Three Arched Bridge (5 page)

Turks have been appearing more often all over the Balkans, You meet them on the great highways, at inns, at city gates waiting for permission to enter, at fairs, on boats, everywhere, Sometimes they turn up as political or commercial envoys, sometimes as trade missions, sometimes as wandering groups of musicians, adherents of religious sects, military units, or solitary eccentrics. Increasingly you hear their attenuated melodies, heavy with somnolence. Everything about them throws me into anxiety, their manners, their soft gait, their hidden movements inside their loose garments that seem especially created to conceal the positions of their limbs, and above all their language, whose words, in contrast to their soporific songs, end with a crack like a mallet blow. This is something different from the conflicts so fan. This anxiety turns into pure terror when 1 realize that these people are concealing a great deal There is something deceitful in their smiles and courtesy. It is no accident that their silken garments, turbans, breeches, and robes have no straight lines, corners, hems, or seams. Their whole costume is insubstantial, and cut so that it changes its shape continually. Among such diaphanous folds it is hard to tell whether a hand is holding a knife or a flower. But after all, how can straightforwardness be expected from a people who hide their very origins: their women?

Some time ago, I happened to see one of their military units on its homeward journey after taking part in the dispute between the barons of Ohri and the Muzakas. It was a body of mercenaries who had fought for a fixed period for a fee, under a contract. The Albanian princes. like those elsewhere in the Balkans and the Byzantine emperors themselves, have for some years been calling on Turkish units for use in their squabbles among themselves, This was how they first appeared in the Balkan lands, My flesh crept when 1 saw them traveling in formation along the highway with that somber pace that all the world's armies have. They are leaving us, I thought, but taking us with them. Their eyes roved covetously about^ and 1 remembered the saying of my father Gjorg that every invasion starts in the eyes.

Who first invited them? I fear that many peoples of Europe will one day ask this question. It will be not a question but a shriek. And no one will answer it. Everyone will try to blame someone else, From now on, the truth becomes shrouded in mist. Almost as if it were wrapped in Turkish silk.

And now it was there from which an offer of marriage came, When the Ottoman envoys crossed the river by raft to visit the county laden with expensive gifts, they were all charm. Their breeches whispered with the stealthy swish of silk, But they returned despondent, with overcast features, The henna glowed threateningly on their short beards* Our liege lord had not agreed to grant them his daughter. In order not to anger them, he had said that his daughter was too young to be engaged, and besides, had been lying sick for some time. In fact the girl was seventeen, and although her sickness had left her rather pale, she was now completely cured. But it was clear that the count did not desire this alliance at all

A
LL THAT SUMMER
, day and night, the work of erecting the bridge piers continued* They dug pits for the foundations until they struck bedrock, then began filling them with large stones, These were brought by cart from an old, distant quarry and lowered into the pits with the help of a winch that they called a
gikrik
. Its squeaking did not cease day or night as it lowered sometimes stones slung with stout rope, sometimes buckets filled with mortar.

Lime pits had been dug nearby, and some of the men working on the bridge piers were entirely coated with white. But the color of mud still predominated.

Work proceeded feverishly on the bridge piers. The master-in-chief, with his assistants in tow, spent hours on the wooden scaffolding that surrounded each of the pits. Sometimes they swarmed like demons over the timbers nailed like crosses, and sometimes, when oppressed by the heat, they would plunge stark naked into the river, oblivious to the eyes of the world. They worked swiftly to raise the piers before autumn came, when the Ujana e Keqe would swell The diversion channels for the river were intended only for the dry season, and after the first rains they would be unable to cope with the volume of water, part of which would flow again in the old bed,

Whenever a cloud appeared in the sky, the master-in-chief lifted his sparkling -head anxiously toward the mountains.

In fact, everybody was waiting for autumn to come. Some were curious to see what the river would do when it met the obstacles in its path. Others shook their heads, convinced that the Ujana e Keqe would know how to exact its revenge. It had not earned its name in vain,

People waited for the river to rise, in the way that they wait for someone who has been away from home for a long time, while great changes have taken place in his absence. Although most took the side of the river, and even laid wagers on the scale of its revenge, there were also those who felt pity for the bridge. However, they were still few, and they concealed their sympathy.

The days grew shorten Summer gave way to autumn without anything noteworthy happening, A workman drowned in a lime pit, and two others were crippled by the winch, but these were very minor incidents compared with what had been expected,

N
OT ONLY GLOOM-MONGERS
, who always crop up on the eve of disasters, but everyone was in a state of fever. One day toward the middle of the first month of autumn, the river was more turbulent than usual There had been a storm somewhere in the mountains.

The new waters surged forward like the vanguard of an army' but the diversion channels swallowed them with ease, not letting them flood the works,

It was now clear that the confrontation between the river and the bridge builders was at hand.

Some clear days went by, and then the skies filled with clouds, A thin, penetrating drizzle fell that seemed determined not to leave an inch of the world dry, Wrapped in sleeveless black cloaks, the laborers pressed on with their work under the rain, “How can they not be afraid?” people said. “How can their legs keep them there., now that the river is waking from its sleep?”

Yet the river seemed to bide its time, collecting its strength before attacking,

The diversion channels barely coped with one new onrush of water. But the Ujana e Keqe still did not show its mettle. Old Ajkuna said that the river would play with the bridge like a cat with a mouse.

Several more days of rain passed, and now the river's delay was more alarming than any onslaught, Even the builders themselves, coolheaded so far, seemed to grow anxious, A few cold and distant flashes of lightning, like mute heralds, added to the terror. It has sent every sign, people said. Woe to those who fail to realize that.

The river's attack was expected daily, even hourly, but still it did not come. “Oh, ‘Wicked Waters, is a good name,” people said. “The river knows many tricks and ruses.”

And indeed it came when no one expected it. After the days of rain the weather unexpectedly cleared, A blue sky spread itself above, blinding the eyes, and nobody thought that the river, so quiet during the days of rain, could attack now. But it struck precisely at this time.

First a roar was heard, like a thunderclap, and the river at once rushed forward. In a furious onslaught the waters overflowed the banks of the diversion channels and surged into their old bed. In moments there was pandemonium. Pits and clay-packed dykes vanished in the twinkling of an eye. The waters made trash of the planks, beams, pulleys, sieves, and general debris, which were thrown nobody could tell where, and then with redoubled force hurled themselves against the unfinished stone piers. They carried with them not only tree stumps and stones, but goats, wolves, and even drowned snakes that resembled the emblems and terrifying symbols of an army. They stormed the bridge head-on, were repulsed, lunged from the left, poured from the right, and foamed wildly below the piers. But the stone piers took no notice, Only then did people notice the master-in-chief still poised above the planks stretching from one pier to another, studying the angry surge of the Ujana e Keqe. Some people claim that he sometimes laughed.

It was clear that the Ujana e Keqe had failed in its first contest with the stone yoke they were casting over it. The debris it had swallowed, along with a drunken mason who the waves seized, I do not know how, were not much of a revenge. The water surged on, wilder than ever, and the Ujana e Keqe, colored by the clay it carried, seemed stained with blood.

People looked at the stone teeth planted in the water, and pitied the river. It will rise again, they said; it will recover from its summer sickness, and then well see what havoc it will wreak.

But two weeks passed, the river rose still higher, its waves grew stronger, and its roar grew deeper, but still it did nothing to the bridge.

T
HE SECOND MONTH OF AUTUMN
was cold as seldom before. After the first flood, the waters of the Ujana e Keqe cleared and reverted to their usual color, between pale blue and green. But this color, familiar to us for years, now seemed to conceal cold fury and outrage.

The laborers, laden with stones and buckets of mortar, moved like fiends among the planks and beams. The river flowed below, minding its own concerns, while the workmen above minded theirs.

Throughout October nothing of note occurred. A drowned corpse, brought by the waters from no one knew where, collided with one of the central piers, spun around it a while, and vanished again. It was on that very day that there dimly emerged from among the mass of scaffolding and nailed crossbeams something like a bow connecting the two central piers. Apparently they were preparing to launch the first arch.

O
N THE THRESHOLD OF WINTER
, along with the first frosts, wandering dervishes turned up everywhere. They were seen along the high road, by the Inn of the Two Roberts, and farther away, by the Fever Stone, Travelers arriving from neighboring principalities said that they had seen them there too, and some even said that Turkish dervishes had been seen along the entire length of the old Via Egnatia. Sometimes in small groups or in pairs, but in most cases alone, they ate up the miles with their filthy bare feet.

Early yesterday morning I saw two of them walking with that nimble gait of theirs along the deserted road. One led the way, the other followed two paces behind, and I looked at their rags, so soiled by the dust and the winter wind, and asked almost aloud, “Why?”

Who are these vagrants, and why have they appeared throughout the peninsula at the same time, on this threshold of winter?

F
ROST COVERED THE GROUND
. Two wandering bards had stayed three consecutive nights at the Inn of the Two Roberts, entertaining the guests with new ballads. The ballads had been composed on the subject of the Ujana e Keqe and were inauspicious. What you might call their content was more or less as follows: The naiads and water nymphs would never forget the insult offered to the Ujana e Keqe, Revenge might be slow., but it would come.

Such ballads would be very much to the taste of the people from “Boats and Rafts*” Yet now that they had lost their battle and the bridge was being built, not one and not a thousand ballads could help them, because so far no one has heard of songs destroying a bridge or a building of any kind.

Since their final departure, defeated and despondent, the “Boats and Rafts', people had been seen no more. They seemed no longer of this world, but now the ballads at the Inn of the Two Roberts reminded me of them again, Had they given up the fight, or were they biding their time?

Meanwhile the Ujana e Keqe looked more askance at us than ever, or perhaps so it seemed to us because we knew of the stone clasp placed over it.

A
S THE SEASON DREW TO AN END
, our liege lord invited distinguished guests to a hunt in the Wolf's Wilderness, as he did every year at about the same time. Besides neighboring lords and vassals, Gjin Bue Shpata, the powerful overlord of southern Arberia, also came. The two sons of old Balsha, Gjergj Balsha and Bal-sha II, came from the north together with their wives, the countesses Mari ja and Komita. They were followed by the lord of Zadrima, Nikollé Zaharia, whose arms bear a lynx, and the barons Pal Gropa, lord of Ohri and Pogradec, and Vlash Matranga, lord of Karavasta, as well as another lord, whose name was kept secret and who was said only to be a “man of note in the Great Mountains,”

As in every year, the hunt was conducted with all the proper splendor. Hunting horns, horses, hooves, and the pack of dogs kept the whole of Wolf's Wilderness awake night and day. No accidents occurred, apart from the death of a stalker who was mauled by a bear; Nikollé Zaharia sprained his ankle, which particularly worried the nobility, but this passed quickly.

The good weather held. At the end of the hunt, soft snow began to fall, and the snow-dusted procession of hunters on their homeward journey looked more attractive than even

Nevertheless, as 1 looked at them in their order, a spasm seized my soul. The emblems and signs on the noblemen's jerkins, those wild goats, horns, eagles” wings, and lions' manes, involuntarily reminded me of the drowned animals that the Ujana e Keqe had so ominously carried down the gorge. Defend, oh Lord, our princes, I silently prayed. Oh, Holy Mary, avert the evil hour.

The guests did not stay long, because they were all anxious to return to their own lands. During the three days that they stayed in all (less than ever before), we expected to hear of some new betrothal, but no such thing occurred. In fact, the guests held a secret discussion about the situation created by the Ottoman threat.

While the discussion continued, the two countesses, the sisters-in-law Mari ja and Komita, came to watch the construction of the bridge. It fell to me to escort them and explain to them the building of bridges, about which they knew nothing. They were impressed for a while by the swarm of workmen that teemed on the sand, by the melee, the din, and the different languages spoken. Then Komita, who had visited her father in Vloré a month before, mentioned the anxiety over the Orikum naval base, and then the two disparaged at length their acquaintances in great houses, especially the duchess of Dürres, Johana, who was preparing to remarry after the death of her husband, and so on and so forth, finally arriving at their sister-in-law Katrina, the darling daughter of old Balsha, of whom they were obviously jealous, I attempted to bring the conversation back to the Orikum base, but it was extremely difficulty not to say impossible.