Linda admitted it, flushing guiltily.
“I suppose you two think I’m still just a kid,” she said. “I remember us taking down the portrait of Krushchev from the classroom wall. One of the other children wanted to trample on it, but the teacher said there was no need to exaggerate.”
“Do you really remember, or did you just read about it?” said Illyrian, teasing her.
“Don’t be so horrid!” replied Linda sulkily, sounding as if she really was still just a kid.
“You couldn’t have been more than seven in 1960,” Silva reckoned.
Linda shook her head.
“A bit older than that.”
“Well, I got married soon afterwards!”
“Really?” exclaimed Linda.
Silva gazed dreamily out of the window.
“It was just at the beginning of the blockade. And it was then that I gave up archaeology and went into construction.”
“If I remember rightly, lots of engineers were directed into construction about then, weren’t they?” said Illyrian.
“Yes. Construction was the first sector to be affected.”
Silva went on looking through the window. The memory of the ancient theatre at Pacha Liman came back to her cold and clear, as if from another world. With it came the image of the deserted excavation site, and the thought of how jealous she had been of a good-looking Russian girl who’d suddenly fallen for one of the male archaeologists in the team. “There’s nothing more awful than being jealous while you’re working on a dig,” she’d told Ana, later. “You feel as if all the trenches are being carved in your own flesh.”
Her sister had listened rather absent-mindedly. Silva knew Ana didn’t know the meaning of the word jealousy, and so was unaware of the suffering it could bring. Even so, she had tried to help. “The Soviets will go away now, so it’ll be all right again,” Ana had said. But that was no consolation to Silva: she thought the sudden parting would only make the man love his Russian all the more. “I just don’t understand you,” said Ana. “Well, go on suffering, then, if that’s what you really want.” But she’d been glad later on, when Silva met Gjergj and forgot her anguish overnight. Ana herself had just met Besnik…But why, Silva wondered, was she thinking about Besnik more and more often these days?
“So it was all quite different then,” said Linda.
Silva nodded.
Steps now approached along the corridor, and the door opened to admit the boss. Though his attitude was still gloomy enough, he also looked somewhat relieved. The meeting must be over, and, thought Linda, he’d probably adopted the expression of some Party member who’d just been released and whom he’d passed in the corridor. He seemed to want to speak, but something was holding him back, Illyrian, who knew he was persona non grata, tiptoed out.
“I was right about the meeting,’’ said the boss, without looking up from the papers on his desk. “It was about China.”
“Really?” said Linda.
“It seems they’re changing their policy," Thee, turning to Silva: “I expect your husband will give us some first-hand information on the subject. When will he be back?”
Silva shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him.”
She hadn’t sat down at her desk again yet, and for some reason or other she found herself straying back to the window overlooking the square.
“Linda!” she said. putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Look!”
Linda turned round and pressed her forehead against the glass,
“How strange!” she exclaimed.
“What’s the matter?” asked the boss.
“A little while ago the square was fell of Chinese, and now they’ve all gone…”
“As if the earth had opened and swallowed them up!” added Linda.
“You can never tell what they’re going to do next,” said the boss. “It was the same with Nixon’s visit. They kept it secret right up to the last minute.”
“Better to break once and for all with people like that,” said Linda.
The boss looked up.
“Easier said than done. This isn’t one of your cheap romances, where if one character hurts another person’s feelings they have a row, say they wish they’d never set eyes on one another, and flounce off…”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Linda, looking him straight in the eye.
“I mean foreign relations are not like people’s private affairs: you love me, I don’t love you any more, and so we part…This sort of thing goes much deeper, There are objective considerations and all sorts of other factors to take into account…”
“Do you think I’m such a feather-brain that I reduce everything to the level of a domestic row?” asked Linda icily.
The boss stared at her, taken aback.
“Calm down! I didn’t say that!”
“But that’s what you were insinuating!” she replied, her eyes flashing angrily.
He waved his hand vaguely, then turned to Silva as if to seek her help. But, unsure she was willing to come to his aid, he threw up his arms as if to say, “That’s all I needed!”
For a few moments he busied himself opening and shutting the drawers of his desk, as he usually did when he was nervous. Then he lit a cigarette. And promptly stubbed it out again.
“Right, that’ll do,” he said mournfully. “I didn’t mean to be disagreeable, for heaven’s sake! I suppose, at the end of the day, I’m allowed to make a bit of a joke! I am the boss, aren’t I?”
He leapt up, stuffed his packet of cigarettes into his pocket, and left the room.
“He really is a case,” said Linda. His annoyance had displaced her own. “I’m the one who ought to have been annoyed!”
Silva smiled indulgently.
“Shall we go down to the cafeteria?”
“Do you think I went a bit too far?” Linda asked as they went down the stairs.
Silva smiled at her again. Vaguely. She was thinking of something else.
The cafeteria was in the basement, and the stairs leading down to it were crowded with people coming and going. This was the time most of the clerks took a coffee break. Silva noticed Victor Hila at the far end of the counter with a glass of brandy. He looked worn down.
She went over.
“Did you get to see the vice-minister?” she asked.
He waved his hand.
“Yes, Much good it did me!”
“Do you know each other?” she asked as she introduced him to Linda.
“Delighted to meet you,” said Victor, still staring into space. “May I offer you a drink? Sorry, I’m like a bear with a sore head today…”
“What’s the matter?” asked Silva. “I noticed something was wrong when I met you first thing…”
“I didn’t take it seriously at first, but now I see I’m in trouble. I’ve been running around all morning trying to find out what’s up, but no one will tell me anything definite…Anyhow, what’ll you have?”
“Perhaps it would be better to leave that till another time,” said Silva, “You look a bit low.”
“All the more reason for you to help cheer me up! Come on, do have something! I insist!”
Linda glanced at Silva, as if to ask if Hila was quite right in the head.
“All right,” said Silva. “Coffee for us, please.”
Victor Hila emptied his glass. Then:
“I’m in trouble over a Chinaman,” he said.
“What?” exclaimed Silva.
“We were just talking about the Chinese,” said Linda, looking at Victor curiously.
“Yes,” he went on. “A Chinaman! A particularly lousy Chink!”
Linda put her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Victor went and fetched their coffees from the counter and set them down in front of them.
“I was told yesterday that I’d been suspended. Do you realize what that means? I’m neither still employed, nor sacked! Just suspended! And all because of this Chinaman! I’ve spent all the morning combing the ministry trying to sort it all out, but it’s no good. I’m absolutely fed up. You’d think they’d all gone deaf.”