The Concert Read Online Free PDF

this part of the earth, turning it into a wilderness.
    He drew sharply away from the window, and for want of anything better to do asked the stewardess to bring him a coffee. It was his fourth, but what did it matter? He had no intention of trying to sleep.
    When he’d finished his coffee he had to make an effort to prevent himself from turning back to the window again. But even without actually looking down at it, he could feel the pull of the desert. For the umpteenth time he tried to distract himself by imagining himself back in his apartment, among the guests at the little party his wife was giving for their daughter’s birthday. He looked at his watch. They must have left the table by now, he thought. But he could still conjure up the various phases of the dinner itself: the comings and goings from room to room of Silva and Brikena, the vase of flowers on the table, the cheerful bustle of the guests arrival, the clinking of glasses. They’d certainly have thought about him. He tried to imagine what they’d said, but that was difficult — it was easier to imagine their smiles and laughter. He reviewed the probable list of guests: his sisters, their husbands, the children, Suva’s brother, his owe mother, his niece Veriana, and either Beseik Strega or Skëeder Bermema. He spent some time wondering which of the two had been there. It didn’t seem possible that either should be absent. Perhaps they’d both come, he thought — and before he could stop himself he found he was looking out of the window again. The empty darkness gaped beneath him, wanly lit by the moon, like an X-ray photograph. Yes, Besnik and Skënder probably both went to the party, he thought dully. All human passions seemed small and trivial compared with that great void.
    He sat for a while with his eyes closed. Every so often his hand brushed against the metal lock of his briefcase, reinforced by the red seal of the foreign ministry. Throughout this whole dreary journey he hadn’t let the briefcase out of his sight for a second. He knew it contained an official document of the utmost importance, though he hadn’t the faintest idea what it was about.
    Drowsy though he was, he made another attempt at summoning up his daughter’s birthday party in his mind’s eye, but something prevented him from actually entering the flat. Every time he tried, he found himself lingering wistfully outside the door, like a stranger. At the thought of suddenly appearing in the doorway with all those people eating and drinking and talking; of all the familiar gestures he’d have to go through to ring the bell, kiss Silva and their daughter, and then greet the guests, his fingers grew numb and powerless. He realized this was because he was still gripping his briefcase. What is it, Gjergj? their eyes all seemed to be asking. What have you got in that briefcase?
    He shook his head and opened his eyes. He must have dozed off, and his hand, clutching on to the handle, had gone to sleep too. He sat on for a while without moving, trying not to look out at the void, then briefly nodded off again, though more lightly now than before. The same sequence of images as before, but swifter this time, led him back to his daughter’s birthday party.
    Once again the briefcase prevented him from going in and mixing with the guests. I shouldn’t have kept it on my lap, he thought — thee remembered the iron rule decreeing that he must always have it with him wherever he went. It had been decreed that there was nowhere else in the whole world for the briefcase to be except with him.
    Opening his eyes again, he saw a kind of break in the sky, ahead of the plane and on the same level, but far away in the distance, perhaps over central Asia. The dawn.
    He asked the stewardess where they were, and she told him they were already over China. The sun was rising. Below them, hidden by a layer of mist, lay the largest and most ancient