Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones Page A

such beauty; now she is calmly detached. She feels grown-up and she likes it.
    â€˜You’re Hana Doda,’ she says to herself out loud. ‘Hana Doda, daughter of Felicità.’ Her mother’s name had been Happiness. Aunt Katrina always said she had had a beautiful voice. Hana remembers her singing around the house. Why was she thinking of this now?
    â€˜Now I have another problem. See, Nanë ? You’ve come along at the wrong time.’
    Everything is wrong. Even this summer, that seems like a wonderful painting but isn’t, if you look at it carefully. This summer looks more like a mediocre poem. Albanians write a lot of poetry, they’re crazy about poems, but they’re scared of telling stories. You need persistence to narrate a story, as well as discipline. Full sentences don’t allow you to cheat or be lazy. Poetry does: it’s more worldly-wise, more fleeting, more musical. Narration is for monks, inscribing manuscripts all day until they’re hunchbacks.
    â€˜Don’t you see, Nanë ? I’ve got other things to think about. Go away!’
    Hana waits until the memory of her mother fades. She can feel it shrinking fast, and then vanishing.
    She feels lost.
    She takes it out on her English dictionary with its blue, black, and yellow jacket. It’s called Hornby. Mr Hornby thinks he’s so great that he can teach you a language. She wonders whether the gentleman is still alive. Is he sad? Lonely? Ugly? She imagines him to be thin and bespectacled, not good-looking. With a pencil she scratches a picture of the imaginary Mr Hornby on the book jacket.
    â€˜Serves you right,’ she says rancorously.
    At the first light of dawn she sets off for Scutari and returns to Rrnajë late that night. Everything has gone well. She didn’t meet any wolves, and she has the drugs. When Uncle Gjergj sees she is back he looks at her with infinite love.
    The driver that had given her a ride into the city was in his fifties and had no desire to make conversation.
    â€˜So you’re Doda’s niece,’ he had said at the start of the journey. ‘I knew your dad. He was a good guy. How’s Gjergj?’
    â€˜Sick.’
    â€˜So I heard, I’m sorry.’
    That had been the end of their exchange. The truck had gone so slowly that if Hana had walked beside it she wouldn’t have had to pick up her pace.
    â€˜I do this trip once a month,’ the driver had said at the end of the journey. ‘If you want I’ll take you down every time. You know it’s dangerous, don’t you?’
    Hana had nodded.
    â€˜Has Gjergj arranged a marriage for you? Have you been promised since birth?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Be careful, girl. And give my best to your uncle.’
    Gjergj’s room smells stuffy. She changes his neck scarf, which is soaked with sweat. In the courtyard Enver is making a ruckus, bleating like crazy and kicking the door to his pen.
    â€˜You see, it wasn’t so bad after all,’ Hana whispers to the old man. ‘The pharmacist was really kind and wrote down all the instructions for me.’
    Gjergj gestures that he’s thirsty. She brings him water.
    â€˜I have to feed the animals now, then I’m going to buy a little fresh cheese.’
    Hana doesn’t know how to make cheese yet. She’ll have to learn. Aunt Katrina did everything; she can’t do very much.
    â€˜You’re a good girl,’ Uncle Gjergj mutters. ‘Such a good girl, you’re my boy. You’re like a son; the things you’re doing are men’s jobs. Going off alone and coming back in the middle of the night across the mountains. You need the courage of a man to do those things.’
    Hana laughs out loud, pleased with the compliment.
    â€˜If you’d been born in the city you would have been a real ladies’ man, Uncle Gjergj.’
    â€˜I am,’ he answers. ‘You have to go back to Tirana, get