A Girl in Exile. Ismail Kadare
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who could be supposed to have come from that office. The investigator’s expression was calm, almost benign.
“We require an explanation, or rather two or three simple explanations,” the investigator said, looking down at some sheets of paper in front of him. “I think you will help us.”
“Of course,” he replied. It must be Act Two, he thought, where the ghost appears. He had noticed that any slipups generally happened at the end of Act Two. But still he didn’t understand why he should answer for this to an investigator rather than to the theater’s Artistic Board, as was usual.
“It’s a sensitive issue,” the investigator continued.
“I still don’t see why I have to explain it here.”
The two officials looked at each other.
“Comrade,” said the second secretary. “I explained to you that this is because of the Party’s respect for you. If you would prefer the Investigator’s Office . . .”
The investigator bit his lip and made an unintelligible gesture with his hand. He was clearly uneasy.
The Investigator’s Office, he wondered. Had it gone that far? “I’m listening,” he said.
The investigator studied his notes.
“It’s a matter of a young girl,” he said, calmly and very slowly.
Aha, he thought. So it is the other thing. Not the auditorium with the red velvet seats, the silence of the audience before the prolonged applause and the shouts of “Author, author.” They weren’t the problem. It was the girl. As if suddenly illuminated by lightning he saw the cleft between her breasts and then her incomprehensible tears.
Maybe she’d known that something was wrong, he thought with a twinge. That it would turn out badly.
“So, do you know this girl?” the investigator asked, and said something else, perhaps her name, but in his confusion the playwright couldn’t concentrate. How had she foreseen this blow while he hadn’t? he thought to himself reproachfully.
“So you do know her,” the investigator continued, leafing through the file.
He nodded, and tried to summon up his anger, which for some reason was now subsiding. So what? Where was the crime? At one time, affairs of this kind were punishable, especially when they involved well-known people who were supposed to set a moral example, but nobody paid any attention to them anymore. Only when there were scandals, broken families, or connections to the former bourgeoisie. Or when the girl herself made a complaint.
Why might Migena have lodged a complaint? He thought of his brutal behavior by the bookshelves, and the word spy, which had no doubt incensed her more than anything else. Did you use the word spy or not? We’d like to know in what sense. A spy for whom, against whom? You know that our state does not use spies . . . Why had he used that bloody word? He hadn’t been asked about it yet but he had his answer ready. He hadn’t meant it in a political sense. He had said it in a flash of anger, as it’s used in daily life about people with loose tongues.
“I’m sure you won’t take offense if I ask you about the nature of your relationship,” the investigator said.
“Of course not,” the playwright replied, relieved that the girl had not maligned him. “I’ve nothing to hide. It was, or rather is, a love relationship—what you would call intimate.”
“Really?” the investigator replied. “So a love affair, with dates and all the rest of it . . .”
“Yes,” said the playwright.
The second secretary and the investigator looked at each other in clear astonishment.
“Is there anything hard to believe here?” the playwright said. “If I’d denied it, as people often do, and had said I didn’t know her, had never seen her, and so on, you’d have every right to be suspicious. But I’m not hiding anything. I admit we were having an affair. A love affair, you called it. Where’s the harm?”
Still they stared at him.
“I mean, is this really serious enough to make a case out of it?”
He wanted to add that of course it was nothing to boast about, when the thought of Albana struck him like a lightning bolt. My God, he thought, how could he have forgotten her? How could she have vanished from his mind that morning, when he should have been thinking especially of her?
“Perhaps you know,” he said hesitantly, “I . . .”
Perhaps they did know, there was no way they couldn’t, that for some time he had been living with a doctor, whom he would certainly have married that summer if she had not gone to Austria on a four-month internship. To study sedatives. Anesthetics was the medical term. Perhaps he was now adding unnecessary details, burbling nonsense that was of no use to anybody. But perhaps it did provide an explanation. In cases like this, a woman’s long absence could cause complications.
It wasn’t easy to explain. He tried somehow, but gave up and repeated the words that he least wanted to say, that there was no harm in it. The Party secretary frowned.
“There is some harm in it,” he replied at last, leafing through the file. “According to our information, this girl never came to Tirana.”
The playwright laughed.
“Excuse me, but I know this better than anyone.”
The investigator also attempted a smile.
“And we know a bit about our business too.”
“I don’t doubt it,” the playwright said. “But I don’t understand what’s going on. There’s something weird about this story. You summon me to ask about a girl. I admit I have a connection with her. But now you tell me that this connection is impossible because she’s never been to Tirana. I’m not contradicting you, but let me ask you, if this is the case, why have you summoned me?”
“To be frank,” the second secretary replied, “I think there’s a misunderstanding here. We may be talking about two different people.”
The investigator searched for something in the file. Rudian and the second secretary watched him, until finally he found what he was looking for.
“I think you will recognize this,” he said, putting a book in front of him.
Rudian slapped himself on the back of the neck.
“I know it very well,” he said. “And I also remember the dedication with my signature.”
His eyes paused a moment over the inscription: For Linda B., a souvenir from the author.
“This is my handwriting and signature. But I’ve forgotten the name of the girl.”
“So you see now?” the investigator said.
Oh hell, thought the playwright. The letter B had reminded him of something. “I might say that you can see,” he said, not hiding his irritation.
“We’ve been talking about two different people,” the second secretary repeated.
The playwright felt ready to explode. For no reason at all, he had revealed a secret. Idiot, he thought. He remembered something else, that his unknown reader never came to Tirana. She was someone who read his books but couldn’t come to the city, and for this reason wanted a book signed by him.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You summon me to the Party Committee to ask me if I have a relationship with a girl. Like a fool, I tell you the truth, thinking that the Party is interested in all of this. Then you tell me that this girl can’t be the one I love because she’s never been to Tirana, and I don’t know what to say. Then you show me a book signed by me for another girl, this time one I don’t know. I still don’t understand what I’ve done wrong, what the crime is, or what the hell is going on—”
“Slow down,” the second secretary butted