Sworn Virgin (13 page)

‘You fucking bitch!'

She jumps out of the truck and runs into the trees beside the
road.

‘You fucking bitch! Peasant woman! Mountain bitch!'

She doesn't get home until the next day, wet with snow and dead tired. Uncle Gjergj is as white as a shroud. He hasn't slept a wink. He looks at her as if she were a ghost. He doesn't ask any questions, but bangs his stick over and over on the stone wall, on the table. He's no stronger than an ant. She can't see his face. He's curled up in the corner of the room, his head buried in his chest.

The following day, Hana rummages through Gjergj's clothes chest, at the same time asking herself what she is looking for. She finds his national costume and puts it on, still wondering what she is doing. She rolls the pants up at the waist and tries to keep them up by tightening the red waistband. What are you doing? She stares at the wall in front of her. She smiles at the stone, and feels sorry for it. The stone has never been kissed. She leans her forehead on it and rests there for a while.

When she goes downstairs and presents herself to Gjergj dressed as a man, her uncle is struck dumb. But all of a sudden his chin starts to twitch and, however tightly he locks his jaw, it is not enough to hold back his emotion.

It's November 6,
1986.

Hana scratches the date on the wall of the guest room. It takes her a good hour to do it properly.

When she has finished, she goes back to Gjergj. He passes her his rifle. She takes it and examines it closely. It has belonged to six generations of Doda clansmen. Gjergj has kept it oiled for thirty-six years. Hana is still standing awkwardly. Now what? she asks herself. Now what? Now nothing. Now there is nothing. What time is it now in Paris? She's supposed to sit like a man, with her legs crossed, she's supposed to smoke a pipe like Uncle Gjergj. She looks at the legs sticking out of her pants, like a ladybug's, she thinks. To postpone the moment when she has to sit like a man, she stays standing.

‘Are you sure you want to take this step, dear daughter?'

‘My name will be Mark. Mark Doda.'

The next day the news spreads around Rrnajë and the village is alive with gossip. The men will greet her as a man, and the women will avoid her
eye.

She starts to keep a diary.

In the five months that follow, Hana takes care of Gjergj, the house, the animals, the memory of Katrina. She tries to make her gait heavier, more masculine. It'll take time. Every now and then she gives herself a break. ‘There is no hurry,' she tells herself.

Don't run, don't make a noise, don't think. There's no hurry. Not anymore. There's all the time in the world, nobody is waiting for you. You don't have to worry anymore about how soft your hair is; you don't have to worry about finding nice clothes; a world's worth of snow separates Rrnajë from Paris.

Now you're a man. You're a man. A man! You're not allowed to look at real men anymore.

Everything is just fine, she makes herself believe. The snow, the dark nights, the dogs chasing each other, the shadows of the wolves across the snowy landscape, hurrying like busy travelers. The mountains protect you and overwhelm you. The echo of centuries rings in your heart. They save you from the greasy panting of redneck truck drivers.

The memory is still alive. The terror she had felt. The night she had spent in the woods, her teeth chattering with the fear that, having escaped from one man with his pants open, another would suddenly appear from behind one of those trees.

She hadn't slept a wink. She had sharpened the darkness with her night eyes. If anybody had approached her she would have killed him. She had kept her knife close to her chest and her heart had never stopped beating furiously. She had been famished, she had been angry, she had called to her mother by her beautiful name; she had even invoked her father, whose face she couldn't remember.

She had prayed to God, and with mute tears; to the same God who had been banned a year before Hana was born and whom Felicità had always talked about in secret.

She had managed not to freeze to death. At dawn she had crept through the alleys of Rrnajë without being seen, protected by the snow. When she got home, the
kulla
had become hard as a rock. A grave for her old self. She had become a
man.

‘Honor to you for what you have done,' Gjergj's guests repeat in the months that follow. He is proud of her. You can see it in his eyes, which refuse to surrender to death, and in the way he passes Hana the bottle of
raki.

‘Gjergj,
bre burrë
now you have a son and the honor of the
kulla
will not
die.'

Hana learns to smoke with them. She stinks like them. She copies their laughter and makes her voice more gravelly. Her throat and ribs
hurt.

The whole of the Bjeshkët e Namuna
–
all the ‘cursed mountains'
–
knows by now that the Dodas' daughter has become a
man.

Some of the village men fire volleys of rifle shots to celebrate the event, and the man from the Party does not say a thing. Nor does the policeman. If things stay within limits, the Party is magnanimous. If a young girl decides to become the man of the house, well, traditions are to be respected. Within limits. Within
certain
limits.

One day Lila, her only first cousin, comes to Rrnajë with Shtjefën, her young husband, to visit her parents. She looks at Hana as if she has flown in from
Mars.

‘Hana, sweetie, what have you done? You of all people?'

Lila looks like a sheep. Her terrible perm makes her hair as fluffy as an old woman's. It's traditional: young wives curl their hair using an iron heated on the
fire.

‘Look at yourself; you look like a grandmother.'

‘Why did you do it, Hana?'

‘Your hair makes you look like an old lady. Your headscarf makes you look like an old lady.'

‘I'm married
now.'

‘That's pretty obvious.'

‘Look, I love Shtjefën and I didn't walk down the aisle like a lamb to slaughter. He's a good man, he's not like the others.'

‘But you wait on him without saying a word, and you let your in-laws tell you what to do, don't
you?'

‘What do you mean? It's tradition. There are such things as rules. Why did you do it, Hana?'

They observe each other. Lila waits for an answer, which Hana doesn't provide.

‘You were shaping up to be a great young woman, you could have been a schoolteacher, and now
…'

‘Call me Mark,' she says to her cousin, hugging her so as not to be overwhelmed by tears.

‘You're crazy,' Lila says, disoriented. ‘You're totally crazy, Hana.'

Gjergj dies on a sunny May day in 1987. Everything is ready. The house is full of food, considering what little there is up in the mountains. The honor of the Doda family is more secure than ever. Mark receives condolences. Men and women show him equal respect. Nobody calls her Hana any longer.

The
kulla
is squeaky clean. Old habits die hard, and she struggles to neglect the housework. But she is trying. Men don't do women's work; that's
‌
the rule of the Kanun.
¹¹

A week after the funeral, Hana weeps in front of the pile of fresh earth that is Gjergj's grave. She is alone, so nobody will see her crying.

She cries for a long time, and then looks up at the clear blue sky, the bare cemetery, the small stretch of Rrnajë that extends beyond the graveyard. The sun is so warm and reassuring, it makes her feel as though she's on the top of the world.

On a day like this, her mother would have started singing.

Shtjefën gets home a little earlier than usual, and in a good mood. Lila is due back in half an hour. Jonida is doing her homework.

‘I got you a job,' he says to Hana. ‘The interview is tomorrow. See what you can do. They'll give you a two-week trial and then they'll decide. You'll be a daytime attendant at a parking lot near the subway station.'

Hana is surprised, and thanks
him.

‘I know you don't like being dependent on us,' he adds apologetically. ‘And I didn't do it to put pressure on you if you don't feel up to it
…'

Hana has cooked dinner, which they will eat at around seven thirty, when Lila gets back. Usually she rushes in and changes out of her work clothes, tearing them off as fast as she can. She takes a quick shower and then they have dinner.

Hana quit smoking a few weeks ago and is still coughing up phlegm. Shtjefën called her a traitor. Jonida is happy: ‘Go for it, Hana! Show Mr Fatso that he can stop poisoning himself!' Mr Fatso smiles and readily accepts his daughter's affectionate insults.

‘My Jonida is going to be an educated woman,' he says with infinite pride. ‘She's beautiful and intelligent, and women like that can get away with saying a few words too many.'

That day, before Jonida and Shtjefën get back home, Hana tried on a skirt, which, Lila had explained, was called a tube skirt. It was made of dark fabric and it was the only skirt that Hana had agreed to buy during these three months.

With the house to herself she held a kind of dress rehearsal. She studied herself in the mirror for a long time
–
and found herself ridiculous. She walked up and down without taking her eyes off the mirror. And she did her best to resist the temptation to throw the skirt out of the window.

Jonida is home before Shtjefën. Hana closes her eyes as she throws open the
door.

‘Wow!' her niece shrieks, as she throws her backpack into a corner of the living room. ‘Cool! Turn around, Hana!'

Hana obeys.

‘I don't like the color,' Jonida says. ‘Who chose
it?'

‘Apart from the color?'

‘I said you look ok. It looks better from the front than from the back.'

Jonida rushes to the fridge to grab a low-fat yogurt.

‘What is that stuff? Why don't you eat something more nutritious?'

‘I hate cellulite.'

‘You don't have cellulite, sweetie, but if you only eat this stuff you'll get too thin.'

‘It's cool to be thin and you know it. Anyway, you look cute in the skirt, but you look better in pants.'

Hana hangs her head in disappointment. Jonida finishes her yogurt and throws the teaspoon in the sink. Hana rushes to rinse it. She adores Jonida's messiness; it keeps her busy during the
day.

‘You're weird,' the girl says, rubbing salt in the wound. ‘You're flat behind. You have no backside.'

‘Thanks.'

‘It's my role isn't it? You asked me to be straight with
you.'

‘For weeks you go on at me, girly this, girly that, and then, first try, you put me down!'

‘I love you. But if you're weird, you're weird, and I can't do anything about
it.'

‘I'll take it off, then.'

‘You better
not!'

Hana doesn't understand what's going
on.

‘We have to work at it, we can't just give up. You can't turn sexy in a day. Your face is already much better.'

‘I don't want to be sexy, I've told you a thousand times,' Hana insists nervously. ‘I just want to be normal and acceptable.'

‘You want to be more than normal, Hana. You want to look good, and don't deny
it.'

Hana sits on the sofa longing for a cigarette.

‘How was school today?' she asks, changing the subject.

‘Fine. I think the guy I like is with another girl. A friend told me today in the cafeteria.'

‘Is this girl cute?'

‘She's ugly as hell.'

Hana laughs with gusto.

‘You're saying that because you're jealous,' she
ribs.

‘Me? Jealous?' Jonida's hair flies around her as she shakes her head. ‘I am way better than her. Things like that don't get to me, but she's just plain ugly.'

Hana watches her. She has lived with Jonida for three months and, despite the intimacy they have created, she still finds things difficult. She envies her naturalness, the way Jonida is so accepting of her place in the world.

‘I have to do my homework now, I've got a ton of things to do,' Jonida announces, jumping up and skipping into her bedroom.

Hana sits on the sofa lost in thought until Shtjefën gets back home, but she does decide one thing: not to take off the skirt.

‘The job won't be too tiring,' Shtjefën says. He looks up and notices the change in her. ‘Finally! Lila will be pleased to see you like this.'

They both smile.

‘I don't want an easy job,' Hana says. ‘I want a job where I get really tired and where I can learn the language.'

‘But you're doing great, what are you worrying about? I wish I could speak English as well as
you!'

Just then Lila gets home. She hangs her bag in the hall, mumbles a worn-out, drawling ‘hi,' goes and takes a shower, and comes back into the kitchen with her hair still
wet.

Casting her eyes over the kitchen stove and the table set for four, she tosses an inquisitive ‘so?' into the air and then adds, ‘What have you made for dinner, Hana?'

Just then Lila notices and her eyes light
up.

‘Stand up! Stand up now! I wish I'd been here when you were putting that skirt on, for crying out loud. You've been driving me crazy all this time. Stand
up!'

Shtjefën goes out. Hana just stands there, her arms hanging limply by her sides.

‘You look great. Walk around a bit
…'

Hana slumps back into her chair.

‘Come on, don't start being difficult! Let me see you! This is a historic moment. Now you are a woman from every point of view.'

You make it sound easy, Hana thinks, without taking her eyes off the empty plates. She wants to eat, clean the table, and go out for her usual stroll.

‘Are you happy?'

‘Yes, I'm fine. Tomorrow Shtjefën is taking me to my first job interview.'

‘He found you a job? And you don't even tell me? We have to celebrate!'

Jonida comes out of her bedroom. Lila turns, bounds towards her, and wraps her daughter in a greedy embrace.

‘Oh my darling! Light of my eyes! How are you, my love?'

‘Take it easy,' she says. ‘You're squishing me. We saw each other this morning, Mom, remember?'

Lila has no intention of letting go. Shtjefën comes back into the room and gently, almost shyly, hugs his wife and daughter. They are so beautiful and there's no need for anything else, there's no need for words or dreams or memories. All I need to do is be here and smile, Hana says to herself. And she smiles, looking at these three people who have adopted her but from whom she can't wait to escape.

Jonida turns to her father and rubs her nose against his
chin.

‘Hi, big Daddy bear,' she says to him. ‘Is everything
ok?'

‘Everything is fine, my love. What about
you?'

They do not let go, none of the three wants to separate, they stroke each other. Hana goes on smiling, but her smile becomes a lump in her throat and a grimace of pain crosses her
face.

‘Ok, that's enough for now.' Jonida throws herself down on the sofa, next to
Hana.

‘I'm hungry.'

Lila goes into the kitchen and takes the lid off the saucepan. Hana makes an effort not to cry, but she can't stop. She runs into the bathroom.

She remembers the day her parents hugged each other in front of her. They were standing. Her mother was beautiful; her father had surrendered to his wife's sweetness. Hana had watched them closely. They had embraced in front of their daughter the day before they got onto the bus that was supposed to take them to their cousin's wedding in the
city.

The bus had ended up at the bottom of a ravine that winter afternoon and no one was able to reach the wreck. They were buried in the snow that fell that night and slept in ice until the following spring. When they recovered the bodies, they found her mother's red and blue headscarf and her father's
pipe.

Since then Hana has kept these treasures with her. She brought them here and has them stashed in her suitcase under her
bed.

Dinner is delicious. Hana has taken a lot of trouble choosing the menu. She's trying to learn to cook. She has even bought a cookbook and this evening she has prepared green salad with raisins, spaghetti with meat sauce, and baked apples.

‘It was all delicious,' Lila encourages her after polishing off the last mouthful of apple. ‘Really delicious.'

Shtjefën offers to make Turkish coffee.

‘Tomorrow will you take me for a drive?' Hana asks them. ‘I'd like to get a little driving practice, to get used to the traffic.'

They sip their coffee.

‘I miss my old truck,' she continues. ‘And if all goes well at work, in a month I'd like to start looking for a small apartment, Lila.'

She waits for a reaction. Shtjefën gets up to make more coffee. Jonida winks at Hana. Lila is quiet for a moment.

‘I didn't realize you were in such a hurry to get away,' she
says.

‘I'm not in a hurry to get away. I just want to see if I can live on my
own.'

‘But you've lived on your own for fourteen years!'

Lila is taking it badly, Jonida can see it in her face. But Hana is already at the
door:

‘I'm going out for a walk.'

She throws a jacket on over her t-shirt and shuts the door, leaving behind the confused rancor of her cousin. It's not cold; this winter is mild, the evening a little damp. She takes the path she now knows by heart. Her shoes are comfortable; she doesn't like them particularly but they were cheap.

Lila is a great bargain-hunter. She runs the household finances confidently, hunting out special offers and discounts. On Thanksgiving Day, she got up at four in the morning and drove all the way to the big supermarket outside town that was famous for its unbeatable prices. She came back four hours later, exhausted but happy, with three gigantic shopping bags. Fifteen minutes to put everything away in the fridge and she had climbed back into her car, this time with Hana and Jonida, to buy clothes for Jonida at the store where she worked.

Hana stops. The skirt is annoying her. It's too wide in the waist and the zipper at the back keeps making its way to the front. She tugs the skirt round and starts walking again. A few yards on, the skirt has twisted again. She suddenly feels a strange sensation on her legs. Last week she tried shaving them. She also shaved her armpits and then spent days itching and scratching. Jonida nearly died laughing. She kept an eye on the hairs that were growing back on her legs. Before putting the skirt on, she had shaved again, nicking herself slightly with the razor. She stops again. The skirt won't stay put. Trying to keep walking, she stumbles, though without actually falling over. At that, she makes up her mind to go back, and walks home in furious strides.

Shtjefën is watching TV and Lila is doing whatever she does in the bathroom. A deep hammering bass beat comes from Jonida's bedroom. Hana slips silently into Lila and Shtjefën's room and tears off her skirt. She scrunches it up, venting all her anger on it. Then she crumples it into a ball, opens the wardrobe and throws it inside.

‘What are you doing?' Lila asks from the doorway.

Hana thrusts her legs into her pants as fast as she
can.

‘You are out of this world,' her cousin says. ‘Just try and understand someone like
you.'

‘And you are as clingy as a shadow.'

Hana leaves the house again. She thought everything would be easier. When she had become Mark she had had no real experience of femininity. And now she's even scared about her job interview tomorrow. Her English sucks.

‘You have to look confident,' Shtjefën coaches her. ‘Americans always look incredibly self-confident. They like to look sure of themselves. Don't talk about your problems and you'll be fine. Then you can fall apart when you're on your
own.'

She is excited and lost at the same time. On the outside she looks almost like a woman. What's missing is her vision, the point of view from which she is supposed to read the world. When she observes people, Hana does not see a woman or a man. She tries to penetrate the unique spirit of the individual, she analyzes their face and eyes, she tries to imagine the thoughts hiding behind those eyes, but she tends to avoid thinking about the fact that these thoughts are inextricably linked to the male or female ego. Women think like women. Men? Well, the answer is obvious. She's only just realizing now that for a long time she has had to consider things from both points of
view.

On the other hand, she consoles herself, the diaries that she kept during her years as Mark are not that badly written. In her days by herself in Rockville she has read them again and again. She is also sorry to realize that her diaries are better than her poems. This thought has no particular value, but it hurts all the same. She would have liked to be a
poet.

She reads a lot. Shtjefën teases her, saying that, in order to satisfy Hana's requests, they will soon have to ask for new funding at the Rockville city library. The librarians have been very helpful; they give her advice and encourage her. Hana fills whole notebooks with words and idiomatic expressions and learns them off by heart. She watches programs on TV late into the night to improve her English. Talking to Jonida is the best practice of all, because her vocabulary is peppered with adolescent slang.