Ismaíl Kadaré: The Accident

Besfort was no doubt at the Tribunal. This explained the nightmare about the summons, the shouting in his sleep and the secrecy.

She imagined him lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the court building. Time passed slowly. More noisy customers sat down at the table next to the Austrian, who had ordered a second coffee and seemed to be paying particular attention to what his neighbours were talking about.

Rovena preferred to think about the hotel bed. Like in the train, she felt the tattoos on her body move as if they were living creatures. In the train, the thought of the tattoo on her rear had momentarily made her head reel. She was sure he would like it, especially as they did not often make love in that position.

In a stupor of desire she ordered another tea. The photos of the children were now far from her mind. The clock hands hurried forward, as if shaken from sleep. She had a feeling she was late.

In bed in the hotel one hour later, the same feeling persisted. They had made love, without saying any of the things she had imagined.

“You told me that something had happened.”

“That’s right. But it’s hard to talk about it.”

“I understand. A lot of things are hard to talk about at first. Then…”

“What then?”

“There is nothing in the world that can’t be talked about.”

“I think there is.”

“Perhaps that’s because you are a woman.”

“Maybe.”

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“You mean since we last saw each other?” She wanted to scream: “What have I been doing? Nothing, I mean everything.” But all she said was, “Why do you want to know?”

“Then don’t tell me if you don’t want to,” he said calmly. “We put all this behind us a long time ago.”

Quickly, and secretly hoping that he might understand only half of what she said, she told him how frightened she had been when, after arriving at the hotel, she thought she had been given the wrong room, because his bags had looked unfamiliar, though the aftershave was the same.

She lowered her voice and explained that, to make sure that it was really him by recognising at least one of his possessions, she had for the first time ever opened one of his suitcases.

She had the impression that he was not paying any attention. So much the better, she thought. But she did not dare say anything more.

“Shall we sleep a bit?” he said. “I’ve had a very tiring day. So have you, I think.”

After his breathing settled into sleep, she was able to think clearly again. Mentally, she told him about what happened after she opened the bag, the macabre photographs, her terror. She calmly asked him if he was really frightened of a summons of the kind that he saw in his dreams. What connected him to these murdered children? And why had they come to The Hague secretly, skulking like criminals?

Slightly relieved, she managed to doze for a few moments. She tried to imagine how he would reply. In the worst case, his face would cloud over and his gaze become stony. Who are you to ask questions like that? You’re just a call girl, a classy hooker and no more than that.

Before they went down to dinner, she sat in front of the mirror longer than usual.

He stared at her with amazement over the restaurant table. “You’ve become more beautiful,” he said softly.

Rovena could not keep her eyes off him.

“You say that with a certain regret, I think.”

“Regret? Why?”

Rovena became flustered.

“Well… now… now that we’re different… In fact, I wanted to say… Do you want me ugly now…?”

“No, no. I would ask for anything but that.”

“In fact, that’s not exactly what I wanted to say… what I really wanted to ask was… In the hotel, when you fell asleep, I couldn’t put these questions out of my mind…”

Hurriedly, as if fearful that her courage would desert her, she blurted out all of her suspicions. He looked stern, and she thought her worst fears were realised. Who are you to interrogate me like this? You’re a call girl, that’s all.

You’ve no right to call me that. Yes, you’ve turned me into a high-class whore, but once you were my husband.

These words went unspoken, but she caught her breath in shock.

She was frightened as always, but less of him than of the truth.

He thought carefully before replying. “Yes, those were photographs of murdered children. But not what you might have imagined. They were Serbian children, victims of the NATO bombing.”

Rovena listened, nonplussed. She bit her lips and repeated twice or three times, “I’m sorry.”

She had nothing to apologise for. It would be terrible to find photographs like that in any bag. She had every right to think what she liked. She could even suspect that he, Besfort, was a murderer of children. In fact, the photographs had been sent to him for that very purpose, to mark him as a murderer.

Fearfully, she clasped his hand. His fingers looked longer and thinner. He talked as if she were not there. What was happening was difficult to describe. It was a macabre photograph competition: pictures of Serbian children torn apart by bombs and of Albanian children ripped open by knives were distributed by each side to departments, commissions and committees. Grotesque slanging matches followed. Was there or was there not a scale of horror in death? Some insisted that every child’s death was a tragedy that could not be compared to any other, and they could not be ranked in order. Others took a different view: the death of a child in a road accident was not the same as the death of a child in an air raid, and both were quite different from the murder of a baby, slit open by a knife wielded by a human hand. Eight hundred Albanian infants butchered like lambs, often before their mothers’ eyes. It could drive you insane. It was apocalyptic.

The candles on the table danced gently in the breath of his speech. She hoped they would distract his attention.

After dinner, in the late-night bar, she mentioned her tattoos, and the tattooist’s question of why she wanted them: as a memento of somebody, a promise or for some other reason.

This time, unlike on previous occasions, he did not want to hear anything more about the other man who had touched her body. He seemed to be thinking about their conversation in the restaurant.

Rovena found it difficult to talk about anything else until she had unburdened her mind. She thought about the photographs and the macabre contest, and she asked why, if he did not feel guilty, he still seemed to have something on his conscience.

He gave a chill smile.

“Because I am a citizen, meaning that everything to do with the civitas affects me.”

Rovena did not understand what he meant, but did not say so.

As if aware of this, he went on to explain gently that quite apart from what he had said about the Albanian children he also felt grief over the Serbian children. But unfortunately that’s not what happens in the Balkans. In the restaurant, she had asked why they had come here to The Hague in secret, like two criminals. She should realise that he had not been served any summons, except once or twice in his dreams. And even if he were summoned, he would not obey the court order, but only his own conscience. Every person should come to The Hague, as though it were an agency of Hades. Each for the sake of his own soul. In silence and semi-secretly.

Rovena thought of the Austrian’s beard and his dull eyes, as he sat in the café among its Albanian customers.

As he spoke, Besfort looked round for the waiter, to order his second and final whisky.

It was after midnight, in bed before they made love, that he remembered the tattooist. Was he polite, handsome, a lecher? A little bit of all those things, she replied. And he made the mistake every man makes these days: as soon as he discovered that the tattoo was for a lover, he interpreted the woman’s yielding as if it was to himself.