Sworn Virgin E-Book

Elvira Dones

• Herausgeber: And Other Stories
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 313

Beschreibung

Hana Doda is an ambitious lite

Das E-Book Sworn Virgin wird angeboten von And Other Stories und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

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First published in English translation in 2014 by And Other Stories London – New York

www.andotherstories.org

Copyright © Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore 2007

First published as Vergine giurata in October 2007 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, Milan, Italy

English language translation copyright © Clarissa Botsford 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transported in any form by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

The right of Elvira Dones to be identified as Author of Sworn Virgin (original title Vergine giurata) has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 9781908276346 eBook ISBN 9781908276353

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The translation of this book was made possible by the receipt in 2011 of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant from the Pen American Center.

This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s Writers in Translation programme supported by Bloomberg. English PEN exists to promote literature and its understanding, uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and promote the friendly co-operation of writers and free exchange of ideas.

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Contents

Foreword by Ismail KadareOctober 20011986December 2001June 20021996December 20022003, Summer, FallAuthor’s AcknowledgmentsNotes

To my daughter Iuna

‌‌Foreword

Elvira Dones is one of the most distinguished Albanian authors writing today. Astonishing, brilliant, and unabashed by taboos of any kind, she is as much at ease in Albanian as in the rest of European literature. This is not only because she writes in two languages – Albanian and Italian (a tradition that goes back to the late middle ages, when the Ottomans prohibited written Albanian and our writers used Latin as a second language) – but because her vision of art and of the world is in harmony with both Albanian and European culture.

Her novel Sworn Virgin takes an apparently exotic subject, but one drawing on literature’s oldest archetypes: the creation of a double, and the transformation of a human being. Hana, the attractive young woman who is the protagonist of this novel, agrees of her own free will to ‘turn into a man.’

The story refers to an ancient if rare Albanian custom that has been preserved into the modern era, according to which, for various reasons – such as the absence of a man in a household or, as in Hana’s case, the fear of rape – a ‘conversion’ was permitted and a woman could change her status from female to male. She would gain all a man’s rights and freedoms, adopt male behavior and dress, take part in assemblies of elders, and go out to cafés to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes, with the sole condition that she preserve her virginity.

This apparently paradoxical and anomalous custom also has a surreal dimension: it presents a loss as a privilege, and offers subjection in the guise of freedom.

The protagonist of this novel passes through all the tribulations of this frightening transformation like the actor in some extraordinary role in a classical drama that hurtles towards its dénouement.

Ismail Kadare Translated by John Hodgson September 2013

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The vast, infinite life will begin all over again, a life not seeing, not talking, not thinking.

‌From ‘Quatrains’ by Nâzim Hikmet1

‌‌October 2001

‘So, Mr Doda, you’re a poet,’ says her traveling companion, who has occupied the seat next to Hana on the plane for the last seven hours.

The line of passengers waiting to get through passport control at Washington International Airport snakes tiredly.

‘Not really.’ She tries to smile.

‘But you write poems, if I’ve understood you correctly.’

You can’t write good poems with a dry cunt, she says in her head. She looks away. A woman is touching up her lipstick, her husband watching with slight disgust, tapping his fingers on his passport. Hana catalogs the scene under the heading: ‘Man out of love, woman still hopeful, marriage ceasefire about to expire.’

You can’t write good poems with a dry cunt, she thinks to herself again, annoyed. Why the hell did she tell him she wrote? He pins her down with his look. It’s no good, she thinks, your enlightened male brain will never be able to guess. Hana smoothes down her man’s suit. The sports jacket is a bit big, but not too much.

Her traveling companion stared at her in the same way during the flight.

‘Here’s my card,’ he now says. ‘In case you need anything, information about the capital, any suggestions. If I’m not traveling around the world or at my house in Geneva, I’ll be in DC. Seriously, call me whenever you want, Mr Doda. I’d be happy to help out.’

Mark concentrates on his carry-on. On his shoes. On his cell phone, which he wants to turn on. I’m sorry, she pleads in silence. Hana reads the name on the card: Patrick O’Connor. The man is of Irish origin. She smiles. Christ, we country folk can sniff each other out.

Her left breast begins to itch. She tries to scratch herself without using her hand. She started feeling the presence of her breasts a year ago, as soon as she got her green card and decided to emigrate to America. She can’t seem to stop the itching.

‘Mr Doda,’ Patrick O’Connor calls, indicating with a nod of his head the passport controller’s narrow cubicle.

The line has moved on. Hana kicks her bag forward. Her brown shoes, one on either side of the bag, look like little hibernating bears.

‘What is the purpose of your visit to the United States, Ms Doda?’ the officer asks as he opens her passport.

It’s too late to go back now. Even the village knows he left holding the passport of a woman.

The village had observed, with penetrating, attentive eyes. The way he was dressed on the day he said goodbye was the object of quiet scrutiny; there were no comments. It was a dark time, and people had little energy to spare. Past glory had faded into the howls and excrement of stray dogs. Shreds of history; the moans of gangsters whose only law was the code of honor; suns that were afraid to set for fear of being surprised by death.

Patrick O’Connor – impatient now, the rhythm of everyday life suddenly printed on his face – holds out his hand.

‘It was a real pleasure talking with you. Too bad you don’t have a phone number here in the US yet. Maybe we can talk again before I go back to Albania. Look me up if you want, I really mean it. Well, good luck.’

Hana shakes his hand shyly. She’s a little sorry they’re parting ways. For seven hours this man was her safety net. O’Connor spent part of the time tapping on the keyboard of a sleek white computer with a picture of a bitten apple on its top. What a beautiful object, she had thought. Then he started talking. He was a great conversation-maker, not at all formal.

‘Use that phone number, really!’ O’Connor shouts for the last time, as he turns to leave. ‘I’m pretty sure you’ll need it.’

She gets through the first stage of passport control and breathes a sigh of relief. They point her to an office where she has to go through more formalities. A half-empty room with thin plaster walls. With her limited vocabulary she finds it hard to assemble answers to the officer’s questions, but the man is patient, and Hana is grateful to him.

‘Welcome to the United States of America, Ms Doda,’ he says at last. ‘That’s all we need to know. You can go now.’

She runs into the nearest men’s room, catapulting herself towards a washbasin. The face in the mirror is angular. Hana shifts her gaze to a man waiting to go into one of the stalls. Others, unabashed and hasty, relieve themselves at the urinals. The door opens and closes to the irregular beat of the travelers’ footsteps.

Hana takes a deep breath, hoping to tame her panic. The family is waiting at Arrivals. There’s her cousin Lila, her thirteen-year-old niece Jonida – whom Hana hasn’t seen since she was a baby – and their husband and father Shtjefën, as well as some other people from the village who emigrated years before. ‘Proud to be American,’ as they had said in their badly written letters. They’ve come from various places in Maryland, and from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and even from Ohio.

Hana had spent a great deal of time poring over a map of the United States, but her imagination had melted at the sheer size of the country. America is immense. She had been living in a village of 280 people.

Out! Now! She says to herself almost aloud. Get out and be a man.

That’s what the clan expects. They want to see what they left behind, a young man gone gray with the weight of duty, a much-loved relative but an oddball. Mark’s arrival is meant to bring them back to the mountains, to the smell of dung, to the splutter of guns, to betrayal, songs, wounds, flowers, to brutality, to the seduction of the mountain trails inviting them to throw themselves over the edge, to love.

Hana shakes her thoughts away. This restroom in Dulles International Airport is so real and tangible, and yet she feels so alien here. You need balls to deal with all this, she thinks, balls she doesn’t have. And that’s not all you need. Why balls? Why? Why me?

Get out of this bathroom, she tells herself. Get out of here, for Christ’s sake!

‘Do you need anything, sir?’ asks a voice to her left.

She turns around. It’s a boy of about fourteen. Or even fifteen, or sixteen.

‘Are you feeling ok?’ he persists, in an accent that sounds familiar to her.

Hana swallows, smiles, straightens up from the washbasin. Says she’s fine, thanks. Almost apologizing.

The boy looks at her, not as self-assured as before. A man – it must be his father, the resemblance is uncanny – comes out of one of the stalls, approaches his son and rests his hand on his shoulder.

‘Is everything all right, Hikmet?’

The boy’s face doesn’t look at all Turkish, or Arabic; he’s almost blond. The father, on the other hand, has a polished face but dark, marked features.

‘This man isn’t feeling well,’ says Hikmet.

Hana denies this, shaking her head, and says, ‘Hikmet? That’s a beautiful name. Turkish, right?’

The man doesn’t seem concerned that the stranger is feeling unwell.

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m Albanian.’

The man pauses a moment, granting a sliver of transient trust to the word Albanian, before doubt returns.

‘Arnavut,’ he says, looking for confirmation in Turkish.

‘Albanian,’ Hana repeats.

‘We live in London. I often come to the States on business and this time I brought Hikmet with me.’

She doesn’t know what to say. Her poor English paralyzes her. The boy is almost at the door.

‘So, you are feeling better,’ states the man, dropping the question mark.

Hana nods.

‘Good luck.’

‘You also.’

Father and son exit.

More time passes before she decides to face her family. She emerges from the restroom like a man on death row, like a fool in a flash of lucidity.

Arms are waving in the air; she hears a girl’s voice shout, ‘Uncle Maaaaark!’ Out of the corner of her eye she glimpses the threatening tail of a German Shepherd on a leash, held by a man in uniform. Her cousin Lila throws herself into her arms. There is much agitation.

‘Hello, cousin!’ Lila cries. ‘Here we all are. But where were you? Where were you? We thought you’d been sent back.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘How should I know? All the passengers from Zurich came out ages ago.’

‌‘Tungjatë, bre burrë.’2 Shtjefën Dibra, Lila’s husband, greets her with an energetic embrace.

‘Tungjatë, Shtjefën.’

‘Uncle Mark! I’m Jonida, do you recognize me?’

‘Jonida, you’re so big now!’

They order coffee, which is served in plastic cups. The coffee is sad, tasting vaguely like rainwater.

She’s had coffee like this in Scutari a couple of times, where the barmen save money on coffee grounds: one day you might get supplies from the other side of the border, from Montenegro or Kosovo, and the next day you might not. In Tirana, the capital, you can get hold of most things, but Tirana is remote and hard to think about.

Jonida pierces Hana with her look. She sucks on her orange juice, making too much noise, and is scolded by Lila.

‘Uncle Mark, now I get it,’ she says at last.

‘What?’

‘That you’re totally weird.’

‘Oh yes?’ Hana smiles. Lila shakes her head as if to say sorry. Shtjefën looks awkward.

‘Yeah, weird.’ The girl’s attack continues. ‘I mean, like, your clothes look borrowed. Nobody in America wears stuff like that. And you don’t have a beard.’

‘Jonida, shut up,’ Lila implores. ‘What are you doing? I begged you to behave yourself …’

‘If you keep busting your uncle’s balls, he’ll turn right around and go back to Albania,’ threatens Shtjefën, without much conviction.

Jonida starts laughing, shrugging her shoulders, free and stubborn. One of the relatives, Pal, belches noisily; his wife Sanìja’s cell phone rings.

‘He can’t go anywhere,’ the young girl argues. ‘And stop being such a know-it-all, Dad. How’s he going to go back with no money? The ticket costs like …’

She’s still laughing. Two amazing dimples in her cheeks. She’s beautiful, so different from the way Hana had imagined her.

‘Tell me, Uncle Mark – you don’t have the money to go back, right?’

‘That is right.’

‘And Scutari is the ugliest place in the world, right?’

‘That is also true.’

‘And half of the village has emigrated like us, right?’

‘Yes, that is true too.’

‘The north is the poorest part of Albania, right?’

‘Unfortunately.’

‘And you don’t have a beard, right?’

Sanìja gets up and moves away to finish her phone call. Lila blushes. Shtjefën is furious. Pal looks down awkwardly at his chewed nails. Cousin Nikolìn and his wife Rudina freeze to the spot.

Hana tries to change the subject. ‘So you know quite a bit about your country?’

‘The internet. Do you know what the internet is?’

‘A little, yes.’

‘But you really don’t have a beard!’

‘No, I don’t.’

The women stare blatantly, in silence. Lila smiles and murmurs words of encouragement to her cousin but avoids saying her name, though on the phone and in her letters she has always called her ‘Dear sister Hana.’

Hana feels calm now. She doesn’t mind her family; it was the limbo of expectation that made her feel sick.

‘At home I’ve made chicken pilaf and a chocolate cake,’ Lila whispers in her ear. ‘It’s typical American food,’ she adds proudly.

She expects Hana to be impressed, but Hana can only mutter, ‘Oh yes, that’s good.’

‘You’ll be sleeping in the kitchen, Uncle Mark,’ Jonida informs her. ‘So every time Dad gets up to smoke or have a snack he’ll wake you up.’

‘Yes, Shtjefën keeps strange hours. Sometimes he goes to work at three or four in the morning. It’s bad, so he can’t sleep like regular people and he gets up to smoke or eat. You know, at home things are a bit cramped – I already told you on the phone, right? But don’t you worry about a thing.’

How do I look to her? Hana wonders, stubbing out her cigarette. She observes mother and daughter; they don’t look at all alike. Lila has gained some weight, but her face is still pretty. She’s a natural blond, her eyes are a limpid blue, she’s tall and solid, her teeth are wrecked like most Albanians’. Jonida’s gaze is dark but warm, her hair long and parted down the middle, her eyebrows curved and bushy. Big mouth, straight nose and a really beautiful forehead.

‘So, Mark, why don’t we go, brother?’ Shtjefën suggests. ‘It takes over an hour to get home with the traffic the way it is, and you must be jet-lagged. And it’s almost dinner time.’

‘It’s up to you. I don’t know.’

‘Anyway, we’ll see you next Sunday for a dinner you won’t forget,’ says Pal. ‘Today was just to welcome you, now we really should …’

Under the communists, Pal was the elementary-school teacher in the village. Something in his voice has stayed nasal and pedantic. This is the first time Hana has seen Sanìja and Rudina, the cousins’ wives. Of course, they must know the whole story and be dying to fire questions at her, like rounds from a semi-automatic; but they realize that it’s not the right time or place.

Hana can’t take her eyes off Jonida. The girl winks at her.

‘Uncle Mark,’ she concludes as she gets up, ‘you’re the funniest guy I’ve ever met.’

‘Jonida!’ shouts Shtjefën. ‘From now till we get to the house you keep that mouth of yours shut!’

‘Yes, Dad.’

‘That’s an order, in case you haven’t got the message.’

‘It was clear, Shtjefën,’ says Lila, trying to smooth things over.

‘Sorry, Dad.’

‘It’s your uncle you should apologize to, not me.’

‘Sorry, Uncle.’

‘Forgive me, Uncle Gjergj,’ Hana had implored. ‘I beg you.’

Without lifting his head, he had only grunted, like a bear. Then he had shouted, ‘Get out!’

She had left the room shaking. Forgive me, she had implored again to herself, without even knowing why she was begging forgiveness.

The others go. The men take their leave in the typical style of the north, pressing their foreheads together for a second, left hand on Hana’s shoulder, solemnly pronouncing the formula: ‘May you remain in good health, man.’ Then the Dibras leave too, with Hana in tow.

The journey to the house is tense, like a rifle shot waiting to be fired. Hana sits in the back of the car, next to Jonida, despite Lila’s efforts to make her sit in front. Shtjefën drives well, fast and attentive, a dancer on four wheels in a five-lane highway with cars passing on both sides. But he is tenser than he was at the airport.

‘The Beltway is always stressful,’ he comments, handing Hana a cigarette. She takes it but does not light up.

Every now and then Lila turns and smiles. Jonida stares out of the window, music playing to her through earphones and isolating her from the rest of the world, while the movement of the knee on which her CD player rests marks the rhythm of her temporary sojourn in another dimension.

The sunset is incredible, like a blood orange. Hana understands only that they are traveling northeast, leaving the capital behind them. The interstate signs flash past like prison runaways in green-and-white uniforms.

Jonida drums on her knee. Hana sees her hand holding out a note written in block letters:

YOUR ENGLISH SUCKS. I’LL TEACH YOU AMERICAN. YOU CAN COUNT ON IT.

Shtjefën and Jonida have already gone to bed.

‘Here we are, alone at last,’ says Lila.

Hana looks at her affectionately. Her breast is still itching. Lila is incredibly tense. May God help us, thinks Hana. It can’t be easy; she wouldn’t like to be in Lila’s place right now.

‘Listen,’ Hana says invitingly, ‘why don’t we relax a bit, both of us?’

Lila perches on a stool, making her look even more vulnerable.

‘I want you to feel comfortable.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really, Lila.’

Lila hugs her abruptly, kneeling down in front of her. Hana feels lost in her embrace, ill at ease. Lila understands and breaks away from her, returning to her stool. The grating metallic sound of a passing train drowns out the awkwardness of the moment, reducing the tension.

‘No drama. Ok, I get it,’ says Lila. ‘And no more hugs.’

Hana thinks about it. She lights a cigarette. She feels suddenly exposed and ugly.

‘No, hugs are ok,’ she murmurs. ‘Every now and then. I think they might do me good.’

‘D’you want to go to bed?’ Lila says, changing the subject. ‘It’s past midnight and you must be beat, it’s six in the morning for you.’

‘No, I’m not sleepy.’

‘I am.’

‘You go then.’

‘No.’

Lila takes a cigarette from Hana’s pack and lights it. From the room next door they can hear Shtjefën’s rhythmic snoring.

‘He’s a good man, right?’ Hana asks.

‘Yes, he’s a good father, and always tries to be a good husband.’

Lila puts the fruit bowl in the middle of the table. She starts to pull grapes off the bunch and, rather than eating them, she arranges them in a row on the table.

‘How did you live alone all these years?’

Hana lets the minutes go by. ‘I wasn’t alone,’ she answers. ‘If anything, the opposite.’

‘What do you mean?’

Hana does not shift her gaze from the row of grapes.

‘Have you forgotten the mountains, Lila?’

‘The mountains?’

‘Yes. Mountains made of eyes that observe and forbid, mountains made of silence …’

Shtjefën stops snoring. Hana eats the first grape in the chain. The tablecloth is so white. The kitchen is reassuringly spick and span. Lila, sitting in front of her, is a stranger.

‘It would have been easier if I’d been alone,’ she says.

Her man’s sports jacket has been shed in the corner. All evening, nobody has dared to pick it up and put it away.

‘Do you want me to peel an apple for you?’ Lila offers.

Hana bursts out laughing. It’s a kind laugh, one that nurtures itself and keeps itself going. She gets up, straightens her shoulders and adjusts her baggy pants.

‘Stop treating me like a man who needs to be served! I’m just your cousin Hana, we’re the same age and you’re letting me stay in your apartment,’ she says, not holding back her laughter. ‘I can do things for myself.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m laughing.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought I was ready to take this step, but now I’m scared stiff … and so are you. That’s why I’m laughing.’

‘You really are weird.’ Lila runs her hand through her hair. ‘You always were. Were you like this even as a man?’

‘As a man I carried a rifle, drove a truck and was careful with my words. But what do you know? You had already gone to America.’

‘Can I hug you again?’

Hana doesn’t answer. They embrace with a slow and harmonious gesture and stay entwined naturally. Hana’s head barely reaches Lila’s shoulder.

‘You need to take off these men’s clothes.’

‘There’s no hurry.’

‘The sooner you get rid of them the better.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘I thought that was the deal. That you were coming here to go back to what you were.’

‘Yes, but there’s no hurry.’

Lila detaches herself and stares straight into her eyes. Hana smiles.

‘I’m in no hurry. And anyway, that’s not the most important thing.’

Her cousin is confused. Hana leans towards her and pulls the hair back from Lila’s face.

‘Jonida’s more important. I thought you had told her.’

Shtjefën appears at the door, pale and imposing in his light-blue pajamas.

‘Are you still up? … I’m thirsty.’

He goes to the fridge, pulls out a bottle, and drinks.

‘Sorry, I’m going back to bed.’

Suddenly Lila is overwhelmed by tiredness.

‘I can’t take any more, let’s go to bed too.’

‘I was talking to you about Jonida.’

‘I was never any good at explaining things to her,’ Lila says. ‘Around her I’m just a bundle of emotions. Shtjefën didn’t know what to do either. Then we both agreed. Who knows? If the Americans play some nasty trick on Hana and don’t let her into the country, there’s no point in upsetting the girl.’

‘Why wouldn’t they let me in?’

‘What planet are you from, Hana? A month ago it was the end of the world here.’ She crosses herself. ‘Security measures, fear of other attacks … all those things.’

Hana picks up her jacket and caresses it slowly.

‘We heard about September 11th, even over there,’ she says resentfully. ‘Even up in the mountains we have TV, what did you think?’

Lila laughs and puts the fruit bowl back in the fridge.

‘What’s wrong? You’re acting all offended now. I know you have TV, but it’s another world over there.’

Hana looks out of the window. It’ll soon be dawn. Opposite there are two buildings; down below, rows of parked cars.

‘Yes, we saw everything on the TV in the Rrnajë bar, but that day we’d drunk too much raki because Frrok had just married off his daughter, and the television was half broken, the sound wasn’t working.’

The idea of lying down on the bed is inviting, Hana thinks. What is the village doing now? What is every one of its 280 inhabitants thinking at this precise moment?

‘Come on, bedtime! I’m dying,’ orders Lila.

‘I feel tender,’ Hana says.

The stones in the river at Rrnajë looked like foam. She had observed them, in her meticulous and disciplined way. Then she had understood. They looked like foam because they were white, too white at times, when water danced over them in a fury. Hana didn’t like fury: it tarnished her peace. Even the mountains’ name left her ambivalent: Bjeshkët e Namuna, the ‘cursed mountains.’ The name was too definitive; it left so little room for hope. And yet, close up, the mountains were tame, you just needed to know how to take them. You just needed to learn to sleep there without thinking of the name, a name made up by an outsider, some traveler who knew nothing about the place. There’s no curse, just caution and silence. If you don’t attack them, the mountains, they’ll leave you alone.

She wakes at one in the afternoon and stays in bed a little longer. Then she gets up and looks furtively down the narrow hallway. The apartment smells of lemon, sugar, and coffee. Her imitation Samsonite suitcase, bought in the bazaar behind the great mosque in Scutari, has disappeared, and so have Shtjefën’s shoes.

Lila comes out of the bathroom, smiling and busy. Hana pauses and pats the top of her head, suddenly feeling naked.

‘Good morning!’ Lila greets her. ‘Why are you patting your hair?’

‘I dreamed they were shaving my hair off on sheep-shearing day.’

Lila laughs hesitantly to start with, then her laugh grows, in a crescendo she doesn’t hold back. Hana follows suit, comfortable in her funny baggy pajamas. Lila goes on laughing, and then she pushes Hana into the living room. On the table there’s a feast. Hana decides she must first stop in the bathroom, where a new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste await her, together with various little bottles and unfamiliar paraphernalia. Beautiful towels. She stares at them at length; she’s afraid to use them, she doesn’t want to ruin them.

A year before, back at the village, Maria had received six towels like these from her daughter, who had emigrated to Italy. She had sewn them together and made curtains for the guest room. They were nice curtains: they went well with the rifles hanging in a row along the wall. Ten generations of the Frangaj family men ranged across the wall. No male voice had been heard in that house for a decade, since the blood feud had taken away the last of the Frangaj men, Maria’s son. If she had accepted the offers made by foreigners passing through the mountains after the communists fell she could have made a fortune selling those rifles. But she never had.

She washes quickly and comes out of the bathroom with her face still wet. Lila is pouring the coffee. Hana decides to light up a cigarette. They sit in silence.

Now, in the daylight, the apartment looks beautiful.

‘They say that you’ve been getting stranger and stranger,’ Lila says, more to herself than to her cousin. ‘They say you spend your time writing and reading.’

Greenish smoke plays around Lila’s curls.

‘Does that scare you, Lila? I mean, the fact that I’m weird?’

Lila doesn’t say a word.

‘I took the animals out, I chopped the wood, I worked in the fields, I went to the village meetings and I drank a lot of raki. Nothing else counts.’

‘But this morning, who are you?’ Lila asks cautiously. ‘Have you decided to be Hana or Mark?’

Whatever happened the day after her arrival, Hana had promised herself she would not regret it. She had never regretted anything and she wasn’t about to start now, at the age of thirty-four.

‘For you, I’m Hana. For the others I’ll still be Mark for a while.’

‘Ok.’

‘Ok what?’

‘You’re Mark. I have to treat you like a man.’

‘I told you that for you I’m the same old Hana. Yesterday that’s what you called me. What’s making you change your mind?’

Lila explains that this morning she looks like a man: her dark skin, her morning hair, those baggy pajamas, her yellow teeth, her masculine gestures. She finds it hard to think of her as a woman. Hana plays for time. It’s strange, but hearing those words hurts. On the table there are those buns with a hole in the middle, three little jam jars, butter, orange juice, coffee, sugar, hard-boiled eggs. Stop making an inventory, she tells herself.

‘I’ve been a man for fourteen years.’

Lila tries to drown her gaze in the oily dregs of the coffee.

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ she says finally. ‘Not for any of us.’

‘Really?’ Hana says, with a hint of a smile. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Don’t start now. You’re the one with the education here. I just say what comes into my head.’

Lila checks the clock on the wall impatiently. It’s nearly two o’clock.

‘I’m as ignorant as an ameba,’ Hana says. ‘Education is a big word.’

‘Well, you went to college, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, but only for a year, before going up into the mountains and becoming a man.’

‘Well, I’m a cleaning lady, my dear.’

‘You were the top student in high school.’

Lila starts laughing. ‘And you’re the biggest liar in the northern hemisphere.’

Hana can’t seem to change gear. The pain is rising up inside her. She tries to react, taking ten long breaths. With every breath she feels the tension dissipate. But it’s not enough. Lila looks at her maternally.

‘Did I really use to tell lies?’

‘You bet. Any excuse and you were off making up some story or other. We would mention some guy’s name, and you’d start with some tall tale about him.’

‘There was no TV then. Somebody had to be the entertainer. Those were the days,’ Hana sighs, with a smile.

‘Except we were all practically engaged by then,’ Lila contradicts, spreading butter on those strange buns after carefully slicing them in half. Her fingers are odd; they’re too long and thin for her stocky body.

‘Bagel,’ she says, like a nursery schoolteacher. ‘They’re called bagels. They’re good. Try one.’

Lila spreads butter on one half, drips some honey on it, and takes a bite.

‘The truth is, you had a hell of a great time spinning those stories,’ Lila picks up from where she left off. ‘You got pleasure out of it, your face lit up, you could have gone on for hours.’

Hana imitates Lila, slicing the bagel, spreading the butter, trickling the honey, taking a bite.

‘Now I have to invent my own life,’ she announces when the bagel is finished.

‘Let’s start today. We’ve a lot to do. You’ve already wasted enough time.’

‘No, today no. It’s too soon.’

‘Jonida will be home from school any minute. School’s out at three, and the bus brings her home.’

‘How am I supposed to behave with her?’

‘Just be Mark. Or else, tell her everything.’

‘I think you’re right. Today it’s best if I’m still her uncle. Then we’ll see.’

‘Now, go take a shower. Do you have a change of clothes?’

She has everything, except the chance to get away from her own silence. Now she’s in Rockville, a suburb of Washington, DC. She can’t be rude. She can’t shut herself up in a room of her own and play around with poems of the past and the present. The dead are best. They don’t create problems for you. They don’t laugh in your face. The dead are ‌polite. Goodbye, my brother sea.3 She suddenly thinks about the Turkish boy in the men’s room at the airport. She wonders whether he’s ever read a poem by Hikmet, his namesake. She misses Hikmet. Recently he’s been a friend, mixed in with a bit of Seamus Heaney and a bit of Pablo Neruda. Be normal, people say.

‘When are you going back to work, Lila?’

‘In three days … You’re not getting rid of me before that, you better believe it. Then for three more days Shtjefën will stay at home with you, and after that you’ll have to take care of yourself because you’ll be on your own at home. Now go and take that shower and freshen up – Jonida’s on her way.’

Later, while she’s taking a walk with her cousin and niece, Hana breathes in the afternoon air. The park is alive with brilliant colors. Hordes of mothers with strollers and children, their shouts in a multitude of languages helping Hana go by undetected.

Lila, not without pride, explains that this is a good area to live in. Sure, the houses are more expensive, and that’s why they’ve had to make do with such a small apartment. But a walk in the park is better than ten diets and three sessions in a beauty parlor. Hana thrusts her hands into the pockets of her pants and looks like any man in the street.

Jonida skips in front of them and chats about this and that, mixing ‌Albanian Gheg with American English.4 She tells them about something she does at school called ‘social studies,’ and about her teacher, who talks too much and can’t keep the class quiet. ‘He’s a dickhead,’ she says three times, enough for Hana to learn a new word.

‘Uncle Mark, you look good in that white shirt, but I thought you’d be bigger. In the photo you look bigger, you know? You really have to tell me about the mountains. I need to know everything. Mom never tells me anything. Neither does Dad. They’re too busy working all day.’

‘If we don’t work then who’s going to feed you, sweetie?’ says Lila. The girl isn’t listening. She’s doing pirouettes. She’s like a gazelle, a comet, a love poem. She’s wearing tight-fitting, low-cut jeans, her belly button showing, a blue t-shirt with white writing on it, and underneath a red bra with thin shoulder straps just showing.

‘Do I look good, Uncle Mark?’

‘You’re beautiful.’

‘I want you to like me since Mom really likes you. She’s been talking about you so much with Dad these past months, and all Dad said was “Yes, yes, yes … ”’ She mimics Shtjefën’s voice. ‘There’s a secret, right?’ Hana doesn’t answer. ‘I have to find out the secret. If we’re friends you’ll tell me everything, won’t you?’

Lila has stopped. Hana is stuck halfway between Jonida and her mother.

‘What’s this place called?’ Hana asks.

‘Don’t try and change the subject.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Rockville. It’s called Rockville. But don’t try and be clever. Are you going to tell me everything about you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And about the mountains?’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘Great! I can’t wait for the old folks to get back to work so I can have you all to myself after school.’

Hana laughs. Jonida rushes on ahead to say hi to a gang of friends.

‘Calm down, Hana. Relax,’ Lila whispers affectionately.

‘I’m very relaxed, I promise.’

The evening with Shtjefën isn’t as bad as she feared. He’s so tired that he doesn’t even take a shower before sitting down to eat. He says sorry a few times; he smells like highways and tar. His eyes are glazed and he talks more slowly than the night before. His voice is like gravel. He asks three times what the two women in his life have done today and if, by any chance, they have had time to think. ‘Of course we have, dear!’ Lila reassures him. ‘Of course you have,’ Shtjefën echoes. He’s part bear, part butterfly, this man. He goes on slurping his bean soup. ‘What about you, Mark? Did you get some rest? You look a bit lost, brother.’ Hana doesn’t answer. She holds on to her spoon and can’t decide whether she’s hungry or not. What’s for sure is that she doesn’t want to talk. She takes in the atmosphere: the gestures that warm the air, the rhythmic tapping of Jonida’s foot under the table, the shouts from the neighborhood children wafting through the open window, the uncertain dance of the drawn-back curtain.

Before asking for Lila’s hand, Shtjefën had been wiry and blond. His head was like a sunflower. The girls in the village said it was because of his height: he caught the sun as soon as it came out, long before the others, and was the last to lose it before sundown. His speech sounded rare and distant, like the glory that cloaked his family. The Dibras had been a great fis, a family clan that had been at war with the Turks for centuries. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the mountains had enjoyed a brief peace. But then the communists had come, decreed the downfall of the fis and executed their leaders, the bajraktar.

But that is the past and history is no longer important.

In the next-door apartment they’re still cooking. The clanging of saucepans mixed with children’s voices and spicy smells make her feel like she’s part of a giant communal soup kitchen.