighting, the movements of the principal dancers and the colours of their costumes. Most of the company had been told something of the significance of these changes; in any case, they already knew how important a part symbols played in the theatre, especially on an occasion like this, But they didn’t really understand much, and if the organizers themselves were somewhat better informed, even their notions on what was going on were very hazy. Not that there had been any shortage of rumours on this subject in recent years! Some anti-Party theatre companies, such as the Three Villages group, were said to have used their productions to exchange messages about sinister possibilities like the overthrow of Mao, or events like Peng Dehuai’s plea for mercy from his judges. But even after the plot had been unmasked and many of the company’s artists and administrators arrested, no one ever found out exactly how their messages were sent.

  And now it was being whispered that at the end of the first scene, and somewhere around the middle of the second, and also at the yellow stork’s exit just before the interval, something of the highest importance was concealed in the movements of the second woman dancer and in the lilac tints of her costume. It might have something to do (“Not so loud! Put your mouth closer to my earl”) - it might have something to do with Mao’s approaching death and the question of who was to succeed him. Just to hear such things made your blood run cold. What was more, there might be world-wide repercussions; the messages might have to do with terrorism in general, or with massacres in various parts of the globe, or with heaven knew what! It was more like a calamity than a concert!

  The second woman dancer leaned against a pillar in the wings, gazing at the agitation all around her. Because of her heavy make-up, her face looked as if were set in plaster. The only sign of life was the worried expression in her eyes, all the more striking because of her impassive mask.

  She looks terribly anxious, thought one of the make-up men as he went by. Perhaps she’d found out the meaning of the symbol she was being made to convey. The make-up man himself didn’t know much about it. He watched her surreptitiously, wondering what feature of her performance would act as a signal for the massacre of the intelligentsia that some people were predicting^ always supposing it wasn’t a delusion.

  “Are you worried?” one of the oldest dancers in the company asked her younger colleague. “There’s no need. You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with…A few years ago I myself was accused of driving two ministers to commit suicide, bet it wasn’t my fault at all …I know it’s different in your case - people are talking about wholesale massacres — bet that’s no reason why yoe should fret. It’s not your fault, is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about," the girl replied, “You’re the second person who’s spoken to me like that, and I still don’t understand what it’s all about.”

  “I thought you were worrying about…”

  “Not at all! I was thinking of something quite different. Do you know what?…If I tell you, Lin Min, you must promise not to breathe a word to anyone else.”

  “You can count on me!”

  The girl looked at her for a moment, hesitating, then made up her mind.

  “I don’t even want to know what you were talking about, Lin Min. I don’t understand such things. All I can think of is when the show is over and the foreign members of the audience come up on the stage to congratulate us… Perhaps I’ll be lucky and one of them will kiss me …You see, Lin Min, at the last concert, in October, there was a fair-haired man who smelled so delicious …I shall never forget him…”

  As the young ballerina was speaking, her colleague looked at her with an expression that might have been either envy or pity.

  Then the older woman went away, and the young dancer was alone again. She tiptoed over to the heavy velvet curtain, pulled it aside a little, and looked through the gap into the auditorium, where the seats ail looked weighed ‘down under the same red plush. The audience weren’t there yet. An oppressive silence seemed to rise up from the great empty space. The girl sighed and let the curtain fall back into place.

  To Hua Guofeng the chiming of the clock on the wall sounded different from usual For some reason he paused with the comb and scissors in his hand, waiting for the seventh stroke. I’ve only got fifteen minutes left, he thought. As he lifted the comb and scissors to his head again he noticed that his hands were trembling. He was nervous — he should have started getting ready sooner. It wasn’t his fault though…The idea that his resemblance to Mao might be increased had suddenly occurred to him that afternoon. The notion excited him, though he was sorry he hadn’t thought of it sooner. The fact that he looked like Chairman Mao hadn’t gone unnoticed among his friends, who sometimes made rather risqué jokes about it, but it hadn’t occurred to anyone that the likeness could be improved, cultivated like species of fruit. The thought had taken a long while to come to the surface in Hua Guofeng’s own mind, wandering first along devious and mysterious ways, as most ideas do. He’d wondered for some time about Mao’s possible successors, and had occasionally thought of the Kagemushas, the doubles whom
medieval Japanese war-lords used to send to replace them in battles and at celebrations. If I were just a little bit more like him, he reflected, I could be Mao’s Kagemusha. Then, as it became more and more difficult for Mao to preside over ceremonies and receive distinguished foreign visitors,, and especially when the Politbureau first deliberated over whether he ought to give up appearing in public, Hua thought about the Kagemusha more and more But it wasn’t until the meeting of the Politbureau this afternoon that everything around him seemed to freeze, and the idea of the double suddenly emerged from the depths of his brain, hitting him like a cosmic ray. The meeting had ostensibly been discussing something quite different, but, as usual lately, it was clear everyone was thinking about the succession. The problems involved were well-known; Zhou ill with cancer; Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife; her band of supporters; the Deng Xiaoping faction…People said Zhou would soon be sending Mao his will…Everyone let his thoughts run riot. And it was then that an inner voice cried out to Hua: “Why not you? Why do you stand modestly aside? The others are no closer to him than you are. You have a definite advantage in your face and physical appearance. As for the soul, no one can see that” Then a host of chaotic thoughts crowded into his mind: a case of mass psychosis, a people yearning for its lost leader, their longing to see his face on the rostrum again…

  “This very evening!” shrieked the inner voice. “Appear as him this evening, and you will triumph!”

  Back home again, he had wandered around the rooms aimlessly until he realized what it was he was looking for. A mirror. He stood for a long time gazing at his own reflection. He couldn’t send for a hairdresser or a make-up man from the theatre - no one must be let into the secret. Everyone had been suspicious and on the alert lately. He’d manage by himself.