The Concert

by Ismail Kadare

  Second signals officer (P-); I have nothing to add. I am guilty. We’re both guilty.

  Questioner: You claim you didn’t know you were doing anything wrong. But did you regard the order as wrong in itself ?

  S—; Wrong? ! don’t know …A bit strange, yes, but not wrong. It came from above, so I thought it couldn’t be wrong. But of course, in the Party there’s neither high nor low …so that’s true of the army too - that’s what makes it different from bourgeois-revisionist armies…

  Q: Right, that’ll do. Another question. It was a long way from operation headquarters to the tanks, wasn’t it? Nearly an hour on a motorcycle combination.

  S—: Yes, almost an hour. Because of the weather.

  Q: And during all that time you and your colleague didn't say anything to one another?

  S—; No. The weather was very bad and the road was almost impassable. Even if we’d wanted to talk we couldn’t have made ourselves heard.

  Q: But the bad weather didn’t stop you from thinking! What did you think as you were driving along?

  S—; Nothing. I was concentrating on driving. There was a lot of mud and the bike might have skidded at any moment,

  Q: And what about you, the other one? You were tucked away inside the sidecar, wrapped ep in your raincoat — you had plenty of time to think, didn’t you?

  P—; Yes, As far as I remember I thought about a whole lot of things, but they hadn’t got anything to do with the order wë were supposed to be delivering. As a matter of fact… I don’t know if…

  Q: Speak out! You’re not supposed to hide anything from the Party.

  F—: That’s right…Well, I was thinking about a girl I intend to get engaged to…About certain suspicions her behaviour had inspired in me lately …In short, I was afraid she was deceiving me…

  Q: Well, here’s a fine member of the People’s Army! A fine communist, I must say! He can’t think of anything but his own happiness, he’s obsessed by the thought of being deceived by his fiancée, and meanwhile what does he care if he betrays the Party, even unwittingly! And then what happened?

  S—; We delivered the order. To an officer whose first name was Arian, if I remember rightly. That’s right — Arian Krasniqi. He listened to the order, asked me to repeat it, then he frowned. He was going to say something, but changed his mind. He just growled, “Very well, you can go back where you came from — we’ll sort things out with H.Q over the radio”…That’s all

  Q; And then?

  5.—; We went back through the rain.

  Q: Since, as you remember so clearly and so often, it was raining. why didn’t it occur to you that you didn’t have to deliver the order verbally? — that you could have sent it by radio?

  S—: I didn’t think of it. But even if Î had I’d still have told myself the order came from H.Q. and,…

  Q: And you didn’t think about anything on the way back, either? S—: 1 told you - the road was very bad.

  Q: And you, the other one - I suppose you were still thinking about your fiancée, and wondering if she was cheating on you?

  P—; Yes.

  Extracts from the autocritique of radio operator Dh—: I have nothing to say in my own defence. It was an offence, a grave offence on my part. I can’t think of a worse one. There’s only one thing I’d like to say: you can’t imagine what it’s like in that sort of situation. The confusion, comrades! You think you’re going mad. Your head’s ringing, but everyone wants to be put in touch with everyone else as fast as possible. They’re all huffing and puffing, and you’re in the middle of it all, the one who’s supposed to answer everyone. The buzzing in your ears makes you think you must be in hell! Not to mention that you haven’t had a wink of sleep for three days and nights. And as if that isn’t enough, the weather’s unspeakable, with flashes of lightning all the time. You’ve no idea of the effect lightning has when you’re trying to use the radio — maddening! And then you hear some bloke telling you he’s not going to carry out an order you’ve never even heard of! That’s what it was like that day. A tank officer said he wasn’t going to carry out an order, and proceeded to explain why not. But was I in any position to pass on all the details of his justifications to headquarters? Of course it was wrong of me, of course it was a serious offence on my part, but at the time I didn’t realize it. I just started to transmit the essence of what he’d said to H.Q. But H.Q. interrupted me and said: No need for explanations — just see the order’s carried out! I sent that message back, but the officer at the other end kept on arguing the toss with H.Q. So I lost my temper, too. If he could shout, so could I… Yes, I committed an offence, a very serious offence, when I started shouting and bawling into the mike. I admit it, comrades — I shouted all kinds of wild insults. I told him, “You can stick Shanghai up your mother’s …” I admit I’m guilty, but at that moment I didn’t know what I was doing.

  My head was already splitting, and this blessed tank officer starts to talk to me about Shanghai! ! ask you! In the middle of all that was going on, all ! needed was the Chinese! So that’s how I came to say it. “You can stick Shanghai up your mother’s …‘’ I’m in the wrong, I know. Seriously at fault…

  The staff officer at H.Q., in bis autocritique, admitted that he gave the couriers the verbal order to take to the tank group, and it was also he who heard the tank officer refuse, over the radio, to comply with it. In both cases he reported to the chief of staff, who in the first case told him the order had come directly from the minister, and in the second — the tank officer’s refusal to obey - told him to report to him, i.e. the minister. [Marginal note by delegate: Are we sure what this “him really means?!]

  When asked if the motives for the refusal were clear, or rather, if he’d managed to explain to the minister why the tanks had refused to obey the order (“It’s not done to- encircle a Party committee,” “This isn’t Shanghai,’ etc.), the staff officer (M—) answered that he wasn’t sure: in the first place because what he’d heard over the radio was intermittent, because of the bad weather (there was a lot of lightning that day); and ie the second place — and this is very important — because the minister hadn’t let him explain himself properly.

  Why not?

  Because he was shouting at the top of his voice. As soon as I opened my mouth to say the tanks had refused to obey, he started bellowing. He wouldn’t listen to any explanations.

  Why not?

  It was only natural. He felt outraged. Such a thing had never happened to him before. His own dignity…

  And so you didn’t manage to explain to him why the order had been disobeyed?

  No. I did get to say something, but I’m not sure he took it in, he was so furious. And on top of that our coenversation took place in the open, outside his tent, and the weather was awful. The wind was blowing great guns.

  So that you couldn’t hear yourselves speak?

  Not as bad as that, but it made conversation difficult. Especially since, as I said, he was practically foaming at the mouth.

  How do you explain that?

  I don’t know-,… He’s a minister a member of the government…What’s more, he isn’t at this meeting… But this is a Party meeting, where everyone is equal, and since you ask me I'll tell you frankly what I think. If you ask me, I think his anger was a sign of morbid pride.

  There’s another question on which we’d like to have your personal opinion, M—: why, when you had radio transmitters at your disposal, was the order to encircle the Party committee sent to be delivered orally?

  M— didn’t answer the question directly. He merely said there were certain orders which by their nature were better delivered orally rather than by radio,

  M— didn’t give a clear answer to the last question of all, either - namely, if in the course of this whole business there had been any mention of commandos. He said he had a feeling they had been referred to during his conversation over the radio, but neither at the time, still less now, was he able to say in what connection. At this p
oint he started talking about the bad weather and the lightning again…

  Extracts from the explanations provided by Z—, leader of the commando group acting as the enemy during the manoeuvres: If you want me to say what I really think, well, as far as I’m concerned, I can’t make head or tail of this business. According to the plan -approved in detail by staff H.Q — the parachutists were to be dropped over Zone 04VS. But late on the Tuesday evening, the 11th, I was expressly ordered to send in my commandos straight away, not only before the agreed time but also over another zone, i.e. Zone 71T [where the Party committee was — note by delegate]. Try as I might to find out what the hurry was, I couldn’t get any satisfaction. The fact is, radio conditions were very bad because of the weather, especially the lightning. [It was this same evening that the tanks received the order to encircle the Party committee - note by delegate]. I was therefore obliged to go ahead, carry out the order, and parachute my men in. I need hardly say the operation was not successful Apart from the weather, the terrain itself was unsuitable, and hadn’t been reconnoitred. Some of my men got lost, communications got into a horrible muddle, and, as you probably know, three soldiers were drowned. What else could you expect, asking people to grope their way about in the dark?

  Didn’t anyone try to find out afterwards why all this happened? Isn’t there anything about it in the records of your unit?

  No. The records just say the order was incorrect and the incident was regarded as closed. There was a rumour later on that a group of tank officers were at the root of it all

  What does that mean? Can you explain it more clearly?

  It isn’t clear to me either. The tank officers were eventually arrested, which made people think they’d deliberately caused the incident. But that was only a guess, and, as you know, the officers were soon set free again. After that no one has bothered about the affair…

  Extracts from the autocritique of the head of personnel, motorized division: As regards the inquiries into the backgrounds of the tank officers, they were ordered by higher authorities^ and I wish to make it plain from the start that although the instructions were issued by my superiors, much of the responsibility in this matter is mine. I don’t deserve to be forgiven: I acted spinelessly, and my weakness made possible a deliberate mystification. I suspected from the outset (what head of personnel wouldn’t have smelled a rat?) that the request to investigate the backgrounds of the tank officers was not based on genuine suspicion but on anger and resentment. I realized that the object was not to discover the origins of an offence, but to find a pretext — class origin, for example — for finding the officers guilty. In short, although the request to examine their backgrounds with a microscope was festooned in a lot of revolutionary phraseology (they’d even taken the trouble to include a couple of quotations from the classic texts of Marxism-Leninism), it was obvious that the real motive was revenge. Î admit I never had a moment’s doubt about that. Nevertheless, though I knew I was collaborating indirectly in a procedure inconsistent with communist morality, instead of opposing my superiors and fearlessly expressing my opinion as a good communist should, ! not only turned a Mind eye to the falsification of the truth, bet I knowingly helped to make it more plausible, So I agreed to delve into the officers’ pasts, and even though I didn’t find anything of any moment^ the mere fact of having done it in aid of personal vindictiveness is reprehensible …Especially as.,. Especially as I went so far as to interfere incertain aspects of people’s private lives, aspects I’m ashamed to mention here …

  Consider yourself authorized to do so.

  Well, for example, as regards the officer called Arian Krasniqi, I tried to cast aspersions on him because of rumours that circulated once about one of his sisters and her relationship with Skënder Bermema, the writer. Î meant to show that Krasniqi’s whole circle was morally “liberal”, obviously in the negative sense in which we usually use the term. I also exploited the fact that Skënder Bermema took an interest in Krasniqi’s case when he was arrested. I tried to cast grave suspicions on Krasniqi. I even…I even…I’m sorry, but I'm very upset…

  Go on.

  I even went so far ie my search for compromising facts that I bought a prose text by Bermema called Forgetting a Woman. It’s said to have been dedicated to one of Kraseiqi’s sisters. So, as there wasn’t much else to go on, I tried to make use of the book in this sordid affair.

  How?

  I sent it to a well-known critic — ! can evee tell you his name…it was C— V—. ! asked him to vet it for ideological errors, and he slammed it so energetically I must admit I could hardly believe my eyes.

  Why did you choose C— V—?

  He has a brother who works for us, and the brother had asked to be transferred to Tirana…But Pd like to point out that C— V— agreed to denounce Krasniqi without asking for anything ie return. That’s why I was so surprised,…

  Anything else?

  Eh? No, nothing…No, comrade, except that I don’t deserve to be a member of the Party, and I hope you’ll inflict the harshest possible punishment on me. But if the leadership will give me one last chance of coming back to life again, and do me the honour of letting me be a candidate for readmittance, I promise faithfully to do my utmost to deserve to be allowed back into the Party as one completely regenerated. That’s all I had to say.

  Are you sure the officers were sent to jail simply out of personal revenge?

  Yes. No principles were involved at all Only the desire for vengeance.

  Extracts from the autocritique of the head of military intelligence: 1 admit my guilt. Although I knew perfectly well, because I had access to all personal records^ that there was no real reason for placing the tank officers under surveillance — they were under no genuine suspicion, the only motive was revenge, as the previous witness said — I agreed to get mixed up in this nasty affair. Why? Out of servility, that wretched survival of bourgeois society! I knew what my superiors wanted, so I did what was necessary to please them. Nothing easier than to dig up a few things the tank men had said about staff in moments of anger, and present them as evidence of rebellion against army leadership, if not against authority in general

  Is that all?

  It’s the main thing. The rest is secondary. I'm ready to accept any punishment you care to impose.

  Since you organized the surveillance of the officers, as if they really were suspected of treason, presumably you were in a unique position to find out what their real intentions were, and consequently to say whether they were innocent or not?

  That is so.

  And the bad weather, and the lightning, which have so often been mentioned recently, didn’t prevent you from hearing quite clearly what they said?

  No.

  So what did you conclude from what they said?

  That they had absolutely nothing to reproach themselves with.

  Is that all?

  Yes. What else could I have concluded? The purity of their intentions was as plain as could be. Their motives were clear as crystal. And to think I agreed to cover them with obloquy! I haven’t been able to sleep for months!

  Is that all?

  I don’t know what else you want of me,

  Notes by delegate: Neither the head of personnel nor the head of military intelligence is being sincere, They’re both hiding something. I think the head of personnel is prevaricating when he says he thought that when his superiors asked him to investigate the tank officers” backgrounds they were acting out of a desire for revenge. I think he knew they were motivated first and foremost by fear. As for the head of military intelligence, he’s lying even more outrageously, because he knew, even better than the head of personnel, about the fears to which the tank officers’ attitude had given rise. The officers under surveillance had very probably often used such phrases as “It’s not done to encircle a Party committee…” “We’ve explained it to them, but they wouldn’t listen…” “We’re not living in China!”…“If we want to prove it, we can ask the C
entral Committee…”

  If neither of these two witnesses has mentioned fear, it’s because that explanation would make them conscious accomplices in the wrongdoing in question.

  As regards the bringing forward of the parachute landing, that was obviously motivated by a desire to justify the encircling of the Party committee by the tanks. They could say afterwards that they hadn’t ordered the Party committee to be encircled; they’d ordered it to be defended, but apparently this was rejected as too crude. Moreover the commando leader’s protestations about the bringing forward of the jump, and especially about the failure of the operation, prevented it from being used as justification for the encircling of the Party committee: that might have run the risk of exposing the whole machination. The most superficial inquiry would have revealed that the order for the parachute jump was given an hour after the tank officers refused to encircle the Party committee.

  Supplementary note by the delegate: For information, we append a copy of the text entitled Forgetting a Woman, by Skënder Bermema, This is an exact copy of the manuscript deposited in the safe in the office of the head of personnel, motorized units.

  FORGETTING A WOMAN

  And what am I going to do now? I thought, looking at the closed shutters, warped by the rain; at the carpet; at the door by which she’d gone out a few moments ago; at the china ashtray with “Tourist Hotel” written round the edge,

  I wandered round the room until my pacings brought me close to the door, I stood on the exact spot where she’d kissed me goodbye, a gesture that neither emphasized our parting nor held out any promise. Such a farewell, at the end of a stormy afternoon, is usually seen as a gesture of affection, of regret for angry exchanges; the meeting of lips often leads to the meeting of minds again, to complete forgiveness and reconciliation. But it wasn’t like that at ail I had kept my hands in my pockets - I’d even thrust them in deeper. I stood stiff as a ramrod as I felt her brash her lips against my neck and run her hand through my hair. Î felt just the faintest impulse to put my arms round her in the age-old ritual for ending a quarrel, but I seemed somehow to have turned to stone, and couldn’t move.