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 in. “True, there was a misunderstanding on both sides. No harm was intended, but I must tell you that the girl for whom you signed this book and wrote ‘a souvenir from the author’ has, or rather did have, a problem, indeed a serious one.”
The playwright felt a void open up inside him. “May I ask what kind of problem?”
“Of course you may ask,” came the answer. “And in fact you should know. The girl is . . . or rather was . . . interned.”
Aha, he thought. He wanted to ask about the strange use of the two tenses, present and past, but a sudden exhaustion suppressed any desire to speak. Of course, he thought . . . being unable to come to Tirana . . . that hindrance . . .
The void inside him expanded. He heard a distant knell.
And so? he said to himself, as if in response to that knell.
2
And so? he asked himself again, but quite calmly. What did this story have to do with him? He’d signed dozens of books, mostly for strangers. Some murderer might have had one in his bag, signed before he was led off in handcuffs, or even after. It was a familiar request: Could you sign a book for my uncle . . . for my fiancé . . . for a friend who can’t come to Tirana?
He felt a stab under his ribs.
“May I see the book again?” he asked the investigator.
He opened it with his left hand, because his right hand was shaking. He stared at his own handwriting. The inscription had been written on the first night of his most recent play, in the foyer immediately afterward: For Linda B., a souvenir from the author. June 12.
With blinding clarity he remembered the line at the table where he was signing books. An attractive girl with chestnut hair had caught his eye, and for a reason he couldn’t understand, he speeded up his signing. Perhaps he was scared that this stranger, for one reason or another, would change her mind, as beautiful girls usually do, and leave the line.
“Could you sign it for a friend who can’t be here?”
Without lifting his head, he sensed it was this girl.
Her voice was sweet, and as she bent down he thought her long hair was about to touch him . . .
“Her name is Linda. Could you inscribe it for Linda B.?”
“What?” he asked, thinking he had not heard correctly.
“Linda B.,” the girl repeated. “That’s how she would like it.”
As he wrote the dedication, he heard the girl’s voice somewhere above him.
“My friend will be thrilled. She adores you.”
He held out the book toward her, and the girl, maintaining her playful gaze, added, “I’m delighted too.”
And then she had vanished without waiting for his smile.
The playwright returned the book to the investigator.
“I’m certain about the date of the dedication,” he said coldly. “It was the first night of my play. I don’t remember anything else.”
In fact, he did recall their later conversation about the letter B:
“What was your friend’s fanciful idea with this B?” “Our imagination had run riot,” the girl had said. “It had to do with Migjeni’s poem addressed to Miss B.”
For the second time, he shook his head to indicate he remembered nothing.
He decided then and there that he would no longer tell the truth, and was surprised how calm this decision made him feel. Nobody deserved it, he thought. Especially not these two at the end of the table. But not just them. Nobody. Starting with his girlfriend. None of them, not even this mysterious girl in internment.
He would behave like they did. This, he thought, would be his salvation. He would become invulnerable and would not communicate with anybody. Let them knock on his door, beg him, curse him, and scream that he had no soul. You do what you want. I’ll do what I want. I’ll become a sphinx.
Fury took hold of him again, but this time it was different. He thought about Migena. She might have been more honest. She knew her friend was interned and had asked for a book for her. After she had left him, he had gone to his bookshelves to pick up the fallen books and had felt ashamed of what he had done. He was surprised at the depth of his anger. The actual contents of these books, not just their names, seemed to have scattered where they fell, like in an earthquake. Especially one book: Toponyms. The names of places, streams, footpaths tumbled on all sides. Cuckoo Hill. The Ambush of the Three Wells. Zeka’s Trap, the Pit, the Raven, the Bad Foothills . . . all these grim place-names, he thought. There was nothing in this world whose identity, or CV as they now called it, was so repulsive as the land itself. Snares, treachery everywhere . . .
How long had he been in this office of the Party, which he had entered with such unconcern? His eyes wandered to the wall clock that dated back to the friendship with the Chinese. The clock said twenty-seven minutes past ten. Incredible. He thought he had been there for hours. The Path of the Sprites. The Rough Pass. Wolves. Had they questioned Migena? he wondered. Even if they hadn’t, how could these people who knew everything fail to know who this interned girl’s friend was?
He felt ashamed of his suspicion,
