Chronicle in Stone

DRAFT OF A MEMORIAL PLAQUE

A very long time later I came back to the grey immemorial city. My feet timidly trod the spine of its stone-paved streets. They bore me up. You recognised me, you stones. Often, striding along wide lighted boulevards in foreign cities, I somehow stumble in places where no one ever trips. Passers-by turn in surprise, but I always know it’s you. You emerge from the asphalt all of a sudden and then sink back down straight away.

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

Grandmother Selfixhe, Xhexho, Aunt Xhemo, Grandma, Kako Pino – all are gone. But 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.