Anton PASHKU
PROSE
THE YELLOW PEEL OF THE LEMON
1.
She stopped thinking about the sun
and how its rays were streaming in through the window. The sun
and its rays always turned her thoughts to their beauty and majesty.
Now they seemed insignificant. And, as she had so often resolved,
she did not intend to waste her thoughts on things insignificant.
She had often, very often, chided herself
when her thoughts were focussed on superfluous details.
She longed to experience grandeur. And
she was aware that, although she was herself very small, tears
were the stock of grand deeds. Tears as large as the pips of
cornel cherries.
She was envious of her elder sister who
knew how to weep. She did not.
She was perplexed at herself. Why didn't
her tiny eyes know how to flood with tears?
She recalled the words of her elder sister
who, whenever she raised a handkerchief to wipe her eyes and
cheeks, would sob:
"I squeezed it, I squeezed the lemon!"
2.
On the table was a plate of three
lemons. The girl took one. She stared at it in wonder, tossing
it back and forth between her hands. She was curious to know
what kind of juice was welling behind the yellow peel. But she
was unable, simply unable to coax the juice out of it. She reflected
again, but was could not comprehend why the juice would not come
out of hiding. She became angry, frustrated at herself and at
the yellow peel of the lemon. So she seized a knife and cut it
in half.
"What are you doing?" inquired
her elder sister, unable to conceal her irritation.
"Look, I sliced the lemon, but I'm
not crying!" she exclaimed in despair. "Why am I not
crying?"
Silence.
"Why am I not crying?" she
repeated. "How do you do it? You burst into tears the moment
you squeeze a lemon."
"Yes, but I squeeze it, I don't
slice it," replied her sister.
"So what? Isn't that the same thing?"
she asked.
"No, it's not."
3.
Sorrow veiled her eyes. Tears clouded
her vision. But her tears were no oars dipping into the sea.
She then understood that her tears were a handful of pebbles
in the pocket of a sailor whose ship was about to founder in
a savage wave...
(March 1957)
[Lëkura e verdhë e limonit,
from the volume Tregime fantastike (Prishtina: Rilindja
1986), p. 315-317. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
IN THE STORM
At that moment he felt paralysed,
numb. The sensation penetrated the whole of his body. Everything
felt strange, even himself.
Never had his strength abandoned him
like this. He was exhausted, from his limp, drooping limbs to
the tips of his twitching fingers.
He wanted to leap up and run away, but
was stopped by the thought of looking ridiculous.
Then the beam over the doorway... groaned.
Petrified by the noise, he went in and cowered, hiding in the
deepest recesses of his own skin.
There he crouched, listening to the howling
of the wind. And the heaving of the beams.
(April 1957)
[Në stuhi, from the volume
Tregime fantastike (Prishtina: Rilindja 1986), p. 303.
Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
THE SCREECH
As darkness flooded in, a golden shower
of moonbeams rinsed the mountain ridges and washed the valley
below, turning to ice on the slippery surface of the river that
wreathed the meandering banks. Everything was laced and tied
with the strings of quiet, with the threads of heavy silence,
hovering. Even the cuckoo made no sound. Not a chirp from the
cricket. Everything had withdrawn into itself, barred and bolted
into the thicket of sleep.
And up there, high in the vaults of heaven
floated a star, with a long-arched tail glimmering behind it.
A screech is heard.
The raven croaks.
And the strings of silence are sundered,
as if by a sword.
The lofty trees rustle like sad souls.
Thrice cries the cuckoo. Even the cricket raises its voice.
The moon severs its golden beams, cowers
behind the frayed edges of a cloud, does not wish to witness
the crime, does not deign to be tainted by the red drops welling
from the raven's spoil.
A shadow, like the shroud of death, spreads
over the scene.
(September 1957)
[Klithma, from the volume Tregime
fantastike (Prishtina: Rilindja 1986), p. 304-305. Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]
EVENING PRAYER
She did not lie down on the bed as
usual that day. It seemed boring, infinitely dull and pointless.
She preferred to sit at the window. And there she stayed, with
her nape snuggled into the back of the armchair, sluggishly fingering
the curtains. She pulled them back a little.
Her girlfriend had gone home all of a
sudden.
For some strange reason, she wanted to
call out to her. She got up, but made no sound. Hesitating a
moment, she sat down again. The silence, interrupted by her abrupt
movement, was restored, and became deadlier than ever. Yet she
took no notice of it. She was accustomed to sitting in silence.
"You are experienced in matters
of suffering," she thought to herself, "You are always
mute. You retain something curious that is always present in
your expression. I have seen it in the mirror. Yes, yes, I have
seen it. Something is gnawing at you, something that only you
know. You are hiding it. At least you are trying to. How silly
you are! Do you really believe that the others don't see the
pain in your soul? Yes, of course, they all know about it. Even
Tina who is heading down the lane. Why didn't she come back?
Poor thing, she would perhaps have been embarrassed, unable to
be jovial as she is with her other girlfriends. She loves joking
and laughing. That is why she doesn't come over to go for a walk
with you. You'll hear no more from her, not a single word to
comfort you."
A man with a yellow tie went by, strolling
down the lane.
"I am ugly. I am nothing but an
ugly hunchback. That is the way I look to me, and to everyone
else, too. Yes, the boys can hardly keep themselves from laughing
when I pass by... Who knows... Maybe they're not looking at me,
but I strongly suspect they are. They are staring at my breast,
that cradle that no one has ever rocked, that wooden board."
At the end of the lane, a boy appeared
with a carnation in his hand.
An old woman made her way home.
A bicycle passed.
"I walk with my eyes fixed on the
ground and yet the boys can see the expression on my face. Yes,
they can," she thought, taking a mirror out of the little
pocket of her sweater and staring at it. "My eyes are not
very attractive. They seem cruel. And look at my chin. It starts
at the lips and ends at the lips. I am more or less chinless...
and I have no cheeks. Look how sunken they are. It's only my
straight nose that saves me. But it is too big for my tiny face.
If it were a bit shorter... If it were only... My face would
look completely different. Maybe it would not look as pale as
wax. I don't imagine the boys are attracted by the colour of
wax. I don't like the colour of wax either. That is why I walk
with my head bowed, hastening past everyone, and without even
glancing at the boys.
Tears welled in her eyes. She wiped them
away with the edge of her handkerchief. Then she looked around
the room. Everything in it caused her pain, so much suffering.
Huddled in the silence, the objects seemed abandoned, like forgotten
toys that no one plays with anymore, except to move them from
place to place now and again. By now the thin veil of evening
had fallen over the room, giving it an even more desolate aspect.
She gazed listlessly out the window.
Three flowers on the lane's pavement.
The clock tower tolled seven times.
The weeping of a child.
"I am all alone. No one looks at
me. I am in the arms of solitude. Its prisoner. Where can I go?
There is nowhere I can flee. No one will let me hide in the crannies
of their fortune... Crannies of fortune?... What a strange expression!"
She wanted to laugh, but could only manage
a small grin. She did not even notice she was grinning. It was
a laugh for her.
In the lane outside, darkness.
In the lane, the shuffling of passersby.
In the lane, emptiness.
Silence.
Nothing could be heard but a cat's miaow.
She lowered the blinds, but remained
where she was. She sat down in the big armchair. She did not
want to get up, even to turn the light on.
The cat's mewling, troubling the quiet
pond of her room, increased the din of her silence to a deafening
roar.
(January1958)
[Lutjet e mbrëmjes, from
the volume Tregime fantastike (Prishtina: Rilindja 1986),
p. 311-314. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie] |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Modern
Authors from Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro (late 20th
- 21st centuries)
