He moved a step forward. Perhaps I should look at the date? he thought. Abandoning all precautions he peered closely at the poster. He thought he must be seeing things. Could it be possible? He took off his glasses and got another pair out of his pocket. Then he read the date, first in Chinese and then in Albanian, then in Chinese again. No doubt about it. The poster bore today’s date. It also said where the exhibition was being held. The Palace of Culture, Impossible!
“Today?” he asked the man, his voice faltering with emotion.
“Yes,” replied the other, looking him straight in the eye. “Today.”
Ekrem thought he could discern a kind of amused mockery in the man’s voice and expression — a mockery aimed not only at him. But this was of no interest to him now.
“Thank you,” he said. And then he made his way back across Government Square towards the Palace of Culture. A surge of pleasure made him almost stagger. He felt his chest suddenly expanding — his old lungs couldn’t cope with it. So things weren’t as bad as all that, he thought. One of the tunes that generally came back to him in moments of euphoria tried to make itself heard. But this time it wasn’t O Sole mio. No, it was The East is Red. He recited the words to himself in Chinese as he approached the Palace of Culture.
Skënder Bermema looked after the stranger for a few moments, thee turned back to the poster.
“Just look!” he said to Silva, whom he’d met by chance in the street a little while ago, “An exhibition like that at a time like this! How exciting! I love it when this sort of thing happens on the eve of great events. Come on, let’s go and have a look.”
“All right,” said Silva. “I’m late already, but I can’t resist!”
The Palace of Culture, where the exhibition was being held, was quite close by, and on the way Silva told Bermema some details about Gjergj’s recent trip to China. He was highly amused.
“He’s dying to see you,” Silva told Skënder. “He tried to phone you but you weren’t there.”
“Really? Well, I’m eager to see him, too…I say, look at all the people!” They had almost reached the Palace of Culture, and Skënder was pointing to the crowd around one of the entrances.
The atmosphere was much as he had expected. The exhibition was probably attracting far more visitors now than it would have done six months ago. Most of their faces wore a strange smile, an unnatural mask-like expression of curiosity mingled with bewilderment. Among the rest there were several Chinese and some officials from foreign embassies.
“I’ve noticed that just before a breaking-off of relations they always put on an exhibition,” said Skënder, turning his own smiling mask towards Silva. “Or perhaps ‘mystification’ would be a better word for it.”
Silva, finding it hard to concentrate, was gazing at a mass of terracotta objects, unenticingly displayed. Her companion’s warm bass voice reached her through loud background music. Chinese music.
“Someone told me,” he was saying, “that in accordance with their habit of conveying political messages by means of symbols, the Chinese have placed a couple of pots in a particularly significant position here.”
“Really?” said Silva. “Where?”
Skënder laughed.
“Ah, there you have me! First we have to find them, and then, if we do, we have to try to guess what’s meant by their placing.”
“Could it be those?” asked Silva after a while, pointing out a couple of vases of unequal size on which a weedy little man seemed to be feasting his eyes.
They both burst out laughing and let themselves be swept along by the crowd.
“There’s a pair of yesterday’s men,” said Skënder, indicating two visitors wearing off-white raincoats as wan as their smiles. “I shouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them didn’t still cherish the hope of our getting together with the Soviet Union again. I don’t believe in argument by analogy, but they remind me of the time when we broke with Moscow. Do you remember? — everyone was asking when were we going to take up with the West again.”
“Yes, I remember."
“Just watch their faces when they look at some Chinese vases. They seem to be saying, ‘Did you really think these objects were ever going to take the place of Anna Karenina and Tolstoy?’“
Silva put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“I don’t know why they don’t just say it outright. And look at the way they dress. Always in the same colours the Soviets wear on their rationalist Sundays — pale grey and off-white. I don’t know if you remember the first New Year after the break — the idiotic way some of them behaved?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Silva again. For some reason or other she was thinking of Ana. Perhaps he was too, for he was silent for a while. Then:
“Look, there’s one of our China fanciers — a genuine connoisseur!” he exclaimed, “I knew we’d find examples of every species here!”
“I didn’t know there were such people.”
“Oh yes,” he said, his tone suddenly harsh. “They’re rare, but they do exist…Do you know that one over there?”
“No,” she said. The person he meant was short and swarthy.
“That’s C–V—, the critic.”
“Is it? I’ve read some of his articles, but this is the first time I’ve seen him in the flesh. Does he really like the Chinese?”
Skënder’s grey eyes went cold.
“After the break with the Soviets he was all poised to step into the breach and fill Albania with Chinese theories on literature and art. And he was the first to suggest our adopting the Chinese habit of not putting authors’ names on the books they write.”
The crowd seemed to have grown since Silva and Skënder arrived. It was quite difficult now to move about the long room, which every so often was lit up by a camera flash.
“Two years ago in this very hall,” Skënder said, “they exhibited the famous sculpture, Outside the Tax Office — a real piece of rubbish, as you may imagine. There were plenty of sarcastic remarks about it, but in those days the people who swallowed Chinese art hook, line and sinker were still in the ascendant."
Silva’s smile told her companion she thought he was overdoing it a bit.
“And look at them now,” he went on, “prowling around those vases, or whatever they are, making disparaging remarks. The whole thing is a cold-blooded war in which neither side really gives a damn about anything. But of course, in present circumstances, the enthusiasts are in the minority…”
“Look over there,” said Silva, interrupting him.
A group of people were gathered around a showcase. A press photographer, who from his equipment looked like a foreigner, kept crouching down to take pictures.
“I should think that’s where the fox is lurking, shouldn’t you?” said Skënder.
But when they got near enough to see, the vases the group was looking at turned out to be quite ordinary.
“Sorry I interrupted,” said Silva. “You were saying the China enthusiasts are on the wane…”
“Ye-e-es…But that sort of riffraff don’t give up easily. To start with, they still hope the rift with China can be mended. But the main thing is, they think that even if the Chinese do go they’ll leave a useful amount of their jiggery-pokery behind.”
“How can they possibly hope such a thing?” said Silva indignantly.
“Because they’re swine!” he answered. “Still, you ought to know there’s a difference between the two camps. The first lot’s love of Russia was to a certain extent understandable — it was connected to a part of their life that they’d spent there. To Russian literature, the Russian winter, and so on. And especially Russian girls — as you may have heard, Russian girls are very charming. But the other lot’s love of, or rather craze for China is completely base. It hasn’t got anything to do with China really, with Chinese art or the Chinese view of the world…It’s inspired by ignoble considerations that have only to do with themselves …”