Doruntine

by Ismail Kadare

  Now, as the throng following along behind the procession of invited guests headed slowly toward the church, people talked, whispered, recalled the circumstances of Doruntine’s marriage, the reluctance of her mother and the brothers who opposed the union, Constantine’s insistence that the marriage take place and his bessa to his mother that he would always bring Doruntine back to her. As for Doruntine herself, no one knew whether she had freely consented to the marriage. More beautiful than ever, on horseback among her brothers and relatives—who were also mounted—misty with the tears custom requires of every young bride, she already belonged to the horizon more than to them.

  All this now came to mind as the procession followed the same path as the throng of guests had taken then. And just as crystal shines the more brightly on a cloth of black velvet, so the memory of Doruntine’s marriage against the background of grief now gained in brilliance in the minds of all those present. Henceforth it would be difficult for people to think of the one without the other, especially since everyone felt that Doruntine looked as beautiful in her coffin as she had astride the horse caparisoned for the wedding. Beautiful, but to what end, they murmured. No one had enjoyed her beauty. Now the earth alone would profit from it.

  Others, in voices even more muted, spoke of her mysterious return, repeating what people had told them or denying it. It seems, someone said, that Stres is trying to solve the mystery. The prince himself has ordered him to get to the root of it. Believe me, a companion interrupted, there’s no mystery about it. She returned to close the circle of death, that’s all. Yes, but how did she come back? Ah, that we shall never know. It seems that one of her brothers rose from the grave by night to go and fetch her. That’s what I heard, astounding as it may seem. But some people claim that—I know, I know, but don’t say it, it’s a sin to say such things, especially on the day of her burial. Yes, you’re right.

  And people cut short their discussions, tacitly agreeing that a few days hence, perhaps even on the morrow, once the dead were buried and tranquility restored, they would speak of this again, and of other things as well, and surely more at their ease.

  Which is exactly what happened. Once the burial was over and the whole story seemed at an end, a great clamor arose, the like of which had rarely been heard. It spread in waves through the surrounding countryside and rolled on farther, sweeping to the frontiers of the principality, spilling over its borders and cascading through neighboring principalities and counties. Apparently the many people who had attended the burial had carried bits of it away to sow throughout the land.

  Passing from mouth to mouth and ear to ear, the waves of sound bore, of course, many regrets, of the sort that everyone refrains from expressing directly but is prepared, in such circumstances, to evoke in roundabout ways. And as it grew more distant it began to evaporate, changing shape like a wandering cloud, though its essence remained the same: a dead man had come back from the grave to keep the promise he had made to his mother: to bring his married sister back to her from far away whenever she wished.

  Barely a week had gone by since the burial of the two women when Stres was urgently summoned to the Monastery of the Three Crosses. The archbishop of the principality awaited him there, having come expressly on a matter of the greatest importance.

  Expressly on a matter of the greatest importance, Stres repeated to himself again and again as he crossed the plain on horseback. What could the archbishop possibly want of him? The prelate rarely left the archiepiscopal seat, and even if there had been some matter that concerned Stres, the archbishop could have spoken to the captain’s superiors or summoned him to his headquarters in the principality’s capital, thus sparing himself the long journey to the Monastery of the Three Crosses. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding, Stres said to himself, some mixup on the part of officials or messengers. In any event, there was little point in worrying too soon.

  A chill wind blew across the plain, which was covered with an autumn frost. On either side of the road all the way to the horizon haystacks seemed to wander bleakly. Stres pulled up the hood of his cloak. What if this was about the Doruntine affair, he said to himself. But he rejected that possibility out of hand. Ridiculous! What had the archbishop to do with that? He had enough thorny problems of his own, especially since the recent paroxysm of tension between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. Some years before, when the spheres of influence of Catholicism and Orthodoxy had become more or less defined, the principality remaining under the sway of the Byzantine church, Stres had thought that this endless quarrel was at last drawing to a close. But not at all. The two churches had once more taken up their struggle for the allegiance of the Albanian princes and counts. Information regularly reported to Stres from the inns and relay stations suggested that in recent times Catholic missionaries had intensified their activities in the principalities. Perhaps that was the reason for the archbishop’s visit—but then, Stress himself was not involved in those matters. It was not he who issued safe-conduct passes. No, Stres said to himself, I have nothing to do with that. It must be something else.

  He told himself again that he would find out soon enough what it was all about. There was no point in racking his brains now. There was probably a simple explanation: the archbishop may have come for some other reason—a tour of inspection, for example—and decided incidentally to avail himself of Stres’s services in resolving this or that problem. The spread of the practice of magic, for instance, had posed a problem for the church, and that did fall within Stres’s purview. Yes, he told himself, that must be it, sensing that he had finally found some solid ground. Nevertheless, it was only a small step from the practice of magic to a dead man’s rising from his grave. No!—he almost said it aloud—the archbishop must have nothing to do with Doruntine! And spurring his horse, he quickened his pace.

  It was very cold. The houses of a hamlet loomed briefly somewhere off to his right, but soon he could see nothing but the plain again, with the haystacks drifting toward the horizon.

  The Monastery of the Three Crosses was still far off. Along that stretch of road, Stres kept turning the same ideas over in his mind, but in a different order now. He brought himself up short more than once: nonsense, ridiculous, not possible. But though he resolved repeatedly not to think about it for the rest of his journey, he could not stop wondering why the archbishop had summoned him.

  It was the first time Stres had ever been close to the archbishop. Without the chasuble in which Stres had seen him standing in the nave of the church in the capital, the archbishop seemed thin, slender, his skin so pale, so diaphanous, that you almost felt that you could see what was happening inside that nearly translucent body if you looked hard enough. But Stres lost that impression completely the moment the archbishop started to speak. His voice did not match his physique. On the contrary, it seemed more closely related to the chasuble and miter which he had set aside, but would no doubt have kept by him had they not been replaced by that strangely powerful voice.

  The archbishop came straight to the point. He told Stres that he had been informed of an alleged resurrection said to have occurred two weeks before in this part of the country. Stres took a deep breath. So that was it after all! The most improbable of all his guesses had been correct. What had happened, the archbishop went on, was disastrous, more disastrous and far-reaching than it might seem at first sight. He raised his voice. Only frivolous minds, he said, could take things of this kind lightly. Stres felt himself blush and was about to protest that no one could accuse him of having taken the matter lightly, that on the contrary he had informed the prince’s chancellery at once, while doing his utmost to throw light on the mystery. But the archbishop, as if reading his mind, broke in:

  “I was informed of all this from the outset and issued express instructions that the whole affair be buried. I must admit that I never expected the story to spread so far.”

  “It is true that it has spread beyond all reason,” said Stres, opening his mouth
for the first time. Since the archbishop himself admitted that he had not foreseen these developments, Stres thought it superfluous to seek to justify his own attitude.

  “I undertook this difficult journey,” the archbishop went on, “in order to gauge the scope of the repercussions for myself. Unfortunately, I am now convinced that they are catastrophic.”

  Stres nodded agreement.

  “Nothing less would have induced me to take to the highway in this detestable weather,” the prelate continued, his penetrating eyes still riveted on Stres. “Now, do you understand the importance the Holy Church attaches to this incident?”

  “Yes, Monsignor,” said Stres. “Tell me what I must do.”

  The archbishop, who apparently had not expected this question so early on, sat motionless for a moment as if choking down an explanation that had suddenly proved unnecessary. Stres felt that the prelate was at the point of exasperation.

  “This affair must be buried,” he said evenly. “Or rather, one aspect of it, the one that is at variance with the truth, and damaging to the Church. Do you understand me, Captain? We must deny the story of this man’s resurrection, reject it, unmask it, prevent its spread at all costs.”

  “I understand, Monsignor.”

  “Will it be difficult?”

  “Most certainly,” said Stres. “I can prevent an imposter or slanderer from speaking, but how, Monsignor, can I stop the spread of this uproar? That is beyond my power.”

  The archbishop’s eyes glittered with a cold flame.

  “I cannot prevent the mourners from spinning their yarns,” Stres went on, “and as for rumor—”

  “Find a way to make the mourners stop their songs themselves,” the prelate said sharply. “As for rumor, what you must do is change its course.”

  “And how can I do that?” Stres asked evenly.

  They stared at each other for a long moment.

  “Captain,” the archbishop finally said, “do you yourself believe that the dead man rose from his grave?”

  “No, Monsignor.”

  Stres had the impression that the archbishop had sighed with relief. How could the man have dreamed that I was naive enough to credit such insanity, he wondered.

  “Then you think that someone else must have brought back the young woman in question?”

  “Without the slightest doubt, Monsignor.”

  “Well then, try to prove it,” said the archbishop, “and you will find that the mourners will suspend their songs in mid-verse and rumor will change of itself.”

  “I have sought to do just that, Monsignor,” Stres said. “I have done my utmost.”

  “With no result?”

  “Very nearly. Of course there are people who do not believe in this resurrection, but they are a minority. Most believe it.”

  “Then you must see to it that this minority becomes the majority.”

  “I have done all I can, Monsignor.”

  “You must do even more, Captain. And there is only one way to manage it: you must find the man who brought the young woman back. Find the imposter, the lover, the adventurer, whatever he is. Track him down relentlessly, wherever he may be. Move heaven and earth until you find him. And if you do not find him, then you will have to create him.”

  “Create him?”

  A flash of cold lightning seemed to pass between them.

  “In other words,” said the archbishop, the first to avert his eyes, “it would be advisable to bear witness to his existence. Many things seem impossible at first that are crowned with success in the end.”

  The archbishop’s voice had lost its ring of confidence.

  “I shall do my best, Monsignor,” said Stres.

  A silence of the most uncomfortable kind settled over the room. The archbishop, head lowered, sat deep in thought. When he next spoke, his voice had changed so completely that Stres looked up sharply, intrigued. His tone, as polite, gentle, and persuasive as the man himself—now matched his physical appearance perfectly.

  “Listen, Captain,” said the archbishop. “Let us speak frankly.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Yes, let us speak plainly. I think you are aware of the importance attached to these matters at the Center. Many things are forgiven in Constantinople, but there is no indulgence whatever for any question touching on the basic principles of the Holy Church. I have seen emperors massacred, dragged through the hippodromes, eyes put out, tongues cut out, simply because they dared think they could amend this or that thesis of the Church. Perhaps you remember that two years ago, after the heated controversy about the sex of angels, the capital came close to being the arena of a civil war that might have led to wholesale carnage.”

  Stres did recall some disturbances, but he had never paid much attention to the sort of collective hysteria which erupted periodically in the Empire’s capital.

  “Today more than ever,” the archbishop went on, “when relations between our Church and the Catholic Church have worsened. . . . Nowadays your life is at stake in matters like these. Do I make myself clear, Captain?”

  “Yes,” said Stres uncertainly. “But I would like to know what all this has to do with the incident we were discussing.”

  “Just so,” said the archbishop, his voice growing stronger now, recovering its deep resonance, “yes, just so.”

  Stres kept his eyes fixed upon him.

  “Here we have an alleged return from the grave,” the prelate continued. “And therefore a resurrection. Do you see what that means, Captain?”

  “A return from the grave,” Stres repeated. “An idiotic rumor.”

  “It’s not that simple,” interrupted the archbishop. “It is a ghastly heresy. An arch-heresy.”

  “Yes,” said Stres, “in one sense it is indeed.”

  “Not in one sense. Absolutely,” the archbishop said, nearly shouting. His voice had recovered its first heavy tones. His head was now so close that Stres had all he could do to keep from leaning back.

  “Until now Jesus Christ alone has risen from his tomb! Do you follow me, Captain?”

  “I understand, Monsignor,” Stres said.

  “Well then, He returned from the dead to accomplish a great mission. But this dead man of yours, this Constantine—that is his name, is it not?—by what right does he seek to ape Jesus Christ? What power brought him back from the world beyond, what message does he bring to humanity? Eh?”

  Stres, nonplussed, had no idea what to say.

  “None whatsoever!” shouted the archbishop. “Absolutely none! That is why the whole thing is nothing but imposture and heresy. A challenge to the Holy Church! And like any such challenge, it must be punished mercilessly.”

  He was silent for a moment, as if giving Stres time to absorb the flood of words.

  “So listen carefully, Captain.” His voice had softened again. “If we do not squelch this story now, it will spread like wildfire, and then it will be too late. It will be too late, do you understand?”

  Stres returned from the Monastery of the Three Crosses in the afternoon. As his horse trotted slowly along the highway, Stres, with equal languor, mulled over snatches of the long conversation he had just had with the archbishop. Tomorrow I’ll have to start all over again, he said to himself. He had, of course, been working on the case without respite, and had even relieved his deputy of his other duties so that he could spend all his time sifting through the Lady Mother’s archives. But now that the capital was seriously concerned at the turn of events, he was going to have to go back to square one. He would send a new circular to the inns and relay stations, perhaps promising a reward to anyone who helped find some trace of the imposter. And he would send someone all the way to Bohemia to find out what people there were saying about Doruntine’s flight. This latter idea lifted his spirits for a moment. How had he failed to think of it earlier? It was one of the first things he should have done after the events of October eleventh. Well, he thought a moment later, it’s never too late to do things right.<
br />
  He glanced up to see how the weather looked. The autumn sky was completely overcast. The bushes on either side of the road quivered in the north wind, and their trembling seemed to deepen the desolation of the plain. This world has only one Jesus Christ, thought Stres, repeating to himself the archbishop’s words. The sound of his horse’s tread reminded him that it was just this long route that Constantine had taken. The archbishop had spoken of the dead man with contempt. Come to think of it, Constantine had never shown much respect for priests while he lived. Stres himself had not known Constantine, but his deputy’s research in the family archives had produced some initial clues to his personality. Judging from the old woman’s letters, Constantine had been, generally speaking, an oppositionist. Attracted by new ideas, he cultivated them with passion, sometimes carrying them to extremes. He had been like this on the question of marriages. He was against local marriages and, impassioned and extremist in his convictions, had been prepared to countenance unions even at the other end of the world. The Lady Mother’s letters suggested that Constantine believed that far-off marriages, hitherto the privilege of kings and princesses, should become common practice for all. The distance between the families of bride and groom was in fact a token of dignity and strength of character, and he persisted in saying that the noble race of Albanians was endowed with all the qualities necessary to bear the trials of separation and the troubles that might arise from them.

  Constantine had ideas of his own not only on marriage but on many other subjects as well, ideas that ran counter to common notions and that had caused the old woman more than a little trouble with the authorities. Stres recalled one such instance, which had to do primarily with the Church. Two letters from the local archbishop to the Lady Mother had been found in the family archives in which the prelate drew her attention to the pernicious ideas Constantine was expressing and to the insulting comments about the Church he had occasionally been heard to utter. And there were other, more important matters, his aide had told him, but these would figure in the detailed report he would submit once he had concluded his investigation.