Ismail Kadare - Broken April

He was deep in these thoughts when he made out in the distance some grey buildings that he thought he recognized. Look, those are the Manors of Rreze, he said to himself when he had come up with them. From those houses up to a brook whose name he had forgotten, the road, he believed, was under the bessa . The roads protected by the bessa had no signboards, nor any special marks, but nonetheless, everyone knew them. All he need do was to ask the first person he met.

Gjorg, walking on the moor now, quickened his pace. His mind had shaken off its somnolence. He would reach the road protected by the bessa , and he would stroll along on it until evening without having to cower under a bush. Meanwhile…. who could tell, the carriage lined with velvet might come that way. Once, people had told him, it had appeared at the Manors of Shala.

Yes, yes, that’s what he would do. He turned his eyes to the left, then to the right, made certain that the road like the moor was deserted, and stepping lightly, in a few moments he reached the highroad and began to walk along it. He had taken that shortcut in order to get to the road that was under the bessa , failing which it would have been an hour’s walk to get there.

Careful, he told himself. Now the shadow cast by his head fell to the east. But the highroad was still deserted. He walked swiftly, thinking of nothing. Far ahead he saw black figures that were hardly moving. As he came nearer, he saw that they were two mountaineers and a woman riding a donkey.

“That road over there, is it under the bessa ?” Gjorg asked.

“Oh, yes, lad,” the older man replied. “For a hundred years now, the road that runs from the Manors of Rreze to the Nymph’s Brook has been protected by the bessa .”

“Thank you.”

“Not at all, my boy,” the old man said, stealing a glance at the black ribbon on Gjorg’s sleeve. “A safe journey to you.”

As he strode swiftly down the road, Gjorg wondered what the killers overtaken by the end of their truce, all over the High Plateau, would do without those roads that were under the bessa , their places of refuge, where they were sheltered from their pursuers.

The section of the road protected by the bessa differed not at all from the rest of the road. It was the same ancient paving, damaged in places by horses’ hooves and flowing water, with the same hollows in its surface and, at the sides, the same brush. But Gjorg felt that there was something warm about the golden dust. He took a deep breath and he slowed his pace. Here is where I’ll wait for nightfall, he thought. He would sit down and rest on a stone. That would be better than hiding in a thicket. Besides, the carriage might come this way. He still had a faint hope that he might see her. And his musings went further than that: he saw the carriage stop and heard the people in it say, “Oh, mountaineer, if you’re tired, climb into our carriage and ride with us a ways.”

Now and again, Gjorg looked up at the sky. In three hours, at most, night would fall. Mountaineers were going by, on foot or on horseback, alone or in small groups. In the distance he could see two or three motionless specks. They must surely be murderers like himself who were waiting for night in order to travel farther. They must be worried at home, he thought.

A mountaineer came along, walking slowly and driving before him an ox that was all black.

Gjorg was walking even more slowly than the mountaineer and his ox, and they came up with him.

“Good afternoon,” the man said.

“Good afternoon,” Gjorg said.

The man made a gesture with his head at the sky.

“Time just doesn’t go by,” he said.

He had a reddish mustache that seemed to light up his smile.

“Your bessa ’s over?”

“Yes, since noon today.”

“Mine was over three days ago, but I haven’t managed to sell this bull yet.”

Gjorg looked at him astonished.

“For two weeks I’ve been tramping the roads with him, and I can’t manage to sell him. He’s one fine animal, all my people wept when they saw him leaving, and I can’t find a buyer.”

Gjorg did not know what to say. He had never had anything to do with selling cattle.

“I’d like to sell him before I shut myself up in the tower,” the mountaineer went on. “The family’s in bad shape, friend, and if I don’t sell him myself, there won’t be any one at home to sell him. But I don’t have much hope anymore. If I haven’t been able to sell him in the two weeks when I was still free, how am I going to sell him now that I can only go about by night? Well, what do you think?”

“You’re right,” Gjorg said. “It won’t be easy.”

Looking sidelong, he watched the black ox that was chewing calmly. The words of the old ballad of the soldier dying in a far-off country came to him: “Give my love to mother and tell her to sell the black ox.”

“Where are you from?” the mountaineer asked.

“From Brezftoht.”

“That’s not so far from here. If you step along you can be home tonight.”

“And you?” Gjorg asked.

“Oh, I’m from very far from here, from the Krasniq banner.”

Gjorg whistled. “Yes, that’s really far. You’ll certainly have sold your bull before you get home.”

“I don’t think so. Now the only places where I can sell him are the roads that are under the bessa , and they’re scarce.”

Gjorg nodded.

“You see, if this road that’s under the bessa went as far as the crossing with the Grand Road of the Banners, well, I could certainly sell him. But it ends before that.”

“Is the Road of the Banners nearby?”

“It’s not far. That’s what I call a road! What don’t you see go by there!”

“It’s true, you see very odd things on the roads. Once I happened to see a carriage—”

“A black carriage with a pretty woman in it,” the other man interrupted.

“How do you know that?” Gjorg cried.

“I saw her yesterday at the Inn of the Cross.”

“And what were they doing there?”

“What were they doing? Nothing. The carriage didn’t have the horses in the shafts, and it was just in front of the inn. The coachman was drinking coffee in it.”

“And she?”

The mountaineer smiled. “They were inside the inn. They had been there two days and two nights without leaving their room. That’s what the innkeeper said. Old boy, that woman was as beautiful as a fairy. Her eyes pierced you through and through. I left them behind me last night. They certainly must have left today.”

“How do you know?”

“The innkeeper said so. They were supposed to leave the next day. The coachman told him.”

Gjorg was stunned for some moments. He stared at the paved road-surface.

“And what road do you take to get there?” he asked suddenly.

The other man pointed out the direction.

“It’s an hour’s walk from here. This road we’re on crosses the Road of the Banners. They have to pass there, if they haven’t done so already. There is no other road.”

Gjorg was staring in the direction that his companion had pointed to. Now the man looked at him in surprise.

“What’s the matter with you, you poor fellow?” he said.

Gjorg did not answer. An hour’s walk from here, he told himself. He raised his head to look for the sun’s track behind the clouds. He reckoned that there were still two hours of daylight left. She had never been so near. He would be able to see his fairy.

Without further thought, without even saying goodbye to his fellow wayfarer, he went off like a madman in the direction where, according to the man with the black ox, the crossroads lay.