Ismail Kadare - The Fall of the Stone City

THE CITY CONFRONTS ITS LADIES

The bullet that claimed the life of the head of culture was also in a way the first shot in a war between the city’s new authorities and its ladies. For those in the know it was obvious that the head of culture had died a victim of his own nostalgia for the ladies but, for reasons that remained unknown, this detail was quickly concealed and he was portrayed as their opponent, indeed a sort of first martyr in this new battle.

The meetings to denounce the ladies, unlike the usual ones, were conducted not only without cheering or music but with a sombre, even academic tinge that seemed appropriate to their subject. This was especially true of the opening presentation entrusted to the elderly antiquarian Xixo Gavo, which, despite its imposing title “A Thousand Years of Ladies”, was merely a recitation of an interminable list of the city’s ladies from 1361 until the previous week. Nobody in the audience understood what it was for but this did not prevent them from applauding the old historian when the list, and with it his speech, came to an end.

The other contributions more or less compensated for the shortcomings of the opening speech. One of them, “Ladies Under Communism”, not only surveyed, as the title suggested, the fate of ladies everywhere in the communist camp, from Budapest to the former St Petersburg, Bratislava and even Shanghai, but explained why the ladies of Gjirokastër occupied a special position in this vast field.

This was also the most obscure part of the talk, which each listener interpreted in his or her own way. According to the speaker, being a lady in this city, or occupying “lady status” did not depend so much on the title and property of a husband. Rather, it was something to do with large houses. It was no coincidence that a foreign architect had called these houses “ladies in stone”. According to him, inside these great houses no doubt constructed by deranged craftsmen, under their gingerbread ceilings and behind the pitiless glare of their windowpanes, there took place a mysterious and sophisticated process, like a retreat into a moonlit distance, which was the first symptom of the formation of a lady. These ladies were imagined as impossibly pale, their breasts and waists dazzlingly white, with a dark enigma hidden under silk that made the senses reel.

A sigh of relief followed the conclusion of the talk.

The next paper was easier to comprehend because it dealt with the events that had led to the death of the poor cultural official and also took a clear political position. From the very start the speaker did not hide his hostility to the ladies. He considered their songs, which many people recalled with tenderness, to be indubitably decadent. As for their coffee ritual, evoked in the words, “The coffee service arrives/Like a decree from the sultan”, this might be thought to describe a custom of aristocratic dignity, and even inspire admiration. But it struck this expert, who had been nurtured at the bosom of the people, merely as evidence that the ladies of the city were not just discriminating aristocrats, but women of power. Intoxicated by his own eloquence, the speaker lifted his head high to announce that these women had tyrannised the city for years.

An intervention by the chairman asking for this contribution to be cut short only spurred on the speaker. He did not stop but screeched that these ladies not only wielded power but were the city’s hidden face, its soul, its exact reflection. This, he claimed, was the explanation of the insane fantasies that flourished in this city, fictions about dinners for the dead and the like.

LADIES IN MOURNING

There was no doubt that the ladies were being targeted and it was obvious too how entirely irrational this was.

Paralysis gripped the city. Some of the punishments ordered by the capital city, astonishingly, were interpreted as acts of revenge on behalf of the ladies themselves. The speaker who had so taken them to task was a case in point. “I would arrest the dog,” said the Party chairman, “but those hags would be over the moon with delight. ‘Look,’ they would say, ‘he insulted us, and see how he suffered!’”

There were more meetings on the subject. Meanwhile most people privately thought that this campaign should never have been started. Gentlemen were easy to deal with. You summoned them to court, found them guilty and chained them up. But you couldn’t do anything to ladies. They rarely left their houses, only once, at most twice in as many months. They were as elusive as mirages.

When summer came to an end the Party chairman did not commit suicide as had been long expected but was dismissed, and this seemed an admission that the cause was lost.

But this conclusion was premature. The very moment of the ladies’ apparent triumph proved the truth of the expression, “win a battle, but lose the war”.

It was just after midday on 17 December when Madam Ganimet of the House of the Hankonats, dressed in her winter fur coat, tottered in her high heels across the intersection of Varosh Street and the road to the lycée , when a woman greeted her from her right-hand side. “Good morning, Comrade Ganimet!”

The lady so addressed stopped in her tracks, as if struck by a blow. There for a moment she remained, in the middle of the crossroads and then slowly, as if trying to identify her assailant, attempted to turn her head. But her neck would not obey her.

“It’s me, Comrade Ganimet. I’m Rosie, from the neighbourhood Committee. Are you coming along to the meeting tomorrow?”

Rosie’s quarry remained rooted to the spot. Then she raised her hand as if in search of support and lifted it to her chest. Her knees trembled and she collapsed on the cobblestones.

Some passers-by contacted the hospital, which sent its only ambulance at once.

This was merely the start. Now that a hitherto unsuspected method of bringing down the indomitable ladies had been found, it was open season everywhere. Like seagulls at the end of their life span the ladies of the city fell one after another, wherever they were caught by the fatal cry of “Comrade!” The same scene was repeated: first they froze on the spot and reached out a despairing arm as if for support from some kind gentleman. Sir, your arm, please. Then there was an attempt to see where the blow had come from, a catch of the breath, a trembling at the knees, followed by collapse.

Mrs Nermin Fico and Mrs Sabeko of the House of Zekat both fell on the same day, the first as she was setting out from home and the second when returning from a social call. That same week it was the turn of Mrs Turtulli as she crossed Chain Square. A lady of the Kokalari House, emerging out of doors for the first time in two years, on hearing the cry of “Comrade!” tried to flee, but her knees gave way and she crumpled on the spot. Mrs Mukades Janina, rumoured at one time to have been the king’s secret fiancée, slumped halfway across the Old Bridge, while her assailant, suddenly taking fright, ran away. A lady of the Çoçoli House managed to protest, “I’m not a comrade!” before she fainted, but others fell without a word. The two Maries, Marie Laboviti and Marie Kroi, could only manage an astonished cry of “Oaaah!”, covering their mouths with their hands as they did when teased by street urchins; but this time they did not laugh.

And so it continued, on Castle Street, by the Powder Magazine, in front of Xuano’s shop, by the State Bank and at Çerçiz Topulli Square, where in 1908 our hero Çerçiz shot the Turkish major, after challenging him, “Hey Turkish scum, here comes death from Çerçiz!” All over the town the ladies fell one by one.

Everyone noticed how few of them there were now.

Strangely, now that they were so much less visible, people thought about them more often, recalling places “where the incident happened”, and other details, such as the case of Mrs Meriban Hashorva, carried home on an army stretcher, or Mrs Shtino, who after a gypsy girl shouted “Comrade!” expressed her dying wishes on the way to the hospital. At these “sites of incidents” a stonemason whose name was never mentioned was said to be putting up plaques with the names of the ladies and the day and exact time of their fall.