Broken April

by Ismail Kadare

  From beneath her came the lowing of an ox. At first she was terrified, but one of the women of the house who was lying beside her, said in a low voice, “Don’t be frightened, it’s Kazil.” Diana remembered that animals that chew the cud make that sort of noise when digesting, and she felt reassured. But nevertheless she still could not go to sleep.

  Her mind was full of scraps of notions and opinions that came to her confusedly and with no particular emphasis, things heard long ago or a few hours before. She thought that her not being able to sleep came from that very confusion, and she tried to put those things in some kind of order. But it was a difficult task. As soon as she managed to channel one line of thought, another revolted at once, spilling out of its bed. For a while she tried to concentrate on the rest of their trip, as Bessian and she had planned it before their departure. She began to count the days they were to spend in the mountains, the houses that they were to stay in, some of which were quite unknown to her, like the Kulla of Orosh, where they were going to be received the next day by the mysterious lord of the Rrafsh. Diana tried to imagine all that, but at that very moment her mind wandered. She put her hands to her temples, as if to slow the rapid beating that seemed to come from the excitation of her brain, but in a little while she felt that the pressure seemed to make the giddy sensation worse. So she removed her hands, and for a moment she let her thoughts wander as they would. But that became intolerable. I must think of something ordinary, she said to herself. And she began to call up what they had talked about a few hours earlier in the guest chamber. I’m going to bring it all to mind again, she thought, like the ox in the stall down there. Bessian would certainly appreciate the image. He had been very attentive to her in the guest chamber a while ago. He had explained everything to her, first asking permission of the master of the house. For in the guest chamber, or the men’s chamber, as it was also called, no whispering or private conversation was allowed. All the talk there as Bessian explained to her was on men’s concerns, gossip was forbidden, as were incomplete sentences or half-formed thoughts, and every remark was greeted with the words, “You have spoken well,” or “May your mouth be blessed.” “There, listen to what they are saying,” Bessian had whispered. And she found that the conversation did in fact proceed in just the way he had told her it would. Given the fact that an Albanian’s home is a fortress in the literal sense of the word, Bessian told her, and since the structure of the family, according to the Code, resembles a little state, it is understandable that an Albanian’s conversation will more or less reflect those conditions in its style. Then, in the course of the evening, Bessian had come back to his favorite subject, the guest and hospitality, and had explained to her that the concept of “the guest,” like every great idea, carried with it not only its sublime aspect but its absurd aspect too. “Here, this evening, we are invested with the power of the gods,” he said. “We can abandon ourselves to any kind of madness, even commit a murder—and it is the master of the house who will bear the responsibility for it, because he has welcomed us to his table. Hospitality has its duties, says the Kanun, but there are limits that even we, the gods, may not transgress. And do you know what those limits are? If, as I have said, everything is possible for us, there is one thing that is forbidden, and that is to lift the lid of the pot on the fire.” Diana could hardly keep from laughing. “But that’s ridiculous,” she muttered. “Perhaps,” he said, “But it’s true. If I were to do that tonight, the master of the house would rise at once, go to the window, and with a terrible cry, proclaim to the village that his table had been insulted by a guest. And at that very moment the guest becomes a deadly enemy.” “But why?” Diana asked. “Why must it be that way?” Bessian shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it. Perhaps it’s in the logic of things that every great idea has a flaw that does not diminish it but brings it more within our reach.” While he spoke, she looked about surreptitiously, and several times she was on the point of saying, “Yes, it’s true, these things have a certain grandeur, but might there not be a little more cleanliness here? After all, if a woman can be compared with a mountain nymph, she must have a salle de bain.” But Diana had said nothing, not at all because she did not have the courage, but so as not to lose the thread of her thought. To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity.

  Diana turned the other way on her bed, perhaps for the hundredth time. Her thoughts had begun to get mixed up in her mind while she and Bessian were still in the guest room. Despite her efforts to listen with attention to everything that was said, in that room her mind had started leaping from bough to bough. Now, as she listened to the noises of the cattle below (she smiled to herself once again) she began to feel the fearful approach of sleep put to flight at once by the creaking of a floorboard or by a sudden cramp. At one point she groaned, “Why did you bring me here?” and was surprised by her own cry, because she was still awake enough to hear her voice but she could not make out the words. And now sleep spread before her imagination, looking like the wilderness that they had travelled through, strewn everywhere with pots whose covers must never be removed, and then she performed the forbidden act, reaching out her hand towards them—which was causing all that plaintive creaking.

  This is torture, she thought, and she opened her eyes. Before her, on the dark wall, she could see a patch of dim light. For a long moment, as if spellbound, she stared at the greyish patch. Where had it been, why hadn’t she noticed it sooner? Outdoors, as it seemed, day was breaking. Diana could not take her eyes from that narrow window. In the depressing darkness of the room, that shred of dawn was like a message of salvation. Diana felt its soothing effect freeing her swiftly from her terrors. Many mornings must have been condensed in that bit of grey light; if not it could never have been so alert, so tranquil, and so indifferent to the terrors of the night. Under its influence, Diana fell asleep quickly.

  The carriage was travelling again over a mountain road. The day was grey, and the dull horizon closed down upon the distant heights. The men who had escorted Diana and Bessian had turned back, and the two were alone again, uncrowned guests, showing signs of fatigue from the past night, seated on the velvet-covered bench.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked her.

  “Not much. Just towards morning.”

  “Me too. I scarcely closed my eyes.”

  “I thought as much.”

  Bessian took her hand and held it. It was the first time since their marriage that they had slept apart. He glanced at her profile out of the corner of his eye. She seemed pale to him. He wanted to kiss her, but something that he did not understand held him back.

  For a while he kept his eyes on the small carriage window, and then, without turning his head, he looked furtively at his wife once again. Her pale face seemed cold to him. Her hand lay inertly in his. He asked her, “What’s the matter?” but in fact no word came out. A faint alarm sounded somewhere deep within him.

  Perhaps it was not really coldness? It was rather a certain detachment, or the first stage of a kind of estrangement from him.

  The carriage rolled along, shaking more or less rhythmically, and he told himself that perhaps it was neither one nor the other. No, certainly not, he thought, neither one nor the other. It was something more simple: taking up the proper distance, that ability to slough one’s skin and become a far-off star which every human being has, and was really one of the reasons for her withdrawing. That was what had been emphasized this morning in Diana’s case, and what had particularly struck him, accustomed as he was to feeling her very close to him and very understanding.

  The grey daylight found its way only sparingly into the carriage, and in addition the velvet upholstery absorbed part of
it, deepening the gloom. Bessian thought that he might be in the early stage of a coming defeat, at the moment when one cannot tell if the savor is pleasant or bitter—for he thought himself sufficiently acute to see defeat where others would still see victory.

  He smiled to himself and realized that he was not in the least unhappy. After all, she had always found him somewhat remote, and there was no harm if she were to become a little aloof herself. Perhaps she would seem even more desirable to him.

  Bessian was surprised that he fetched a deep breath. Other days would come to them in their life together; by turns one would be a riddle to the other, and certainly he would recover the lost ground.

  Lord, what ground have I lost that I must recover? He laughed at himself, but his laughter did not show in any part of his body, and it rolled along hollowly within him. And, to persuade himself that his doubts were foolish, once again he looked secretly at his wife’s face in the hope that they would be weakened. But Diana’s handsome features offered him no reassurance.

  They had been travelling for some hours when their carriage halted at the side of the road. Before they had had time to ask why they had stopped, they saw the coachman come up to the window on Bessian’s side and open the door. He said that this was a place where they might have lunch.

  Only then did Bessian and Diana notice that they had stopped in front of a steep-roofed building that must be an inn.

  “Still another four or five hours to the Castle of Orosh,” the coachman explained to Bessian. “And I think that there is no other suitable place for refreshment between. Then, the horses need a rest, too.”

  Without answering, Bessian stepped down and stretched out his hand to his wife to help her. She stepped down nimbly, and still holding her husband’s hand she looked towards the inn. Several people had come to the threshold and were staring at the new arrivals. Another man, the last to emerge from the inn door, approached them with a halting step.

  “What can we do for you?” he said respectfully.

  It was clear that this man was the innkeeper. The coachman asked him whether they could eat lunch at the inn and whether there was fodder for the horses.

  “Certainly. Do come in, please,” the man replied, pointing to the door, but looking at a different part of the wall where there was no door nor any kind of entrance. “Enter, and welcome.”

  Diana looked at him astonished, but Bessian whispered, “he’s squint-eyed.”

  “I have a private room,” he explained. “It so happens that the table is taken today, but I’ll arrange another one for you. Ali Binak and his assistants have been here for three days,” he added proudly. “What did you say? Yes, Ali Binak himself. Don’t you know who he is?”

  Bessian shrugged.

  “Are you from Shkoder? No? From Tirana? Oh, of course, with a carriage like that. Will you stay the night here?”

  “No, we’re going to the Kulla of Orosh.”

  “Oh, yes. I thought as much. It’s more than two years since I saw a carriage like that. Relatives of the prince?”

  “No, his guests.”

  As they passed through the great hall of the inn on the way to their private room, Diana felt the stares of the customers, of whom some were eating lunch at a long, grubby oak table, while others sat in the corners on their packs of thick black woolen cloth. Two or three, sitting on the bare floor, moved a little to let the small group through.

  “These past three days we have had a good deal of excitement because of a boundary dispute that is to be settled nearby.”

  “A boundary dispute?” Bessian asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said the innkeeper, pushing open a dilapidated door with one hand. “That’s why Ali Binak and his assistants have come.”

  He said these last words in a low voice, just as the travellers crossed the threshold of the private room.

  “There they are,” whispered the innkeeper, nodding towards an empty corner of the room. But his guests, now used to the innkeeper’s squint, looked in another direction, where at an oak table, but smaller and somewhat cleaner than the one in the public room, three men were eating lunch.

  “I’ll bring another table right away,” the innkeeper said, and he disappeared. Two of the diners looked up at the newcomers, but the third went on eating without lifting his eyes from his plate. From behind the door, there came a grating noise punctuated by thumping sounds, drawing nearer and nearer. Soon they saw two table legs, then part of the innkeeper’s body, and then the whole table and the innkeeper grotesquely entangled.

  He set down the table and left to fetch their seats.

  “Please be seated,” he said, arranging the stools. “What would you like?”

  After asking what there was, Bessian said at last that they would have two fried eggs and some cheese. The innkeeper said, “At your service” to everything, and for a while he was busy coming and going in all directions, trying to serve the new guests without neglecting the earlier ones. While hurrying from one group of his distinguished guests to the other, he seemed to be at a loss, obviously unable to make up his mind which was the more important. It looked as if his uncertainty worsened his physical handicap, and it seemed that he wanted to direct some of his limbs towards one group and some towards the other.

  “I wonder just who they think we are,” Diana said.

  Without raising his head, Bessian glanced sidelong at the three men who were eating lunch. It was apparent that the innkeeper, while bending down to wipe the table with a rag, was telling them about the new arrivals. One of them, the shortest, seemed to be making as if he were not listening, or perhaps he was in fact not listening. The second, who had colorless eyes that seemed to go with his slack, indifferent face, was looking on as if bewildered. The third man, wearing a checked jacket, could not keep his eyes off Diana. He was obviously drunk.

  “Where is the place where the boundaries are to be established?” Bessian asked when the innkeeper served Diana her fried eggs.

  “At Wolf’s Pass, sir,” the landlord said. “It is a half-hour’s walk from here. But if you go by carriage, of course, it will take less time.”

  “What do you say, Diana, shall we go? It should be interesting.”

  “If you like,” she said.

  “Has there been feuding over the boundaries, or killings?” Bessian asked the innkeeper.

  The man whistled. “Certainly, sir. That’s a strip of land greedy for death, studded with muranës time out of mind.”

  “We’ll go without fail,” Bessian said.

  “If you like,” his wife said again.

  “This is the third time that they have called on Ali Binak, and still the dispute and the blood-letting have not ended,” the landlord said.

  At that moment the short man got up from the table. From the way the other two rose immediately after him, Bessian surmised that he must be Ali Binak.

  That man nodded towards them, without looking at anyone in particular, and led the way out. The two others followed. The man in the checked jacket brought up the rear, still devouring Diana with his reddened eyes.

  “What a revolting man,” Diana said.

  Bessian gestured vaguely.

  “You mustn’t cast the first stone. Who knows how long he’s been wandering through these mountains, without a wife, without pleasure of any kind. Judging by his clothes, he must be a city man.”

  “Even so, he might spare me those oily looks,” Diana said, pushing away her plate; She had eaten only one egg.

  Bessian called the innkeeper for the bill.

  “If the gentleman and the lady want to go to Wolf’s Pass, Ali Binak and his assistants have just started out. You could follow them in your carriage. Or perhaps you need someone to accompany you. . . .”

  “We’ll follow their horses,” Bessian said.

  The coachman was drinking coffee in the public room. He rose at once and followed them. Bessian looked at his watch.

  “We have a good two hours in which to see a boundary settle
ment, haven’t we?”

  The coachman shook his head doubtfully.

  “I don’t know what to say, sir. From here to Orosh is a long way. However, if that’s what you want to do. . . .”

  “We’ll be all right if we reach Orosh before nightfall,” Bessian continued. “It’s still early afternoon, and we have time. And then, it’s an opportunity not to be missed,” he added, turning to Diana, who was standing beside him.

  She had turned up the fur collar of her coat and was waiting for them to make up their minds.

  Ten minutes later, their carriage overtook the horses of Ali Binak’s small party. They stood to one side to let the carriage pass, and it took a while for the coachman to explain to them that he did not know the way to Wolf’s Pass, and that the carriage would follow after them. Diana was ensconced in the depths of the coach so as to avoid the annoying looks of the man in the checked jacket, whose horse kept appearing on one or the other side of the vehicle.

  Wolf’s Pass turned out to be farther away than the innkeeper had said. In the distance they saw a bare plain on which some people appeared as moving black specks. As they drew nearer, Bessian tried to recall what the Kanun said about boundaries. Diana listened calmly. Bessian said, “Boundary marks shall not be disturbed, any more than the bones of the dead in their graves. Whosoever instigates a murder in a boundary dispute shall be shot by the whole village.”

  “Are we going to be present at an execution?” Diana asked plaintively. “That’s all we needed.”

  Bessian smiled.

  “Don’t worry. This must be a peaceful settlement, since they’ve invited that—what’s his name again? Oh, yes, Ali Binak.”

  “He seems to me to be a very responsible man,” Diana said. “I wouldn’t say as much for one of his assistants, the man in the clown’s jacket—he’s repulsive.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him.”