Free Doruntine by Ismaíl Kadaré Page A

taken much time indeed—months, even years—to complete a journey she believed had taken a single night. That might well explain the flocks of stars she thought she saw streaming across the sky. Besides, someone who believed that the ten-day-and-night journey from Bohemia (for that was the least it could take) had lasted but a single night might well feel that a hundred nights were one. And of course a person in such a state might fall prey to all sorts of hallucinations.
    In vain Stres sought to recall Doruntine’s face as it had looked when he saw her for the first time, so that he might detect some sign of mental illness.But her image eluded him. In the end he resolved to drive the theory of madness from his mind, for he feared it might dampen his zeal for the investigation. It will all be cleared up soon enough, he told himself. As soon as my man comes back from Bohemia.
    Thirty-six hours after the man’s departure, Stres was informed that some relatives of Doruntine’s husband had just arrived. At first it was rumored that her husband himself had come, but it was soon clear that the visitors were his two first cousins.
    After dispatching a second messenger to overtake the first and tell him to turn back, Stres hurried to meet the new arrivals, who had taken lodgings at the inn at the crossroads.
    The two young men were so alike in bearing and appearance that they might have been taken for twins, though they were not. They were still tired from their long journey and had not yet had time to wash or change their clothes when Stres arrived. He could not help staring at their dust-covered hair, and looked at them in so odd a way that one, with just the hint of a guilty smile, passed his fingers through his hair and spoke a few words in an incomprehensible tongue.
    â€œWhat language do they speak?” Stres asked his deputy, who had arrived at the inn shortly before him.
    â€œGod knows,” was the reply. “It sounds to me like German laced with Spanish. I sent someone tothe Old Monastery to fetch one of the monks who speaks foreign languages. He shouldn’t be long.”
    â€œI have a hard time making myself understood with the little Latin I know,” said the innkeeper. “And they massacre it too.”
    â€œPerhaps they need to wash and rest a bit,” Stres said to the innkeeper. “Tell them to go upstairs if they like, until the interpreter gets here.”
    The innkeeper passed on Stres’s message in his fractured Latin. The visitors nodded agreement and, one behind the other, began climbing the wooden stairs, which creaked as if they might collapse. Stres could not help staring at their dust-covered cloaks as he watched them go up.
    â€œDid they say anything?” he asked when the staircase had stopped creaking. “Do they know that Doruntine is dead?”
    â€œThey learned of her death and her mother’s while on their way here,” the deputy answered, “and surely other things as well.”
    Stres began pacing back and forth in the large hall, which also served as the reception room. The others—his aide, the innkeeper, and a third man—watched him come and go without daring to break the silence.
    â€œThis interpreter is taking his time,” Stres said three or four times, though he had not been waiting long.
    The monk from the Old Monastery arrived half an hour later. Stres immediately sent the innkeeperto fetch the foreigners. One behind the other they descended the wooden stairs, whose creaking seemed more and more sinister to Stres’s ear. Their hair, free of most of the journey’s dust, looked quite fair.
    Stres turned to the monk and spoke.
    â€œTell them that I am Captain Stres, responsible for keeping order in this district. I believe they have come to find out what happened to Doruntine, have they not?”
    The monk translated these words for the strangers, but they looked blankly at one another, seeming not