The Killing Spirit

by Jay Hopler

  “Do you feel like having a drink?” she said as we entered the familiar lobby of the Hotel Dajti. I expected Leni to somehow signal me to decline, but instead he merely answered, “Okay.”

  Leni gestured to his co-workers and soon a jug of wine materialized. I hadn’t eaten since early that afternoon—a pair of stale ematurs—so after finishing the first glass, my face was rather flushed. It felt hot, but good.

  “Today was probably his final day of work,” Leni said, tilting the ceramic mug in my direction.

  “Oh?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, refilling my glass, “until three o’clock today, I was employed by the Ministry of Slogans.” There was a brief silence, and it seemed to be a long while before I returned the carafe to its spot on the table. It occurred to me how strange this must have appeared to Mila—me pouring the wine so slowly and precisely, as if it were something valuable like gasoline. I guess I was a little self-conscious because a long time had passed since I’d been around someone like her. I felt strangely drawn to her. “Well, I haven’t actually been notified of my firing yet, but that’s just a formality. We all know what’s happening.”

  “What will you do now?” Mila said.

  “Maybe he will get a job with me,” Leni said, and he smiled to let me know he was not joking. Until that moment, I hadn’t actually thought about what I would do once the Ministry’s closure became official. I’d merely been thinking about its ultimate collapse, counting down the days.

  “At least it’s not like someone else is replacing you, right?” Mila said. She smiled, flashing the tiny gap between her teeth. “It’s not like you yourself lost the job.”

  “True. I guess it’s not so bad when you consider that.”

  “A job like Akey’s, that’s what we should all have,” Leni said. “Working with cars and trucks.”

  I nodded.

  “We need some more wine.” Mila pointed to our empty carafe. “I’m going to see what I can do.”

  As she started toward the front of the restaurant, I leaned across the table and whispered to Leni, “She just grabbed my arm, what could I do?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But she is not for you, believe me.”

  “Mila seems so much older than you, Leni. Not once have I seen you with a woman even near her age.”

  “Yes, she’s not for me, either.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  At that moment, Mila returned with a waiter close behind. The man put a fresh carafe of wine on the table and removed the empty one, giving Leni a subtle, quizzical look as if to say, “Who is this woman, and why does she act so aggressively?”

  “Would you care for another?” he said instead, using a distant, professional voice.

  “Just water for me,” I said, and then watched as he refilled their glasses.

  I looked around the room at the faded, flaking red wallpaper, the spots of orange and green peaking through from previous paint jobs. It was hard not to sit in the Dajti’s lobby and stare, imagining the opulent place it had once been. The fixtures and flooring, the sculpted tables and chairs all managed to retain a faint glow from a more prosperous era that had now been lost beneath a wave of defects. Outside, there was only the dull roar of the crowd, rising and falling faintly in the distance.

  “Maybe when things get settled, there will be more work for you,” Mila said. A look of concern came upon her face, and for the first time that night, I did not see the tiny gap between her teeth as she smiled. “You know, the changes might actually bring along something better.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Things will fall into place,” Leni said in a somewhat less convincing tone.

  “Really, I’m not concerned. There will be time for that. I just want to relax now—I can worry later.”

  I looked over at Leni, who was idly staring out a window. Normally on a night like this, we would be at his brother Nossi’s house, watching Italian television. “Why don’t we go down to the square and see what’s happening,” he finally said.

  “Yes, that might be fun,” Mila responded. “But first let me finish my drink.”

  Later, as we walked along the river, I thought about finding the right moment to make a polite exit, to leave Leni and Mila alone together. Of course, she was charming and alluring, entirely appealing, yet at the same time, my loyalty to Leni, my loyalty to our friendship, stopped me from continuing in this manner, stopped me from thinking this way any longer. I just couldn’t operate that way, my conscience would not allow it. Yet, despite this, Mila’s arm remained locked in mine the entire time, as if she’d known me for years—and as if she knew I was thinking about leaving.

  “Is anyone hungry?” Leni asked, veering toward the busy marketplace. He led us through the crowd to a stand where various overripe fruit had been spread out across a large table in an effort to make the supply look more plentiful. The vendor wore an outfit identical to that I’d seen earlier on Altin Leka, though maybe a bit less greasy and rumpled. After a few minutes, I selected a soft, brown apple, and it temporarily solved the problem of my empty stomach, helping me regain a bit of focus that the wine had eliminated earlier. Leni was far ahead now, wading through the crowd and motioning for us to follow. After Mila finished eating, she returned her arm to mine, smiled, and we quickened our pace.

  “Where are you from?” I asked her.

  “The North,” she said. “I am here on business.” The tone of her voice was a little flat, and I thought maybe she wanted to let it go at that, so I did.

  “That fruit wasn’t too bad,” I said, changing the subject in such a clumsy way that it made her smile.

  “I like you,” she said.

  Across the boulevard, at the other end of the fountain, we caught up with Leni. I stopped for a second and looked down to where the water had once flowed. Without luck, I tried imagining my reflection the way I’d always seen it as a child. When we began moving again, Leni was leading us toward Altin Leka’s shiny white pushcart.

  “Ah, friend,” he said with some hesitation, obviously unable to recall my name. “A cold ice cream, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” I said, out of politeness rather than hunger. My appetite, which had been quite strong only a few moments earlier, had somehow gotten lost in the interesting combination of smells emanating from Altin’s coat. It seemed to be a sweet flavor of cheap raki mixed with thawing winter dampness and early spring sweat.

  “The flavor is almond,” Altin offered, and for a moment I thought he was referring to a mystery ingredient embedded in his coat.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “People here in the square have been rowdy,” he said, “but this is safer than I had expected. I do not have to worry about thieves at all. Everyone is happy.” The subdued tone of his voice seemed to contradict the words he spoke, and it almost felt like he was patronizing us, or, at the very least, reading from some sort of government-sanctioned script.

  “Yes,” I responded uncomfortably.

  “It is nice to see you, Leni.”

  Leni nodded a return greeting, and then introduced our new northern friend. “Altin, this is my cousin Mila, up visiting from Gjirokaster.” As she moved to shake his hand, I wondered why Leni had gone to the trouble of lying about her. Clearly, things were not as simple as they’d seemed. I pulled a few leks from my pocket and announced that I was buying everyone ice cream. Leni smiled lightly and took me up on the offer, but Mila declined, saying that she’d had too much wine. As she spoke, she did not look up. Her eyes remained on Altin, watching him hand me and Leni the neatly scooped ice creams.

  I looked around at all the people. How excited they seemed, how happy. I wanted to feel that way, too, and yet I could only summon a vague sensation of relief.

  “For all the people out here, I don’t recognize anyone,” I said loudly, not realizing that only Leni was standing next to me. Mila and Altin had somehow drifted off into the crowd.

  “Many outsiders,” Leni remar
ked, so as not to leave my comment hanging. “Young people, too.” His tone made me think that he did not view himself this way, that he felt connected instead to an older generation—my generation, I guessed. Mine and Mila’s. I looked over and noticed her moving back in our direction, although she still seemed to be watching Altin Leka thirty metersahead, slicing through the crowd, ignoring any possible customers.

  “What is it about Altin that interests you so much?” I wanted to ask her. Or maybe, “Mila, why do you stare at him so?” I thought I should explain about his bitter and sullen personality, about his pettiness and arrogance. I wanted to tell her all this before she got involved any further, before she somehow found him attractive in his own peculiar way. Maybe I should talk about Altin’s suspiciously rapid political demise or even his equally suspicious reappearance as a common vendor. Instead though, I said nothing. I just watched her, watching him.

  A roar went up from the crowd, and Mila turned back, no longer chasing Altin, who had somehow disappeared. She caught my eye for a second, smiled, and then headed toward me. “Where’s Leni?”

  I looked around but could not see him anywhere. Mila gently put her arm in mine like before, and I quickly led the two of us forward. Where had Leni gone? As we searched, heading through all of the people, I noticed my assistants conducting a small group of children in song. The two of them stood at the front, strutting around like parade leaders, while the children followed behind, trying to imitate them. “And the stars in the sky, we only see them at night, but we know that they are always there.” As they were singing this, one of my assistants recognized me, and a look of indecision came across his face, as if I was still his supervisor and we were still at the office. I smiled to relax him a little, and he smiled, too, then went back to the children. As we left, I examined the group more closely, trying to figure out which of the boys and girls belonged to him. Maybe none, maybe all, I couldn’t tell. Then my mind returned to Leni, who was nowhere in sight.

  The next morning, I awoke in a large, luxurious bed at the Hotel Dajti, high up in one of the top-story rooms. Mila had already gone, and so I rolled back the curtains and stared at the city. It was still early, and the square was empty now, looking no different than it had the week before, maybe even the month before that, and perhaps every day of the previous year. I suppose I’d expected to find it changed like the rest of us, but other than the scattered garbage, it remained entirely the same. I continued staring, entranced by the strange, almost foreign view offered by Mila’s top-floor window. If I squinted my eyes in just the right way, I could imagine a postcard: “Greetings from Albania.”

  Before she’d left that morning, Mila offered an explanation of her errand in town. Strangely, I hadn’t even asked—still following her cue about that from the night before. So it surprised me when she said, “I have to run out and meet some Italians about real estate. I’ll be back later, okay?” And then she kissed me twice on the mouth and disappeared out the door. Obviously, she had lied. If she really were in town for some land negotiation, why all the vagueness, the secrecy? Why would Leni call her his cousin? Why would she brush aside any questions the night before? From the way she’d spoken that morning, I’d gotten the feeling that this bit about the Italians and real estate was simply meant to put my mind at ease, that she’d offered this explanation as a way of alleviating my worries—and as a way of fending off my inevitable questions. Perhaps she realized that our night together would somehow chip away at my ability to be discreet. Of course, this was not true. I’d learned long beforehand to keep quiet when necessary. The party taught me that—the party and my ex-wife Ana.

  The last time Ana and I had been together, we’d already been separated for a while, but I’d gone back over to the apartment hoping for a reconciliation. Little was solved that night; each moment I spoke, I seemed only to make things worse. Yet, for the first time in a long while, we found ourselves drawn to each other with an odd intensity. And so, the talking stopped. Ana confessed to me later that she’d been in a bad state that particular evening and cautioned that it would never happen again. I didn’t believe her at the time, but, in the end, she turned out to be speaking the truth.

  I sat up in bed and counted the berries on the patterned wallpaper in Mila’s room. Raspberries and blackberries alternated with small sprigs of holly. Leni had once shown me a handful of the Dajti’s suites and most of them were alike, but this was the first one I could remember with such an unusual design covering the walls. Of course, the upper part of the building was set aside for high-ranking party officials, so perhaps this was some delineation of luxury, these berries. I was not sure. Either way, I thought, Mila must have been doing well in her business—whatever it was—if she could afford such a room.

  I showered, dressed, and headed downstairs for some breakfast, but not before leaving Mila a brief note with the street address of my apartment. I mentioned that we could meet later that afternoon or evening, whenever she had completed her “business.”

  The hotel restaurant was nearly empty and unusually solemn, so I headed toward the Kafe Quristi. As I crossed the boulevard, I suddenly pictured Mila again—the way she’d looked the night before as we walked together in the square, and the way she’d asked why I was in such a big hurry to find Leni. There had been a strange feeling of innocence at that moment, as if she seriously expected an answer to her question. As if I would say to her, “The hurry is that he is my friend, and he is lost up ahead somewhere, and we need to find him.” Yet, at the same time, I knew this was not what she had meant for me to say at all. It was a moment where my friendship with Leni was expected to bend a little. I suppose if I’d thought about it then like I was now, things might have ended up differently. Mila and I would have found Leni, and eventually, I would have walked back to my small apartment alone, taken off my suit, and gone to bed early like I’d done on so many other nights.

  I was the only customer in the cafe when Ivan Quristi brought over my coffee. “I suppose everyone was out rather late last night,” he said, indicating the empty restaurant with his outstretched hands, then wandering back into the kitchen without waiting for a reply. A few minutes later, Leni arrived, looking tired and carrying a small loaf of slightly burned raisin bread—from the hotel, I suspected. He sat down and signaled to Ivan for another cup.

  “I’m glad I found you here so early,” he said, taking off his thin jacket. “Listen, I’m sorry about disappearing last night. But I ran into Kosi, and we began talking.”

  Ivan appeared with coffee, poured, and then stood waiting. Leni handed him the bread. “Fresh from the oven, as I promised,” Leni offered, smiling. Ivan thanked him, and headed back to the kitchen, only to return a few seconds later with buttered slices for the two of us.

  “I’ve already eaten,” Leni explained, pushing his slice on top of mine. “Go ahead.”

  “So, you were telling me about Kosi …” I said, trailing off. I wanted to get him started on the subject again, and keep his attention away from Mila.

  “Yes, Kosi,” he said. “I cannot help things when I see her, you know. It’s out of my control.” I nodded and bit into the blackened raisin bread.

  “Every time that I do, it is wonderful,” he continued. “Yet, I have to rely on coincidence to bring us together. There is something in her that tells me if I wrote a letter or telephoned, you know, to ask for a proper meeting, she would not allow it.”

  “Maybe she is afraid,” I said.

  “No, she just seems to prefer the spontaneity. To her, I think even the smallest plans are too official.” He paused for a second and drank a sip of his coffee. “That’s okay, though. I don’t really mind.”

  “I’m envious,” I said. “It sounds like the exact opposite of Ana.” As I said this, I realized that my night with Mila had been this way, too—spontaneous and seemingly nonchalant. “Not like Ana at all.”

  “Yes,” Leni said, but not in such a way as to agree with me too strongly. He knew it was all rig
ht for me to criticize Ana, but he was always careful about doing that himself.

  At that moment, it seemed to be my turn, and although Leni expected me to explain what, if anything, had happened after he disappeared, it was not his style to ask. I could let the entire thing go and move on to a different topic of conversation—the state of the Ministry, the latest reports on the demonstrations, or even just gossip about someone like Altin Leka, passing along more vague rumors about his underground position—but that did not seem right. Just as it’d never been Leni’s style to ask, it was not my style to keep things from him. Besides, now that I knew he really wasn’t interested in Mila—at least not in the way he was interested in Kosi—there didn’t seem to be much of a problem. Perhaps when he had spoken less than positively about her the day before, when he’d said she was not for me, it was part of a little game—a theory of reverse persuasion. I had only recently succumbed to his never-ending offers of matchmaking, and so possibly he had thought it was time to turn the tables, catching me off guard. “You do not want Mila,” I could hear him saying. “Yes, Leni, I do,” I would’ve answered. “But she is not right for you.” “Yes, yes, she is. Believe me!”

  Mr. Kruchnik, a high-ranking party official and Leni’s sometime boss, appeared in the doorway. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “May I join you?”

  Kruchnik was carrying a small leather satchel, and he loudly dropped it onto the seat across from me before sitting next to Leni. As if on cue, Ivan Quristi appeared from the kitchen with another pot of coffee and an extra cup. I sat there for a moment trying to figure out if Kruchnik was a party official who I still needed to worry about. Probably not, but it did seem strange the way the rest of the customers, the handful of people who had entered after Leni, quieted a bit as Kruchnik sat down.