Pran of Albania/Chapter 5

Ndrek was busy with the planting. All day he worked with the wooden plow on the stony lands his father had left him. The twins helped. They crouched over the furrows he had made, raking them with forked sticks they had cut and setting in the crumbled earth golden kernels of “kalamuchit”—the mountain corn. Each carried a cloth filled with the corn, and, creeping along, each set in and covered firmly the fat grains, pressing the earth down with their bare feet afterward.

Lukja worked hard at her spinning and her weaving on the narrow loom. Easter was on the way, and there must be for each member of the family a fresh new outer suit of clothing. Yards and yards of the broad braid must be woven on the curved wicker frame with its hanging bobbins of black woolen thread; and a thousand stitches had to be set in the heavy, stiff, felt-like cloth for trousers and skirts and jackets.

​Pran helped her, sitting long hours by the hearth or out in the sunny yard, the wicker frame tilted up before her, and her swift fingers throwing the little spools to left and right. She could see the braid grow longer and longer. She wound up the length she wove and went on weaving.

Two weeks had passed since St. John’s Feast, and one sunny morning Pran sat outside weaving and thinking of the queer errand she had done for Nush. She was roused by the sharp barking of the dog, and she rose to look down the trail. A woman, carrying on her back the usual cradle and knitting as she walked, was coming up to the house.

Pran recognized her. It was Drania, her uncle’s wife, who lived not far off. The two greeted each other, and Pran asked after the health of all her family. She noticed, as Drania answered, that the child tied to the cradle on her back was making a low moaning sound. “He is not well,” said Drania. “That is why I have come. I must get him to the doctor somehow. Where is Lukja?”

Pran led the way inside where Lukja sat weaving. She felt sorry at the news that little Kol was ill. She had seen him often since his birth less than a year ago. She liked the round-faced brown-eyed little thing with his sparse sandy hair. She waited ​near the two women to hear what the trouble was and to see little Kol if possible.

Drania, after greeting Lukja, untied the cradle from her shoulders and set it on the floor. Under a dozen close coverings, hiding him head and all, the baby was quite buried. Drania took off one layer after another, and there, lying fast bound from neck to toes, lay little Kol. He was not well. Pran could see that. His little face had lost its roundness, and his brown eyes looked unhappily up at her as he rolled his head restlessly this way and that.

Smoothing his pale cheek gently she talked in a soft voice to him, but he did not notice her in his usual way. She heard Drania say, “He must go down to Skodra—to the doctor there. My man Gjelosh says there is no help for him here at home. We have tried everything, and now he takes no more food—refuses when I offer it.” Her voice was sharp with distress.

Lukja said, “Someone must take him to Skodra. That is sure. Gjelosh, like Ndrek, is too busy with the planting, and you, Drania, it is a bad season for you to make the trip pressed with the Easter work as I am myself; and you have more children to clothe than we have here.”

“Could Pran be spared?” asked Drania. “She is ​grown now and strong enough to carry Kol without getting too tired. It is a long way from here—four days there and back at least. What about sending her? I know she’d take as good care of Kol as though he were her brother.”

Pran, kneeling by the cradle, turned her head. How she would love to go, all by herself; make the long journey, see the Skodra Bazaar. And she wanted to help Drania. She knew how busy she was at home with four other children hanging to her skirts. She would take Kol gladly, get him to the doctor, make him well. And then there came suddenly into her mind another big reason for her going to Skodra. Nush might be there. So many people came to the bazaar—hundreds. The mountaineers and lowland villagers, people from everywhere. Nush could so easily be one of them. And if she found him she could tell him how she had fulfilled her trust. If only Lukja would say yes.

Pran went over to the two women standing near the loom. “Nona,” she said, “I’m big enough to go. I know the way to Skodra. I could make the trip easily and stay the night at Ndue Marashit’s house in Gjoanni. I have been there before. And if I make a very early start I could reach Skodra on the day after and see the doctor before evening.”

​“And then?” said Lukja, faced with the difficulties of the long way, yet wavering, anxious to help her sister in her trouble.

Pran thought. Where could she spend the night in Skodra? To see the doctor, to go to the bazaar would use up all the daylight. Thethi was so far from Skodra. Rightly business like this should be done to eastward—in Djakova; but that way lay under Slavic interdict now and had so lain for years. All the villages about were cut off from their rightful easy markets. Djakova, filled with Albanians, was Slavic now. No one dared go. So Skodra it must be.

Now Drania spoke: “I planned it, sister, for I knew, if you would let Pran go, that she must have night’s lodging. Friar Gjiergj knows Skodra well, and has a sister, novice in the convent there. Pran could go to her. She would be able to furnish Pran a safe corner for herself and Kola. Then she could start early next day and make the long way back as she had gone, stopping at Ndue’s house again.”

“Think you the Friar would consent to this?” asked Lukja.

“Without a doubt. He is good and generous—white faced as are few men. He never fails to help any of us in need. Let Ndrek go and ask a paper from him,” Drania said.

​So it was arranged. Ndrek left work and got the letter from the Friar, and Drania and Kola stayed overnight. Pran was delighted at the task ahead. To help little Kola whom she was so fond of—to make such an important journey all alone—that pleased her. Then behind these thoughts there was the chance of running across Nush in the bazaar and telling him about the con and Gjyl and maybe finding out from him more of his mystery.

She slept soundly that night, leaving herself fully dressed that she might start without delay as soon as dawn should come.

Next day in the half light she ate her bread and drank a tiny hot cup of coffee Lukja gave. Then with her mother’s help she tied on her back the cradle, the baby bound safe inside it, covered as before. She was off. “Go on a smooth trail,” they called after her, and Pran, who had taken her spinning for the trail, waved her wooden distaff at the two women as they stood outside the great door watching her. Tucked safely in her belt she had the Friar’s letter that would provide her with a place to sleep, and near it two precious silver coins wrapped in a bit of cloth for buying sugar and two tin pails in the bazaar.

Kol had seemed more happy that morning, and as ​Pran bore him over the rough trails she was glad to hear no sound of discomfort from him. He would sleep, perhaps. Inside his cradle was a wrapped piece of cornbread and a bit of white goat’s cheese for her own noonday meal, and with it in a little cup Drania had put a small lump of butter for Pran to give to Kol if he should cry.

The sun rose now over the eastern mountains. It would be warm at midday.

At first the strain and weight of the cradle bothered her, but soon her back, accustomed to heavy loads, grew used to it, and she began to spin. Holding her distaff under her left arm she pulled at the white fluffy wool bound to it, and, twisting as she pulled, she spun the thread out, keeping her slim wooden spindle twirling as it hung from her right hand.

She felt like Lukja—carrying a baby, spinning white wool. Most of the women walked encumbered so. Men carried rifles; women, distaffs. Life was arranged like that: to each what fitted him. Pran knew the ancient law for marching tribes: “Men to march a rifle’s length apart; women to go the distance of their distaffs from each other.” She hardly watched her spinning. Her fingers had eyes for this. She watched the trail, setting her feet steadily, not to jar Kol too much. “If only my dress was black, not white,” she ​thought, “people would think me married and Kol my son.” To-day she would pretend he was. She looked out over the valley she traversed, up to the circled hills. A breeze blew, and the dead blue of the sky bent like a bowl above her. She would sing for her baby. She remembered a little song her mother had sung to her when she was tiny. She sang it now in the low deep tones used by the women singing.

She passed only two or three travelers like herself. They gave her the mountain greeting, “Long life to you!” and Pran answered with the same words. She rested always at each wayside cross, for these were set at the summit of steep hills where breath was short from climbing; or sometimes their bare wooden arms would stretch over a grassy place where, just beyond, a hard steep slope gave reason for the rest. At each she crossed herself and made a prayer for Kola’s cure to his own saint, St. Nicholas, and to the Virgin too, for she must love and care for every baby, being mother herself to One.

At noon Pran untied the cradle and folded back the ​coverings a bit. Kol was awake and Pran, smearing a little butter on her finger, gave it to him to suck. He was not hungry, but she coaxed him, crooning as she had heard the mothers croon, and putting each time a little more on her finger tip. Then she rocked the long cradle gently till he drowsed. Squatting beside him she made her own meal, and after drank water from a tiny stream whose sound she had heard before stopping.

In the afternoon she went downhill more often than she climbed, and before sunset saw lying in the valley the village where was Ndue Marashit’s house. On the way to it she passed many of the rough stone dwellings with their coarsely thatched roofs, and she knew that behind each door was welcome for her. Villagers passing her asked always that she turn into their houses and pass the night with them, some even insisting so earnestly that Pran had hard work to keep on her way to Ndue’s.

At length she saw the house in front of her. The wolf dog strained madly at his chain as she went up to the door. Knocking, she waited; then she heard the heavy bolt slip back, and Ndue himself stood there to welcome her. It was a tiny house, just one small room, but from the fire Ndue’s wife and his two little girls rose joyfully to greet her, and Pran knew to-​night there would be feasting in her honor, plenty for all, and a warm blanket near the hearth that she might sleep in comfort. Ndue’s wife untied the cradle from her back and cared for Kol herself, while Pran sank down beside the fire and gave the family what news she had from Thethi and the farther villages. Soon the grateful smell of boiling meat was in her nostrils, and she forgot the long way she had come and sat in comfort, while outside thick darkness fell and the cold mountain air swept down on each shut house.

Early morning found her on the trail again, her bread and cheese replenished by Ndue’s wife and herself rested and refreshed. She hurried, for the goal was nearer now, and a slight moaning sound from Baby Kol made her anxious to be in Skodra.

This day she passed many groups of mountain people, all going in to Skodra, for to-day was Bazaar Day there, and mountain goods and products were carried down to sell or barter. On the high chafa she met with one family, a man and wife and little son, who went in haste as she did. So she walked with them and found in songs and talk pleasure and relief from the worry she was feeling over Kol. They all ate bread and cheese together by a wooden cross when it was noon.

​After lunch Pran watched the sun to mark how fast time went. It was still well up in the western sky when they all saw the minarets and steeples of the town. The level way led over Skodra Plain.

Her companions went straight on to the bazaar, but Pran turned off on a cobbled way that led to Rruga Spitalit—Hospital Street. The doctor would be in the great upper room seeing the babies. She knew the great carved door in the high stone wall that led into the hospital yard. There it was now.

A crowd of women, carrying babies at their backs, or holding children by the hand, were gathered near the door inside the court. Pran, anxious, though Kol slept now, must wait her turn. She hoped that she would not have to wait long, with Kol so sick, and errands to do after in the bazaar.

The doctor was learned. She had seen him once. He knew a hundred times more than any mountaineer about sick babies. He wore a red fez always, night and day, people said. He was Mussulman. That made no difference. He could cure Christians and Mohammedans alike. “White faced,” he was. If only to-day he could cure Baby Kol, or give a medicine and let her take to Drania a message of how to care for Kol at home. If only———

Her turn had come. She climbed the stairs to the ​big room. How bright it was with such great glassed windows all around. It dazzled her. Kol was unwrapped down to his skin, and Pran listened intently, answering all the doctor asked. He gave directions for Kol’s care, and then he gave a bottle of medicine—that magic something wise people had. Pran asked him timidly if Kol was very ill. He reassured her: “Do exactly what I tell you, and the baby will be all right. You can remember all?”

Pran moved her head sideways for “yes” and answered, “Po, bessa, it is all written in my head and not a word of it will I forget.”

The nurse bathed Kol then in a little tub such as Pran had never seen before. Then she rubbed the baby with sweet oil and gave the first small dose of medicine. Afterward she tied in a cloth for Pran six cans of milk. Already Kol seemed happier. The nurse wrapped round him a clean soft cloth and gave her a fresh woolen strip to wrap outside of it. “He needs more air,” she said, and Pran left off three coverings, confident that the soft-voiced gentle woman knew more than Kol’s own mother even.

Pran was happy now, for she felt that she had done the best that could be done for Kol. She murmured her thanks, taking the nurse’s hand and pressing it a moment to her forehead and her heart. She tied the ​cradle to her back again and went outside. The sun was lowering as she left the place.

Now for the bazaar. Her mind at ease, she could enjoy herself during this last hour of day. Her feet trod lightly, and the cradle’s weight seemed nothing to her now.

She took her way back to the main road and toward the still crowded square, passing the tiny open shops that lined the street each side. Inside each shop sat men cross-legged on the floor, making with strong, skillful hands all sorts of articles for sale—shoes, whips, and belts; and fezzes—red for the Mussulmans, and brown and black and white for Christian men.

She heard down the dark narrow Street of Coppersmiths the ringing sound of hammers striking metal; and she saw about her people from a score of different tribes—some dressed as she was, and some decked in the brilliant white and scarlet of the lowlanders whose lands were rich. She saw the wives of Mussulmans in black with faces covered by veils, and eyes that looked through slits or through gauze, half hidden. The stiff embroidered costume, black and red, of Skodra women drew her admiration. It must be fine to go appareled in such gay stuffs, but, after all, such flapping sandals and such full hanging trousers would never do for mountain traveling. Now and ​then a friend or acquaintance gave her a greeting, and Pran stopped to make courteous inquiries for every member of the family.

She bought her sugar first, paying for it one of her silver coins. Then she went on and found the tinsmith. Here scores of little pots and pans and pitchers were set out on the ground, while in the midst sat the tinsmith himself. She picked out two small pails, one with a wire handle and one with a handle more like a jug. She gave him her other coin and was not pleased when the man gave her small paper notes for change. She objected, holding the paper out, “Such money is no good. I must have coins.”

He argued back, but Pran held her ground firmly till, delving into a pocket of his baggy pants, reluctantly he drew out large copper pieces and a bit of small silver. “Here, then, mountaineer,” he said, grudgingly handing them to her. She gave him back the paper notes, wrapping the coins up in her cloth and tucking them in her belt. She smiled at him and said, “Real money is hard, Zotni, and can be felt between the teeth. Save paper for the Skodrans. We Maltsors must hear our money clink.” He laughed at her, but Pran was satisfied. With her neckerchief she bound the pails to her belt at one side. She turned away.