...of apartness

The general turned his head toward the priest who was seated beside him with a face devoid of all expression as he gazed in silence through the car window. The general felt he had nothing to say to him and lit a cigarette. Then he turned his eyes back to the world outside. His eyes perceived the outlines of this foreign land refracted, distorted by the rivulets of water snaking down the glass.
A train whistled in the distance. The railway track itself was hidden by an embankment and the general wondered in which direction the train would pass them. Then he saw it emerge from the cutting and gradually overhaul the car as it picked up speed. He continued to watch it until the guard’s van was no longer visible through the mist. The he turned back towards his companion; but the priest’s features still seemed to him as immobile as before. Again he felt he had nothing to say to him. And, what was more, he realised, he had nothing left to think about. He had exhausted every possible subject of meditation during the journey. In any case, what was the point of reflecting further just now? He was tired. Enough was enough. Wiser just to check in the mirror that his uniform was in order.
Dusk was falling as they drove into Tirana. There seemed to be a thick fog suspended just above the buildings, above the street lamps, above the naked trees in the parks. The general began to feel more himself again. Through the window he could make out quantities of pedestrians scurrying through the rain. “They have a lot of umbrellas in this country!” he observed aloud. He felt he would have liked to exchange a few impressions now; the silence in the car was beginning to weigh on him. But he didn’t know how to set about breaking through his companion’s taciturnity. Beyond the pavement, on his side, he noticed a church, then a mosque. On the priest’s side there were buildings still in the course of construction, corseted with scaffolding. The cranes, their lights blazing, looked like red-eyed monsters moving in the mist. The general called the priest’s attention to the proximity of the church to the mosque. But he showed not the slightest interest. The general concluded that for the moment there was absolutely nothing he could do to arouse his companion from his apathy. As for himself, he was no feeling in a somewhat better humour; but who was there for him to talk to? The Albanian official sent to escort them was sitting in the front seat, over on the priest’s side. The politician and the ministry representative, who had met them at the airport, were following in another car.

[The General of the Dead Army, Kadare, I.]