Ismail Kadare - The Ghost Rider

The two camps fought it out for a long time. At times it seemed that the celestial tale of Maria Matrenga, sprinkled with gold dust like an icon, was in the ascendant, especially at twilight and at the change of seasons; but along came damp and smelly days, when the spittle and stutter of the poor cretin struck fear into people’s hearts.

The distant marriage faction had begun to gain ground, but although those who feared inbreeding were easily dissuaded from local marriages, they were equally pained by the prospect of separation. In the beginning, then, the distances were kept small, and marriages two, four, even seven mountains away were countenanced. But then came the striking separation with Doruntine, divided from her family by half a continent.

Now, as the throng following along behind the procession of invited guests headed slowly towards the church, people talked, whispered, recalled the circumstances of Doruntine’s marriage, the reluctance of her mother and the brothers who opposed the union, Kostandin’s insistence that the marriage take place and his besa to his mother that he would always bring Doruntine back to her. As for Doruntine herself, no one knew whether she had freely consented to the marriage. More beautiful than ever, on horseback among her brothers and relatives — who were also mounted — misty with tears, as custom requires of every young bride, she was a wraith already belonging more to the horizon than to them.

All this now came to mind as the procession followed the same path the throng of guests had taken then. And just as crystal shines the more brightly on a cloth of black velvet, so the memory of Doruntine’s marriage against the background of grief now gained in brilliance in the minds of all those present. Henceforth it would be difficult for people to think of the one without the other, especially since everyone felt that Doruntine looked as beautiful in her coffin as she had done astride the horse caparisoned for the wedding. Beautiful, but to what end? they murmured. No one had partaken of her beauty. Now the earth alone would enjoy it.

Others, in voices even more muted, spoke of her mysterious return, repeating what people had told them or denying it.

“It seems,” someone said, “that Stres is trying to solve the mystery. The prince himself has ordered him to get to the root of it.”

“Believe me,” a companion interrupted, “there’s no mystery about it. She returned to close the circle of death, that’s all.”

“Yes, but how did she come back?”

“Ah, that we shall never know. It seems that one of her brothers rose from the grave by night to go and fetch her. That’s what I heard, it’s really astounding. But some people claim that — I know, I know, but don’t say it, it’s a sin to say such things, especially on the day of her burial. We should rather pray for the poor girl, let the earth not weigh on her too heavily!”

Talk turned once again to the wedding of three years ago, and many felt that the funeral was only its extension, or, more exactly, was the wedding itself, turned upside down. After her bridal journey, Doruntine had simply gone on another outing, one that was macabre … with a dead man, or … an unidentified … Well, whoever it was, it was a most unusual journey … or rather, an unnatural one … and what’s more, with a corpse … or worse still, with a … But let’s drop all that, it’s a sin to speak of such things. May God forgive the sinners that we are, and may the earth lie lightly upon her!

And people cut short their discussions, tacitly agreeing that a few days hence, perhaps even on the morrow, once the dead were buried and tranquillity restored, they would speak of this again, perhaps less guardedly, and surely with greater malice.

Which is exactly what happened. Once the burial was over and the whole story seemed at an end, a great clamour arose, the like of which had rarely been heard. It spread in waves through the surrounding countryside and rolled on farther, sweeping to the frontiers of the principality, spilling over its borders and cascading through neighbouring principalities and counties. It was as if many of the people who had attended the burial had carried bits of it away to sow throughout the land.

There were some folk who had prayed for Doruntine on Sunday at the funeral, asking over and over again that the dust and mud treat her kindly and not weigh too heavily on her breast. But now it didn’t occur to them that the calumnies they were putting about were more crushing than any amount of earth or stone.

Passing from ear to ear by word of mouth, the rumour was borne by every breath of air and certainly conveyed many a reproach, of the sort that everyone refrains from expressing directly but is prepared, in such circumstances, to evoke in roundabout ways. And as it grew more distant it began to dilate and change its shape like a wandering cloud, though its essence remained immutable: a dead man had come back from the grave to keep the promise he had made to his mother: to bring his married sister back to her from far away whenever she so wished.

Barely a week had gone by since the burial of the two women when Stres was urgently summoned to the Monastery of the Three Crosses. The archbishop of the principality awaited him there, having come expressly on a matter of the greatest importance.

Expressly on a matter of the greatest importance, Stres repeated to himself again and again as he crossed the plain on horseback. What could the archbishop possibly want of him? The prelate did not leave his archiepiscopal seat very often, especially to travel in such awful weather.

A chill wind blew over the frosty, autumnal plain. On either side of the road, as far as the eye could see, despondent hayricks looked as if they were slowly collapsing on themselves. Stres pulled up the collar of his riding cape. What if it had to do with the Doruntine story, he wondered. But he rejected that possibility out of hand. Ridiculous! What did the archbishop have to do with it? He had enough thorny problems of his own, especially since tension in the Albanian territories between the Catholic Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church had reached fever pitch. Some years before, when the spheres of influence of Catholicism and Orthodoxy had become more or less defined, the principality remaining under the sway of the Byzantine Church, Stres had thought that this endless quarrel was at last drawing to a close. Not at all. The two churches had once more taken up their struggle for the allegiance of individual Albanian princes and counts. Information regularly reaching Stres from the inns and relay posts suggested that in recent times Catholic missionaries had intensified their activities in the principalities. Perhaps that was the reason for the archbishop’s visit — but then Stres himself was not involved in those matters. It was not he who issued safe conduct passes. No, Stres said to himself, I have nothing to do with that. It must be something else.

He would find out soon enough what it was all about. There was no point in racking his brains now. There was probably a simple explanation: the archbishop may have come for some other reason — a tour of inspection, for instance — and decided incidentally to avail himself of Stres’s services in resolving this or that problem. The spread of the practice of magic, for instance, had posed a problem for the church, and that did fall within Stres’s remit. Yes, he told himself, that must be it, sensing that he had finally found some solid ground. Nevertheless, it was only a small step from the practice of magic to a dead man rising from his grave. No! — he almost said it aloud — the archbishop can have nothing to do with Doruntine! And spurring his horse, he quickened his pace.

It was really cold. The houses of a hamlet loomed briefly somewhere off to his right, but soon he could see nothing but the plain again, with the haystacks drifting towards the horizon. The puddles beneath his horse’s hooves reflected nothing, and thus seemed hostile to him. The plain is in mourning … he muttered, repeating one of the lines of the professional mourners’ chants. He had been astonished to come across the phrase again in his informers’ reports. He’d certainly heard it said of a person that he or she was in grief, or in mourning … But not of a landscape!