The Concert (54 page)

The confrontation had exhausted him. And he hadn't even got anything out of it. On the contrary, his visitor had almost certainly guessed how worried he was. And if so, he had only himself to blame for making things worse! All he needed now was for everyone to know his real state of mind.

The minister stared at the notes he'd scribbled in preparation for his autocritique.

He was going to have to confront the plenum of the Central Committee, and there was no doubt he would be expected to carry out a thorough autocritique. Day after day he'd scribbled, crossed out and scribbled again, without ever arriving at a satisfactory result. Go deeper! — the words with which he'd tormented so many other people at other meetings were now terrifying the minister himself. He'd noticed that every time the phrase was addressed to someone performing an autocritique, the victim literally seemed to sink into the ground. Now he was going to be on the receiving end.

He tried to push the thought away. He looked round his desk, at the array of telephones and red and green buttons marked “Alarm No.1”, “Alarm No.2”, “Army Headquarters”, “Admiralty”, “Air Force”…He kept thinking how any Latin American colonel, with only half all these means at his disposal, could, But, like a drug to which a patient has grown accustomed, the thought no longer did him any good. “That's no consolation!” he exclaimed. For it was plain that no one gave him any credit for doing right when he had at his fingertips so much power for doing wrong.

His hands went on toying instinctively with the draft of his autocritique. That's right, he told himself, forget about those buttons. Your fate depends on these notes.

He already had a wad of them, but he knew he'd have to write more. He scrabbled for the passage that referred vaguely to the tanks. Since Enver Hoxha had mentioned the business specifically, he would have to explain it in full to the plenum. He skimmed quickly through what he'd written. It was too flimsy. He'd dealt with the aftermath of the affair and his anger against the tank officers (which he'd presented as unjustified, the result of his own presumptuousness and lack of contact with the masses), but he hadn't yet said anything about the beginnings of the episode — the mental processes that had led him to give such an order, his underlying motives. He could already hear a voice calling out to him: “The causes! - go deeper into the causes!”

No, he would never go that far! He'd never tell this plenum, or the next one, or the hundredth or the thousandth plenum after that, about that cursed dinner with Zhou Enlai! He'd take the knowledge with him to the grave. They could yell at him to “go deeper” until they were blue in the face, but he would never dig all that up again. Zhou Enlai was no longer of this world, so
he
wouldn't care one way or the other…But somehow or other he, the minister, was going to have to justify himself.

He absolutely must find something to say. It wasn't enough just to explain what he'd done as due to lack of political foresight on the part of a technocrat who hadn't gone into Marxism-Leninism properly. If he wanted to be credible he would have to make a greater sacrifice than that. Perhaps the best thing would be to admit a bit, just a tiny little bit, of the truth? People always said the most plausible lies were those that contained something of the truth. For example, he could say that the idea of encircling a Party committee had probably been suggested by the events of the Cultural Revolution in China
-
an incorrect interpretation of the struggle against Party bureaucracy or the anarchist slogans of Mao. Also, admittedly, by his own imperfect acquaintance with the classics of Marxism-Leninism. All this would
hp
exposing himself to criticism, but he had to take some risks to avoid complete disaster. Let them think what they liked of him. Let them call him a Sinophile, a half-wit. Let the Party mete out some punishment or other. He was prepared to put up with anything so long as the real truth never came out.

At least he didn't have to worry about Zhou Enlai. He was as dead as a doornail — and he didn't even have a grave! Sometimes the minister felt a surge of resentment: if all Zhou wanted to do was end up as a handful of ashes scattered into the sky, why had he bothered to get him, the minister, into such a scrape? But on the whole Zhou's death could be regarded as a blessing.

Perhaps after all the situation wasn't as bad as he'd thought. He'd certainly have to go before the plenum of the Central Commit-tee, but the meeting was supposed to be chiefly concerned with the economic situation. And everyone knew the economy was in a bad way. Moreover, he wasn't the only person who was in trouble, and when old colleagues found themselves all in the same boat they could always be counted on to help one another. They did it instinctively, without being asked, like a pack of wolves-each looking chiefly to his own interests.

Yes, the economic situation would probably distract attention from his case. When the economy goes wrong people forget everything else. Material concerns soon bring everyone to their senses. They take everyone by the sleeve and say, Just look at these statistics — never mind about the encircling of Party committees, and all that other symbolic carry-on…

And after all, leaving aside the evidence of the man he'd just interviewed, the fact that the tank officers had explained their disobedience couldn't be laid directly at his door. The signals people had come into it long before he did, and they could be held responsible. And then there were his owe “aides, and the bad weather, the wind, the thunder and lightning! Oh, they weren't going to get him as easily as that!

He turned his head. Something had banged against a window-pane. Probably a dead leaf. The wind was howling outside. The minister returned to his meditations, still concentrating on those that were most reassuring…

Mao's death and the troubles that had broken out in Peking would come in useful…He looked at his watch. Time for the television news. There was alarming news from China every day,and that could only help to distract attention from him.

He stood up, stuffed his autocritique into his pocket, and went out of the office. Outside, the wind had almost emptied the streets. His car seemed to waft him home more swiftly than usual As he alighted, a column of black dust appeared before him, and he let out a shriek of terror.

Arian Krasniqi wrapped his scarf round the lower part of his face to keep out the dust. He regretted having stopped off at a bar for a cup of coffee after coming out of the ministry, instead of going straight back to Suva's place. He hadn't expected such a nasty wind to spring up. It made him feel depressed and light-headed.

But, going into the building where his sister lived, he breathed more easily and felt better.

“Well?” said Silva, opening the door. “How did it go?”

He smiled noncommittally.

“Is Sonia still here?”

“Of course — we've been waiting for you. What happened?”

“Nothing,” he said, taking his coat off.

The voice of the television newscaster could be heard in the living room,

“Don't worry about me,” said Arian, smiling again.

Silva felt as if a load had been lifted off her shoulders: he looked quite serene.

“Have you heard what's happened?” she said. “Great upheavals in Peking!”

“Really?”

“Yes — Mao's wife and some of her cronies have been arrested. They've jest announced it on the news.”

“How strange,” he murmured, looking at the TV screen, though the images no longer had anything to do with China.

Like Silva a few minutes ago, Sonia now looked at Arian's placid face and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Incredible, isn't it?” said Silva.

“What? Jiang Qing's arrest?”

“Of course. I can hardly believe it,”

“It doesn't surprise me,” said Arian,

“Why not?”

But Silva couldn't catch his eye.

She'd have liked to ask him why nothing surprised him any more. She was more worried by his present indifference than she had been by his previous agitation.

“I'm worried about Gjergj,” she said. “What bad leek to be over there just now!”

“Father ought to have been back the day before yesterday,” said Brikena, who had slipped into the room unnoticed.

“Yes - all the plane timetables have been upset because of what's going on.”

Silva went over to the television and changed the channel The Italian TV was showing the same thing: the arrest of Mao's widow. Then came shots of the Cultural Evolution - meetings, chanting crowds, people running in all directions, Commentators put forward various theories about what was going to happen next. Silva was getting nervous.

“Don't go,” she ‘said when her brother and his wife got up to leave. “Stay a bit longer - please!”

They exchanged glances, Silva made no attempt to conceal her anxiety.

“You've no need to worry,” Arian told her, still looking at archive “shots of the British embassy burning.

“Father says our embassy is only a few yards away,” said Brikena.

Arian tried to say something to distract them from what was going on on the screen, but they were mesmerized.

“Hell!” he murmured.

“What?” said Silva.

“Nothing…What a business!” he improvised, pointing at the screen.

He's all right for the moment, thought Silva, but he nearly got it in the neck before because of China. Hadn't his reference to Shanghai made things worse for him? She couldn't help feeling that her nearest and dearest were still in danger.

The longer she thought about it the more impossible it seemed that her brother's fate could have anything to do with what was happening now. But she couldn't make out whether this was a good thing or not.

“Do stay,” she pleaded. She didn't want herself and Brikena to have to spend the evening alone.

So the visitors took their coats off and sat down again. They tried to talk about other things, but kept coming back to the events they'd just seen depicted on the screen, and the interpretations put on them by the various commentators.

The phone rang. It was Skënder Bermema, “Is Gjergj back?” he asked, “No,” said Silva. “When's he arriving?” “I don't know -why do you ask?” “Eh?” “I meant, what made you suddenly think of him?” “Oh, I see.” “I suppose you watched the news?” “Of course.” “So you
didn't
just phone by chance…”

They could all hear him laughing at the other end.

“Why don't you come round for a coffee?”

“What, now?”

“Yes!”

A moment's silence.

“All right, I'm on my way.”

Silva came back into the room, delighted. She obviously wanted to be surrounded by as many people as possible.

“It was Skënder Bermema …I think ! introduced you to one another, Arian…”

“Yes. But he probably doesn't remember me.”

There was an unmistakeable note of reluctance in his joke.

When Skënder came in about twenty minutes later Silva noticed that her brother still looked rather put out. He wouldn't scowl like that, she thought, if he knew the trouble Skënder went to on his behalf when he was in jail. But she soon forgave him: what brother
would
be at ease in the presence of a man whose alleged affair with his sister had been the talk of the town?

“Were you worried because I asked if Gjergj was back?” the newcomer asked Silva, laughing. “I soon guessed why! But though it
was
the latest news that made me think of him, it wasn't for any sinister reason. ! just wanted to see him. Do you know the first thing that came into my head when I heard that Jiang Qing had been arrested? I thought, well, as in the case of Lin Biao's death, Gjergj will bring us back at least a dozen different versions of what happened!”

They all laughed, including Arian.

“Are his versions useful, then?” asked Silva.

“I should think so! And I can prove it!”

He reached for his briefcase and got out a large envelope.

“Here's something based on what he told me. I'll leave it for you to give to him when he gets back. You can read it yourself if you like, and if you have time.”

“I certainly shall!” she said.

“Twelve Versions of the Arrest of Jiang Qing!” someone quipped.

But Skënder Bermema wasn't so cheerful now. A hidden preoccupation of his had risen to the surface again. He'd do better to concentrate on the different versions of his own death, he told himself. Three days before he'd received an anonymous letter full of threats. The second in a month.

“What would you like to drink?” Silva asked him,

“Anything!”

They talked for a while about the mysteries of China in general, then discussed what was going to happen to Jiang Qing and the likely repercussions of current events on relations between China and Albania. Silva said she couldn't believe Mao's widow was in prison; Skënder said
he
couldn't believe she was still alive.

“You always go to extremes!” Silva told him,

“Gjergj will satisfy our curiosity when he gets back,” said Sonia.

“I don't think anyone could satisfy my curiosity about China,” said Skëeder, looking at his watch. “Don't let's miss the late-night news, There's bound to be something new.”

But though Silva tried all the channels, none of them was showing any news.

Arian Krasniqi woke with a start, as if someone had shaken him. For a moment or so he didn't know where he was. Then he heard his wife breathing ie and out beside him. It must have struck midnight long ago. He had the feeling that something he couldn't identify had been weighing down on him in his sleep, something he'd tried to thrust away, only to find his hands pinned down by it. They were still quite stiff and cramped. He even had difficulty separating them from one another. It was as if he'd emerged from the horrible sensation of being handcuffed.