THE SAME ONLY DIFFERENT!THE SAME ONLY DIFFERENT!Jiri Kajanë
The Ministry of Slogans seemed on the verge of closing for good. Even from my small office tucked away in the rear of the building it was easy to feel the mood shifting, everything changing, the frenetic pace of the previous months possibly dwindling to the lazy resignation of one last day. Clearly, the work generated by our department had not produced the desired results. Many young apprentices sulked in the hallways, and an even greater number of their superiors joined them, confidence now gone, roles suddenly undefined. It was no longer feasible to change the spirit of the people with a few catchy words placed in a memorable order.
Strangely, I, the deputy creative director of slogans, a person supposedly with much to lose, felt no dread at all. I was entirely calm, almost looking forward to the transformation that the coming days would bring to both the city and to my own life. I began cleaning the office with a great attention to detail—repairing the stapler, sharpening pencils, carefully alphabetizing scattered file folders. When I finished, the room looked nearly identical to the one I’d walked into that first summer morning many years back. Gone were all of my personal effects—the maps that had once decorated the walls, a pair of soccer trophies, even the graying photo of my father dressed in his favorite sweater.
It was still early, but outside toward the square, people had begun assembling—just as they’d done all week—their kinetic energy a sharp contrast to me in the office, quietly organizing obsolete files. Unlike me, the protestors seemed frantic in their fight against a government that no longer seemed to exist.
From my office window, I could see some of them making their way down to join in. Among the crowd was a lone figure I recognized, Altin Leka, an old acquaintance from the university. He was pushing a shiny white cart, preparing to sell ice cream. Soon the people passed him by, leaving Altin ambling along the road alone.
Ten minutes later, I was down there myself, headed in the opposite direction toward the line of buses. I’d planned on taking a day trip to visit my father, but soon discovered, one by one, that the bus doors were locked and the vehicles empty. The drivers had probably gone and joined the celebration, knowing that few if any passengers could be recruited today. As I began thinking of alternate plans, other ways I could reach my father’s, I noticed my young friend Leni up the street, huddled in an apartment doorway with a taller, older woman. The way they were standing so closely, both wearing sizable coats, seemed quite strange for such a hot day.
“Hello,” Leni yelled with an exaggerated wave, as if we had not met only a few hours earlier for lunch.
“Hello,” I yelled back, trying to match his enthusiasm. As I walked toward them, the woman whispered something into Leni’s ear, and then, rather discreetly, concealed a light blue paper bag she’d been holding.
“This is Mila,” Leni said as I approached. “We were just heading back to the hotel.”
“Please join us,” she said, smiling. Her awkward accent and long round face made me think that she might be from the North. There was a short pause as I glanced at Leni for some advice, some hint as to the answer he expected from me. Since gaining his restaurant position in the Hotel Dajti, he’d specialized in making the acquaintance of female guests. I did not want to interfere.
“I’m sure my friend has other matters to attend to,” Leni quickly said. This was one of his standard lines, but the tone of his voice seemed shaky, hollow, and this surprised me. At that moment, Mila’s eyes met mine, focused and warm, and I realized she seemed far closer to my age than Leni’s. In the past, he’d offered many times to match me up with women like her, older women from the hotel. Why had he forgotten that offer now? During the first few years after my separation from Ana, I’d refused his help. But less than a month ago, I had finally succumbed to the idea.
“No, no, your friend must join us,” Mila said firmly, taking me with one arm and Leni with the other. “Come.”
As she pulled us toward the hotel, I noticed how tall and wide she was. In comparison, Leni and his small size seemed almost comical tucked beneath her strong arm. Yet for all of this strength, there was also a fragileness in Mila that I detected. She had a solid profile, very striking, that reminded me of the Italian television stars I had seen on Leni’s brother’s television. But something about her lips, how the upper one was as full as the lower, and how the tiny gap between her teeth appeared only when she smiled, all seemed to relax me.
“Do you feel like having a drink?” she said as we entered the familiar lobby of the Hotel Dajti. I expected Leni to somehow signal me to decline, but instead he merely answered, “Okay.”
Leni gestured to his co-workers and soon a jug of wine materialized. I hadn’t eaten since early that afternoon—a pair of stale ematurs—so after finishing the first glass, my face was rather flushed. It felt hot, but good.
“Today was probably his final day of work,” Leni said, tilting the ceramic mug in my direction.
“Oh?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, refilling my glass, “until three o’clock today, I was employed by the Ministry of Slogans.” There was a brief silence, and it seemed to be a long while before I returned the carafe to its spot on the table. It occurred to me how strange this must have appeared to Mila—me pouring the wine so slowly and precisely, as if it were something valuable like gasoline. I guess I was a little self-conscious because a long time had passed since I’d been around someone like her. I felt strangely drawn to her. “Well, I haven’t actually been notified of my firing yet, but that’s just a formality. We all know what’s happening.”
“What will you do now?” Mila said.
“Maybe he will get a job with me,” Leni said, and he smiled to let me know he was not joking. Until that moment, I hadn’t actually thought about what I would do once the Ministry’s closure became official. I’d merely been thinking about its ultimate collapse, counting down the days.
“At least it’s not like someone else is replacing you, right?” Mila said. She smiled, flashing the tiny gap between her teeth. “It’s not like you yourself lost the job.”
“True. I guess it’s not so bad when you consider that.”
“A job like Akey’s, that’s what we should all have,” Leni said. “Working with cars and trucks.”
I nodded.
“We need some more wine.” Mila pointed to our empty carafe. “I’m going to see what I can do.”
As she started toward the front of the restaurant, I leaned across the table and whispered to Leni, “She just grabbed my arm, what could I do?”
“Yes,” he said. “But she is not for you, believe me.”
“Mila seems so much older than you, Leni. Not once have I seen you with a woman even near her age.”
“Yes, she’s not for me, either.”
“I don’t understand—”
At that moment, Mila returned with a waiter close behind. The man put a fresh carafe of wine on the table and removed the empty one, giving Leni a subtle, quizzical look as if to say, “Who is this woman, and why does she act so aggressively?”
“Would you care for another?” he said instead, using a distant, professional voice.
“Just water for me,” I said, and then watched as he refilled their glasses.
I looked around the room at the faded, flaking red wallpaper, the spots of orange and green peaking through from previous paint jobs. It was hard not to sit in the Dajti’s lobby and stare, imagining the opulent place it had once been. The fixtures and flooring, the sculpted tables and chairs all managed to retain a faint glow from a more prosperous era that had now been lost beneath a wave of defects. Outside, there was only the dull roar of the crowd, rising and falling faintly in the distance.
“Maybe when things get settled, there will be more work for you,” Mila said. A look of concern came upon her face, and for the first time that night, I did not see the tiny gap between her teeth as she smiled. “You know, the changes might actually bring along something better.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Things will fall into place,” Leni said in a somewhat less convincing tone.
“Really, I’m not concerned. There will be time for that. I just want to relax now—I can worry later.”
I looked over at Leni, who was idly staring out a window. Normally on a night like this, we would be at his brother Nossi’s house, watching Italian television. “Why don’t we go down to the square and see what’s happening,” he finally said.
“Yes, that might be fun,” Mila responded. “But first let me finish my drink.”
Later, as we walked along the river, I thought about finding the right moment to make a polite exit, to leave Leni and Mila alone together. Of course, she was charming and alluring, entirely appealing, yet at the same time, my loyalty to Leni, my loyalty to our friendship, stopped me from continuing in this manner, stopped me from thinking this way any longer. I just couldn’t operate that way, my conscience would not allow it. Yet, despite this, Mila’s arm remained locked in mine the entire time, as if she’d known me for years—and as if she knew I was thinking about leaving.
“Is anyone hungry?” Leni asked, veering toward the busy marketplace. He led us through the crowd to a stand where various overripe fruit had been spread out across a large table in an effort to make the supply look more plentiful. The vendor wore an outfit identical to that I’d seen earlier on Altin Leka, though maybe a bit less greasy and rumpled. After a few minutes, I selected a soft, brown apple, and it temporarily solved the problem of my empty stomach, helping me regain a bit of focus that the wine had eliminated earlier. Leni was far ahead now, wading through the crowd and motioning for us to follow. After Mila finished eating, she returned her arm to mine, smiled, and we quickened our pace.
“Where are you from?” I asked her.
“The North,” she said. “I am here on business.” The tone of her voice was a little flat, and I thought maybe she wanted to let it go at that, so I did.
“That fruit wasn’t too bad,” I said, changing the subject in such a clumsy way that it made her smile.
“I like you,” she said.
Across the boulevard, at the other end of the fountain, we caught up with Leni. I stopped for a second and looked down to where the water had once flowed. Without luck, I tried imagining my reflection the way I’d always seen it as a child. When we began moving again, Leni was leading us toward Altin Leka’s shiny white pushcart.
“Ah, friend,” he said with some hesitation, obviously unable to recall my name. “A cold ice cream, perhaps?”
“Yes,” I said, out of politeness rather than hunger. My appetite, which had been quite strong only a few moments earlier, had somehow gotten lost in the interesting combination of smells emanating from Altin’s coat. It seemed to be a sweet flavor of cheap raki mixed with thawing winter dampness and early spring sweat.
“The flavor is almond,” Altin offered, and for a moment I thought he was referring to a mystery ingredient embedded in his coat.
“People here in the square have been rowdy,” he said, “but this is safer than I had expected. I do not have to worry about thieves at all. Everyone is happy.” The subdued tone of his voice seemed to contradict the words he spoke, and it almost felt like he was patronizing us, or, at the very least, reading from some sort of government-sanctioned script.
“Yes,” I responded uncomfortably.
“It is nice to see you, Leni.”
Leni nodded a return greeting, and then introduced our new northern friend. “Altin, this is my cousin Mila, up visiting from Gjirokaster.” As she moved to shake his hand, I wondered why Leni had gone to the trouble of lying about her. Clearly, things were not as simple as they’d seemed. I pulled a few leks from my pocket and announced that I was buying everyone ice cream. Leni smiled lightly and took me up on the offer, but Mila declined, saying that she’d had too much wine. As she spoke, she did not look up. Her eyes remained on Altin, watching him hand me and Leni the neatly scooped ice creams.
I looked around at all the people. How excited they seemed, how happy. I wanted to feel that way, too, and yet I could only summon a vague sensation of relief.
“For all the people out here, I don’t recognize anyone,” I said loudly, not realizing that only Leni was standing next to me. Mila and Altin had somehow drifted off into the crowd.
“Many outsiders,” Leni remarked, so as not to leave my comment hanging. “Young people, too.” His tone made me think that he did not view himself this way, that he felt connected instead to an older generation—my generation, I guessed. Mine and Mila’s. I looked over and noticed her moving back in our direction, although she still seemed to be watching Altin Leka thirty metersahead, slicing through the crowd, ignoring any possible customers.
“What is it about Altin that interests you so much?” I wanted to ask her. Or maybe, “Mila, why do you stare at him so?” I thought I should explain about his bitter and sullen personality, about his pettiness and arrogance. I wanted to tell her all this before she got involved any further, before she somehow found him attractive in his own peculiar way. Maybe I should talk about Altin’s suspiciously rapid political demise or even his equally suspicious reappearance as a common vendor. Instead though, I said nothing. I just watched her, watching him.
A roar went up from the crowd, and Mila turned back, no longer chasing Altin, who had somehow disappeared. She caught my eye for a second, smiled, and then headed toward me. “Where’s Leni?”
I looked around but could not see him anywhere. Mila gently put her arm in mine like before, and I quickly led the two of us forward. Where had Leni gone? As we searched, heading through all of the people, I noticed my assistants conducting a small group of children in song. The two of them stood at the front, strutting around like parade leaders, while the children followed behind, trying to imitate them. “And the stars in the sky, we only see them at night, but we know that they are always there.” As they were singing this, one of my assistants recognized me, and a look of indecision came across his face, as if I was still his supervisor and we were still at the office. I smiled to relax him a little, and he smiled, too, then went back to the children. As we left, I examined the group more closely, trying to figure out which of the boys and girls belonged to him. Maybe none, maybe all, I couldn’t tell. Then my mind returned to Leni, who was nowhere in sight.
The next morning, I awoke in a large, luxurious bed at the Hotel Dajti, high up in one of the top-story rooms. Mila had already gone, and so I rolled back the curtains and stared at the city. It was still early, and the square was empty now, looking no different than it had the week before, maybe even the month before that, and perhaps every day of the previous year. I suppose I’d expected to find it changed like the rest of us, but other than the scattered garbage, it remained entirely the same. I continued staring, entranced by the strange, almost foreign view offered by Mila’s top-floor window. If I squinted my eyes in just the right way, I could imagine a postcard: “Greetings from Albania.”
Before she’d left that morning, Mila offered an explanation of her errand in town. Strangely, I hadn’t even asked—still following her cue about that from the night before. So it surprised me when she said, “I have to run out and meet some Italians about real estate. I’ll be back later, okay?” And then she kissed me twice on the mouth and disappeared out the door. Obviously, she had lied. If she really were in town for some land negotiation, why all the vagueness, the secrecy? Why would Leni call her his cousin? Why would she brush aside any questions the night before? From the way she’d spoken that morning, I’d gotten the feeling that this bit about the Italians and real estate was simply meant to put my mind at ease, that she’d offered this explanation as a way of alleviating my worries—and as a way of fending off my inevitable questions. Perhaps she realized that our night together would somehow chip away at my ability to be discreet. Of course, this was not true. I’d learned long beforehand to keep quiet when necessary. The party taught me that—the party and my ex-wife Ana.
The last time Ana and I had been together, we’d already been separated for a while, but I’d gone back over to the apartment hoping for a reconciliation. Little was solved that night; each moment I spoke, I seemed only to make things worse. Yet, for the first time in a long while, we found ourselves drawn to each other with an odd intensity. And so, the talking stopped. Ana confessed to me later that she’d been in a bad state that particular evening and cautioned that it would never happen again. I didn’t believe her at the time, but, in the end, she turned out to be speaking the truth.
I sat up in bed and counted the berries on the patterned wallpaper in Mila’s room. Raspberries and blackberries alternated with small sprigs of holly. Leni had once shown me a handful of the Dajti’s suites and most of them were alike, but this was the first one I could remember with such an unusual design covering the walls. Of course, the upper part of the building was set aside for high-ranking party officials, so perhaps this was some delineation of luxury, these berries. I was not sure. Either way, I thought, Mila must have been doing well in her business—whatever it was—if she could afford such a room.
I showered, dressed, and headed downstairs for some breakfast, but not before leaving Mila a brief note with the street address of my apartment. I mentioned that we could meet later that afternoon or evening, whenever she had completed her “business.”
The hotel restaurant was nearly empty and unusually solemn, so I headed toward the Kafe Quristi. As I crossed the boulevard, I suddenly pictured Mila again—the way she’d looked the night before as we walked together in the square, and the way she’d asked why I was in such a big hurry to find Leni. There had been a strange feeling of innocence at that moment, as if she seriously expected an answer to her question. As if I would say to her, “The hurry is that he is my friend, and he is lost up ahead somewhere, and we need to find him.” Yet, at the same time, I knew this was not what she had meant for me to say at all. It was a moment where my friendship with Leni was expected to bend a little. I suppose if I’d thought about it then like I was now, things might have ended up differently. Mila and I would have found Leni, and eventually, I would have walked back to my small apartment alone, taken off my suit, and gone to bed early like I’d done on so many other nights.
I was the only customer in the cafe when Ivan Quristi brought over my coffee. “I suppose everyone was out rather late last night,” he said, indicating the empty restaurant with his outstretched hands, then wandering back into the kitchen without waiting for a reply. A few minutes later, Leni arrived, looking tired and carrying a small loaf of slightly burned raisin bread—from the hotel, I suspected. He sat down and signaled to Ivan for another cup.
“I’m glad I found you here so early,” he said, taking off his thin jacket. “Listen, I’m sorry about disappearing last night. But I ran into Kosi, and we began talking.”
Ivan appeared with coffee, poured, and then stood waiting. Leni handed him the bread. “Fresh from the oven, as I promised,” Leni offered, smiling. Ivan thanked him, and headed back to the kitchen, only to return a few seconds later with buttered slices for the two of us.
“I’ve already eaten,” Leni explained, pushing his slice on top of mine. “Go ahead.”
“So, you were telling me about Kosi …” I said, trailing off. I wanted to get him started on the subject again, and keep his attention away from Mila.
“Yes, Kosi,” he said. “I cannot help things when I see her, you know. It’s out of my control.” I nodded and bit into the blackened raisin bread.
“Every time that I do, it is wonderful,” he continued. “Yet, I have to rely on coincidence to bring us together. There is something in her that tells me if I wrote a letter or telephoned, you know, to ask for a proper meeting, she would not allow it.”
“Maybe she is afraid,” I said.
“No, she just seems to prefer the spontaneity. To her, I think even the smallest plans are too official.” He paused for a second and drank a sip of his coffee. “That’s okay, though. I don’t really mind.”
“I’m envious,” I said. “It sounds like the exact opposite of Ana.” As I said this, I realized that my night with Mila had been this way, too—spontaneous and seemingly nonchalant. “Not like Ana at all.”
“Yes,” Leni said, but not in such a way as to agree with me too strongly. He knew it was all right for me to criticize Ana, but he was always careful about doing that himself.
At that moment, it seemed to be my turn, and although Leni expected me to explain what, if anything, had happened after he disappeared, it was not his style to ask. I could let the entire thing go and move on to a different topic of conversation—the state of the Ministry, the latest reports on the demonstrations, or even just gossip about someone like Altin Leka, passing along more vague rumors about his underground position—but that did not seem right. Just as it’d never been Leni’s style to ask, it was not my style to keep things from him. Besides, now that I knew he really wasn’t interested in Mila—at least not in the way he was interested in Kosi—there didn’t seem to be much of a problem. Perhaps when he had spoken less than positively about her the day before, when he’d said she was not for me, it was part of a little game—a theory of reverse persuasion. I had only recently succumbed to his never-ending offers of matchmaking, and so possibly he had thought it was time to turn the tables, catching me off guard. “You do not want Mila,” I could hear him saying. “Yes, Leni, I do,” I would’ve answered. “But she is not right for you.” “Yes, yes, she is. Believe me!”
Mr. Kruchnik, a high-ranking party official and Leni’s sometime boss, appeared in the doorway. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “May I join you?”
Kruchnik was carrying a small leather satchel, and he loudly dropped it onto the seat across from me before sitting next to Leni. As if on cue, Ivan Quristi appeared from the kitchen with another pot of coffee and an extra cup. I sat there for a moment trying to figure out if Kruchnik was a party official who I still needed to worry about. Probably not, but it did seem strange the way the rest of the customers, the handful of people who had entered after Leni, quieted a bit as Kruchnik sat down.
He poured himself some coffee, then leaned across the table and refilled our cups. “It has been a strange couple of weeks,” Kruchnik said, breaking the silence. “Now, it is the others who must worry.” He laughed a little at his own remark.
“Yes,” I said, not really committing myself one way or the other.
Kruchnik smiled back and took a large, gurgling sip of his coffee. He was a younger man, I don’t mean as young as Leni, but still young, and his meteoric rise within the party was well-known. Even his detractors were amazed by the fact that he had accomplished so much at such an early age. Yet, Kruchnik’s success was actually justified. Although I had never seen anything in writing, I knew of his ability to make quick, ruthless decisions that always left him on the right end of things.
“Well, this is a wonderful day,” Kruchnik began again, maintaining his jovial mood. Leni and I forced polite smiles, and Kruchnik seemed to take no notice of our uneasiness; instead, he continued laughing and called Ivan Quristi to bring out some fancy pastries.
“Allow me to select something for you both,” Kruchnik said, eyeing the cart Ivan had rolled out from the kitchen. “I’m usually pretty good at making decisions.” There were three large, crusty fruit tarts, all cramped together in the middle of the platter. One of them would have been enough to split among us. “We’ll take all three,” Kruchnik said loudly. Ivan nodded slightly and asked if we wanted them heated.
“Of course!” Kruchnik moaned, before adjusting himself in the chair.
“Thank you, sir,” Leni managed.
“Here,” Kruchnik said, his tone suddenly subdued and businesslike. He reached into his satchel, pulled out a light blue paper bag, and handed it across the table to Leni, who remained silent. Some crisp lira notes and a few tattered dinars, all of high denominations, dribbled out of the bag momentarily before Leni quickly crammed them back inside. He glanced over at me and I looked down at my empty coffee cup, trying not to let him know I’d seen the money.
“So what’s this?” Kruchnik said, noticing our exchange, Leni’s look of anxiety, me averting my eyes. Neither of us answered, perhaps a little dumbfounded at his acknowledgment of a moment that should have been ignored. Kruchnik sat back in his chair and a sly smile came over his face, the first time I’d ever seen such an expression.
“Have either of you ever heard the story about the two fish swimming in the Drina?” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“No,” Leni said.
“Well, this is one from my childhood, from way way back. These two fish had grown up together, you see … had been spawned together. Brothers. And when they got older, one got bigger than the other all of a sudden. But the two of them ignored this difference between them. Instead, they made every effort to remain equal, and every effort to remain friends.”
At that moment, Ivan returned with our heated pastries. “Ah, good, good,” Kruchnik said. As the old cafe owner set down our plates, I looked over at Leni sitting there, silent, expressionless, as quiet as I’d seen him in years.
“And so everything was fine,” Kruchnik said, hacking off a piece of his tart. “They just did their best not to address the massive physical difference between them. But then one day the head fish—the mayor I guess you could say—approached the larger brother with an errand. The mayor wanted the large one to protect him, to serve as his bodyguard. In exchange for these services, the large fish would be introduced to the mayor’s daughter, a beautiful guppy.”
“Did he take the job?” Leni said.
“Well, he thought about it for many days, until finally he went to ask Mila, the goddess of the sea, for advice,” Kruchnik answered, and as he said this last part, his eyes widened, the whites of them grossly clear—as if we weren’t making the painfully obvious connections here. “And so while he was away, the smaller brother swam around the Drina alone, wondering where his large brother had gone.” Kruchnik’s voice was hushed now, almost sinister, and a knowing look formed on his face. He stared at both of us for a moment and then continued his story.
“One morning, the smaller brother, still swimming on his own in the lovely Drina, came upon a beautiful young guppy, scanning the bottom of the riverbed for food. ‘I have plenty of food,’ the smaller brother said, ‘Would you like to share?’ And so the beautiful guppy, the mayor’s daughter, went with the smaller brother to eat.” Kruchnik smiled as he said this last part, and then put down his fork. “So do you know what happened next?” he said in my direction.
“No,” I said. “What happened?” I was grumpy now.
“The mayor’s daughter fell in love with the smaller brother?” Leni said.
“Aha,” Kruchnik said. “I see you have heard this one before. Why did you not stop me earlier? Now I feel as if I have made a fool of myself.” Of course, Kruchnik did not feel this way in the slightest. If he had, he never would’ve admitted it. Besides, I was fairly certain that he had made the whole thing up anyway, and probably even as he was telling it.
“Well,” Kruchnik said, slyly laughing and examining each of our expressions. “Seems as if we have come to the end.” He then deliberately took the package of money out of Leni’s hands and plopped it on the table directly in front of me. Studying our expressions, he cut a large portion of his strawberry tart and stuffed it into his mouth, emitting a small gushing sound as he chewed. How strangely things had twisted. There was my young friend Leni, who hardly knew anything of my evening with Mila, and then there was Kruchnik, who seemed aware of everything.
I wanted time to think about the money and what Mila could have done to earn it. Clearly, her hotel room had been arranged by Kruchnik, which explained how she had secured such a fancy suite, yet I didn’t have even the slightest indication why.
“See,” Kruchnik finally said, leaning back in his chair and gesturing toward the cafe’s crowd, “while other officials are losing power, I’m gaining it by the minute.” He smiled widely, opening his mouth just a bit as if to release a silent laugh. For a moment, I suspected he might burp. “Last week, or last night for that matter, I might have been afraid to dine in public, to be seen spreading money around like this. But how quickly things can change, I tell you. It’s an amazing thing.”
“Yes, it is,” Leni said cautiously.
“Ah, my young friend,” Kruchnik said to him, taking hold of his hand, “there is nothing to worry about. Believe me! You’ve done your part.”
Both of Kruchnik’s hands were clasped on Leni’s now, cupping them much like a father might as he consoled his troubled son. In the background, other customers in the cafe sat up and began leaving, some even before they had finished their meals. The expression on Leni’s face remained unchanged.
Although they managed to create a good deal of noise, the crowd gathering in the square was nowhere near as large as it had been the previous day. Perhaps people were finally running out of energy, their stamina waning. The longer a celebration lasts, I figured, the harder it must be to maintain the frenetic pace, the constant revelry. Recapturing the energy of that first day seemed nearly impossible now Clearly, the gatherings were no longer the result of an impulse, a spontaneous force within the people. As the days continued, the immediacy and passion could not help but fade.
Kruchnik had instructed me to meet Mila back at the Dajti sometime that afternoon, so I lingered in the square only for a few minutes. Across from the Ministry building, still silent and deserted, I saw Altin’s white pushcart, neatly planted in the exact spot it had been the afternoon before, but no Altin Leka to be found. Instead, a group of children were gathered around it, and one of them, his head buried from view, was handing ice creams out from the storage compartment. Altin’s smelly coat lay across the back of his chair, with important-looking documents sprouting from the inside pocket. I stood there staring.
“The almond man’s not coming back,” a young girl said to me. She was carrying a small bag with a loaf of bread leaning out of the top.
“What?” I said, kneeling down to her.
“The almond man won’t be back.”
At that moment, the girl’s mother showed up and the two of them held hands.
“They sent somebody to find his family.”
“Why?”
The mother and daughter looked at each other for a second, a sullen expression on their faces, and they remained silent. “I suppose somebody should do something about those little thieves,” the mother finally said, indicating the children raiding Altin’s cart.
“Yes, somebody should,” I mumbled back, not sure what else I could say. The three of us stood there for a moment, staring at one another. Then I ran over to the cart yelling, and the kids fled in every direction, scattering and screaming, but without fear in the voices. It was more like laughter, as if we’d been playing a grand game. I flipped the top of each compartment closed, fastened the partitions on Altin’s vehicle, and rolled it into the shade by the Ministry building. Up the street, the woman and her daughter continued watching me. I guess they wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to steal anything myself.
“All fine,” I yelled toward them, waving. They did not call back to me or make any motion. They just stood there, watching as before. I wanted to walk over and demand a detailed explanation of Altin’s fate, but I knew that was not possible. Even the slightest of my questions, I fearfully imagined, would be met with more stone-faced looks, sinister glances that might say, “Of course, you know what happened to Altin. And didn’t you have a part in it, too?”
Quickly arriving home, I went through the apartment and looked for potential money-hiding places. From the Italian crime shows I’d seen on Nossi’s TV, I remembered two or three good spots to do this: behind a painting, under a floorboard, or in the hollow pipe of a brass bedpost. But I didn’t have any of these things in my place—they were back at the old house with Ana—and so I took the money and sat on the bed, trying to figure a solution. I did have one picture up, but it was just an unframed print of boats resting in the Adriatic.
The light blue money bag was next to me, and I held it with both hands, squeezing it again and again. Then I dumped it out across the blanket, letting everything come free. For a moment, seeing it all there, I genuinely thought about taking it for myself. I was surprised at the nice feeling it gave me. Freedom. Of course, even if I could convince myself, I knew that this one bag was not nearly enough to take me beyond the range of its consequences.
I gathered the bills into small piles and paused a couple of times to look at the currency itself, the strange green and purple etchings of Ruder Boškoviċ, his hair tied back in the old-style ponytail, the ruffles of his shirt helping to balance out a slight double chin. Scientific spatial models, spheres, equations rested above his left shoulder. I couldn’t remember what they were, what he’d done. I once knew the answer to this, I suppose, as a child, back when there was time and reason to know such things—long before I’d become a member of the Ministry.
I went to my desk and pulled out the large bottom drawer completely, setting it to the side. There was a good four inches of space between the floor and the rail that held the drawer in position. Before reconfiguring the currency into three-inch piles, I wiped the area out with a towel, then lined the money inside. There was something slightly gratifying about seeing it neatly tucked into this hiding spot, and as I replaced the drawer, I felt strange having so much cash concealed within my desk.
After that, I immersed myself in routine housework—washing the dishes, soaking my work shirts, darning some socks, even scrubbing the floor. I tried—without success—to reach my father by telephone to explain the lack of transportation, why I wasn’t coming. Of course there were other reasons, too, but they had surfaced afterward. Truly, the buses had stopped me.
I replayed the moment Mila insisted I join her and Leni for a drink at the hotel; the way we lost Leni in the crowd; the look on the desk clerk’s face as the two of us headed up to Mila’s room; and even Kruchnik handing me the light blue money bag with such showy self-assuredness. To be honest, I was embarrassed at how easily I’d been drawn into such a scheme. Yet, I wasn’t ready to disentangle myself from whatever it was, whatever it would be. Even if my part was merely that of the naive fool, it was still infinitely more interesting than anything I had done in a long while.
I began preparing for Mila’s arrival, planning what I would be doing when she appeared, what the best way would be for her to see me. Reading the paper on the couch, the front door slightly cracked? Hunched over the stove, preparing dinner? Or even leaning on the small balcony, studying the night sky? My mind raced on to other considerations, too. Was there enough food in the kitchen if she agreed to stay? Were my clothes appropriate? And yes, the sheets on the bed—were they clean?
I knew how foolish this was; clearly it was causing my small seed of hope to multiply upon itself. But then, I pictured Mila as my ex-wife Ana, and imagined how successful my initial scheming had been with her. That first night, many years ago, Ana had come to my apartment planning to visit for only a moment, but gradually I had convinced her to stay. At first, it was the warmth of my burning fireplace, and then later impeccable cooking and well-planned conversation. It worked for a long time, nearly ten years, before she decided that, yes, she really must go.
I decided to await Mila’s arrival on the couch, reading the news journal and glancing over some of my old papers from work. I was able to spend a long while in this position, anxiously listening for that knock on the door. Eventually, though, I grew bored and moved into the kitchen. For about an hour, I dawdled around the stove and counter, mindlessly preparing one of Ana’s old recipes. From there, I went outside to the porch and listened intently for Mila’s solid footsteps along the dirt street. Inevitably, the cold night air and a growing sense of disappointment forced me back to the warm couch where I drifted into a light sleep.
The next morning, without thinking, I ate breakfast, put on my work clothes, and headed off toward the Ministry of Slogans. The warm sunshine distracted me from the setback of the previous night, just as recent events had helped me overlook the fact that I would soon lose my job.
As I walked across the boulevard toward the city center, I noticed a small group of people heading in my direction. My old boss Hansa Splite and his wife Katarina were leading the spectacle, arm-in-arm and dressed in their blackest of black clothes. Beside them was Hansa’s sister, Lena, and she was crying inconsolably. As they got closer, a small horse cart pulling a casket appeared, followed by a meager, slightly underdressed and seemingly uninterested group of mourners. Altin Leka was no longer missing.
Though I hadn’t cared for him much, seeing Altin’s mother Lena in tears made me reconsider him for a moment. Even figuring his supposedly swift decline in power, it seemed rather odd that there was not one uniformed party official in the procession. This almost seemed to confirm the rumors of his shadow position.
Up ahead in the square, the large crowds of the past few days had entirely subsided, giving me the distinct impression that all of the changes that had taken place would no longer be detectable to the human eye. If things had indeed changed, maybe now they were simply of the mind and of the mood—something outsiders might easily overlook.
The front door to the Ministry was unlocked and propped open by a large brick. Inside, I unexpectedly found apprentices and managers alike moving about the place in a flurry of activity. They were carrying reports and diagrams back and forth across the office, much in the same way as they had the week before, but now there was a palpable sense of eagerness and almost giddy optimism among the workers. I stood in the foyer, somewhat entranced by the action. After a while, however, I felt strange and began the trek upstairs, through the corridor, and across the wing to my corner office, seeking the comfort of my routine. Along the way, I watched other workers, hoping to gain clues as to my approaching fate. But there was nothing—no frowns of dread, looks of sympathy, or even glances of morbid curiosity.
Through the distorted glass of my office door, I could see people moving inside. I entered with a bit of trepidation and was relieved to find my two assistants arranging large stacks of paper across my desk.
“Good morning,” they said in unison.
“Good morning,” I responded. Then there was a strange moment of silence, as if both parties were waiting for the other to make some important declaration. Yet, nobody spoke.
“Okay then,” I finally offered, trying to ease the tension.
“I’m glad you’re here,” the younger one said.
“We have a lot of work,” the senior assistant added, straightening one of the piles. “I have placed the most important items—those that require immediate action—on the left. The secondary documents have been divided into three stacks atop the rear table.”
“Action,” I said, sliding down into my old chair. “Action is good.”
It occurred to me that the desk drawers were empty and my box of personal possessions was sitting across the room, exactly where I’d left it. I considered ways of walking around the desk to retrieve it without betraying my recent uncertainty, but then reconsidered.
“There’s also been a delivery for you this morning,” the older assistant said with some hesitance. He had very thin lips and an extremely short haircut that made him appear quite young. The other assistant, ruddy-faced and eager, pointed toward a basket of fruit.
I quickly moved to open the tiny card pinned to the front. A fancy wax seal embossed with the letter “K” held the envelope together. Inside, I found a simple piece of paper imprinted with the words “Thank you.” From the concerned looks on their faces, I could tell that my assistants had recognized Kruchnik’s stationery. I smiled, quickly relieving their apprehension, and then tossed them each a pale melon from the basket.
“Okay,” I said, allowing the commotion to resume.
“Well, sir,” the senior assistant began, his thin lips clicking lightly, “I believe you’ll be quite pleased to hear what we’ve discovered this morning.”
“Yes?” I said, easing back into my comfortable chair.
“Now, while the new slogan campaign we’ve been contracted to produce is entirely different from anything we’ve ever created, I think you’ll agree that—with only some minor modifications—we can reuse a great deal of our old material.”
“Well,” I said, “that is good news.”
I pictured banners and murals that had been painted on our behalf, the “Ministry of Slogans” in glossy red, tempered slightly with sensible olive, and how each would now be cut and pasted to fit with the latest direction. “All for Success, Success for All” would become “Success at Last!” “A body in motion stays in motion” would now be “A body at rest can spend a week in Durres!” Even “Workers Unite!” would be up for grabs.
“Let’s schedule a meeting,” I said.
“When?” the younger assistant asked excitedly.
“How about in half an hour?”
“Yes, sir.”
Then the two of them left to write the meeting time down on the calendar out front, sharpen the pencils, collect the various papers, and send the requisite memo to the file announcing the meeting. Thirty minutes later, they would return and the meeting would proceed.
At that moment, my friend Leni was probably trying to get me a position at the hotel kitchen, or perhaps one in the service area registering guests and sending telegrams. What a strange and sudden twist in my situation. Earlier, it hadn’t occurred to me how confusing things would be once everyone, even high-ranking officials, had been excused from work. I pictured myself lining up to compete with other former Ministry directors and assistant directors and managers and supervisors, all vying for a single bellcap’s job. Perhaps then, the former State Director would wind up as the one lucky enough to land the position. I pictured a big grin appearing across his face while the rest of us congratulated him and pointed him downstage to collect the flowers and chocolates thrown by admirers from the audience.
“May I come in?” Mila said, cracking open my office door slightly. Her northern accent jarred me for a moment.
“Yes,” I said.
“I heard you might be here.” She walked over, removed her coat before I could offer help, then leaned back and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I expected you sooner—last night,” I said.
“Your office is much larger than I imagined,” she said.
“You like it?”
“Yes. May I sit down?”
“Please.”
“And two assistants of your own,” she said.
“Yes, I am lucky, I suppose.”
“So you still have your job, then.”
“It seems that way. Just some adjustments to make, that’s all.”
“Now I’m not so sure what to think about the things you told me earlier.”
“What?”
“You know, how you were losing your job, and all that,” she said with a knowing smile. “Maybe you were attempting to elicit some pity?”
“Really?” I blurted out.
“Well, yesterday you had no job, your life was on the brink of ruin, your future uncertain. Today, it’s business as usual. Nothing seems to have happened.”
“Yes,” I admitted. Thinking about it that way did make me appear overly dramatic. I quickly tried to remember other parts, conversations of the last day or so, and how foolish they made me appear now. My box of possessions next to the door only seemed to confirm this.
Of course, my colleagues might disagree with all this, claiming the recent changes had been both sudden and drastic; and yet realistically, I knew Mila was probably right—the only truly irreversible act of the past few days was the one she had performed herself.
“Still, I suppose it added a little extra something to our night together,” she said. She meant it, but I felt a little strange, unbalanced. It was a different sort of feeling than the usual nervousness I expected to have around her, the nervousness I had felt in my apartment the night before.
She had her back to me now, examining the other parts of my office. I tried picturing her as someone dangerous, someone I couldn’t trust. Yet, I had already seen her lie once, and so what? I’d gone with her anyway. Strangely enough, knowing what I knew about her hadn’t changed much of anything. Again, I loved a woman I couldn’t exactly depend on.
“I still have something for you,” I said, attempting nonchalance.
“Oh?” she said coyly, looking over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Well then,” Mila declared, now speaking quite loudly, as if she wanted to be heard by some imaginary people hiding behind the walls. “As you know, I’m very fond of presents.”
“Yes,” I said in an equally loud voice, “yes, you are.” And I thought of the small stacks of money hidden under my big desk drawer.
Relaxing a bit, I added, “It’s waiting for you at my apartment. We can go there now if you like. Let me just tell my assistants.”
Mila nodded, still gazing out the window and onto the square. As I moved around the desk toward the door, she grabbed my shoulders and pulled me close. Her lips parted just the slightest before she suddenly propped my chin down and kissed me on the forehead. As we stood there, embracing awkwardly, my head under her jaw, pressed against her throat, and my body buried in her strong arms, I could hear my assistants behind the door, arguing over one of the new slogans.
“In sameness, only difference,” the older one said, nearly yelling.
“For difference, cultivate the same,” the other replied. I could not tell whether they were serious.
I stopped for a second and closed my eyes, absorbing the sun as it burst through my office window. How weird. How strange! Until that moment, I hadn’t even considered Ana, hadn’t even thought of a reconciliation. It gave me a good, exuberant feeling to know that, but at the same time, it concerned me. Rarely a day went by that I did not wake up and think immediately of our impending reunion. I tried recalling our last attempt to talk, reach some understanding, patch things up, but could only picture our wedding day—me in the pale suit borrowed from my brother, and she in a gown furnished by the state. Oddly, it had not occurred to me until that moment that Mila was the first woman I’d been with since Ana, the first since our separation. And now, regardless of what might happen, I knew that I’d always remember her in that exact way.
She walked over to the window where I was standing, staring out onto the square. Her skin smelled soapy, even waxy, but it was a pleasant smell that appealed to me more than any flowery perfume ever could. I ran my hand along her shirt and leaned up to kiss her. She hesitated for a second, then pressed herself closer, her strong arms folding me in. Now, she was easing into her role, and I, into mine. With a clumsy twist of my arm, I managed to slide the door bolt shut. Outside, the deliberations continued.
“Similar, yet dissimilar.”
“Identical, but unique!”
Through the window, on the street below, I could see the buses lined up as always, though this time a large, jovial crowd of would-be passengers stood alongside, waiting for their driver to appear.
Translated by Kevin Phelan and Bill U’Ren