Stres swallowed.
“Aha!” the archbishop thundered from his seat, “at last you confess to your own part in this abomination!”
“All our parts …” Stres said, as he tried to make his meaning clear, but the archbishop’s voice overrode his own.
“Speak for yourself!” the prelate yelled. “And by the way, I would really like to know where you were between 30 September and 11 October. Where were you, exactly?”
Stres kept his composure but his face had turned as white as a sheet.
“Answer, Captain!” someone shouted.
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Stres responded. “During the period alluded to I was on a secret mission.”
“Aha! More mysteries!” the archbishop screamed. “So be it! But so we may know the truth of the matter, we would like you to tell us what the mission consisted of.”
“It was the kind of job that even we officers seek to forget once it is done. I have nothing to add.”
This time the rumbling of the crowd that echoed from the walls took longer to abate. Stres took a deep breath.
“Noble sirs, I have not yet finished. I would like to tell you — and most of all to tell our guests from distant lands — just what this sublime power is that is capable of bending the laws of death.”
Stres paused again. His throat felt dry and he found it hard to form his words. But he kept speaking just the same. He spoke of the besa, of its spread among the Albanians. As he spoke he saw someone in the crowd coming towards him, holding what seemed to be a heavy object, perhaps a stone. They’re already coming, he thought, and with his elbow he touched the pommel of his sword beneath his cloak. But as the man drew nearer, Stres saw that it was one of the Radhen boys, and that he carried not a stone to strike him with, but a small pitcher.
Stres smiled, took the pitcher and drank.
“And now,” he went on, “let me try to explain why this new moral law was born and is now spreading among us. The question is this: in these new conditions of the worsening of the general atmosphere in the world, in this time of crime and hateful treachery that could be called unbelief, who should the Albanian be? What face shall he show the world? Shall he espouse evil or stand against it? Shall he disfigure himself, changing his features to suit the masks of the age, seeking thus to assure his survival, or shall he keep his countenance unchanged … I am a servant of the state and have little interest in the personal aspects of Kostandin’s journey, if in fact there are any. Each of us, commoners and lords alike, be we Caesar or Christ, is the shroud of unfathomable mysteries. But, functionary that I am, I have spoken of the general point, the one that concerns Albania. Albania’s time of trial is near, the hour of choice between these two faces. And if the people of Albania, deep within themselves, have begun to fashion institutions as sublime as the besa, that shows us that Albania is making the right choice. Albania aims to keep its eternal image. That’s the main thing, to my mind. She will keep her face not by retreating from the world like a wild animal at bay, but by joining the world. It was to carry that message to Albania and to the world beyond that Kostandin rose from his grave.”
Once more Stres’s glance embraced the numberless crowd that stretched before him, then the stands to his right and left. He thought he saw the gleam of tears here and there. But the people’s eyes were, in fact, empty.
“But it is not easy to accept this message,” he went on. “It will require great sacrifices by successive generations. Its burden will be heavier than the cross of Christ. And now that I have come to the end of what I had to tell you” — and here Stres turned to the stands where the envoys of the prince were seated — “I would like to add that, since my words are at variance with my duties, or at least are at variance with them for the moment, I now resign my post.”
He raised his right hand to the white antler insignia sewn on the left side of his cloak and, pulling sharply, ripped it off and let it fall to the ground.
Without another word he descended the wooden stairway and, his head held high, walked through the crowd, which parted at his passing with a mixture of respect and dread.
From that day forward, Stres was never seen again. No one, neither his deputies nor his family, not even his wife, knew where he was — or at least no one would say.
At the Old Monastery the wooden grandstands and platform were dismantled, porters carried off the planks and beams, and in the inner courtyard there was no longer any trace of the assembly. But no one forgot a word that Stres had spoken there. His words passed from mouth to mouth, from village to village, with unbelievable speed. The rumour that Stres had been arrested in the wake of his speech soon proved unfounded. It was said that he had been seen somewhere, or at least that someone had heard the trot of his horse. Others insisted they had caught a glimpse of him on the northern highway. They were sure they had recognised him, despite the dusk and the first layer of dust that covered his hair. Who can say? people mused, who can say? How much, O Lord, must our poor minds take in! And then someone said, his voice trembling as if shivering with cold:
“Sometimes I wonder if he didn’t bring Doruntine back himself.”
“How dare you say such a thing?”
“What would be so surprising?” the man answered. “As for myself, I have not been surprised by anything since the day she returned.”
As was only to be expected, the old dispute over local versus foreign marriages arose once again. Proponents of local marriages now seemed likely to prevail, but the other faction proved obstinate. Each side had its own explanation of the dead man’s ride. The distant marriage faction emphasised respect of the besa and obviously saw Kostandin as its standard bearer. The other side treated his journey as an act of repentance, in other words as a resurrection intended to make good a fault. A third group, who saw in the man’s long ride an attempt to reconcile opposites — distance and proximity — that had torn him apart as much as his incestuous yearnings, was much less prominent.
With the idea of local marriage constantly gaining ground, the sad story of Maria Matrenga was quoted more and more often, despite the fact that, like some predestined counterweight, Palok the Idiot wandered around the village alleyways ever more visibly.
When the poor yokel was found dead one fine morning, people’s initial distress was quickly replaced by an understanding that his murderers would never be identified. The incident was accounted for, as many are, in two different ways. Supporters of distant marriages maintained that Palok had been slaughtered by his own kin, that is to say by defenders of local unions, so as to remove from the street this visible evidence that did their cause harm every day of the week. But their adversaries obstinately insisted that the killing had been done by the supporters of exogamy, so as to show that even though their ideals were on the wane, they were still prepared to defend them, even by spilling blood.