(...)
        Yves' fingers were intertwined with hers over her right shoulder. Klea's lips rested on the knuckle of his index finger. She closed her eyes. Oh, no, she chastised herself, do not bother me with tears now.
        "It's late. I'm tired. We should probably go back to the hotel, what do you think Klea?"
        Alba had been confused about how to act around them since she had seen them hug. She had attempted to spark conversations often, but all of them seemed to branch into others and never maintain a focus. Now and again, she would glance at Klea worryingly, not showing any signs of reproach or threat, however.
        Yves' lips abandoned Klea's hair and moved to her ear.
        "It's been ten minutes since you left. Where did you go? I couldn't find you."
        "I'm back, I'm here."
        "What did Alba say to you? Was it about me?"
        "No, she asked that we return to the hotel. She is worried and tired."

        A group of ballerinas were dancing to a modern tune under the white, freezing cold lights of a round stage. The melody of the ballet music clashed with the tunes of a circus that had just begun to move away. The cacophony made the atmosphere even more chaotic than it already was.
        "Can't you find a way for us to be alone?"
        Yves observed the frenzied movements of the ballerinas. Their arms moved stiffly like the hands on a broken clock. Klea observed his pale white face and realized that hers probably looked the same. She gently grabbed him by the arm, and led him a few steps to the right, under a willow tree, where the silver light of the stage could not penetrate through the hanging branches.
        "I can't, Yves. I can't, it's impossible. I can't ask her to do something like this."
        "…"
        "I can't place Alba in a more difficult situation than she already is."
        "…"
        "Say something."
        "You're right," he replied, raising the collar of his jacket and trying to zip up all the way. "There is one thing I don't understand, though. You are the only Albanians here. What's so dangerous?"
        Klea was speechless. Words had abandoned her and she did not know where to find any of them. She only wanted his arm to rest upon her shoulder again. That was all. But she could not make a sound. Intuitively, his arm sensed her desire and rested upon her shoulder even more heavily than before.
        
They exited Tivoli. Echoes of screeching cars on the streets violently bounced off the dome that was the sky, declaring war on the very atmosphere. Rare drops of rain plunged towards the ground. A group of seminude people, wearing green and yellow feathers on their heads, was dancing in the middle of the street obstructing the scant traffic. Others were sitting cross-legged on the wet sidewalk, beating sticks together to the rhythm of the music. They were walking very slowly. When they reached the hotel, they stopped and did not dare make eye contact with one another.
        "Well then Yves, we should say our good byes," said Alba.
        "No," said Klea in Albanian, "you go on upstairs. I'll stay with him a little longer, and then I'll come up."
        "Are you serious?" Alba was now alarmed. "Do you know what you're saying? You cannot do something like this."
        "I will stay with him for half an hour, no matter what, Alba. It's the last time that I'll see him. Nothing will happen, trust me."
        "That's not what the problem is," murmured Alba.
        "What are you afraid of then? Please, Alba, it's very difficult for me to ask something like this of you. I know the awkward situation I'm putting you in."
        "Just be careful. Don't act recklessly."
        "Don't worry. I'll see you upstairs later."
        "Please Klea, think this over. I'll be waiting for your return, all night if necessary."
        "I know, don't worry. I will not get you into this any deeper. These are the last moments. Let me enjoy them."
        "For God's sake, don't screw me over. I have a family."
        Both felt Yves' eyes following the perpetual movement of their lips. He was desperately trying to follow their conversation and would have given anything to have understood even a single syllable or word.
        "Take care of her, Yves." Alba tried to hide the fear in her eyes as she spoke these words in English.
        "Don't worry, we'll be back very soon, it's a promise." Yves extended his arm and both shook hands for a while.
        "Thank you Alba. See you again…Somewhere."
        "Goodbye Yves. It was nice to meet you. Take care, please."
        "See you. And thanks again."

        For what seemed like an eternity, Klea and Yves walked without speaking a word. The rain dripped down their tired faces. Now and then, he would stop and attempt to wipe the wetness off her face with his even wetter palms, and when that did not work, he used the inside of his jacket. They stopped in a large square covered with discarded bottles, colored pieces of confetti and remnants of melodious music that slept soundly on the asymmetrical tiles, carpeting the ground.
        They sat on one of the benches there and shut their eyes and held them that way for a long time. The rainwater on their clothes and skin began to evaporate. Klea stood up, glanced around and then perched herself upon his knees, gently, as if afraid of injuring him. She rested her chin on her own weary knees, and he embraced her strangely positioned figure with his long arms. Then he sat upon her knees, and they kissed for the first time.
        They stood up and walked again, sat again, and even dragged their feet all the way to the royal palace, where the crowds were incessantly taking photographs.
        "Help me figure out which way we're supposed to go," he said leaning over to read a map of Copenhagen, under a neon light. "I have myopia, and I can barely read at night."
        "But you don't even wear glasses," she smiled.
        "I wear contact lenses."
        "Ah," she had never seen contact lenses, but she had heard of them. "Let me see your eyes from closer up." As she gazed into his eyes, she barely could see the thin contour of the lenses. "Don't they bother you, don't your eyes hurt?"
        "No," he laughed. "I don't even feel them with the exception of the times when my eyes are tired from lack of sleep, just as right now. Otherwise, it's almost as if I weren't wearing them."
        Yves pulled her closer to himself, took her face into his hands and kissed the tip of her nose and both her lips.
        "Why should I lose you now that I finally found you, Klea? Can you explain why to me?"
        She smelled his aromas lengthily, with her head placed underneath his armpit.
        "Because I am an Albanian," she finally said." And no matter how hard you try, you cannot understand what that means."
        Later she would only remember fragments of what had happened that night. She recalled that she had begun to tell him about her past. She had told him about the university, about the feelings of entrapment within her soul; she told him of her son, her ex-husband, of the endless lines at the dairy shop, of the famine and fear of the people. She spoke of the spying and of the punishments arousing from accusations for rebellious action against the ruling party and the government. She informed him of the privileges associated with being a television personality, and of the sorrow that had separated her from the rest of society and had forced her to be trapped in a dark, closed circle with no exit.
        This was the first time that she managed to verbalize the grief that was the phlegm, which poisoned her spirit. Undoubtedly, the avalanche of words had begun to tumble down madly, inarticulately and was mercilessly devouring any vestige of the serenity and of the oasis that marked the scant peace in her life.
        Yves was silent. He was frozen over her delicate shoulders, with his chin sunken in her curls and his vision lost to the delirium of the carnival.
        They had spoken meaningless words that night and had walked so rapidly that they were absolutely exhausted. They had thrown themselves on a second bench.
        "I don't want to lose you Klea."
        "I wish I did not have to lose you either, Yves."
        "I don't want to lose you."
        "All right, now."
        From an open balcony door, one of Chopin's nocturnes flew out and filled the air. Larghetto, in B flat, thought Klea as tears began to pour down her cheeks and roll onto her wet shirt.
        Don't cry, Yves repeatedly pleaded, not knowing how to embrace her harder or how to comfort her. Klea tried very hard to prevent her tears from coming out. She did not want to cry, but the more she tried to block the tears, the more did her face burn in sorrow. Her hands and the touching notes of the nocturne wrapped her face in warmth.
        "Why are you crying?" he kept asking, very well knowing that this was the most inappropriate question to ask. But he needed to fill the vacant, wet space with something, for otherwise he might not have been able to handle its emptiness or the rest of the night. He had no energy left. All his strength had slowly diminished during their endless wandering.
        "I will write to you."
        They were nearing Klea's hotel. It was five thirty in the morning. Memories of the carnival had by now sunken deep within the consciences of its beholders, who had in turn resigned their tired bodies to inviting beds.
        "No," said Klea. "You cannot write me to my home address, no way. They read all the mail, both at home and work. But mail addressed to home is most dangerous."
        "Can I write you at your work address then?"
        "You can write me a letter or a postcard. Make it sound professional. You ought to make them think that we have a professional relationship and that you are involved in movie distribution."
        "I'll find a way to communicate with you in a code of some kind."
        "No." Klea's voice was listless. She would not be involved in any kind of cryptic, secretive communication. She could not risk being found out, or her name would be circled in red pen and her future lost. Yves did not speak.
        "Got the message," he later said languidly. "I'll write you something in the tone of: "Salutations friend" as soon as I arrive in Maryland next Monday."
        "NOOO. You cannot write me from America. If Europe is viewed as being merely suspicious, the United States is the absolute enemy. NO WAY. Please Yves don't screw me over. Think also about my son."
        "Got the message." He repeated. "Got the message."
        The elevator arrived. Klea smiled at him with all the brightness she could possibly generate at a time like this. She raised her left hand as if to wave goodbye and then opened the elevator door. For a moment, she stood there her hand clasped around the brown handle on the door, and then disappeared into the elevator without even turning her head. She did not want to see his eyes. She did not want him to see hers. The course of events happened just like in one of those ridiculous melodramatic films, she thought. The number of her floor lit up.

        Alba was waiting for her with bulging eyes and already packed valises in the hallway.
        "Ah," she said. "You know I could not go back without you. I just spent the worst few hours of my life. The most awful ones."
        "I know," said Klea. "I'm sorry."
        As soon as he reached his hotel, Yves called. Alba picked up the phone and handed it to Klea. Klea shook her head. She could not bear to hear the sound of his voice.
        "Take care of her Alba, please take care of her."

        The stewardess announced that they had departed on time, and that she wished the passengers a pleasant flight. Klea stared at the white blanket of clouds outside the window and rested her head on her left hand. They were speeding towards East Berlin.

(...)

        On New Year's Eve there were violent showers. It thundered and the skies were shaking. These weather conditions prevented people from visiting one another after midnight. When the firecrackers started and the TV anchor raised a cheer for a prosperous New Year under the leadership of the Party and Comrade Ramiz Alia – devoted student of the unforgettable and great Enver – the people of Tirana cast a disbelieving look outside of their vapor-coated windows. They gazed skeptically into the colorful lights that shone upon the sky bound waters of the bright fountains in the main square. They then transferred their attention to the practically empty tables, the amputated and abandoned turkey legs and the remains of greasy rice on the edges of their plates. All that remained of the baklava on the dessert plates was thick, dark syrup. The year 1988 had just knocked on the door, bringing only the poverty and melancholy of the crushing of the dreams that a certain someone's death had revived for a few hopeful moments.
        Three and a half years had passed since his death. The Albanians had been confused and shocked for a while; their long-hidden hope had begun to pound between their ribs and against their tired skulls, striving to emerge, and then they had simply thought to bury him. Then, they would see what would happen. Something would be different, however slightly. If even for one split second, something would change. It would not be the same after his death. None could be compared to him, his cruelty and madness unmatched.
        
        During the first hours of the New Year, Klea was seated in the balcony that was enclosed in glass; it served as a small kitchen. She had observed the night, which refused to accept the change, as if aware that nothing could possibly shift in that part of the world. That piece of land was to remain unchanged, as if the skies had determined to sacrifice it to the benefit of other lands and their people. The lack of movement was almost a warranty, a reassurance of the continuing movement of the rest of the planet. Someone had to be sacrificed, or more accurately punished with becoming stone still, so that all surrounding nations might be able to move about life better. She knew that this kind of thinking was much too simplified and inadequate, however. The course of events and history of the world had been much more intricate than what she had made them to be. Their complexity was larger than what her universal theory could cover, larger than her succinct theory, which explained all that had happened and was happening. That evening, she was too exhausted to think and reason with the necessary clarity of mind. Maybe the strings of rain that slithered down the windows were responsible for Klea's reasoning. "Adagio poco mosso" of Beethoven's fifth piano concert most certainly gave a final twist to her already distorted logic.
        She did not wish to hear the third period of the concert. The third period was too joyful for her spirits that evening. Every time that the attack of rondo-allegro began, she would turn off the record and rewind back to the second period.

        She remembered his death well. They had informed the people on April 11^th. The year had been 1985. That morning, Borova had gotten up earlier than usual because she had had to review the text for the show that evening. The previous night, she had been too tired to memorize even a single sentence of that text. She had left for work with thoughts jumbled inside her head, none of them connected to each other, and she tried to focus on the most important but to no avail. She had left Gjergji asleep; he was home that day. The day before he had performed a delicate surgical operation and had been dead tired afterward.
        She had hurried towards the Film Studio enthusiastically. Those had been the first months of her employment there. At first she had to work as the secretary in the management office, and after a few months the foreign film editor that she was to replace would retire.
        In the long, wide and dark corridor where the main offices were located, absolute silence reigned. As she walked towards her office, grappling for the door key in her bag, she heard the door of the director's office open.
        "Good morning, Comrade Director."
        He was practically running towards the office of the general secretary of the Party.
        "Forget about good morning, but inform the creative staff to be here at 7:30 A.M., not a minute too early and not a minute too late."
        "All of them?"
        " All of them, girl. All of them without exception. The ones who are out of Tirana filming ought to also be informed. It's urgent."
        "Yes comrade director. But it's 6:55 A.M. I don't think they'll be able to arrive in a half an hour."
        "It's urgent!" The director screamed louder and stormed into the office of the Party's Secretary. What could have happened? With trembling hands, Klea walked into her office and searched for the lists with the names of the producers, cameramen and sound engineers. What about the stage managers? What could have happened she repeated to herself. Damn it, when the director yelled like that her blood pressure shot up like a rocket.
The director stormed through her door and walked towards Klea's desk.
        "The list, where is the list of the filming groups?"
        Then he stopped for a bit. He watched her. His gaze hinted a slight tint of softness.
        "Comrade director, can I inquire what has happened that you are so agitated?"
        "Comrade Enver has passed away."
        The words were all pronounced clearly, each one separate from the next, his eyes staring into hers mercilessly.
        "Oh," she could come up with nothing else to say. "Oh, I understand."
        He disappeared behind the heavy door that connected his office with Klea's.
        The tension of the day had begun when the human resources and the administrative department staff had begun to assemble. The colleagues threw sly looks at one another, and their eyes jumped from corner to corner and from corridor to corridor just so they could avoid meeting other eyes. Some were weeping, others were tying their already tied shoes, and some dug deeply into the bottoms of their bags as if looking for something. One man claimed he had diarrhea and absolutely had to use the bathroom on the second floor. Why the second floor? Someone else had asked him. Where else can I go, the other had replied while leaving the Secretary's office. The bathroom was located three doors down on the right side of the corridor.
        The crowd had by now streamed into the meeting room of the artistic council, and while Klea ran back and forth from the bar with coffee orders, she stumbled into one of the Party secretaries of the Creative Personnel. The secretary was dragging his feet towards the offices.
        "Good morning," he said, as if his mind were wandering.
        "Hurry Comrade Pirro; they're waiting for you. I telephoned you at home twice but I didn't get a hold of you."
        "Why all this hurrying?" He was a small man, wearing an outmoded, light gray costume.
        "What do you mean why?"
        "Why did you call me?"
        "You still don't know, Comrade Pirro?"
        "Know what?" He had a harrowed look on his face.
        "Comrade Enver died."
        For a second, Klea noticed a treacherous spark of joy on the corners of the man's eyes. Then the expression saddened; he had pulled the reigns on time. However, not in quick enough time for Klea to overlook his silent celebration.
        "Nooo. Where are the comrades? Oh, what unfortunate news you've given me, girl."
        The Secretary of the Party slapped his forehead with his left hand and stared at the tips of Klea's shoes.
        "What is this calamity? Oh, what a calamity!"
        Asshole, Klea thought to herself and ran towards the café. Asshole, she repeated emphasizing the "A" and elongating the "ho".

        In the upcoming days people went out of their way to appear tragically mournful, one more than the next; the newspapers were framed in black and one of the clerks at the film producing company had even claimed that she had not felt this heavyhearted when her own mother died three years ago.
        Klea could not be rid of the bitter taste of hypocrisy in her mouth. Her father had pleaded her to be careful; he was seriously worried.
        
"It's over now," Maya had come home on the next day, on the 12^th of April. She had jumped upon her and clasped her hands around Klea's neck just like the Klea did with Gjergji. She was small, blonde, and her green eyes were bulging with happiness. "It's over now. It's over. He's dead. For God's sake, he's dead. He finally perished. I don't care what happens now!"
        Klea and Gjergji had drunk a glass of wine that night. She had told him of the chaos and the general efforts of the film studio to film the funeral-which would occur in five days-to the minutest detail. For the first time, her husband had relinquished his austerity and was peacefully reclining in contentment and hope.
The streets were filled with officers who were spying on the people's reactions to his death. The radio played only glum songs, fit for a funeral. Mimoza had asked if she could read Klea's future in her coffee cup, but the latter had refused and advised her to forget such nonsense. Ah, Mimoza had replied, I forgot that you are a devoted official of the Party and are deeply hurt by his death.
Klea's mother had indeed been hurt. The transmission of the funeral on television had been postponed until the following week. Toni kept telling about how the teacher in kindergarten had told them in tears about how they were going to bury their dear uncle Enver, and how cannons would salute him. They had forced the children to swear that they would follow the ways of uncle Enver to the end of their days, that they would remain loyal to the Party that allowed them to prosper and grow and considered them to be the buds of life. The young one broke out in tears every time he told of what had happened at kindergarten, and Gjergji and Klea did not know how to make him stop.
"That idiot," her husband had murmured when the young one had gone to bed," I'm tempted to go over there and give her a good chiding."
During those days-Klea could not remember the exact date-a statement from the Political Bureau of the Steering Committee of the Party declared Ramiz Alia, the former Secretary of the Steering Committee as Hoxha's successor, according to the latter's last wishes. A section of the intellectual elite rejoiced; Alia had covered the issues related to the arts and culture in the Political Bureau for years. He was known for being moderate and had often been reproached by Hoxha himself for his tolerant attitude and for not holding a strict enough policy towards the Bourgeois-revisionist influences on art and literature.
Other intellectuals that knew the successor better had wrinkled their foreheads. Alia and Hoxha were allied by marriage. A niece of the former had married the latter's son, and naturally Alia would continue to protect the interests of the family. There was no doubt.
However, the craze was difficult to hide. People made all kinds of plans, and when someone, with the pessimism of 40 years under a dictatorship would warn them not to celebrate too early, because one never knew if there was not a second Hoxha hiding behind Alia's soft voice and neutral expression, others would bellow out a big Nooo in response. They said it was impossible. Whatever happened, there could not exist a second like him, ever.

The corpse had been prepared by a group of doctors. One of the film studio's makeup artists had been issued the responsibility to make him up and give him as warm an expression as possible. In the film studio whispers circulated about the lack of sleep the poor boy had been experiencing. His best friends roamed around the studio, their faces marked by lines of worry. They made signs and gestured to communicate with each other, as if their voices had left them, as if in awe of the death of the one that their friend had to beautify in his last days.
The human resources staff, collaborating with the State Security forces compiled rigorous lists of those who were to attend the funeral, drawing names from different work centers and personnel. Light colored clothing and speaking in more than a whisper was prohibited, and all had to salute the coffin with a closed fist. The coffin had been placed in the main room of the Congressional Building.
The day of the funeral was gloomy, at times sunny and others rainy; it was difficult to tell whether it was cold or warm out.
The staff from the film studio was assigned to stand in line between the Ballet and Opera Theatre and the Radio-Television Company. Klea remembered that at some point during the long wait to approach the seat of Parliament, the rows of the Opera personnel were disrupted, and the Ballet personnel had moved to surround the soloists. Klea had taken a few steps to the side to stretch her legs, which had not walked forward and had remained static between the Agricultural Ministry personnel and those from Hotel Dajti for the last three hours. When she returned, she was told that uncontrollable laughter had burst out among those waiting. One of the more famous soloists, bearing the most prestigious title of Artist of the People had cracked a joke, and the others had not been able to restrain their laughter. The Ballet group had taken advantage of the situation and begun to crack its own jokes. Klea had noticed heads bobbing up and down and shoulders shaking with laughter, all under the noses of those from Security who stood merely a few meters away. Their faces bore idiotic expressions, their revolvers were strapped around their right buttock, and their bodies were adorned with the famous gray coats. One of the singers would elevate a wet kerchief in the air once in a while, pretending to wipe his teary eyes.
She could not remember how the laughter had spread. She only remembered that the block of people, made up of the Film Studio, Opera Theater and Radio-Television personnel was dying of laughter and shrank in the effort to mask tittering as crying.

Around two in the afternoon, the Film Studio finally took its turn. The members of the Steering Committee, all dressed in black, as well as armed soldiers surrounded the body of the dictator. Klea could barely feel her feet beneath her. Fatigue crept over her. Silva stood about two steps in front of her. As they were moving towards the corpse, their eyes fixed on the made up, bright pink face, Silva approached Klea and exclaimed, "Wooow," with a mournful sincerity in her voice. "Wooow, the poor man. He looks as if he has scarlet fever. Look, his cheeks are on fire."
They had not managed to leave there without someone noticing their chuckling. God knows! They had lowered their heads, had covered their faces, struggling to adjust their breathing and the beatings of their hearts, which were about to burst of the strain. From behind, they could hear the lamentations of a member of the Party who was crying out something to the effect of "Oh, poor me. Oh, Comrade Enver how will I manage without the light and learning you shed upon me. You left our children orphaned, oh Comrade Enver!"

Hoxha was buried in the cemetery of the martyrs of the nation. His date of birth, October 16^th, 1908 was engraved in golden letters on his marble gravestone. The 11^th of April, 1985 was ignored because according to Alia's statement as he held up his closed fist, "for such heroes, death did not exist. Only their birth was significant." Between movie clips of the funeral, Klea had sensed the fear governing the people as they listened to Ramiz Alia's oath and clapped enthusiastically as he spoke. At the same time, they watched the camera that skimmed over their faces out of the corners of their eyes. Had that spark of hope that had lit up the faces of many of the inhabitants of the capital during that week of mourning shone with a false radiance?
She had perceived Silva's eyes as being empty, unfocused and clouded with nuances of fear at the corners. The woman tried hard to expel these nuances but to no avail. Could my eyes bear a similar countenance? Klea had asked herself this question although she knew it to be most futile.
Oh, heaven she thought, until when must we succumb to this cursed fear? Will we ever become like everyone else? However, she did not know exactly what they, the others were like. She only knew that whatever their problems were, they were of a different nature and bore different colors. Maybe they were problems associated with lack of confidence, fatigue or depression, but she did not believe that they, the Westerners on the other side of the Adriatic knew anything of the black color of overpowering fear, which accompanied the Albanians in a particular manner, different than even the fear in other socialist countries.
No one will ever know. At least I will not live to see that epoch had said Klea's French professor in a moment of fatality; he was one of the intellectuals of the 1930s and had studied in Paris and Rome. No one will ever know what has happened and is happening here, the true and pure face of the Albanian people- of the Albanian people I say, not of the Romanians, not of the Bulgarians nor of the Polish. Europeans cannot even have the mental capacity to understand it. It's beyond them, just as it is beyond us to understand dialogue, tolerance and the meaning of an open mind.

The time was 3:15A.M. on the first day of the year 1988. Klea had not wanted to go anywhere to celebrate the coming of the New Year. She had had to lie to her mother who had pleaded that she go to a party with her. Then she had had to lie to Maya who had invited Klea to her house.
Around four in the morning, she got up from the armchair in the glass annex, cast a quick glance at the picture of the young one on the book-shelf, turned off the recorder, and gazed cursorily at the photograph of the swiss journalist with the curled hair. He had had his place on the wide, low table of the dining room for that night only. Then, she headed towards the bedroom.


(© Elvira Dones, 1997-2000;
translated from the original albanian by Bora Mici)