He thought he must have drowsed off for a moment. And it was in a state between sleeping and waking that he imagined Ana lying in her grave. Or rather not her but a gold necklace which he’d given her once, and of which he’d caught a sudden glimpse as they closed the coffin.
He moved his head on the pillow to drive away the thought. But on the other, cooler part of the pillow Lin Biao’s question, ‘“Where are we going?”, seemed to be waiting for him, together with Lin Biao’s plot to kill Mao — strangely like Mao’s plot to kill Lin Biao.
Bet Skënder had had enough of these ruminations. His thoughts turned to the children’s skis in the hall of the apartment at home, and how his wife did her hair, sitting at the dressing-table, and a letter from a woman reader who was a bit cracked…And, for some reason or other, a poem he’d written long ago:
Like a Jewess exchanging her old religion for a new one,
There was a sudden shower of hail
Every time winter taps on the windowpanes
You will be back, even if you’re not here.
Even if you were changed into music, or mourning, or a cross
I would recognize you and fly to you.
And like someone extracting a pearl from its shell,
I would pluck you from music, the cross or death,
Alexander Bermema, he said to himself, trying out the new name the man in the restaurant had suggested. And again there went through his mind, like beads on a string, the coming of the third millennium, the ringing of bells, Ana’s tears, and the Place Vendôme in Paris on an afternoon so cold it intensified the shiver the prices of the diamonds in the shop-windows sent down his spine…
That was how Skënder spent the rest of the morning, sometimes lying down and sometimes pacing back and forth in his room. Every time he thought of his dead novel his hand went instinctively to his ribs, for it seemed to him something had been removed from his side.
At midday C–V— came and knocked at the door to tell him it was time for lunch. They went down together to the almost empty dining room, and hardly spoke to one another at all throughout the meal.
Back in his room, Skënder felt this Sunday would never end. For want of anything better to do he rang the bell, and when the Chinese floor waiter pet his head round the door he ordered a beer.
At three in the afternoon there was another knock, and this time it wasn’t C–V—. But before Skënder identified his visitor he noticed he was holding out a card with red ideograms inscribed on it: clearly an invitation, Skënder wasn’t sure whether it was by chance that he’d concentrated exclusively on the card, or if the messenger had trained himself to disappear as if by magic behind the proffered invitation.
As Skënder held out his hand for it he raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
“A concert,’ the man told him, smiling.
Skënder scrutinized the card. The Chinese characters made no sense to him, but he managed to pick out the figures 19,30, which was presumably the time the concert started.
Well, a concert would be a welcome distraction amid this sea of boredom. It wasn’t four o’clock yet, but he was so glad to have something to do he opened the wardrobe and started looking for a suitable shirt.
13
IN ANOTHER HOUR (by which time Skënder Bermema had shaved again and chosen a shirt and tie, while in a nearby room C–V—, with whom he hadn’t been in touch, had done the same), all eleven hundred invitations to the official concert had been delivered to various addresses in Peking, and most of the recipients were in their rooms getting ready for the evening.
Some of them — mostly women — were still lying luxuriously in the bath, the shapes of their bodies blurred by the warm water, while in the distance their husbands were on the phone, asking other diplomats what they knew about this impromptu concert to which everyone was invited at scarcely three hours’ notice. Was it just the way the Chinese did these things, or did it have some special significance? It was very odd…Was it a concert being brought forward from a later date, and if so why? It had been rumoured for some time that Mao was ill…Or was it Zhou Enlai? Who could say? Anyhow, the concert was not to be missed. It would provide all kinds of hints as to what was going on: what you had to watch out for was the order in which the Chinese leaders arrived, who was seated with whom in the boxes, whether Jiang Qing was there or not…
Skënder looked in the mirror and put the finishing touch to his tie, thee felt the little cut he’d made on his right cheek while shaving. At that moment each of the eleven hundred guests was doing something connected with the concert: putting something on or taking something off, adjusting a collar or combing his hair. Ambassadors kept hurrying from their mirrors to their phones, which rang more and more often, while their wives got out of their baths at last, the gurgle of the water going down the drain — half a sob and half a cry of pleasure — carrying with it a hundred little mysteries the ladies couldn’t have explained even if they’d wanted to. Warm and naked still, they selected their jewels for the evening, while out in the hall their husbands were still on the phone, discussing the same theories as before: “Do you think it’s something to do with Mao? Or with Zhoe Enlai? It’s not impossible, now we know that he’s ill too…”
Unusually for him, Zhou Enlai was also looking at himself in the glass. His swarthy face looked greenish and chill. He tried to imagine what he’d look like when he appeared in his box. The men who for years had been hoping to take his place, men like Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Hua Guofeng, would probably heave a sigh of relief. All things come to him who waits. Zhou Enlai smiled bitterly. He couldn’t do anything now to deprive them of their satisfaction: as soon as he appeared in public everyone would think the same thing — he was attending his last concert. And it was true.
He wanted to turn away from the mirror, but he couldn’t. He felt his face slowly with his hand, as if it were a mask.
Every time he had to go to a political meeting, an official gathering, a session of the Politbureau or a government reception, he glanced briefly in the mirror before he left home, to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to assume the necessary mask. The idea of a mask had been suggested to him either by the descriptions of his face in the foreign press, or else by the rumours about all the top leaders that the Zhongnanhai picked up all over the country. Zhou couldn’t remember which. But it didn’t matter. He was now so familiar with the idea that he wouldn’t have been surprised if, as they were going out, Dan Yingchao, his wife, had asked, “Zhou, are you wearing your mask?’’, just as you might ask someone if they’d remembered to take their gloves or their handbag.