Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones Page B

of sea salt.
    â€˜Stay one more day,’ Blerta had pleaded. ‘You love being by the sea.’
    She couldn’t. Something serious had happened at home. Her uncle had never called her in Tirana before. He wouldn’t have called without good reason.
    Hana left clutching a bag of sand.
    â€˜I’ll wait for you,’ Blerta told her. ‘We’ll go back to Tirana together in a week. Remember, we’ve got a seminar on Renaissance literature.’
    â€˜Sure, Blerta. Tungjatë .’
    â€˜So you’re already talking like the mountain people?’ Blerta teased.
    Hana liked using the tungjatjeta goodbye. Hand on heart, solemn gaze, the fleeting touch of foreheads to seal the sacred nature of the farewell. May your life grow longer!
    She glances at her almost-decent city clothes. In the shadow of the kulla they look all right.
    â€˜I’m sick,’ Uncle Gjergj says. ‘There’s this thing in my throat. They say it’s big. Sometimes it chokes me and I can’t speak.’
    â€˜How long have you known?’
    â€˜Two months.’
    â€˜The other day I dreamed you had a mountain on your back and you were stooped over with the weight. The mountain was made of dry earth and when you moved it crumbled around you so you were walking in the middle of a cloud of yellow dust.’
    Gjergj laughs, the hurricane lamp making his mouth look bigger.
    â€˜Sit down,’ he says.
    Hana obeys. Between her and her uncle there is an ancient wooden table. He struggles to sit up in bed. Now Hana can see his terrifyingly swollen neck and the effort he makes to move his jaws normally while he’s talking. He wants to know how college is going and she tells him that in a few days she has an important seminar on Albanian Renaissance literature. Gjergj says he doesn’t know what a seminar is and she explains.
    â€˜And what is the Renaissance?’
    â€˜It’s the cultural rebirth of a nation after a long period of darkness. Here in Albania the Renaissance was later than in the rest of Europe, not until the end of the Ottoman occupation.’
    â€˜It sounds like a complicated story, dear daughter.’
    Hana doesn’t say anything. Gjergj is an intelligent man but he often pretends he’s not. She had no problem convincing him to let her go away to college. There are no books in the kulla , except a well-hidden Bible and a history of Skanderbeg, the national hero. That’s the sum total. But she has always thought he knows much more than he lets on.
    â€˜Are you happy down in the capital?’
    â€˜Yes, very.’
    â€˜Even with all that communist garbage they thrust down your throats?’
    The word ‘thrust’ is not a common word in these parts. Not for a shepherd. Not for a man who can only write his own name. Hana is pleased with this confirmation of her suspicions.
    â€˜I like it anyway, even with the garbage. More than up here.’
    â€˜Well … ’ Pause. ‘I’m sorry I called you.’
    â€˜What do the doctors say exactly?’
    â€˜The bread’s ready,’ Aunt Katrina announces softly.
    Neither Hana nor Gjergj heard her come in. Hana doesn’t move. The old lady sits down next to her. Katrina has a bad heart and is only alive by a miracle. She is the love of Gjergj’s life. The way they treat each other is not typical around here. Their dialect gives them away as mountain folk, not their gestures.
    â€˜I’ve made the beans. If you don’t eat now they’ll get cold, my love.’
    Hana takes her hand.
    â€˜Can you tell me what’s really going on, Uncle Gjergj?’
    â€˜They say I don’t have long to live. Even if I have surgery, they don’t think they can save me. I had to tell you in person.’
    â€˜It can’t be true.’
    â€˜They say I’ve been sick for a while, I just didn’t know it. Now it’s too late.’
    â€˜You can come with me to