“There he is!” cried Brikena, the first to spot her father among the small group of passengers, most of them Chinese. Gjergj started to walk in their direction: his bearing was as usual — upright. deliberate, his briefcase in his hand. He hadn’t noticed them yet, probably because of the reflections on the glass. It wasn’t until he was quite close that he saw them, and waved.
“Did you have a good trip?” Silva asked while he was still hugging them both.
“Yes, thanks. How’ve you two been getting on?”
“Fine. Except that we were worried about you.”
“Why?’’
“Well…” Silva pointed to the apparently endless crowd of Chinese.
He laughed.
“You look tired,” she said when they were in the taxi.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.
“Well…I must admit the journey was exhausting. And then there’s the time difference…Did you get my wire?”
“Yes.”
He smiled to himself, as if remembering something.
“Everybody’s talking here about the difficulties with China,” Silva said.
“Are they?! rather expected they would be.”
“It’s the only topic of conversation!”
“Where do you live?” the driver asked as they were reaching Tirana.
Silva was going to tell him the address, but Gjergj spoke first.
“I’d like to stop at the foreign ministry first, please, just for a minute.”
He smiled and pointed to his briefcase, Silva leaned her head on his shoulder.
He left them outside at the ministry, but they didn’t have to wait long, and a few minutes later they were home. Gjergj wandered around the apartment while Silva and Brikena laid the table.
“Good gracious, the lemon tree’s flowered!” they heard him exclaim when he came to the French window.
“Do you like it?” asked Silva,
“It’s lovely.”
When Silva came out of the kitchen a little while later to say the meal was ready, she found him standing in their bedroom gazing absentmindedly at the curtains.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she said.
He nodded towards the windows.
“I was looking at the curtains,” he said. “I can’t get over it. Out there they don’t have any.”
“Really?”
“Strange how much one missed them! It was as if the windows were blind. Or dead…But that isn’t all One day a Chinaman told me, The reason why we’ve abolished curtains is that that’s where the trouble begins — the desire to keep private life secret.“
Silva kissed him.
“Stop thinking about it,” she said tenderly, leading him out of the room. “Come along, the meal’s ready.”
“You’re right,” he said, following her, “I must get it all out of my head as soon as I can.”
By the time they’d finished eating it was getting dark. One of those dusks in which day and night merge in perfect harmony.
Silva glanced at her husband.
“Would you like a little rest?” she asked.
“Yes, that would be nice.”
“You go and have a lie-down too, Brikena.”
“But I’m not tired!”
“Have a rest anyway…”
“All right.”
Brikena stood up, went over and kissed her father on the cheek, and disappeared.
Silva and Gjergj looked into one another’s eyes, exchanging smiles as misty and mysterious as the approaching evening. Then, one after the other, without a word, they stood up and walked through the corridor — now quite dark — into their bedroom.
In the distance, as if from another world, the telephone rang and rang. “What can that be?” asked Silva plaintively. If Brikena didn’t answer, she must have gone to sleep, she thought…Finally she got up and went to the phone, not stopping to put on a dressing gown.
“Who was it?” asked Gjergj when she came back.
“Your sisters. They wanted to know how you were. They’re coming round this evening.”
The phone rang again.
“Leave it — they’ll get tired and hang up,” he grumbled.
She was tempted to let it ring, but, as if under some compulsion, got up again. It was her other sister-in-law. As she spoke into the phone she stammered a little: it had just occurred to her that Gjergj might have made her pregnant. A girl friend had once said it always happened at times like this.
“Why didn’t you disconnect it?” he asked when she came back again.
“It wouldn’t be polite,” said Silva, shivering and cuddling up against his chest — it had been cold out in the hall “People want to welcome you back.”
He didn’t answer.
The phone rang several times more, and in the end they both got up. Silva put the coffee on. Brikena, who’d fallen asleep in her room, woke up too. The smell of coffee made the warmth of the apartment more delightful still.
“How I’ve missed it all,” Gjergj said, looking round.
When they’d had their coffee Silva started on the washing up from lunch, which she’d left in the sink. On the stroke of six, two of Gjergj’s sisters arrived. They were followed by other visitors, relations mostly. But fortunately, after a while, they all said, “Now we’ll leave you — Gjergj must be worn out after that long journey.”
By about ten O’clock the three of them were alone again. After dinner Brikena put some discs on the record player, every so often asking her father if he liked what she was playing or if he’d rather listen to something else. Meanwhile, Gjergj looked from one object to another with a strange expression on his face, as if he was seeing them all for the first time.
“It feels so strange to be home again,” he kept saying, in a tone that made Silva and Brikena exchange surreptitious glances.
After midnight, Brikena retired to bed and Silva and Gjergj went to their own room. The voices of late passers-by wafted up from the street.
“I have missed you!” he whispered, stroking her hips.
They lay for a long while in one another’s arms. In the silence, punctuated by their breathing, she thought again about the possibility of his having made her pregnant, but she soon dismissed the idea. Anyhow, it wouldn’t be so tragic. A dreamy procession of those who had phoned or dropped in passed through her mind, Her brother Arian hadn’t shown any sign of life. He was gradually drifting away from those he used to know, as people usually did when they were expelled from the Party. This thought caused her a pang. She sighed, and hesitated for a moment. Should she talk to Gjergj about it? It was two o’clock in the morning. The pillow where their hair lay intermingled was inviting. She brushed his cheek lightly as if to check whether his eyes were still open,
“Gjergj,” she whispered in a low voice that was more like a strangled sigh. “I didn’t mean to mention it this evening, but I can’t help it. A week ago Arian was expelled from the Party.”
“What!”
She repeated what she’d said. He lay still for a moment, staring up at the darkness.
“But why?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t said.”
“Very odd,” he said. “I suppose it couldn’t be anything to do with the Chinese?”
“The Chinese? You must be joking!”
“Not at all”
He moved his arm from around her so as to turn and look at her.
“It may sound ridiculous, but things like that can happen when there’s a crisis. You know what I mean…It happened before, with the Soviets…Some people weren’t very keen on making a break… Though in this case, of course, it would be crazy to suppose…”