Broken April Read Free Page A

April love, as the songs said. His own unfinished April. Despite everything, it was better this way, he thought, though he could not say what was better, that he had avenged his brother or that he had shed blood in this season. It was only half an hour since he had been granted the thirty-day truce, and already he was almost used to the idea that his life had been cleft in two. Now it even seemed to him that it had always been split like that: one fragment twenty-six years long, slow to thepoint of boredom, twenty-six months of March and twenty-six months of April and as many winters and summers; and the other was short, four weeks, impetuous, fierce as an avalanche, half a March and half an April, like two broken branches glittering with frost.
    What would he do in the thirty days left to him? During the long
bessa
, people usually hurried to finish what they had not managed to do so far in their lives. If there was no important thing left undone they busied themselves with the tasks of daily life. If it was seed-time, they hastened to sow. If it was harvest-time, they gathered in the sheaves. If it was neither seed-time nor harvest-time, they did even more ordinary things, like fixing the roof. And if that was not necessary, they just wandered about the countryside to see the cranes flying again, or the first October frosts. Generally, engaged men married during this time, but Gjorg would not marry. The young girl to whom he had been engaged, who lived in a distant Banner and whom he had never seen, had died a year ago after a long illness, and since that time there had been no woman in his life.
    Without taking his eyes off the bit of misty landscape, he thought of what he might do in the thirty days left to him. At first it seemed a brief time, too brief, a handful of days too few for anything. But a few minutes later this same respite seemed horribly long and absolutely useless.
    March seventeenth, he murmured. March twenty-first. April fourth. April eleventh. April seventeenth. Eighteenth. Aprildeath. Then on and on forever, Aprildeath, Aprildeath, and no more May. Never again.
    He was mumbling dates in March and April, over and over, when he heard his father’s steps coming down from the floor above. He was holding an oilcloth purse.
    â€œHere, Gjorg, it’s the five hundred
groschen
for the blood,” he said, holding out the purse to him.
    Gjorg’s eyes opened wide, and he hid his hands behind his back as if to keep them as far as possible from that loathsome purse.
    â€œWhat?” he said in a faint voice. “Why?”
    His father looked at him amazed.
    â€œWhat? Why? Have you forgotten that the blood tax must be paid?”
    â€œOh, yes,” Gjorg said, relieved.
    The purse was still being held out to him, and he reached out his hands.
    â€œThe day after tomorrow you’ll have to start off for the
Kulla
of Orosh,” his father went on. “It’s one day’s journey on foot.”
    Gjorg did not want to go anywhere.
    â€œCan’t it wait, father? Does the money have to be paid right away?”
    â€œYes, son, right away. It has to be settled as soon as possible. The blood tax must be paid right after the killing.”
    The purse was now in Gjorg’s right hand. It seemed heavy. In it was all the money the family had saved, scrimping from week to week and month to month in anticipation of just this day.
    â€œThe day after tomorrow,” his father said again, “to the
Kulla
of Orosh.”
    He had gone to the window and was looking fixedly at something outside. There was a gleam of satisfaction in his eye.
    â€œCome here,” he said to his son, quietly.
    Gjorg went to his father.
    Outside in the yard a shirt hung on the wire clothesline.
    â€œYour brother’s shirt,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Mehill’s shirt.”
    Gjorg could not take his eyes from it. It fluttered white in the wind, waving, billowing joyously.
    A year and a