tree.
Chavasse cast off while she busied herself with the motor. As it coughed into life, he pushed the punt through the encircling reeds and stepped in.
L IRI K UPI CERTAINLY KNEW WHAT SHE WAS doing. At one point, they hit rough water where the river twisted round sandbanks, spilling across ragged rocks, and she handled the frail craft like an expert, swinging the tiller at just the right moment to sweep them away from the worst hazards.
After a while, they left the Buene, turning into a narrow creek that circled through a great stagnant swamp, losing itself among a hundred lagoons and waterways.
When they finally came into the river again, it was in the lee of a large island. The mist hung like a gray curtain from bank to bank, and as they moved from the shelter of the island to cross over, he could smell woodsmoke and somewhere a dog barked.
The first houses loomed out of the mist, scattered along one side of the river, and Liri took the punt in close. She produced the tin of cigarettes from her pocket and threw it to Chavasse.
“Better have one. Try to look at home.”
“Home was never like this.”
He lit a cigarette, leaned back against the prow and watched the town unfold itself. There were fewer than five hundred inhabitants these days, that much he knew. Since the cold war had warmed up between Yugoslavia and Albania, the river traffic had almost stopped and the Buene was now so silted up as to be unnavigable for boats of any size.
The monastery lifted out of the mist, a vast sprawling medieval structure with crumbling walls, several hundred yards back from the riverbank.
The Albanian flag, hanging limply in the rain, lifted in a gust of wind, the red star standing out vividly against the black, double-headed eagle, and a bugle sounded faintly.
A little farther along the bank, forty or fifty convicts worked, some of them waist-deep in water as they drove in the piles for a new jetty. Chavasse noticed that the ones on the banks had their ankles chained together.
“Politicals,” Liri said briefly. “They send them here from all over the country. They don’t last long in the marshes when the hot weather comes.”
She eased the tiller, turning the punt in toward the bank and a small ruined chapel whose crumbling walls fell straight into the river. At the foot of the wall, the entrance to a narrow tunnel gaped darkly and Liri took the punt inside.
There was a good six feet of headroom and Chavasse reached out to touch cold, damp walls, straining his eyes into the darkness, which suddenly lightened considerably. Liri cut the motor and the punt drifted in toward a landing stage constructed of large blocks of worked masonry.
They scraped beside a flight of stone steps and Chavasse tied up to an iron ring and handed her out. Light filtered down from somewhere above and she smiled through the half darkness.
“I shan’t be long.”
She mounted a flight of stone steps and Chavasse lit another cigarette, sat on the edge of the jetty and waited. She was gone for at least fifteen minutes. When she returned, she didn’t come all the way down, but called to him from the top of the steps.
He went up quickly and she turned, opened a large oak door and led the way along a narrow passage. She opened another door at the far end and they stepped into the interior of the small chapel.
T HE LIGHTS WERE VERY DIM AND , DOWN BY the altar, the candles flickered and the Holy Mother was bathed in light. The smell of incense was overpowering and Chavasse felt a little giddy. It was a long time since he had been in church, too long as his mother was never tired of reminding him, and he smiled wryly as they moved down the aisle.
Father Shedu knelt in prayer at the altar, the brown habit dark and somber in the candlelight. His eyes were closed, the worn face completely calm, and somehow, the ugly puckered scar of the old bullet wound that had carried away the left eye seemed completely in character.
He was a man,
Chavasse cast off while she busied herself with the motor. As it coughed into life, he pushed the punt through the encircling reeds and stepped in.
L IRI K UPI CERTAINLY KNEW WHAT SHE WAS doing. At one point, they hit rough water where the river twisted round sandbanks, spilling across ragged rocks, and she handled the frail craft like an expert, swinging the tiller at just the right moment to sweep them away from the worst hazards.
After a while, they left the Buene, turning into a narrow creek that circled through a great stagnant swamp, losing itself among a hundred lagoons and waterways.
When they finally came into the river again, it was in the lee of a large island. The mist hung like a gray curtain from bank to bank, and as they moved from the shelter of the island to cross over, he could smell woodsmoke and somewhere a dog barked.
The first houses loomed out of the mist, scattered along one side of the river, and Liri took the punt in close. She produced the tin of cigarettes from her pocket and threw it to Chavasse.
“Better have one. Try to look at home.”
“Home was never like this.”
He lit a cigarette, leaned back against the prow and watched the town unfold itself. There were fewer than five hundred inhabitants these days, that much he knew. Since the cold war had warmed up between Yugoslavia and Albania, the river traffic had almost stopped and the Buene was now so silted up as to be unnavigable for boats of any size.
The monastery lifted out of the mist, a vast sprawling medieval structure with crumbling walls, several hundred yards back from the riverbank.
The Albanian flag, hanging limply in the rain, lifted in a gust of wind, the red star standing out vividly against the black, double-headed eagle, and a bugle sounded faintly.
A little farther along the bank, forty or fifty convicts worked, some of them waist-deep in water as they drove in the piles for a new jetty. Chavasse noticed that the ones on the banks had their ankles chained together.
“Politicals,” Liri said briefly. “They send them here from all over the country. They don’t last long in the marshes when the hot weather comes.”
She eased the tiller, turning the punt in toward the bank and a small ruined chapel whose crumbling walls fell straight into the river. At the foot of the wall, the entrance to a narrow tunnel gaped darkly and Liri took the punt inside.
There was a good six feet of headroom and Chavasse reached out to touch cold, damp walls, straining his eyes into the darkness, which suddenly lightened considerably. Liri cut the motor and the punt drifted in toward a landing stage constructed of large blocks of worked masonry.
They scraped beside a flight of stone steps and Chavasse tied up to an iron ring and handed her out. Light filtered down from somewhere above and she smiled through the half darkness.
“I shan’t be long.”
She mounted a flight of stone steps and Chavasse lit another cigarette, sat on the edge of the jetty and waited. She was gone for at least fifteen minutes. When she returned, she didn’t come all the way down, but called to him from the top of the steps.
He went up quickly and she turned, opened a large oak door and led the way along a narrow passage. She opened another door at the far end and they stepped into the interior of the small chapel.
T HE LIGHTS WERE VERY DIM AND , DOWN BY the altar, the candles flickered and the Holy Mother was bathed in light. The smell of incense was overpowering and Chavasse felt a little giddy. It was a long time since he had been in church, too long as his mother was never tired of reminding him, and he smiled wryly as they moved down the aisle.
Father Shedu knelt in prayer at the altar, the brown habit dark and somber in the candlelight. His eyes were closed, the worn face completely calm, and somehow, the ugly puckered scar of the old bullet wound that had carried away the left eye seemed completely in character.
He was a man,
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