The Concert (8 page)

“I was right about the meeting,'' said the boss, without looking up from the papers on his desk. “It
was
about China.”

“Really?” said Linda.

“It seems they're changing their policy," Thee, turning to Silva: “I expect your husband will give us some first-hand information on the subject. When will he be back?”

Silva shrugged.

“I don't know,” she said. “I haven't heard from him.”

She hadn't sat down at her desk again yet, and for some reason or other she found herself straying back to the window overlooking the square.

“Linda!” she said. putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. “Look!”

Linda turned round and pressed her forehead against the glass,

“How strange!” she exclaimed.

“What's the matter?” asked the boss.

“A little while ago the square was fell of Chinese, and now they've all gone…”

“As if the earth had opened and swallowed them up!” added Linda.

“You can never tell what they're going to do next,” said the boss. “It was the same with Nixon's visit. They kept it secret right up to the last minute.”

“Better to break once and for all with people like that,” said Linda.

The boss looked up.

“Easier said than done. This isn't one of your cheap romances, where if one character hurts another person's feelings they have a row, say they wish they'd never set eyes on one another, and flounce off…”

“I don't know what you mean,” said Linda, looking him straight in the eye.

“I mean foreign relations are not like people's private affairs: you love me, I don't love you any more, and so we part…This sort of thing goes much deeper, There are objective considerations and all sorts of other factors to take into account…”

“Do you think I'm such a feather-brain that I reduce everything to the level of a domestic row?” asked Linda icily.

The boss stared at her, taken aback.

“Calm down! I didn't say that!”

“But that's what you were insinuating!” she replied, her eyes flashing angrily.

He waved his hand vaguely, then turned to Silva as if to seek her help. But, unsure she was willing to come to his aid, he threw up his arms as if to say, “That's all I needed!”

For a few moments he busied himself opening and shutting the drawers of his desk, as he usually did when he was nervous. Then he lit a cigarette. And promptly stubbed it out again.

“Right, that'll do,” he said mournfully. “I didn't mean to be disagreeable, for heaven's sake! I suppose, at the end of the day, I'm allowed to make a bit of a joke! I am the boss, aren't I?”

He leapt up, stuffed his packet of cigarettes into his pocket, and left the room.

“He really is a case,” said Linda. His annoyance had displaced her own. “I'm the one who ought to have been annoyed!”

Silva smiled indulgently.

“Shall we go down to the cafeteria?”

“Do you think I went a bit too far?” Linda asked as they went down the stairs.

Silva smiled at her again. Vaguely. She was thinking of something else.

The cafeteria was in the basement, and the stairs leading down to it were crowded with people coming and going. This was the time most of the clerks took a coffee break. Silva noticed Victor Hila at the far end of the counter with a glass of brandy. He looked worn down.

She went over.

“Did you get to see the vice-minister?” she asked.

He waved his hand.

“Yes, Much good it did me!”

“Do you know each other?” she asked as she introduced him to Linda.

“Delighted to meet you,” said Victor, still staring into space. “May I offer you a drink? Sorry, I'm like a bear with a sore head today…”

“What's the matter?” asked Silva. “I noticed something was wrong when I met you first thing…”

“I didn't take it seriously at first, but now I see I'm in trouble. I've been running around all morning trying to find out what's up, but no one will tell me anything definite…Anyhow, what'll you have?”

“Perhaps it would be better to leave that till another time,” said Silva, “You look a bit low.”

“All the more reason for you to help cheer me up! Come on, do have something! I insist!”

Linda glanced at Silva, as if to ask if Hila was quite right in the head.

“All right,” said Silva. “Coffee for us, please.”

Victor Hila emptied his glass. Then:

“I'm in trouble over a Chinaman,” he said.

“What?” exclaimed Silva.

“We were just talking about the Chinese,” said Linda, looking at Victor curiously.

“Yes,” he went on. “A Chinaman! A particularly lousy Chink!”

Linda put her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Victor went and fetched their coffees from the counter and set them down in front of them.

“I was told yesterday that I'd been suspended. Do you realize what that means? I'm neither still employed, nor sacked! Just suspended! And all because of this Chinaman! I've spent all the morning combing the ministry trying to sort it all out, but it's no good. I'm absolutely fed up. You'd think they'd all gone deaf.”

“But what happened with the Chinaman?” asked Silva, after taking a sip of her coffee. “Did you have a row with him?”

“Worse! I trod on his toes!”

This time Linda wasn't the only one who couldn't restrain her mirth.

“Are you serious?” she chuckled.

“Yes,” growled Victor. “I thought it was funny at first, too! Then I found out the Chinaman had lodged a complaint, and now the fact that I laughed is being held against me!”

Linda was still so amused she had to put her cup down on the counter to avoid spilling her coffee.

“And then what happened?” asked Silva.

“Don't talk about it!” sighed Victor. “The Chinaman alleged I'd trodden on his toes deliberately. Of course I swore black was blue I hadn't done it on purpose. But the whole business went up to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Chinese Embassy insisted I must be punished. When they heard nothing had been done to me, the Chinks protested again. Apparently they've sent the file to Peking, together with an X-ray of their citizen's foot. We're still waiting for the reply. So you see what a jam I'm in?”

“But it seems our relations with China are not what they used to be,” said Linda, wiping away tears of laughter. “That may work in your favour…”

“Oh, I know how it is with affairs of this sort,” said Victor. “Of course, all kinds of things may happen. Someone might set fire to the Chinese Embassy. But no one will ever forget I trod on those toes. Just my luck!”

He looked around the room.

“The worst of it is, everyone tries to give me advice. ‘Keep calm, Victor, and don't criticize the Chinese — it'll only make matters more difficult for you!' The Party secretary, the director — they all say the same thing: The Chinese people are like this, the Chinese people are like that…' ‘Right,' I tell them, ‘I haven't got anything against the Chinese people. I haven't even got anything against China itself. All I want to know is, what's going to happen to me?'“

Still the same as ever, thought Silva. Impulsive, hot-headed, a magnet that attracted every kind of trouble - just as he'd been when she first got to know him at the time of the break with the Soviets, when she and Ana used to go to some of his famous dinner parties. If she remembered rightly, it was on one of those occasions that Ana had met Besnik…

“X-rays of the chap's foot, diplomatic notes — you get the picture?” Victor went on. “For a whole week I've been waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat! And why?” He lowered his voice. “Because of a lousy Chink! A saboteur!”

“What?” cried Linda. “That's the first time I've heard anyone call a Chinaman a saboteur!”

Victor looked from one to the other of them.

“I suppose you both think I'm exaggerating a bit. Perhaps. I was reprimanded once for being too excitable. Maybe I'm wrong — I admit it's quite possible. The government knows more about these things than I do. Bet as far as I'm concerned, the Chinese…”

“Be careful! Don't go putting your foot in it again!” teased Linda.

He smiled.

“I know I must seem a bit crazy. Instead of concentrating on things that really matter, I just keep wondering if that confounded X-ray has got there.”

The other two started to giggle again.

“Why should you worry about that?” said Linda. “If you really trod on his foot by accident, it couldn't have left much of a bruise…”

Victor lowered his eyes and smiled into his beard.

“That's the trouble,” he said. “I did it on purpose.”

Linda's peal of mirth made two or three people tern round.

Victor knocked back his glass of brandy.

“What else could I do?” he said, glowering. “For a whole month he'd been driving me up the wall, the swine, keeping me waiting for some papers I needed. Every day he had some new excuse for putting it off. ‘I didn't have time yesterday,' he'd say. I was busy reading the works of Chairman Mao… And today 'I have to think over what I read yesterday…' I don't know how I kept myself from strangling him! That's right — laugh! It's obvious you two have never had to deal with a Chinaman!”

As they laughed, Linda kept her eyes on his drawn, ill-shaven face.

“Ping -- that's the bastard's name,” said Victor, “comes and walks round the factory every morning with his foot done up in a bandage or a plaster or some Chinese old wives' concoction. Can't you just see him, pacing up and down for everyone to see? Perhaps he expects someone to put up a statue to Ping the hero, victim of Victor Hila, the Albanian bandit? You think that's funny? Well, it leaves me suspended — do you hear? - suspended! Neither on earth nor in heaven. And no one will answer my questions!… Still,” he sighed, “perhaps it's not the government's fault. I suppose the Chinese keep pestering them about what they've done to punish me. A few days ago my boss said, ‘What got into you, Victor? A nice mess we're in because of what you did …”

The women, finally said goodbye and left the cafeteria.

“A nice chap, isn't he?” said Linda as they went upstairs. Silva nodded.

“He's been like that all the time I've known him. He's hardly changed at all.”

Silva's face wore a hesitant smile.

“Really nice,” she murmured, as if to herself.

Back in the office, the boss still hadn't returned. Linda collected some papers and took them along to the typists. Silva sat for a moment with her elbows on her desk. She didn't feel like working. She got up and went over to the window, looking out at the square with its surrounding ministries and the grey, rainy day. She moved across to the radiator. It felt only lukewarm. “I only hope there won't be any shortages…” Why had that phrase come back to her? From what recess of her consciousness had it arisen, the hope that Ana had so often expressed at the beginning of that inauspicious period when the future had seemed so unpredictable? It was a hope doomed to remain unfulfilled, for shortages were to become part of their way of life…And if history were to repeat itself, thee they might expect more of the same gloomy medicine…But still, it couldn't have happened as fast as all that! And it was common knowledge that the boiler responsible for the central heating was unreliable — there'd been talk once or twice of replacing it. No, she was letting her imagination run away with her, she decided, going back to her desk. This time everything's different. It's all so quiet.

The door opened and the boss came in, followed by Linda. Strangely enough, the boss looked quite cheerful now, and when Linda asked Silva something, he volunteered the answer himself — a tacit sign of reconciliation. He started to talk about the Chinese, and Linda told him about Victor Hila. He was still roaring with laughter at the story, his mirth punctuated with his characteristic yelps, when there was a knock at the door and Simon Dersha reappeared.

“May I use your telephone for a moment, please?” he asked.

Still laughing, the boss nodded towards the phone, and Dersha went over and dialled a number. Silva and Linda exchanged glances. At each tern of the dial, the boss's laughter grew less. Finally, as before, they heard a phone ringing at the other end of the line, but again there was no reply. Simon's face, though anxious, still wore its previous blissful expression. It looked as if it had been left there by mistake. At length he hung up.

“So what did he do then, this Victor?” said the boss. “That is his name, didn't you say?”

Simon Dersha was still sitting there as if trying to make his way into the others' universe, but the unwonted expression on his face prevented Silva from speaking freely. She made an effort and made some comment on Victor's plight, at which the boss began to laugh louder than ever. Stealing a glance at Simon, she thought she now saw a tinge of irony in his happiness.

He slipped out of the room unobtrusively when the boss's hilarity was at its height.

“What's the matter with him, wandering around all morning like a sleepwalker?” said Linda, not even bothering to lower her voice.

“Don't pay any attention.”

“No, but did you take a good look at him? I've never noticed that navy blue suit before, and I think it makes him look very weird!”

Silva nodded.

The boss sighed, as he usually did after he'd been laughing. Then the whole office lapsed once more into silence.

“You think you're so wonderful, don't you?” said Simon Dersha inwardly in the neighbouring office. And he indulged in a condescending smile. As recently as yesterday the laughter still ringing in his ears would have made him feel lonely and excluded. But now the mirth, the larking about that had once tortured him like something precious for ever beyond his reach, seemed tarnished and worthless. He felt completely free from the inferiority complex he'd always suffered from in relation to his colleagues. And this miracle had come about in a single night, like something out of a fairy tale.