Three Arched Bridge

17

NOT ONLY GLOOM-MONGERS, who always crop up on the eve of disasters, but everyone was in a state of fever. One day toward the middle of the first month of autumn, the river was more turbulent than usual There had been a storm somewhere in the mountains.

The new waters surged forward like the vanguard of an army’ but the diversion channels swallowed them with ease, not letting them flood the works,

It was now clear that the confrontation between the river and the bridge builders was at hand.

Some clear days went by, and then the skies filled with clouds, A thin, penetrating drizzle fell that seemed determined not to leave an inch of the world dry, Wrapped in sleeveless black cloaks, the laborers pressed on with their work under the rain, “How can they not be afraid?” people said. “How can their legs keep them there., now that the river is waking from its sleep?”

Yet the river seemed to bide its time, collecting its strength before attacking,

The diversion channels barely coped with one new onrush of water. But the Ujana e Keqe still did not show its mettle. Old Ajkuna said that the river would play with the bridge like a cat with a mouse.

Several more days of rain passed, and now the river’s delay was more alarming than any onslaught, Even the builders themselves, coolheaded so far, seemed to grow anxious, A few cold and distant flashes of lightning, like mute heralds, added to the terror. It has sent every sign, people said. Woe to those who fail to realize that.

The river’s attack was expected daily, even hourly, but still it did not come. “Oh, ‘Wicked Waters, is a good name,” people said. “The river knows many tricks and ruses.”

And indeed it came when no one expected it. After the days of rain the weather unexpectedly cleared, A blue sky spread itself above, blinding the eyes, and nobody thought that the river, so quiet during the days of rain, could attack now. But it struck precisely at this time.

First a roar was heard, like a thunderclap, and the river at once rushed forward. In a furious onslaught the waters overflowed the banks of the diversion channels and surged into their old bed. In moments there was pandemonium. Pits and clay-packed dykes vanished in the twinkling of an eye. The waters made trash of the planks, beams, pulleys, sieves, and general debris, which were thrown nobody could tell where, and then with redoubled force hurled themselves against the unfinished stone piers. They carried with them not only tree stumps and stones, but goats, wolves, and even drowned snakes that resembled the emblems and terrifying symbols of an army. They stormed the bridge head-on, were repulsed, lunged from the left, poured from the right, and foamed wildly below the piers. But the stone piers took no notice, Only then did people notice the master-in-chief still poised above the planks stretching from one pier to another, studying the angry surge of the Ujana e Keqe. Some people claim that he sometimes laughed.

It was clear that the Ujana e Keqe had failed in its first contest with the stone yoke they were casting over it. The debris it had swallowed, along with a drunken mason who the waves seized, I do not know how, were not much of a revenge. The water surged on, wilder than ever, and the Ujana e Keqe, colored by the clay it carried, seemed stained with blood.

People looked at the stone teeth planted in the water, and pitied the river. It will rise again, they said; it will recover from its summer sickness, and then well see what havoc it will wreak.

But two weeks passed, the river rose still higher, its waves grew stronger, and its roar grew deeper, but still it did nothing to the bridge.