also by ismail kadare

The General of the Dead Army

The Siege

Chronicle in Stone

Twilight of the Eastern Gods

The File on H

The Three-Arched Bridge

Broken April

The Ghost Rider

The Concert

The Palace of Dreams

The Pyramid

Three Elegies for Kosovo

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

Agamemnon’s Daughter

The Successor

The Fall of the Stone City

The Accident

A Girl in Exile

Copyright © 2009 by Ismail Kadare

Copyright © 2010 by Librairie Arthème Fayard. All rights reserved

English translation copyright © 2016 by John Hodgson

First published in Albanian as E penguara: Rekuiem për Linda B.

by Onufri © 2009. All rights reserved

First Counterpoint edition: 2018

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or

reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kadare, Ismail.

Title: A girl in exile : requiem for Linda B. / Ismail Kadare.

Other titles: E Penguara. English | Requiem for Linda B.

Description: First Counterpoint hardcover edition. | Berkeley, CA :

Counterpoint Press, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017038420 | ISBN 9781619029163

Subjects: LCSH: Suicide victims—Fiction. | Dramatists—

Fiction. | Communism—Albania—Fiction. | Albania—

Social conditions—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PG9621.K3 E213 2018 | DDC 891/.9913—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038420

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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Dedicated to the young Albanian women who were born, grew up and spent their youth in internal exile.

1

Until he reached the end of Dibra Street, it seemed to him that he had succeeded in thinking of nothing at all. But when he found himself next to the Tirana Hotel on the north side of Skanderbeg Square, he felt a sense of urgency, even panic. Only this square lay between him and the Party Committee building. Now he could no longer pretend to be more composed than he was, or reassure himself with the thought that his conscience was clear. He had only to cross this square, and however huge it might be, it was too short a distance for anyone who had been summoned to the Party Committee without explanation.

With frenzied repetition, as if this were the only way he could make up for lost time, he rehearsed the two possible issues that might, unknown to him, have got him into trouble: his latest play, which he had been waiting two weeks for permission to stage, and his relationship with Migena.

At any other time the second matter would have worried him more than the first. As he drew near the National Bank, the final scene of their quarrel replayed itself in his mind with excruciating clarity. The setting had been the same as that of their previous spat: the corner in his apartment where his bookshelves met the window. They had exchanged almost the same words and her tears had been the same. In fact, it was the tears that had scared him. Without them he might have broken off their relationship two weeks earlier. He would have taken her for an overexcited girl from the Art College, who herself didn’t know what she wanted. Every time she wept, he hoped to find out what her tears concealed, if anything. He had been sure that this was his last chance. What’s the matter? he had asked hoarsely. At least tell me. I can’t. I don’t know myself, she replied. You don’t know yourself? Really? You think you’re so complicated? With all those Marlene Dietrich messages—I love you, I don’t love you? Is that what it’s all about?

He felt she was not in control of herself. Listen, you’re not complicated at all. You’re only . . . An airhead from the provinces, he wanted to say, but restrained himself. You’re just schizophrenic, or a spy . . .

He bit his tongue, but the word was out.

No, she replied, yet less sharply than he’d expected. I’m neither of those things.

Then out with it. What the hell’s got into you? Tell me, and don’t keep saying you don’t know.

He had stretched out his hand as if to seize a girl by the hair two or three times in his life, but he had never actually done it. Now it happened with unexpected ease. He thought his grip would loosen at once and he would let go of those strands as if they were flames, but his hand did not obey him and angrily he pushed that lovely head, which he had caressed so sweetly only a short time ago, against the bookshelves. A comb fell, and after the comb a pile of books whose names for some reason forced themselves up onto his frantic eyes: Scott Fitzgerald, Toponyms of Albania and Kosovo, Plutarch.

It was a mere forty seconds to the door of the Party Committee, but enough time for him to realize that, if she had reported him, he couldn’t care less. In fact he would prefer a denunciation by her, even with the word spy in it, to any hitch to his play.

He chided himself as a hopeless idiot, unable to see how dangerous a denunciation could be. But this denunciation not only failed to worry him, it seemed to 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 be frank, the second secretary replied, "I think there’s a misunderstanding here. We may be talking about