The File on H. by Ismaíl Kadaré Page A

rhapsode: bewilderment? apprehension? guilt about betraying his predecessors, the singers of yore? In the end, he concluded that the rhapsode’s calm masked inner turmoil. It would be the first time that the sound of his voice and of his
labuta
would not be lost to the air. as sounds had always been, but instead would be collected inside this metal box, like rainwater in a cistern or like … He suddenly feared that the rhapsode might change his mind.
    Bill was reassured by the sight of the company, sit. ting in a semicircle, mostly on the floor. The ritual had already begun, and nothing and nobody would halt it now.
    At last the rhapsode took up his
labuta
. It made a monotonous sound that seemed to draw the listener on into some all-embracing dream. Bill and Max glanced at each other. The rhapsode began to sing, in a voice quite unlike his speaking voice. It was unnatural, cold, unwavering, full of an anguish that seemed to come from another world. It made Bill’s spine tingle. He tried to follow the meaning of the words, but the monotonous delivery of the singer made that impossible. It felt as if he were being emptied from inside, as if his guts were being drawn out of him, as if his inner being were slowly being wound along a woolen thread turning on a distaff. The rhapsode’s voice had the ability to hollow you out. If he went on much longer, everyone here was going to dissolve on the spot. But the
labuta
stopped in time.
    In the sudden silence, the tape machine’s soft purring could be heard, and it was Max who reached out a hand to switch it off. Then the crowd came back to life, as if emerging from a trance. Congratulations came from every side. Bill and Max chimed in with their thank-yous in Albanian, but they sounded weak indeed alongside the ritual formulations the highlanders lavished on the rhapsode.
    Before the rhapsode began his second song, Max checked the quality of the recording. When the machine reproduced the rhapsode’s voice a little more resonant that it had seemed on first hearings everyone was struck dumb. The man was there, with his mouth shut and his
lahuta
at rest’ yet you could hear the sound of his voice and of his instrument. There was something quite horrifying about this disconnection this removal of a man from the attributes that gave him his distinct and independent existence.
    They all huddled around the machine and gaped at the two reels turning like a pair of grinding wheels. Their eyes were full of questions they did not dare to put into words. So the voice was now stored inside the box, but in what form?
    After a short interval the rhapsode sang a second ballad.
    â€œWon’t the two songs get muddled inside there?" one of the traveling highlanders asked in the end pointing to the machine.
    Bill tried not to laugh aloud.
    It was late at night before they switched off the tape recorder and thanked the rhapsode.
    â€œIn a fortnight"’ Shtjefen told him, “when you pass by here again, you’ll sing the same songs. As I told you that’s what interests these gentlemen. They want to make comparisons and I’m not sure what else. Besides you gave me your word as a man, and you’ll keep it.”
    â€œFear not," said the singer in a somber tone.
    â€œSo the voice can be kept in there for a fortnight?” asked one young Highlander. “It doesn’t rust?”
    â€œNot a bit,” Bill replied, “It can stay in there for months, even years.”
    The
labuta
player was staring hard at the case of the recorder. From the glow in the man’s eyes, Bill reckoned that there was something troubling him. What if he changes his mind? Bill wondered anxiously. What if he has found it a bad omen to leave his voice locked and trapped in a box?
    The two foreigners bade good night to all and went back up to their room. Shtjefen, for his part, put out the oil lamp and left the large room in darkness.
    Bill felt as if the troubled and