Chronicle in Stone

plain across the river. The first thing I noticed was that the cattle that usually grazed there were gone. The haystacks were being taken away too. Trucks crisscrossed the plain. Eventually I began to see more clearly what was happening. A new, completely unknown word was cropping up here and there, made up of two other words: “air” and “drome” (we knew that “drome” meant “road” in Greek). Now everything was clear: across the river, in the plain at the foot of the city, an aerodrome was under construction.

Passers-by often stopped in the streets and alleys, turned towards the river, and gazed pensively into the distance.

A new guest had arrived. An unusual guest, lying flat at the city’s door, almost invisible. If it weren’t for the absence of the cows and haystacks, you might not have even noticed it was there. For my part, I was sorry the cows had gone. I missed the cows.

“Why is it called ‘aerodrome’?”

Javer looked at me thoughtfully with his grey eyes.

“Because it is the place where airplanes fly up into the sky.”

A guest. For better or for worse? It had crept in noiselessly. Thousands of astonished eyes observed it without fully realising that it was there. Now, stretched out over the whole length of the plain, incomprehensible and threatening, it perplexed everyone.

“War preparations.”

“Maybe. But it could also be to defend the city.”

“I don’t think so. It’s a sign that war is on the way.”

“Could be. All the same, a lot of people have got work there.”

“The money they earn is a loan from death.”

That was an exchange between two people I didn’t know.

There was more and more talk of the aerodrome. And it was only when they started calling it “aerodrome” that people realised that until then the plain had had no name. Apparently, it had had to wait for the planes to have its christening.

FIVE

When I got back from Babazoti’s, I sensed that the magic spells over our neighbourhood had lost almost all of their force. The workmen had also finished cleaning our cistern. Finally free of the powers of darkness, it was now being filled with fresh water, which gurgled joyfully along the eaves. I leaned over the mouth of the cistern and said, “A-oo.” Although filled with new and unknown water, it answered me at once. The same voice, just a little fainter. This meant that all the water in the world, whichever part of the sky it fell from, spoke the same language.

Apart from the fact that the cows no longer grazed in the field across the river, nothing worrisome had happened, except for the sudden disappearance of Kako Pino’s cat.

She was just now at her window talking about it with Bido Sherifi’s wife, who was leaning out of her own window, her hands covered with flour.

“I tell you, he’s the one who took your cat, that cursed teacher won’t leave a single one alive. He’s the one who took it.”

“Of course. Who else? It’s the end of the world.”

Obviously they were talking about Qani Kekezi.

“That’s what education does for you, Kako Pino. More harm than good. I ask you: a cat-thief!”

“Yes, he’s gone completely crazy,” said Kako Pino. “The poor cats are afraid to set foot outside any more. A topsy-turvy world we live in!”

“But that’s not all,” said Bido Sherifi’s wife. “Wait until he starts coming after people with that knife. Have you ever seen eyes like his? Blood-red they are.”

Bido Sherifi’s wife shook her hands, raising a cloud of flour that caught the sun and glowed as if it was on fire.

“The end of the world,” said Kako Pino. “Can’t tell who’s worse than the others.”

The shutters on both windows closed, ending the conversation. I had nothing to do, and sat watching the street. A cat was jumping from roof to roof, then came down and crossed the street. Nazo’s son, Maksut, was coming home from the market. He carried another severed head under his arm. Whose head? I couldn’t stand it, so I looked away.

I tried to picture Margarita, but was surprised to find that I couldn’t recall her face very well. She had come into my thoughts two or three times. Did she realise that I dragged her name with me around the house, banging it on the stone, catching it on nails? Did she feel no pain from all that?

The day before I had talked to Ilir about it.

“At Grandfather’s, there’s now a beautiful married woman,” I told him.

He wasn’t impressed and didn’t answer. A little later I mentioned Margarita to him again. Again he showed no interest, and only asked me, “Does she have pink cheeks?”

“Yes,” I answered, somewhat perplexed. “Pink.”

Actually, I didn’t remember what colour her cheeks were. The moment Ilir asked about her, Margarita’s face suddenly seemed misty. A day passed and the image was even less clear. I was forgetting her.

The third time she came to mind, I mentioned her to Ilir again. He stared at me. This time he’s going to say something, I thought, feeling happy about it already.

“You know what?” Ilir said. “Last night I stole my mother’s garters to make a slingshot. Do me a favour and hold onto them for a few days. I’m afraid she’ll find them.”

I stuffed the garters into my pocket.

There was no one in the street. I remembered that Javer had promised to give me a book. I left and went to his place.

Javer was alone, smoking a cigarette and whistling to himself.

“You promised you would give me a book,” I said.

“Si, signor,” he said. “Here are the books. Pick one.”

There was a shelf of books on the wall. I walked over and looked at them. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never seen so many books.

“Look,” Javer explained, “this is the name of the author, the one who wrote the book, and this is the title. But I’m afraid none of these books will really interest you.”

I took a bunch of books off the shelves, one by one. Most of the titles were meaningless to me.

“I’ll take this one,” I said. “The author is a man called Jung.”

Javer burst out laughing.

“You want to read Jung?”

“Why not? He writes about magic, doesn’t he?”

Javer laughed again. I was irritated and turned to leave, but he stopped me.

“Look,” he said, “take another one instead. I can barely understand Jung myself. Anyway, he didn’t write in Albanian.”

I looked through the books again and plunged into reading. Javer kept on smoking and humming. Finally I found one that had on its opening page the words “ghost”, “witches”, “first murderer” and even “second murderer”.

“OK, I’ll take this one,” I said, without even looking at the title.

“Really? Macbeth? It’ll be too hard for you.”

“I want it.”

“Then take it,” said Javer. “But don’t lose it.”

I left almost at a run, went home and pushed the door open. I was amazed to have a book in my hands.

There were all kinds of things in our big house: copper cauldrons, plates of all sizes, bread bins, mortars, iron hooks, beams, steel balls (one was supposed to be a cannonball), barrels, chests with dates painted on them, all sorts of buckets, pitchers, and ewers, a rifle with a butt inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a whole clutter of strange old things including a trough for slaking lime – but not a single book. Apart from a torn and yellowing manual of dream interpretation, there wasn’t a single sheet of printed paper in the house.