Eqrem BASHA
PROSE
THE SNAIL'S MARCH TOWARDS THE LIGHT OF THE SUN
From half a metre away, everything
on the dingy whitewash of the damp wall - all the stains, the
finger prints, the droppings left over by the flies and the cobwebs,
- resembled a grandiose painting which evoked a myriad of associations
- new and repeating forms as well as amazing ghostlike shapes.
Was it the murky drops of water trickling downwards, was it the
dampness of the wall itself, or was it rust from the reinforced
steel which had made its way to the surface? It could also be
mildew, moss or lichens, which would thrive under the favourable
conditions offered by such a tiny room. It was, at any rate,
a strange and enticing world which enabled him to forget the
shooting pain in his ribs. His heavy, weary eyes seemed to be
searching in the filth for the reason, or one of the reasons
for his presence there. There must certainly be a reason somewhere
in that sombre and airless hole.
There seemed to be no one else present
in the room, but he had been given orders not to turn around,
and he followed them strictly.
At one point, he heard the door creak
open. A slight breeze wafted over his body. Someone had entered.
One, two or several people. He could hear steps of varying intensity
and felt for a moment that someone, one, two or several people,
were standing right behind him. He heard someone, one, two or
several people, breathing and then the steps fading away. They
wandered off in the space he imagined to be behind his back.
Somewhere not far away from him a light flashed. Tobacco smoke
then spread through the room, a smell which seemed to revive
him somewhat. He raised his head to catch a whiff of the smoke,
his eyes followed the trickle of water in the corner of the room
up to where the wall met the sloping ceiling. The more he looked
upwards, the less prints of bare feet could be seen on the dingy
whitewashed surface. He stretched his neck a little as if to
open the pores of his weakened body to the fresh air which had
entered the room through the open door. But this time, all he
got was thicker smoke which smothered him like a fist of cotton
wool. He took a deep breath, inhaling smoke into the depths of
his lungs, and now felt the shooting pain all the more.
The person who entered the room, or one
of them, then departed. The door closed and the fresh air was
gone. But the tobacco smoke became more and more intense. He
could hear various steps in the distance once again, way behind
his back. There were two of them, or perhaps three. Yet, no one
spoke a word and, although it was not absolutely still in the
room, silence reigned heavily, as if beside a pond of stagnant
water. The tobacco smoke brushed against his eyelashes. It singed
them ever so slightly, calling for tears that had long gone dry.
One of his fingers moved. He cast his eyes down at the bruised
and blackened hands which were folded over his tightly pressed
together knees. He endeavoured to move his fingers, but to no
avail. They remained flat and unmoveable, like pieces of meat
glued to his naked knees. Further down towards his bare feet,
he saw his toenails, discoloured and far too long. Under the
little toe of his left foot was a pool of dried blood which had
formed around him. Its dark ruddy hue, now with a tinge of pale
yellow, made him quiver and struck a nerve on the ridge of his
foot. The involuntary movement broke the crust on the recently
coagulated blood, causing it to move - the snail which had taken
refuge in the slimy shadow of his battered body. It moved.
"We always lean them against the
wall. Why did we leave this one on the floor here turned over?"
someone asked. Was it the one who had remained in the room, or
the echo of the other one who had just gone out? "Why don't
we just get rid of him?" intoned the voice with the sentence
he had heard so often recently. So there were two of them, or
perhaps three or more. The cigarette smoke became thicker and
filled his lungs.
"Let him shit his pants first,"
said one of them. The first, second or third of them.
In fact he had just pissed his pants
full and the sentence suddenly made him aware of the strong burning
sensation he had felt between his thighs, drenched with the sticky,
salty urine. Perhaps he could move a little, just raise himself
up enough to unstick the material from his bruised thighs. No,
he wasn't allowed to. All movements were strictly watched, or
to put it more exactly, forbidden. And thus he lay, cramped in
the position he was in. Not daring to move his eyes from the
pool of blood, he stared at a drop of urine which glided down
his shinbone until it came to rest. The footstool with its wicker
seat, crooked and shaky as it was, would betray any movement,
so he had to keep his balance, remain immobile. But this presented
no great difficulty because his body was stiff now anyway.
The door opened again and someone entered
the room. Or someone left. He couldn't tell the difference. At
a distance behind his back he could hear whispering but could
not distinguish what was being said. They seemed to have reached
an agreement. Perhaps something was going to happen. He listened
attentively and endeavoured to understand what had taken place.
He heard paper and something like the scratching of a pencil.
It sounded as if someone was signing a document, a signature
at the end of a decree. An order had possibly come and they had
to fill out forms or sign declarations. A badly worded sentence
had been crossed out or a new one had to be added. They had reconsidered
the matter.
He seemed to hear someone say: "Why
don't we chain him to the wall?"
The glistening snail bathed in its slime
had advanced somewhat. It had now reached the corner of the room,
near the lower, dark-coloured part of the wall where the footprints
were the clearest. It was the only point which shone in the dark.
Its shell rose like a Tower of Babel over the rotten floorboards
which held back some of the moisture oozing down the wall through
the mildew. It advanced slowly, shining like a glowworm under
a spiral vault and without paying the slightest attention to
what was happening around it. It was a volute among a thousand
scarabs from some distant sphere, slithering forth in the ubiquitous
mould and dampness, the sweat of the world, through nettles and
over cold stones. But what was this gastropodous hermaphrodite
doing here in front of his aching eyes? From what dark hole had
it emerged? And in what filthy corner of the wall did it intend
to lay its eggs, only to become the ancestor to generations of
such beings slithering about in the very same filth, with the
very same persistence and eternal patience, leaving behind them
glowing trails, rays of slime betraying the paths taken, constantly
inseminating, fertilizing itself and then depositing in the wall,
from out of the right side of its head, the fruit of its hope?
In the slanting ceiling above him, right
over the scarlet wounds on his now shaven skull, there was a
tiny window which was never opened. The angle at which the rays
of light fell upon the wall enabled him to tell the time of day,
even to the exact hour on occasion. Now in the late afternoon,
the rays fell obliquely through the window so that the light
was at the very level of his eyes. It was like a shining white
rectangle in which all the filth, stains and streaks on the damp
wall had miraculously vanished. This surface of light which stemmed
from and seemed to belong to another world was like a fairy tale
garden with terrifying decorations and ornaments made of peeling
whitewash, filth, fingerprints and footprints, remnants of thousands
of other lives right in front of him, constantly changing. There
was almost no movement on the white surface. It was pure magic,
a surrealist world of dreams and illusions, pure and unadorned,
but containing all the hidden structures and impressions of a
white painting in a frame. There, he could see his own little
world, and projected all of his dreams into it. There he called
to mind everything real which he had not believed, or everything
believed which had not been real. He could cast flashes of light,
bolts of lightning, magic sparkles at it, transforming it into
a thousand hues even more resplendent, otherwise hidden from
his sombre world.
The officer then entered the room, accompanied
perhaps by someone else. One of them, at any rate, held a higher
rank because he could sense the unease and hear the shifting
movements in the little room. There was a clack of heels and
then silence, broken at last by the officer with his rough and
ominous voice
"Pomozhbog."
"Pomozhbog!"
Silence once more, and then the officer
spoke out again:
"Has he moved?"
"No," was the reply.
"Is he still holding out?"
he asked again.
"Yes," came the answer.
"Has he been groaning?" he
asked.
"Yes," they responded.
"Doesn't matter."
He could hear footsteps. Probably an
inspection. The crack which accompanied the footsteps probably
stemmed from the whip which the officer was wont to beat in the
palm of his hand all day long.
"It stinks in here," he said.
"Let's set him against the other
wall," someone proposed.
"He's not allowed to," was
the frigid and sullen reply.
"He can't see much."
"Why do we lean all of them against
the wall and this one with his face to it?"
"That's what the order says."
"Yes, sir."
The officer left the room, beating the
whip in the palm of his hand as usual. The steps echoed behind
him in the little room. Perhaps the others had left the room,
too. One of them, two or three.
For a long while he could hear only his
own light breathing. He felt the biting pain in his ribs. Neither
the big maps and pictures he had observed on the wall in front
of him, nor the footprints, nor the traces left by the raindrops
trickling in through the window down the wall through the mildew
and the mould would be able to help him. It was evening now.
His bones were awake and his wounds had opened. Only the trail
left by the snail glistened now on the sombre surface of the
wall. The shell carried on upwards towards the ceiling, towards
the shining window which had now grown dark, and towards the
sun which had most certainly gone down by now.
In the shadow of his bare right foot,
a little spider was silently weaving a web by attaching colourless
strands between his foot and the wall. The web stretched to the
leg of the stool. But he was too weary to watch it. His neck
had become a rusty, ungreased axle. He watched the last drops
of urine trickling down his thighs, causing the dry skin to itch.
He saw the spider from the corner of his eye as it, unconcerned,
continued to spin its web, a home built to last a thousand years.
Given the state his body was in, it would at least be able to
enjoy part of its retirement there.
The shining patch on the wall had vanished.
There was darkness everywhere. Behind his back he heard a slight
cough, enough to remind him of the presence of the night watchman.
Night had fallen, just as it had so often
before. The shining patch on the wall was gone and forgotten,
and all the stains had vanished. No footprints could be seen
and no noise was to be heard. The pain in his ribs had returned
with a vengeance, as had the burning sensation in his chest,
the ache in his back and the numb feeling in his legs. The wall
had closed in upon him, like the curtain at the end of a play
before the lights in the theatre went on. The glistening snail
had probably retreated into its shell or continued to march up
the infinitely long wall in search of the sun.
Another day rose behind his back. The
curtain opened and the performance began anew. The maps, the
trickling water, the stains, the footprints, the lines and traces
left over in the peeling whitewash appeared once again. The number
of footprints had increased, or his eyesight, which had been
weakened by the long night, could only see the part of the wall
where they were most prevalent. What was definitely new was the
network of slimy trails which the snail had left behind it during
the night. And it was quite substantial. The wall now looked
like the roof of a tent made of coarsely woven silk. Perhaps
the poor snail had lost its way in the moonless night, or the
setting of the sun had confused its sense of orientation. But
nothing seemed to have stopped it. It covered the whole surface
of the wall and was now stationary in the middle, unmoved, right
at the level of his eyes. It was exhausted or was perhaps stopping
momentarily to gather strength.
The shining rectangle was now somewhere
behind his back. The light would later fall obliquely over his
body and cast the shadow of his torso down towards his feet,
reminding him of the paintings of Francis Bacon. Later, the rays
would fall on his knees and on the lower, filthiest part of the
wall, before they gradually rose towards the top and brought
another day to its inevitable conclusion. But today, there was
something new: the network of trails which the snail had left
behind glistening in the sun's rays like filigree, had almost
blinded his sight. It was so beautiful that it made him forget
the shooting pain in his ribs and the wounds which covered his
body. He could hardly hear the noise and the shuffling of feet
behind his back. The breeze which wafted over him every time
someone entered or left the room, the tobacco smoke, and the
noise of papers and documents were all now insignificant, were
no longer part of his world. The rectangle of light, now right
in front of his eyes, sparkled like a waterfall of emeralds and
diamonds. The light fractured into a whole spectrum and created
one picture after another. In the corner, the snail, now revived,
set forth on its definitive, straight and unimpeded course towards
the sunlight. The rays of light wandered upwards and forced him
to raise his head a little. All the while, the usual words were
being exchanged behind his back:
"Is he holding out?"
"Yes."
"Has he moved?"
"No."
"Any groaning?"
"Yes."
"No matter..."
Behind him, too, were footsteps shuffling
back and forth, the beating of a whip in the palm of the officer's
hand, the draught when the door opened, the smell of tobacco,
a coming and going. Back and forth, paper and the scratching
noise of a pencil. Steps, more steps. Someone came into the room,
then another, a third. One of them went out and one came back
in.
"Why do we lean all the others against
the wall and this one with his face to it?" another one
asked.
"Why don't we put him out of his
misery?"
"I want him to shit his pants in
horror first,"
The usual, insignificant conversation.
The drops of urine had dried up. No more followed. His breathing
slowed down. He lay unmoved. The crooked and shaky footstool
with its wicker seat and no back made no more noise, and the
white rectangle with the bedazzling, glistening trails left behind
by the snail filled him with new joy. He did not know when he
had last eaten. Sure that he would hold out, he became awesomely
courageous as he lay in front of the eternal wall.
"Kill me! What are you waiting for?"
he might have said, had he had the strength. But it was of no
importance. Beyond the glistening trails there was no more wall
left. He felt something glide over his neck, something which
gave him new strength and energy. He plunged into the silken
cords, into the blinding light, and sank. Further and further
he fell. What floor was he on now? From what heaven had he come?
He could feel no ground under him.
[Marshi i kërmillit drejt dritës
së diellit from the volume Marshi i kërmillit,
Peja: Dukagjini, 1994, p. 123-133. Translated from the Albanian
by Robert Elsie] |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Modern
Authors from Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro (late 20th
- 21st centuries)
