Three Arched Bridge by Ismaíl Kadaré Page B

outside there were walls, close by or in the distance,
    My head was splitting in two with speculation. If he had really set out to sacrifice himself of his own free will, as everybody now claimed, what must his motive have been? The desire to ensure a better life for his wife and family, with the help of the great sum of money that the road firm would pay for the sacrifice? I could have believed this suspicion of many people, but not the modest Murrash Zenebisha. Sometimes I wondered whether he had gone to die in order to put an end to a family quarrel (you don’t know what a quarrel among sisters-in-law is like), but this too was unbelievable. There had never been the least rumor of such a thing in the Zenebisha family, I sometimes asked myself whether, whatever his reasons for sacrificing himself, he had told his wife what was in his mind. And had she accepted his plan? It was impossible to believe such a thing. And then I wondered whether he perhaps did not love his wife. She had said that he sometimes went away at night, she did not know where. She had even begun to grow suspicious.
    I knew myself that this was the kind of conjecture that, although I despised, I had nevertheless acquired from that collector of customs. I strove to free myself from it, as from the walls, but I could not.
    Sometimes he would go away at night…. Was his wife really telling the truth? Were the others telling the truth? I too could have believed what was said, but that place in the victim’s neck, there between his neck and collarbone, controverted everything. I had stared at it three times, because each time it had struck me that a spot under the layer of plaster had begun to blush faintly, very faintly, like a stain. But all three times the man with the pail had splashed plaster on the corpse before I could really detect a redness.
    Enough, I thought. We have had nothing but babble and lies. We were dealing with a pure and simple crime. They had murdered Murrash Zenebisha. His mother had been the first to say the word: C6 They killed him for nothing…. Because he cast a shadow on this earth… *” They had murdered him in cold blood shortly after midnight and then walled him up. The wound, or one of his wounds, was between the neck and the collarbone, and the man with the pail had splashed plaster over him again and again to hide the possible bloodstain. It was a murder done by the road builders.
    But how had Murrash Zenebisha come to be by the bridge at night? I asked this question out loud, because 1 had the satisfaction of being able to supply a clear answer. Sometimes he would go away at night,… And so shall we do the murder ourselves? … The road builders had let slip these words at the meeting with the count. Murrash Zenebisha’s fate had been sealed on that day. And the count, withdrawing to one side, had done nothing but wash his hands like Pontius Pilate, The road builders had understood that the water people had instructed someone to damage the bridge at night, This person was the ordinary Murrash Zenebisha, He had done his job three times in a row…The fourth time they had caught and killed him. He had been very worried recently, He had something on his mind,… And last night? Last night particularly, Everywhere bards were singing about his death, There was only one possibility left to him, to give up this job, However, “Boats and Rafts” would apparently not allow the agreement to be broken. After catching him in their trap, they would not let him back out, So there was nothing for him to do but become an outlaw, or continue on his fatal path, Apparently he had chosen the second,,,. He had something on his mind, And last night? Last night particularly, Possibly this was to have been his last task for the water people, He set out as on the other occasions shortly after midnight, He dived into the water a long way from the bridge and swam up to it, trying not to make any noise,