Three Arched Bridge

29

THE RAIN CONTINUED ALL THAT WEEK, as drearily as on that day of the discussion. People say that rain like this falls once in four years. The heavens seemed to be emptying the whole of their antiquity on the earth.

In spite of the bad weather, work on the bridge did not pause for a single day. Builders stopped abandoning the site. Work on the second and third arches proceeded at speed. Sometimes the mortar froze in the cold, and they were obliged to mix it with hot water. Sometimes they threw salt in the water.

The Ujana e Keqe swelled further and grew choppier, but did not mount another assault on the bridge. It flowed indifferently past it, as if nothing had happened, and indeed, to a foreign eye there was nothing but an ordinary bridge and river, like dozens of others that had long ago set aside the initial quarrels of living together and were now in agreement on everything. However, if you looked carefully, you would see that the Ujana e Keqe did not reflect the bridge. Or, if its furrows cleared and smoothed somewhat^ it only gave a troubled reflection almost as if what loomed above it were not a stone bridge but the fantasy or labor of an unquiet spirit.

Everyone was waiting to see what the spirits of the waters would do next. Water never forgets’ old people said. Earth is more generous and forgets more quickly, but water never.

They said that the bridge was carefully guarded at night. The guards could not be seen anywhere, but no doubt they watched secretly among the timbers.