The Ghost Rider by Ismaíl Kadaré Read Free Book Online

as a post.
    The watchman swallowed.
    “I am the watchman at the church cemetery, Mister Stres, and I would like to tell you—”
    “That the grave has been violated?” Stres interrupted. “I know all about it.”
    The watchman was taken aback.
    “I, I,” he stammered, “I meant—”
    “If it’s about the gravestone being moved, I know all about it,” Stres interrupted again, unable to hide his annoyance. “If you have something else to tell me, I’m listening.”
    Stres expected the watchman to say, “No, I have nothing to add,” and had already leaned over his desk again when, to his great surprise, the man spoke.
    “I have something else to tell you.”
    Stres raised his head and looked sternly at him, making it clear that this was neither the time nor the place for jokes.
    “So you have something else to tell me?” he said in a sceptical tone. “Well, let’s hear it.”
    The watchman, still disconcerted by the coolness of his reception, watched Stres lift his hands from the papersspread out on his desk as if to say, “Well, you’ve taken me away from my work, are you satisfied? Now let’s hear your little story.”
    “We are uneducated people, Mister Stres,” the man said timidly. “Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, please excuse me, but I thought that, well, who knows—”
    Suddenly Stres felt sorry for the man and said in a milder tone, “Speak. I’m listening.”
    What’s the matter with me? he wondered. Why do I take out on others the irritation I feel over this business?
    “Speak,” he said again. “What is it you have to tell me?”
    The watchman, somewhat reassured, took a deep breath and began.
    “Everyone claims that one of the Lady Mother’s sons came back from the grave,” he said, staring straight at Stres. “You know more about all that than I do. Some people have even come over to the cemetery to see whether any stones have been moved, but that’s another story. What I wanted to say is about something else—”
    “Go on,” said Stres.
    “One Sunday, not last Sunday or the one before, but the one before that, the Lady Mother came to the cemetery, as is her custom, to light candles at the graves of each of her sons.”
    “Three Sundays ago?” Stres asked.
    “Yes, Mister Stres. She lit one candle for each of the other graves, but two for Kostandin’s. I was standing very near her at the time, and I heard what she said when she leaned towards the niche in the gravestone.”
    The watchman paused briefly again, his eyes still fixed on the captain. Three Sundays ago; in other words, Stres thought to himself, not knowing quite why he made the calculation, a little more than two weeks ago.
    “I have heard the lamentations of many a mother,” the watchman went on, “hers included. But never have I shuddered as I did at the words she spoke that day.”
    Stres, who had raised his hand to his chin, listened avidly.
    “These were not the usual tears and lamentations,” the watchman explained. “What she spoke was a curse.”
    “A curse?”
    The watchman took another deep breath, making no attempt to conceal his satisfaction at having finally captured the captain’s undivided attention.
    “Yes, sir, a curse, and a frightful one.”
    “Go on,” Stres said impatiently. “What kind of curse?”
    “It is hard to remember the exact words, I was so shaken, but it went something like this: ‘Kostandin, have you forgotten your promise to bring Doruntine back to me whenever I longed for her?’ As you probably know, Mister Stres, I mean almost everybody does, Kostandin had given his mother his besa to—”
    “I know, I know,” said Stres. “Go on.”
    “Well, then she said: ‘Now I am left alone in the world, for you have broken your promise. May the earth never receive you!’ Those were her words, more or less.”
    The watchman had been observing Stres’s face as he spoke, expecting the captain to be horrified by his terrible tale, but when he’d