Meanwhile the phone had rung and Brikena had run to answer it. It was Sonia, wanting to speak to Silva. She asked all three of them to go round that evening if they were free. Silva said it depended on Gjergj, but she’d talk to him when he got home, and call back.
Gjergj came in just as Aunt Hasiyé was getting ready to leave. To the delight of Brikeea, who was watching out for their visitor to produce more eccentricities. Aunt Hasiyé scarcely recognized the newcomer.
By the time all three of them set out for Arian’s place an hour later, it was dark. Two fire-engines were rushing down Pine Street, sirens shrieking.
“The human brain is a very strange thing,” said Gjergj. “We laughed at what Aunt Hasiyé was saying, but do you know, in her ramblings she mentioned something that actually happened today?”
Silva felt like exclaiming, “Telepathy!”
“She mentioned someone called Lucas hanging himself a hundred years ago. Well, he really did hang himself today. They were talking about it in the cafeteria at the ministry when! went in for a coffee.”
“Who was he?”
Gjergj shrugged.
“I couldn’t quite make out, to tell you the truth. One of the old guard,! think.”
Hava Fortuzi reminded her husband for the third time that it was unlucky to go straight home after a funeral
“What are we supposed to do, then? You know! don’t feel like going anywhere.”
“I know, darling, but we must go and see someone. It’ll be better for you too. I know — the Kryekurts! What do you think?”
“All right,” he grumbled. “I might have known we’d end up there. As usual”
“Better the devil you know…”
“Not necessarily…Oh, this suicide! I feel at the end of my tether!”
“Stop thinking about it.”
“I can’t, I can’t!” he moaned, “it’s not just Lucas himself — you know Î didn’t really know him very well But there’s something about his death that does seem close…familiar somehow…”
“You must just try to put it all behind you.”
“It gave me a shock as soon as I heard how he’d died. I asked how he’d done it, and when they said he’d used a luggage strap I nearly yelled out, That was just how I thought I’d do it myself!’“
“Ekrem! You go too far!”
“The parallel is quite natural We were both connected to…
Yesterday, when I read the Chinese note, my heart missed a beat. I expect his did too. It’s all over now. There’s nothing left. It’s the end.”
“Ekrem! Stop it!”
“it’s the end. The last hope… the last gleam of hope…”
“You must be crazy! People will hear you!”
“The one little dream…”
The gate into the Kryekurts’ courtyard was now in sight. Hava Fortuzi hurried towards it as to a haven. Î only hope they’re not talking about that wretch’s death, she thought. But in the Kryekurts’ living room that’s just what they were doing. Apart from Mark and his fiancée, both of whom remained silent, the company included Musabelli, two more of the Kryekurts’ acquaintance whom the Fortuzis hadn’t seen for some time, and the doctor who had cut the unfortunate Lucas Alarupi down. They were all just back from the funeral, and Hava Fortuzi was surprised to see they’d all wiped their shoes so carefully they bore no trace of mud from the cemetery. She suddenly had a feeling that they, and for that matter the whole human race, spent ail their lives going to funerals. So long as the doctor doesn’t regale us with all the details! she thought, looking first at the fellow’s short-cropped hair — a style he’d got the habit of in prison — then at her husband’s tense expression. But of course the doctor — he’d always brought her bad leek — launched straight into a blow-by-blow account of the suicide. Hava Fortuzi listened absently to, his account of the rue-down area where Lucas Alarupi did the deed: a piece of waste ground near the disused railway station, covered with dust, clinker, like most such places. There were also lots of sheets of paper, which the poor wretch had looked at one last time before taking his own life. Everything was there: production diagrams, photographs of star workers, graphs showing the progress of the plan, telegrams congratulating the trade unions for beating deadlines. Hava Fortuzi watched her husband as the doctor spoke. He was listening with bated breath, and she was sure he was imagining his own feet dangling over bits of his translations of economic reports and other official documents, not to mention the poems of Mao Zedong.
As the doctor explained how he’d suspected for some time that Lucas’s delusions would bring him to a sticky end, Hava Fortuzi thought with horror of her own Ekrem’s fantasies: an invitation from Mao himself for the two of them to spend a fortnight at Mount Kunlie; long imaginary conversations in classical Chinese in which he gloated over Guo Moruo: “Tee-hee, now there’s someone who knows more ideograms than you!” And so on.
It looked as though this cursed quack was going to blather on for ever. After trying several times to get a word in, Hava finally just interrupted.
“It may be stale news to everyone else, but I’ve heard rumours about a new rapprochement with the Soviet Union,’ she said.
“I don’t believe it for a moment,’ declared the doctor.
“Neither do I,” said Musabelli after a moment’s reflection.
“What about a rapprochement with the West, then?” gabbled Hava, terrified lest the doctor go back to Lucas’s death. If she hadn’t been so concerned about her husband she would never have said such a thing: she and Ekrem had gone over it so often it made her ill just to think of it.
“Even less likely,” pronounced the doctor.
“I agree,” said Musabelli.
Ekrem Fortuzi sighed. Perhaps it was his sickly looks, perhaps the parallel between his own obsession and that of the departed — at any rate, his sigh seemed so momentous it made everyone else fall silent. He might not have intended to say anything, but as they seemed to be waiting for him to speak, he did so.
“Paradoxical as it may seem,” he said faintly, “if I had to choose between China and the West, I’d choose China. Not because I dislike the West — on the contrary, because I love it, and should like it to exist in as safe a form as possible.”
Looking round at his audience, he saw they hadn’t understood.
“Let me explain,” he said, “A West dressed up in socialist clothes would be safer, in my opinion, than it is in its naked form, as in Europe. Do you see what I mean?” He lowered his voice, “That’s the kind of West we need — one wearing masks and disguises. Otherwise we shall always be in danger …Anyhow, perhaps we don’t need Europe at all any more …We’re older, we’ve changed, Europe isn’t for us any more… That’s the point, you see …Our only chance… our only chance was China. That’s why I wept, I admit, and I’m not ashamed to do so. It’s more shameful not to weep. And so, And so …But what was I saying? …Oh yes, I cried, I cried my eyes out yesterday when I heard them read out China’s announcement on the radio…”
As the others all gazed at each other, Ekrem got up and went out of the room. ln the silence that followed, his wife went out after him. After a few moments she came back, looking relieved,
“He’s in the bathroom,’ she said in a stage whisper. “I’ve been worried about him ever since yesterday. I think he’s on the verge of a breakdown. The wretched Chinese language has driven him mad. They talk about an embargo on oil and chrome and I don’t know what else, but that’s nothing compared with what’s happened to Ekrem. All the Chinese he learned, gone down the drain! What’s chrome or oil beside that? They’ll soon find another market for that sort of thing — but what about all that Chinese? Ekrem’s quite right to be depressed, poor thing. Last night it quite broke my heart to look at him, I’ve already told you how he wept — more than anyone else outside China, I'm sure — when Mao died. Bet Î thought that was all over. And then yesterday evening I heard him start up again!. My poor Mao,’ he was sobbing, ‘they’ve all stopped loving you, they’ve all deserted you before your body is cold. The only one who still thinks about you and loves you is me, an Albanian, an ex-bourgeois. But let the others forget you, or curse you — I shall go on translating you as before…’ And so he went on, poring over his Chinese books. Now you’re dead, the Word is dead,’ he said. Oh, I'm so afraid something might happen to him, if it hasn’t done so already! Alarupi’s suicide was the last straw!”