But think of all his misdeeds too! Skënder reminded himself. It’s true that he made modern China, but then, after that, his disturbed mind led him to create a frightful chaos, unprecedented in the annals of mankind. He mowed down the intelligentsia ruthlessly; he had the fate of Cambodia on his conscience …No, how could one feel any sorrow for him? It was other people who ought to be pitied!
Still, when a billion human beings grieved, you couldn’t help being affected, just as on a damp autumn evening you feel something of the chill of the sea.
Yet what was strange about it was not so much the thing itself as the process by which it came about — the mysterious paths along which the contagion of pity moved. Pity, and repentance, and remorse.
But all this was unimportant compared with what he was about to witness: probably the greatest grief there had ever been.
The man in the cage was sobbing now. Apparently the consternation he’d seen on the foreigner’s face had unleashed his tears. Skënder tapped on the glass to wish him goodnight. But the man stood up and came out into the corridor.
"My sincere condolences,” said Skënder, holding out his hand.
The other stretched out both of his, bending forward stiffly like someone unused to demonstrations of feeling.
Skëeder, embracing him, felt his tears on his owe cheek.
“May he rest in peace!” he murmured. It seemed to him this venerable expression was the phrase best suited to the occasion, existing as it did on a plane above truth and untruth, above all human passions.
He walked slowly back to his room. Before going to bed he went over to the window again and looked out at the ideograms shining here and there in the darkness. “The Chairman is dying,” he repeated. There were no doubt plenty of signs out there that meant “chairman”, but probably none that meant “death”. Bet tomorrow, he thought, or the next day, or in a week at the latest, it will be there.
He put his hand to his face, where there must still have been traces of the Chinaman’s tears. How strange: he hadn’t embraced any Chinese when it would have been natural to do so; but he had embraced one now, unexpectedly and at the moment of parting. Was it an omen? If so, of what?
He paced up and down for a while as if to clear his head of his swirling thoughts before trying to sleep. It was the moment of parting from evil, certainly. The omens foretold a farewell to suffering. The pain which history had inflicted on Albania at the end of the present millennium was about to end.
He felt like shouting for joy.
“Let the bells ring out!” he cried aloud. “There has been a sign from heaven, and we have come to the parting of the ways!”
He looked in the mirror at his cheek, at the place where Asia had bestowed a final kiss.
Outside, the unintelligible ideograms hung in the sky like words in a dream. He turned away from them and went to bed, bet before he fell asleep they crept back into his mind, a vast galaxy in which, somewhere, an invisible hand prepared to switch on another, paler light: the ideogram of death.
14
MAO ZEDONG WAS STILL on the point of death. For hours his closest relations and colleagues had been in his bedroom watching him die, and many others were waiting in nearby rooms. Some were still in the clothes they’d been wearing at the concert, when the news came that the Chairman was dying. Every so often, in his lucid intervals, he would look round at them as if to say, “So you went to the concert, did you?” And then they wished they could slip away and change into mourning. But they were all kept rooted to the spot by the knowledge that if they were away for a moment they’d find the door barred to them when they got back.
Mao moved in and out of a state of coma, but even when he emerged from it he was usually still delirious. At one point he saw the world, shrivelled to the size of a pitiful little globe, flying through infinite space, surrounded by cosmic dust and carrying his owe coffin. It was tied down with ropes which would later serve to lower it into the grave. (Lord, where was it all happening? On the forty-second or the forty-third parallel, or at some unknown latitude?)
The faces of those around him merged with other visions. Zhou Enlai must be dead by now, he thought in a lucid moment, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to keep him away from my coffin. But, in a kind of painful whirlwind, the word “coffin” kept changing into “power”, and then changing back again, endlessly. As for the other people, they all vied with one another to hang on to the bronze handles of the coffin. If he could have spoken, he’d have shouted to them not to buffet him about like that!
That was the picture they conjured up, so obvious was their hatred of one another. Only the prime minister was missing. His will, his request that his ashes be scattered over China…It was when he, Mao, heard of Zhou’s last wishes that he himself had been struck down. God alone knew how many days had gone by since then. Zhou must be dead and buried a long time ago. Otherwise he'd be here, hanging on to the coffin handles with the rest. “Careful!” he called out inwardly. “Can’t you let me spend my last hour in peace?”‘
His dimming eyes scanned their expressionless faces. His mind conjured up, only to destroy them, one scenario after another for what would happen after his death. The uncertainty was unbearable. The various possibilities whirled around in his head like a ghostly ballet. Hua Guofeng put up against a wall to be shot, Jiang Qing made empress, her crown ornamented with Deng Xiaoping’s gold teeth. Yao Wenean married to Jiang Qing after her triumph, thee murdered by her in his sleep. Then both of them superseded by Deng Xiaoping. Then Peng, a lame man, in power, as in the days of Tamburlaine. (Deng-lang, perhaps they would call him.) Jiang Qing mouldering in prison, her hair hanging loose in despair. An empty plane flying in search of people alive or dead, to take to Mongolia, but no one would go on board — Hua Guofeng rose out of his grave to tell Mao, with a diabolical grin, that he wasn’t so stupid as to do so! “What have you done with your scissors and comb?, Mao asked him. “I hear you fancy yourself as a hairdresser lately!” “Who told you that?” gasped Hua Guofeng. “Jiang Qing - it was the last denunciation of hers I was able to read, just after the concert you all rushed headlong to…”
The others stood round the coffin, silent.
“I oughtn’t to have left them so divided,” thought Mao with a groan, trying to turn over. The nurse hurried forward to help him. His eyes were half closed, but he could still see Zhou Enlai strolling through a field leading a crab on a string. “Why aren’t you attending to affairs of state?” Mao asked him. Zhou smiled and pointed to the crab, “I have to look after this now,’ he said. “It’s my cancer, and I’m trying to tame it,” “You’ve got it on a lead like a dog!’’ said Mao. “Of course, you’ve always been attracted by English customs.” Zhou didn’t answer. He started to walk away. “Are you dead?” Mao called after him, “It’s a long time since I read the papers or listened to the radio…” But by now Zhou was too far away to hear,
Lie Biao appeared instead. He was strapped into a plane seat, and the words “No smoking” kept blinking on and off over his head. Where were they flying to — the Kingdom of the Blue Monkey? “You plotted the coup—you ought to know what happened!” said the marshal “As the victim, you had a ring-side seat!” Mao retorted. “All the accounts were doctored, both on earth and in heaven!” said the other. Both on earth and in heaven? Mao was taken aback. He felt like asking Lin what had become of him. As a matter of fact, Mao had wondered at the time whether something hadn’t gone wrong… But he decided not to pursue the matter at present.
Then he saw Lin Biao again, but in the distance this time, wearing a raincoat and standing on a grassy plain. It was raining, and people were collecting up the débris from a burned-out plane. Mao nearly said, “You’re clutching your coat around you as if you were, burnt to a crisp.” The other only drew his coat closer with his yellow fingers.
“The fool — does he really think he boarded that plane alive?” thought Mao.
Lin smiled coldly. “I know everything,” he
said. “But I’m looking for the person who burned in my stead. I’m trying to find his upper left canine. When you chose the poor wretch to take my place you forgot that my upper left canine is gold…” He laughed. “All great criminals get caught in the end because of some small oversight!”
As he laughed he made sure to show the gold crown in question. “It’s this little toossie-peg that gave you away!”
“All ghosts like bragging,” Mao answered. “Do you think I'm so foolish as to have put someone else in your place? It was you all right in that plane, you wretch! Have a good look at the débris and you’ll recognise yourself.”
Lin tried to feign indifference, but it was clear that he was astonished,
“But you yourself admitted you had me killed in a car!”
“Yes… But afterwards, during the night…”
“What? What happened during the night?”
So you don’t know as much as you’d like everyone to think, thought Mao. As for how the plane was brought down, neither you nor anyone else will ever know.
All but the grasses will seek in vain
To find the truth of the Mongol plain…
How could he make sure this couplet would survive him?
Mao groaned. The nurse helped him turn on to his other side.
* * *
It looks as if he’s going to die tonight, thought the observer at the North Pole, easing off his headset.
The satellites and teletype machines were going great guns…He remembered a very cold night when he’d slept at his maternal grandfather’s for the first time. The dogs barked a lot, but that wasn’t what had frightened him. Even now, after all these years, he couldn’t forget how one of them had bayed and bayed, and how his grandfather had said, “Someone in the village is going to die tonight”
Someone is going to die tonight on this planet, he thought with a shudder, The obituary notices were ready. The ravens were waiting for the signal to take flight.
He put his headset back on again and adjusted it. Mao Zedong was still in a coma. The rambles he could hear were in his own stomach. No matter how much he twiddled the knobs, all he could hear were death rattles…
Ekrem Fortuzi huddled over the radio, his brow furrowed in concentration, trying out various wavelengths. He still cherished a faint hope that some station, somewhere, would be more optimistic about the state of Mao Zedong’s health. But they all seemed conspiring to say he was slowly dying.
“Ekrem,” his wife called from her pillow. “Are you coming to bed or not? - this is the third time I’ve asked you!”
“Just coming!”
“I shan’t call you again. Mind you don’t wake me up!”
“I'm coming now, my dear,”
He stood up, looked first at the radio and then at the bed, then bent down and switched the set off.
“About time,” said his wife, making room for him. “You drive me mad with your Chinks!”
“Your talcum powder does smell nice,” he whispered.
“All I ask is that you don’t speak Chinese at the psychological moment,” she said. “I'd rather you spoke Italian.”
“Because that reminds you of Luigi, I suppose?”
“Of course not! What are you getting at?”
“I know it does remind you of him!”
“It doesn’t, I tell you! It’s just that I can’t bear the sound of Chinese any more!”
“Admit it does remind you of him, and I’ll do whatever youwant.”
She didn’t answer.
“Go on, admit it!”
“Well, it does remind me of something. But it was all so long ago …”
“Right, I’ll speak Italian then …But remember — no Chinese, no Italian! Do you see what I mean?”
“No - what?”
“I told you before: no Chinese, no hope of Italian either. But that’s enough philosophy. Or rather, let’s philosophise down here…like this…Amore mio …”
Their grunts and groans gradually died down. Thee in a clear voice, not at all breathless, she said.
“You spoke Chinese again!”
“Did I? I didn’t notice.”
“You’re hopeless!”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to get round her any more. She was well aware of it, so she turned over and went to sleep.
He lay still on his side of the bed until she had dropped off, then he got up and tiptoed over to the radio. He switched it on, very low, and put his ear to the loudspeaker. He stayed like that for a long time, and might have remained there in a kind of lethargy till dawn, if at a certain point his wife hadn’t heard him let out a sob.
“Ekrem!” she cried, in a fright. “What’s the matter?”
He couldn’t bring out any words. She stared at him wide-eyed, and was about to jump out of bed and come 0ver to him when he managed to stammer:
“Mao is dead.”
She looked over at him with pursed lips.
“Idiot!” she said.
But he wasn’t listening. He went on weeping, sobbing out every so often:
“My Mao, my own little Mao, you’ve gone… you’ve gone…”
“He’s round the bend,” she thought. “He’s gone completely bonkers!”
He went on talking to himself, mostly in Chinese, but reverting to Albanian for the affectionate diminutives he knew only in his own language.
“My own little Mao - and to think that while you were giving up the ghost I was making love like a pig!”
I’ll have to take him to see a psychiatrist, she thought. Tomorrow!
Her first impulse was to make fun of him, insult him, but suddenly, seeing him so forlorn, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He must be the only person in Europe who was carrying on like that. She got out of bed, threw a cardigan round her shoulders, and went over to him.
“Ekrem,” she whispered. “What’s wrong? Come to bed, or you’ll catch your death of cold.”
Though she was still quite angry, she’d made an effort to speak gently. But he went on weeping buckets, perhaps even worse than before.
“He had to die some time!” she said soothingly. “He was very old — everyone said he was decrepit! What did you expect? Everyone knew he was at his last gasp. Come to bed, dear.”
“I can’t! Leave me alone!”
He’s nuts. she thought again. My God, what’s going to become of him?
“I can’t, you see,” he went on. “I feel all hollow inside. I studied his works very seriously — I was the only person in the world who understood all the nuances of his philosophy, I’ve compared the original texts with the English and French translations - they’re not at all accurate…I fell in love with him, we understood one another so well …He was so good …he didn’t believe in the horrible class struggle!”
“All right, all right/” she said, “you’ve told me all that before. Now come to bed before you get bronchitis, like last winter!”
“I kept telling you, but you only, made fun of me. He was our only hope, our star…”
Here we go, she thought.
“… and now it’s ‘gone out, our star has disappeared. We’ve all had it now. We’re finished. And you don’t even realize,”
“It might be just the opposite,’ she suggested, trying to reassure him. “Perhaps they’ll find a reason now for getting closer to China again. It’s always like that - people wait for a death in order to fix something that wasn’t working properly. They’ll say he and his obstinacy were the cause of all our differences …”
“But he was so good, so gentle, soft as velvet. And his face…his face was so smooth too …”
“Be that as it may, I'm sure it’ll work out as I say. They’ll blame him for the cooling off in our relationship, and well patch things up. Then everything will be all right.”
“Do you really think so? I don’t believe it for a minute.”
“Of course! It can only make things better.”
“And what if they go wrong again? He was
a poet and a philosopher — a natural peacemaker. Where are they going to find another like him?”
“Others will be more liberal — you can be sure of that. The Chinese are fed up to the teeth with the Long March or whatever you call it…”
“Zhang Jeng,” he said.
“Well, they’ve had it up to here with the Zhang Jengl What they want now is peace, comfort and women…Don’t they say that at the Hotel Peking there’s a room where the Chinese leaders speed their evenings with ballet dancers?”
“If only things could turn out like that!” he sighed.
“We’ll know more about it tomorrow, Well go and call on a few friends and find out what’s going on. And now come to bed.”
“It’s a good thing you’re here to cheer me up,” he said, straightening up a little.
He had a restless night. Twice he made to get up to listen to the radio again, but his wife stopped him. The third time she spoke to him severely.
“What more do you expect to find out? It’s happened^ and there’s nothing to be done about it,”
He just looked sheepish.
“No, but I'd like to know what you’re hoping for,” she said,more gently.
“I'm hoping they might deny it!”
She laughed.
“You really are…!”
“No, why? it wouldn’t be the first time. There have been false reports of his death before. Several! Don’t you remember?” He was getting close to tears again. “As if they couldn’t wait for him to die!”
“Now that’s enough!” she said decisively. “Let’s get some sleep…”
It was a grey, reluctant-looking dawn. That morning it was she who made the coffee and brought him a cup in bed.
“Do you think they’ll embalm him?” he asked.
She gave him a sidelong look,
“Will you please give it a rest? We’ll go out and see some people - then we’ll find out something.”