She Who Remains

there’s no turning back now

I exit the church and for the very first time I feel the ice-cold Albanian air, I must resemble a shorn donkey, so what, I tell myself, the most precious metal in Albania is freedom, around here a woman’s worth is measured in oxen, don’t look men in the eye, don’t go to the pub, mind the children, wash the clothes, cook, the most women can hope for is to bring the milk to the dairy, Bekija’s murder is the smartest thing I ever did, they gave me a shotgun and a watch, now I could smoke and drink and move with the men, go to the pub and visit the men’s social clubs, they teach me to stand like them, legs apart, the kids in the neighborhood begin to call me bate Matija, I roam the narrow streets of the village every night practicing my new walk, getting used to it, getting used to overcoming my worth, getting used to wearing a watch, daddy’s boy

your father wanted a son, but out came you

shush, mother, Matija appeared on the same day, I just waited for him to undress me, to dress me in his clothes, to put his watch on my wrist, there’s no more Bekija, her hair floats in the river, do you know what, Mrs. Journalist, we, us people, need rules and boundaries, I think it’s precisely what we need, I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but here freedom is a dangerous thing

the whole village knows

Murash wanted a son, but it was a daughter he got

they all want sons in these lands, it’s the blood tax, it’s killing the men and there’s no one left to look after men’s things, I take the man’s name, Matija, as my one and only given name

I exit the church and for the very first time I feel

I walk home, I must see whether the dress and the shoes are still there in the cupboard, the Accursed Mountains stand on all sides of me, the Albanian Alps, the Accursed spread out across thousands of kilometers, it doesn’t matter which direction I head, there’s the rooted army of evil rock, mobilized by the hands of the devil, the sky leans on the soldiers’ shoulders, do you hear the cowbells—the evening church bells of the village, and then rain, not cascading but misting, it rains incessantly and it won’t let up, it’s raining now even as I speak, and fog, always the fog, densest here in the plateau, it’s all a gray painting, neither melancholy nor blissful, how should I put it, like a face without an expression, you know what I mean, right, if only the rain were to cease, have you been walking a long while, it’s like this here, you walk a lot, the roads are tangled and endless, only the locals know the way, like the blind, they never get lost in the dark either

from the church I take the wolf trails home, on my left the river follows me the whole way like a strange silent satellite, suddenly it dawns on me what I’ve done when my strides become longer, bigger than my own and I trip over the rocks, the ubiquitous rocks, there’s no turning back, I can’t reattach my hair or swallow my words or blow up like a bullfrog and croak out the truth once and for all, out of nowhere through the fog I see the foundations of a house, I’ve seen it before, my father and I have walked by it, but for the first time I can’t tell

is this house being built or demolished

The Bluest Boy

Matija, Bekija according to my passport, thirty-three years old, yes, one brother, Sále, father, Murash, murdered, mother dead shortly after, there’s only Nura the cow and my father’s pigeons, favorite color blue, afraid only of snow, the big snow, loneliness is another thing altogether, no, here love is forbidden, love is death, I don’t go to the doctor, I plug up my wounds with tobacco, if anything happens I smoke, television doesn’t exist, I don’t need it, the radio is enough, Albanian songs and occasionally an American one, I can’t sing, no, and I don’t want to, this one here is of me, my father, my brother, Sále, and my mother, it was taken before, yes, that’s enough for today, Nura is hungry and the pigeons need to be shut in for the night

The Twins

still inside my mother’s womb

I hear things

like my father saying

i skam sin

my name means she who survives, she who remains alive, she who saves herself

something smells rotten here, what hospital, asks my father’s mother, my mother carries twins, a boy and a girl, I am the girl, and the boy, my grandmother’s words inside my mother’s head, nothing good will come of this, the whole village is hissing, she’s not carrying like it’s a boy, it’s all gotten out of hand, my mother bleeds in the bathroom, Murash, come here quick, she doesn’t know if her two children are still alive or if they’ve returned whence they’ve come, my father’s mother’s incantations, this girl shouldn’t be born, maybe it’ll just be the boy, to carry on the bloodline, you don’t want a girl, Murash, the whole village is whispering, Murash’s bride is having a girl, yazak, what a waste, my father still certain that out my mother’s stomach the worthy heir to the bloodline will appear because when you really want something to happen, it will, for

all desperately desired things materialize

one way or another

my father grabs my mother by the hand and off they go to the city hospital, just in case the twins are still alive, Mrs. Journalist, mothers here get pregnant in the hope of bearing boys so they don’t bring shame to the family, they get pregnant in the hope that it will be the male blood of the kin sloshing inside the boy’s broad trunk, that it’ll be a man to whom they’ll wish all the things they wish men here, may you be blessed with a long life, let it be a shotgun that takes you down

here every man must carry his honor on his forehead, two fingers wide, just like a bullet

a leaden hole in the head to elevate you beyond ordinary death, it’s a matter of honor, it’s shameful to succumb to illness here, not sure how it is around your parts, I expect the same, how could it not be, here vendettas are postponed only by war, natural disasters, epidemics, or migrations, when death loses its altitude blood feuds become the norm, just don’t let it be inside your house, Murash, that woman of yours, don’t let her do this inside my house, look out for this one, son, she’ll throw fire in your lap, I see her squinty little eyes, you know what that whole Karabash clan is like, my mother—the black sheep of the family—is bleeding out in the bathroom, something smells rotten here, the blood in the bathroom, right, the hospital

the doctors do an ultrasound, he’s not there, they’re certain, what do you mean he’s not here, the male one isn’t here, he’s gone, disappeared, how can he disappear, you’ve bled him out, my precious son, I can’t go back with only her inside of me, please, doctor, do something, bring him back, I’m sorry madam, your husband is waiting outside, should I tell him, no, luckily, the female fetus is looking very good, better than good even, if she continues developing as she has thus far, you’ll have a strong and healthy baby girl, which is why you must avoid heavy lifting and doing anything physically exhausting, you’ll need to be on bed rest until the end of your pregnancy

I told you, Murash, this one here won’t give you a boy, shut up you old witch, whatever comes out is my blood, it’ll be mine, I’ll raise it, my father’s mother is throwing curses out in the yard, the village pretends not to hear, the village never hears anything but it sees everything

my father and my mother sway home through the screes of the Accursed Mountains and cry, why are you crying, aren’t I alive, doesn’t my name mean she who survives, she who remains alive, why are you crying

my father didn’t touch me for the first year of my life, avoided me in the house, didn’t speak to me, I can’t touch this worm, I’ll crush it with my paws, look at how tiny it is

all desperately desired things materialize

one way or another, inescapably

daddy’s boy, that’s what my father called me, he knew his boy would be my clone, the same hair and teeth, the same height, fingers, eyes in blue, she’s a natural, Murash, yesterday she nailed the cart-rails, she’s got a knack for everything, strong and quick, she thrashes like a young colt, faster than the eye, the work’s always done, no son would have been so dutiful and so adept at everything

my first memory of my father, he comes into the room, blacks out the window with his body and stands before me, takes out a wooden pistol from the inside pocket of his fur coat and hands it to me, here, Bekija, take this, I’m ecstatic, it’s the first thing he’s ever given me, the first words he’s ever said to me, I start laughing, raise the pistol, point it at his head, squeeze the wooden trigger, and shout pa-pa, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen my father laugh, now we’re both laughing, both of us toothless, laughing, pa-pa-pa, pa-pa

if only I could have told him then what I was yet to learn, if only I could have told him not to laugh, for the thing he wished for, it would come, just like the end of days

it shouldn’t have happened that way

I’m asking you to have some patience, do you eat hominy, I’ll tell you something, Mrs. Journalist, when you’re done eating, do not wipe your plate clean with a crust of bread and do not put wood on the fire, that’s my job, if you do either of these things I’ll be forced to kick you out, kill you even, that’s how the Kanun works

The Guest

are you recording

now are you recording

I remember every word of the oath, Mrs. Journalist, and don’t think it was something I had to learn by heart before I spoke it in the church, I’ve attended so many advents of transition, in other villages too, you absorb the oath whether you like it or not, something like those burial hymns, the same dirge at every funeral, only the musicians change out when one dies and another comes to take his place, if you were to listen to the same funeral chant every other day you’d learn it too, a lot of men die here because of those blood feuds, the blood tax, everything revolves around the Kanun, and according to the Kanun a guest is held in the highest regard, you, now, are my guest and you are of the utmost importance, the guest is revered here in Albania, the guest comes first and then the family, the house belongs to God and the guest, if someone were to knock on the Albanian’s door, he is bound by duty to welcome him in, feed him, the wife washes the guest’s feet, makes his bed and lays the fire in the stove, the following day the guest is seen off, and if it so happens that someone should be waiting outside to ambush the guest and kill him, what I mean is, were someone to kill your guest outside your front door, after you’ve seen him off but before the guest has turned his head, if your guest were to still be looking at you, you would be bound to avenge his murder, it is your duty to spill blood in the name of your guest, do not be afraid, no one here wants to kill you, you’re not in a blood feud with anyone in the village, and besides, you’re a woman, women don’t enter into blood feuds, no one will seek revenge against you because you haven’t killed anybody and you’re a woman, right, and you’re my guest, Mrs. Journalist, you stay here for as long as you like, that’s how it is in the Kanun, you haven’t killed anyone and neither have I, I haven’t killed anyone

silence

did you hear me, Mrs. Journalist, there are two things the guest hasn’t the right to do, wipe clean their plate with a crust of bread and put logs on the fire, if you were to do that, in that very moment, right as you see me standing before you, I could get up, open the window, and yell out to the village that I’ve been slighted by my guest, and then I could kill you, but don’t think I would, why would I need to kill you, how many people have you seen in the village since you’ve been here, three, you’ll see maybe three more, I am the last remaining sworn virgin in the village, maybe even in Albania, isn’t that why you’re here, whom am I supposed to show off my celibacy to, why have I been living alone this entire time, my most trusted friend, Nura, the cow, by my side, most of the elders died off, only five remain, to settle the vendettas, wait a minute with your questions, there’ll be time for everything, from you I want just one thing, you see that box on top of the dresser, over there, open it and bring me what’s inside

The First Letter

Hello, Bekija,

I very much hope this letter reaches you. I know the houses in our village don’t exactly have numbers on them, and I’m aware of how impossible corresponding through letters and telegrams can be. I have been meaning to write to you for a long time. Every day since I ran away … You must understand why I had to do what I did. Why I ran. That I did it because of the enormous, irreparable mistake you made. You do understand it is completely within the bounds of one’s survival instincts to want to save oneself, right? My leaving was the smartest thing a sane and sober-minded man could do, someone unafflicted with the delirium of the laws of the Kanun. I can’t apologize for it, it is who I am.

I don’t regret running away, just as you don’t regret becoming a sworn virgin. Either way, a feeble and delicate person like me, a gevşek, does not deserve to walk upon the ancient, hallowed lands of the Kanun. These lands are all one big funeral feast anyway. Murder is pride and honor, isn’t that right, daddy’s boy, and for weaklings like me there’s only one open door—that of the Kanun. It’s why I chose to exit out of another door altogether. If I’m being honest, you were the only person who ever truly understood me. I still wonder about what it is that makes us so alike and yet so different from each other. I turn and twist it around in my brain like a math problem I knew the answer to long ago as a child but as time went on, I somehow forgot.

Why did you pick me to die? Why did you tie the black armband on me and sentence me to death? It mustn’t have been easy for you to do—to choose one of us to die, Murash or me, eeny, meeny, miny, moe, just like we played when we were little. Who will the spinning dervish come for? Remember, you always won. Why did you tie that black armband on my arm? I believe I know why. I know more than I wish to know, but I still want to hear it directly from you. What happened that evening you went to the dairy for milk and came home late for dinner? The same night you told Murash you wanted to become a sworn virgin and back out of your wedding? Something happened that night. What was it?

I know you’re angry with me. You’re angry I ran away and Murash had to die. There are a lot of things I’m also angry about, but I hope with time, forgiveness can become ever more possible. I’m hoping my letters won’t upset you so much that you won’t want to write me back. I would love it if you came to visit me so we could look each other in the eye and tell each other the truth, the way we did when we were children. Truth or dare? Back then, we thought the weaker always chose truth because they were afraid of being bold. I realize now that picking truth was always the braver choice. Dare was for the liars, the cowards who masked themselves behind their bravery. For those who preferred to jump in the river, to run away, or to kill instead of telling the truth.

Please write me back. I really hope you kept up with your Albanian lessons after I left. You learned to read, right? I’m waiting for your letter. My address is on the front of the envelope. I’m quite worked up over everything, I’m sorry, I’m sending you love and hugs. Please tell mother I love her … Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you both.

As you can see from my address, I live in Bulgaria now. Here I go by Mihail. I thought that if I changed my name I’d be able to somehow change the past. But this is another delusion people tell themselves and I fell into that trap. We remain enslaved by our real names and actions. To the very end.

Sále

July 8, 2017

Sofia, Bulgaria

Sále

my brother, Sále, was a post-term baby, born when I was a year old, a son is born, my mother said, there were little skins hanging from his fingers, like cotton, cottonings she called them, a blue boy he was, looked as if he’d hung himself with his umbilical cord, but out he came, nonetheless, I learned to count using my brother’s ribs, that’s how scraggy he was, hey Murash, how nice you finally got a son, a bag of bones, if the wind blew it would blow him away, what sort of son have you borne me, woman, a mannequin from Buchenwald, Bekija’s got more muscle than him, daddy’s boy, and this sonny boy here, so feeble yet growing up smart, only five and learning to read and write, doesn’t get too excited about guns and things like that, reading his grandma’s Neckermann catalog all day instead, learning about stitching so they can sew together, how repugnant, shoot, Sále, the rest of the time he’s up on that landing, wriggling around with his grandma’s shawl, dancing, he calls it, you hear me, kill the goddamned bird that’s eating my maize, we’re the laughingstock of the entire village, I forbid you to dance, my father caught a little sparrow in the dovecote, it had snuck in through a tiny hole he’d forgotten to plug up, he handed the gun to my brother, shoot, the sparrow was tied to some twine wrapped around a rock big as two fists and it was flinging itself up and down, the sparrow would go up and the rock would budge a little and then the sparrow would hit the ground before again trying to lift itself up, shoot, you fool, I could not look at my brother, he’d never killed before, I felt shame when I looked at the little bird too, so I nailed my gaze to the rock, which budged a bit every time the small creature attempted to spread its wings, come on, Sále, show us, did your mother birth a son or a floozy, my brother stood, shaking, the gun pointed at the ground, I stopped looking at him and stared at the rock, you know how it is, you sink into the ground from shame or pity

the gun went off, I heard a yell, then some unintelligible swearing from my father, after the gun went off I could no longer hear anything, a thin rivulet of blood ran down my father’s calf, my brother had shot him through the leg, my father then grabbed the gun and killed the small bird himself, my brother couldn’t move, stood frozen like a rock, his pant leg wet, his face unmoving, not even crying, fuck your mother Karabashka, get the fuck out of here, gevşek, go weave your lace, you motherfucker, he’s gonna shoot me, the dirty shit

I’m staring at the rock on the ground, the rock no longer budges, the rock is red

Green Water Red Rock

Sále frees the rock from the twine

the rock looks like a little ladybug

he raises it above his head

he slams it down on the green walnut, he slams it down on

Murash’s head sticks out over the fence

Murash is chopping the neighbor’s wood

Sále crushes walnuts, one after the other

he’s shoving walnuts in his mouth without shelling them first

he fills his mouth and leaves no room for another walnut

the walnuts have not yet ripened and they dye his hands black

their green skins shatter under the rock

green water sprays Sále’s legs

darkening his skin where the specks land

tiny freckles on his milk-white ankles

Sále shoves walnuts in his mouth

Sále shoves death in his mouth

the sparrow to the cats, my mother says

and splashes a bucket of water where the floor needs it

Sále throws up

Murash’s head no longer sticks out above the neighbor’s fence

Murash

my father sucks on the boiled cockerel’s neck

it’s thin and bony, filled with juices, the air whistles through its cavities, clear juice trickles down my father’s chin, travels down to where his shirt splits in two, the juice oozes down, splits his chest symmetrically in two then disappears into his lap, leaving a tiny wet spot, my father’s leg is bandaged up, there’s a red stain on the white rag, my brother is chewing on a scrap of bread, the crust is dry, it can’t be gnawed through, it gets lodged in his throat, my brother is not hungry, my brother glutted himself on too many walnuts, the crust is hard, it obstructs his throat, he extends his black fingers to the glass of water, takes a gulp, the water washes the inside of his mouth, carries the crust down, dissolves it into a mound of soggy crumbs, my brother swallows, the gulp reverberates in the room, the curtain rod rings out, my father is no longer sucking on the neck of the bird, my father stares at my brother, he still sees the thing that happened today, the air is no longer whistling through the cavities, out in the distance you can hear the clops of the mules, my mother is not breathing, my mother cannot remember what breathing is, Murash raises his hand over Sále

Murash,

my mother sighs from underneath the floor

Murash bangs the table with his fist, the plates jump, this rotten Karabash seed, Sále gets up and goes to the dark of the garden, Sále goes back to his rock

the red stain on the gauze widens

Dhana

after I was born it came to me

blue means good, blue means boy

my mother once told me, my sweet

girl

your eyes are blue, blue like the sky

and the sky was blue, so blue must be good

Bekija, go fetch the sandpaper, it’s in the trunk above the washbasin, next to the razor, this dovecote won’t build itself, every day he shaved over this washbasin, patted his face dry with the towel, then slowly, carefully wiped the razor on both sides as if he were sharpening it, then pushed it into a crack in the wooden frame of the window, there’s not much sun in Albania, there’s more fog than sun, you see for yourself, Mrs. Journalist, but on that day, unlike most days, the sun was out, I went into my father’s room, the sandpaper was exactly where he said it would be, I took it and looked into the small round mirror over the washbasin, the sun shone for the first time that year, I saw my father’s razor stabbed into the window frame, a slim shadow rose from it and fell on my face like a mustache, dark and gluey, curving downward, I glimpsed myself in the mirror, could almost feel the coolness of the razor on my upper lip, my hand rose up of its own accord and my pink little fingers touched it, it’s hard to describe what I felt in that moment, some kind of force, happiness maybe, I wanted my daddy to see me