him that he secretly desired it.
As he crossed the threshold of the main entrance, he understood the reason: he hoped that, whatever trouble it caused him, it might bring its own consolation, as they say every evil does. It might enable him to fathom something that had tortured him now for weeks—the enigma of that girl.
The U-shaped table was familiar to him, but this was the first time that he had sat down alone on its right-hand side. The second secretary and an unknown man had taken their places at the section that connected the two arms of the U. What was this summons about? Why no prior explanation? There was no question of a glass of water or a coffee, but they might at least have said, We’re sorry to trouble you, or asked irritating, vapid questions, like: How’s the creative process?
He braced himself against the chair back, bristling with the obscure sort of anger that at least helps you keep your dignity, as his friend Llukan Herri would say.
As if reading his mind, the second secretary spoke without preamble and said that the Party valued his work for the stage. This was why the Party Committee had summoned him here to explain a matter for which other people would have had to answer to the Investigator’s Office. Before the second secretary had finished speaking, he turned his head toward the stranger, 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
