The Concert (21 page)

Anyhow, that day, the subject of conversation was somebody else. “Who is it you want to marry?” Silva had asked, finally. And thee, for the first time, Ana had uttered the name of Besnik Straga.

“The man who was in Moscow and has jest broken off his engagement?” Silva asked.

Ana nodded.

“Yes. Perhaps yoe remember me going to dinner with Victor Hila a few weeks ago? Well, it was there I met him.“

“And what are you going to do now?”

“I've told you. I'm going to marry him.”

Silva, perched now on a corner of the rose-strewn marble slab, huddled up to keep out the cold, felt a great emptiness inside her. Scraps of memories whirled around her indistinguishably; none emerged more distinct than the others. Then vaguely, distantly, they formed into a kind of television film with the sound turned off: first came the scandal caused by the announcement of Ana's divorce; thee the legal proceedings, with Frédéric coming into court carrying an armful of books by Skënder Bermema in which he'd marked all the passages he alleged referred to the author's affair with Ana; the gossip; Ana's dignified behaviour throughout. The storm, which Ana, with her talent for making everything around her light and airy, transformed into a spring shower, was followed by a fiat calm: her marriage to Besnik Strega; the little dinner party with just a few close friends. When, after the first few weeks, they assessed the damage this earthquake of theirs had caused among their circle, they realized there hadn't been any great upheavals, apart from one loss that affected them deeply: they couldn't see the Bermemas any more.

Silva remembered a bright rainy afternoon when she and Ana were walking past the puppet theatre, and her sister nudged her and whispered, “Look, Silva - that's the girl who was engaged to Besnik …” The girl was hurrying along under a transparent umbrella which cast pale mauve reflections on to her face. In that lavender light her expression struck Silva, who had never seen her before, as full of mystery. There was no trace of resentment in Ana's eyes or voice. She just said, “She's pretty, isn't she?”, when the girl had gone past, Silva didn't know what to say. She agreed. When she saw the girl again later, after she'd got married to an engineer, she still seemed just as mysterious as on that first day, through that mauve mist. But perhaps this was because Silva had heard people say that although she was so attractive to men, she was also proud and self-willed; it was even whispered that she was very cold towards her husband. But Silva was rather sceptical about that. Perhaps because of all the tittle-tattle about Ana, she tended to discount rumours about women's infidelity. There was much more to be said about the infidelity of men.

Silva sighed. In the end, what did it all matter? She'd come here for something else. She stared at the wet marble; her eyes were so tired they hurt. What would she have said to her sister if she'd still been alive? “Ana, I'm going to divorce Gjergj”? She shuddered. Oh no, she thought. Never! She'd heard someone else use such words, and now she wanted to give them back, like something she'd borrowed that didn't suit her. Like most younger sisters, she'd often imitated Ana, but the time for that had gone by. They had been as one, like sisters in the ancient ballads, and they still were one. But now they were like twin water-lilies, the invisible roots of one of which were dead. Even though people still spoke of them together, the old symmetry was no more. The words Silva had been on the point of saying were quite alien to her.

She glanced around. No one. When she looked at her watch she couldn't believe her eyes: it was after two o'clock. At home they'd have been wondering where she was. She felt her lips curve in a bitter smile. Perhaps she'd smile like this when she first spoke to Gjergj. It was late, but she hadn't yet bothered to think what she'd say to him. She stood up, smoothed her skirt down, and started to make her way out of the cemetery. The worst would be if he tried to hide the truth, and degraded himself in her eyes with petty lies. How horrible! thought Silva, as if a new misfortune had suddenly been revealed to her. I only hope it won't be like that, she thought as she got on to the almost empty bus. Then she wondered what it would be like if he simply admitted he was having an affair; at this idea she wasn't quite so shattered. She sighed again. Whichever way she looked at it, she couldn't see any solution. What horrible chance made me go by that cursed café, she wondered. It would have been better for me not to know. I'd a hundred times rather not have seen anything.

The bus picked up passengers at every stop. It was almost three o'clock by the time she got off. She still hadn't thought what she would say to Gjergj, She ought at least to have an answer ready when he asked where she'd been. But she felt too worn out to think about anything. She was almost surprised to see a couple of young men unloading crates of mineral water from a lorry outside a bar in the street where she lived. They whistled as they staggered across the pavement to the shop, the bottles clinking. Was life really still going on as if nothing had happened?

She paused for a moment outside the apartment as if to muster her strength. Then she took her key out of her bag, and trying, heaven knows why, to make as little noise as possible, opened the door. In the hall she took her coat off and waited for Gjergj to come and ask where she'd got to. But a suspicious quiet reigned. What if he hadn't come back? It vaguely occurred to her that he might still be there in the café with the girl, or lunching tête-à-tête with her in some restaurant. Why hadn't she thought of that before? She snatched the scarf from round her neck almost violently — it seemed to cling on - and propelled by fury at the possibility she'd just been considering, she burst into the kitchen. And there was Gjergj, standing by the French window that opened on to the balcony. She was so astonished she almost cried out, “You're here!” He was smoking. The face he turned towards her, though it showed no surprise, wore a frown. What was he looking like that for? Perhaps he knew…Perhaps he'd seen her though the window of the café… And now…Attack was the best form of defence! All this flashed through Suva's mind in less than a second. Then something made her look at Brikena, who was busy at the dresser: she wore the same sullen expression. The explanation must be worse than that, she thought, stunned. But what could it be? That he had indeed seen her and had no intention of defending himself, even by attacking her, but would calmly, cruelly, lethally tell her he loved someone else, and… and…that he'd told his daughter about it …so that she could choose between her father and mother…So there
was
something worse, much much worse (“Fondest fondest love”‘)…Perhaps…perhaps…(the word “separation” came into her mind with the harsh tearing sound of someone ripping a length of cloth). And all that had taken no more than another second…

“What on earth has happened?” she managed to stammer. Exactly what she had expected
them
to say to
her
.

Gjergj looked back at her fixedly. He too looked rather surprised, but his main expression was one of consternation. He seemed to be saying, “Never mind about us - what about you?” He glanced towards the sofa, and it was then that Silva realized there was someone else in the room. Sonia, her sister-in-law, was sitting on the sofa, white as a sheet and with tears streaming down her cheeks and even into her shoulder-length hair.

“Sonia!” said Silva, starting towards her. “What's happened?”

Sonia's brimming eyes seemed to have aged suddenly.

“Arian…” she murmured.

Silva nodded encouragingly.

Yes, but what, she wondered, half wanting to know and half too worn out to care. Had her brother had an accident? Committed suicide? For a moment she thought this might be the answer, but no - if so, Sonia would have stayed at home…

“What?” she repeated,

“Arrested,” sobbed Sonia.

“What!”

Silva turned first to Gjergj and then to Brikena, as if to ask them if she was in her right mind. Of all the possible misfortunes, this one had never occurred to her. What a day!

“When?” she asked, trying to keep calm,

“This morning at ten o'clock."

Just when she was laughing at Skënder Bermema's comments at the exhibition, and while Gjergj…

He went on smoking, standing by the French window leading out on to the balcony, Brikena was now setting the table. The mere idea of eating struck Silva as barbarous. Bet as if she found some temporary respite in catching up with duties she'd thought she'd skipped, she started coming and going with unnatural assiduity between the table and the stove, where the meal had got cold and been heated up again several times.

“I don't suppose you've had any lunch, Sonia?”

“I haven't even thought about it!”

“Anyhow, sit down and eat something…”

“It was frightful!” Sonia groaned. “Fortunately Mother and the children weren't in!”

“I was just going to ask you what had become of them,” said Silva.

“They don't know anything about it. Aunt Urania had called for Mother to go and see some friend of theirs. The children were out.”

“They mustn't know!” said Gjergj. “Tell them he's been sent on a mission.”

“This is the last straw!” Silva exclaimed, “Come and have something to eat now, and well talk about it all later.”

She was about to start serving when she remembered the salad hadn't been prepared. She asked Brikena to see to it, while she herself went to the refrigerator for the cheese, and something else out of a tin which she then replaced. She performed all these actions feverishly, her mind in a whirl. These plates wouldn't do for taking food to a prisoner —- you're only allowed to use tinfoil containers…Snap out of it, she told herself, grabbing a handful of forks from the dresser.

Sonia was still weeping silently on the sofa.

“When they expelled him from the Party,” she said, “I thought that would be the end of it. Who would ever have thought things would go so far?”

“Don't cry, Sonia,” said a voice Silva recognized as Gjergj's.

She felt she hadn't heard it for a long time…ever since…ever since the disaster. But this wasn't the moment to think about that; it would be indecent.

“I'm not just saying it to console you,” Gjergj went on, “but I'm sure it's only a misunderstanding. Besides, Sonia, being arrested when you're in the army is not the same as if you're a civilian. It's not nearly so serious — not a catastrophe at all. Any soldier can be put under arrest for disobedience or some such offence, and afterwards go on just as before. It's in the regulations — you must have heard about it… You've seen it happen in films, don't you remember? Some triling misconduct, five days in clink, fall out!”

“Gjergj is right,” said Silva. “To be put under arrest in the army is nothing! When our colleagues at the ministry come back from reserve training they're always full of stories about it. Arian has merely committed some minor offence for which army regulations prescribe arrest!”

“But they came to the house to arrest him!” cried Sonia, “And I don't know if it was done according to the rules - I've never seen an arrest before. But it didn't look like a disciplinary matter.”

“Did they have any authorization?”

“Yes, of course. They had a kind of warrant, and one of them showed it to me as well as to Arian. Not that I could read what was written on it, I was so upset. There was someone else with them — a member of the local committee of the Democratic Front.”

Gjergj and Silva exchanged a surreptitious glance. Sonia noticed it, but she still didn't know whether the warrant and the member of the Democratic Front were good signs or bad.

Gjergj finally moved away from the French window, but to Silva he seemed to do so more rapidly than was natural, and this added to her uneasiness. He too started coming and going around the kitchen, helping to get the meal ready.

“Don't worry, Sonia — I'm sure my explanation is right, Sit down and have something to eat,” he said, shifting chairs about noisily, “Brikena, where's the pepper? Come along, Sonia…Why were you so late, by the way, Silva?” He sounded as if he wasn't sure it was possible to say anything so ordinary here any more.

Silva stared at him for a moment.

“I'll tell you later on,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Come on, Sonia — come and sit down.”

“I don't want anything to eat! I couldn't swallow a mouthful!”

“Don't be silly,” said Silva. “I'm sure it'll all be explained. We mustn't give in. And don't forget the family, Sonia…Most of them are senior Party members…It's not as if we hadn't any influence any more …”

But it seemed to her that the more she said the less she believed it. Take those stupid remarks about the family. She knew the arrest of a member of a communist family was just as serious as the arrest of someone connected with the old guard. More serious, in fact, because it was so unusual As for the warrant and the member of the committee, they showed this was no routine matter.

But it was precisely what Silva said without believing in it herself that persuaded Sonia to come to the table.

During the meal, though everyone did their best to avoid long ‘silences, they couldn't und much to say. So they made much play with china and cutlery. When they'd finished, Silva made coffee — the only thing that was welcome to everyone.

“I must go,” said Sonia. “Heaven knows what's going on at home,”

“In any case, don't say anything to his mother or the children,” Gjergj advised her.

“But how long can it be kept from them?” replied Sonia. “It's impossible!”

Impossible, thought Silva… Gjergj, for all his advice to Sonia, knew that as a Party member himself he would have to inform the next meeting of his cell that his brother-in-law had been arrested. Out of the corner of her eye, Silva could see Brikena's hair almost falling in her plate, as she ate without looking up at the others. She hadn't uttered a word throughout the whole meal: heaven knew what she might be going through…Her textbooks were full of enemies of the people who were finally unmasked and arrested, and now that world, which had been as distant for her as ancient myth, was irrupting into her owe life. And this wasn't all! Silva bit her lip at the thought of the forms her daughter would have to fill in to join the youth movement, then to go to the University, and so on throughout her career. To the question, “Has any member of your family been arrested or imprisoned under the present régime?,” most of her friends would be able to write “No,” but she, with a trembling hand, would have to write, “I have an uncle who…”