The Concert (45 page)

Yeah, said Tchan to himself, looking up from the file.

6

As he came out of the factory he heard someone calling him from the pavement

“Van Meyl”

He turned round, and was glad to see his two friends. They hadn't met again since the famous night.

“How are you, Van? If s been a long time,'

“And you two — how are things?”

“Fine, fine. We were thinking of dropping in on you to say hallo …

“Good, good! I've been very busy in the evening lately…”

Why, after that evening, had they all avoided one another, rather than meeting the very next day to exchange their impressions? What had come between them because of the spirit they'd raised?

“I see you've bought yourself a new anorak!”

“Yes,' said van Mey, “The old one was falling to pieces. So I counted up all the money
V
à
saved last summer…''

“Quite right. Winter's early this year.”

They walked along for a while without speaking, but they all knew they were thinking about the same thing.

“I can't get that eight out of my mind,” one of them admitted at last.

“Neither can I,” said Van Mey, quite relieved now the subject had been broached at last.

“What do you think — should we have another meeting?”

Van Mey looked at the other two.

“What do you think? And what about the medium…?”

“The medium said the spirit might stay longer next time.”

“I didn't mean that — I meant can you get hold of the medium again?”

“Of course!” they said. “We wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.”

“I'm willing,” said Van Mey, with a shudder.

“What do they say about the micro-spies?” said one of the others, to change the subject.

“What don't they say!” exclaimed Van Mey.

They told one another all they'd heard.

“I don't mind betting things are going to get difficult/” said one. “Those
qietingqis
bode no good.”

“I expect you're right,' answered Van Mey absently.

In his mind's eye he could already see the little flames of the candles at the next séance, and their own anguish as they waited for the spirit to come.

7

Director Tchan had imagined it quite differently, the fateful day when the mikes would reproduce the very first voices, when his spies of flesh and blood would be joined by an army of soulless instruments. But nearly a fortnight had gone by since the first microphones were installed, and no great day had arrived. On the contrary, the first time he'd listened in live to microphones installed in people's homes he'd found it tedious and wearisome, as well as unproductive. The mikes in question weren't those that had been placed in the villa reserved for foreign visitors: the villa was empty at present, and the mikes there silent. The ones Tchan listened in to were in the main hotel, but these transmitted snores more often than words, and if there was a conversation it was usually trivial and devoid of interest. The mikes in government offices conveyed nothing but endless discussions, and Tchan soon gave up listening: he had enough boring meetings himself in his own office!

Disappointed by listening in direct, he waited eagerly for the first “harvest” from the temporary mikes, the ones placed in private houses and bedrooms, and above all those fixed to people's clothes. There were seven of these, almost the number prescribed in the bi-monthly plan. Tchan was sure that what was recorded on these tapes would prove to be the most important part of their work.

Everyone was waiting for them and trying to conceal the gleam of anticipation in his eyes.

One morning when he walked into the building where he worked he sensed that they had arrived. He couldn't have said where he felt it first: by the box where the sentry stood; as he passed some of his colleagues on the stairs; or in the characteristic silence of the corridors. Anyhow, when his assistant came into his office, Tchan knew already what he was going to say:

“Comrade Tchan — the first tape …!”

“It's come, has it? Bring it in at once.”

“I've got it here.”

Tchan had given orders that no one was to listen to it before he did. He was very excited. He locked the door, lit a cigarette, and asked his assistant to start.

After an hour's listening he was even more disappointed than he had been by the permanent mikes. His assistant tried to catch something of interest by rewinding the tape several times, but it consisted mainly of silences with crowd and traffic noises in the background. There was an occasional hoot from a taxi, or a car door banging; the few odd scraps of speech were of no significance whatsoever. But what could be more natural? Tchan tried to reassure himself. He ought never to have listened to this tape just as it was, even before his closest assistants. It was like a great mass of mud and stones which would have to be carefully sifted if it was to yield the least particle of gold.

“The sound quality's very good, isn't it?” said his colleague,

Tchan nodded wearily. What more could you expect from a soulless piece of apparatus? He remembered his speech about the human ear. If he could have talked to his old spies now he'd have treated them with even more deference.

But his disillusion didn't last long. Three days later his assistant received the first serious results, selected from tapes on mini-mikes that had just been recovered.

Tchan shut his eyes so as to concentrate better. The recording contained complaints about the state, the Cultural Revolution the unprecedented shortages and the universal chaos. Some people objected to the banning of ancient customs, others to anything that undermined the authority of the Party. Thee came some very dubious remarks made by the first secretary of the Party in N— to some dinner guests of his: he was being malicious and sarcastic at the expense of the central government Tee-hee, Tchan chuckled. His relations with the first secretary had cooled since he'd summoned Tchan to ask him for a report about the installation of the
qietingqis
. Tchan had refused to tell him anything, and the first secretary had flown off the handle. After they'd exchanged a couple of quotations from Mao Zedongs Tchan, realizing the first secretary had the advantage of him on that score, decided to tell him straight: “I'm not accountable to anyone but the
Zhongnanhail”
At the mere sound of that dread name the first secretary started to stammer so much that Tchan almost felt sorry for him. “I'm not even accountable to my minister,” he'd said to soothe him down a bit. And now here the fellow was, making fun of him to his guests: “He's not a bad sort, old Tchan, but he really is as thick as two planks!”

Laugh away, thought Tchan grimly. His face showed no expression. His assistant stopped the tape and glanced at him to see if he wanted to go on listening.

“Perhaps more out of curiosity than for the actual content… ?” suggested the aide. “It's only a private matter…intimate, really…very intimate …Though perhaps one might detect something that's-… Well, the way the couple try to imitate the West, even in. their physical relationship…a certain excess in their love-making… In short, they adopt capitalist ways of doing it, like …like.,.”

This last, unfinished phrase made Tchan's mind up for him, and he signed to his assistant to start the tape again. They both listened in silence, as before. Not a muscle moved in the director's face.

From the loudspeaker there came first the panting of the man, then that of the woman, quieter. She was almost sobbing as she implored him not to do something which she apparently at the same time desired: “No, not like that …No, please, not like that… It's wrong…Don't you think it's wrong?…Ah…”

“Well, at last we've got something really important,' said the assistant when the couple's moans had ceased…

From the very first words, director Tchan had known why his aide had kept the next bit till last. He knitted his brow. This was what he called results! Just what he'd been waiting for all this time. Words hostile to Jiang Qing. He started to break into a cold sweat. This wasn't the first time he'd heard people insult her…So why was he so worked up? …The black-souled Empress Vu was an angel of light compared with this one…The old dodderer must have gone soft in the head to put up with such a viper…Director Tchae had heard all this before, or rather read it in his spies' reports, bet it was another matter altogether to hear the words spoken by human voices and accompanied by malicious laughter.

It wasn't until his aide had left the room that Tchan began to feel a little calmer. He lit a cigarette, though there was another, still unfinished, resting on the ashtray. The material supplied by these mikes was clearly quite a different kettle of fish from the work of his spies. They merely reported things orally or in writing, relying on their memories, and the value of their evidence depended not only of the acuteness of their hearing but also on their training, talent, culture, and state of mind at the time. However reliable and devoted they were, there was always an element of uncertainty about their reports, which might exaggerate things or play them down, distort them wholly or in part, or even invent them altogether. It depended on the individual spy's ambition, his recent successes or failures, and his personal relations with the suspect, if he happened to know him. The spies looked down on
agents provocateurs
and ordinary informers as underhand, unreliable, and often corrupt. “We don't skulk around deceiving people,” they boasted. Our work is clean and straightforward: we put our ear to the wall or the ceiling and report truthfully. We heard this or that, or we didn't hear anything at all Whereas informers and
agents provocateurs
— ugh! they make things up, they slander people, they settle personal scores…” Nevertheless, the spies themselves weren't always entirely objective, whereas this new equipment was honesty itself, and reported everything exactly as it was, fully and impartially. Now Director Tchan really could pride himself on doing his job properly.

Now he really could listen in. The implications were dizzying. The whole chaos and tumult of humanity would now be wafted up to him. This morning's work opened up vistas of light and darkness, ecstasy and horror. He thought of the mysterious power exercized by the demons of old. What could they do that he himself couldn't do now?

8

Van Mey met his friends at the end of the week. They swapped the latest news as usual; as usual it was awful, and could only get worse. A fierce power struggle was said to be going on among the factions in Peking. The winter would only bring new waves of terror. Apparently Mao wasn't well

“An Albanian delegation came to the factory yesterday,” said Van Mey, “and I had to take them round.”

“What were they like? What did they say?”

“Hard to say, really. I took them to the shop floor, as we usually do with foreigners, but they just looked and smiled. You couldn't tell what they were thinking.”

“How can they like what they see? And they don't know half the horrors we have to live with…”

“All they see is just window-dressing,' said Van Mey.

“But it's not very difficult to see past it.”

“Perhaps they do see past it, but they pretend not to,” said Van Mey. “In Albania, apparently, people go to concerts to listen to Beethoven - the women wear lipstick and jewellery. The delegation
must
have noticed how barren and monotonous our lives are here.”

“But they pretend not to notice. Partly for political reasons, partly because they think this sort of life is quite good enough for the Chinese.”

“Do you think so? Well, I think their own lives will gradually become just as arid as ours. Then they'll understand how awful it is, but by then it'll be too late.”

“All the time I was taking them round I wanted to say to them: ‘Are you blind? How can you possibly not see what's going on here?'”

“That would have been sheer madness!”

“Maybe, but if I'd had the chance Pd have whispered a message to them in the few words of French I know. Pd have told them, ‘Don't believe anything you see — everything is going to the dogs!' But it was quite impossible! I only had about half a minute alone with one of them, and as soon as I opened my mouth the other guide showed up. But I think that Albanian guessed something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Almost certain.”

They went on trudging along the muddy road, amid the rats left by the wheels of heavy lorries. It was cold.

“Well probably be able to meet next week for you know what… The medium is going to get in touch. So on Thursday or Friday …”

“ill be there,” said Van Mey. “Without fail!”

9

Every morning now when he got to his office, Tchan, instead of looking at the papers, or any urgent reports, or his timetable for the day, sat straight down and listened to the tapes that had been recovered during the previous night.

After which, he usually looked very down in the mouth, and was in a bad temper for most of the morning. His assistants had noticed all this, and had tried to think of a way of getting him to listen to the tapes at the end of the day instead of at the beginning. But all their efforts were vain. And to think this was only the start! What would it be like when the weather got really cold and people got even more discontented? The
qietingqis”
tapes would overflow with complaints.

They were full enough now, in the middle of autumn. It was hard to see how they could hold more, or more sinister, grumbles. Everyone and everything was castigated, no one and nothing was spared. Insults were directed as much against members of the Party as against yesterday's men. Supporters of Zhou Enlai bad-mouthed supporters of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing to the top of their bent, while the latter did the same to Deng Xiaoping, and all of them joined together to criticize Mao. Tchan couldn't believe his ears. He wound the tape back. But there it was — he hadn't been imagining things. What a diabolical racket!