Ismail Kadare - Elegy for Kosovo

One after the other, in the heavy silence, they sang their songs, ancient and cold as stone, each in his own language: “A great fog is covering the Field of the Blackbirds! Rise, O Serbs, the Albanians are taking Kosovo.” “A black fog has descended — Albanians, to arms, Kosovo is falling to the damned Serb.”

The guests, who had been listening with sorrowful faces, asked the Balkan minstrels to explain what their songs were about. At first the nobles sat speechless, not believing what they were told. Then they became angry — the Balkan lands have fallen, and these minstrels continue singing songs that keep the old enmities alive?

“It is true that there is dissension everywhere, but dissension like yours is really unique in the world!” one of the guests said contemptuously.

“What wretches you are!” the lord of the castle shouted.

They stood with bowed heads as the guests denounced them. They would have tried to explain, as they had that evening long ago, but they realized that their words would fall on deaf ears. “It would have been better for us to have died on the battlefield than end up at this cursed banquet,” Gjorg thought.

Among the hosts sat an old woman, who peered at them intently. From her attire and her position at the table, it was obvious that she was a great lady. Her eyes were fiery, but her face was white and cold, as if it were from another world.

“You must sing of other things,” she said in a kindly voice.

The minstrels held their peace.

“What songs do you expect from them?” one of the guests at the end of the table asked. “Hate is all they know!”

“They corrupt everything, the way they corrupt the milk,” a guest shouted through the mocking laughter.

“Do not insult them,” the old woman said, her eyes fixed on Gjorg’s hand, which was clenching the hilt of his dagger. “In their land,” she continued, “insulting a guest is a black calamity, blacker than a lost war.”

Silence descended on the banquet.

“Take your hand off your dagger,” Vladan whispered. “This can cost us our necks.” Entreaties and pleas rained down on Gjorg’s head like an avalanche of rocks: “Don’t do anything foolish that will cost us all our necks!” On the verge of tears, he pulled his numb fingers from the hilt of his dagger,

“At our table no man shall offend another!” the lord of the castle said.

The old woman’s eyes became even kindlier.

“If you cannot sing or do not want to, then why do you not tell us a tale?” she asked. “I have heard that there is much of interest in the lands from which you come. Tell us of the living, of the dead, of those hovering in between.”

Vladan looked at Manolo and then at the Croat, as if he were seeking help, but both men shrugged their shoulders. It was not surprising that they wavered — the one could only tell folktales, the other only mimic the calls of birds and wolves. To ask these minstrels to talk of their lands was like asking a cavalryman to take a broom and sweep the road. And yet, a large crowd of Balkan fugitives outside the castle gates had placed all their hope in them.

Vladan began speaking spontaneously. He himself was amazed that he could. It was the first time that he did not sing before listeners, but speak. It seemed ridiculous, shameful, and sinful, all together. Two or three times he felt that his mouth was about to dry up. “Do not stop, brother!” the others urged him with their eyes, but he signaled to them that he was at the end of his tether. The others came to his rescue. The first to speak was Manolo the Walachian, then the Croat, and finally Gjorg, who, after the insult he had suffered, had seemed determined not to open his mouth, even on pain of death.

Their tales were wondrous, at times cruel and chilling and at times filled with sorrow. Everyone listened, but the great lady most intently. Her face was still a mask, but her eyes were on fire. “These tales bring to mind the Greek tragedies,” she said in a low voice. “They are of the same diamond dust, the same seed.”

“What are these Greek tragedies?” the lord of the castle asked.

She sighed deeply and said that they were perhaps the greatest wealth of mankind. A simple treasure chest, like the one in which any feudal lord hides his gold coins, was big enough to hold all these tragedies. And yet, not only had they not been preserved, but over the centuries they had been scattered, these tragedies that would have made the world — in other words, its spirit — twice as beautiful.

The lord of the castle shook his head, dumbfounded at the thought of such negligence. The old lady smiled sadly. How could she explain to him that she, too, had always felt the same way about the negligence of the erudite men, the monastic librarians, the scribes and abbots? She had written countless letters to princes, cardinals, even to the pope. The responses she received had been increasingly cool, until finally she was openly reproached: instead of devoting herself to Jesus Christ, she, an erudite lady, possibly the most erudite lady of all the French and German lands, was obsessed with pagan gods.

For days in a row she had swept through her vast library like a shadow. But it became rapidly clear that there was no place in heaven for ancient deities.

Now, after so many years, she had heard as if in a trance these thunderclaps from that distant world, brought by these destitute fugitives with faces wild from war. Thunderclaps like fragments of the crown fallen from the ancient sky. Rites of death, changes of season, sacrificial customs, tales of blood feuds — all carrying the malediction for a thousand years, more immaculately than any chronicle.

Now, in those lands from which these poor destitute men had come, there were no ancient theaters left, no tragedies. There were only scattered fragments. Now that night had descended on all those lands, perhaps the time had come for her to resume her letters. That region, which seemed to be but a distant forecourt of Europe, was in fact its bridal chamber. The roots that had given birth to everything were there. And therefore it should under no circumstances be abandoned.

The Balkan minstrels continued to tell their tales, now interrupting each other. In their desire to be accepted they had forgotten the insults, and humbly, almost awkwardly, begged: We want to he like you. We think like you. Don’t drive us away.

The old lady sensed that there was something missing from their tales.

“Could you sing the things you have been telling us?” she asked.

They were shaken as if they had been dealt a blow. Then, tearing themselves out of their stupor, one after the other, each in his own language, and finally in Latin, said “No.” Non.

“Why not?” she asked kindly. “Why do you not try?”

“Non, domina magna, we cannot under any circumstances. We are minstrels of war.“

She shook her head and then insistently, almost beseeching them, repeated her request.

The Balkan minstrels’ faces grew dark. They broke out in cold sweats, as if they were being tortured. Even the words they uttered were uttered as if in a nightmare. They were martial minstrels. They were filled with fervor and hatred, but there was something vital missing. They could not break out of the mold. Besides which, they would first have to consult their elders. Consult the dead. They would have to wait for them to appear in their dreams so that they could consult them. No, they could not, under any circumstances. Non.

The last sounds dissolved into the night, the barking of the dogs thinned out, but the great lady could not fall asleep. After a banquet, sleep always came either far too easily or with too much difficulty. And yet, her insomnia that night was of a different kind. Among the thoughts that always came to plague her, a new one appeared — solitary, foreign, and dangerous as a winter wolf. This thought, alien to her mind, to the whole world perhaps, tried to take shape but immediately disintegrated, thrashing around as if in a trap, tearing out of its confines, but then, on gaining its freedom the thought fled, rushing back into its snare, the skull from which it had escaped.