Three Arched Bridge by Ismaíl Kadaré Read Free Book Online Page B

pronounce his name, “Abdullah,’ saying it ever more oddly, especially when they tried to add an affectionate diminutive “th” to the end.

22
    A T THE END OF THE MONTH OF MICHAELMAS and during the first week of winter, we still saw dervishes everywhere. It struck me that these horrible vagabonds could only be the scouts of the great Asiatic state that destiny had made our neighbor.
    They were no doubt gathering information about the land, the roads, the alliances or quarrels among the Albanian princes, and the princes’ old disputes. Sometimes, when I saw them, it struck me that it was easier to collect quarrels under the freezing December wind than at any other time.
    I was involuntarily reminded of fragments of the conversation between the two dainty countesses, and it sometimes happened that, without myself knowing why, I muttered to myself like one wandering in his wits the name of the “Turkish bridegroom”: Abdullahth.

23
    O NE OF THE NOVICES attached to the presbytery woke me to tell me that something had happened by the bridge, Even though he had gone as far as the riverbank himself, he had been unable to find out anything precisely.
    I jumped out of bed immediately. As often when I heard news or saw dreams, I automatically turned my head toward the mountains. This was a habit left over from childhood., when my grandmother used to say to me, “Any sign you may receive, for good or ill, you must first tell to the mountains.”
    One could sense that it was snowing in the mountains, although they themselves were invisible. When we arrived at the riverbank, the sight was indeed incredible. As the novice had told me, the builders had stopped work, a thing that had never happened. Those whom neither sleet nor hail, nor even the Ujana e Keqe itself, had succeeded in driving from the bridge had left their work half done and were scattered in groups on the sandbank, some looking toward the bridge, and some toward the river, as if seeing these things for the first time.
    As we drew closer, 1 noticed other people, who had clambered onto the scaffolding and beams and looked like vultures, Among them, close by the recently formed central arch, I recognized from a distance the master-in-chief and his two assistants. Together with the others they crouched by the stone bridge, saying something to one another, bending again, stretching their heads down to study the piers, and then huddling together once more.
    â€œGjelosh, what happened?” someone asked the idiot, who was hurrying away from the site. “Has the bridge developed a bulge?”
    â€œThe bridge, br, bad, very bad, bridge, pa, pa, fright,” he answered.
    Only a few hours later we learned the truth: the bridge had been damaged in several places during the night. Several almost inexplicable crevices, like scratches made by claws, had appeared in the central piers, the approach arches, and especially on the newly completed span. As pale as wax, the master-in-chief s assistants tried to imagine what kind of tools could have done such damage. The master-in-chief, wrapped in his cloak, stared with a glacial expression at the horizon, as if the answer might come from there.
    â€œBut these aren’t marks made by tools, sir,” one of the masons said at last.
    â€œWhat?” the master-in-chief said.
    â€œThese aren’t hammer marks, or chisel marks, or —”
    â€œWell then, what are they?” the master-in-chief asked.
    The mason shrugged his shoulders and looked around at the others. Their faces had turned the color of mud.
    â€œThe bards,” one of them muttered, “a few weeks ago at the Inn of the Two Roberts, said something about naiads and water nymphs —”
    â€œThat’s enough of that,” the master-in-chief howled, and abruptly crouched again by the damaged arch to study the cracks. He looked at them for a long time, and when he too saw that they really did not look