Pran of Albania/Chapter 7

Ndrek came home from Skodra with his belt full of new cartridges and in both hands heavy burdens tied up in cloths. Pran watched him open these—more cartridges. Evil was on the way. Since two weeks ago, when she had seen the signal fires with Nush, such preparations had been going on. The corn had sprouted. Tiny green spears pricked up. Pran looked at them and wondered, sad at heart, “Would this crop ever be harvested? Or would the dear fields be laid waste by hordes of marauding Slavs?”

Lukja had tied up all the cornmeal, not needed for every day, in strong bags, roped for carrying. If trouble came the women and children would have to go far for safety, and how to eat if food were not ready for the trail and for living after?

Easter had come and gone. They all had worn the fine Easter clothing. But over the celebration of the mass and through the feasting a cloud had hung ​and a grim sense of coming disaster had darkened the spring sunlight.

Sometimes, feeling this sense all through her, Pran’s heart had ached with a real ache that kept her from smiles and singing, often from eating; and at night, lying alone in her corner under her blanket, sometimes her little courage would leave her and she would feel the tears creeping out under her closed lids. And once, in the thick darkness of the shut house, where only the faint red glow of the banked fire on the hearth made less than light, she had got up softly and gone over to where the twin boys lay sleeping. Kneeling beside them she had laid her hands on the two warm bodies, and then, signing herself with the holy sign of the cross, she had prayed hard—to St. Nicholas and to St. John, and last and longest to the Holy Virgin—that they would beseech Zot-i-Madhe—God—to spare these two, save them from suffering and disaster. Then, creeping back, she had lain long hours in the dark—waiting, waiting for the blow to fall.

Little news came now. Few took the trail. Mostly the villages lay quiet within their mountain walls—waiting—as she did.

One day the blow fell.

It was evening, and wood was needed for the sup​per fire. Pran, that day, her thoughts too busy with this foreboding, had forgotten to bring it in. To-night she went outside for it. The wood pile lay to the west of a small penthouse of woven branches. Pran, whose eyes saw easily through the semi-darkness, went over to it. Leaning, she faced the east, but as she rose with her burden her eyes were raised to the western sky. A glow shone there. She stood transfixed. The glow was not the white light of the moon: rather it had a rosy tinge—too red for natural light. Her heart gave a great leap and choked her. The light flared more and the low sky took on a deeper color. Fire—it was! Fire! And in her brain the meaning of it flared. Not burning woods made that, but the thatched roofs of homes, and stores of grain—the silo pile—and corn-cribs! A village burned!

Evil had struck at last. She stared in growing horror for a full minute longer. Then she dropped her wood and ran back to the house and up the stone steps to the upper room. It seemed as if she felt her own heart break, seeing the peaceful group—her parents and two guests and Nik and Gjon—crouching in quiet talk about the hearth.

Breathless she stood in the door. “Father—Mother———” she said.

They stared at her white face.

​“What is it, girl? What have you seen?” cried Lukja. Ndrek stood up and reached to the wall for his rifle. “What comes?” his calm voice asked. The guests rose slowly. The little boys watched out of wide fearful eyes.

Pran, furious at her voice’s trembling, found words at last, “The sky glows red in the west. A village is on fire. I saw the light.”

Without a word the three men went outside. They soon came back, stern faced, but quiet still.

Ndrek said to Lukja, “Get ready, wife. War comes. Pack things for fleeing. We men will stay and do all that we can.”

Lukja said no word. She got the bags of meal. She bound them to Pran’s back. She tied blankets in a great roll and fastened these to herself. Pran saw her wrap inside them a pot or two for cooking, and she did not forget a bunch of wool for spinning and her distaff and spindle. Nik and Gjon, bewildered, stood watching her.

Then Ndrek said, “We will watch the flames, and Marash here will go toward Boga to find out what is happening. You and the children sit down below near the door, ready to take the trail. If there is present danger you must start at once—for Skodra. ​If there is time it will be better to make the journey with the dawn. The trail is safer in the day.”

At her father’s quiet steady voice Pran felt come into her a strength and calmness. Suddenly she knew she was glad that this had come at last and put an end to the long agony of waiting she had felt ever since she had got back from Skodra. Better to know than wait. Better to be active in the face of evil than to wake each morning anxious and wondering and sleep each night not knowing what might befall before one waked again.

Shots rang out in the village—shots for warning and summons. The church bell tolled. In the Friar’s house lights were lit. She knew the Friar was slipping off his brown robes for the freer garments of a man. He had a rifle too. He was not just a priest for peace times. Holy men could fight as well as others—better, perhaps, being so close to God.

Her heart beat a strange, glad tattoo against her breast. Excitement thrilled her. “Sons of Lek, sons of the mountains—brave men, hand in hand!”

The men went out.

Lukja gave Pran and the boys cornbread to eat, heating for herself some coffee in the tiny brass pan. Pran thought, seeing her mother at this work of coffee ​making, rightfully Ndrek’s, “Father is gone. She makes the coffee now.” She took the cup Lukja gave her thankfully, not forgetting the usual words of ceremony, “May you find good fortune!” How could Lukja find good fortune in this catastrophe that threatened them? Leaving her house—her crops—and leaving her man, Ndrek—Pran’s father—close to the spreading fire of this evil? Perhaps—Pran stamped on her rising fear—“Like a wing of the angel of God”—“O God!—protect Ndrek!” The hot coffee went down over a sudden lump in her throat.

To wait now for the dawn.

Lukja piled ashes on the fire she had revived for making coffee. As Pran watched her she felt sorrow at this dimming of the hearth. The house fire. Such fires were never meant to go out. Sometimes it was the bride coming to her own home who brought the live coal to kindle her new hearth. She knew her mother, when she had come to Ndrek, had carried with her fire tongs from her own hearth—her father’s. Women kept fires burning. Who would keep this now when they were gone—miles on the long hard trails over the fog-hung passes? Pran could see this hearth growing colder each day until at last it lay holding dead ashes in an empty house. A pity stirred her. Tears started to her eyes. Quickly she rubbed them off.

​They all went down the stone steps and seated themselves on the floor near the great wooden outer door.

A bleating and cackling sounded in the dark pen behind them. “The animals, Nona, who will care for them?” Pran’s voice was anxious.

“Give them some food, Pran,” said Lukja. “If I were sure we should not ever come back I’d turn them loose rather than leave them here to make a feast for Slavic soldiers. Let Nik carry two hens for us, and take Hâna, your kid. Gjon can lay her across his shoulders, big as she is. She will save us from hunger, maybe.”

Pran lit a pitch-pine splinter from the coals upstairs and then held it for the boys, who, glad to be active, climbed into the pen and caught two clucking hens. Nik held them by the feet, their long wings drooping. Gjon led Hâna out, fondling and petting her. “You’ll go a journey fitting for the moon to-night,” Pran heard him say. Giving Gjon the burning splinter of wood to hold, she dragged down green branches from the ceiling and threw armfuls of them into the pen for the sheep and goats. She scattered corn by handfuls for the hens. As she moved she felt the meal sacks pressing on her back.

What waste it was leaving the animals—their ​treasured stock, that meant food and clothing for them all, leaving them here uncared for—perhaps to die; or if not that, then to be slaughtered by the first soldiers entering the village. She filled the water troughs to overflowing. Her eyes were dry, but it was as if her very heart within her wept tears of helplessness—as a child cries, defrauded.

She sat down with the others near the door. At his mother’s request Gjon had lit a tiny fire in the high fireplace—just enough to make a little light and send great shadows dancing here and there. The light brought comfort. The house was not dead yet.

How brave her mother was! Pran looked at her strong face outlined against the dark load of blankets at her back. Lukja’s eyes were clear and unafraid. Her fine and nobly moulded features were set in firm quiet lines. She sat silent, unmoving. Pran thought, “In her heart is pain—greater than mine.” She moved a little nearer to Lukja.

“Nona,” she whispered, ‘“have you seen war before?”

Her mother’s head moved slowly from side to side, affirmative. “I was a girl like you, Pran, when three armies crossed our land, despoiling it. No animal survived. They sacked each house, though we were not the enemy they sought. Many of us fled as we ​flee now. My own mother died, being too weak to flee. So life is.”

Pran did not answer, but her thoughts rose in a fierce wave of anger. “So life is”—well, then life was not fit for living, being so. Planting and harvest all for waste like this; tending the herds to have them slaughtered so; bearing sons and daughters only that they should know this homelessness. Life could not—must not be so. Her fists clenched themselves in the dark.

Lukja said, “If Ndrek comes back then we must go—if not, at least we’ll have the dawn for company.”

“To wait for day is better,” answered Pran.

Nik and Gjon whispered softly together. No need for chiding, thought Pran, they would both be good boys to-day. She smiled to herself in sadness that this was so. They were so little to face what lay ahead. The fire burned down to ashes. Lukja did not build it up again. They sat in darkness, waiting. How long the night was! Once Pran drowsed, leaning her head back on the full sacks of meal. Gjon had tied Hâna to the doorpost, and Nik had bound his hens’ legs. The two boys curled into sleep together. Only Lukja stayed awake, her ears listening for her man’s step on the path.

Just before dawn he came. Pran saw his tall, ​straight figure in the doorway, outlined against the lightening sky. She waked the boys.

“It is the farther villages that burn,” he told them. “We are safe as yet. It seems the enemy enters nearer Castrati as we expected, but sends bands on to burn these northern villages. No use to stay. It will be Thethi next. Better to start at once. Skodra is safer.”

Then he said good-bye to all of them, bidding the boys be brave. “Remember—you are men,” he said, “and mountain men with hearts of mountain strength.”

Pran, who had worn her bear’s-tooth necklace every day since Nush had given it, tore off it now one of the sharp white tusks. She pressed it into Ndrek’s hand. “This is for good luck, Baba,” she said softly, “it will protect you through what danger you must meet. Keep it.”

Her father kissed her cheek, laughing a little; but he put the tooth carefully into the flat metal box where he carried his tobacco for cigarettes. This never left him. “Falemi ndérës, Pran,” he said. “Be brave as I must be, and help Lukja all you can. I know you will. Things will be hard for her in Skodra. Care for your brothers. After this war is done we shall need men.”

​Pran could not answer. She choked a little, seeing him go out again, holding his rifle ready; leaving his house forsaken, open to attack, and all destruction; his herds uncared for, and his new-sprung corn to stand unharvested.

Faintest dawn showed now. They started out. Nik swung his two fat hens in either hand. Gjon shouldered manfully the heavy kid. Lukja led the way with her great burden hiding half of her, while last of all Pran walked, her back bent slightly under the full bags of cornmeal.

They did not go alone. All Thethi moved. Dozens of families who, like themselves, had waited for the dawn, took the trail now. Old and young women; children, big and small; babies in cradles on their mothers’ backs, all journeyed. Not a man was there. Each, like Ndrek, had sped to halt disaster if he could, or die attempting it.

Everyone carried household goods as they dld, and all walked silently, some fast, some slow, and wore serious, unsmiling faces. Only the littlest children cried and clung to the heavy swinging skirts of their mothers.

In Pran’s heart the ache began again. So many going forth homeless like themselves; so many houses left empty and forlorn; the hearths all grow​ing cold and colder like their own. Behind the trudging twins Pran thought, “No one can see.” So, for a little while, she let her tears come without sobbing. They fell on her new necklace with its three bright coins, on her new Easter jacket. She did not care. A strange thought came to her—that she was crying not for herself alone, not for her lost home only, but for all these that went with her on the trail, for all these homes forsaken and unwarmed.

She thought of Nush. Where was he now? Was his house threatened too? Did he, like her, start forward in the dawn, tramping a dreary way from all he loved—old comfort and old safety? Did he too go blindly to unsure things—and certain misery?

She rubbed at her tears fiercely, stifling the breaths that would turn to sobs in spite of her. Nush would not cry. Nush would go bravely, as men go—facing disaster with a heart as staunch and unyielding as the mountain walls about him. Well, then she would not cry, either. Was she not daughter to Ndrek, the son of Palok, her grandfather? Was she not Lukja’s girl, born of brave parents into a stern life where danger swallowed safety overnight? She would not cry.

She would sing songs instead; show Lukja that she could bear trouble with a strong heart. The boys ​were sad enough, dragging their little feet ahead of her. How steadily her mother walked! She once had gone a way like this before. Yet she went bravely.

Softly Pran sang the song she’d sung for Nush outside of Skodra, on that evening they had seen together on the northern hills the warning of this peril, come at last. The tune was martial, and her feet kept time.

New courage filled her. She took out her knitting from her blouse and set her slim needles flying back and forth. “So life is,” Lukja had said. Well, then, she’d live it.

The sun rose higher. The soft air of spring blew past her. Ahead stretched the way. She saw the narrow trail like a waving ribbon lying along the sides of farther hills.

The words of another song came into her head, the song the twins had sung that happy day last fall. ​She would not sing it; it was too sad; but she could not keep the words from singing themselves to their own tune through her head. It was the men’s song. They had made it long ago, during such trouble as she suffered now.

Ndrek? A sharp pain shot through her. But Ndrek had her bear’s tooth. That would protect him. He would be safe. He would not die. She prayed.

The long way was over at last. There had been little rest, and little sleep, and not too much to eat—food must be saved.

The mountain passes, or “necks,” as Pran called them, had been rainy and damp. On the highest, Chafa Bishkasit, snow had lain. The year was early yet. Who could tell when this snow had melted where they would be? Would they cross the neck going to ​their ruined homes before snow fell again? Who could tell?

As they went people of many another ruined or threatened village joined with them. Bedraggled, weary, heartworn, and yet stepping with their own strange desperate courage, the mountain refugees trooped toward the city over Skodra Plain.

Where could so many lodge?

The ruined empty stone shells of barracks that long ago had held Turkish soldiers offered them refuge. Here they crowded in, built little fires, crouched about them, cooked what they had to cook.

Pran killed and cooked one of Nik’s hens. Among the crowd she and the boys and Lukja squatted about the little flame and ate, nibbling the boiled flesh from the warm bones gratefully. They gave to some people near them who had brought nothing. A girl, stranger to Pran, about her own age, raised to Pran’s face two soft blue eyes large with fatigue and sadness. “God’s blessing on you,” she said to Pran, reaching a thin hand for the proffered food.

Pran smiled back at her, “Eat with good appetite,” she said. “Here all are sisters.”

That night she shared her blanket with the girl. Stars shone through the roofless shelter on the two.

The new life had begun.