Chronicle in Stone

If an animal has to be sacrificed when a new bridge is built, what will it take to build a whole new world?

I couldn't get to sleep. The book lay nearby. A thin object on the divan. So strange. Between two cardboard covers were noises, doors, howls, horses, people. All side by side, pressed tightly against one another. Boiled down to little black marks. Hair, eyes, voices, nails, legs, knocks on doors, walls, blood, beards, the sound of horseshoes, shouts. All docile, blindly obedient to the little black marks. The letters run in mad haste, now here, now there. The a's, f's, y's, k's all run. They gather together to create a horse or a hailstorm. They run again. Now they create a dagger, a night, a murder. Then streets, slamming doors, silence. Running and running. Never stopping.

The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

I could not understand how people could not like something as beautiful as the aerodrome. But I had lately become convinced that in general people were pretty boring. They liked to moan for hours on end about how hard it was to make ends meet, about the money they owed, the price of food, and other similar worries, but the minute some more brilliant or attractive subject come up, they were struck deaf.

Winter hurled more wind and rain at the city than it ever had before. Clouds dashed about in all directions emptying their thunder, hail and rain. The horizon was choked in fog.

Can a country's people be better than its planes?

Sunday had spread all over the city. It looked as if the sun had smacked into the earth and broken into pieces and chunks of wet light were scattered everywhere -- in the streets, on the window panes, on puddles and roofs. I remembered a day long ago when Grandmother had cleaned a big fish. Her forearms were splattered with shiny scales. It was as if she had Sunday in her whole body. When my father got angry, he had Tuesday.

(In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.)

Thick smoke like a herd of black horses was rising over the massive building and being blown around by the wind.

Ky ishte një qytet i pjerrët, ndoshta më i pjerrëti në botë, që i kishte thyer të gjitha ligjet e urbanistikës. Nga shkaku i pjerrësisë së madhe ndodhte që në nivelin e pullazit të njërës shtëpi gjendeshin themelet e tjetrës, dhe me siguri ky ishte i vetmi vend në botë ku kalimtari po të rrëzohej, në vend që të shembej në gropën ndanë udhe, mund të binte mbi pullazin e ndonjë shtëpie të lartë. Këtë gjë më mirë se kushdo e dinin pijanecët. Ishte me të vërtetë një qytet shumë befasues. Ti mund të ecje rrugës dhe po të doje, mund të zgjatje pak krahun e të vije kësulen tënde mbi majën e një minareje. Shumë gjëra këtu ishin të pabesueshme dhe shumëçka ishte si në ëndrra.

At street corners, where walls join, I thought I could see some familiar features, like outlines of human faces, the shadows of cheekbones and eyebrows. They are really there, caught in stone for all time, along with the marks left by earthquakes, winters and scourges wrought by men.

Të shikosh. Sa gjë e pashpjegueshme! Ja, unë drejtoj fytyrën nga lagjet e poshtme të qytetit dhe sytë, si dy pompa të fuqishme, fillonin të thithnin dritë dhe pamje të ndryshme: tymtarë, ndonjë dru fiku të vetmuar, rrugë, kalimtarë. E ndjenin ata që unë po i thithja? Mbyll sytë. Stop. Rrjedha ndalet. I hap sytë. Rrjedha vazhdon.

Their bodies were like corpses ready for embalming, from which all innards likely to rot had already been removed. Superfluous emotions like curiosity, fear and lust for gossip or excitement had been shed along with the useless flesh and excess fat. Javer once said that Granny Shano could as easily have grabbed the ear of Benito Mussolini himself as the Italian officer’s.

The days went by without incident and often without their name. When you'd unpacked the hours from the day and then the night and piled them all up, you could toss the boxes they came in, which is all that "Wednesday" or "Friday" really are.

My streets, my cistern. My old house. Its beams, floorboards and staircase creaked slightly, almost imperceptibly, with a dry, uniform, almost constant cracking sound. What’s wrong? Where does it hurt? It seemed to be complaining of aches in its bones, in its centuries-old joints.