The Ghost Rider by Ismail Kadare

Author:Ismail Kadare [Kadare, Ismail]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, General, Albania, Brothers, Superstition, Mothers and Daughters
ISBN: 9781847679093
Publisher: Canongate UK
Published: 1986-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Despite the efforts of Stres’s men, acting in concert with Church officiants who lectured the faithful day after day, those who believed that Doruntine had returned with her lover were many fewer than those inclined to think that the dead man had brought her back.

Stres himself examined the list of people who had been out of the district between the end of September and 11 October. The idea that Doruntine might have been brought back by one of Kostandin’s friends so that his promise might be fulfilled came to him from time to time, but each time it struck him as hardly credible. Even after the complete list of absentees had been submitted to him and he found, as he had hoped, that the names of four of the dead man’s closest friends were on it, he could not bring himself to accept the conjecture. After all, hadn’t he himself been away on duty during just that time? On the night he got back his cloak had been so filthy that his wife had asked, Stres, just where have you been? Doubt is the mind’s first action, and just as he had suspected others, so others had the right to suspect him. And in any event, Kostandin’s friends had little trouble proving that all four had been at the Great Games held annually in Albania’s northernmost principality. Two of them had even taken part and had won prizes.

In the meantime, it would soon be forty days since the death of mother and daughter. The day would be celebrated according to custom, and the mourners would certainly sing their distressing ballads, without changing a damned word. Stres was well acquainted with the obtuse stubbornness of those little old women. On the seventh day after the deaths, also celebrated according to custom, they had changed nothing despite the warning he had sent them, and they had done the same on the four Sundays that followed. The old crows will caw for another few days, the priest had said, but in the end they’ll be quiet. Stres was not too sure about that.

One day he saw them making their way in single file to the abandoned house to take up their mourning, as was the custom. Stres stood, tall and still, at the roadside, dressed in his black cape with the white antler on its collar signifying his rank as an officer of the prince, and he watched the women pass by, dressed all in black, with their cheeks already wetted by the tears they had yet to shed, paying him no attention at all. Stres surmised that they had recognised him, nonetheless, for he thought he could detect in their eyes a glint of irony directed at him, the destroyer of legends. He nearly burst out laughing at the thought that he was engaged in a duel with these mourners, but to his astonishment the thought suddenly turned into a shiver.

In the meantime, the archbishop, to everyone’s surprise, had remained at the Monastery of the Three Crosses, though Stres was no longer annoyed about it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.