“But she keeps rambling on, saying ail sorts of odd things,” Brikena answered. “She’s asked me three times who I am — I was getting quite frightened.”
“AM right, all right/. said Silva shortly, making for the living room and putting on a welcoming expression. “How are you, Aunt Hasiyé? How’s everyone at home? Brikena, would you make Aunt Hasiyé a cup of coffee, please? And one for me too, if you will.”
As soon as the old woman started to speak, Silva realized that her state had got worse. She mixed up the living and the dead, and confused time, place and everything else. Brikena, making the coffee, turned round and looked at Silva as if to say, What did I tell you?
“How’s Ana?, said Aunt Hasiyé. “I haven’t seen her for a long time.”
Silva bit her lip.
“But Ana’s passed on, Aeet Hasiyé,” she said gently. But the old lady either didn’t understand what she said, or else forgot it immediately.
“You hardly ever see your relations nowadays,’ she went on. “It used to be different in the old days. They used to come and see you of their own accord. But that’s all over now. Fortunately I still see them in my dreams…”
Silva smiled sadly.
“Everybody has such a lot to do now,” the old lady continued, “They’re all involved with politics, too. In my young days, people took an interest in politics, but not as much as now, I remember the time when the Chinese were here — but you’re too young to remember that! They had a very wicked sultan - a very, very wicked man with a name like a cat. Miao Zedong, he was called. But all the same he ended up breaking his neck!”
Brikena stifled a laugh.
“You two didn’t know the Chinese - you can afford to laugh! They had eyes like this…like slits. But Î can only just remember them myself. It’s a long time since they went away — a hundred years perhaps, maybe more, Î remember the day they went …A neighbour of ours, Lucas his name was, hanged himself with a luggage strap. Then the Germans came — I remember them very clearly. But they didn’t like the Russians…I remember the Italians as well - they wore perfume, like women …”
Silva and Brikena both burst out laughing. Brikena handed round the coffee.
“I listen to the radio,” said Aunt Hasiyé, “but I can’t understand a word the modern politicians say. Who was it, now, that they were insulting on the radio yesterday? The Turks?”
“No, Aunt Hasiyé - the Chinese.”
“No, no — not the Chinese, That was in my day. They took themselves off more than a century ago. No one can remember them. Now we’re at daggers drawn with the Turks. You don’t know what the Chinese are like — you’ve only dreamed about them!”
Aunt Hasiyé meandered on for some time, but Silva gradually stopped laughing. The way. the old woman mixed up times and tenses might seem very funny, but if you thought about it, other people’s attitude to time was no less absurd. There was something artistic about Aunt Hasiyé’s way of talking: not only in her mixing up of time, but also in her abolition of the frontiers between reality, dream and imagination. She asked again about Ana, insisting that she’d met her last month in the street, carrying a string bag full of oranges. Silva decided there was no point in trying to explain. Hadn’t she herself remembered her sister today? And was there really ail that difference between the old lady’s account of her meeting with Ana in the street and the description she herself might give of her impressions when she saw Besnik Struga and Linda an hour or so ago, and thought the dead woman had some how lent her colleague her light step?
Meanwhile the phone had rung and Brikena had run to answer it. It was Sonia, wanting to speak to Silva. She asked all three of them to go round that evening if they were free. Silva said it depended on Gjergj, but she’d talk to him when he got home, and call back.
Gjergj came in just as Aunt Hasiyé was getting ready to leave. To the delight of Brikeea, who was watching out for their visitor to produce more eccentricities. Aunt Hasiyé scarcely recognized the newcomer.
By the time all three of them set out for Arian’s place an hour later, it was dark. Two fire-engines were rushing down Pine Street, sirens shrieking.
“The human brain is a very strange thing,” said Gjergj. “We laughed at what Aunt Hasiyé was saying, but do you know, in her ramblings she mentioned something that actually happened today?”
Silva felt like exclaiming, “Telepathy!”
“She mentioned someone called Lucas hanging himself a hundred years ago. Well, he really did hang himself today. They were talking about it in the cafeteria at the ministry when ! went in for a coffee.”
“Who was he?”
Gjergj shrugged.
“I couldn’t quite make out, to tell you the truth. One of the old guard, ! think.”
Hava Fortuzi reminded her husband for the third time that it was unlucky to go straight home after a funeral
“What are we supposed to do, then? You know ! don’t feel like going anywhere.”
“I know, darling, but we must go and see someone. It’ll be better for you too. I know — the Kryekurts! What do you think?”
“All right,” he grumbled. “I might have known we’d end up there. As usual”
“Better the devil you know…”
“Not necessarily…Oh, this suicide! I feel at the end of my tether!”
“Stop thinking about it.”
“I can’t, I can’t!” he moaned, “it’s not just Lucas himself — you know Î didn’t really know him very well But there’s something about his death that does seem close…familiar somehow…”
“You must just try to put it all behind you.”
“It gave me a shock as soon as I heard how he’d died. I asked how he’d done it, and when they said he’d used a luggage strap I nearly yelled out, That was just how I thought I’d do it myself!’“
“Ekrem! You go too far!”
“The parallel is quite natural We were both connected to…
Yesterday, when I read the Chinese note, my heart missed a beat. I expect his did too. It’s all over now. There’s nothing left. It’s the end.”
“Ekrem! Stop it!”
“it’s the end. The last hope… the last gleam of hope…”
“You must be crazy! People will hear you!”
“The one little dream…”
The gate into the Kryekurts’ courtyard was now in sight. Hava Fortuzi hurried towards it as to a haven. Î only hope they’re not talking about that wretch’s death, she thought. But in the Kryekurts’ living room that’s just what they were doing. Apart from Mark and his fiancée, both of whom remained silent, the company included Musabelli, two more of the Kryekurts’ acquaintance whom the Fortuzis hadn’t seen for some time, and the doctor who had cut the unfortunate Lucas Alarupi down. They were all just back from the funeral, and Hava Fortuzi was surprised to see they’d all wiped their shoes so carefully they bore no trace of mud from the cemetery. She suddenly had a feeling that they, and for that matter the whole human race, spent ail their lives going to funerals. So long as the doctor doesn’t regale us with all the details! she thought, looking first at the fellow’s short-cropped hair — a style he’d got the habit of in prison — then at her husband’s tense expression. But of course the doctor - he’d always brought her bad leek - launched straight into a blow-by-blow account of the suicide. Hava Fortuzi listened absently to, his account of the rue-down area where Lucas Alarupi did the deed: a piece of waste ground near the disused railway station, covered with dust, clinker, like most such places. There were also lots of sheets of paper, which the poor wretch had looked at one last time before taking his own life. Everything was there: production diagrams, photographs of star workers, graphs showing the progress of the plan, telegrams congratulating the trade unions for beating deadlines. Hava Fortuzi watched her husband as the doctor spoke. He was listening with bated breath, and she was sure he was imagining his own feet dangling over bits of his translations of economic reports and other official documents, not
to mention the poems of Mao Zedong.
As the doctor explained how he’d suspected for some time that Lucas’s delusions would bring him to a sticky end, Hava Fortuzi thought with horror of her own Ekrem’s fantasies: an invitation from Mao himself for the two of them to spend a fortnight at Mount Kunlie; long imaginary conversations in classical Chinese in which he gloated over Guo Moruo: “Tee-hee, now there’s someone who knows more ideograms than you!” And so on.
It looked as though this cursed quack was going to blather on for ever. After trying several times to get a word in, Hava finally just interrupted.
“It may be stale news to everyone else, but I’ve heard rumours about a new rapprochement with the Soviet Union,’ she said.
“I don’t believe it for a moment,’ declared the doctor.
“Neither do I,” said Musabelli after a moment’s reflection.
“What about a rapprochement with the West, then?” gabbled Hava, terrified lest the doctor go back to Lucas’s death. If she hadn’t been so concerned about her husband she would never have said such a thing: she and Ekrem had gone over it so often it made her ill just to think of it.
“Even less likely,” pronounced the doctor.
“I agree,” said Musabelli.
Ekrem Fortuzi sighed. Perhaps it was his sickly looks, perhaps the parallel between his own obsession and that of the departed - at any rate, his sigh seemed so momentous it made everyone else fall silent. He might not have intended to say anything, but as they seemed to be waiting for him to speak, he did so.
“Paradoxical as it may seem,” he said faintly, “if I had to choose between China and the West, I’d choose China. Not because I dislike the West — on the contrary, because I love it, and should like it to exist in as safe a form as possible.”
Looking round at his audience, he saw they hadn’t understood.
“Let me explain,” he said, “A West dressed up in socialist clothes would be safer, in my opinion, than it is in its naked form, as in Europe. Do you see what I mean?” He lowered his voice, “That’s the kind of West we need - one wearing masks and disguises. Otherwise we shall always be in danger …Anyhow, perhaps we don’t need Europe at all any more …We’re older, we’ve changed, Europe isn’t for us any more… That’s the point, you see …Our only chance… our only chance was China. That’s why I wept, I admit, and I’m not ashamed to do so. It’s more shameful not to weep. And so,., And so …But what was I saying? …Oh yes, I cried, I cried my eyes out yesterday when I heard them read out China’s announcement on the radio…”
As the others all gazed at each other, Ekrem got up and went out of the room. ln the silence that followed, his wife went out after him. After a few moments she came back, looking relieved,.
“He’s in the bathroom,’ she said in a stage whisper. “I’ve been worried about him ever since yesterday. I think he’s on the verge of a breakdown. The wretched Chinese language has driven him mad. They talk about an embargo on oil and chrome and I don’t know what else, but that’s nothing compared with what’s happened to Ekrem. All the Chinese he learned, gone down the drain! What’s chrome or oil beside that? They’ll soon find another market for that sort of thing — but what about all that Chinese? Ekrem’s quite right to be depressed, poor thing. Last night it quite broke my heart to look at him, I’ve already told you how he wept — more than anyone else outside China, I'm sure — when Mao died. Bet Î thought that was all over. And then yesterday evening I heard him start up again!. My poor Mao,’ he was sobbing, ‘they’ve all stopped loving you, they’ve all deserted you before your body is cold. The only one who still thinks about you and loves you is me, an Albanian, an ex-bourgeois. But let the others forget you, or curse you — I shall go on translating you as before…’ And so he went on, poring over his Chinese books. Now you’re dead, the Word is dead,’ he said. Oh, I'm so afraid something might happen to him, if it hasn’t done so already! Alarupi’s suicide was the last straw!”
Mesabelli was about to speak when Ekrem came back into the room. Everyone would have liked to say something, so as not to look as if they’d been talking about him but they were all lost for words. Perhaps they were paralyzed by the way he himself looked from one to the other, as if to say, “Well, you’ve been discussing me. What do you say? Have ! gone completely bonkers?”
In the silence, Mark’s fiancée whispered something in her young man’s ear. He’d been staring down at the pattern in the threadbare carpet.
Il fait froid, she said again, even more softly. Her pale blue eyes had darkened. And without waiting for the conversation to start up again, they both got up and went into the other room. Hava Fortuzi watched them enviously.
“Turn your collar up,” Silva told Brikeea, who could hardly keep her eyes open.
It was very damp as they walked back through the city centre just before midnight. A small group of roadsweepers walked along in front of them, talking.
“They’re talking about the Chinese,” said Silva.
“What can roadsweepers have to say about the Chinese?” asked Brikena sleepily.
On the opposite pavement a man dressed like a foreigner had stopped to listen,
“No, no,” laughed one of the roadmen. “As sure as my name is Rem, you won’t catch me again! You can say what you like about Mao Zedong, I shan’t open my lips. I’d rather bite my tongue out than utter his name. I’ve already copped it once that way — I did fifteen years in jug because of Krushchev. And when, I ask you? When everyone was insulting him! Oh no, never again! Everyone else calling him all the names they could lay their tongues to, and me rotting behind bars! just because ! started cursing him a couple of hours before everyone else!”
The other roadsweepers laughed.
“You didn’t go to jail for insulting Krushchev,” said one of them. “They put you away for relieving yourself against the tree he planted in the garden opposite the Hôtel Dajti, in honour of Albano-Soviet friendship,”
“So what?” said Rem. “What’s the difference between a tree and the person who planted it? Don’t talk to me about it - it makes me fit to be tied!”
“You mustn’t lose your temper today, Rem - the last day before you retire! Thirty years sweeping the streets for the new man to walk along — isn’t that what the union boss said? I tell you, it brought tears to my eyes.”
“Yes, it quite upset me as well,” said Rem,
“How amusing!” said Brikena. “I’ve never heard roadsweepers talking before. Don’t walk so fast, Mother — ! want to listen.”
But by now they’d left the roadmen behind, and could hear only snatches of what they were saying.
“Come on, Rem! Wield your broom for the last time! You’ve swept some things away in your lifetime! Sweep the street clean for the last time! Sweep the whole surface of the earth clean!”
“What are they saying, Father?” asked Brikena, “I thought I heard one of them call out, ‘Sweep the surface of the earth clean of everything to do with the Chinese!’“
“I shouldn’t be surprised!” said Gjergj, slowing down. He looked over at the roadmen, who at present were standing still. The man on the other side of the street, now quite clearly a foreigner, had also stopped to listen. But the roadmen had fallen silent.
“The one who’s retiring really is sweeping the street for the last time,” said Silva.
And in the distance they could see one of the men swishing his broom back and forth along the crown of the road, raising a cloud of dust and shrouding himself in mystery.
It was long past midnight, and messages from Europe were becoming few and far between. The observer at the Pole looked at his log-book: his notes were thinning out too. His superiors had pointed it out to him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
People said it was a kind of professional illness that afflicted everyone who did this job. After the first few months they gradually became indifferent. This aloofness brought about great changes in the way they perceived the universe: spac
e, distance, time and events all assumed different dimensions. Many things that before had seemed important and established now seemed like ephemeral trifles; others arose out of nothingness and night to blaze like new planets. When people talked about the world’s reserves of oil or coal or rock salt, he marvelled that no one ever thought about the world’s reserves of malice, goodness and crime. History was written quite wrongly: a few battles and treaties, but all the most important things left out. Where for example would you find a single word about the twelve thousand girls in Europe who fell in love between five o’clock and a quarter to six on the afternoon of 20 September 1976? — in what annals, what diplomatic documents, historical or geo-strategic maps? And what about the sorrow of eleven generations of bald men between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times? It was that kind of thing that was the real stuff of history, not that other squeaking of rats reeling home from some grotesque evening out, the tedious pastime of Lilliputians!
He realized that if he went on like that he’d end up neglecting his work and probably get sacked; but he’d given up bothering about that a long time ago. He’d find some other, less demanding job, or perhaps write his memoirs — The Solitude of the World Listener. His reminiscences would probably turn out as peculiar as the chattering radio messages, but perhaps they too would be punctuated by quieter passages, about the state of the ice, the temperature of the water, the barometric pressure.
He certainly wouldn’t be writing about the everyday trivia of politics. The international monetary crisis was going to get worse, people said. And the next Pope would be a Pole — dear me, what a scoop! He looked at the time: he would be waking up his colleague in a few minutes. He’d jot down a few more notes, old chronicler of the planet that he was, like some medieval monk working by flickering candlelight; then he’d go to bed. A huge yawn blocked his ears for a moment and prevented him from hearing half of a sentence about China, Heavens, all the things he’d scribbled down on that subject lately!
But wait a minute! What they were saying just now was a bit out of the ordinary, more in the style of his own reflections. He leaned forward, hunching up his shoulders to bring the earpieces closer to his ears…In Albania they think China should he swept off the face of the earth … Good grief, thought the observer, who could have said such a thing? It was all very well for him to think it himself, sitting there on top of the world, but down there in that ridiculous mess, what far-sighted spirit was responsible for such a point of view? He concentrated, trying to hear more: People walking the streets of Tirana at night express the opinion that Mao Zedong’s China ought to be swept off the surface of the earth … This is the first time anyone had formulated in so radical and absurd a manner an idea so. Well, my lad, thought the observer, inwardly addressing the unknown broadcaster, you may see it like that, but I agree with that sentiment entirely! And he suddenly longed to be having a quiet whisky somewhere with that anonymous passer-by from Tirana, peacefully discussing what countries seemed to them superfluous, what centuries they could do without, and how to rid the planet of such things, unfasten them and let them fall into the void. Just like that, he mused,, aware he was about to lose the thread of his thoughts…The sadness of eleven generations of bald men hovered sadly, like a great condor, over the globe …I may be going round the bend, he told himself, but that doesn’t matter either…
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