The Concert (11 page)

“Are you in a hurry?”

“Yes,” said Linda, though she spoke rather uncertainly. “I'm on my way to see a friend.”

He looked at her closely for a moment.

“Would you mind if I asked you something?”

“Not at all,” answered Linda, staring straight ahead.

“Please don't misunderstand me,” he said, “but I feel so depressed this afternoon that you really would be doing me a kindness if you'd have a drink with me.”

Linda stood still for a moment, hesitating. The man's expectancy was almost tangible.

“All right,” she said, surprised at how faint her voice was.

“It's very kind of you,' he murmured. “Thanks.”

Linda didn't know what to say. They went across a square to a little café. “But I was right to say I'd come,” she thought as they went in, “He really did look down in the dumps.”

There weren't many other people in the café.

“What will you have?” he asked.

“A coffee, please,” said Linda.

They sat with their elbows on the table for a while without speaking.

“I'd been wandering around for an hour,” he said. “I'm really out of work now, you know. It wasn't so bad the day I first met you — I'd been suspended, but I could still go to the factory, see my friends, turn my hand to something. But now, with the Chinese on the watch all the time, I can't go anywhere near the factory. You can't imagine what it's like when those devils have got their eye on you.”

Linda felt she might risk a smile, Victor's drawn face relaxed.

“I'm just a figure of fun,” he said. “Do you see what I mean? I've dropped out of time. In the past I might have been punished for what I did; in the future I might be praised. But in the present situation between our two countries, it's neither one thing nor the other. That's the worst of it, I'm suspended between two different periods of time. Which means ! don't belong to either. To any. Do you understand?”

“Perhaps that just makes you a man of today,” said Linda,

“Do you mean I'm typical of our own age?”

“Who can say?” replied Linda, smiling. “Perhaps. A hero of our time!”

Victor gazed at her for a while as if meditating a decision: should he or should he not forget his pain and smile with her? He had a vague feeling it was his sorrow that had made Linda interrupt what she was doing and come here with him, and that if he showed less of it she might feel no further moral obligation and go off with an easy conscience, her mission accomplished, leaving him alone again.

He hadn't worked this out clearly: he just sensed that she'd come with him because she felt sorry for him, and would go away again as soon as she saw him feeling a bit better. But in fact, apart from the pleasure of sitting here in this charming girl's company, he didn't feel any relief whatsoever: on the contrary, Linda's presence, by reminding him that life went on normally regardless of his distress, just made him feel further pangs. So it wasn't a pose when he went on looking sad.

Linda's smile faded first from her lips, thee from her cheeks, and then from her eyes, leaving her with a sense of guilt. She picked up her cup, only to realize at the last moment that it was empty.

“Some witticisms are very amusing to quote after the event,” said Victor, “bet sometimes they're rather painful at the time.”

“I wasn't trying to be funny,'' replied Linda. “I sympathise with your trouble, and as a matter of fact…”

She'd been going to say, “that was why I agreed to come here.” But she didn't finish, partly out of annoyance, partly perhaps because of some sort of inhibition.

“I wasn't referring to you!” cried Victor. “The thought never entered my head! On the contrary, I'm very grateful to you for giving me your company on a day like this. It would be really boorish of me to bother about such trifles …”

“Anyhow, it's of no importance,” said Linda.

Another silence fell between them, unrelieved by the clatter of their empty cups or the sound of Victor's lighter as he made several unsuccessful attempts to light a cigarette.

“Have you been working in the same office as Silva for long?” he asked at last.

Linda perceived that the best way of relieving the tension was to talk about a third person. She spoke of Silva with a warmth, almost a passion, which she herself found hard to explain.

“Have you known her long yourself ?” she asked.

“Yes, for a very long time,” Victor answered.

He stared for a moment at the whorls of cigarette smoke, thee added:

“I was closer to her sister, though. Perhaps Silva has told you something about it?”

“Yes.”

“She was a remarkable woman. We'd known each other since the time of her first marriage. Then she divorced and married one of my friends — Besnik Straga. I expect you've heard of him.”

“Yes, Didn't he act as Eever Hoxha's interpreter in Moscow in 1960?”

“That's right. He was an extraordinary person, too. But such is life — their happiness didn't last long.”

“Besnik Struga was a friend of yours, was he?”

Victor nodded.

“I met him when he came back from Moscow,” he went on thoughtfully. “As chance would have it, it was through him that I was one of the first to hear what had happened there.”

Now Linda was listening with bated breath,

“He wouldn't say anything about it even to his fiancée. Some people say that was one of the reasons why they broke up.”

Linda longed to hear more, but didn't like to ask questions for fear of seeming inquisitive.

But she could see how restlessly his hands were moving about on the table. The man sitting opposite was one of the people who'd been involved in the first blockade. And one of the first, perhaps the very first, to be involved in the present one.

“Well, there it is,” he said suddenly. “A Chinaman turns up from the other side of the world and ruins your life for you.”

He waited a moment to see if she was going to laugh again. Then, as she hadn't even smiled:

“The worst of it is,” he went on, “having to explain it to people. They all take it as a joke. No one seems to understand, not even one's nearest and dearest.”

At the first part of this sentence she had almost protested, but at the second she decided to hold back.

“Were you going to say something?” he asked,

“No…”

“So that's how it is,” he said, tossing his lighter from one hand to the other. “Not even the person closest to you. Not even your own wife…”

Linda looked at him.

“She seems more and more fed up lately,” he explained. “She says the whole business has been dragging on too long, and she'd never have dreamed it would turn out like this. She acts as if i was making it out to be worse than it is - as if we'd agreed to treat it as something comic, and it was my fault that it's degenerated into tragedy.”

“I suppose, if there are money worries…”

He smiled bitterly.

“Of course,” he said. “We've lost more than half our monthly income. I'm not joking!”

“I believe you,” said Linda.

“Sorry to bother you with all this. Why should you have to listen
to
my tale of woe? I shouldn't have asked you to come here. But I really did need to talk to someone. My wife's been away on a mission in the north these last few days, and I was feeling pretty lonely…”

“No need to apologize,” said Linda. “I'd be only too glad to be able to cheer you up a bit. We're only human, after all…”

She turned towards the window so he shouldn't see she was blushing.

Outside it was as dull as ever — that time of an autumn afternoon where everything seems becalmed. She went on staring at the window. The glass is nice and clean, she thought vaguely.

“I expect I've kept you too long,” he said. “We can leave whenever you like.”

Linda smiled and nodded.

“Yes, it is getting a bit late.”

Victor summoned the waiter. She couldn't help glancing at his wallet. It contained a few 100-lek notes. Remembering he was out of work, she was tempted to offer to pay for their coffees herself, bet the fear of giving offence, together with a new surge of pity, was so strong it made her feel quite faint. For some reason or other, the sight of him handing over the money made her feel guilty. If it hadn't been for the risk of being misunderstood, she'd have liked to say: “Let's stay on for a while, if you like,” But even though she hadn't opened her lips, and though it was she who led the way out of the café, her lack of haste revealed what she had been thinking.

By now they were walking along in a direction that was neither hers nor his, and still Linda found herself hesitating. Should she say she meant to go and see her friend now, or even merely go home, or should she just let herself be led aimlessly along? It didn't yet commit her in any way…She couldn't make up her mind, and to set aside her own uncertainties she asked him about the Chinaman again.

“What?” he exclaimed.

“The X-ray,” she said. “What will happen when it comes back from China?”

Victor shrugged and smiled.

“How should I know? They'll certainly attach the Chinese doctors' reading of it. Unless they ask for another X-ray altogether, I've no experience of that sort of thing.”

“What a nasty business!” she exclaimed.

She could feel him looking at her.

“The X-ray of a Chinaman's foot flying from one country to another!” he said. “Macabre, isn't it?”

She looked up involuntarily. For a moment, the fate of the man walking along beside her seemed linked to a vast expanse of sky being crossed by the long-awaited image of a foot. This brought back to her mind the X-ray her father had had to have a couple of years ago: the hazy white bones on the cloudy background…The future of the man beside her depended on a similar image.

She couldn't help sighing. A Chinaman's foot, she mused. The shop windows on either side of the street, the passers-by, all seemed to withdraw, giving way to that macabre image flying between the. continents, a combination of Asian and European myth. Any man who was hand in glove with that phantom foot must certainly be out of the ordinary.

“Oh, this is where I live!” she heard him say. But his voice sounded far away.

He'd stopped, and was pointing to the third or fourth floor of a block of Eats. Linda looked up, but absent-mindedly: she still felt strangely languid.

“Shall we go up for a minute?” he asked rather hesitantly. “It's too soon just to go home, don't you think?”

The afternoon seemed to be dragging on for ever. Linda's mind refused to take anything in. She gazed idly at the little garden in front of the flats: the grass was starting to wither; there was a sketchily painted red seesaw.

“It's so pleasant, talking to you. So peaceful,” he said, “Couldn't we stay together a little while longer?”

Linda's mind still dwelt on that still life with sky and the X-ray of a foot. In such a context, his suggestion seemed quite natural After all, why not? she thought. He's so unhappy!

“Why not?” she murmured. And head bowed, without looking at him, she began to walk in the direction of the flats.

What am I doing? she asked herself several times as they went along. She'd agreed to go up to the apartment of a man she hardly knew before this afternoon. She asked herself the same question yet again. Bet she felt as if she'd been snatched up into some vast space in which she would soon dissolve.

Linda left Victor an hour later. It was dark by now, and she looked into the shop windows, which for some reason were not lit, to see if her hair was dishevelled. In fact, as she well knew, her hair was as tidy as ever. If there was any disorder, it lay elsewhere. Looking back on what had just happened, beginning with the sudden embrace which struck her as more insane with every minute that passed, quite apart from the fact that it had probably surprised her companion as much as herself, she wondered what sort of girl he must have taken her for.

“Goodnight,” she said suddenly when they came to an intersection, “I'm almost home.”

He made as if to say something, but then just murmured goodnight, almost as if to himself.

I never ought to have read any Russian literature, Linda thought as she covered the short distance to her own place, hurrying as if for dear life. It was all because of her owe damned soft-heartedness, she thought, patting her hair again as if the misunderstanding — she was now convinced that this was all it was - lay there, like a burr she was trying in vain to disentangle.

Victor was woken up by the telephone. It sounded unnaturally long and loud (ever since he'd been suspended from his job, Victor had felt that even the ringing of the phone sounded scornful and cold). He was wanted at the factory. What? Why? he asked. Would it be good news or bad? Come and find out, said the head of personnel.

As he dressed he wondered, almost aloud, “Why am I so calm?” Then, as if a load had fallen from him, he remembered the afternoon with Linda, their walk, and then, in his fiat, the amazing way she'd instantly put her arms around him. He'd thought about it over and over again, lying on his bed till midnight lighting one cigarette after another, as if trying to shroud in smoke something which was anyhow nebulous, inexplicable and vague as a dream. Curiously enough, what he remembered most clearly, better than all that had followed, was that first impulsive gesture of Linda's. Sometimes he saw it as sisterly, sometimes as something quite different. He remembered learning at school than in the old Albanian ballads men called their sweethearts “sister”, and wondered whether it wasn't his unhappiness that had made him so sentimental I'd never have had such tender feelings about an incident like this in the past, he thought. But then, in the past, it would never have happened. That soft hair on his cheek, the gentle touch of her lips, and above all those arms round his neck - it was all as fragile and fleeting as a rainbow: one vulgar word or gesture might destroy it. And even though that which people call vulgar had happened, the original rainbow remained intact…