Broken April Read Online Free PDF

those strangers, he had indeed picked up his pace.
    Now he was quite alone on the road, which crossed a narrow tableland furrowed by old watercourses. Around him the fields were desolate and untilled. He thought he heard the rumbling of distant thunder and looked up. A single airplane was flying slowly among the clouds. Wonderingly his eyes followed its flight for a while. He had heard that in the neighboring district a passenger plane flew by once a week, from Tirana to a far-off foreign country in Europe, but he had never seen it before.
    When the airplane disappeared in the clouds, Gjorg felt a pain in his neck, and only then realized that he had stared at it for a long time. The plane left a great emptiness behind it, and Gjorg sighed unawares. Suddenly he felt hungry. He looked around for a fallen tree trunk or stone to sit upon and eat the bread and goat cheese he had brought along, but on either side of the road there was only the naked earth, dried watercourses, and nothing more. I’ll go on a little further, he said to himself.
    And after another half-hour of walking, he made out the roof of an inn in the distance. He traversed almost at a run the stretch of road leading to it, stopped for a moment before the door, then went into the building. It was an ordinary inn, like all the others in the mountain districts, with no signboard, the roof steep-pitched, smelling of straw, and with a large common room. On either side of a long oaken table with many scorch marks, some customers were sitting on chairs of the same wood. Two of them were bending down to bowls of beans, eating greedily. Another stared vacantly at the planks of the table, his head supported by his hands.
    As he sat down on one of the chairs, Gjorg felt the muzzle of his rifle touch the floor. He slipped the weapon from his shoulder, set it down across his thighs, and, with a shake of his head, threw back the soaked hood of his cloak. He felt the presence of other people behind him, and only then noticed that on either side of the stairway that led to the upper storey, other mountaineers were sitting on black sheepskins and woolen packs. Some of them, leaning against the wall, were eating corn bread that they dipped in whey. Gjorg thought that he would get up from the table, and like them, take out his bread and his cheese from his bag, but at that moment the smell of beans reached his nostrils and at once he wanted terribly a plate of hot beans. His father had given him a coin, but it was not clear to Gjorg whether he could really spend it or if he was supposed to bring it back unspent. Meanwhile, the innkeeper, whom Gjorg had not been aware of until then, appeared before him.
    â€œGoing to the
Kulla
of Orosh?” he asked. “Where are you from?”
    â€œFrom Brezftoht.”
    â€œThen you must be hungry. Would you like to have something?”
    The innkeeper was skinny and deformed. Gjorg thought the man must be a sharper, because while saying, “Would you like to have something?” instead of looking him in the eye, he stared at the black band on Gjorg’s sleeve, as if to say, “If you’re about to pay five hundred
groschen
for the murder you did, the world won’t come to an end if you spend a couple of them in my inn.”
    â€œWould you like to have something?” the innkeeper asked again, turning his eyes from Gjorg’s sleeve at last but still not looking at his face but at some place off to the side.
    â€œA plate of beans,” said Gjorg. “How much will it be? I’ve got my own bread.”
    He blushed, but he had to ask the question. Not for anything would he spend any part of the money set aside for the blood tax.
    â€œA quarter
groschen
,” said the innkeeper.
    Gjorg breathed a sigh of relief. The innkeeper turned away, and when he came back a moment later with a wooden bowl full of beans in his hand, Gjorg saw that he had a squint. As if to forget, he bent his head over the bowl