The Concert (51 page)

All but the grasses will seek in vain

To find the truth of the Mongol plain…

How could he make sure this couplet would survive him?

Mao groaned. The nurse helped him turn on to his other side.

* * *

It looks as if he's going to die tonight, thought the observer at the North Pole, easing off his headset.

The satellites and teletype machines were going great guns…He remembered a very cold night when he'd slept at his maternal grandfather's for the first time. The dogs barked a lot, but that wasn't what had frightened him. Even now, after all these years, he couldn't forget how one of them had bayed and bayed, and how his grandfather had said, “Someone in the village is going to die tonight”

Someone is going to die tonight on this planet, he thought with a shudder, The obituary notices were ready. The ravens were waiting for the signal to take flight.

He put his headset back on again and adjusted it. Mao Zedong was still in a coma. The rambles he could hear were in his own stomach. No matter how much he twiddled the knobs, all he could hear were death rattles…

Ekrem Fortuzi huddled over the radio, his brow furrowed in concentration, trying out various wavelengths. He still cherished a faint hope that some station, somewhere, would be more optimistic about the state of Mao Zedong's health. But they all seemed conspiring to say he was slowly dying.

“Ekrem,” his wife called from her pillow. “Are you coming to bed or not? - this is the third time I've asked you!”

“Just coming!”

“I shan't call you again. Mind you don't wake me up!”

“I'm coming now, my dear,”

He stood up, looked first at the radio and then at the bed, then bent down and switched the set off.

“About time,” said his wife, making room for him. “You drive me mad with your Chinks!”

“Your talcum powder does smell nice,” he whispered.

“All I ask is that you don't speak Chinese at the psychological moment,” she said. “I'd rather you spoke Italian.”

“Because that reminds you of Luigi, I suppose?”

“Of course not! What are you getting at?”

“I know it does remind you of him!”

“It doesn't, I tell you! It's just that I can't bear the sound of Chinese any more!”

“Admit it does remind you of him, and I'll do whatever youwant.”

She didn't answer.

“Go on, admit it!”

“Well, it does remind me of something. But it was all so long ago …”

“Right, I'll speak Italian then …But remember — no Chinese, no Italian! Do you see what I mean?”

“No
-
what?”

“I told you before: no Chinese, no hope of Italian either. But that's enough philosophy. Or rather, let's philosophise down here…like this…
Amore mio
…”

Their grunts and groans gradually died down. Thee in a clear voice, not at all breathless, she said.

“You spoke Chinese again!”

“Did I? I didn't notice.”

“You're hopeless!”

He didn't answer. He didn't need to get round her any more. She was well aware of it, so she turned over and went to sleep.

He lay still on his side of the bed until she had dropped off, then he got up and tiptoed over to the radio. He switched it on, very low, and put his ear to the loudspeaker. He stayed like that for a long time, and might have remained there in a kind of lethargy till dawn, if at a certain point his wife hadn't heard him let out a sob.

“Ekrem!” she cried, in a fright. “What's the matter?”

He couldn't bring out any words. She stared at him wide-eyed, and was about to jump out of bed and come 0ver to him when he managed to stammer:

“Mao is dead.”

She looked over at him with pursed lips.

“Idiot!” she said.

But he wasn't listening. He went on weeping, sobbing out every so often:

“My Mao, my own little Mao, you've gone… you've gone…”

“He's round the bend,” she thought. “He's gone completely bonkers!”

He went on talking to himself, mostly in Chinese, but reverting to Albanian for the affectionate diminutives he knew only in his own language.

“My own little Mao - and to think that while you were giving up the ghost I was making love like a pig!”

I'll have to take him to see a psychiatrist, she thought. Tomorrow!

Her first impulse was to make fun of him, insult him, but suddenly, seeing him so forlorn, she couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He must be the only person in Europe who was carrying on like that. She got out of bed, threw a cardigan round her shoulders, and went over to him.

“Ekrem,” she whispered. “What's wrong? Come to bed, or you'll catch your death of cold.”

Though she was still quite angry, she'd made an effort to speak gently. But he went on weeping buckets, perhaps even worse than before.

“He had to die some time!” she said soothingly. “He was very old — everyone said he was decrepit! What did you expect? Everyone knew he was at his last gasp. Come to bed, dear.”

“I can't! Leave me alone!”

He's nuts. she thought again. My God, what's going to become of him?

“I can't, you see,” he went on. “I feel all hollow inside. I studied his works very seriously — I was the only person in the world who understood all the nuances of his philosophy, I've compared the original texts with the English and French translations - they're not at all accurate…I fell in love with him, we understood one another so well …He was so good …he didn't believe in the horrible class struggle!”

“All right, all right/” she said, “you've told me all that before. Now come to bed before you get bronchitis, like last winter!”

“I kept telling you, but you only, made fun of me. He was our only hope, our star…”

Here we go, she thought.

“… and now it's ‘gone out, our star has disappeared. We've all had it now. We're finished. And you don't even realize,”

“It might be just the opposite,' she suggested, trying to reassure him. “Perhaps they'll find a reason now for getting closer to China again. It's always like that - people wait for a death in order to fix something that wasn't working properly. They'll say he and his obstinacy were the cause of all our differences …”

“But he was so good, so gentle, soft as velvet. And his face…his face was so smooth too …”

“Be that as it may, I'm sure it'll work out as I say. They'll blame him for the cooling off in our relationship, and well patch things up. Then everything will be all right.”

“Do you really think so? I don't believe it for a minute.”

“Of course! It can only make things better.”

“And what if they go wrong again? He was a poet and a philosopher — a natural peacemaker. Where are they going to find another like him?”

“Others will be more liberal — you can be sure of that. The Chinese are fed up to the teeth with the Long March or whatever you call it…”

“Zhang Jeng,”
he said.

“Well, they've had it up to here with the
Zhang Jengl
What they want now is peace, comfort and women…Don't they say that at the Hotel Peking there's a room where the Chinese leaders speed their evenings with ballet dancers?”

“If only things
could
turn out like that!” he sighed.

“We'll know more about it tomorrow, Well go and call on a few friends and find out what's going on. And now come to bed.”

“It's a good thing you're here to cheer me up,” he said, straightening up a little.

He had a restless night. Twice he made to get up to listen to the radio again, but his wife stopped him. The third time she spoke to him severely.

“What more do you expect to find out? It's happened^ and there's nothing to be done about it,”

He just looked sheepish.

“No, but I'd like to know what you're hoping for,” she said,more gently.

“I'm hoping they might deny it!”

She laughed.

“You really are…!”

“No, why? it wouldn't be the first time. There have been false reports of his death before. Several! Don't you remember?” He was getting close to tears again. “As if they couldn't wait for him to die!”

“Now that's enough!” she said decisively. “Let's get some sleep…”

It was a grey, reluctant-looking dawn. That morning it was she who made the coffee and brought him a cup in bed.

“Do you think they'll embalm him?” he asked.

She gave him a sidelong look,

“Will you please give it a rest? We'll go out and see some people - then we'll find out something.”

“Which people?”

“Anyone you like. We could go to the Kryekurts', They usually know what's really going on.”

“You're right. Let's get dressed and go,”

“Don't be ridiculous! It's far too early. If we don't watch out, people will be suspicious,”

“Yes, I suppose so. We don't want to attract attention.”

They didn't start out for the Kryekurts. place until after ten o'clock, but when they got there they saw they needn't have worried about being too early. Apart from frequent visitors like Hava Preza and Musabelli, they found Lucas Alarupi, Mark and his fiancée already there. Alarupi was the former owner of what was once a little soap factory; it had now expanded to produce washing machines, shampoo and tooth-paste. Mark had the day off, as the concert that evening had been cancelled.

“Cancelled?” said Ekrem, as if to check he'd heard aright.

“Yes,” said Hava Preza. “No need to ask why.”

“It's a good sign, I suppose,” said Hava Fortuzi.

“On the way here I saw a lot of official cars going towards the Chinese embassy, no doubt to offer condolences,' said one of the others.

“I told you so,” whispered Hava Fortuzi to her husband. “The concert's cancelled, the officials are going to register their condolences at the embassy… It's going to be all right!”

Ekrem tossed his head and gazed at the shiny, sallow face of Lucas Alarupi. He'd heard a lot about him, and wondered why he was out visiting on a day like this. He must be a mine of information.

“Do you often come here?” Ekrem asked him, while the others went on with the general conversation. “I've been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“I don't go out very much,” answered the other. “We're swamped with work, especially now, when we're just coming up to the end of the quarter. And as well as production there are the committee meetings at Party headquarters, and socialist endeavour, and cultural activities, and all sorts of other things which may seem less important but which need a lot of attention. Eunning a factory involves a lot of problems, especially now, after the decisions taken at the last plenum of the Central Committee.”

Ekrem's wife goggled, then looked round at the others as if to say, “Just listen to him!” She felt like shouting, “What's all this about Party meetings and socialist endeavour? You're jest a yesterday's man like the rest of us I They don't let you anywhere near your old factory let alone consult you about their problems! But Hava Preza gave her a look, and Ekrem nudged her, so she didn't say anything.

“Well,” said Hava Preza to break the silence. “So you've got plenty to do and plenty of worries?”

“Of course,' said Alarupi tonelessly. “As I said, carrying out the plan is only one of our problems. We also have to meet people with new ideas, evaluate pilot experiments, and so on. It sounds easy, but it takes a lot of doing.”

“He may be crazy himself,” Ekrem's wife whispered to him, “but I don't understand how the rest of you put up with his maunderings.“

“Ssh,” he said.

“But he's in the same boat as we are, isn't he? If not worse! No job, downgraded socially. So what's all this about endeavour and committees?”

“I know, I know,” Ekrem answered, “But he believes, and wants to make other people believe, that things are back to what they were before …”

“But how …?”

The fact was, Alarupi had started to entertain this delusion when he heard that in China former factory owners had been made assistant managers of what had been their own firms, and were even allowed a share in the profits,

“I've always said that's the most fantastic thing that ever happened, even in China,” said Ekrem's wife.

“When it was announced he became a new man. It knocked him completely off-balance, and he started to spend all his time hanging round the factory. It's his whole life. His briefcase is full of press cuttings about it, and graphs about the progress of the plan. At home he's got a whole collection of wall newspapers, citations for workers' awards, and so on. When things at the factory go badly he's quite ill. If the Party criticizes it, he can't sleep. In short, it's the only thing he lives for.”

“Poor man!”

“Of course, he never forgets to calculate his share of the profits,”

“There you are!”

“Of course! What did you think?”

Hava Fortezi' could -scarcely keep from laughing.

“Even so, he must be completely ga-ga.”

“Perhaps. I'd say he's typical of our age - just an extreme example. Perhaps the most extreme in all…”

“In all Europe?” she interrupted.

“Maybe …What are you looking at me like that for?”

How else? Hadn't she told herself only a few hours ago that her husband must be the only person in Europe to weep for Mao Zedong? And now here was another, hardly less extravagant oddity. What an age we live in, she thought. Ever since she'd left her youth behind, she'd always thought the world was going to the dogs. But she hadn't expected it to go as fast as this!

“He's a hybrid,” said Ekrem, continuing his whispered conversation with his wife. “A capitalist-communist hermaphrodite.”