Twilight of the Eastern Gods by Ismaíl Kadaré

raise your head, you fraud!” From the side he was waving a rake or some other implement that seemed to be directed at my eyes. In the end I did raise my head, and that was when he spat on me. I walked on, moving further away from him as he carried on bawling and jigging about on his crutches, like he was being crucified, in the rain, a rain I’ll never forget . . .’ For the third time Antaeus sipped at his empty cup. ‘So that’s how it was!’ he said, with a tap of his finger on the table top.
    ‘Yes, those were grandiose and terrible events.’
    ‘And now I give lectures, go to conferences, write theory . . .’
    ‘Things have calmed down more or less everywhere,’ I said, with a smile. ‘Have you noticed our embarrassment when we hear people talk about the epic spirit of the old revolutionary struggle? We’re like schoolboys when their parents come up from the provinces to visit them, wearing old-fashioned greatcoats.’
    ‘I see what you mean.’
    ‘It’s like the alias business,’ I went on. ‘If you ever took on another clandestine job, I don’t think you’d look to the tragedies for a new pseudonym—’
    Smiling, he interrupted: ‘Do you mean I’d take one from a comedy? Go on being ironic! I’ve got a thick skin, I can take it. When all’s said and done, I’m a defeated man.’
    In the few words he’d just spoken, I saw a suggestion of vulnerability, and shouted, ‘It’s impossible to have a conversation with you any more! You’re always so prickly!’
    In fact this was the first time he had seemed to take offence, and we had never quarrelled before.
    ‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘I’m on edge, over-sensitive. Anyway, take no notice. Please, go on. What were you saying about pseudonyms?’
    ‘Let’s talk about something else.’
    He laughed. ‘I can guess what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘You see an ex-militant who’s now a peaceable Muscovite. With a fur collar on his coat and a pair of bedroom slippers, Antaeus has become the very model of the petit-bourgeois. What a character! Am I right?’
    ‘Typical characters arise in typical situations. Isn’t that what Engels said?’ I joked.
    ‘True, in typical circumstances . . . In typical circumstances,’ he said again, nodding. ‘Yes, of course, with baby fox fur and slippers as soft as the southern breeze on his bedside rug . . .’ He looked around for his coffee cup, but the waiter had already cleared it away.
    ‘So my aliases are just stage names!’ he said, as if to himself. ‘Be honest: isn’t that what you think of me?’
    I’d actually said that as a general observation, not directly about him. I’d never thought about the matter at any length. It was just that in the atmosphere of the lives we led, ancient and legendary names, like Prometheus, Antaeus and so on, didn’t sit well with the activists I’d encountered at the Soviet Writers’ Retreat. At most they might use aliases from opera or, if it had to be a classical reference, then perhaps Dionysus . . .
    I laid that out quite bluntly while insisting that my observations did not apply to him, he didn’t have to believe me but I wouldn’t waste my breath on telling lies, especially as I’d have to do it in Russian, which would be tiring. He was at liberty to believe me or not, that was up to him, but that was what I thought and it would be a good idea to put an end to the discussion.
    He was intelligent. He understood I meant what I said. He put his somewhat sallow hand on mine, and said, ‘I believe you.’
    ‘It’s like the titles of Soviet politicians,’ I said, following my train of thought. ‘They used to be called People’s Commissars, and in those days it sounded right, didn’t it? Then, for whatever reason, they were turned into ministers, like everywhere else. Nowadays if you tried calling them People’s Commissars it would sound so peculiar.’
    ‘If they wanted to be called People’s Commissars, they’d have to start