Ernest KOLIQI
PROSE
THE GARDEN
Shuk Dija set off slowly in the direction
of Arra e Madhe. A light breeze from the hills across the Kir
river had begun to give relief from the heat of that July afternoon.
The alleys and the walls were still broiling even though the
sun was now low. He had no problem with the heat for he had just
gotten up from an afternoon nap. He washed and refreshed himself
at the well. So much time had passed since he had been able to
enjoy the well water of Shkodra, water so sweet that it was the
source of many a legend. He dressed carefully, aware that many
people would be observing him from behind doorways and through
the slats of Venetian blinds.
Shuk Dija was on his way to Arra e Madhe
to pay someone a return visit.
Upon his arrival in Shkodra, after many
years of absence, numerous relatives, friends and well-wishers
had dropped by. Returning such visits had always been a nuisance
to him, yet this time, it was a pleasure to visit his distant
relative Shaqe, because he had spent so much time with her as
a child. They had had a lot of fun at her house, out in the yard.
The longer one is away from the sites of childhood games, the
more these sites are wrapped in reverie and the greater is the
desire to see them again. From the very first days of Shuk's
return, every corner and every object, from the smallest nooks
and crannies of the house itself to the farthest streets and
alley, evoked in him long-forgotten memories, and filled him
with dreams and impressions, some pleasant and others nostalgic,
yet all of them somehow new and strange to him.
Strolling with the lazy steps of a passerby
who has plenty of time on his hands, he observed everything with
particular interest. The walls and gardens of the neighbouring
houses were all familiar. Yes, he could remember them, but in
his memory they had all been vague and enveloped in a golden
mist, like some legend, and this had made them all the more enticing.
Even now, seeing objects with his very own eyes as he passed
among them after so many years of absence, he discovered their
new and unexpected charms: the slanting facade behind the leafy
mulberry tree, the garden wall with heavy clusters of fragrant
honeysuckle, and the alleys full of shade and mystery. Everything
evoked in him recollections of fine verdant parks and landscapes,
and made him want to run barefoot over the grass.
He fell into a daydream, oblivious to
the curious glances of those watching him from the doorways.
While he was abroad, sitting alone at
a table in a café amidst the din of a big city, he used
to think about Shkodra, his thoughts flying home on the wings
of his imagination. He would find himself roaming the streets,
entering a reclusive garden and stepping on the green grass.
"Imaginary journeys," he called them, those visionary
walks through the distant town of his birth. Now, after several
years of absence and longing, reality proved to be just as beautiful
as his dreams.
All of a sudden, he awoke from his thoughts
and said to himself:
"Have I lost my way?"
He looked to the left and right to get
his directions, trying to find the way as he had remembered it
as a child.
"Oh, it's back there, behind me..."
And indeed, he had passed by the little
side alley. He hurried back, found the passageway, and arrived
at a gate, dark and scarred by the weather. The cobblestones
in front of it were worn, too, with weeds growing thick among
them.
He knocked at the gate, as if he were
knocking at the magic entrance to the lost world of his childhood.
He could hear the echo of clogs coming
across the courtyard. A ruddy, oval-faced housemaid then opened
the door. She blushed awkwardly for a moment, as she had never
met him before and scurried off in the direction of the house.
Abandoning her clogs at the foot of the stairs, she scuttled
up the steps to inform the lady of the house of his arrival.
Amused by the maid's insipid behaviour,
Shuk closed the door behind him and headed slowly towards the
staircase. With what delight he looked around him! The yard was
exactly as it had been the last time, except for a stone wall
which now partitioned it from the neighbouring yard, where a
fence had once been. The house was freshly painted and remodelled
somehow, but he could see no other changes. The same open veranda
with the wooden stairs, the window frames with iron bars. Everything
was as it had been in the past.
Shuk's eyes fixed on the little gate
leading to the garden around the back of the house, when a woman's
voice echoed from the veranda:
"Oh, Shuk! Come on up!"
There, at the top of the stairs, was
Shaqe with her hands behind her back, trying hurriedly to undo
the white apron she was wearing. He went up, embraced her, and
entered the living room.
Here, too, everything was as it had been.
Shaqe, sitting across from him, began
to speak:
"You wouldn't believe it. I swear
to God, I did not recognize you a few days ago when I went over
to see you. It's amazing how the years pass! I remember how tiny
you were. I can still see you playing in the garden. My God,
you gave me a hard time when you were little! Do you remember
why? You would bring all the kids from the neighbourhood over
here... Do you remember when you used to come and spend the night
here? Lush, may his soul rest in peace, used to talk about you
a lot when you were abroad."
Lush was her late husband.
Shuk was delighted and had a smirk on
his face, but gave no reply. The sound of Shaqe's voice had stirred
something at the bottom of his heart, reviving memories of the
past and of long-forgotten joys. He closed his eyes and plunged
into the memories, all of his years away from Shkodra vanishing
as if they had never existed. Once again he was that restless
little child eagerly hopping around in fun and games.
Shaqe continued:
"Oh, Shuk, poor Lush was so attached
to you! As I said, not a day went by without his mentioning your
name... Lin was still at school... and when Lush passed away,
I had to take him out and send him to work at the market."
Lin was her son.
"How I wish that you could have
been at Lin's wedding last year! I kept saying to everybody:
'What a shame that Shuk won't be attending the wedding.' It was
a marvellous reception. And he couldn't have found himself a
better bride! But, where... where is she? Come on in now! Shuk
is a good friend of ours. You don't have to get all dressed up."
Shaqe rose to see if the young woman
would enter. From where he was sitting, Shuk attempted to have
a look at the garden, through the window. Its view was not obscured,
but from where he was sitting he could see only part of it, and
the giant fig tree, whose branches now reached up to the windowsill.
Oh, that garden... the verdant playground
of our childhood...! Shuk had not seen it for ten years, but
he remembered every corner of it - all the trees and shrubs,
every bit of grass. Even the tiniest things bore memories.
While he was abroad, it was this garden
which grew green every spring in his heart.
"Here, this is Lin's bride."
Shaqe interrupted his thoughts when she
returned with the young woman.
They all sat down and talked. Shuk said
a few words here and there, just enough to cover over silence
and nostalgia, so that his absent-minded behaviour should not
be misunderstood. All the while, as they stared he looked at
the bride out of the corner of his eye.
She was not unusually pretty, but there
was a warmth which emanated from her face and which made her
immediately attractive.
She was dressed in a native costume:
shiny, black breeches, a silken blouse, a red apron, a necklace
of medallions on her breast, and a string of small gold coins
in her hair. She kept her eyes to the ground, looking at the
white handkerchief she was holding in her hands which were adorned
with many shining rings. From time to time, she would look up,
but when her eyes met his, she would lower her head at once,
batting her eyelashes.
Shuk felt as though he had always known
her, and his initial curiosity vanished when he saw the soft
features of her face, a characteristic of many of the women of
Shkodra.
"I was unable to take Vida with
me when I went to see you after you got back because she was
spending a few days with her relatives," said Shaqe.
Vida was the bride's name.
With this, she began praising her virtues:
she was a good worker, didn't talk much, was neat, and was just
the perfect match for Lin.
The young woman blushed and lowered her
head even more. Shuk kept his eyes on her, but he was not really
interested for he had plunged once again into a daydream.
"Where would all those girls who
played with me in the garden be now, I wonder? Of course, they're
all grown up and many of them are married now. Perhaps I have
already seen them on the street, and did not recognize them.
Some of them may even have died..."
He cast his mind back to Dusha, who had
been his closest friend as a child. He had carried the memories
of her with him when he left Shkodra and had guarded them carefully
through his years of wanderings abroad. Dusha, that pale and
skinny little girl. Of her delicate features, only her big black
eyes showed any vitality. He had taken her under his protection,
and none of the other children would dare to have harmed her.
He used to give her walnuts, paper for making kites, spools of
thread, knucklebones for playing jacks, and little figurines.
Once, he remembered, he wanted to give her a beautiful box with
a pen holder, a pencil, an inkwell, and an eraser in it. His
uncle had brought it from him from Trieste. She wouldn't take
it. He begged and cajoled to no avail. Nothing in the world would
convince her to accept the present.
Where would Dusha be now?
Except for her name, he know nothing
about her; neither who her parents were, nor where she lived
at that time. He had met her down in the garden, and only now
did he understand why he had always wanted to come and play here.
It was his desire to see and spend time with Dusha. He had heard
nothing more of her in ten years of absence, and a strange feeling
now caused him to believe that she might not have survived the
years, skinny and fragile as she had been. He imagined her somehow
lying in the Fusha e Rmajit cemetery, and grieved at the thought,
seeing her dead before his eyes, his little sister.
Shaqe then spoke:
"Lin will be back from market soon.
He would be very disappointed if he missed you. Can you wait
for him, Shuk? I am going to put a bottle of raki out to chill
in the well and make you some nice appetizers. Do wait until
he gets back! He won't be very long..."
Shuk answered:
"Alright, but in the meantime I'm
going to go and have a look at the garden, if I may."
"Why, of course," uttered Shaqe.
"Get up, girl! Take him and show him the garden."
The young woman stood up, blushing.
When they got downstairs, she opened
the little gate for him and said in a faint voice: "Go on
in."
Shuk entered and began tiptoeing over
the soft, green grass.
It was like a dream. Nothing had changed,
except that, now that he was grown up, the garden seemed smaller,
the walls were lower, and the trees less tall than he had imagined.
The sun could not be seen any longer.
It had vanished behind the wall. A pale afternoon light devoid
of vibrancy spread through the garden, the light which precedes
the last moments of dusk and brings with it a certain sadness
and longing for something which is about to disappear forever.
Everything was still: the large, rough foliage of the fig tree,
the delicate leaves of the plums which rose in a circle in the
middle of the garden, the dark ivy, the honeysuckle blooming
on the high walls, even the tent-shaped boxwood under the windows
of the house stood quiet. No movement, as if they had gathered
in silence to wait for the shadows of the night to descend upon
them.
The air, motionless within the garden,
was replete with smells: the smell of ripe fruit, the scent of
fresh grass, the fragrances of flowers, herbs, and plants hidden
in various cool corners. All these scents, contained within the
garden walls, joined to form a single fragrance as exquisite
as an aromatic potion.
Twilight, with its pale shadows, was
spreading and blotting out the colours, but had also set alight
a myriad of stars in that part of the sky which stretched like
a silver veil over the walls. In Shuk's dreamy eyes, the garden
was slowly taking on another form, an image of dawn.
For a few moments, everything was miraculously
transformed. The fresh light of springtime flooded into the garden
and revived the plants, which began to grow. The silence which
had covered the garden like a veil was suddenly supplanted by
voices, shouts, and merriment. Among the sounds, he recognized
a girl's soft voice, and his heart skipped. He was a child once
again. He rolled in the grass, climbed the trees, stretched his
hands out to reach the sweet figs, and hid behind the dense boxwood.
At once, he stopped running and looked, in amazement, towards
the little gate which was opening. Dusha, his tiny girlfriend,
the playmate of his early years, entered the garden with a piece
of red candy in her fingers. She walked towards him, sucking
on the confection as she approached.
"We've got a beautiful garden behind
the house, don't we?"
Shuk was awakened from his daydream by
the young woman's voice. It upset him at first because her words
had dispersed and destroyed his dream, but then, feeling uncomfortable
because of his protracted silence, he felt obliged to reply:
"Yes, it's wonderful. I love it
because it reminds me of my childhood. You know, I often used
to come here to play. Memories of the past, however fond they
are, always make me uneasy. That's what happened to me the moment
I entered the garden."
He spoke and looked at her.
The young woman, whose body radiated
health and youth, smiled as she listened to him. Her eyes expressed
joy and serenity. The shy expression on her face was now gone.
Shuk thought to himself:
"How lucky you are not to know what
depression is! It is an illness which has often gnawed at my
soul. If I were to tell you everything I was thinking, you would
probably find me strange, perhaps even ridiculous. How lucky
you are!"
Speaking up, he then said:
"I haven't been in Shkodra for over
ten years now. You know, when you have been away for a long time,
you notice even the smallest details on the first days when you
get back."
Her lips moved. Shuk waited for a moment,
but she did not speak.
The light faded and vanished. Night had
now fallen over the garden. He could not see her face well because
it was now dark and she was standing at a distance from him.
Yet he sensed the trembling of her body, as if she were on the
verge of saying something and was holding herself back.
He thought that he might have been boring
her with his talk so he walked towards the gate.
"Shall we go back upstairs?"
She gave no reply, but followed in his
footsteps. Suddenly, in the middle of the garden, Shuk could
no longer swallow the question which had risen to his lips several
times.
"Do you know anything about a little
girl called Dusha who used to live somewhere around here?"
The bride walked on behind him. As he
received no reply, he continued, without turning:
"She was not in good health and
had an emaciated, drawn-out face. I don't know why, but I have
the impression she may have died... These plum trees were the
witness of my happy childhood. I wish they, at least, could tell
me what happened. I was exuberant a moment ago thinking of that
girl I once loved, and now I see her in her grave."
At that moment, he spun around as if
struck by lightning.
With a smile on her lips, the young woman
replied:
"Don't you recognize me, Shuk?"
[Kopshti, from the volume Hija
e maleve, Shkodra 1929. Translated from the Albanian by Robert
Elsie.] |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Classical
Authors (19th - early 20th centuries)
