The Concert (2 page)

“It's freezing cold out,” said her sister-in-law.

“Is it?” said Silva, getting up to put a log in the tiled stove.

Then there was a silence, during which Silva, surreptitiously studying her brother's handsome face, thought she detected signs of anxiety. Sensing that he'd noticed her looking at him, she turned away, but a little while later, seeing that he wore the same expression as before, she wondered why he had always passed so unnoticed among their small circle of friends. Had any but herself remarked his present worried look? He was a graduate of the military academy and at present an officer in a tank regiment; but people were always surprised to hear that Silva had a brother at all. This state of affairs had been even more marked when Ana was alive: Silva and Ana, universally known as the Krasniqi sisters, had seemed to monopolize everyone's attention, to the exclusion of the rest of the family. Whenever the girls mentioned their brother in conversation, people would stare and say, “Have you really got a brother? A real one, I mean, born of the same mother as both of you?” “Yes, of course!” they would answer, greatly amused.

Even now that Ana was dead, many people still thought of the two sisters together, just as they had done in the early sixties, when they were nearly always together, despite the fact that Ana was already married then and Silva still single. But everyone persisted in regarding their brother as practically non-existent.

“When did Gjergj leave?” he asked Silva, in the hope of cutting short her scrutiny.

“Four days ago.”

“How inconvenient!” said his wife, referring to Brikena's birthday.

Silva knew that all her guests except her mother would make the same remark.

“It couldn't be helped,” she said.

There was another ring at the door: two of Brikena's teachers and their children, bearing gift-wrapped parcels. As they took their coats off in the hall they too asked about Gjergj's trip, and they were just exclaiming “How inconvenient!” when the bell rang once more. Timidly this time.

““Who is it, Brikena?” Silva called out, not hearing any sound from the hall.

“Veriana,” her daughter called back.

Silva jumped up. By the front door, struggling out of her raincoat,her cheeks red from the cold, stood her only niece. A frail figure — the very image of Ana.

Silva went over and kissed her fondly.

“Father says he's very sorry, Aunt Silva — something cropped up and he couldn't manage it.”

“What a pity! But did you come all on your own?”

“Yes. On the bus.”

Silva took her niece's hand and led her towards the living room. Silva herself just stood in the doorway.

“Good evening!” said the girl to everyone in general.

They all looked back at her with a mixture of curiosity and pity.

“Isn't she like her poor mother!” whispered one of the women.

Veriana went straight over to her grandmother, who made room for her on her chair and began stroking her hair affectionately.

“Beseik's been unexpectedly detained and can't come,” said Silva from the door, answering her guests' unspoken question.

Silva thought she heard someone say “What a pity!” Unless, thinking the same herself, she'd only imagined it. She drew back into the hall for a moment.

She really was sorry Besnik wasn't there. It was because of him she hadn't invited Skënder Bermema. She liked them both equally, but always made sure they didn't both come to see her together. Besnik Straga, her brother-in-law, who hadn't remarried after Ana's death, was naturally closer to her, but Skënder Bermema was closely linked to the memory of their youth, the rapturous years the two sisters had shared before Ana's divorce from her first husband. Moreover, before Ana met and married Besnik, there'd been a friendship between her and Skënder which even after all these years was still something of a mystery to everyone, including Silva.

An ideal time for going over all these memories, Silva had thought an hour ago. On autumn afternoons like this, just before some festivity, she liked to sit on the windowsill and, as darkness came down like a theatre curtain, forget present preoccupations and conjure up the past: the scandal of Ana and _ Frederic's divorce; the endless conjectures about the reasons for it; the mysterious attitude of Skënder Bermema, whose name had been closely linked to the whole business even in the courtroom, which people had likened to a literary jury. For at the husband's request — though it had only made him seem even more ridiculous — the judge had pored for days over certain pages of Bermema's books which Frédéric insisted were dedicated to Ana. Then came the unexpected twist when it turned out that Ana's decision to get a divorce had nothing to do with Bermema, whose owe marriage was going through a difficult patch, but was really due to her relationship with Straga, and to their suddee decision to get married as soon as possible. No one ever knew whether, in view of the fact his jealousy had been concentrated for years on Bermema, this lessened Frederic's fury, or whether his anger at being betrayed was increased by the entrance on the scene of a third man.

Silva had never tried to get to the bottom of the matter: she preferred it to be forgotten. The aspect of the business that had upset her most, apart from the divorce itself, was the coolness that grew up between Besnik and Skënder. This grieved her not only because she liked and respected them both, but also because they were the people most intimately connected with her sister's memory.

Strangely enough, the breach between Besnik and Skënder had opened up when yoe might least have expected it: after Ana's death. Was her death the cause of the rupture between the two friends? Silva would have thought it quite natural if it had been brought about by Ana herself, or by the break between Besnik and his fiancée, who happened to be the niece of Skënder's wife. But neither of these theories held water, because Besnik and Skënder had gone on seeing one another after Besnik had broken with Zana, and even after his scandalous liaison with Ana, which had swiftly followed.

But although it seemed that neither explanation was correct, Silva had a feeling it was no use looking for one elsewhere. After cudgelling her brains for some time she'd come to the conclusion that while neither her sister nor Besnik's ex-fiancée was responsible separately, together they had been enough to cause the breach between the two men. Skënder's wife might have put up to some extent with a vague rumour about her husband's relationship with Ana, just as later on she might have tolerated his seeing Besnik after the latter had quarrelled with her niece. But when the two considerations came together, and Besnik married the woman whose name had long been linked to that of her husband, Skënder's wife, perhaps understandably, had decided that the pill was too bitter for her to swallow…

Silva suddenly remembered she'd left her guests to fend for themselves in the living room, but when she got near the door she could hear a lively conversation going on: no one seemed to have noticed her absence. She tiptoed over to the French window opening on to the balcony, beyond which the darkness was now rapidly deepening. The lemon tree brought by the unexpected delivery man from some unknown nursery was there in its tub, spending its first evening in its strange new home…The doorbell interrupted Suva's meditations: it was Gjergj's four sisters — the “herd”, as he called them. Three of them were married; the single one was studying medicine.

The hall was full of voices, arms flailing to get out of coatsleeves, children rushing about with parcels.

“Brr — it's so cold!” said one of the sisters.

“Really?”

“There's been a sudden drop in the temperature. But it's nice and cosy in here!”

“What a shame Gjergfs not here! Couldn't he put his trip off?”

“No,” Silva answered. “It wasn't up to him.”

“Of course not," said the youngest sister. “And the way things are going with China…”

“Won't you come through?”

Silva shepherded them into the living room.

The atmosphere in the flat had all at once become cosy and cheerful Back in the hall, Silva felt like smiling at the sight of all the clothes heaped on to the hall-stand. Some of the children's fur jackets looked as if they were riding piggyback on the grown-ups' overcoats; Silva took them down and put them on a divan in her daughter's room.

Then she went and inspected the table in the dining room. The quiet brilliance of the glass and silver seemed very remote from the commotion that had invaded the rest of the flat. The children had already established a route for chasing one another about, from the living room through the hall to Brikena's bedroom and back. Conversation in the main room was now so lively there was no longer much danger that the little party would fall flat. Silva, standing in the doorway, noticed that her brother was the only one not joining in. She drew up a stool and sat down beside him.

“Is something the matter, Arian?” she asked gently. “You look rather out of sorts.”

“No, Silva - I'm ail right.”

From close to he looked quite drawn.

“What do you mean, you're all right? I can see something is wrong.”

He smiled up at her with a look of sadness tinged with surprise, as if to say, “Since when have you started bothering about me?” Silva fett an almost physical twinge of conscience. She could see he was now in real trouble, though in the past the perpetual personal problems and dramas of his two sisters had seemed to deny him the right to any worries of his own.

Then Silva was called to the telephone.

She heaved a sigh of relief when everyone was sitting down at the table and the continuous clatter of knives and forks showed that the meal was well begun. She realized she was sitting next to Arian. Perhaps she oughtn't to press him any more about why he looked so glum, Besides, by now she was beginning to wonder whether that wasn't his usual expression: didn't men have plenty of reasons for feeling fed up? She would probably have let the matter drop this was supposed to be a party, after all - if out of the corner of her eye she hadn't noticed her brother down two glasses of raki one after the other without stopping for breath. This was very unusual for him - not so much the actual drinking as the way he threw back his head after emptying his glass, and even more the way he set the glass down again on the table. His whole attitude suggested he had made up his mied about something and was prepared to take the consequences, whatever they might be!

“Have you got something on your mind?”' Silva whispered.

“What if I have, little sister?” he answered calmly, “Even if I had a real problem, you wouldn't expect me to tell you about it in the middle of ae occasion like this, would you?”

Silva was put out not so much by his answer as by the sardonic gleam in his eye. Such a mixture of annoyance and sarcasm can be hurtful even if it isn't directed against you…

“And why not?”

Now that he wasn't actually looking at her she could feel all the more clearly how vexed he was.

What in the world could have happened to him? she wondered with another pang of conscience: did her brother have to be threatened by serious misfortune for her to act as if he really existed?

“I don't want to bother you with my troubles," he said at last. “It's something I haven't told anybody.”

Silva looked swiftly at his wife who was laughing and clinking glasses with Gjergj's youngest sister: was it something to do with her? She studied her for a moment. Yes, of course she thought. He's jealous, though she probably doesn't suspect it. Otherwise, how was it she didn't seem at all bothered by her husband's sulks?

“It hasn't got anything to do with Sonia, has it?” asked Silva, for some reason regretting her question as soon as she'd asked it.

“Sonia!” exclaimed her brother in amazement. “What an idea!”

So it must be something different, something more serious, she thought. She was surprised at herself for imagining that anything could be more serious, for she'd been brought up in a family where the wives were always the source of any complications,

A wave of toasts swept round the table.

“Well, whatever it is, you shouldn't hide things from me,” said Silva, leaning her head briefly on her brother's shoulder.

She was getting more and more anxious about him.

He turned towards her, and the look of pain in his eyes struck her like an electric shock.

“I'll tell you if you insist,” he said, “though I'd made up my mind not to talk about it to anyone.”

He twisted his glass round in his hand, gazing at it as if it were an object of wonder.

“I'm probably, perhaps even certainly, going to be expelled from the Party some time in the next few days,” he said. “And from the army too, needless to say.”

Silva nearly dropped her fork.

“What?” she stammered. “But why?”

“Please don't ask any questions. It's very complicated,"

“But how is it possible?” she murmured, as if to herself.

“It's a very complex business,” he repeated, “And there's nothing to be done about it. But at least it can't hurt the rest of you."

“How could you imagine we'd think of ourselves?” Silva protested, “You ought to be ashamed!”

He gave a wry smile, stabbing with his fork at a piece of meat that he'd picked up and put down again several times already.

“But why?” said Silva again. “What's it all about?”

Arian stared in silence at his almost untouched plate, as if he expected to see something there that would help him decide whether or not to confide in his sister.

“As you know, there were some army manoeuvres recently,” he said at last, “Well, in the course of them I disobeyed, or rather refused to obey, an important order.”

So that's all, said Silva to herself: at first Mesh it didn't seem as awful as she'd feared. But her brother went on, as if he'd guessed what she was thinking;