Elvira Dones - Sworn Virgin

On the third day she puts on all the clothes she can find and creeps out of the kulla unnoticed. She knows the path with her eyes shut. There’s not much to see. Mist rises from the snow, obscuring her vision. After a while a runaway dog crashes into her legs. They are both scared. He’s wagging his tail, staring at her. It’s the Bardhajs’ dog; he likes making love to sheep. He’s the disgrace of his masters but the village kids’ best friend. He won’t bite. He licks her hand. Then they each go their own way.

When she enters the tiny village health center, there’s nobody to be seen, but she can hear a child wailing in the other room. The doctor comes out, followed by the child’s mother, followed by the only nurse, all smelling of talcum powder.

The mother is young, about Hana’s age. She nods to her and leaves.

‘Hi Hana,’ the doctor says. ‘Welcome home. How are you?’

‘Good morning, Doctor.’ Hana carefully avoids using the word ‘comrade.’

‘Did you just get here from Tirana?’

‘No, I arrived three days ago.’

‘Gjergj is very sick. He has cancer. I took him to Scutari myself, Hana. I’m really sorry.’

The doctor is in his thirties. He speaks a literary Albanian, his vowels open and his cadences perfect. He’s in Rrnajë as a punishment. His family in the capital has a problem with the regime. It is rumored that some writer uncle of his had a few too many things to say.

‘Uncle Gjergj has always enjoyed excellent health. He can’t be that sick.’

‘But he is.’

In a corner of the room there’s a coffee pot boiling. Behind the doctor, the window is steamed up. On the wall to Hana’s left is a portrait of the recently departed dictator, Enver Hoxha.

‘How long has he got, Doctor?’

‘Maybe four months. Maybe six, if he takes his drugs regularly.’

‘He takes them.’

‘He needs to take them without fail.’

‘He’ll take them.’

‘Hana, you’re not following me. The drugs are very expensive and the state does not provide them through the health system. They need to be picked up in town, in Scutari, once a month.’

‘Don’t you have a regular supply?’

He smiles, guardedly. So as not to show any dissatisfaction or discontent, Hana thinks. He opens his arms, as if in surrender. The white coat is thin from over-washing, almost see-through.

‘I’m taking him to Tirana,’ she says.

The doctor observes her. His gaze is desolate and his face anonymous, except for his curly hair, a bit too long in the front. That’s prohibited by the canons of socialist aesthetics. He is sad for his own reasons, Hana decides. He’s sad and lonely.

‘A classmate of mine in Tirana is the daughter of a famous surgeon. Who knows? She might let me talk to her father and he might be able to help Uncle Gjergj.’

Hana gives the name of the potential savior. The doctor knows him; he worked for a while as his assistant before … He gestures something. Before being buried alive here, Hana guesses.

‘How is my Tirana?’ he whispers.

‘Fine. Beautiful actually.’

‘It’s exciting,’ she’d like to add, but she’s not so stupid. The dictator died barely a year ago and the people in Tirana are waiting for a miracle to happen any minute now. At college, students spread the word quietly that the country may even open up to the West. Books that were prohibited now change hands furtively under the desks.

‘You’ll be going back soon, I imagine … ’ He smiles, lost and vulnerable. He looks almost handsome. Suffering suits him.

There are some people who look good even when they’re dead. She remembers her father’s body. Her parents had been buried on a beautiful sunny day. Her father had not been good-looking in life, but he was when he was dead. They hadn’t let her see her mother. Uncle Gjergj had said it was for the best. He had been right, she realized. Nanë had been really beautiful when she was alive.

‘I’m not going back to Tirana without Uncle Gjergj,’ Hana told the doctor. ‘Will you help me take him?’

‘Sure, I’ll help you. I can go visit my parents, and I still have a few friends down there.’ He plays around with a pen. ‘Do you have any books with you, Hana?’

‘Only in English. I’ve got Dickens’ Great Expectations and the first volume of a history of Britain.’

‘That would be great. Anything you’ve got. I’ll give them back soon.’

‘Ok.’

That is the end of their conversation. The nurse knocks on the door. Hana leaves. Halfway home, Hana bursts into tears. She looks up and keeps her eyes open wide. The snow finds its way into her eyelids. How do you settle your accounts with your soul when you die? It must be hard. Time to say goodbye to your body, time to weep your farewells, time to give up. The soul can’t be hurried, it’s not a magic trick.

She looks down again and sobs out loud. The snowstorm is a giant down comforter that suffocates her deep guttural sounds. She weeps for the doctor with the worn-out white coat, perhaps, or for the Bardhajs’ dog that doesn’t know how to love other dogs, only sheep, or again perhaps for the guy on her French course who had said in the canteen a few days before that she, Hana Doda, was beautiful. She cries and cries and can’t seem to stop.

The doctor arrives at the Dodas’ kulla the next day. They have coffee together, then he examines Uncle Gjergj, measures his blood pressure, touches his swollen throat, and leaves him some cough syrup for when his cough chokes him. He sees Gjergj smoking his pipe and doesn’t smoke one with him, but nor does he preach at him. Then he gets up. At the door, Hana hands him the two books.

Katrina and Hana watch him as he walks away. The doctor carries a rifle, like a true man of the mountains. If it weren’t for his city gait you could almost take him for a local. The Party has given him a special license to carry a rifle because the wolves are particularly aggressive this year. One day they tried to get into the health center, they were so desperate for food. Mountain folk are no longer allowed to carry rifles, only guards and shepherds have permission. Gjergj Doda has a rifle because he’s a shepherd.

The snow lets up for a while. The men from the electricity company come to raise the power lines, but they too sink into the snow and can’t get on with their work. They give up and leave, their tools and some giant iron hooks deposited in the offices of the agricultural cooperative.

In the penumbra of the kulla , Uncle Gjergj is rasping. He can neither talk nor sleep. Hana keeps him company. Aunt Katrina sits beside him, stoking the fire in the copper grate.

‘You should go, dear daughter,’ Uncle Gjergj whispers. ‘You need to get back to school.’

Hana looks at him. She would like to hug him but doesn’t dare. She says that in two days, as soon as the road is cleared, she’ll take him to Tirana.

‘You’re a stubborn one,’ Uncle Gjergj says, his hands and chin trembling. He doesn’t look at Hana for fear he’ll begin to cry. Again she wants to hug him. But he falls asleep, hunched over, and Katrina lays a rough woolen blanket over his shoulders.

When they finally make it to Tirana it is already March and the weather down south is mild.

‘We can try surgery,’ a couple of doctors say, half-heartedly.

The public hospital is pulsing with activity. On the other side of the hospital wall there’s a military academy. Hana, Katrina, and the patient sit on a green bench in the giant courtyard, waiting their turn for a second opinion. There’s another group of doctors willing to examine Gjergj. Over the wall they hear an imperious voice whipping out orders, the clacking of heels, hands moving, the rhythmic clanging of metal. Weapons changing hands.