As she stretched her hand to the water glass, her eyes fell on a black object. Inside the half-open drawer was a revolver.
She caught her breath. She remembered all at once the secrecy of this journey, the false names at the reception desk and his advice to her to turn up the collar of her coat. What was it all about? But then she recalled him saying that he always travelled armed in Albania, and she calmed down at once.
Without further ado, she detached a tablet from the blister pack and swallowed it.
In bed, she lay back and waited for sleep. How had she been reduced to this? She didn’t even have the right to call him “darling”.
She tried not to think any more. Perhaps she was demanding more of this world than she should. A woman like her didn’t need much.
Sleep would come soon. She was curious to know what kind of oblivion his sedative would bring, as if the nature of his sleep would reveal more of his secrets.
But perhaps she didn’t even need to know his secrets. A woman like her needed to know only one thing, that there had been nights when Besfort Y. had taken these sleeping pills because of her… That was sufficient.
As she listened to his deep breathing, she thought that this sedative had finally helped her enter his brain. Now, however clever he was, he could not hide.
His breathing was changing, but she would stay vigilant. Now it was her turn to trick him by pretending to be asleep.
Apparently Besfort had been waiting for this moment. He moved slowly, not to waken her. Then he reached out to the drawer beside the bed. Is he in his right mind? she thought.
It was obvious what he was doing. She had no reason to pretend she didn’t understand. She heard the scrape of the drawer and the movement of his hand as he took out the gun. Oh God, she prayed. She had feared being killed in a motel, and now it was happening. But instead of acting to save herself, she remembered a whores’ song:
If she doesn’t end up in a ditch,
In a Golem motel you’ll find this bitch.
The cold barrel of the gun touched her ribs just below the right breast. In spite of the silencer, she heard the trigger and felt the bullet enter her flesh.
So this is what he wanted, she thought.
She saw his arm make the same circular motion to replace the weapon. Then there was silence. How incredible, she thought. He had fallen asleep straight after the crime, in the same position, lying on his side.
Rovena pressed her hand to the wound to staunch the blood. Besfort was breathing deeply again. Had this struggle worn him out so much? thought Rovena, as if treating him with indulgence for the last time.
She stood up and moved silently to the bathroom. The wound held no terror for her. It looked clean, almost as if drawn by hand. Among her cosmetics under the mirror she found a sticking plaster of the kind she usually kept with her. She fixed it to the wound and felt reassured at once. At least she would not give up the ghost like some motel whore.
Incredible, she thought again, climbing back into bed. He was still sleeping as if nothing had happened. Just like one thousand years ago, she lay down beside him.
Chapter Eleven
He had no right to behave like this. She spent most of her mornings alone, and he should have been beside her on this one. Even before she opened her eyes, her bare arm groped for him, but he wasn’t there. Drowsily, she stretched her arm further, to the edge of the bed. Beyond lay Austria and the plains of Europe. The names of great cities glowed palely like on old wireless sets, fraught with terror. He shouldn’t do this. Inevitably he would be the first to go, leaving her alone in this world for many long years. So he shouldn’t be in a hurry now.
Finally she opened her eyes. The waking world was in order. It was simple and obvious: he had gone for a walk through the pine trees while waiting for her to wake up. Scraps of daylight filtered awkwardly through the shutters. The little burgundy Cervantes lay there inert, weary of its old secret.
She heard steps and the door handle turned. He bent down to kiss her temple. He was carrying the morning papers. Over breakfast, he glanced through the headlines.
“The queen is ill,” Rovena said.
He said nothing.
She set aside her coffee cup and phoned home. “Mother, I’m in Durres with my girlfriends. Don’t be worried.”
The coffee struck Besfort as particularly good. How sweet this world could be, with queens ill and women telling white lies.
“Look at this,” Rovena said, handing him a newspaper.
Besfort laughed, and read aloud, “‘Baroness Fatime Gurthi, spokesperson of the Tirana Water Board, attempted to justify the water shortage.’ Buying titles is the latest fashion. A thousand dollars, and you wake up a count or a marquis.”
“I thought it was a joke, but even in jest it makes no sense.”
Besfort replied that it was no joke. There were international agencies that trafficked titles. Everybody in the former East was crazy about them.
“That’s all we need,” said Rovena.
Besfort was sure he had the business card of a certain Viscount Shabe Dulaku (Reinforced Doors and Windows Made To Order) from the suburb of Lapraka. He’d heard of a duke in the traffic police and a countess who had written a booklet entitled
After breakfast they went out for a walk along the shore. A fierce wind blew, and it seemed an alien, indifferent kind of day. Clinging tightly to his arm, Rovena felt her hair strike Besfort’s face.
She did not know whether she was still supposed to tell him everything that was on her mind or not. She had the impression that the eyes of both of them had become as hard as glass in the wind. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t be able to admit everything, not even to herself.
Behind iron railings, the swimming pools were frozen. Films of ice like cataracts spread over the surface of the water.
They found a restaurant for lunch and then spent the whole afternoon locked in their room. In bed, before they made love, he caressed her and whispered something about Liza. He had forgotten all the little details, or pretended to have done. She replied to him in the same whisper. He told her that nobody understood men like she did. Rovena flattered him in the same way.
As dusk fell Rovena spoke to her mother again on the phone while Besfort switched on the television to see if there was news of the Queen. “It’s lovely here, Mother. We’re going to stay tonight too.”
As she spoke, he stroked her belly, tracing circles around her navel.
Evening deepened fast. As midnight approached, the roaring of the sea sounded increasingly plangent. In the morning they left the hotel in a hurry, not knowing themselves why they felt so flustered. As they drove towards Tirana, the traffic grew heavier. There seemed to be more florists than ever at the crossroads leading to the western cemetery. We all get flowers sooner or later, thought Rovena. She remembered scraps of their conversation about the bogus conspirators. Some of them must be buried here. They would have flowers like everybody else.
At the entrance to Tirana the line of vehicles was barely moving. A traffic policeman walked past their car and Besfort asked him if there had been an accident. The policeman glanced at their licence plate out of the corner of his eye before he answered.
“The queen is dead,” he said.
Besfort switched on the radio and they heard the queen mentioned. But the voices were raised in anger. They were arguing. By the time they reached Kavaja Street it became clear what it was all about: the funeral ceremony and also the site of her grave. The government, as always, was caught on the wrong foot.
“Just wait, they’ll appeal to some commission in Brussels next,” said Rovena.
Near Skenderbeg Square they heard a statement from the Royal Court. A requiem for the queen would be sung at St. Paul’s Cathedral at three o’clock that afternoon. No word about the burial site. The government had still not issued a ruling about the restitution of the king’s property, including the family graves, in the south-east of the
