Chronicle in Stone

I was surprised to see Suzana the next day. She walked by our gate, accompanied by her father like a proper young lady. She didn’t even turn to look at me. I thought she seemed completely alien. That evening, they passed by again. This time, when she saw me at the gate, she raised her head high and squeezed close against her father. Her father looked at me askance. He was very handsome.

In the days that followed Suzana came out accompanied by her mother. Holding onto her arm like a proper young lady again. Her mother looked at me as you’d look at a mad dog. Who knows how many of those barbed-wire words were running through her mind, the old witch!

I spent the whole summer and the beginning of autumn at Grandfather’s. It was the longest summer of my life. I was sleepy all the time. The days went by without incident and often without their names. When you’d unpacked the hours from the day and then the night and piled them all up, you could toss out the boxes they came in, which is all that “Wednesday” or “Sunday” or “Friday” really are.

The season dragged on. It started to get cold again. The first claps of thunder rumbled somewhere over the horizon. Babazoti’s house got gloomier. Grandma quarrelled more and more with my younger aunt, who came and went happily, not paying the slightest attention to her mother, humming a song which had just come out:

We’re all so hungry and broke

Townspeople and plain country folk…

Grandma would listen and shake her head thoughtfully, as if to say: “This girl will break my heart.”

The first rain fell. It was time for me to go home. The sky was overcast. The wind blew in from the northern mountain passes. I went down Citadel Street, crossed the Bridge of Brawls, and was making my way through the town centre. It felt funny to be among the grey stone walls rising high on either side. The streets were strangely empty. Except that in a little square near the market a small crowd of people stood listening to someone making a speech. I stopped to listen. I didn’t know the speaker. He was a medium-sized man with greying hair who opened his arms wide from time to time as he spoke.

“In these times of turmoil we must try to love one another. Love will protect us. What can we gain from fratricidal struggle? Son will rise up against father, brother will fight brother. There will be rivers of blood. Let us drive civil war out of our town. Let us keep death out. For centuries the unhappy Albanian has gone through life with the heavy burden of a weapon on his back. Other nations think of food, but we Albanians care only for guns. Let us cast off that weight of steel, my brothers, for steel speaks only of strife. What we need is reconciliation. Civil war…”

The neighbourhood streets were completely deserted. The doors had a sly look about them. I walked faster. Where were all the people? I was almost running. My footsteps rang off the stones with a scary sound. More boarded doors. The metal door-knocker shaped like a human hand… No room at the inn!… But no, our gate, at least, stood ajar, waiting for me. I pushed it open and went in.

“You picked a great day to come back,” my mother said.

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t explain. Grandmother and Papa kissed me.

“Why did Mamma say I picked a great day to come back?” I asked Grandmother.

“They shot someone today,” she said. “He was wounded.”

“Who?”

“Gjergj Pula.”

“Really? Who shot him?”

“No one knows. The police are looking for suspects.”

“Did they ever find Aqif Kashahu’s daughter?” I asked.

“What made you think of Aqif Kashahu’s daughter?” Grandmother asked, almost reproachfully. “She’s away visiting some cousins.”

A partisan. A boy from the town centre had joined the resistance. A week before he had been a boy like all the others, with a home and a door with a knocker, who yawned when he was sleepy. He was Bido Sherifi’s youngest nephew. And suddenly he had become a partisan. Now he was up in the mountains. On the march. The high peaks were shrouded in winter mists that rolled down the gorges like nightmares. The partisan was up there somewhere. Everyone else was down here. He alone was up there.

“Why do they say: ‘He joined the resistance’?”

“You wear me out with your questions.”

Start of winter. I was looking at the first frost that covered the world and wondering what foreign land’s shreds and tatters would be blown to us by the winter wind this year.

FOURTEEN

Two truckloads of deportees were to leave that afternoon. The main square was swarming with people. Italian gendarmes came and went through the crowd. Heaped in the back of the trucks, the people who were being taken away had turned up the collars of their old coats. Many of them were holding little bundles, others were empty- handed. Almost all were silent. The crowd around them buzzed. Some women were crying. Others, especially the older ones, were giving advice. The men talked in low voices. The deportees kept quiet.

“What have they done? Why are they taking them away?” a passer-by asked.

“They spoke against.”

“What?”

“They spoke against.”

“What does that mean? Against what?”

“I’m telling you, they spoke against.”

The passer-by turned away.

“Why are they taking them away? What have they done?” he asked someone else.

“They spoke against.”

Bruno Arcivocale, commander of the city garrison, crossed the middle of the square, followed by a group of officers. There must have been a meeting at the town hall.

The truck engines had been idling for a long time. Then their monotonous hum in the square suddenly grew louder. The first truck revved up. Words spoken in loud voices, shrieks and cries came through the roar. The second truck also got into gear. The deportees waved. One of them shouted:

“Long live Albania!”

The square was full of excitement. In the end, the trucks made their way through a crowd that had surrounded them on all sides and drove off at speed.

The square emptied out. Apparently the meeting at the town hall had begun. Many guards were posted around the square. The streets were deserted.

Darkness fell on the city without those who had spoken against. Strangely enough, new leaflets were out that night. Lady Majnur left her house before dawn to report to the carabinieri.

Ilir came over that afternoon.

“Want to speak against?” he asked.

“Yeah, let’s.”

“But let’s be careful of spies,” he added a moment later.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

“Up on the roof.”

We went to Ilir’s house and climbed up to the roof unobserved. The view was spectacular. Thousands of roofs stretched away endlessly, steep and grey, as though they had turned over and over in a fitful sleep. It was very cold.

“You start,” Ilir said.

I took the lens from my pocket and put it over one eye.

“Dadadada, tatatata!” I said.

“Rabalama, paramara!” Ilir declared.

We sat and thought for a while.