Free Biografi by Lloyd Jones Page A

possibilities. But these tight spaces invariably deliver us to a wide boulevard or avenue, and the search begins all over again. Shkodër grows larger by the minute.
    Finally I have to beg the man to let me out. Finding Nick’s address has become a matter of pride for him.
    I wave him to the side of the road. It has come to this. The driver shrugs and pouts. He is sorry, but he is sorry about my lack of faith, too.
    I start asking directions all over again. This time a short, dapperly dressed man in a suit and tie threads his arm through mine. He apologises for his lack of English and wonders whether I can speak French, Italian, German or Russian?
    I make a rash claim to ‘having some French’.
    â€˜ Ah bien! ’ He is delighted. He is a professor of languages. Simon Pepa.
    Yes, but the Markus’ address? I push my dog-eared notebook under his nose—and he nods happily.
    His thumb and forefinger pinch the air. We are very close.
    â€˜ Près. Près. ’
    We walk for another ten minutes. It is a pleasant neighbourhood. We are back among the lanes. The last gold of the grapevines hangs on to rusted trellises. Small cottages of alabaster and stone sit like blushing brides behind walls and fences at eye level.
    At some point the Professor tips me at his elbow and we enter a small cottage. I ready myself to embrace the Markus, only to find myself being introduced to the Professor’s wife.
    I am his first foreigner, he proudly announces.
    It is already two in the afternoon. At best I have another two hours to find the Markus. After dark it’ll be a hopeless task.
    The Professor’s twenty-year-old daughter presents a glimmer of hope. She is a beautiful, honey-skinned girl with big brown eyes. In a strange barking voice she explains in English that she attended middle school with Nick’s younger brother, Arben. I had confused her the first time when I referred to Nick instead of Ardian.
    â€˜So you know the Markus?’
    â€˜Very well. Ardian’s grandmother lives two doors down.’ She says Nick used to spend his summers there.
    The Professor smiles triumphantly and I begin to relax.
    At Nick’s grandmother’s house, a woman in her mid-thirties comes to the door. As soon as she sees me, she wraps me in a warm hug. Nick has sent word ahead.
    She sends her two daughters, Alma and Nicoletta, to escort me to the Markus’ house. The address is in the very neighbourhood I had cruised through with the wild-eyed driver earlier in the afternoon. At the time I couldn’t understand why he kept asking after the ‘Markus’ instead of the name of the rruga. We arrive back here on dark.

    The truck driver’s house is larger than the Professor’s house. There is no resemblance at all between Nick, the aesthete, and his father, a ponderous grey man in his fifties. The father quietly retreats behind his wife’s excited welcome. Nick’s brother speaks a little English.
    I spill out the contents of my bag, but there is no rush to inspect the radio or the books. Nick’s father takes the cigarettes and walks out of the room with them.
    Mrs Marku brings in a tray of coffee. Since I am invited to dinner, Nick’s father, who is putting on his coat and hat, has decided that it will be a tediously long evening if we can’t understand each other. Nick’s brother, Arben, explains that his father will fetch his niece, Mimi, a schoolteacher, who lives five kilometres away. Through the window, in the lengthening shadows I glimpse Mr Marku setting off on his bicycle.
    Meanwhile I get to see the bedroom which Arben now has to himself. Dragging out a carton from under his brother’s bed, Arben says he was surprised to find how much Nick had hidden from him.
    There are a few treasured pages of The Financial Times and The Independent cadged from the tourists Nick had fished for with his quick piercing glances in the gardens across the Rozala. On two