The Ghost Rider

  “Then who brought the woman back?” shouted the archbishop from his seat. “The dead man?”

  Stres turned towards him.

  “Who brought Doruntine back? I will answer you on that very point, for I was in charge of this case. Be patient, Your Eminence, be patient, noble sirs!”

  Stres took a deep breath. So many hundreds of lungs swelled along with his that he felt as if all the air about them had been set in motion. Once again he glanced slowly across the packed courtyard to the stands, at the foot of which the guards stood with their arms akimbo.

  “I expected that question,” said Stres, “and am therefore prepared to answer it.” He paused again. “Yes, I have prepared myself with the greatest care to answer it. The painstaking investigation I conducted is now closed, my file complete, my conviction unshakable. I am ready, noble sirs, to answer the question ‘Who brought Doruntine back?’”

  Stres allowed yet another brief moment of silence, during which he glanced in all directions as if seeking to convey the truth with his eyes before expressing it with his voice.

  “Doruntine,” he said, “was in fact brought back by Kostandin.”

  Stres stiffened, expecting some sound – laughter, jeers, shouts, an uproar of some kind, even a challenging cry: “But for two months you’ve been trying to convince us of the contrary!” Nothing of the kind came from the crowd.

  “Yes, Doruntine was brought back by Kostandin,” he repeated as if he feared that he had been misunderstood. But people’s stupefaction was evidence enough that his words had reached them. He thought that their silence was perhaps excessive, as it can be in response to fear.

  “Just as I promised you, noble sirs, and you, honoured guests, I will explain everything. All I ask is that you have the patience to hear me out.”

  At that moment Stres’s only concern was to keep his mind clear. For the time being he asked for nothing more.

  “You have all heard,” he began, “some of you before setting out for this gathering, others on your way here or upon your arrival, of the strange marriage of Doruntine Vranaj, the marriage that lies at the root of this whole affair. You are all aware, I imagine, that this far-off marriage, the first to be consummated with a man from so distant a country, would never have taken place if Kostandin, one of the bride’s brothers, had not given his mother his word that he would bring Doruntine back to her whenever she desired her daughter’s presence, on occasions of joy or sorrow. You also know that not long after the wedding the Vranaj, like all of Albania, were stricken with unspeakable grief. Yet no one brought Doruntine back, for he who had promised to do so was dead. You are aware of the curse the Lady Mother uttered against her son for his violation of the besa, and you know that three weeks after that curse was spoken, Doruntine at last appeared at the family home. That is why I now affirm, and reaffirm, that it was none other than her brother Kostandin, in accordance with his oath, his besa, who brought Doruntine back. There is no other explanation for that journey, nor could there be. It matters little whether or not Kostandin returned from the grave to accomplish his mission, just as it matters little who was the horseman who set out on that dark night or what horse he saddled, whose hands held the reins, whose feet pressed against the stirrups, whose hair was matted with the highway dust. Each of us has a part in that journey, for it is here among us that Kostandin’s besa germinated, and that is what brought Doruntine back. Therefore, to be more exact I would have to say that it was all of us – you, me, our dead lying there in the graveyard close by the church – who, through Kostandin, brought Doruntine back.”

  Stres swallowed.

  “Aha!” the archbishop thundered from his seat, “at last you confess to your own part in this abomination!”

  “All our parts …” Stres said, as he tried to make his meaning clear, but the archbishop’s voice overrode his own.

  “Speak for yourself!” the prelate yelled. “And by the way, I would really like to know where you were between 30 September and 11 October. Where were you, exactly?”

  Stres kept his composure but his face had turned as white as a sheet.

  “Answer, Captain!” someone shouted.

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” Stres responded. “During the period alluded to I was on a secret mission.”

  “Aha! More mysteries!” the archbishop screamed. “So be it! But so we may know the truth of the matter, we would like you to tell us what the mission consisted of.”

  “It was the kind of job that even we officers seek to forget once it is done. I have nothing to add.”

  This time the rumbling of the crowd that echoed from the walls took longer to abate. Stres took a deep breath.

  “Noble sirs, I have not yet finished. I would like to tell you – and most of all to tell our guests from distant lands – just what this sublime power is that is capable of bending the laws of death.”

  Stres paused again. His throat felt dry and he found it hard to form his words. But he kept speaking just the same. He spoke of the besa, of its spread among the Albanians. As he spoke he saw someone in the crowd coming towards him, holding what seemed to be a heavy object, perhaps a stone. They’re already coming, he thought, and with his elbow he touched the pommel of his sword beneath his cloak. But as the man drew nearer, Stres saw that it was one of the Radhen boys, and that he carried not a stone to strike him with, but a small pitcher.

  Stres smiled, took the pitcher and drank.

  “And now,” he went on, “let me try to explain why this new moral law was born and is now spreading among us. The question is this: in these new conditions of the worsening of the general atmosphere in the world, in this time of crime and hateful treachery that could be called unbelief, who should the Albanian be? What face shall he show the world? Shall he espouse evil or stand against it? Shall he disfigure himself, changing his features to suit the masks of the age, seeking thus to assure his survival, or shall he keep his countenance unchanged … I am a servant of the state and have little interest in the personal aspects of Kostandin’s journey, if in fact there are any. Each of us, commoners and lords alike, be we Caesar or Christ, is the shroud of unfathomable mysteries. But, functionary that I am, I have spoken of the general point, the one that concerns Albania. Albania’s time of trial is near, the hour of choice between these two faces. And if the people of Albania, deep within themselves, have begun to fashion institutions as sublime as the besa, that shows us that Albania is making the right choice. Albania aims to keep its eternal image. That’s the main thing, to my mind. She will keep her face not by retreating from the world like a wild animal at bay, but by joining the world. It was to carry that message to Albania and to the world beyond that Kostandin rose from his grave.”

  Once more Stres’s glance embraced the numberless crowd that stretched before him, then the stands to his right and left. He thought he saw the gleam of tears here and there. But the people’s eyes were, in fact, empty.

  “But it is not easy to accept this message,” he went on. “It will require great sacrifices by successive generations. Its burden will be heavier than the cross of Christ. And now that I have come to the end of what I had to tell you” – and here Stres turned to the stands where the envoys of the prince were seated – “I would like to add that, since my words are at variance with my duties, or at least are at variance with them for the moment, I now resign my post.”

  He raised his right hand to the white antler insignia sewn on the left side of his cloak and, pulling sharply, ripped it off and let it fall to the ground.

  Without another word he descended the wooden stairway and, his head held high, walked through the crowd, which parted at his passing with a mixture of respect and dread.

  From that day forward, Stres was never seen again. No one, neither his deputies nor his family, not even his wife, knew where he was – or at least no one would say.

  At the Old Monastery the wooden grandstands and platform were dismantled, porters carried off the planks and beams, and i
n the inner courtyard there was no longer any trace of the assembly. But no one forgot a word that Stres had spoken there. His words passed from mouth to mouth, from village to village, with unbelievable speed. The rumour that Stres had been arrested in the wake of his speech soon proved unfounded. It was said that he had been seen somewhere, or at least that someone had heard the trot of his horse. Others insisted they had caught a glimpse of him on the northern highway. They were sure they had recognised him, despite the dusk and the first layer of dust that covered his hair. Who can say? people mused, who can say? How much, O Lord, must our poor minds take in! And then someone said, his voice trembling as if shivering with cold:

  “Sometimes I wonder if he didn’t bring Doruntine back himself.”

  “How dare you say such a thing?”

  “What would be so surprising?” the man answered. “As for myself, I have not been surprised by anything since the day she returned.”

  As was only to be expected, the old dispute over local versus foreign marriages arose once again. Proponents of local marriages now seemed likely to prevail, but the other faction proved obstinate. Each side had its own explanation of the dead man’s ride. The distant marriage faction emphasised respect of the besa and obviously saw Kostandin as its standard bearer. The other side treated his journey as an act of repentance, in other words as a resurrection intended to make good a fault. A third group, who saw in the man’s long ride an attempt to reconcile opposites – distance and proximity – that had torn him apart as much as his incestuous yearnings, was much less prominent.

  With the idea of local marriage constantly gaining ground, the sad story of Maria Matrenga was quoted more and more often, despite the fact that, like some predestined counterweight, Palok the Idiot wandered around the village alleyways ever more visibly.

  When the poor yokel was found dead one fine morning, people’s initial distress was quickly replaced by an understanding that his murderers would never be identified. The incident was accounted for, as many are, in two different ways. Supporters of distant marriages maintained that Palok had been slaughtered by his own kin, that is to say by defenders of local unions, so as to remove from the street this visible evidence that did their cause harm every day of the week. But their adversaries obstinately insisted that the killing had been done by the supporters of exogamy, so as to show that even though their ideals were on the wane, they were still prepared to defend them, even by spilling blood.

  All the same, despite this new bone of contention, things proceeded as they always do when a simpleton is killed, for unlike cases where dogs are put down, they often lead to reconciliation. Tension between the two factions went into sharp decline.

  While time now seemed to be on the side of local marriages, an event took place which could have seemed ordinary in any other season, but was not at all normal in mid-winter. A young woman of the village married and left to join her husband in some far-off place. Everyone was shocked to hear talk of a new Doruntine at such a time of year. People thought that after the uproar over all that had taken place in the village, the bride’s family would break the engagement or at least put off the wedding for a while. But the ceremony took place on the appointed day, the groom’s relatives came over from their country, which some people said was six days away, while others said eight. After they had done with all their feasting and drinking and singing of songs, they took the young woman away with them. Almost the entire village walked with them from the church, as they had done years before with sorry Doruntine, and seeing the bride looking so beautiful, almost wraith-like in her white veil, many must have wondered whether on some moonless night some ghost might not go and bring her back home again. But the bride, for her part, astride her white horse, showed not the slightest sign of worry about her fate. People watching her leave nodded their heads, saying, “Good Lord, maybe young brides nowadays like that sort of thing, maybe they like riding at night, hanging on to a shadow, through the dark and the void …”

  Tirana, October 1979

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  The Siege

  The following pages contain an extract from The Siege, one of Ismail Kadare’s masterpieces, an unforgettable account of the clash of two civilisations and a timeless depiction of individual pain, uncertainty and fear that resonates today.

  It is the early fifteenth century and as winter falls away, the people of Albania know that their fate is sealed. They have refused to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire, and war is now inevitable.

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  THE

  SIEGE

  As winter fell away and the Sultan’s envoys departed, we realised that war was our ineluctable fate. They had pressured us in every way to accept being vassals of the Sultan. First they used flattery, promising us a part in governing their vast empire. Then they accused us of being renegades in the pay of the Frankish knights, that is to say, slaves of Europe. Finally, as was to be expected, they made threats.

  You seem mighty sure of your fortresses, they said to us, but even if they are as sturdy as you think, we’ll throttle you with an altogether more fearsome iron band – hunger and thirst. At each season of harvest and threshing, the only seeded field you’ll see will be the sky, and your only sickle the moon.

  And then they left. All through March their couriers galloped as fast as the wind bearing messages to the Sultan’s Balkan vassals, telling them either to persuade us to give in, or else to cut off all relations with us. As was to be expected, all were obliged to take the latter course.

  We were alone and knew that sooner or later they would come. Many times in the past we had faced attacks from our enemies, but lying in wait of the mightiest army the world had ever known was a different matter. Our own minds were perpetually abuzz, but our prince, George Castrioti, was preoccupied beyond easy imagining. The inland castles and coastal keeps were ordered to repair their watchtowers and above all to build up stocks of arms and supplies. We did not yet know from which direction they would come, but in early June we heard that they had begun to march along the old Roman road, the Via Egnatia, so they were heading straight towards us.

  One week later, as fate decreed that our castle would be the first defence against the invasion, the icon of the Virgin from the great church at Shkodër was brought to us. A hundred years before it had given the defenders of Durrës the strength to repulse the Normans. We all gave thanks to Our Immaculate Lady and felt calmer and stronger for it.

  Their army moved slowly. It crossed our border in mid-June. Two days later George Castrioti came with Count Musaka to inspect the garrison one last time, and to give it his blessing. After issuing final instructions, he left the castle on Sunday afternoon, followed by his escort and the officers’ womenfolk and children, so as to place them in safety in the mountains.

  We walked alongside them for a while without speaking. Then we made our adieus with much feeling and went back into the keep. From look-outs on our towers we watched them climb up to the Plain of the Cross, then we saw them re-em
erge on the Evil Slope and finally disappear into the Windy Ravine. Then we closed the heavy outer doors, and the fortress seemed to have gone mute now that we could no longer hear the voices of our youngsters inside it. We also battened down the inner sets of doors and let silence reign over us.

  On June 18, at daybreak, we heard the tolling of the bell. The sentinel on the East Tower announced that a yellowish cloud could be seen in the far distance. It was the dust kicked up by their horses.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The first Turkish troops came beneath the walls of the fortress on June 18. They spent the day pitching camp. By evening the entire army had still not arrived. New units kept on coming in. A thick layer of dust lay on men, shields, flags and drums, horses and wagons, and on the camels laden with bronze and heavy equipment. As soon as each marching group came on to the plain that lay before the garrison, officers from a special battalion would allocate a specific camping site, and the weary soldiers, under orders from their leaders, would busy themselves with setting up the tents before collapsing inside them, half-dead from fatigue.

  Ugurlu Tursun Pasha, the commander-in-chief, stood alone outside his pink pavilion. He was watching the sun set. The huge camp throbbed with the noise of horseshoes and a thousand voices, and with its long lines of tents, it looked to him like a giant octopus which would stretch out one tentacle after another and slowly but surely encircle and suffocate the castle. The nearest tents were less than a hundred paces from the ramparts, the furthest were beyond the horizon. The Pasha’s lieutenants had insisted his pavilion be placed at least a thousand paces from the castle walls. But he had refused to be so far away. Some years earlier, when he had been still a young man and of less elevated rank, he had often slept less than fifty paces from the ramparts, almost at the foot of the besieged citadel. Later on, however, in successive wars and sieges, as he rose in rank, the colour of his tent and its distance from the walls had changed in tandem. It was now pitched at a distance slightly more than half of what his lieutenants recommended, that is, at six hundred paces. That was a lot less than a thousand, all the same.