This is the fourth time I’ve written you, Hana, and it’s not easy for me to write so try and imagine how hard it is for me to put down all my thoughts in any kind of order and don’t even think about giving me a hard time about it. So are you going to send me an answer? Do you want to come on vacation one time just to see what it’s like before making up your mind? You can’t carry on being a man just because once upon a time you had to turn into one. If you wait too long you’ll get old, and old age is no picnic, they all say.
When she hears knocking at the courtyard gate she’s covered in dirt and sweating. She shouts at the unknown visitor to come in and waits with her hands thrust into her pockets.
It’s Blerta; Blerta’s head peering shyly round the gate. They look each other up and down. Hana imagines the effect she’s having on her old schoolmate, but decides not to care. She pushes her hands deeper into her pockets. Blerta is so womanly, so beautiful. Long, straight, very blond hair, a long black V-neck sweater over a shirt and red pants. Almost no makeup, just a hint of lipstick.
‘Hey, Hana,’ Blerta says.
‘I’m Mark. I’m not Hana anymore, and you know it.’
‘Yeah, of course I knew it, but I didn’t know how to …’
‘Cut it out.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘You’re already in. Welcome, Blerta.’
Hana turns back towards the kulla, but she realizes her friend isn’t going anywhere. Hana stops in her tracks without turning around.
‘It’s just you, I hope. You wouldn’t bring your journalists, right?’
‘No.’
‘Ok then, come on in. I’m happy to have you here.’
Things are better inside the kulla. It’s too dark inside for Blerta to keep on X-raying her. Hana feels more protected.
They sit down on the shilte. The guest looks around. Hana lights a cigarette and hands over the tin box where she keeps her rolling tobacco.
‘No, thanks,’ Blerta smiles guiltily. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘You smoked once, before the second exam.’
‘Oh, yeah. You’ve reminded me … I’d forgotten that one …’
‘Who are these foreigners? What are they doing up here?’
‘They’re English. They’re making one of those documentaries on the Kanun code. I’m their interpreter, they pay well, and …’
‘I heard you work in Tirana.’
‘I did a master’s for two years in the US, on a Fulbright scholarship. I came back six months ago and now I’m living in Tirana, yes.’
‘Well well.’
Silence.
‘I couldn’t wait to meet you. You knew I would come, right?’
‘Here everybody knows everything. There’ve been quite a few foreigners around recently.’
‘I know.’
‘What do you want from me, Blerta?’
‘Nothing. I just came to see you.’
‘No, you didn’t come to see me. You came for your work and, as I’m the only enlightened man left in this God-forsaken village since all the real men were sacrificed to blood feuds or hunger, you thought you’d get me to help you.’
Blerta can’t wait to get out. Hana enjoys watching her squirm. She takes one last puff of her cigarette and, before putting it out, lights the next.
Blerta has the courage to protest that Hana is being hostile and she doesn’t understand why.
‘Of course you don’t understand. I have too much to do right now and I don’t really want to talk.’
Blerta gets up. Hana admires her lithe body. She has shed all her provinciality.
‘Anyway, we’re staying here for three weeks,’ Blerta says. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
‘Where are you sleeping?’ Hana asks brusquely.
‘In a kulla, in Theth.’
‘And tonight?’
‘In the same place. We’re leaving in an hour.’
‘You can sleep here if it doesn’t disgust you.’
‘No, I’d better be going. Take care of yourself, Hana.’
Blerta leaves. Hana puts a bottle of raki on the low table, and lays out some sheep’s cheese and a can of olives she bought in Scutari a few weeks before. She drinks without stopping, even when the cheese and olives are finished. She drinks until the bottle is dry and passes out on the kilim.
For several days she doesn’t show her face in the village. If she happened to bump into Blerta she wouldn’t know how to behave. Fucking pride, she says to herself. She likes cursing. Let Blerta’s hair go back to being frizzy! What a bitch, she thinks. You’re a real bitch, Hana. You’re still a woman with all that bitchiness inside you. You’re no angel.
One day she leaves for Scutari. She still needs to check the brakes on the truck.
The mechanic is about forty-five and he loves his work. During the regime he had a factory job; now his kids have emigrated to Italy. Hana doesn’t know which factory he used to work in. They all looked the same: old rusted ruins donated by Soviet Big Brother or Chinese Big Brother. It was as if, rather than machinery, they had housed iron carcasses held together with spit. The fact that her truck was made in China was a source of subtle pleasure, for the People’s Republic was still under communism while insignificant little Albania had fought itself free. The mechanic’s name was Farì.
‘Freedom is all well and good, my friend,’ he says to Hana. ‘There’s no doubt about it. But can you eat it? No.’
Hana watches his grease-covered hands as he gesticulates wildly. Hands look good when they’re black like that, like coarse moths. If she were a photographer she would capture his hands on camera.
‘I’ll get this beast going for you,’ Farì goes on, not waiting for her to answer. ‘But first let’s go and get ourselves some coffee.’
The café is crowded. The mechanic orders two espressos.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he says to Hana when the coffees are served. ‘Why did you stay in Rrnajë? Why didn’t you go abroad? You could have got a job in construction in Italy, Greece, France, or even America. Anywhere’s better than here.’
Hana reminds him that he too has stayed behind in Albania. The mechanic shakes his head.
‘My two boys left for Italy on the first ships out of here when the regime cracked. Now they’re doing ok, but it was hard for them to start with. They went to a city called Treviso, in the north. They’re pretty racist up there. If you say you’re Albanian they think you’re a criminal. Then they tried Greece and it was even worse. They went back to Italy, near Rome. They’re both mechanics. Things got better there. Rome is a big city and they’re hard workers, like me.’
Farì sits up straighter and smiles, revealing a missing tooth. Hana is missing two molars. She hasn’t seen a dentist in seven years. She smiles back.
A muezzin starts his call. Scutari is full of mosques. Farì turns serious.
‘When you have kids, you live for them, my friend,’ he says. ‘The old lady and me, we’re staying here and we want to die here. Once we went to Rome to see the boys. They treated us like royalty.’
He makes an indecipherable gesture. He’s a real father: pure paternal love exhibited without any hypocritical attempt to feign detachment.
‘You, Mark, you should get away from this crazy country. You’re still young. Can’t you see the north of Albania is empty? They say there are over a million Albanians around the world who left as soon as this country became a democracy. And if you really don’t want to leave the country, at least come down and live in the city. We could go into business together, what do you say? You could take care of the accounts, the clients, the spare parts to order down in Tirana. You’ve read a lot and you’re good with paperwork, I hear. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I never had the chance to talk to you.’