Agamemnon's Daughter by Ismaíl Kadaré Read Free Book Online Page B

looked like, to judge by their suits) and each in turn chucked his daughter’s cheek.
    “That one looks after our newspapers,” he told his daughter with a smile, “and he’s our foreign minister.” He could have been showing her new toys.
    At any rate, that’s the impression it made on me. Everything he said was imbued with the kind of ease that comes only from elevation — from the great height whence a man who already knows he is immortal can look down and comment upon the temporal affairs of this world.
    “Who’s higher up, the foreign minister or the minister of the interior?” the little girl asked as the pair of them moved farther away from me.
    I tried to catch up, to hear the answer.
    “Well, now . . . how can I put it? Interior affairs are unmistakably the most important.”
    “But foreign ones are much more attractive!” the little girl protested.
    He laughed.
    “Do you mean dresses?” he asked. “You’re right!”
    We were now almost underneath the grandstand. A security check far more stringent than the last awaited us.
    I took my invitation card out of my pocket again and went up to the barrier. I don’t know why, but I thought I could hear a buzzing in my inner ear.
    “ID!”
    “Oh, of course. Sorry.”
    A few yards farther on came the start of another zone, with an entirely different atmosphere. It was full of diplomats looking for their seats, delegations from abroad, and TV camera crews.
    I strode easily across the few yards that separated me from it. I felt as if my whole appearance betrayed distraction, particularly the expression on my face, or, to be more precise, the smile that must have been on it. I was shown the access route to the C-1 stand, which I instantly forgot, until someone else showed it to me again. My left and right shoulders were constantly being bumped by other guests.
    By what means did they get that far up? For an instant I thought that question was in every glance cast upon me, then the next instant I thought it was only in my own head. Everything was smothered in collective joviality, as if a generous helping of sauce had been poured over it all so as to even out the taste. From here on it’s just us. What we did to get here doesn’t matter anymore. When all is said and done, we all took the same path. The path that leads here. To the feet of Power, Heavenly Light, and Olympus!
    A pair of watery eyes cast what I took to be a sour glance at me. Maybe my presence was an impediment to their enjoying the happiness they were about to savor. What’s this mere mortal doing in a place set aside for the elect? So he filed a report, okay. So he denounced someone, all right. But it’s far too soon to call him up here! If it weren’t, then half the population of Albania . . .
    But the nausea set off by those weepy eyes was soon dispelled. The brass band opposite the platform carried on, thumping out its rousing marches. The flags began to flutter a little more vigorously in the breeze, as if they knew it was nearly ten o’clock. I caught sight of Th. D. one more time, then lost him from sight. Maybe he was going on even farther. Perhaps up to stand B, or even to stand A .. .

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    The strange sensation of bewilderment persisted in my brain. It was probably euphoria induced by being so close to power. Flags and marching bands had a purpose, after all. They played their part.
    My intoxication would surely have been complete if it hadn’t been for the taste of a funeral in the back of my throat. Suzana’s funeral. I had lost Suzana at the same time as I gained access to this stand. The flowers and the music and the august scarlet drapes would have been just as fitting to mark her passing. Her sacrifice . . .
    O Father, hear me! she implored
Young and innocent though she felt
Her sobs and cries could not melt
The stony hearts of men set on war
    What I’d been reading in recent days about the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter would not go out of my mind. The festive