Chronicle in Stone by Ismaíl Kadaré Read Free Book Online

huge wolf-like dog and let it run loose in her yard.
    Mane Voco brought his ancient rifle, a relic from the days of Turkish rule, up from the cellar and he kept it to hand, hanging on a nail behind the door. The mayor’s office posted an extra guard in the city cemetery.
    People took certain other precautionary measures too. Housewives kept the ash from the fireplace in the cupboard, under lock and key, as if it was flour. Men leaving the barbershop carried their clipped hair and shavings wrapped up in a rag or a piece of newspaper. These precautions seemed to stem the flow of sorcery. The ordinary concerns of daily life, which had disappeared from conversation because of the magic, began to crop up again. Some sense of security and tranquillity returned. But it didn’t last. Just when it seemed that the evil spells had gone for good, they attacked again with unexpected fury. Their return was signalled by the explosion of a sealed barrel of cheese, which made a terrific noise when it blew up in the middle of the night at the house of Avdo Babaramo, the former gunner. In response to this new outbreak of witchcraft, the mayor’s office posted notices around the city urging people to help apprehend those responsible. But this didn’t work. Murky misdeeds went on being done. One night someone smiled at Aqif Kashahu’s wife from a dormer window, making a come-hither gesture. After the explosion of the cheese barrel, Avdo Babaramo’s elder son, so it was said, became estranged from his wife. But it was the third incident, directed against Kako Pino, that caused the greatest uproar. The evil omen itself was nothing very unusual — on the contrary, ashes again, but this time sprinkled with vinegar. The trouble was that the clamour we kids made when we saw how shaken Kako Pino was on discovering the magic attracted the attention of an Italian patrol that happened to be passing by at the time. The patrol must have reported the unusual agitation to the garrison, because a quarter of an hour later four Italian sappers trooped into Kako Pino’s yard with mine detectors. They looked at our frightened eyes, saw Kako Pino scratching her own face from fear, and, without asking for any explanation, began searching the spot all of us were staring at.
    “Hell,” one of them kept saying over and over, “the detector says there’s nothing here.”
    A few minutes later they stalked off angrily, and as they moved down the street one of them shouted back at Kako Pino, “ Che puttana! ”
    Every evening now, as night drew near, our heads were filled with thoughts of magic. This was understandable, for when the night enveloped everything, from the citadel and its prison at the top of the hill right down to the stony river bed at the bottom, somewhere in the deserted alleyways unseen hands were collecting hair and nail clippings, chimney soot and other dark matter, wrapping them in scraps of cloth, and whispering spells to make your blood run cold.
    The proud and sullen city, having defied rain, hail, thunder and rainbows, now gnawed at itself. The stretching of the eaves, the warped twisting of the streets, the strange position of the chimneys all testified to its torment.
    “The city is sick.” It was the second time I had heard those words. I couldn’t understand how a city could be ill. In Mane Voco’s yard, Ilir and I listened to Javer and Isa talking about witchcraft. As usual when they talked among themselves, they used difficult and unknown words, the sound of which seemed ill suited to a discussion of matters that were already mysterious enough. Several times we heard them use the words “mysticism” and “collective psychosis”. Then Isa asked Javer, “Have you read Jung?”
    “No,” said Javer. “And I have no intention of doing so either.”
    “I came across one of his books by accident. He discusses this very question.”
    “What do I care about Jung?” said Javer. “All this is clear enough. This psychosis