Doruntine (11 page)

“I forbid you to speak, do you hear? Stop or I'll arrest you, here and now. Do you understand?”

“I have spoken my mind,” the man replied, breathing with difficulty. “Now I shall obey.”

“It's you who are sick,” Stres said. “You're the one who's sick, poor man.”

He looked a long moment at his deputy's face, pale with insomnia, and suddenly felt keenly sorry for him.

“I was wrong to assign you to all that research in the family archives. So many long hours of reading, for someone unused to books—”

The man's feverish eyes remained fixed on his chief.

“You may go now,” said Stres, his tone indulgent.
“Get some rest. You need rest, do you hear? I am prepared to forget all this nonsense, provided you forget it too, do you follow me? You may go.”

His aide rose and left. Stres, smiling stiffly, watched the man's unsteady gait.

I must find that adventurer right away, he said to himself. The archbishop was right, the whole business should have been nipped in the bud to avoid the dangerous consequences it will surely lead to.

He began to pace the room. He would tighten precautions at every crossing point, assign all his men to the task, suspend all other activity to mobilize them for this one case. He would set everything in motion, he would spare no effort until the mystery was cleared up. I must find the truth, he told himself, as soon as possible. Or else we'll all go mad.

Despite the efforts of Stres's men, acting in concert with Church officiants who lectured the faithful day after day, those who believed that Doruntine had returned with her lover were many fewer than those inclined to think that the dead man had brought her back.

Stres himself examined the list of people who had been out of the district between the end of September and the eleventh of October. The idea that Doruntine might have been brought back by one of Constantine's friends so that his promise
might be fulfilled came to him from time to time, but each time it struck him as hardly credible. Even after the complete list of absentees had been submitted to him and he found, as he had hoped, that the names of four of the dead man's closest friends were on it, he could not bring himself to accept the conjecture. After all, hadn't he himself been away on duty during just that time? And in any event, Constantine's friends had little trouble proving that all four had been at the games held annually in Albania's northernmost principality. Two of them had even taken part, and had won prizes.

In the meantime, it would soon be forty days since the death of mother and daughter. The day would be celebrated according to custom, and the mourners would certainly sing their distressing ballads, without changing a damned word. Stres was well acquainted with the obtuse stubbornness of those little old women. On the seventh day after the deaths, also celebrated according to custom, they had changed nothing despite the warning he had sent them, and they had done the same on the four Sundays that followed. The old crows will caw for another few days, the priest had said, but in the end they'll be quiet. But Stres found that hard to believe.

One day he saw them making their way, single file, to the abandoned house to take up their mourning, as was the custom. Tall, slim, wrapped in his dark cloak, its collar emblazoned with the
insignia of an officer of the prince—the white deer-antler—he had stopped at the side of the road as, dressed all in black, their faces already moist with the tears to come, they passed before him, indifferent. Stres had the feeling that they had recognized him, for he thought he could detect in their eyes a glint of irony directed at him, the destroyer of legends. He nearly burst out laughing at the thought that he was engaged in a duel with these mourners, but to his astonishment the idea suddenly turned into a shiver.

In the meantime, the archbishop, to everyone's surprise, had remained at the Monastery of the Three Crosses, though Stres was no longer annoyed about it. Absorbed in his pursuit of the wandering adventurer, he paid little attention to anything else. He had received no clear information from the innkeepers. There had been three or four arrests on the basis of their reports, but all the suspects had been released for lack of evidence. Information was awaited from neighboring principalities and dukedoms, especially in the northern districts through which the road to Bohemia passed. At times Stres entertained new doubts and built new theories, only to set them aside at once.

Towards the middle of November the first snow fell. Unlike the snow that falls in October, it did not melt, but blanketed the countryside in white. One afternoon as he was on his way home, Stres, almost unconsciously, turned his horse into the street leading
to the church. He dismounted at the cemetery gate and went in, trampling the immaculate snow. The graveyard was deserted, the crosses against the blanket of snow looked even blacker. A few birds, equally dark, circled near the far side of the cemetery. Stres walked until he thought he had found the group of Vranaj graves. He leaned forward, deciphered the inscription on one of the stones, and saw that he had made no mistake. There were no footprints anywhere around. The icons seemed frozen. What am I doing here, he asked himself with a sigh. He felt the peace of the graveyard sweep over him, and the feeling brought with it a strange mental clarity. Dazzled by the glare of the snow, he found himself unable to look away, as if he feared that the clarity might desert him. All at once Doruntine's story seemed as simple as could be, perfectly clear. Here was a stretch of snow-covered earth in which was buried a group of people who had loved one another intensely and had promised never to part. The long separation, the great distance, the terrible yearning, the unbearable solitude (it was so lonely. . . .) had tried them sorely. They had strained to reach one another, to come together in life and in death in a state partaking of death and life alike, dominated now by the one, now by the other. They had tried to flout the laws that bind the living together and prevent them from passing back from death to life; they had thereby tried to violate the laws of death, to attain the inaccessible, to
gather together once more. For a moment, they thought they had managed it, as in a dream when you encounter a dead man you have loved but realize that it is only an illusion (I could not kiss him, something held me back). Then, in the darkness and chaos, they parted anew, the living making her way to the house, the dead returning to his grave (you go ahead, I have something to do at the church), and though nothing of the kind had really happened, though Stres still could not bring himself to believe that the dead man had risen from his grave, in some sense that was exactly what had happened. The horseman-brother had appeared at a bend in the road and said to his sister, “Come with me.” It mattered little, in truth, whether it was all in her mind or in the minds of others. In the end, it was a story that could happen to anyone, in any land, in any time. For where, indeed, is the person who has never dreamed of someone who returns from afar, from the lands beyond, to pause a moment that both may sit astride the same horse together? Where is the person in this world who does not harbor some yearning for one departed and has never said, If only he could come back one time, just once, that I might kiss him (but something stops me from kissing him)? Even though it can never happen, and will never happen forever and ever, for surely this is one of the great sorrows of this dreary world, a sorrow that will envelop it like mist until its very end.

That's what it was all about, Stres said to himself again. All the rest—the suppositions, the investigation, all the reasoning—was just a pack of mean little lies signifying nothing. He would have liked to linger a while longer on that high ground where his thought flowed so freely, but he felt a world of banality drawing him relentlessly downward, ever faster, making him plunge at once from his flight. He made haste to leave before his fall was complete. Haggard, he stumbled like a sleepwalker to his horse, vaulted into the saddle, and rode off in a frozen gallop.

It was a wet afternoon, drenched in a fine and steady rain, one of those afternoons when one feels that nothing could possibly happen. Stres, dressed and dozing in an armchair (what else could he do on such a day), felt his wife's hand touch his shoulder gently.

“Stres, there are people here to see you.”

He woke with a start.

“What is it? Was I sleeping?”

“They're asking for you,” his wife said. “It's your deputy, and another man with him.”

“Oh? Tell them I'll be right down.”

His aide and someone Stres didn't know, their hair dripping, stood waiting on the porch.

“Captain,” said his deputy the moment he saw his chief, “the man who brought Doruntine back has been captured.”

Stres stood for a moment, stunned.

“How can that be?” he asked.

His deputy was astonished at the surprise evident in the face of his chief, who showed no sign of satisfaction, as if he hadn't spent weeks trying to find the man.

“Yes, they've caught him at last,” he said, still not sure whether his chief had fully grasped what he was talking about.

Stres was still looking at them questioningly. In fact he had understood perfectly. What he wasn't sure of was whether or not the news pleased him.

“But how?” he asked. “How could it happen so suddenly?”

“So suddenly?” his deputy said.

“What I mean is, it seemed so unlikely. . . .”

What in the world am I talking about? he said to himself. Then he realized what was troubling him. It seemed that his desire to find the supposed lover had coexisted with another, hidden wish: that the man would never be found. It was then that he turned his attention to the stranger, and, without quite knowing why, addressed him directly.

“But how did they catch him? And where?”

“They're bringing him in now,” answered his
deputy. “He'll be here before nightfall. This man is the messenger who brought the news, as well as a report.”

The stranger reached into the lining of his leather tunic and took out an envelope.

“He was captured in the next county, in a place called the Inn of the Two Roberts,” the deputy said.

“The Inn of the Two Roberts?”

“Here is the re . . . re . . . report,” said the stranger, who stuttered.

Stres took it from him brusquely. Little by little the vague feeling of sadness and regret at the resolution of the mystery gave way to a first surge of cold satisfaction. He unsealed the envelope, took out the report, turned it toward the light, and began to read the lines written in a handwriting that looked like a heap of pins thrown down in anger:

We hereby dispatch to you this report on the capture of the adventurer suspected of having deceived and brought back Doruntine Vranaj. The information in this report has been taken from that which has been handed over to our authorities, along with the adventurer in question, by the authorities of the neighboring county, who captured him in their territory, in accordance with the request of our authorities.

The vagabond was arrested on the fourteenth of November in the highway establishment known as the Inn of the Two Roberts. He had been brought there unconscious the night before by two peasants who found him lying in the road burning with
fever. His appearance and, in particular, his delirious raving immediately aroused the suspicions of the innkeeper and the customers. The snatches of sentences he spoke amounted more or less to this: “There is no need to hurry so. What will we say to your mother? Hold on tight, I can't go any faster, it's dark, you know, I can't see anything. That's what you'll say if anyone asks you who brought you back. Don't be afraid, none of your brothers is still alive.”

The innkeeper alerted the local authorities, who, after hearing his testimony and that of the customers, decided to arrest the vagabond and, in accordance with our request, to hand him over to us at once. In keeping with the instructions that I have received from the capital, I will send him on to you immediately, but I thought it useful also to send you this information by a swift messenger as well, so that you might be fully informed about the matter in case you wish to interrogate the prisoner at once.

I send you my greetings.

Captain Stanish, of the border region.

Stres looked up from the sheet he was holding and glanced quickly at his deputy, then at the messenger. So it was just as he had imagined: she had run off with a lover. Soon he would learn the details from the mouth of the arrested man himself.

“When are they due to arrive?” he asked the messenger.

“In two hours, three at most.”

It was only then that Stres noticed that the messenger's
boots were caked with mud to the knees. He took a deep breath. The ideas that had come to him in the graveyard snow three days before seemed very far away.

“Wait for me,” he said, “while I get my cloak.”

He went back inside and, donning his long cloak, told his wife:

“The man who brought Doruntine back has been captured.”

“Really?” she said. She could not see his face, for a flap of his cloak, like a great black bird, had fallen between them, and kept their eyes from meeting.

She went as far as the threshold and watched as the three men walked off in the rain, Stres leading the way.

They had been waiting more than two hours for the carriage that was to bring the prisoner. The floorboards creaked plaintively under Stres's boots as he paced back and forth, as was his custom, between his work table and the window. His deputy dared not break the silence, and the messenger slumped snoring in a wooden chair, a musty odor rising from his clothes.

Stres could not help stopping at the window from time to time. As he gazed out at the plain and waited for the carriage to appear, he felt his mind going slowly numb. The same steady and monotonous rain had been falling since morning, and anyone's arrival, from whatever quarter, seemed quite
inconceivable under its dreary regularity.