a writer in the far corner. He wanted to say hello, but the writer did not see him, or pretended not to. If you don’t want to speak, don’t bother, he thought, and sat down, turning his back to the writer. People had a point when they said of this man that he directed most of his anger at the wrong targets. Especially since he had published that ill-fated book The Winter of Bitter Winds.
Rudian tried not to think about him. He would have liked merely to tell the man that he had no reason to look so gloomy, especially in his presence. Two or three times, Rudian had almost got into trouble for things this writer had said, such as the business about cells in the front of the brain being damaged or dead.
It was enough to drive you crazy. Llukan Herri had asked him one day: “Was it you talking about the cells in the front of the brain, the ones that should invent new things in art?” When Rudian shook his head, Llukan had gone on to say that it must have been that other writer, who goes on about rain and the wind, with whom they’d been confusing him recently.
He groaned to himself, finally turning his mind back to the girl.
Migena’s icy expression became even more inexplicable on reflection, as happened to most things in the Writers’ Club. How could he have taken her look so lightly? All his concentration and haste had been focused less on what she said than on the beautiful shape of her lips and his impatience to kiss them. But that coldness had reappeared after his kisses, and even after her kisses, which were the sweetest of all. He had wanted to ask her what was troubling her, but gently, without creating alarm, as one might ask a naïve lover worried about a broken promise.
Looking back, he was astonished not at her but at his own naïveté. Particularly when, a few days after, the iciness in her eyes could be felt in her breath and seen in her shoulders. In the moments before she undressed, it had been so obvious that he had wondered if she might be a virgin.
The girl had answered vaguely, neither yes nor no, with conditional verbs: even if I were, it wouldn’t be a problem. But her transfixed expression remained the same. After making love, instead of calming down, she grew worse. She lay for a while with her face deep in the pillow, and he would have thought she was asleep but for her shoulders, which trembled with increasingly strong emotion. He tried to draw her to him, at least to see her face, but the girl gripped the pillow with her naked arms.
He asked her again what was worrying her, but less cautiously than before. It wasn’t about being a virgin, that was now clear. So what was it? Had she promised to be faithful to some boy, or was it some other nonsense? Well?
A faint rustle of her hair indicated no, and she said haltingly that it wasn’t a question of fidelity or any other nonsense, but something else.
I see, so she’s starting to play games, he thought.
“What is it, then?” he asked coldly.
Her reply was unexpected. It was better if he didn’t know.
“I see,” Rudian said, this time aloud.
Immediately his thoughts turned to the anxiety of the last few days over the new postponement of his play. He wanted to say to her: Do you remember that premiere where we met, with all the excitement in the foyer? And now this is the second time a play of mine has been postponed at the last moment. And you go on complaining about who knows what silliness.
Propped up on his elbow, he studied her bare shoulders with a certain indifferent ease that he believed came from being known to the public. He hadn’t felt suspicious, especially because their conversation about that other unknown girl had been in passing, in a bantering tone, and with no sense of drama.
“When are you going to introduce me to that friend of yours?” “I don’t know. Do you really want to meet her?” “Why not? You haven’t mentioned her in a while.” “Perhaps because I don’t know what to tell you. I really don’t, except that . . .” “Except what?” “Except that . . . she’s prettier than me.” “Aha . . .”
The coffee tasted bitter. Migena’s anxiety did not diminish, and became even more mysterious.
“Is this coffee different from usual?” he asked the waiter.
The waiter shrugged his shoulders.
He had said to her quite coolly that if their meetings were going to end in floods of tears it would be better not to see each other anymore. Her eyes sank even deeper into misery. Just don’t ever say that again, she had whispered. Never, do you hear me? Never.
“It’s the same coffee,” the waiter said, taking the cup. “Vietnamese.”
Rudian was sure that Migena’s unhappiness was about something unrelated to him, which he would never discover, just as he would never see this other wretched girl.
“Shall I bring you another coffee?” the waiter asked. “Not heated for so long. It’ll taste different.”
“No, thank you,” Rudian replied. “I have to go.”
As he stood up, the writer watched Rudian from his seat in the corner, as if about to greet him. Rudian pretended to take no notice.
Still there was no poster by the theater entrance. Better not to know. This phrase presented itself in his mind, unconnected to anything specific. Not to know what? The things they would say or had already said at the Artistic Board, and which he hadn’t yet heard? Of course, he thought, but then he recalled that it was someone else who had first uttered these words to him.
What was he better off not knowing about? he wondered. He was now angrier at himself than at the girl. He had heard these words and accepted them meekly. He should have responded in totally the opposite way. The bed where they made love was a more suitable place for a confession than any other.
What the hell was it that he shouldn’t know? That they were asking her about him at the Investigator’s Office? About the next play he intended to write? About his battles with his conscience over betraying her? All that?
Above his head, the city-center clock struck noon. However hard you try to elude me, I will track you down, he said to himself.
Wherever you hide, he added.
Fleeing the tones of the bell, he turned back toward the entrance to the Dajti Hotel, where he hesitated only briefly. He climbed the steps and passed disdainfully through the silent lobby, watched by the receptionists. Beyond the door to the bar, the counter loomed up in front of him.
He sat down and noticed that the bar was half empty.
You and your enigmas, he thought drowsily. And suddenly, waking up, he made a discovery. The name Migena and the word enigma fluttered through his mind, attempting to come together. They were anagrams. Migena, enigma. To make sure, he wrote the words on the menu, next to the words espresso coffee. Yes, they really were anagrams. Yes: shuffle the letters of Migena and you got enigma.
4
Seven days. This is day eight, he thought, sipping coffee a few days later at the same table in the Dajti. To his right, the director of the theater, who was sitting with the members of the Cuban cultural delegation recently arrived in Tirana, craned his neck as if to make sure that the man quietly drinking coffee three tables away really was Rudian Stefa, the playwright with one premiere temporarily postponed and another play waiting approval.
If you want to turn half of the state institutions
