Doruntine (3 page)

Stres approached him. The graves, neatly aligned and covered with slabs of black stone, were identical. Their shape was reminiscent of a cross, a sword, or a man standing with his arms stretched out. At the head of each grave was a small niche for an icon and candles. Under it the dead man's name was carved.

“There's his grave,” said the deputy, his voice hushed. Stres looked up and saw that the man had gone pale.

“What's the matter?”

His deputy pointed at the grave.

“Take a good look,” he said. “The stones have been moved.”

“What?” Stres leaned forward to see what his aide was pointing to. For a long moment he examined the spot carefully, then stood up straight. “Yes, it's true. Something's been disturbed here.”

“Just as I told you,” said the deputy, his satisfaction in seeing that his chief shared his view mixed with a new surge of fear.

“But after all, that doesn't mean much,” Stres remarked.

His deputy turned, disconcerted. His eyes seemed to say, sure, a commander must preserve his dignity in all circumstances, but there comes a time to forget about rank, duty, and all that.

“No, it doesn't mean anything,” Stres said. “For one thing, the slabs could have tipped over by themselves, as happens eventually in most graves. Moreover, even if someone did move them, it might well have been an unknown traveler who moved the gravestones before perpetrating his hoax in order to make it seem more plausible that the dead man had risen from his grave.”

The deputy listened open-mouthed. He was about to say something, perhaps to raise some objection,
but Stres went on talking.

“In fact, it is more likely that he did it after leaving Doruntine near the house. It's possible he came here then and moved the gravestones before he went off.”

Stres, who now seemed weary, let his gaze wander over the field that stretched before him, as if seeking the direction in which the unknown traveler had ridden off. From where they stood they could see the two-story Vranaj house, part of the village, and the highway, which disappeared into the horizon. It was here on this ground, between the church and that house of sorrow, that the mysterious event of the night of October eleventh had occurred.
Go on ahead. I have something to do at the church. . . .

“That's how it must have happened,” Stres said. “Unless Doruntine is lying.”

His deputy kept staring at him. Little by little the color had returned to his cheeks.

“I will find that man,” Stress said suddenly. The words came harshly through his teeth, with a menacing ring, and his deputy, who had known Stres for years, felt that the passion his chief brought to the search for the unknown man went well beyond the duties of his office.

Stres issued an order that reached all the inns and most relay-stations along the roads and waterways before the day was out. In it he asked that he be informed if anyone had seen a man and woman riding the same horse or two separate mounts, or traveling together by some other means, before midnight on October eleventh. If so, he wanted to be told which roads they had taken, whether they had stayed at an inn, whether they had ordered a meal for themselves or fodder for their horse or horses, and, if possible, what their relationship
seemed to be. Finally, he also wanted to know whether anyone had seen a woman traveling alone.

“They can't escape us now,” Stres said to his deputy when the chief courier reported that the circular containing the order had been sent to even the most remote outposts. “A man and a woman riding on the same horse. Now that was a sight you wouldn't forget, would you? For that matter, seeing them on two horses ought to have had more or less the same effect.”

“That's right,” his deputy said.

Stres stood up and began pacing back and forth between his desk and the window.

“We should certainly find some sign of them, unless they sailed in on a cloud.”

His deputy looked up.

“But that's exactly what this whole affair seems to amount to: a journey in the clouds!”

“You still believe that?” Stres asked with a smile.

“Everyone believes that,” his aide replied.

“The others can believe what they like, but we can't.”

A gust of wind suddenly rattled the windows, and a few drops of rain splattered against them.

“The middle of autumn,” Stres said thoughtfully. “I have always noticed that the strangest things seem to happen in autumn.”

The room grew silent. Stres propped his forehead with his right hand and stood for a moment watching the fine rain fall. But of course he could
not stay like that for long. Through the emptiness of his thoughts, the question rose again, persistent, pressing: who could that unknown horseman have been? Within a few minutes dozens of possibilities crossed his mind. Clearly, the man was aware, if not of every detail, at least of the depth of the tragedy that had befallen the Vranaj family. He knew of the death of the brothers, and of Constantine's
bessa
. And he knew the way from that central European region to Albania. But why? Stres almost shouted. Why had he done it? Had he hoped for some reward? Stres opened his mouth wide, feeling that the movement would banish his weariness. The notion that the motive had been some expected reward seemed crude, but not wholly out of the question. Everyone knew that after the death of her sons, the Lady Mother had sent three letters to her daughter, one after the other, imploring her to come to her. Two of the messengers had turned back, claiming that it had been impossible to carry out their mission: the distance was too great, and the road passed through warring lands. In keeping with their agreement with her, they refunded the old woman half the stipulated fee. The third messenger had simply disappeared. Either he was dead or he had reached Doruntine but she had not believed him. More than two years had passed since then, and the possibility that he had brought her back so long after he set out was more than remote. Perhaps the mysterious traveler meant to extort
some reward from Doruntine, but had been unable to pass himself off to her as Constantine. No, Stres thought, the reward theory doesn't stand up. But then why had the unknown man gone to Doruntine in the first place? Was it just a commonplace deception, an attempt to kidnap her and sell her into slavery in some god-forsaken land? But that made no sense either, for he had in fact brought her back. The idea that he had set out with the intention of kidnapping her and had changed his mind en route seemed incredible to Stres, who understood the psychology of highwaymen. Unless it was a family feud, some vendetta against her house or her husband's. But that seemed implausible too. Doruntine's family had been so cruelly stricken by fate that human violence could add nothing to its distress. Nevertheless, a careful consultation of the great family's archives—the testaments, acts of succession, ancient trials—might be prudent. Perhaps something could be found that would shed a ray of light on these events. But what if it was only the trick of an adventurer who simply felt like trooping across the plains of Europe with a young woman of twenty-three in the saddle? Stres breathed a deep sigh. With all his soul he wanted to believe it, but he just couldn't. Something held him back, maybe his long years at the trade, in the course of which he had dedicated himself to hunting down crime and solving mysterious cases.

A thousand ideas whirled through his mind, but
he kept coming back to the same question: who was this night rider? Doruntine claimed that she had not seen him clearly at first; she thought he was Constantine, but he was covered with dust, and almost unrecognizable. He had never dismounted, had declined to meet anyone from his brother-in-law's family (though they knew each other, for they had met at the wedding), and had wanted to travel only by night. So he was determined to keep himself hidden. Stres had forgotten to ask Doruntine whether she had ever caught a glimpse of the man's face. He absolutely had to ask her that question. In any event, it could not reasonably be doubted that the traveler had been careful to conceal his identity. It was insane to imagine that it could really have been Constantine, although that was by no means the only issue at stake here. Obviously he wasn't Constantine, but by this time Stres was even beginning to doubt that the girl was Doruntine.

He pushed the table away violently, stood up and left in haste, striding across the field. The rain had stopped. Here and there the weeping trees were shaking off the last shining drops. Stres walked with his head down. He reached the door of the Vranaj house faster than he would have thought, strode through the long corridor where those who had come to attend the two unfortunate women were even more numerous, and entered the room where they both languished. From the door he saw Doruntine's pale face, purple ringing her staring
eyes. How could he have doubted it? Of course it was she, with that look, with those same features which that far-off marriage had not changed at all, except perhaps to sprinkle them with some intangible mystery.

“How do you feel?” he asked softly as he sat down beside her, already regretting the doubts he had harbored.

Doruntine's eyes were riveted on him. There was something unbearable in them, and Stres was the first to look away.

“I'm sorry to have to ask you this question,” he said, “but it's very important. Please understand me, Doruntine, it's important for you, for your mother, for all of us. I want to ask you whether you ever saw the face of the man who brought you back.”

Doruntine still stared at him.

“No,” she finally answered, her voice very faint.

Stres sensed a sudden rift in the delicate relations between them. He had a mad desire to seize her by the shoulders and shout, Why don't you tell me the truth! How could you have traveled for days and nights with a man you believed was your brother without ever looking into his face? Didn't you want to see him again? To kiss him?

“How can that be?” he asked.

“When he said that he was Constantine and that he had come to get me I was so confused that a terrible dread seized me.”

“You thought something bad had happened?”

“Of course. The worst thing. Death.”

“First that your mother was dead, then that it was one of your brothers?”

“Yes, each of them in turn, including Constantine.”

“Is that why you asked him why he had mud in his hair and smelled of sodden earth?”

“Yes, of course.”

Poor woman, thought Stres. He imagined the horror she must have felt if she thought, even for an instant, that she was riding with a dead man. For it seemed she must have spent a good part of the journey haunted by just that fear.

“There were times,” she went on, “when I drove the idea from my mind. I told myself that it really was my brother, and that he was alive. But. . . .”

She stopped.

“But . . . ,” Stres repeated. “What were you going to say?”

“Something stopped me from kissing him,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “I don't know what.”

Stres stared at the curve of her eyelashes, which fell now to the ridge of her cheekbones.

“I wanted so much to take him in my arms, yet I never had the courage, not even once.”

“Not even once,” Stres repeated.

“I feel such terrible remorse about that, especially now that I know he is no longer of this world.”

There was more life in her voice now, her breathing was more rapid.

“If only I could make that journey again,” she sighed, “if only I could see him just once more!”

She was absolutely convinced that she had traveled in the company of her dead brother. Stres wondered whether he ought to let her believe that or tell her his own suspicions.

“So, you never saw his face,” he said. “Not even when you parted and he said, ‘Go on ahead, I have something to do at the church'?”

“No, not even then,” she said. “It was very dark and I couldn't see a thing. And during the journey I was always behind him.”

“But didn't you ever stop. Didn't you stop to rest anywhere?”

She shook her head.

“I don't remember.”

Stres waited until her eyes, still fastened on his own, had recovered their fixed stare.

“But didn't you say that he could have been hiding something from you?” Stres asked. “He didn't want to set foot on the ground, even when he came to get you; he never so much as turned his head during the whole journey; and judging by what you've told me, he wanted to travel only by night. Wasn't he hiding something?”

She nodded.

“I thought about that,” she replied, “but since he
was dead, it was only natural for him to hide his face from me.”

“Or maybe it wasn't Constantine,” he said suddenly.

Doruntine looked at him a long while.

“It comes to the same thing,” she said, her voice calm.

“What do you mean, the same thing?”

“If he was not alive, then it's as if it wasn't him.”

“That's not what I meant. Did it ever occur to you that this man may not have been your brother, alive or dead, but an imposter, a false Constantine?”

Doruntine gestured no.

“Never,” she said.

“Never?” Stres repeated. “Try to remember.”

“I might think so now,” she said, “but that night I never had any such doubt, not for a moment.”

“But now you might?”

As she stared deeply into his eyes once more, he tried to decide just what it was that dominated that look of hers: grief, terror, doubt, some painful longing. All these were present, but there was more; there was still room for something more, some feeling indecipherable, or seemingly indecipherable, perhaps because it was a mixture of all the others.

“Maybe it wasn't him,” Stres said again, moving his head closer to hers and looking into her eyes as
though into the depths of a well. A wetness of tears rose up. She was crying again.