The first stroke of the clock startled him. He counted. . . . six, seven, eight. Behind doors, in the hallways, only the light rustling of brooms could be heard. The guests were still asleep.
The daylight, even though it was brighter now, still looked cold and hostile as the far spaces from which it came. Lord, he sighed, this time so deeply that he felt as if his ribs were creaking like the timbers of a hut that someone was trying to tear down. His eyes were fixed on the gray sky that spread, lonely, above the mountains; it was hard to tell whether he was making them turn dark or if the darkness within him came from them.
His expression was at once questioning, threatening, and prayerful. What’s wrong with you, he seemed to be saying to the scene before his eyes, why have you changed so.
He had always thought that he knew his Rrafsh, of which it was said that it was one of the largest and most sombre of the high plateaus of Europe, and that besides spreading over thousands of square miles in Albania it went beyond her frontiers, through the Albanian districts of Kosovo, those that the Slavs called “Old Serbia,” but were really part of the High Plateau. That is what he used to think, but lately he found more and more that there was something about it that estranged him from it. His mind wandered painfully towards its slopes, skirted its chasms, as if he wanted to discover from whence came that incomprehensible something—worse than incomprehensible, ironic, in broad daylight. Especially when the wind began to howl and those mountains huddled together, he found them completely foreign.
He knew that the machinery of death was there, set up from time immemorial, an ancient mill that worked day and night, and whose secrets he, the steward of the blood, knew better than anyone. And yet, that did not help him drive away that feeling of estrangement. Then, as if to convince himself that it was not so, feverishly he traversed in his imagination that cold expanse unfolding in his head in a peculiar form, something between a topographical map and a cloth spread for the funeral feast.
Right now he was calling up that dismal map, looking through the library windows. In strict order, his mind arrayed all of the fertile fields of the High Plateau. They were divided into two large groups: cultivated fields, and fields lying fallow because of the blood feud. That disposition of things corresponded to a simple rule: The people who had blood to redeem tilled their fields because it was their turn to kill, and accordingly, no one threatened them, they could go out to their fields when they pleased. On the other hand, those who owed blood left the fields untilled, and immured themselves in the tower of refuge for protection. But that situation changed abruptly as soon as those who had blood to redeem had committed their murder. Then, from a family with blood to redeem, they changed into a family that owed blood, and therefore, they became gjaks and betook themselves to the towers of refuge, letting their fields lie fallow. Conversely, of course, their enemies ceased to be gjaks, they left the towers in which they had been cloistered, and since it was now their turn to kill, they were not afraid and they set about cultivating their fields just as they chose. And that state of affairs lasted until the next murder was done. Then everything was reversed again.
Whenever he travelled in the mountains on business concerning the Kulla, Mark Ukacierra was always attentive to the connection between the cultivated fields and the fields that lay fallow. The former were generally more extensive. They made up nearly three-quarters of all the grain fields. In some years, however, the ratio changed and was more favorable to the fields lying fallow. Those fields reached a third or two-fifths of the total number, even rising on occasion so as to equal the area of the cultivated fields. People remembered two years in which the area of the fallow fields was greater than that of the cultivated fields. Yes, but that was a long time ago. Little by little, with the decline of the blood feud, the fallow fields shrank in number. Those fields were the special joy of Mark Ukacierra. They bore witness to the power of the Kanun. Whole clans allowed their fields to go uncultivated and themselves to suffer hunger so that the blood might be redeemed, and contrarily there were families who did just the opposite, putting off the redemption of blood from season to season and from year to year, to gather enough corn so as to be able to cloister themselves for a long time. You are free to choose between keeping your dignity as a man and losing it, the Kanun said. Each man chose between corn and vengeance. Some, to their shame, chose corn, others, on the contrary, vengeance.
Mark Ukacierra had had many opportunities to see, side by side, the fields of families engaged in the blood feud with each other.
And the picture was always the same: one field being worked here, another lying fallow there. The clods in the tilled fields struck Mark Ukacjerra as something shameful. And the vapor that rose from them, and its smell, and its quasi-feminine softness made him sick. But the neighboring fallow fields with their irregularities that sometimes looked like wrinkles and sometimes like clenched jaws, nearly moved him to tears. And everywhere in the high country, the picture was the same—cultivated fields and fields untilled, on one side of the road or the other, close but estranged, looking at each other with hatred. And what was even more peculiar was that one or two seasons later their positions would be interchanged; the fallow fields suddenly grew fertile, and the tilled fields lay fallow.
Perhaps for the tenth time that morning, Mark Ukacierra sighed. His thoughts were still far away. From the fields he turned to the roads, which he had travelled afoot or on horseback in the service of the Kulla. The Grand Highway of the Accursed Peaks, The Road of Shadow, the Road of the Black Drin River, the Road of the White Drin River, the Bad Road, the Great Highway of the Banners, the Road of the Cross—all these were travelled day and night by the people of the High Plateau. Special stretches of road were safeguarded by the perpetual bessa; that is, whoever committed a murder on those sections of roadway would incur the vengeance of a whole community. In that way, on the Grand Highway of the Banners, the section from Peter’s Bridge to the Big Sycamores was under the bessa of the Nikaj and the district of Shala. Whoever was wronged there would be avenged by the district of the Nikaj or the district of Shala. Likewise, on the Road of Shadow, the stretch from the Fields of Reka to the Deaf Man’s Mill was covered by the bessa. The Road of the Curraj as far as Cold Stream also benefited from the bessa. The manor houses of the Nikaj and of Shala were also protected by the bessa as well as the Old Inn on the Road of the Cross, except for its stable. The same was true of the Young Widow’s Inn, with four hundred paces of roadway from its north door, from the eight ravines of the Fairies’ Stream within a radius of forty paces; and the manor houses of Rreze; and the Storks’ Pasture.
He tried to recall one by one the other places protected by a special bessa, as well as those places that were under the bessa of everyone—that is to say, where it was forbidden to take vengeance, as was the case of all the mills without exception, and their surroundings within a radius of forty paces, and again of the waterfalls and their surroundings within a radius of four hundred paces, because the noise of the mills or the sound of falling water would not allow a person to hear the warning cry of the avenger. The Kanun had thought of everything. Often, Mark Ukacierra had wondered if such places protected by the bessa set limits to feuding or on the contrary helped to increase the number of such encounters. Sometimes it seemed to him that because of the protection afforded every passerby, such places put death aside, but sometimes he thought that on the contrary the very road or inn that was under the bessa, because of its promise to avenge the blood of whomever might be killed there, led to new feuds. In his mind, all this was vague and ambiguous, like many other things in the Kanun.
In the past, he had asked himself the same question about the many ballads on the theme of the blood-feud which were sung all over the High Plateau. There were many bards in the villages of the various districts. There was no road on which one did not meet them, and no inn in which one could not hear them. It was hard to say if the ballads increased or diminished the numbers of the dead. They did both.
One could say the same about the tales that went from mouth to mouth concerning things that had occurred in olden times or more recently, recounted during the winter nights by the fireside which would spread abroad thereafter, just as the travellers did, and come back transformed on some other night, just as a former guest might come back changed by the passing of time. Sometimes he found parts of those stories published in those sickening periodicals, strung out along their columns as if in coffins. For Mark Ukacierra, what was printed in books was only the corpse of what was recounted orally, or accompanied by the sound of the lahoute.*
In any case, like it or not, these things were connected with his work. Two weeks ago, the prince, preparing to give him a dressing down about the unfavorable condition of affairs, had told him so directly. As it happened, his words were a bit obscure, but the gist of it was more or less like this: If you, the steward of the blood, are tired of your work, don’t forget that there are plenty of people who would be happy to have the post—and not just anybody, but university men.
It was the first time that the prince had mentioned the University in a somewhat threatening tone. On some earlier occasions, he had suggested that Mark study, with the help of the priest, every matter concerned with the blood-feud, but this time his tone had been cutting. And now that it had come to mind again, Mark Ukacierra could feel a kind of pressure in his temples. Go ahead, engage one of those educated men who stink of perfume and give him my job, he growled. Take on a steward of the blood who is educated, and when your little effeminate steward goes mad in his third week, then you’ll remember Mark Ukacierra.
For a while he let his thoughts go freely from one possible outcome to another, but they all ended in the same way—the prince would be sorry, and he himself would be triumphant. But one way or the other, I must take a tour through the whole of the High Plateau, he said to himself when he felt the flood of that brief euphoria ebb away. It would be a good idea to prepare a report for the prince’s eye, like the one he had made four years ago, giving precise data about the current situation and forecasts of future conditions. Perhaps the prince’s personal business was not going well either, and Mark Ukacierra was serving as his scapegoat. But that did not matter. The prince was his master, and it was not for the steward to sit in judgment of him. His anger had left him completely. His mind, whose sudden access of resentment had put him momentarily under stress, was now freed of its troubles, and it was wandering in the distance once more, among the mountains. Yes, he really must go on that journey. The more so because just now he was not feeling well. Perhaps a change of air would lighten somewhat his recent troubles. And perhaps he might be able to sleep again. Besides, it would be useful to disappear for a time from the prince’s sight.
Planning that trip, without any special enthusiasm, began, little by little, stubbornly, to absorb him. And again, just as it had been a little while back, his thoughts began to untangle the roads that he would perhaps be taking, except that this time, connecting them in his mind with his boots or his horse’s shoes, he thought of them in a different way; he imagined in another fashion the inns and the houses where he might sleep, the horses whinnying at night, the bedbug bites.
It would be a working trip, in the course of which he would perhaps have to review everything that was connected, in his mind, with a rough sketch of a death-mill, with its millstones, its special tools, its countless wheels and gears. He would have to examine the entire mechanism minutely in order to find what it was that was blocking its action, what was rusted and what was broken.
Oh! he exclaimed, at the sudden pain of a stomach cramp, and he was tempted to say, you would do better to look at what is broken inside you, but he did not follow his thought to the end. Perhaps a change of air would rid him as well of the nauseous hollow in his stomach that was plaguing him. Yes, he ought to set out at once, leave this place, observe everything closely, discuss things at length—especially with the interpreters of the Kanun, ask their opinion—visit the towers of refuge, meet with the priests, ask them if there were any persons who grumbled about the Code and if so take down their names in order to ask the prince to expel them, etc. Mark Ukacierra’s spirits rose. Yes, certainly, he could draw up a detailed report on all those matters. Mark began to walk to and fro in the library. Sometimes he stopped before one of the windows; then, as a new idea occurred to him, he took up his pacing again. Already he could see the interpreters of the Code, by whose opinions the prince always set great store. There were some two hundred of them throughout the High Plateau, but only a dozen were famous. He must meet with at least half of those whose reputations were preeminent. They were the pillars of the Kanun, the intelligence of the High Plateau; they would certainly give their opinion of the state of affairs, and perhaps some advice about the means of improving it. But he must not rest content with that alone. His instinct told him that it would be useful to descend to the terrain that was the foundation of death, the murderer himself. He must enter the towers of refuge, speak one by one with each of the cloistered men, those who were the bread and salt of the Kanun. That last idea gave him special pleasure. Whatever words of wisdom might be uttered by the famous interpreters, the last word concerning death—so says the Kanun—belongs to the avengers of blood.
He rubbed his forehead, trying to recall the findings he had accurately reported four years ago. There were seventy-four towers of refuge in all the High Plateau, and about a thousand men cloistered in them. He tried to call up those towers in imagination, scattered, dark, forbidding, with their black loopholes and their heavy doors. Their image was bound up with that of the irrigation ditches, because of which some of those men were immured in the towers, and that was true also of those roads and inns protected by the bessa, and the interpreters of the Kanun, the story-tellers and the bards. Those were the screw mechanisms, the transmission belts, the gearwheels of the ancient machine that had worked without a stop for hundreds of years. For hundreds of years, he said again. Every day, every night. Without ever stopping. Summer and winter. But then came that day, the seventeenth of March, to disturb the order of things. Thinking of that day, Mark Ukacierra sighed once more. He felt that if that day had really passed as it very nearly had, all of that mill of death, its wheels, its heavy millstones, its many springs and gears, would make an ominous grating sound, would shake from top to bottom, and break and smash into a thousand pieces.
O Lord, may that day never come, he said, and again he felt that sensation in the hollow of his stomach. Then, mixed with the nausea, there came to mind once more some few passages of last night’s dinner, the prince’s discontent. And the animation he had felt for a few moments fell away completely, giving way to a strange anguish of mind. Let everything go to hell, he said. His uneasiness was of a very special kind, like a damp, gray mass that invaded him everywhere, softly, without any sharp edges nor painful pinchings. Oh, he would infinitely prefer an obvious pain, but what could he do against that pulp that he could not get rid of? People went on crushing him as if his own distress, which he never mentioned to a soul, were not enough. For three weeks now, he had been feeling it more and more frequently. All at once he asked himself the question that he had been putting off from day to day, night after night: Could he have been stricken with blood-sickness?
It had happened to him seven years ago. He had consulted doctors and taken all sorts of medication, but nothing helped, until the day when an old man from Gjakova said to him, “It’s useless, my son, to take medicines and to consult doctors. Neither the doctors nor the medicines can do anything about your sickness. You are blood-sick.” Mark was astonished. “Blood? I haven’t killed anyone, father.” And the old man answered, “It doesn’t matter that you haven’t killed anyone. Your work is of such a nature that you have been stricken with blood-sickness.” And he spoke to him about other stewards of the blood who had been stricken with that sickness, and what was worse, never recovered from it. Well, Mark had managed to cure himself in the mountains that rise beyond O
rosh. The air, in those heights, was good for that kind of sickness.
For seven years, Mark had been untroubled by it, and it was only recently that his illness had come back. What was I thinking of when I took up this kind of work? The blood of one man, when it took you, was hard to overcome, but what could you do about blood that comes from who knows where, and stops flowing who knows where? It was not the blood of a single man, but torrents of the blood of generations of human beings that streamed all over the High Plateau, the blood of young men and old men, for years and for centuries.
But perhaps it isn’t that sickness that I have, he sighed from deep within him in a last glimmer of hope. Maybe it’s just a passing thing—if not, I’ll go crazy. He listened, because he thought he heard steps beyond the door. In fact, the squeaking of a door reached him from the hallway, and then the sound of footsteps and of voices.
The guests must be awake now, he thought.
* From the Albanian gjak: blood, and hup: to lose; that is, when the blood was lost, when one was not obliged to engage in the blood feud.
* A musical instrument having a long neck and a single string.
CHAPTER V
Gjorg was back in Brezftoht on the twenty-fifth of March. He had walked all day without stopping. In contrast to his journey to Orosh, he did the return trip in a semi-somnolent state, so that the road seemed shorter. He was surprised to see the outskirts of his village so soon. Without knowing why, he slowed his pace. His heart beat more slowly too, and his eyes seemed to study the surrounding hills. The snow has melted, he thought. But the wild pomegranate shrubs were still there. Despite everything, he breathed as if he felt relieved. For whatever reason, he had thought the patches of snow would be pitiless to him.
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