Hana washes, throwing water from a copper bucket over herself. She cooks dinner — the usual beans and potatoes with old brown bread — and they eat it in silence. Gjergj looks at her furtively and when their eyes meet he looks down.
‘I thought you wouldn’t come back,’ he says, lighting his pipe.
‘Where would I go, Uncle Gjergj?’
He is sitting up straight today; he looks almost healthy.
‘I see it’s done you good, me leaving you alone,’ she teases. ‘You look better now than when I left you. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back.’
‘What nonsense! What was it like down in Tirana?’
‘Hot.’
‘Did you enroll at school?’
‘Sure.’
‘Good job, dear Hana. You are the perfect son. Pity you were born a girl. If you were a boy, the kulla would have someone to take care of everything now.’
‘Why? Aren’t I taking care of everything as it is?’
‘I’m talking about when I’m gone. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. If I don’t marry you off now while I’m still alive, you’ll end up without a husband and you know only a man can take care of everything. Maybe I’ve found the right person for you to marry. The day after tomorrow he’ll be here.’
‘Who will be here?’
‘You heard me. Your future husband. I want to see you settled, I’ve decided. I can’t leave you alone.’
Hana is silent.
‘This is my duty,’ he continues. ‘You need someone to take care of you.’
She still doesn’t say a word.
‘I won’t give you to the first man who comes along. I’ll find you a good husband, with a diploma and a good family. Don’t be scared: you’ll finish school, come back here and be a high-school teacher. That will be my deal with the family. Until now I haven’t taken anyone into consideration seriously because you wanted to go on studying. But things are different now.’
Hana gets up and goes out. She hears Uncle Gjergj’s scratchy voice, too weak to stop her. She walks around the kulla. It’s a beautiful night with a full moon. The garden is bathed in silvery light. Uncle Gjergj’s pants are still hanging on the line where she left them three days ago.
It’s all so cursedly beautifuclass="underline" the perfume of the woods, the light breeze she feels ruffling her hair, the color of the night. She loves this place. They say nostalgia is only for the old; maybe she’s already old. Maybe she was born old. She feels love for the night, which in her life never seems to end, but there is no bitterness. It’s a fantastic feeling. It’s the stuff of poets. Writers. And she is neither. Calm down and keep your feet on the ground, she says to herself. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Hana; don’t say things that sound crazy. You are normal, aren’t you? She takes a deep breath and acts normal. You’ve just been threatened with marriage. Act scared.
No way. She doesn’t feel any fear, or even anger. She goes on loving the moment, her breath, her calloused palms, her farmhand looks. She loves the courage she felt when she got up and left Uncle Gjergj inside and impotent. She managed to keep him under control.
When she goes back inside she tells Uncle Gjergj she will not accept any husband. He lies down. The pipe resting on the ashtray smokes itself.
‘No husband. Do you see? I will not accept. If a future husband arrives the day after tomorrow, I’ll run away. I don’t want to be married and submit to the orders of a man, wash his feet, even. I will not be a slave.’
‘You’ll be left alone,’ Gjergj says slowly. ‘A woman who is not married is worth nothing.’
‘Women are the same as men.’
‘Like hell they are. Women are made to serve men and have children. Don’t be a fool!’
She finds it hard to control her anger.
‘I thought you were different,’ she says through her teeth. She’s not even sure he hears, because there is no reaction.
‘You’ll be alone in the world,’ he repeats. ‘But I won’t leave you undefended.’
‘You’re still alive, Uncle Gjergj. I won’t let you die.’
‘You can’t do anything about it.’
‘You can’t leave me. You’re the only family I have.’
‘That’s what I mean. After I’m gone you can’t remain here alone.’
‘What do you know about it? Let me deal with it.’
Her uncle tries to smile.
‘School has ruined you. You’ve turned into a city girl, and you’ve forgotten your position. I was wrong to let you go.’
She strides up to his bedside, snuffs his pipe out angrily and stares until he looks away.
‘You’re only a woman,’ he says, upon a sudden, treacherous impulse, seeking to diminish her.
‘And you’re only a man,’ she answers. He’s old and finished, there’s no hope. Aunt Katrina, you were so wrong.
She storms out of the house and slams the door, crying, shouting, suffocating.
‘Die, you bastard,’ she cries out into the night. ‘I thought you were different. Just die!’
She tries to calm down, but it takes her a long time. God forgive my anger. But God doesn’t exist in Rrnajë; it’s a crime to invoke him. Priests are condemned by the regime; they are rotting in prison because they turned to God.
Much later, when she goes back into the kulla, Gjergj says sorry. He says he knows she’s different, that she was always different, even when she was a little girl; that bringing her up was what kept him and poor Aunt Katrina alive, and that it’s not true she is only a woman. She is Hana. And there will never be another Hana.
She moves closer to him. She can’t believe her ears: a man never apologizes to a woman. She weighs Gjergj’s words in her mind, examines him closely to make sure he isn’t playing a trick on her. Then she says:
‘So, no more talk of marriage?’
‘If you’re really sure, my little girl.’
‘Yes, I’m really sure.’
‘Well, promise me you’ll take care of yourself when I die.’
‘You’re not going to die.’
‘Promise me anyway.’
‘I promise.’
‘You’ll be strong.’
‘A rock.’
‘You’ll be the man of this house.’
‘Go to sleep, now. If you sleep well, tomorrow I’ll take you out to see the village.’
‘I’d like that.’
‘We’ll go and see Aunt Katrina, and then we’ll go to the square.’
‘Hana, dear daughter, I’m so sorry.’
The next day the whole of Rrnajë is there to greet them, hands on their hearts: Gjergj, bre burrë, a je?
Uncle and niece visit Katrina’s grave. Hana has brought fresh flowers. Gjergj stands motionless, dazzled by the pile of earth as if it were the sun.
‘I’ll remember this little jaunt, dear daughter,’ he says later on.
When Gjergj’s condition worsens, Hana hitches a ride into town in a truck. She telephones the clinic in Kavajë where the village doctor now works and he promises to send her some painkillers to help Gjergj suffer less.
‘You should really take him to hospital,’ he tells her. ‘They’d be able to take better care of him.’
The phone line sounds weary, as if they are on opposite sides of the world.
‘If you come to Tirana, get in touch. We could meet, if you feel like it.’
The phone line groans. He waits and so does she.
‘Hana,’ the doctor says, ‘I have to go. I’m with a patient right now.’
‘Of course, sure.’
‘Take your uncle to the hospital and then run away from that village of yours. Come to Tirana and finish school. You have your whole future ahead of you.’