If neither of these two witnesses has mentioned fear, it’s because that explanation would make them conscious accomplices in the wrongdoing in question.
As regards the bringing forward of the parachute landing, that was obviously motivated by a desire to justify the encircling of the Party committee by the tanks. They could say afterwards that they hadn’t ordered the Party committee to be encircled; they’d ordered it to be defended, but apparently this was rejected as too crude. Moreover the commando leader’s protestations about the bringing forward of the jump, and especially about the failure of the operation, prevented it from being used as justification for the encircling of the Party committee: that might have run the risk of exposing the whole machination. The most superficial inquiry would have revealed that the order for the parachute jump was given an hour after the tank officers refused to encircle the Party committee.
Supplementary note by the delegate: For information, we append a copy of the text entitled Forgetting a Woman, by Skënder Bermema, This is an exact copy of the manuscript deposited in the safe in the office of the head of personnel, motorized units.
FORGETTING A WOMAN
And what am I going to do now? I thought, looking at the closed shutters, warped by the rain; at the carpet; at the door by which she’d gone out a few moments ago; at the china ashtray with “Tourist Hotel” written round the edge,
I wandered round the room until my pacings brought me close to the door, I stood on the exact spot where she’d kissed me goodbye, a gesture that neither emphasized our parting nor held out any promise. Such a farewell, at the end of a stormy afternoon, is usually seen as a gesture of affection, of regret for angry exchanges; the meeting of lips often leads to the meeting of minds again, to complete forgiveness and reconciliation. But it wasn’t like that at ail I had kept my hands in my pockets — I’d even thrust them in deeper. I stood stiff as a ramrod as I felt her brash her lips against my neck and run her hand through my hair. Î felt just the faintest impulse to put my arms round her in the age-old ritual for ending a quarrel, but I seemed somehow to have turned to stone, and couldn’t move.
And now I didn’t feel any remorse. I just felt tired.
The ashtray was full of cigarette ends, like corpses on a battlefield (hers wore red round their heads to show what side they had fought on). This array bore witness to the sequence of events this afternoon: the outburst of anger, the painful explanations, the mutual accusations, her unquenchable tears. If a museum of sadness existed, I'd have taken the ashtray and offered it to the curator,
I was exhausted, I had a bitter taste in my mouth. All I wanted to do was rest, sleep. I looked doubtfully at the bed — the blanket, the pillow. Did I really think I was going to be able to sleep? I felt like laughing, the idea was so ridiculous.
The soothing sound of rain wafted in from outside. I absolutely must forget this woman, root her out of my life. But above all I had to repossess this evening — that was my most urgent necessity.
I had to do all this because the pleasure she gave me was always less than the pain.
I found myself walking over every square metre of the room we’d both paced round in the course of that senseless afternoon. The overflowing ashtray brought me to a halt. I emptied the cigarette butts into the palm of my hand. They were quite cold now. And such a short time ago they had been so warm, so close to us — to our words, our sighs, our regrets, our sobs.
I went over to the window, half-opened the shutters and threw the cigarette ends out into the darkness. Like scattering someone’s ashes, I thought. I must forget her. Use all my mental resources to denigrate her, so that when I was finally able to let her image go, it would vanish completely into oblivion, Destroyed.
I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret at this prospect, but I was sure it was the only way. I would soon lie down — I’d noticed
my most destructive thoughts came to me in that position — and thee Pd begin…Would she hear the sound of the bulldozers, lying in her bed?
Suddenly I had an idea. What if I put all this on paper? Perhaps, written down, this evening would be expelled from my life more easily? I would give it form in order to kill it more easily.
Yes, that’s what Pd do.
The thought of writing soothed me, as it always did, strangely enough, in such circumstances. Like a pilot flying his plane out of a storm, it bore me out of my turbulence into more tranquil skies.
The charm worked more quickly than I expected. I was soon fast asleep…
I recognized the South Pole from a long way off. (It was slightly flattened, as Pd learned in my geography lessons in primary school) I could hear the dell thud of hammering. As I got nearer I could see the noise was being produced by three squat little men trying to correct the earth’s axis. To adjust the speed at which it revolved, apparently. Henceforward, days would last thirty-eight hours, eights twenty-two. After much research and many surveys, it had been decided this would be a great improvement. I seemed to have read something to this effect in a paper or magazine.
I wanted to ask them when the new calendar began, but for some reason I asked quite a different question: “Seeing you’re experts at this sort of thing, I suppose you could remove bits of time?”
Of course they could, they replied. Child’s play!
Good Lord! So what had seemed so impossible to me — getting rid of all that sadness — was really quite easy!
I tried to explain to them that I wanted to lose a day, or rather a particularly painful evening.
They started to roar with laughter.
“An evening? Bet we only do things wholesale! Half-centuries, decades, years at the very least, But still,” — they looked at their tools — “perhaps if we used our most delicate equipment we might be able to manage days too…”
“Where is it?” asked one of them.
“What?”
“The day you want to get rid of, if I understand you correctly. You want to remove it, and then close up the gap, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“So where is it?”
My God,! couldn’t remember anything! I was drenched in sweat and my head was in a whirl.
“Maybe you can remember the year, or the decade?”
But I couldn’t. I only knew the day itself was sad, mortally sad…
“What happened in the world that day? What empire was overturned? Was there an earthquake?”
As I didn’t reply, they looked at one another. Thee they cast their weary eyes around, to where in the distance a maelstrom of fallen empires slowly revoked, together with plinths brought down by earthquakes, the skeletons of the ages. They all whirled around in the darkness, lit up by cold flashes of lightning.
I still couldn’t remember anything. All that remained was the bitter taste in my mouth. Nothing could remove or lessen that.
Then I suddenly thought I could see something that reminded me of a dress, floating sadly in the wind.
“A woman,” I told them. “A woman was there that day…”
They laughed, but coldly. Then looked at their equipment again.
“In that case it’s impossible. These instruments aren’t any good for that kind of work."
“Please! Please deliver me from that evening, and from that woman!” I started to howl…
… And woke myself up.
It was the sound of the rain that told me where Î was.
The hotel Outside, the fallen leaves and the little cigarette corpses, one army distinguished from the other by their red headbands…
She was there, only a few yards away. She’d be feeling uneasy, because somehow or other she must have sensed that I was trying to bury her.