Ismaíl Kadaré - The Accident

“Why not?” said Rovena. “Perhaps it’s not a good idea generally, but we are, kind of… in love…”

He laughed out loud. “A moment ago, when you were so honest, I thought of how honesty makes a woman look beautiful. But sometimes, unfortunately, an unfaithful woman can look just as beautiful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t scowl. I wanted to say that treachery generally makes someone look ugly. That expression, the evil eye, has some truth behind it. But an unfaithful woman can look wonderfully attractive. We’re in love, aren’t we? You said yourself that everything is different… in love.”

His voice was carefree, unlike an hour before, but still dangerous, she said to herself. He behaves like someone not afraid of going to the edge. Why is it he feels safe and I don’t? The thought made her irritable. She wanted to ask, in annoyance: “What makes you feel so secure? Why do you think I belong to you?”

She knew that she didn’t dare ask. She lived in fear and he did not, that was the difference between them, and as long as this did not change she would feel defeated.

She murmured softly as he stroked her chest, and he asked her to tell him again what the gypsy had said.

“I can see you like to make fun of her.”

“Not at all,” he retorted. “If anybody treats the gypsies and the Roma with respect at last, it is us at the Council of Europe.”

As if frightened of silence, she went on talking as she combed her hair at the mirror. He stood by the door, studying her now familiar movements.

Putting on her lipstick, she turned her head to say something, her tone suddenly altered, about her fiancé. Her internship in Austria would inevitably take her away from him and they would separate.

She looked at him closely to see what he was thinking. He was careful to say nothing, but took two steps towards her and kissed her on the neck. “We’ll be happy together,” she whispered.

Later, she regretted saying this. He should have been the one to say it. As always, she rushed in too fast.

What did she need all this for, she groaned to herself. She thought she had left qualms of this sort behind, but they were still there, especially during the last moments of every meeting: things that shouldn’t have happened so abruptly, things there was no time to put right. He put it down to anxiety before they parted. She could not work out whether it was better to say as little as possible to avoid misunderstanding, or the opposite, to gabble nervously to fill up the frightening void. She now knew that just before they said goodbye there would come a fatal moment that would decide what shape her suffering would take until they met again.

All these misgivings belonged to the past, but they still insistently fired their darts from a distance. She wanted to say to them: “All right, I’ve remembered you now. Leave me in peace.”

She arrived in Graz in midwinter, soaked by the rain that poured from the February clouds. The fog banks watched her like hyenas. The house where Lasgush Poradeci had lived was gone. She had thought that Graz would make an impression on her, at least as strong as that left by Besfort Y. But the opposite happened. Her breasts grew smoother.

His phone call rescued her from the barren winter. He was not far away. He would expect her at the hotel on Saturday. She should take a taxi from the station and not worry about the expense.

They spent two nights together, and she repeated endlessly, “How happy I am with you.” Then she travelled back to winter and the tedium of her hall of residence.

She stood motionless for a moment, holding the shower head above her hair. The water splashed either scalding or icy and gave her no pleasure. It was the first time a shower had failed to calm her. Then she understood why: the shower head reminded her of the telephone.

That was where the friction usually started. The first and most serious incident had been in spring. Everything had changed in Graz. For the first time, she hankered after liberty. She grew irritated for no reason. She thought that Besfort stood in her way.

These were her first cross words on the phone. “You’re preventing me from living.”

“What?” he replied coolly. “I’m getting in your way?”

“Precisely. You said that you tried to phone me twice yesterday evening.”

“So what?” he said.

She heard the unconcern in his voice, but instead of kicking herself for her blunder, she cried, “You’re holding me hostage.”

“Aha,” he said.

“What’s that ‘aha’? You think that I have to sit waiting in until it occurs to his lordship to phone?”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he butted in.

Her ears rang with shock. “You think I’m your slave. You think you can do what you want with me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he repeated, his voice growing colder.

Sensing the approaching danger, she lost control completely. The words poured out of her until he cried, “That’s enough!”

She didn’t know he could be so pitiless. He was totally cynical: “You took this yoke up yourself, and now you blame me.” To cap it all, the line went dead.

Numbly, she waited for him to phone back. Then she gave up hope and called his number herself. His phone was off the hook. Now what have I done, she thought. And then, a moment later: this is horrible.

She racked her brains all night, trying to work out why she was so angry with him. Because she had left her fiancé for him, although he was promising her nothing?

Perhaps, she thought. But she was not sure. Nor was it fear of losing her freedom. Was it because she had fallen into this head first, and now could not get out? It was too early to say.

She reassured herself, saying this could all be sorted out calmly if she tried to love him less. That was the solution.

Three days later, she admitted defeat and phoned him. He answered her stumbling phrases sternly but quietly. Neither of them mentioned the quarrel. Several weeks passed like this, with infrequent phone calls and guarded conversations, until they met again.

The train to Luxembourg crossed the cold European plains. The landscape, dusted with snow, matched her inner numbness perfectly. Was everything the same as before or not? He had given nothing away on the phone. She and her fiancé had behaved quite differently. After making up, they used to have heart-to-hearts, confessing how hurt they had felt and describing their ploys in battle, which reconciliation had made redundant.

Darling, why do you make it so difficult? she thought, as she dozed in her seat.

The further north the train sped, the more terror overcame her. But something within her also resisted this fear, a peculiar, unfamiliar taste, provoked by the thought that she was a young and beautiful woman travelling through a frost-covered Europe towards her lover.

She was still half-dazed when the train arrived.

He waited for her in the hotel room. They embraced as if nothing had happened. For a short while, she rushed round unpacking her things, making only a few comments about the room, then about the bathroom and the white dressing gowns that always struck her as the sign of a good hotel.

When she ran out of words, she made no effort to find new ones. It was nearly four o’clock. The winter dusk was falling. She said, as usual, “Shall I get ready?” and went into the bathroom.

She could not tell how long she should stay there. Usually she seemed either too quick or too slow.

Finally, she wrapped the bath robe round her naked body and came out.

He was waiting.

With head bowed, she moved towards the bed. Her steps did not seem her own. She could not get rid of the strange sensation she had felt during the journey, which was mixed with the feeling that she was less like a girlfriend than a wife going to bed with her husband.