Chronicle in Stone Read Free Page B

people. Chains and buckets jingled. All the clattering seemed to lift the anguish from my heart.
    I stood back a little and watched them all noisily setting to work: Mane Voco, tall, thin and grey; Nazo’s son and her daughter-in-law, so pretty with her gentle, sleepy look; and Xhexho, breathing heavily. Mane Voco, Xhexho and Nazo drew buckets of water which the others emptied into the yard. It was still pouring rain, and from time to time Xhexho would mutter in her nasal voice, “Good God, what a flood!”
    As each bucket was emptied out, I said silently to the water, “Go on, get the hell out, if you don’t want to stay in our cistern.” Each bucket was filled with captive raindrops, and I thought it would be good if we could weed out the nastiest ones first, the ringleaders; that way we could lessen the danger.
    Xhexho put down her bucket and lit a cigarette. “Did you hear what happened to Çeço Kaili’s daughter?” she said to Grandmother. “She grew a beard.”
    “You’re joking!” said Grandmother.
    “May I be struck blind,” said Xhexho. “A black beard, really, just like a man’s. That’s why her father won’t let her out any more.”
    That got my attention. I knew the girl, and it was true that I hadn’t seen her in town for quite a while.
    “Oh, Selfixhe,” Xhexho moaned. “What a life we lead!
    One bad omen after another the good Lord sends us. Like this flood tonight.”
    Xhexho, her eyes following Nazo’s beautiful daughter-in-law, barely three weeks married, whispered something in my grandmother’s ear. Grandmother bit her lip. I moved closer to hear, but Xhexho flicked her cigarette butt away and went to the edge of the cistern.
    “What time can it be?’ asked Mane Voco.
    “Past midnight,” my father said.
    “I’ll make you some coffee,” Grandmother said, and motioned for me to come with her. We were on our way upstairs when we heard the door creak again.
    “More people are coming,” she said.
    I stuck my head over the railing to try to see who it was, but I couldn’t. It was dark in the hallway, and terrifying shadows with shifting shapes slipped along the walls, as in a nightmare.
    We went up two flights and Grandmother lit the fire in the winter room. I got back into bed.
    Outside the storm howled, and the rooftop chimneys groaned like living things. I began to wonder if the foundations of our house, instead of standing on solid ground, weren’t paddling in the treacherous black water of the cistern.
    These are bad times, dearie, we’re living in a time of trouble and treachery . . . As sleep overcame me to the soothing rumble of brewing coffee, bits and pieces of conversation, words picked up here and there from adults, came to mind, their meanings as slippery as water.
    When I woke up the house seemed mute. Papa and Mamma were sleeping. I got up without making a sound and looked at the clock. It was nine in the morning. I went to my grandmother’s room, but she was sleeping too. It was the first time nobody had been awake at that hour.
    The storm was over. I went to the living-room windows and looked out. Motionless grey clouds covered the high, cold sky. They looked as if they were stuck. Maybe the water they had bailed out of the cistern the night before had now evaporated and risen up into the clouds to frown sternly down at the wet roofs and gloomy earth.
    The first thing I noticed when I looked down at the lower part of town was that the river had overflowed. Not surprising, in weather like that. It must have tried all night, as usual, to jump over the bridge, shaking it like a pack-horse trying to throw off a painful load. You could see the mark of the river’s wild nocturnal efforts most clearly on its bloody back. Having failed to sweep away the bridge, the river had turned on the road and swallowed it whole. Immensely swollen from this gulp, the river was now busy digesting the road. But the road was tough, accustomed to these unexpected attacks, and now lay