Ismail Kadare - The Ghost Rider

On the way, pressed against the horseman as she was, she noticed quite unmistakably that his hair was not just dusty, but covered with mud that was barely dry, and that his body smelled of sodden earth. Two or three times she questioned him about it. He answered that he had been caught in the rain several times on his way there and that the dust on his body and in his hair, thus moistened, had turned to clots of mud .

When, towards midnight on 11 October, Doruntine and the unknown man (for let us so designate the man the young woman took to be her brother) finally approached the residence of the Lady Mother, he reined in his horse and told his companion to dismount and go to the house, for he had something to do at the church. Without waiting for an answer, he rode towards the church and the cemetery, while she ran to the house and knocked at the door. The old woman asked who was there, and then the few words exchanged between mother and daughter — the latter having said that it was she and that she had come with Kostandin, the former replying that Kostandin was three years dead — gave to both the shock that felled them .

This affair, which one is bound to admit is most puzzling, may be explained in one of two ways: either someone, for some reason, deceived Doruntine, posing as her brother with the express purpose of bringing her back, or Doruntine herself, for some unknown reason, has not told the truth and has concealed the manner of her return or the identity of the person who brought her back .

I thought it necessary to make a relatively detailed report about these events because they concern one of the noblest families in the principality and because they are of a kind that might seriously trouble people’s minds .

Captain Stres

After initialling his report, Stres sat staring absently at his slanted handwriting. Two or three times he picked up his pen and was tempted to lean over the sheets of paper to amend, recast, or perhaps correct some passage, but each time he was about to put pen to paper his hand froze, and in the end he left his text unaltered.

He got up slowly, put the letter into an envelope, sealed it, and called for a messenger. When the man had gone, Stres stood for a long moment looking out the window, feeling his headache worsen. A crowd of theories jostled one another to enter his head as if through a narrow door. He rubbed his forehead as though to stem the flood. Why would an unknown traveller have done it? And if it was not some impostor, the question was even more delicate: What was Doruntine hiding? He paced back and forth in his office; as he came near the window he could see the messenger’s back, shrinking steadily as he threaded his way through the bare poplars. And what if neither of these suppositions was correct, he suddenly said to himself. What if something else had happened, something the mind cannot easily comprehend? Who knows what lies hidden inside us all?

He carried on staring at the windowpane. That rectangle of glass which, at any other time, would have struck him as the most ordinary and innocent thing in the world now suddenly seemed fraught with mystery. It stood in the very midpoint of life, simultaneously separating and connecting the world. “Strange,” he mumbled to himself.

Stres managed to snap out of his daydream, turned his back on the window, called his deputy and strode down the stairs.

“Let’s go to the church,” he said to his deputy when he heard the man’s footsteps, then his panting, at his back. “Let’s have a look at Kostandin’s grave.”

“Good idea. When all is said and done, the story only makes sense if someone came back from the grave.”

“I wasn’t considering anything so ludicrous. I have something else in mind.”

His stride lengthened as he said to himself, why am I taking this business so much to heart? After all, there had been no murder, no serious crime, nor indeed any offence of the kind he was expected to investigate in his capacity as regional captain. A few moments ago, as he was drafting his report, this thought had come to him several times: Am I not being too hasty in troubling the prince’s chancellery about a matter of no importance? But some inner voice told him he wasn’t. That same voice told him that something shocking had occurred, something that went beyond mere murder or any other crime, something that made assassination and similar heinous acts seem mere trifles.

The little church, with its freshly repaired bell tower, was now very near, but Stres suddenly veered off and went straight into the cemetery, not through the iron grille, but through an inconspicuous wooden gate. He hadn’t been in the cemetery for a long time, and he had trouble getting his bearings.

“This way,” said his deputy as he strode along. “The graves of the Vranaj sons must be over here.”

Stres fell in step beside him. The ground was soft in places. Small, soot-blackened icons streaked with candle wax added to the serene and melancholy atmosphere. Some of the graves were covered with moss. Stres stooped to right an overturned cross, but it was heavy and he had to leave it. He walked on. He saw his deputy beckon in the distance: he had found them at last.

Stres walked over. The graves, neatly aligned and covered with slabs of black stone, were identical, made in a shape that suggested a cross as well as a sword, or a man standing with his arms stretched out. At the head of each grave was a small niche for an icon and candles. Beneath it the dead man’s name was carved.

“There’s his grave,” said the deputy, his voice hushed.

Stres looked up and saw that the man had gone pale.

“What’s the matter?”

His deputy pointed at the grave.

“Take a good look,” he said. “The stones have been moved.”

“What?” Stres leaned forward to see what his aide was pointing to. For a long moment he examined the spot carefully, then stood up straight. “Yes, it’s true. There’s been some disturbance here.”

“Just as I told you,” said the deputy, his satisfaction in seeing that his chief shared his view mixed with a new surge of fear.

“But that doesn’t mean much,” Stres remarked.

His deputy turned and looked at him with surprise. His eyes seemed to say, sure, a commander must preserve his dignity in all circumstances, but there comes a time when one must forget about rank, office and such formalities. A battered sun strove to break through the clouds. They looked up, in some astonishment, but neither uttered the words each might have expected to hear in such circumstances.

“No, it doesn’t mean anything,” Stres said. “For one thing, the slabs could have subsided by themselves, as happens eventually in most graves. Moreover, even if someone did move them, it might well have been an unknown traveller who moved the gravestones before perpetrating his hoax to make it look like the dead man had risen from his grave.”

The deputy listened open-mouthed. He was about to say something, perhaps to raise some objection, but Stres carried on talking.

“In fact, it is more likely that he did it after leaving Doruntine near the house. It’s possible he came here then and moved the gravestones before he went off.”

Stres, who now seemed weary, let his gaze wander over the field that stretched before him, as if seeking the direction in which the unknown traveller had ridden off. From where they stood they could see the two-storey Vranaj house, part of the village, and the highway, which disappeared into the horizon. It was here on this ground, between the church and that house of sorrow, that the mysterious event of the night of 11 October had occurred. Go on ahead. I have something to do at the church …

“That’s how it must have happened,” Stres said. “Unless she’s lying.”