‌‌1986

‘Thank God you’re here,’ Uncle Gjergj says. ‘You made it with all this snow.’

The electricity is down. The snowstorm has stolen the light from all the houses in Rrnajë and the rest of the region. The power lines sag under the weight of the snow. Adults sink to their waists in the freezing mantle, children to over their heads. There isn’t a living soul outside. Just silent snow falling, accompanied here and there by the distant ringing of a bell tied to the neck of some lost goat.

The hurricane lamp casts Uncle Gjergj’s shadow onto the stone wall of the kulla.

‘Welcome home, dear daughter,’ Aunt Katrina says. She is tall and wizened with age, her hair hidden behind a white headscarf. She looks like Lawrence of Arabia, without the desert, Hana thinks. She saw the film back in Tirana. Aunt Katrina looks like a female version of Peter O’Toole.

‘Are you hungry, my love?’ Katrina asks.

‘No, thank you.’

‘We’ll be eating soon anyway.’

‘That’s fine. Can I give you a hand?’

‘No, sweetie. Your uncle needs to talk to you. I’ll get dinner ready.’

Katrina disappears into the darkness of the kulla. Uncle Gjergj is lying down, which is not like him. If it weren’t dark she would see his pallid complexion. But she doesn’t see it. He is strong and handsome. The wrinkles on his face are a carefully drawn map.

‘Did you bump into anyone in the village on your way here?’

Hana shakes her head.

She had seen the sea before coming to the village. Blerta, her college roommate, had come north with her. She’s from a little village by the sea, near Scutari. Hana slept at her house the night before catching the bus that would take her home. The sea had been rough. Giant waves had vented their multi-hued rage.

Hana slept really well at Blerta’s house. Wild horses wandered along the deserted beach; the sheets smelled of sea salt.

‘Stay one more day,’ Blerta had pleaded. ‘You love being by the sea.’

She couldn’t. Something serious had happened at home. Her uncle had never called her in Tirana before. He wouldn’t have called without good reason.

Hana left clutching a bag of sand.

‘I’ll wait for you,’ Blerta told her. ‘We’ll go back to Tirana together in a week. Remember, we’ve got a seminar on Renaissance literature.’

‘Sure, Blerta. Tungjatë.’

‘So you’re already talking like the mountain people?’ Blerta teased.

Hana liked using the tungjatjeta goodbye. Hand on heart, solemn gaze, the fleeting touch of foreheads to seal the sacred nature of the farewell. May your life grow longer!

She glances at her almost-decent city clothes. In the shadow of the kulla they look all right.

‘I’m sick,’ Uncle Gjergj says. ‘There’s this thing in my throat. They say it’s big. Sometimes it chokes me and I can’t speak.’

‘How long have you known?’

‘Two months.’

‘The other day I dreamed you had a mountain on your back and you were stooped over with the weight. The mountain was made of dry earth and when you moved it crumbled around you so you were walking in the middle of a cloud of yellow dust.’

Gjergj laughs, the hurricane lamp making his mouth look bigger.

‘Sit down,’ he says.

Hana obeys. Between her and her uncle there is an ancient wooden table. He struggles to sit up in bed. Now Hana can see his terrifyingly swollen neck and the effort he makes to move his jaws normally while he’s talking. He wants to know how college is going and she tells him that in a few days she has an important seminar on Albanian Renaissance literature. Gjergj says he doesn’t know what a seminar is and she explains.

‘And what is the Renaissance?’

‘It’s the cultural rebirth of a nation after a long period of darkness. Here in Albania the Renaissance was later than in the rest of Europe, not until the end of the Ottoman occupation.’

‘It sounds like a complicated story, dear daughter.’

Hana doesn’t say anything. Gjergj is an intelligent man but he often pretends he’s not. She had no problem convincing him to let her go away to college. There are no books in the kulla, except a well-hidden Bible and a history of Skanderbeg, the national hero. That’s the sum total. But she has always thought he knows much more than he lets on.

‘Are you happy down in the capital?’

‘Yes, very.’

‘Even with all that communist garbage they thrust down your throats?’

The word ‘thrust’ is not a common word in these parts. Not for a shepherd. Not for a man who can only write his own name. Hana is pleased with this confirmation of her suspicions.

‘I like it anyway, even with the garbage. More than up here.’

‘Well … ’ Pause. ‘I’m sorry I called you.’

‘What do the doctors say exactly?’

‘The bread’s ready,’ Aunt Katrina announces softly.

Neither Hana nor Gjergj heard her come in. Hana doesn’t move. The old lady sits down next to her. Katrina has a bad heart and is only alive by a miracle. She is the love of Gjergj’s life. The way they treat each other is not typical around here. Their dialect gives them away as mountain folk, not their gestures.

‘I’ve made the beans. If you don’t eat now they’ll get cold, my love.’

Hana takes her hand.

‘Can you tell me what’s really going on, Uncle Gjergj?’

‘They say I don’t have long to live. Even if I have surgery, they don’t think they can save me. I had to tell you in person.’

‘It can’t be true.’

‘They say I’ve been sick for a while, I just didn’t know it. Now it’s too late.’

‘You can come with me to Tirana. The doctors down there will say something different. They’re the best in the country.’

Her uncle shakes his head. Hana feels a quiver in her stomach but she can’t cry. She has never cried in front of him; it would disappoint him. The mountain peals with thunder. The snow is tired of falling. The roof of the hut is weighed down by two centuries of life.

‘Everything’s getting cold,’ Katrina complains.

‘You’re coming to Tirana, Uncle Gjergj.’

Dinner is delicious. The potatoes melt in her mouth, the beans taste smoky and the bread is heavy and irregular. In the city the bread is white; nothing like this. Nobody says a word. Katrina envelops Hana in her gaze and they exchange glances only women can share. Life had deprived Katrina of children but given her a man who loved and treated her well. She suffocates Hana with her attentions: offers her a piece of roast onion, fills her bowl with beans again.

‘You’re still not full,’ she says at the end of the meal.

‘Oh yes I am. I’ve eaten a lot.’

‘You’ve turned into a city girl, Hana,’ Katrina says, smiling at her. ‘You use different sounds, you speak like a schoolteacher. And your hair? What have you done to your hair? It’s so beautiful.’

Gjergj looks at his wife surreptitiously.

‘Tell me about the language of the English, dear daughter,’ he commands.

‘What can I say? It’s a language that talks about beautiful places.’

Uncle Gjergj lights his pipe. He looks at the black patch on the wall to his left. He suddenly seems nervous.

‘You think they’re beautiful just because they’re far away,’ he says dryly. Then he shuts up.

In the days that follow, Hana’s books are spread all over her room. There’s a bed and an old wardrobe that hardly opens. Her clothes smell of wood and mold. No soap can wash away the smell.

One morning, Gjergj gets up and leaves the kulla. Neither Hana nor Katrina dares to stop him. He goes and smokes outside, in the snow. Sitting on a rough slab of wood in the middle of the courtyard, seen from behind, he looks like a sculpture. Then a cough assaults him and he defends himself as well as he can. His shoulders shudder until fatigue forces him to come back inside. He is deathly pale. Hana stares at him, her eyes wide.

Every six hours Katrina gives Gjergj the pills Hana doesn’t even want to see. Her books are still open in her room. And she thinks that with this pain inside she’s not going to go far. If you don’t look pain straight in the face, it will take you over. It will inhabit you, a grubby black mass, a messy bundle. If you deal with it full on, on the other hand, there’s a chance that it will leave you alone. She tries to take it on.

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.

The village doctor is transformed. Shaved and well dressed, he has even put on some cologne.

‘Strange things city people do,’ Aunt Katrina murmurs. ‘A man who wears ‌perfume, ku ku moj nanë.’⁶

The doctor does everything he can. He talks to the doctors and nurses. He rushes from one place to another. He brings them byrekë pastries, he says you never know, there’s always hope.

Hana went to the student-affairs office at the Liberal Arts Faculty and told them about her problem. She would have to miss a couple more days’ classes; she just needed to take her father to see a few more doctors. Her parents were not familiar with Tirana and would not be able to cope without her.

‘In your file it says your parents died when you were ten,’ the secretary objected.

‘The man who is sick raised me as his own daughter, so he is my father.’

‘If you say so,’ the woman muttered distrustfully.

Hana stared at her. She looked like a mole: brightly colored hair that failed to lighten her washed-out features, a rodent’s jaw, foreign clothes. Rumor had it that her long-dead husband had been a diplomat. Hana had been warned by her classmates to watch out for this secretary. If she took against you it was bad news. She was a Party member and sometimes even raised her voice with Faculty members.

‘He’s my father,’ Hana insisted, as she left the office.

‘Two days. You have two days’ official absence and that’s it,’ the woman shouted after her.

The soldiers on the other side of the wall are marching. Aunt Katrina came down to the city wearing national dress. They’re the best clothes she has. Decked out like this, she looks unreal.

Here in the city she seems less shy, she sits close to her husband and is not ashamed to touch him in public. Every now and then she lets out little shrieks of curiosity, breaking the silence. Uncle Gjergj is not unhappy to see his wife smiling.

‘How do you not get lost here all alone, my love?’ Katrina asks her over and over. ‘All these people.’

Hana laughs. She holds Uncle Gjergj’s hand tight. He looks so handsome today he could ‌be in a Marubi portrait.⁷ There are no signs of the disease on his face. Around his neck there is a red scarf, and he is wearing his dark-blue suit with a white shirt and a qeleshe on his head. He doesn’t cough, he’s not in pain, he doesn’t ask any questions. He basks in the sun and lets Hana hold his hand.

Later, the doctors examine him, exchanging perplexed glances.

‘We must operate,’ they say. ‘There’s no time to waste.’

They take Hana into another room.

‘Are you over eighteen?’ one of them asks her.

‘I’m a freshman here at the university. I just turned nineteen.’

‘And you don’t have any brothers or sisters?’

‘No, it’s just me.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Hana.’

‘Listen, Hëna—’

‘It’s Hana, not Hëna.’

She loved her name. She loved the soft sound of the ‘a’ in the middle. Here in the south the vowel was more closed: Hëna.

‘Hana sunshine,’ her mother used to call her. She remembered her mother years back, when Hana was a little girl. She used to sing. If her mother hadn’t been born in the mountains she would have been a singer.

Hana sunshine.

‘You need to make a decision, young lady,’ persisted the doctor who seemed to be the most senior. ‘The sooner we perform surgery on your uncle, the better.’

‘He’s my father. Is there hope, Comrade Doctor?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Will he be in a lot of pain?’

‘He’ll be in more if he doesn’t have the operation.’

‘But there is hope; there must be hope!’

The doctors look at each other.

‘There are no guarantees. But we’ll do what we can. If we manage to remove the whole tumor he could make it.’

‘Did you tell him there was a chance? The doctors in Scutari said there was no hope, and now he’s convinced it’s true.’

‘Up there they don’t know how to perform such a delicate operation.’

‘What are our chances, Comrade Doctor?’

‘Maybe thirty percent. Even if we can’t eradicate the tumor, he’ll still live longer.’

‘How much longer?’

‘Up to a year, maybe. Or more. Or less. Go and talk to your uncle. He doesn’t want the surgery. You have to persuade him.’

‘He’s my father. I told you, he’s my father.’

The hotel Hana has found for Gjergj and Katrina is modest but clean. The restaurant only serves rice and spinach.

‘I thought it was only us up in the north who were poor,’ Uncle Gjergj comments. ‘But it looks like people in the city are not doing much better.’

He eats with gusto, even though it’s painful to swallow. The waiter’s uniform is crumpled. He doesn’t show them much respect because he’s heard their northern accents, but none of them minds. Katrina can’t accept the fact that somebody is serving her at the table.

‘Relax, Auntie, this is what they do here. It’s a restaurant.’

‘I’m so ashamed. Sitting here and being served by a man! What is the world coming to?’

‘But he’s a waiter. That is what he’s paid to do.’

Their room is on the third floor. Hana is going to the college dorm for the night. In the morning she’ll get up early so none of her roommates can ask her any questions.

As soon as they get to their room, Katrina falls asleep. Her heart has not behaved very well today. Before leaving the hospital, the village doctor gave her some pills.

Hana and Gjergj stand out on the narrow balcony. He smokes. Down on the street, people are taking their traditional evening stroll; nobody wants to go home.

‘Why do you want to make me have this surgery, dear daughter?’ Uncle Gjergj asks. ‘You know there’s no point.’

‘The doctors say there’s hope.’

‘They’re just experimenting on me, Hana. You’re an adult now. You’ll soon be a woman who knows about life. I’ve had my share in this lifetime. What’s the point in my hanging on any longer?’

This must be the tenth time they’ve talked it over. His strength is leaving him. She can hear it in his voice, she can feel it in his hunched shoulders, however much effort he puts into standing up straight.

‘Do it for me, Uncle Gjergj. Let them do the surgery for me.’

‘I am doing all this for you. I don’t want to make you or Katrina suffer.’

‘What I’m saying is I want you to give it a try. Maybe the doctors will open you up and find it’s not as serious as they’re all saying it is.’

‘I feel there’s nothing to be done, Hana.’

‘I beg you,’ she says, melting into tears. ‘Have the surgery. I’ve never begged you before.’

Gjergj says nothing for a long time.

‘Just let me go,’ he pleads, in the end.

Under the balcony a military truck goes by. The soldiers are sitting in two silent rows. The streetlights tint their faces sepia.

‘What about Auntie? Don’t you care about her?’ Hana says, trying one last tack.

‘Of course I care about her. We have talked, Katrina and I.’

‘And?’

‘She wants me to have the surgery too.’

‘You see? How can you give up? You’ve never balked at anything.’

‘What do you know, little girl?’ Gjergj mumbles, his smile twisted. ‘I certainly have! Many a time … but there are so many things you don’t know. Our mountains under the communists … I’m not the man you think I am.’

What she’s saying is heartless, she thinks. What they are saying, what she’s asking him to do, this whole sea of words, it’s all heartless.

‘Just do it for me,’ she tries one last time. ‘I’m begging you on my knees. You’ve had a bullet stuck in your body for forty years and you’ve never complained. What’s a scalpel to you?’

Hana can’t stop crying. Her chin touches her neck and the tears drip down onto her dress.

It’s not a heart, I say, it’s a sandal of buffalo leather, it tramps and tramps, it never falls apart ‌but treads the stony paths.⁸

‘Fine,’ Gjergj says. ‘I’ll do it. Now get out, before I change my mind.’

At that hour there are no buses, just the whirring of bicycle pedals: pairs of phantom wheels and the pale luminescence of the handlebars. The darkness hides the cyclists.

The dorm supervisor looks at her disapprovingly.

‘Didn’t they teach you how to behave?’ he complains. ‘What’s a girl like you doing out alone at this time of night?’

Gjergj Doda goes in for surgery two days later. The doctors say it has gone well.

‘Better than we hoped,’ the village doctor, who had to go back to Rrnajë that day, pronounces. ‘I’ll come and pick Gjergj up when they discharge him. I’ll get an ambulance. He’ll be in the hospital here for at least two weeks.’

Hana notices that the village doctor wears the expression of a prisoner condemned to death. She’d like to ask him if he has a girlfriend in Tirana; what he misses most – the movies, or restaurants where they serve rice and spinach; what foreign books he reads in secret.

While he is talking to her, he observes her intensely. She focuses on some graffiti painted on a broken wall. There are two letters missing: IN ONE HAND A ICKAXE, IN THE OTHER A RI LE.

She adores Tirana. She never thought she’d be able to love asphalt in the bottom of a valley. So she understands the doctor’s desolation.

She has also realized that she does not pass unobserved in the school corridors. Her silence strikes people. Especially the boys, who try everything to get her to talk. Hana does talk to them, and their discussions tire her. She has got used to them; sometimes she’ll even laugh.

‘Why are you always sad?’ a girl studying Turkish had asked her one day.

‘I’m not sad. I’m waiting for something to happen that’s worth talking about; anything else I just contemplate.’

‘I was told you write poems.’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Can I read some of them?’

‘No.’

The girl laughed

‘You’re weird.’

Hana gave a hint of a smile. The other girl had a head of hair the color of straw not yet burnt by the sun.

‘My name is Neve and I’m studying Turkish literature. Do you know Nâzim Hikmet?’

‘I’ve only read two of his poems, so I can’t really say I know him.’

‘Well, I’ll give you some of his poems translated into Albanian. You’ll really like him. I’ll give you some that I had a go at translating myself.’

Hikmet sealed the friendship between the two girls. Hana fell deeply in love with the poet, and this might be one more reason why she loves Tirana. Here you could unearth new passions and meet new people, like Hikmet, like Neve, like the new words in her language, like all these writers who would never make it up to the mountains.

‘Hana, focus now,’ the doctor says. ‘There’s no more time. I have to go.’

‘Thanks for everything.’

‘Thank you, for the books, and for existing.’

Hana smiles shyly.

‘Sometimes I feel really lonely up there. My friends are here in Tirana, and so … see you around. Will I see you in two weeks when I come back?’

Hana turns around and goes into the hospital. She’s not ready for questions like that.

While they’re waiting for Gjergj to recover from the surgery, Hana decides to surprise Aunt Katrina.

‘I want to show you where I live,’ she says, one day.

Gjergj is still wired up to the machines, but he smiles anyway.

‘I’m borrowing her for a while, Uncle Gjergj.’

His woman-wife-friend-lover bends over and kisses him on the forehead. He can’t stop her. He’s immobilized. She kisses him again on the eyelids, right in front of Hana and a nurse. And then again. And again. Then Katrina and her niece leave the room arm in arm. Hana loves the way her aunt walks. When she was younger she used to try and walk like her but could never get it right. Her stride is vigorous and fast, despite her weak heart.

Hana guides Katrina onto a bus and sits her down. Her colorful outfit rings out like music among the dowdy passengers.

‘How much is the bus ticket here?’ her aunt asks her, intimidated and curious at the same time. ‘What language is this?’ she asks again, looking at the writing on the walls of the bus.

‘It’s French.’

‘Why do they write on our buses in French?’

‘The government bought them second-hand from France.’

‘They had to go that far to find a bus?’

Hana sits next to her aunt and leans her head on her shoulder. Katrina kisses her hair. She is quiet for a while and then asks:

‘Are the French communists?’

‘No, what are you talking about? The French aren’t communists.’

‘Not even a little bit?’

‘Maybe some people are, but the government is not.’

‘So why did they sell buses to us?’

Katrina can’t get enough of the city. She chats with the girls in the dorm, asking them where in Albania they are from. She looks out over the campus from the fourth-floor window. She pats Hana’s bed and looks at herself in the mirror. ‘Your aunt is so beautiful,’ a girl from Durrës tells Hana. Katrina is embarrassed. Hana’s roommates smile. One of them has brought a big onion byrek from home, and they share it out and wash it down with tap water. Katrina thanks everybody profusely and eats with gusto.

When Hana takes Katrina back to the hospital, visiting hours are over, but one of the nurses says she won’t look if they slip into Gjergj’s ward quietly.

He is sedated and fast asleep. Katrina gives him an adoring look, caresses the back of his dry hand, red and blue from the nurses’ attempts to find a vein for the drip.

‘One day, when you want to get married,’ Katrina says to her niece, ‘you’ll find a good man like him.’

‘If this man is so good, he won’t want me.’

‘Of course he will. With your schooling and your intelligence, and your foreign-looking face. It’ll be love at first sight.’

‘What do you mean by a foreign-looking face?’

‘One that’s beautiful and smooth like yours.’

‘But I’m so short.’

‘You’re petite and beautifully built. Your breasts are perfect.’

‘My breasts are tiny, Auntie. You can hardly see them.’

‘You certainly can see them, if you don’t walk all hunched up as if you’re scared a man’s going to look at you.’

Hana has never heard her talk like this.

‘Well,’ Katrina shrugs. ‘We’ve never talked about these things, but we’re in the city now so it’s allowed, isn’t it? I look at you, my love, I look at you a lot, but you never liked talking …’

Katrina strokes Hana’s hair. Then she turns around and looks at her husband.

Hana’s uncle and aunt leave Tirana on a beautiful spring morning. Gjergj is wearing his usual blue suit and manages to walk without any help. Next to him is the rolling drip stand.

Hana hugs both of them, hiding her eyes. She’s already thinking about the distance that is about to separate them. She’s happy they’re going home. But she’s sad too. She can’t control her sobs. She’s going to have to run back to the Faculty as soon as they’re gone.

The village doctor promises her he’ll get them to Rrnajë safe and sound, that he’ll keep an eye on them even in his free time. ‘There’s not much to do up there, after all.’ Hana thanks him.

‘I’ll call you when we get to the village, if you give me your number. You have a telephone in your dorm, right?’

She scribbles the number down for him, but she knows he’ll never manage to catch her. Their supervisor is not the kind of guy who goes and looks for a student when there’s a call. They say he works for the secret services, and nobody would dream of protesting or making an official complaint against him. Some even say he sends a report to the government every month about what the girls are doing and saying.

‘I’ll call you,’ the doctor assures her.

An old, mud-encrusted bus drives past him, as slow and unsteady as a drunk camel.

‘Do you have a boyfriend, Hana? Someone you like?’

From the back window of the bus, a boy sticks his tongue out at Hana and she smiles back.

‘I have to go,’ she says.

‘Listen …’

‘I’m not thinking about guys at the moment. I’m in the city. I have my books. That’s already a lot for a girl from Rrnajë. You, of all people, should understand that.’

She turns around and leaves. Katrina’s gaze brushes the back of her head. Hana can feel it. Gjergj, lying on the stretcher, stares at the roof of the ambulance. The nurse sitting beside him is thinking about the hellish journey she’s about to make all the way to Scutari for some old man who’s practically dead anyway.

Hana starts running; she doesn’t want to take the bus. She’s running as fast as she can to keep up with the ambulance, but then it turns down Kinostudio-Kombinat Road. Aunt Katrina is at the window, her fingers splayed, her eyes wide.

Hana blows her a kiss. The ambulance shifts up a gear and bumps along the road full of potholes.

This is the last time Hana sees Katrina, but she doesn’t know that yet.

Katrina dies in the third week of June. Hana is ironing her blouse when a senior from her dorm comes into her room and hands her a piece of folded paper.

‘It’s a telegram. The dorm supervisor gave it to me … You’re Hana Doda, right?’

Hana puts the iron down on the floor, takes the plug out, and hangs the blouse on the back of a chair. She’d like to drink something but the faucet is dry. She goes to the open window where the sun is beating down onto the half-drawn curtain. A couple of students are necking. The girl is quite ugly and not very bright, but her father is powerful. He works in the Central Committee of the Party, secretary or head of personnel or something. The girl is wearing foreign clothes, she can cut class whenever she wants, and she can neck in public without being considered loose. The guy is from the boondocks, in the south somewhere. He’s really good-looking. Lots of girls are pining after him but he’s ambitious and wants to stay in the city when he graduates, so he has chosen the right girl. She’s really kissing him now. Hana looks at their hair: hers is shiny and soft because she has foreign shampoo; his is like felt because he uses laundry detergent.

She turns away from the window, sits down, unfolds the telegram.

AUNTIE DEAD STOP HEART ATTACK STOP FUNERAL DAY AFTER TOMORROW STOP

Her last exam is in three days. If she doesn’t take it she won’t be admitted into her sophomore year.

She throws a few things into a bag, runs out of the room and down the stairs to the ground floor where there is running water. She puts her mouth under the faucet and drinks at length. She wets her arms and pats water behind her neck. It’s three in the afternoon, and no way is there a bus for the north at this time. No train either. She’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

She is unable to leave even the next day. The train is broken and can’t be fixed, they say. The passengers in the station are furious.

If they want, they can come back the next day, but ‘there are no guarantees,’ a fat railroad clerk announces, scratching his belly. His uniform is buttoned wrong, covered in stains, the collar worn thin. A herd of sheep makes its way through the crowd, indifferent to the human suffering around it. The sheep make do with the last of the grass between the railroad sleepers.

Hana is immobile. The crowd slowly disperses. A few older passengers just sit there with pages torn from the official Party newspaper, The Voice of the People, folded into hats on their heads.

After an hour or more she decides to walk to the central post office, where there are some public telephones. When she gets there she counts her change. She’ll only be able to talk for a minute, or she won’t have enough money for the train ticket the next day.

The secretary of the agricultural cooperative in Rrnajë says that nobody is in the health center. The doctor has gone to the Dodas’ because Katrina has died.

‘This is Hana. Hana Doda.’

‘Ah, sorry. I didn’t recognize your voice. I can hardly hear you. I’m sorry.’ There are the sounds of others on the line.

Outside the phone box, there’s a man with three children waiting his turn. He must be a baker; he’s covered in flour. Two of the kids are gripping his legs, the other is perched on his shoulders.

Hana asks the secretary if she can go and call the doctor. She’ll wait at the post office.

‘Ok … They say your aunt didn’t suffer, Hana. She was crocheting you a vest and that’s how she died. Smiling. She seemed at peace, if that makes sense.’

Hana waits an hour and seven minutes before she is able to talk to the doctor. The heat is stifling. The hall of the post office reeks of feet and armpits.

‘Hana. The doctor here.’

‘I can’t get there. It was her heart, wasn’t it?’

‘Her heart, yes. It’s already a miracle that she lived so long. The funeral is tomorrow at noon.’

‘I can’t get there by then.’

‘We can’t do anything about it. It’s hot here. The body … I’m sorry, Hana.’

‘You’re a doctor. Can’t you invent something to keep her body cool?’

‘Doctors don’t work miracles, and there are no morgue facilities here. I’m sorry.’

For once her cursed mountains could have stayed cold.

‘If the train leaves I’ll get there tomorrow evening late. If it doesn’t, then I don’t know.’

Somebody at the other end of the line is grumbling and the doctor shouts, ‘Just a minute, please. It’s the Dodas’ daughter.’

‘I’ll tell Gjergj you called,’ he goes on, resuming his normal tone. ‘He’s doing well. He’s getting his strength back. Now I have to leave the phone free. There’s the Comrade Secretary of the Party here and he needs it.’

The doctor hangs up before she can say ok or thanks or anything. Hana rests her forehead on the graffiti scratched in the wood of the phone box. Somebody has written: I’VE NEVER MISSED YOU.

She arrives in Rrnajë when it is almost evening. The house is empty; everybody has already left. The shilte are in ‌a mess on the floor.⁹ Her uncle is sitting up. Hana bends down and gives him a hug.

‘It took so long, Uncle Gjergj. Forgive me. Nobody was coming up today. I had to wait two hours in Scutari before a truck going to Bogë came by.’

‘The doctor sent you the telegram. He’s been a great help. You must be hungry.’

‘A little.’

‘The village women have brought food for a week. Go eat something.’

‘Ok.’

But Hana doesn’t move. She stays where she is, staring at the kilim. They don’t say a word. Gjergj starts rolling a cigarette, but then changes his mind and fills his pipe.

Hana jumps up and starts plumping up the cushions. She opens the narrow window. There’s still a trace of sun in the color of the sky, a hint of yellow drowned in blue.

‘Up here it’s too hot for June. What about down in Tirana?’

‘Even the dogs are sweating.’

Hana picks up her bag and drags it upstairs. Her room is in perfect order. Nobody has been in to take a nap during Katrina’s vigil. Somebody, though, has laid an unfinished white cotton crocheted vest on the pillow. The crochet hook was threading a red border round the waist when it came to a stop. All that’s missing are the buttons and a pocket. It would have been a beautiful vest with a red border. Almost city wear. Her girlfriends in Tirana would have envied it.

She sits on her bed without touching the vest. Uncle Gjergj is coughing downstairs. She lets him. When the silence wraps itself around the walls she decides to go down.

They sit curled up on the cushions. Hana has forgotten her hunger. He goes on smoking. She falls asleep.

Gjergj starts wheezing around dawn. He groans and rattles, and asks her to pass him a spray for his throat. The spray smells really strong; it’s terrible. He is sweating and trembling. He finds it hard to breathe but doesn’t want any help.

‘Just go and check on Enver,’ he manages to say to Hana. ‘I don’t know if he has eaten, poor creature.’

Hana leaves the room and goes to the animal pen in the courtyard where their goat and sheep live. The sheep is sleeping, the goat is not. As soon as he sees Hana he starts bleating.

‘Hi Enver,’ Hana says, stroking his beard. ‘How’re you doing?’

She looks around her. The hay is fresh, the water pail has been filled. Somebody has taken care of everything before leaving. The nearest neighbor’s kulla, to the left, is ten minutes away. Nobody lives on the right, there’s just the sharply rising mountain.

A woman who came to Katrina’s funeral brought the traditional offerings of tobacco, sugar, and coffee. Maybe she cried, and then went to take care of the animals. It must have been Dille, Ndué Zega’s wife. The two families help each other out, without making a show of it. The Zegas have a son who works in the Party as a member of the Citizens’ Committee in Lezhë. He doesn’t approve of the Dodas. They are a little too Catholic to be politically reliable.

The communists have always doubted Gjergj’s faith in the regime, but they have never caught him out in any way. Gjergj Doda is canny. He has never expressed a point of view regarding the government. Better not to talk at all than to say something against them. He’s a good peasant. He sticks to the communist rules, except for the name he has given his goat. He has secretly called him Enver, like the dear departed leader, but this small detail nobody knows about.

‘See you later, Enver,’ Hana says as she leaves the pen. ‘I’ll come by and visit tomorrow when I have more time.’

The next morning she goes on her own to the village cemetery. The sun is shining and the tractors from the agricultural cooperative are already plowing their way up and down the few tracts of amenable land. The rest is so steep it can only be farmed by hand.

Katrina’s grave is easy to spot. There are fresh flowers stuck into jam jars and bottles.

She touches the freshly turned earth and quickly pulls her hand away. Then she touches it again, this time digging her fingers in and leaving them there.

‘Thank you for my vest, Auntie,’ she says out loud. The collar of her blouse is dripping with sweat. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time.’

She realizes that she should be in the exam room right now, in the auditorium next to the dean’s office.

She sits down on the ground. Her knees are killing her. She pushes her other hand into the earth and bows her head until her chin touches her breasts.

She tries, but can’t seem to make herself cry. Suddenly tears of anger that she doesn’t feel like crying fill her eyes.

After an hour, she goes home.

Uncle Gjergj is hunched up, trying to keep the spasms of pain under control. He can hardly speak or move his arms.

‘My whole body is hurting. Leave this house, Hana. Stop looking at me.’

In the daylight she can see the mess left by the mourners after the funeral. Aunt Katrina wouldn’t have stood for it.

‘But Uncle Gjergj …’

‘Go away, I said. Get out of here. Did you leave your obedience in the city? Have you forgotten your manners?’

She leaves the room. She starts boiling a pan of water, in which she’ll throw the ash from the fireplace. Aunt Katrina always saved it to use instead of soap when the shops in Rrnajë are out. She goes into the storeroom and looks for the aluminum pail full of ash. If you boil sheets in water and ash they come out white as snow.

She opens the upstairs windows wide. There are three big rooms under the gables. She would be coming out of her exam now. She would be admitted to the second year. She would be happy.

The day continues to be marked by the heat and the sounds of their animals. From the Dodas’ kulla you can’t see the village. Hana can start cleaning; she can take off her blouse and wear only a camisole without looking indecent. Nobody will see her.

Would Ben, her classmate in French, have finished his last exam? She likes the way he looks at her. She tries to focus on wiping the glass in the tiny window.

When she has finished cleaning the house it looks like new. Gjergj is still. The pain has let up for a while and he’s finally gone to sleep. Hana is pleased with herself, with how she organized her day and how she managed to enjoy the sun upstairs while she cleaned and tidied things up. Her arms are pink, slightly sunburnt.

The girls in Tirana strip off in the park, as much as they can, as much as the laws imposed on them by men and communist morality allow. The girls in Tirana cut classes and go to the beach in Durrës. One day she’d like to go herself, but she doesn’t have a bathing suit.

Goodbye, my brother sea.

The doctor arrives while she is cooking dinner.

‘I’m here to give Gjergj his drugs, but since you’re here I’ll show you what to do,’ he says.

Hana asks him to step outside where they can talk, as her uncle is sleeping.

‘I’m sorry about Katrina,’ he says. ‘My condolences. And Gjergj is sick, Hana. The operation didn’t help much.’

She says brusquely that she doesn’t want to know and he answers that maybe she should listen to what he’s saying because soon she’ll be on her own and that’s the truth. He hands her three boxes of medicine.

‘I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m really confused right now.’

Silence.

‘Do you remember, Hana? You were the first person I met here in Rrnajë, the day I arrived.’

She feels sorry for him.

‘Yes, I remember. You smelled of aftershave. The whole village knew you were arriving that Tuesday.’

He clenches his jaw. She looks at his profile.

‘I like you,’ the doctor says. ‘I’m getting to like you more and more. I thought it would blow over, but you’ve stayed in my mind.’

Hana turns away. The mountain is growing dark, preparing to be abandoned by the sun.

‘How can you like someone like me?’ she asks caustically. ‘Don’t you ‌city people call us malokë?¹⁰ Don’t you always look down on us mountain people?’

He doesn’t feel he can contradict her. He’s honest enough to admit it to himself, at least, if not out loud. That’s better than nothing, Hana thinks.

‘What were you reading before coming up to Rrnajë?’ he asks, trying to buy some time.

‘Death of a Traveling Salesman.’

Hana puts her hands in her pants pockets. They are black, made of light flannel. She thinks they look quite good on her. She found them in a shop in Tirana, and the mother of a classmate of hers, a seamstress by trade, took them in a little. The doctor waits for her to say something and, when she doesn’t, he asks if by any chance she has anything to say about what he has just said.

‘You’re a regular kind of guy; you must have had a lot of beautiful girls,’ she snaps, without even looking at him, almost turning away from him. ‘Why are you bothering with me? Or is it just because I’m around?’

‘That’s pretty mean,’ the doctor protests.

Hana would like to rest her head on his chest to see what it feels like, to see what a man smells like close to.

‘You’ve chosen a bad day to declare yourself.’

‘I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. And anyway I’m leaving in a few days.’

‘Leaving?’

‘They’ve transferred me … So?’ he insists. ‘Any answer?’

‘Give me some time,’ Hana says, amazed by her own words. ‘I have to think about it. Don’t get your hopes up though.’

The doctor says he doesn’t understand. If she asks for more time it means there must be hope, otherwise there would be no point. She stops him and says that’s the way it is, and that’s that. The truth is she doesn’t want to lose him. If she just said ‘no’ she would be burning her bridges, closing all the doors, letting the darkness in. This realization makes her feel terrible, because she’s not attracted to him, not one bit.

‘You must understand that I can’t wait long,’ he says. ‘I’ve been transferred and I’m finally going to be closer to home.’ Hana notices the stress he puts on the word ‘finally.’

‘So you’re going back to Tirana?’

‘I wish! No, I’m being sent to Kavajë. It’s much closer to Tirana and much better than here.’

‘So you’re free,’ she smiles bitterly. ‘You’re free.’

All at once he steps forward and kisses her on her forehead.

‘Free from what, Hana?’ he mutters, while she pulls away from him. ‘Free from where? We’re just like horses, going round and round in circles.’

They catch each other’s eyes for the first time. He has nice eyes, she’s never noticed before. She would like to tell him so, but senses she has missed her chance. Something in him shifts. The shared confidence about the concept of freedom has made him wary. He’s under control. He’s the doctor now.

‘It’s best not to talk about certain things, young lady,’ he whispers, ‘if you don’t want to get into trouble.’

‘Why? Aren’t I already in trouble?’

‘There’s a lot worse, and you know it.’

‘So now I’m “young lady,” am I?’

Hana turns away and takes a few steps. Life is strange. There are some things she’s never said before, never talked about, never thought she could say so freely. Now all this for some guy whom she doesn’t really know or particularly like. But she’s still sorry he’s leaving.

‘It’s a strange life, Doctor.’

‘Would you like to call me Artan finally?’

He comes dangerously close again. He’s just behind Hana; his breath is hot and sad.

‘Ok. It’s a strange life, Artan, because I’m sorry you’re leaving.’

‘So …’

‘There isn’t any “so.” I’m sorry, that’s all.’

She turns her back to him, her eyes brimming with tears. She suddenly starts sobbing, her hands on her stomach.

‘Go on, cry. Get it out of you.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Just let yourself go, Hana.’

He hugs her. She lets him. She rests her head for the first time ever on the heart of a man. They stand there together for a while. Here’s why it’s such a good thing to have your house on the edge of the world: nobody can see you; nobody can betray you.

‘If you will allow me,’ he murmurs, ‘I’ll ask Gjergj for your hand. I know that in these parts there’s no other way to have a relationship with a girl, so I’ll ask him for your hand in marriage.’

She detaches herself brusquely.

‘Who do you think you are? I don’t love you and I don’t know you, and anyway, who says I need a man?’

Her uncle has woken up and is thumping his stick against the wall to get her attention.

‘I have to go in,’ Hana says, cutting the conversation short.

The village is without a replacement doctor for a long time. The Ministry of Health doesn’t have another man to sacrifice to the mountains. The only nurse decides to devote herself to sick children, leaving the adults to fend for themselves.

‘Hana, my girl,’ the nurse says one day. ‘You need to go down to Scutari to pick up your uncle’s drugs. I can’t do everything, and anyway it’s dangerous, a woman all alone … I’m married and my husband won’t allow it.’

‘They wouldn’t give me the drugs, Comrade Nurse. They’re imported.’

‘I’ll call the pharmacist in Scutari,’ the nurse reassures her. ‘I know him personally.’

The nurse is in her forties, but her expression makes her look older, almost ancient. She observes Hana with curiosity, her big eyes boring into her.

‘What about you? Aren’t you going back to Tirana?’

‘I’ll go say goodbye to a few friends and find out when I can retake the final exam that I missed.’

‘I’ve never been to Tirana, I’ve only ever seen it on TV. Is it really that beautiful or do they make it look that way so that we mountain people envy them?’

Hana thinks about it.

‘There are buildings and asphalt,’ she says finally.

‘And I suppose your shoes don’t get muddy?’

‘It depends.’

More silence. The nurse’s curiosity goes into standby.

‘I’m tired,’ Hana says, and goes out without saying goodbye.

Gjergj tries to keep his pain under control, but when he has no energy left to fight it he turns nasty.

‘Get out of here! Go away! I don’t want you here!’

She obeys and takes refuge in her room with her books. She leafs through them, but the feelings she once had for them have turned into smoke that chokes her suddenly. She doesn’t love them anymore, and she feels guilty.

One day she tells her uncle she has to go down to Scutari to get his drugs. He looks a little better this morning; his expression is lively and a vein is pulsing on the back of his hand. He shakes his head.

‘I have to go,’ Hana says. ‘You only have three days’ worth of medication here.’

He’s still against it.

‘I’ll go tomorrow morning with one of the trucks carrying wood down to the city. I expect a driver will have room for me.’

He waves his arms in total disapproval.

‘So tell me, what should we do?’ Hana asks rudely. ‘You tell me, since you know everything. Am I supposed to stay here and watch you suffering without doing anything to help?’

He looks daggers at her, tries to say something but lets out little more than a grunt.

‘Yeah, I know, Uncle. I’m a woman and I shouldn’t be talking like this. I should know my place.’

He grabs the stick that he keeps by his bed and thumps it on the table. His hand is so unsteady that the stick falls onto the worn-out kilim.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, as soon as she gets over the shock. ‘Forgive me … Will you forgive me?’

She hugs him. She curls up between his shoulder and his chin. Gjergj’s heart is a drum that has lost its beat.

‘You can’t go alone, my little one,’ he whispers in her ear. ‘It’s dangerous.’

‘I’ll try. Look, I know how to take care of myself.’

‘There are wolves out there, my daughter. This place is full of wolves.’

There is a brief, transparent moment of silence. Then Hana decides to play along with her uncle.

‘It’s summer, Uncle Gjergj. The wolves aren’t that hungry.’

She gives him a couple of pills that are supposed to help him sleep. Then she goes up to her room and stands by the window listening to the late afternoon: the dialogue between plants and animals, life twisting up and then stretching out. A year ago, Hana would have been moved by such beauty; now she is calmly detached. She feels grown-up and she likes it.

‘You’re Hana Doda,’ she says to herself out loud. ‘Hana Doda, daughter of Felicità.’ Her mother’s name had been Happiness. Aunt Katrina always said she had had a beautiful voice. Hana remembers her singing around the house. Why was she thinking of this now?

‘Now I have another problem. See, Nanë? You’ve come along at the wrong time.’

Everything is wrong. Even this summer, that seems like a wonderful painting but isn’t, if you look at it carefully. This summer looks more like a mediocre poem. Albanians write a lot of poetry, they’re crazy about poems, but they’re scared of telling stories. You need persistence to narrate a story, as well as discipline. Full sentences don’t allow you to cheat or be lazy. Poetry does: it’s more worldly-wise, more fleeting, more musical. Narration is for monks, inscribing manuscripts all day until they’re hunchbacks.

‘Don’t you see, Nanë? I’ve got other things to think about. Go away!’

Hana waits until the memory of her mother fades. She can feel it shrinking fast, and then vanishing.

She feels lost.

She takes it out on her English dictionary with its blue, black, and yellow jacket. It’s called Hornby. Mr Hornby thinks he’s so great that he can teach you a language. She wonders whether the gentleman is still alive. Is he sad? Lonely? Ugly? She imagines him to be thin and bespectacled, not good-looking. With a pencil she scratches a picture of the imaginary Mr Hornby on the book jacket.

‘Serves you right,’ she says rancorously.

At the first light of dawn she sets off for Scutari and returns to Rrnajë late that night. Everything has gone well. She didn’t meet any wolves, and she has the drugs. When Uncle Gjergj sees she is back he looks at her with infinite love.

The driver that had given her a ride into the city was in his fifties and had no desire to make conversation.

‘So you’re Doda’s niece,’ he had said at the start of the journey. ‘I knew your dad. He was a good guy. How’s Gjergj?’

‘Sick.’

‘So I heard, I’m sorry.’

That had been the end of their exchange. The truck had gone so slowly that if Hana had walked beside it she wouldn’t have had to pick up her pace.

‘I do this trip once a month,’ the driver had said at the end of the journey. ‘If you want I’ll take you down every time. You know it’s dangerous, don’t you?’

Hana had nodded.

‘Has Gjergj arranged a marriage for you? Have you been promised since birth?’

‘No.’

‘Be careful, girl. And give my best to your uncle.’

Gjergj’s room smells stuffy. She changes his neck scarf, which is soaked with sweat. In the courtyard Enver is making a ruckus, bleating like crazy and kicking the door to his pen.

‘You see, it wasn’t so bad after all,’ Hana whispers to the old man. ‘The pharmacist was really kind and wrote down all the instructions for me.’

Gjergj gestures that he’s thirsty. She brings him water.

‘I have to feed the animals now, then I’m going to buy a little fresh cheese.’

Hana doesn’t know how to make cheese yet. She’ll have to learn. Aunt Katrina did everything; she can’t do very much.

‘You’re a good girl,’ Uncle Gjergj mutters. ‘Such a good girl, you’re my boy. You’re like a son; the things you’re doing are men’s jobs. Going off alone and coming back in the middle of the night across the mountains. You need the courage of a man to do those things.’

Hana laughs out loud, pleased with the compliment.

‘If you’d been born in the city you would have been a real ladies’ man, Uncle Gjergj.’

‘I am,’ he answers. ‘You have to go back to Tirana, get back to your studies. Have you forgotten?’

Hana answers that she can’t leave him in this condition and he says yes you can, what else can happen to him?

‘There’s no discussion, Uncle Gjergj. I’m not leaving you alone.’

‘It’s an order, Hana. I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you to go.’

Their short argument takes a long time. Uncle Gjergj loses his thread and smiles. He seems to take stock of every phrase and delays looking at his interlocutor until he has decided to expel his words, one after the other, slowly. Hana has learned to adapt to his rhythm.

‘Classes are over, Uncle Gjergj.’

‘But they start again in September, right?’

‘Why should I go back? I’m not going back to school, it’s not worth it at this point …’

He starts moving, as if he wants to get up, and then looks at his stick but can’t reach it.

‘Ok. I’ll go to Tirana,’ she eventually concedes.

‘Go to the student office and make all the necessary arrangements to enroll again in September.’

She sets off, leaving her uncle to the sporadic care of the village nurse. She gets a ride with the agronomist from the cooperative, who is taking a jeep down to the city for an important meeting. She gets a train from Scutari, which breaks down in Lezhë, so she has to wait for whatever ride she can find.

She gets to Tirana at nightfall. It is hot, the roads smell of melted asphalt. The center of the capital city is dark. In order to save what little power there is, they don’t turn the streetlights on. She’s happy to walk along the clean streets, wending her way to her dorm. It is almost empty, as most of the students are home for the summer vacation.

Hana has the room to herself. She goes to bed and sleeps soundly.

The next morning the Liberal Arts Faculty is deserted. The heat is overpowering. The bad-tempered secretary gives a highly acid, ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve come to say that I’d like to do my last exam in August.’

‘Who said you could?’

‘I’m a student in this Faculty.’

‘Who didn’t take her exam and disappeared from the face of this earth without any justification.’

‘My mother died, Comrade Secretary.’

‘How many mothers have you got? One seems to die every year.’

Hana stares at her reflection in the glass pane of a cupboard. She thinks she looks quite pretty, in a blue and red checked shirt with two big pockets. She shifts her attention back to the secretary.

‘My aunt, who became my mother after my parents died in a car accident many years ago, she died. And my uncle, her husband, is very sick with cancer. He’s all I have left.’

The woman tries to look sorry, but fails. All she can do is tone down her sarcasm.

‘You could have come and asked permission.’

‘I didn’t have time. I asked my classmates to do it.’

‘That’s not sufficient, young lady. The trouble with you mountain people is that you never learn to obey rules.’

Hana looks back at herself in the glass and adjusts her curly hair. She directs a faint smile at the perfumed hyena who, in the meantime, has improved the color of her hair-dye.

She is suddenly seized by the thought that she has to go to the sea. She leaves the office before the secretary can open her mouth again.

It is Friday.

The sea is majestic, polished and shimmering like a perfect dream. Nothing detracts from its immensity, neither the garbage rotting on the beach nor the ungainliness of the few bathing costumes on show.

She has found a quiet spot near Durrës. There are only two families with kids. She looks around, then closes her eyes and tries to empty her mind of thoughts. She only partly succeeds. Her demons are still there, but they are polite and almost harmless now. They smile at her.

The sand burns her feet. She has thrown her deformed shoes under a rock and tied her hair in a ponytail.

She steps into the water in her pants and shirt, with all the money she has in her pocket. She can’t afford to have it stolen because it’s her return fare to Tirana. The folded bill will enjoy a swim in the sea. The salt will fix the color of her black pants. The water will wash the smell of dung out of her shirt.

The salt is drying on her skin and the tightening sensation forces her back to the here and now. She’ll be taking this salt home with her, for she has no change of clothes. They will dry off and she’ll be fine. She’ll be fine, she says. And she really is fine, for the three hours she’s at the beach.

So we go as we came,

goodbye, my brother sea.

The next day she goes to the college library and returns all her borrowed books. It’s nine in the morning and at that time there are only a couple of professors. The librarian is a man to be respected; his smile is reassuring and his manner affable. He asks Hana if she wants to take any other books out.

‘No, this time I’m just returning them, thanks.’ The man goes back to his work.

She spends an hour in the reading room, leafing through a volume of Emily Dickinson’s poetry. There’s no point taking notes; it’s best to leave without saying goodbye. But she can’t resist. She takes out a pencil and some paper and copies out a few poems.

The librarian looks over at her every now and then from his desk.

‘You can take it if you want,’ he says in the end.

‘I live in the north and I can’t return it on time. I can’t come down specially.’

‘You can keep it until the end of August.’

‘I’m not coming in August,’ Hana says, waiting for some kind of response. Go on, ask me something, she begs in silence. But the man doesn’t ask her anything. He turns away, hunched, as he files the index cards in their file, writes something in a register, and forgets all about her.

‘Have a good day,’ Hana says, too softly to be heard, and leaves the library.

When she gets to the gate of the School of Philology she looks one last time at the edifice, built by the Italians during the Fascist occupation. Her clothes are starting to itch. The sun beats down even more fiercely than yesterday; sand and sweat make swirling lines like maps or flowers on her pants.

Hana starts walking fast towards the center, but just as she is past the Italian embassy gate a boy’s voice calls her. She turns round. It’s Ben, the classmate who studies French.

‘That’s the third time I called out your name,’ he complains. ‘Are you deaf or something? Hello? Hana?’

She’s unsure whether to hold her hand out or not.

‘Here she is! The girl who just disappears without any warning. How are you?’

‘Fine.’

He says he’s sorry about her aunt’s death, the girls from the dorm told him. Hana tries to control her breathing; her heart is beating fast. She stares right into his eyes so that he can’t see the effect he’s having on her. Calm down. Stay still. It’s just some guy trying to be nice. And you’re such a mess in your crumpled pants.

He asks her where she’s going. She says she’s going home after returning her library books. She smiles. Ben says he is on his way to the Faculty. His hair would make a girl jealous, it’s so glossy and healthy-looking. His eyes burn into you when you look at him. Their slant makes him both hard to grasp and insistent at the same time. It doesn’t make sense, she thinks. He’s just trying to be nice. Ben smiles.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.’

If she really had to force herself to like a guy, given that it was the cool thing right now to be in love, Hana would choose Ben. That way she wouldn’t seem so out of place. She would choose Ben – but it was only a silly thought.

‘I’m going to miss my train.’ It’s not true. She has plenty of time, but she’d better get out of this situation before her heartbeat becomes unbearable.

‘Can’t we have a drink together somewhere downtown?’ he asks. She says she’s not used to expressions like ‘let’s have a drink’ or ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ She stops, regretting it already.

‘I’m sorry. I know I’m really rude sometimes.’

The new soldier on guard duty is staring at them.

‘Let’s move,’ Ben proposes. ‘You’re not allowed to stand here for long. I’ll walk with you wherever you’re going. Let’s sit down for five minutes, please.’

It’s the first time she’s ever sat in a café with a boy. Luckily the place is almost empty and this helps her behave more naturally. The café only offers dry-looking cakes and half-melted ice cream. Hana orders a lemonade that tastes like soda water while Ben has a cup of coffee.

‘Finally,’ he says, pleased with the way things are going. ‘I didn’t know who else to ask about you.’

This is a guy who doesn’t give up, she thinks. He behaves like a one-man assault unit, but there’s something about his manner that she likes. Ben’s father is the dean of the medical school and his mother is a famous opera singer.

‘Are you going to say something sooner or later?’ he asks, with a smile. ‘Or do I have to do all the work here?’

She’s quiet, weighing her thoughts. ‘Forget it, Ben,’ she says, as kindly as she knows how. She’s said his name. She goes red. ‘It’s a really bad time for me.’

He stares at her, his confidence draining away.

‘I know I seem strange, but I’m not really. I know I look awkward, but I’m not really. Well, yes I am, a little, but that’s not the problem right now. Right now I have to work out when I’m going to be able to cry. Then things will get easier. I can’t cry right now, I really can’t.’

He looks at her, even more confused. In the few films Hana has seen, the men look at their women exactly this way. The village doctor had looked at her that way at the kulla. Come on, explain it to him, she says to herself. Don’t make him go away without even helping him understand. At least that.

She tells him that her uncle, Gjergj Doda, is dying of cancer and that he is the only person left in her family, except for a cousin her age called Lila who is married and doesn’t live in the village anymore. Ben twirls the empty coffee cup around in his hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

They order again. This time Hana has a coffee and he asks for a little cake. He then asks if he can help in any way. She smiles without looking up and asks him if he can arrange things so that Uncle Gjergj doesn’t die. He goes quiet.

‘I have to go,’ Hana says. ‘Or I really will miss my train.’

‘I wanted to be with you.’

‘I wanted to be with you too,’ she lets slip.

If he were less good-looking it would make things easier for her. And as for his voice …

Forget it, no way. Nothing.

‘So stay,’ Ben says. ‘Stay until tomorrow.’

‘I can’t.’

She gets up and he follows her, after throwing the coins on the table to pay for their order. She doesn’t even try to go through the useless routine of offering to pay. She knows he wouldn’t allow it. She may as well save them both the whole song and dance.

Outside the café, the door closes behind them; the sun hanging like a sword over their heads, Hana holds out her hand and he takes it, tightening his grasp.

‘My world is collapsing,’ she says calmly, almost detached. ‘And I don’t know if I can hold it together. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I need to go …’

Ben wants to walk her as far as the station, and does not take no for an answer.

They walk fast, heads down, in the vain attempt to shield themselves from the sun. She counts one and a half steps to every step of his. Hardly anyone else is walking outside. There are more bicycles made in China than anything else on Viale Stalin. Ben’s legs are hidden in jeans; anyone who owns a pair of jeans in Tirana is rich and powerful. In front of the Variety Theater he asks her why her pants are white with salt. Hana tells him about her beach trip and how she didn’t have a bathing costume.

‘So you went swimming in your clothes?’

‘I couldn’t go in naked.’

‘I did it once last year, it was cool.’

Hana laughs.

‘When you don’t have a change of clothes it’s not so cool. My skin is stretched tight; there’s no water at the dorm.’

‘There isn’t any at my place either. My mother’s mad because she hasn’t been able to use the washing machine for three days.’

She’s heard from some of her classmates that he lives in Tirana’s Eighth Quarter, a high-end residential area right next to where the Politburo members live.

They’ve reached the Science Faculty. Ben stops. People hauling suitcases and carry-on bags are rushing towards the entrance of the railway station.

‘Can’t you just stay today?’ he begs her. ‘We’ll spend the day together. We’ve never had a chance to spend any time together alone, and we hardly know one another.’

Hana turns to him.

‘I do know you. It’s weird – and funny – but you seem familiar. There’s something about you that somehow, somewhere, maybe in a dream, I’ve already come to know.’

Ben stuffs his hands in his pockets, takes them out, puts them back in again.

‘You’re an emotional roller coaster, you know? It’s really hard to follow you. You confuse me, and make me feel insecure.’

‘I know you,’ she insists, taking no notice.

‘I feel the same, but I can’t just come out with things like that or I’d look like a liar or a jerk. Then you come out with them, you get there first, and you sound so convincing and natural that …’

They look away, trapped by their awkwardness, by the fact that they’re young and have never been free.

‘So stay, Hana. Before it’s too late. Don’t leave. I can’t just lose you like this, for the whole summer.’

‘I can’t. Not today.’

‘Can I come to your village then, maybe next week? Or when you say I can?’

‘Are you crazy? Do you want to ruin me?’

‘Why would it ruin you?’

‘Because I’m from the mountains, Ben.’ Hana has raised her voice. ‘In the mountains men don’t come and visit girls they’re not engaged to. It’s just not done.’

Ben thinks for a minute, visibly disconcerted.

‘We could meet in secret then.’

Hana shakes her head.

‘Things are different up there, the world doesn’t work like you people in Tirana think it should.’

‘I’m not “people in Tirana,”’ he says, growing irritated. ‘I’m Arben Leska, and that’s all.’

‘Don’t get angry.’

‘I’m not angry.’

‘Yes you are, and so am I.’

‘Where have you been hiding?’ he challenges her, knowing it is useless. ‘You vanished without trace when we’d just met.’

‘What was I supposed to say?’ Hana says, without any reproach. ‘Was I supposed to ask a complete stranger for permission to go to my aunt’s funeral? Was I supposed to say, “Wait for me until August, I might come back to school if Uncle Gjergj doesn’t get worse. It’s only a month and a half, can you wait that long?”’

She starts walking again, but he doesn’t follow her. This is terrible, she thinks. You walk, then you stop, then you shout and then you’d like to hug him, and then you play hard to get, and then you lose him. You’ll lose him. There won’t be anything left in your life. He comes up to her. Hana waits.

‘What I meant was that you vanished just when I decided I wanted to get to know you better. It’s not easy to approach you, you know.’

‘Well, now you’ve approached me and I’m not eating you alive.’ Hana tries for a smile. ‘We’ll see each other at the end of August. You can wait until then, right?’

He takes a deep breath before spitting out that maybe at the end of August he’ll be going to Paris. Her smile gets bigger. She hasn’t understood.

‘Maybe I’m going to Paris,’ Ben repeats. ‘I’ve won a scholarship. You heard the dean was compiling a list, right? There were four scholarships for French and I won one of them. They only told us a few days ago.’

She decides to cross the street. Easy does it. Easy. Don’t be a fool. She shifts her bag to the other shoulder. Ben stands in front of her. She looks up.

‘Good for you! I’m happy for you,’ she mutters.

She’s desperate for a way out that’s quick and painless. For example, Ben turning around and leaving without a word. There’s nothing to say. Everything in her life is going away, she says to herself. Everything is running away. Don’t play the victim. Stop complaining. Stop.

‘Have a good time, then.’ She tries to soften the unpleasant tone of her voice. ‘And good luck in Paris … Paris!’

‘That’s why I was in a hurry – and I didn’t know how to find you.’

‘I get it. Now I see.’

‘How can I keep in touch, Hana? Is there anywhere I can call you in Rrnajë?’

‘Sure! I have a phone in every room of my mansion.’

‘Please, I don’t want to lose you. We can keep in touch. I’ll be coming to Albania in the summer, and even in the winter, maybe. We still have this month and a half to be together.’

‘The train won’t wait for me. I can’t miss it.’

She runs. In seven or eight hours she’ll be home, safe and sound. It’s good to leave. There’s something heroic about running away: you lose yourself, you fade away, you turn into a cloud, or maybe a man. You need courage to run away.

On the train she finds a seat with no upholstery and takes her place.

By the time she gets to Rrnajë she’s exhausted. People in the village have brought food to Uncle Gjergj. Enver is bleating for his mistress and won’t let Hana touch him. The sheep is as indifferent to her as ever.

One of these days Hana is going to have to go to the cooperative livestock pens and see how their cow is doing. Her name is Cow; they never gave her a proper name. When she lived at the Dodas’, she was in great shape. Recently, she’s looked terrible.

In their first decades in power, the communists had allowed families to keep one or two animals of their own. Then, with the new agricultural policies, the state had taken them away and things went from bad to worse. Now property is shared, and it is all managed by the agricultural cooperative, which means that, instead of working, the former owners sabotage state property. As soon as Cow started living in the state-owned stalls she stopped recognizing the Dodas, but they used to visit her anyway.

Hana washes, throwing water from a copper bucket over herself. She cooks dinner – the usual beans and potatoes with old brown bread – and they eat it in silence. Gjergj looks at her furtively and when their eyes meet he looks down.

‘I thought you wouldn’t come back,’ he says, lighting his pipe.

‘Where would I go, Uncle Gjergj?’

He is sitting up straight today; he looks almost healthy.

‘I see it’s done you good, me leaving you alone,’ she teases. ‘You look better now than when I left you. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.’

‘What nonsense! What was it like down in Tirana?’

‘Hot.’

‘Did you enroll at school?’

‘Sure.’

‘Good job, dear Hana. You are the perfect son. Pity you were born a girl. If you were a boy, the kulla would have someone to take care of everything now.’

‘Why? Aren’t I taking care of everything as it is?’

‘I’m talking about when I’m gone. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. If I don’t marry you off now while I’m still alive, you’ll end up without a husband and you know only a man can take care of everything. Maybe I’ve found the right person for you to marry. The day after tomorrow he’ll be here.’

‘Who will be here?’

‘You heard me. Your future husband. I want to see you settled, I’ve decided. I can’t leave you alone.’

Hana is silent.

‘This is my duty,’ he continues. ‘You need someone to take care of you.’

She still doesn’t say a word.

‘I won’t give you to the first man who comes along. I’ll find you a good husband, with a diploma and a good family. Don’t be scared: you’ll finish school, come back here and be a high-school teacher. That will be my deal with the family. Until now I haven’t taken anyone into consideration seriously because you wanted to go on studying. But things are different now.’

Hana gets up and goes out. She hears Uncle Gjergj’s scratchy voice, too weak to stop her. She walks around the kulla. It’s a beautiful night with a full moon. The garden is bathed in silvery light. Uncle Gjergj’s pants are still hanging on the line where she left them three days ago.

It’s all so cursedly beautiful: the perfume of the woods, the light breeze she feels ruffling her hair, the color of the night. She loves this place. They say nostalgia is only for the old; maybe she’s already old. Maybe she was born old. She feels love for the night, which in her life never seems to end, but there is no bitterness. It’s a fantastic feeling. It’s the stuff of poets. Writers. And she is neither. Calm down and keep your feet on the ground, she says to herself. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Hana; don’t say things that sound crazy. You are normal, aren’t you? She takes a deep breath and acts normal. You’ve just been threatened with marriage. Act scared.

No way. She doesn’t feel any fear, or even anger. She goes on loving the moment, her breath, her calloused palms, her farmhand looks. She loves the courage she felt when she got up and left Uncle Gjergj inside and impotent. She managed to keep him under control.

When she goes back inside she tells Uncle Gjergj she will not accept any husband. He lies down. The pipe resting on the ashtray smokes itself.

‘No husband. Do you see? I will not accept. If a future husband arrives the day after tomorrow, I’ll run away. I don’t want to be married and submit to the orders of a man, wash his feet, even. I will not be a slave.’

‘You’ll be left alone,’ Gjergj says slowly. ‘A woman who is not married is worth nothing.’

‘Women are the same as men.’

‘Like hell they are. Women are made to serve men and have children. Don’t be a fool!’

She finds it hard to control her anger.

‘I thought you were different,’ she says through her teeth. She’s not even sure he hears, because there is no reaction.

‘You’ll be alone in the world,’ he repeats. ‘But I won’t leave you undefended.’

‘You’re still alive, Uncle Gjergj. I won’t let you die.’

‘You can’t do anything about it.’

‘You can’t leave me. You’re the only family I have.’

‘That’s what I mean. After I’m gone you can’t remain here alone.’

‘What do you know about it? Let me deal with it.’

Her uncle tries to smile.

‘School has ruined you. You’ve turned into a city girl, and you’ve forgotten your position. I was wrong to let you go.’

She strides up to his bedside, snuffs his pipe out angrily and stares until he looks away.

‘You’re only a woman,’ he says, upon a sudden, treacherous impulse, seeking to diminish her.

‘And you’re only a man,’ she answers. He’s old and finished, there’s no hope. Aunt Katrina, you were so wrong.

She storms out of the house and slams the door, crying, shouting, suffocating.

‘Die, you bastard,’ she cries out into the night. ‘I thought you were different. Just die!’

She tries to calm down, but it takes her a long time. God forgive my anger. But God doesn’t exist in Rrnajë; it’s a crime to invoke him. Priests are condemned by the regime; they are rotting in prison because they turned to God.

Much later, when she goes back into the kulla, Gjergj says sorry. He says he knows she’s different, that she was always different, even when she was a little girl; that bringing her up was what kept him and poor Aunt Katrina alive, and that it’s not true she is only a woman. She is Hana. And there will never be another Hana.

She moves closer to him. She can’t believe her ears: a man never apologizes to a woman. She weighs Gjergj’s words in her mind, examines him closely to make sure he isn’t playing a trick on her. Then she says:

‘So, no more talk of marriage?’

‘If you’re really sure, my little girl.’

‘Yes, I’m really sure.’

‘Well, promise me you’ll take care of yourself when I die.’

‘You’re not going to die.’

‘Promise me anyway.’

‘I promise.’

‘You’ll be strong.’

‘A rock.’

‘You’ll be the man of this house.’

‘Go to sleep, now. If you sleep well, tomorrow I’ll take you out to see the village.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘We’ll go and see Aunt Katrina, and then we’ll go to the square.’

‘Hana, dear daughter, I’m so sorry.’

The next day the whole of Rrnajë is there to greet them, hands on their hearts: Gjergj, bre burrë, a je?

Uncle and niece visit Katrina’s grave. Hana has brought fresh flowers. Gjergj stands motionless, dazzled by the pile of earth as if it were the sun.

‘I’ll remember this little jaunt, dear daughter,’ he says later on.

When Gjergj’s condition worsens, Hana hitches a ride into town in a truck. She telephones the clinic in Kavajë where the village doctor now works and he promises to send her some painkillers to help Gjergj suffer less.

‘You should really take him to hospital,’ he tells her. ‘They’d be able to take better care of him.’

The phone line sounds weary, as if they are on opposite sides of the world.

‘If you come to Tirana, get in touch. We could meet, if you feel like it.’

The phone line groans. He waits and so does she.

‘Hana,’ the doctor says, ‘I have to go. I’m with a patient right now.’

‘Of course, sure.’

‘Take your uncle to the hospital and then run away from that village of yours. Come to Tirana and finish school. You have your whole future ahead of you.’

Through the dirty glass of the phone box Hana observes the filthy Scutari post office, where people are waiting impatiently for a free phone booth to slip into so that the world doesn’t forget all about them.

‘Will you listen to me, Hana? You can’t save him, and you can’t bury yourself alive with him.’

‘Thank you for everything, Doctor,’ she says, pleased with the tone of voice she manages to produce, while the dirty glass helps her feel protected for a little while longer; for as soon as she leaves the phone booth, she’ll be just like all those people waiting outside, unwashed, undernourished, badly dressed, worlds apart from French women.

‘You can’t bury yourself up in the mountains,’ the doctor repeats, as if she were deaf.

Gjergj will never agree to go back to the hospital and be hitched up to the machines again. He has chosen his path. He wants to die in his own bed, and Hana agrees with him. She’ll keep him company until the end. She’ll be right there beside him, more for herself than for him. How can you explain certain things? These things? Everything? It’s impossible to explain to somebody on the other end of a crippled phone line in a crazy country.

There’s no need to explain anything, as it turns out, because the phone line goes dead. For both of our sakes, Hana thinks, as she steps out of the phone box into the glaring and restless sun that still doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up.

The village nurse comes and gives Gjergj his shots. Hana gives him his pills at regular intervals. One day she starts reciting poems to him without saying what they are. She recites a bit of everything, from Emily Dickinson to Walt Whitman, from Paul Éluard to Juan Ramón Jiménez, and, of course, her beloved Hikmet. Every now and then, alongside the great poets, she smuggles in some of her own poems. She waits to see if he reacts, trying to recite them with a different voice, playing with the stresses. I’m so pathetic, she thinks, but she can’t help it, her need is too strong. Uncle Gjergj often falls asleep between one poem and the next; she will never know whether he liked them or not.

Cow dies in one of those scorching weeks. The vet from the agricultural cooperative climbs up to the Dodas’ house to give them the news, and looks around.

‘You must be hungry, young lady,’ he says. ‘What are you living on?’

‘Sheep’s milk, Comrade Veterinary Surgeon.’

‘That’s not enough.’

Hana smiles, confirming with her eyes.

‘Tomorrow come to me and I’ll give you a bit of flour, sugar and other stuff.’

Hana doesn’t say that they don’t have the money to pay and whatever money they do have goes on drugs for Uncle Gjergj.

‘Ok,’ she says instead. ‘Thank you very much. I’ll be there.’

She’ll get by as well as she can, without begging for free food. Uncle Gjergj would be furious.

Uncle and niece spend the summer in a kind of truce, with the oncoming death looming over them.

On September 10, Arben Leska sends her a letter in which he says that he is about to leave for Paris.

At the end of the month, Gjergj gets up, and for a couple of weeks he seems better. He can’t talk out loud and he can only swallow liquids, but he stands surprisingly upright. At times he even walks a bit. At other times he spends hours with Enver, at the door to the pen. One morning Hana hears him cursing the animal in a voice like sandpaper.

‘You’re a son of a bitch,’ she hears him say. ‘You’ve ruined our lives, you stupid billygoat.’ Enver bleats away, unaware of the insults directed at him and unable to defend himself. His droppings land squarely on Gjergj’s shoes.

It’s a beautiful fall. Dawn takes its time turning into daylight, but the sunset is unwilling to concede to night. Everything is suspended, like a feather, or a breath, or a memory that doesn’t want to be forgotten. And maybe Paris is make-believe, just like Gjergj’s sickness.

When there is absolutely nothing left to eat in the house, Hana decides to ask for work at the agricultural cooperative. They give her a position cleaning the animal pens.

She sets off early in the morning and gets back home late in the evening every day for four weeks running, until one day she realizes that the number of ashtrays and grappa glasses scattered around the house means that a lot of people must have been there in her absence. She questions Gjergj but he denies having had visitors.

Their neighbor, old mother Rrokaj, confirms that Gjergj is about to host an engagement party in Hana’s honor, and that her future husband is a man from a village on the Kosovo border. He’s from a good family and, rather than taking Hana to his village, he has promised to move into the Dodas’ kulla after Gjergj dies. He’s an elementary-school teacher in his village and so he is educated, like Hana.

‘You’re a lucky girl,’ the woman says. ‘Your uncle is such a good man that he won’t die before providing for you.’

For three days Hana stops eating and refuses to talk to Gjergj.

Down in Tirana, school has already started. Some of the girls in her dorm must have fallen in love, and her favorite desk in the Introduction to Linguistics class has probably gained an extra doodle or food stain.

On the second day of November, the snow comes. This year it is later than usual. She has to go to Scutari to get more drugs.

‘Make sure I don’t find anyone in the house when I get back,’ she warns her uncle before setting off.

‘You don’t give orders to me, young lady.’

‘And if I do, what will you do?’

It’s one of those rare occasions when he has managed to stand up straight and tall, like a rock in the middle of the dark room.

‘No betrothals or husbands while I’m away, Uncle Gjergj. That was the deal.’

‘It was, but not anymore. The wedding will be at the end of the year.’

He is so thin that, for the first time ever, Hana finds him ugly. They stare at each other angrily, and then Gjergj softens a little, and tries to sit down. Hana doesn’t make a move to help him.

‘Don’t make me hate you, I beg you,’ she says.

‘Just look at you! You’re so tiny,’ he says, clearly in pain. ‘Help me, I need to sit down.’

She turns around and leaves the house, slamming the door as she goes. She starts walking through the snow that has started to settle unexpectedly. She only stops to look back at the kulla when she is far enough away not to be seen by her uncle, who must surely be looking out of the window. She hasn’t even placed the soup that she cooked the night before where he can reach it for his dinner.

She finds a ride down to the city in a truck driven by a peasant with a southern accent. Hana gives him the fare and climbs in without thinking twice. The driver stinks of alcohol and cigarettes, but in the mountains all the men stink of alcohol and cigarettes, so she relaxes.

The driver asks her a question every now and then, which she answers in monosyllables.

‘This evening I have to go back up your way,’ the truck driver says when they are just outside Scutari, at the Rosafa castle. ‘I’ll unload the wood here and then go back up to the mountains to sleep so tomorrow I can bring down a new load. If you want I’ll give you a lift back.’

They negotiate a time and a fare. The man seems as angry as she is and they say goodbye without looking each other in the eye.

By the afternoon, Hana’s anger has dissipated. She’ll go home and be a good daughter to the old man, she promises, not for the first time. For one more month everything will be all right. She’ll give him his drugs and he’ll say, ‘Good girl, you’re like a son to me.’

She eats two byrekë at a stand in the center, near the Rosafa Hotel. Then she drops in at the library and borrows three books to return next month. By the end of her day in town she’s even in a good mood.

During the trip back, the truck makes slower progress than it did on its way down because of the snow, even though it is empty.

Hana tries to be a little more friendly and asks the driver if he has any children. He mumbles something. He must be seriously angry with someone in the city, or maybe at himself, and is as hostile as he was this morning, so she stops trying to be nice.

At one point they see a group of people waving their arms to stop the truck, but there’s no way he’s going to pick them up. Hana tries to tell him the truck is empty so he could give those people a ride, but he tells her to mind her own fucking business and leave him alone. For half an hour they don’t say a word. Then, when it is completely dark outside, the man stops the truck, leaving the engine running.

‘I got to take a piss,’ he slurs. ‘Back in a minute.’

When he climbs back into the truck, his pants are open. Hana doesn’t realize at first. The man’s words are disgusting enough. She listens because she has no choice. The man says she’d better let him have his way, and anyway it doesn’t make any difference. Women don’t go out on their own unless they’re up for it. Hana is shocked by his rough language. She slips her hand into the jute sack at her feet just in time. Don’t make a fuss, lady, I won’t hurt you, we’ll just have a little fun together. When he pushes himself onto her, Hana is ready with her knife and she plunges it into his chest. Aunt Katrina always used this knife to take the heads off their chickens. The man groans. Hana always takes the knife with her when she goes down to the city. She sharpens it without letting Uncle Gjergj see.

‘You fucking bitch!’

She jumps out of the truck and runs into the trees beside the road.

‘You fucking bitch! Peasant woman! Mountain bitch!’

She doesn’t get home until the next day, wet with snow and dead tired. Uncle Gjergj is as white as a shroud. He hasn’t slept a wink. He looks at her as if she were a ghost. He doesn’t ask any questions, but bangs his stick over and over on the stone wall, on the table. He’s no stronger than an ant. She can’t see his face. He’s curled up in the corner of the room, his head buried in his chest.

The following day, Hana rummages through Gjergj’s clothes chest, at the same time asking herself what she is looking for. She finds his national costume and puts it on, still wondering what she is doing. She rolls the pants up at the waist and tries to keep them up by tightening the red waistband. What are you doing? She stares at the wall in front of her. She smiles at the stone, and feels sorry for it. The stone has never been kissed. She leans her forehead on it and rests there for a while.

When she goes downstairs and presents herself to Gjergj dressed as a man, her uncle is struck dumb. But all of a sudden his chin starts to twitch and, however tightly he locks his jaw, it is not enough to hold back his emotion.

It’s November 6, 1986.

Hana scratches the date on the wall of the guest room. It takes her a good hour to do it properly.

When she has finished, she goes back to Gjergj. He passes her his rifle. She takes it and examines it closely. It has belonged to six generations of Doda clansmen. Gjergj has kept it oiled for thirty-six years. Hana is still standing awkwardly. Now what? she asks herself. Now what? Now nothing. Now there is nothing. What time is it now in Paris? She’s supposed to sit like a man, with her legs crossed, she’s supposed to smoke a pipe like Uncle Gjergj. She looks at the legs sticking out of her pants, like a ladybug’s, she thinks. To postpone the moment when she has to sit like a man, she stays standing.

‘Are you sure you want to take this step, dear daughter?’

‘My name will be Mark. Mark Doda.’

The next day the news spreads around Rrnajë and the village is alive with gossip. The men will greet her as a man, and the women will avoid her eye.

She starts to keep a diary.

In the five months that follow, Hana takes care of Gjergj, the house, the animals, the memory of Katrina. She tries to make her gait heavier, more masculine. It’ll take time. Every now and then she gives herself a break. ‘There is no hurry,’ she tells herself.

Don’t run, don’t make a noise, don’t think. There’s no hurry. Not anymore. There’s all the time in the world, nobody is waiting for you. You don’t have to worry anymore about how soft your hair is; you don’t have to worry about finding nice clothes; a world’s worth of snow separates Rrnajë from Paris.

Now you’re a man. You’re a man. A man! You’re not allowed to look at real men anymore.

Everything is just fine, she makes herself believe. The snow, the dark nights, the dogs chasing each other, the shadows of the wolves across the snowy landscape, hurrying like busy travelers. The mountains protect you and overwhelm you. The echo of centuries rings in your heart. They save you from the greasy panting of redneck truck drivers.

The memory is still alive. The terror she had felt. The night she had spent in the woods, her teeth chattering with the fear that, having escaped from one man with his pants open, another would suddenly appear from behind one of those trees.

She hadn’t slept a wink. She had sharpened the darkness with her night eyes. If anybody had approached her she would have killed him. She had kept her knife close to her chest and her heart had never stopped beating furiously. She had been famished, she had been angry, she had called to her mother by her beautiful name; she had even invoked her father, whose face she couldn’t remember.

She had prayed to God, and with mute tears; to the same God who had been banned a year before Hana was born and whom Felicità had always talked about in secret.

She had managed not to freeze to death. At dawn she had crept through the alleys of Rrnajë without being seen, protected by the snow. When she got home, the kulla had become hard as a rock. A grave for her old self. She had become a man.

‘Honor to you for what you have done,’ Gjergj’s guests repeat in the months that follow. He is proud of her. You can see it in his eyes, which refuse to surrender to death, and in the way he passes Hana the bottle of raki.

‘Gjergj, bre burrë now you have a son and the honor of the kulla will not die.’

Hana learns to smoke with them. She stinks like them. She copies their laughter and makes her voice more gravelly. Her throat and ribs hurt.

The whole of the Bjeshkët e Namuna – all the ‘cursed mountains’ – knows by now that the Dodas’ daughter has become a man.

Some of the village men fire volleys of rifle shots to celebrate the event, and the man from the Party does not say a thing. Nor does the policeman. If things stay within limits, the Party is magnanimous. If a young girl decides to become the man of the house, well, traditions are to be respected. Within limits. Within certain limits.

One day Lila, her only first cousin, comes to Rrnajë with Shtjefën, her young husband, to visit her parents. She looks at Hana as if she has flown in from Mars.

‘Hana, sweetie, what have you done? You of all people?’

Lila looks like a sheep. Her terrible perm makes her hair as fluffy as an old woman’s. It’s traditional: young wives curl their hair using an iron heated on the fire.

‘Look at yourself; you look like a grandmother.’

‘Why did you do it, Hana?’

‘Your hair makes you look like an old lady. Your headscarf makes you look like an old lady.’

‘I’m married now.’

‘That’s pretty obvious.’

‘Look, I love Shtjefën and I didn’t walk down the aisle like a lamb to slaughter. He’s a good man, he’s not like the others.’

‘But you wait on him without saying a word, and you let your in-laws tell you what to do, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean? It’s tradition. There are such things as rules. Why did you do it, Hana?’

They observe each other. Lila waits for an answer, which Hana doesn’t provide.

‘You were shaping up to be a great young woman, you could have been a schoolteacher, and now …’

‘Call me Mark,’ she says to her cousin, hugging her so as not to be overwhelmed by tears.

‘You’re crazy,’ Lila says, disoriented. ‘You’re totally crazy, Hana.’

Gjergj dies on a sunny May day in 1987. Everything is ready. The house is full of food, considering what little there is up in the mountains. The honor of the Doda family is more secure than ever. Mark receives condolences. Men and women show him equal respect. Nobody calls her Hana any longer.

The kulla is squeaky clean. Old habits die hard, and she struggles to neglect the housework. But she is trying. Men don’t do women’s work; that’s ‌the rule of the Kanun.¹¹

A week after the funeral, Hana weeps in front of the pile of fresh earth that is Gjergj’s grave. She is alone, so nobody will see her crying.

She cries for a long time, and then looks up at the clear blue sky, the bare cemetery, the small stretch of Rrnajë that extends beyond the graveyard. The sun is so warm and reassuring, it makes her feel as though she’s on the top of the world.

On a day like this, her mother would have started singing.