Free Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones Page A

much better.’
    He eats with gusto, even though it’s painful to swallow. The waiter’s uniform is crumpled. He doesn’t show them much respect because he’s heard their northern accents, but none of them minds. Katrina can’t accept the fact that somebody is serving her at the table.
    â€˜Relax, Auntie, this is what they do here. It’s a restaurant.’
    â€˜I’m so ashamed. Sitting here and being served by a man! What is the world coming to?’
    â€˜But he’s a waiter. That is what he’s paid to do.’
    Their room is on the third floor. Hana is going to the college dorm for the night. In the morning she’ll get up early so none of her roommates can ask her any questions.
    As soon as they get to their room, Katrina falls asleep. Her heart has not behaved very well today. Before leaving the hospital, the village doctor gave her some pills.
    Hana and Gjergj stand out on the narrow balcony. He smokes. Down on the street, people are taking their traditional evening stroll; nobody wants to go home.
    â€˜Why do you want to make me have this surgery, dear daughter?’ Uncle Gjergj asks. ‘You know there’s no point.’
    â€˜The doctors say there’s hope.’
    â€˜They’re just experimenting on me, Hana. You’re an adult now. You’ll soon be a woman who knows about life. I’ve had my share in this lifetime. What’s the point in my hanging on any longer?’
    This must be the tenth time they’ve talked it over. His strength is leaving him. She can hear it in his voice, she can feel it in his hunched shoulders, however much effort he puts into standing up straight.
    â€˜Do it for me, Uncle Gjergj. Let them do the surgery for me.’
    â€˜I am doing all this for you. I don’t want to make you or Katrina suffer.’
    â€˜What I’m saying is I want you to give it a try. Maybe the doctors will open you up and find it’s not as serious as they’re all saying it is.’
    â€˜I feel there’s nothing to be done, Hana.’
    â€˜I beg you,’ she says, melting into tears. ‘Have the surgery. I’ve never begged you before.’
    Gjergj says nothing for a long time.
    â€˜Just let me go,’ he pleads, in the end.
    Under the balcony a military truck goes by. The soldiers are sitting in two silent rows. The streetlights tint their faces sepia.
    â€˜What about Auntie? Don’t you care about her?’ Hana says, trying one last tack.
    â€˜Of course I care about her. We have talked, Katrina and I.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜She wants me to have the surgery too.’
    â€˜You see? How can you give up? You’ve never balked at anything.’
    â€˜What do you know, little girl?’ Gjergj mumbles, his smile twisted. ‘I certainly have! Many a time … but there are so many things you don’t know. Our mountains under the communists … I’m not the man you think I am.’
    What she’s saying is heartless, she thinks. What they are saying, what she’s asking him to do, this whole sea of words, it’s all heartless.
    â€˜Just do it for me,’ she tries one last time. ‘I’m begging you on my knees. You’ve had a bullet stuck in your body for forty years and you’ve never complained. What’s a scalpel to you?’
    Hana can’t stop crying. Her chin touches her neck and the tears drip down onto her dress.
    It’s not a heart, I say, it’s a sandal of buffalo leather, it tramps and tramps, it never falls apart ‌ but treads the stony paths. 8
    â€˜Fine,’ Gjergj says. ‘I’ll do it. Now get out, before I change my mind.’
    At that hour there are no buses, just the whirring of bicycle pedals: pairs of phantom wheels and the pale luminescence of the handlebars. The darkness hides the cyclists.
    The dorm supervisor looks at her disapprovingly.
    â€˜Didn’t they teach you how to