Ismail Kadare - Broken April

Last night’s dinner had been troublesome. He had had no appetite. Something gnawed at his stomach, gave him an empty feeling that, while he forced himself to eat, seemed more empty with every mouthful.

Mark Ukacierra turned his eyes away from the windows, and looked for a moment at the heavy oak shelves of the library. Most of the books were old, religious works in Latin and in old Albanian. On another shelf set apart from these were, side by side, contemporary publications dealing directly or indirectly with the Kanun and the Kulla of Orosh. Some of the books treated these matters only, and there were journals that contained extracts, articles, monographs, and poems.

If the chief function of Mark Ukacierra was to look after the business of the blood-tax, he was also in charge of the castle’s archives. The various documents were kept in the lower part of the bookcase that was lined on the inside with sheet iron as a safety measure, and locked with a key: deeds, secret treaties, correspondence with foreign consuls, agreements with the successive governments of Albania, with the first republic, the second republic, and the monarchy, agreements with the governors or military commanders of the troops of occupying powers, Turks, Serbs, Austrians. There were documents in foreign languages but for the most part they were written in old Albanian. A great padlock, whose key Mark carried hanging from his neck, glittered yellow between the two doors.

Mark Ukacierra took a step towards the bookshelves, and passed his hand half-caressingly, half-angrily along the row of books and current magazines. He could read and write, but not well enough to really understand what they said about Orosh. A monk from the convent not far from the Kulla came once a month to arrange, according to their contents, the books and magazines that came by the post. He divided them into good and bad publications: the first were those that spoke well of Orosh and the Kanun , the second those that spoke ill, and the proportion of good to bad always varied. Usually the good publications were more numerous, but the number of the bad ones was by no means negligible. There were times when the bad ones increased so as to nearly equal the tally of the good.

Again, Mark passed his hand along the row of books in annoyance, and two or three fell down. There were stories, plays and legends of the High Plateau that, as the monk said, were good for the soul, but there were others bitter as poison, so that one could not understand how the prince could bear to see them on his bookshelves. If it were up to Mark Ukacierra, he would have burnt those books long ago. But the prince was easy-going. Far from burning them or throwing them out of the window, there were times when he actually leafed through them. He was the master and he knew what he was doing.

Last night after dinner, as he walked before his guests through the rooms that adjoined the great hall, he had said on coming to the library, “How many times they have spat upon Orosh, but Orosh was not shaken by it and never will be.” And instead of seeing to the battlements of the Kulla , he would leaf through the books and periodicals as if in them he might find the secret not only of the attacks upon his stronghold but of its defense. “How many governments have fallen,” the prince had gone on, “And how many kingdoms have been swept from the face of the earth, and Orosh is still standing.”

And that fellow, the writer, whom Mark had not cared for from the start, no more than for his beautiful wife, he had leaned down to the books and periodicals to read their titles, and he had said nothing. In the light of what Mark thought he understood in the course of the conversation at dinner, the man had written about the Rrafsh himself, but in such a way that you could not tell whether it was well meant or not. A kind of hybrid. But perhaps it was just for that reason that the prince had invited him to the castle with his wife — to see what he had in mind and to persuade him to adopt his own views.

The steward of the blood turned his back on the bookshelves and looked out of the window again. As far as he was concerned, he had no faith in these guests. It was not only the vague dislike he had felt as soon as he had laid eyes on them, going up the stairs with their leather suitcases, but rather because of a different feeling that was the source of that dislike, a kind of fear that these guests, the woman in particular, aroused in him. The steward of the blood smiled bitterly. Everyone who knew him would have been astonished to learn that he, Mark Ukacierra, who had seldom been afraid of anything all his life — even things that made brave men turn pale — had felt fear in the presence of a woman. Nevertheless, there it was: she had frightened him. By her expression he had understood at once that she had doubts about certain things that were being said around the table. Some of the opinions offered — quite discreetly — by his master, the prince, which had always seemed to him to have the force of law, to be beyond discussion, quietly fell apart, annihilated, as soon as they came before that young woman’s eyes. Can this be possible? Two or three times he had put the question to himself, and he had pulled himself up short immediately. No, it’s not possible. It’s me, I’m losing my wits. But he had glanced furtively at the young woman again, and he was certain that it was really so. The words dissolved in her eyes, lost their strength. And after the words, a wing of the kulla collapsed, and then himself. It was the first time that this had happened, and that was the reason for his fear. All kinds of distinguished guests had occupied the prince’s guest room, from papal envoys to persons close to King Zog, and even those bearded men they call philosophers or scholars, but not one of them had stirred any such feeling in him.

Perhaps that was why the prince had talked more than usual last night. Everyone knew that he was restrained in his speech; sometimes he only opened his mouth to welcome his guests, and usually it was other people who kept the conversation going. But last night, to everyone’s astonishment, he had broken his custom. And in whose presence? A woman’s. Not a woman — a witch. Beautiful as the fairies of the high mountains, but evil. The first mistake was to have allowed that woman to enter the men’s chamber, against all custom. The Kanun knew what it was doing in forbidding women to enter that room. But recently, worse luck, fashion had grown so powerful that one could sense the diabolical spirit even here, in the very pillar of the Kanun , at Orosh.

Mark Ukacierra felt again the nauseous hollow in his stomach. A secret spite contributed to that sick sensation, and it wanted to vent itself, but finding no proper outlet, it turned inward to make him suffer. He wanted to vomit. In fact, he had noticed for some time now that an ill wind blowing from afar, from the cities and the low country that had long ago lost their virility, was trying to stain and infect the high country too. And it had started with the appearance in the Rrafsh of these women dressed to kill, with chestnut or auburn hair, who stirred up a lust for life — even without honor; women who traveled in carriages that rolled along swaying from side to side, carriages of corruption, accompanied by men who were men in name only. And the worst of it was that these capricious dolls were brought right into the men’s chamber, and at Orosh, no less, in the cradle of the Kanun . No, all that wasn’t just chance. Something was blighted, something was rotting away visibly around him. And he was the one who had to account for the decline of the number of killings in the blood feud. Last night, the prince had said — rancorously, looking sidelong at him—“There are some people who would like to see the Kanun of our forefathers softened.” What had the lord of Orosh meant by that look? Was it Mark Ukacierra who was responsible for the fact that the Code, and especially the blood feud, had shown signs of weakening recently? Couldn’t he smell the stench that rose from those androgynous cities? It was true that revenues from the blood tax were smaller this year, but he was not the only person responsible, any more than the fine corn crop was solely to the credit of the bailiff. If the weather had not been in our favor, then he would have seen what the harvest was like! But the year had been good and the prince had praised the bailiff. But blood was not rain falling from the sky. The reasons for its decline were obscure. Of course he had some share of responsibility for all that. But not everything was his doing. Well, if they had given him fuller powers, and if they had let him manage things his way, then, certainly, they could take him to task about the blood tax. Then he would know how to go about it. However, while his impressive title made people tremble, his powers were limited. That was why the blood-feud and everything connected with it was in jeopardy. The number of killings had fallen year after year, and the first season of the current year had been disastrous. He had sensed that, and had awaited anxiously the accounting that his assistants had drawn up for him a few days before. The results had been even worse than he had feared: the monies collected were less than seventy percent of the revenue of the corresponding period in the preceding year. And this at a time when not only the bailiff in charge of croplands but all the other managers in the Prince’s service, the bailiff for cattle and pastures, the bailiff for loans, and most of all, the bailiff for mills and mines, who attended to all the trades that required tools, from looms to forges, had payed large sums into the general treasury. As for himself, the chief bailiff (for the sums realized by the others came solely from the holdings of the castle, while his were levied upon the whole of the High Plateau) who at one time used to collect sums equal to the total of all other revenues, he now brought in only half the amount of those monies.