“Where is it?”
“Right there.”
I looked around in bewilderment. So this was what they called a village! I was dumbfounded, then suddenly burst out laughing.
“What’s the matter? What’s wrong with you?” asked Nazo’s daughter-in-law.
I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Lord above, now my child’s lost his mind!” my mother said.
“What’s the matter with you?” my father asked sternly.
“But… don’t you see?… those houses… over there?”
“Now stop that,” my father commanded.
My mother shook me by the shoulders, then put her arms around me.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. These low shacks with whitewashed walls looked to me like dolls’ houses. They weren’t even lined up in a row so as to form one side of a street facing the other side in a virtually permanent state of rivalry, taunting each other with a sneering challenge: “You want to see who’s bigger, do you?” No, it was all different here. To prevent such squabbling, the cottages were separated from each other as if they were all in business on their own accounts. And to top it all, they were surrounded by patches of tilled land, chicken coops, haystacks and doghouses.
The villagers stared in amazement as our little group made its way across an open space. Two or three frightened kids hid behind their doors. A cow began to moo. More peasants came out. They had kindly features, the sun was in their hair, and they smelled of fresh milk.
I could hear cowbells tinkling. My eyes closed.
I woke up halfway through the afternoon. I was in an empty room. My father was hanging paper over the windows to replace the broken panes, while my mother cleaned the floor, which was filthy with dried-out chicken droppings. It all seemed very depressing to me.
In a little while Bido Sherifi’s wife and Nazo came.
“So, are you settled in?” they asked.
My mother pursed her lips.
“What about you?”
“Not so bad. We found an abandoned house.”
Bido Sherifi’s wife heaved a deep sigh.
“How did we get into this mess?”
They left.
I felt like crying. Suddenly I was terribly homesick for our house and the city. Had something irreparable happened?
Papa went down to the cellar and came back up.
“Be careful not to light a fire,” he said. “It’s full of hay down there. If it goes up we’ll burn like mice in a barn.”
Mane Voco came by. He had lost a lot of weight since Isa was hanged.
“Do you have a little salt?” he asked. “We forgot to bring any.”
My mother gave him some.
The house we were in was also abandoned. The other room was a wreck. I went downstairs to see the hay.
“A-oo,” I said at the cellar entrance.
There was no answer.
The hay we were worried about had a heady tang. I went back up to the room wondering why we always lived in houses with some danger underneath. In the city it was the water in the cistern, here the threat of fire in the cellar.
Refugees from the city passed by all day. Some stopped in the village and moved into deserted houses like we had. Most kept going, looking for villages farther away. I noticed Qani Kekezi among the people walking by with bundles and cradles. Bits of newspaper, cigarette butts and gossip trailed in the refugees’ wake. Back in the city Gjergj Pula had been killed. He had just applied to change his name again, to Jurgen Pulen. (The rumour was that apart from Giorgio, Yiorgos and Jurgen, which he never got a chance to use, he had lined up the name Yogura in case of a Japanese invasion.)
Refugees passed through the villages all night long. I slept fitfully, a sleep interrupted by tinkling bells, the lowing of cattle, and knocking at doors.
I was still asleep when I heard Xhexho’s loud voice from the street.
“Where are you, my friends? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where are you, poor things?”
She burst in the door. Bido Sherifi’s wife and Ilir’s mother ran to her.
“Xhexho, do you have any news? What’s happening?”
Xhexho started pacing up and down the room, then brought her hands to her cheeks.
“My God, how low we have fallen! Wandering the road like Romanies. Scattered like a raven’s chicks. What kind of a pigsty is this? How did you end up here? Why has God let us live, to be reduced to this? What a catastrophe!”
“Enough, Xhexho! It’s not as if we took to the road for the fun of it. We had no choice but to flee evil,” said Bido Sherifi’s wife. “What news have you brought?”
“I don’t know where to start. Did you hear what happened to Ceco Kaili’s daughter? She went off with the Italians.”
“With the Italians?”
“Lately her beard got as long as Mullah Kasemi’s. The barber was at Kaili’s house every day with a bag full of all kinds of razors, even the ones the Franks make. There was no other choice. Nothing else worked. Then one night she just got up and left. They say it was the barber who set it up. She got into the truck that took the girls from the brothel.”
“Maybe the terrible bad luck that has befallen the city has left with her,” said Xhexho. “After all, that girl with the beard did bring bad luck. It’s a good thing she left,” Xhexho added, surprising everyone with the uncharacteristically hopeful words she had spoken. But her optimism was short-lived. Raising her voice, which sounded like a dull whistle coming through her nose, she nearly shouted, “No, it won’t leave us alone just yet! Have you heard what they’re saying about Maksut, Nazo’s boy? He’s a spy! Yes, a spy!”
“A spy?”
“That’s what I said. A snake in the wall. That’s why he let his wife and mother come here alone; he’s afraid of the partisans. He’s in hiding, hasn’t turned up anywhere. They say he’s waiting for the Germans. He sends them information at night and tells them which roads to take. They say he’s the one who reported Isa.”
Ilir’s mother broke into sobs.
“The cur, the cur,” she cried.
Xhexho sighed deeply.
“Avdo Babaramo still hasn’t found his son’s body,” she said in a less excited voice. “The poor man is still on the road, looking everywhere. But now we’re all on the road.” Xhexho raised her voice and added: “Like wandering Jews!”
Her nasal voice droned on. Then, obviously worn out, she spoke more softly.
“What can I say? We left home like crazy people. Men and women loaded down with bundles, cradles, bowls, and the infirm, and our dogs and cats ran off without a second thought, like the wretched of the earth. And Dino Cico among them, with his plane on his back.”
“With his plane?”
“Yes, dear friends, with his plane on his back! His family followed along behind, begging him to leave it in the house, saying he wouldn’t be able to take the weight and would slow them all down. But he wouldn’t hear of leaving it behind. He wouldn’t risk the Germans getting hold of it for anything in the world.”
Grandmother’s absence became painfully clear. Only she could do anything to keep Xhexho from going on and on. Nothing my mother or any of the other women could say had any effect on Xhexho’s unstoppable rant.
Xhexho sensed this and savoured her position.
“So there you are, my dears. We have all been swept up by a miserable fate. You’ll never be able to call me a
