The Ghost Rider by Ismaíl Kadaré Page B

will say that the dead man brought her back. And so she finally knocks at the door. She tells her lover to stay off to one side, to be careful not to be seen; perhaps she arranges to meet him somewhere several days hence. From within the house her mother asks the expected question: With whom have you come? And she answers: With Kostandin. Her mother tells her that he is dead, but Doruntine already knows it. Her lover insists on one last kiss before the door opens, and takes her in his arms in the half-darkness. That is the kiss the old woman glimpses through the window. She is horrified. Does she believe that her son has risen from the grave to bring her daughter back to her? It is a better bet that she assumes that it is not her son, but someone unknown to her. However that may be, whether she thought that Doruntine was kissing a dead man or a living one, the horror she feels is equal. But there’s a good chance that the mother thought she saw her kissing a stranger. Her daughter’s lie seems all the more macabre: though in mourning, she takes her pleasure with unknown travellers like a common slut.
    No one will ever know what happened between mother and daughter, what explanations, curses or tears were exchanged once the door swung open.
    Events then move rapidly. Doruntine learns the fulldimensions of the tragedy and, needless to say, loses all contact with her lover. Then the dénouement. Stres’s mistake was to have asked, in his very first circular to the inns and relay stations, for information about two riders (a man and woman riding the same horse or two horses) coming into the principality. He should have asked that equal effort be concentrated on a search for any solitary traveller heading for the border. But he had corrected the lapse in his second circular, and he now hoped that the unknown man might still be apprehended, for he must have remained in hiding for some time waiting to see how things would turn out. Even if it proved impossible to capture him here, there was every chance that some trace of his passage would be found, and the neighbouring principalities and dukedoms, strongly subject to Byzantium’s influence, could be alerted to place him under arrest the moment he set foot in their territory.
    Before going home for lunch, Stres again asked his aide whether he had heard anything from the inns. He shook his head. Stres threw his cloak over his shoulders and was about to leave when his deputy added:
    “I have completed my search through the archives. Tomorrow, if you have time, I will be able to present my report.”
    “Really? And how do things look?”
    His deputy stared at him.
    “I have an idea of my own,” he replied evenly, “quite different from all current theories.”
    “Really?” Stres said again, smiling without looking at the man. “Goodbye, then. Tomorrow I’ll hear your report.”
    As he walked home his mind was nearly blank. Hethought several times of the two strangers now riding back to Bohemia, going over the affair in their own minds again and again, no doubt thinking what he, in his own way, had imagined before them.
    “You know what?” he said to his wife the moment he came in, “I think you were right. There’s a very strong chance that this whole Doruntine business was no more than an ordinary romantic adventure after all.”
    “Oh really?” Beneath her flashing eyes, her cheeks glowed with satisfaction.
    “Since the visit of the husband’s two cousins it’s all becoming clear,” he added, slipping off his cloak.
    As he sat down by the fire, he had the feeling that something in the house had come to life again, an animation sensed more than seen or heard. His wife’s customary movements as she prepared lunch were more lively, the rattling of the dishes more brisk, and even the aroma of the food seemed more pleasant. As she set the table he noticed in her eyes a glimmer of gratitude that quickly dispelled the sustained chill that had marked all their recent