Sworn Virgin (15 page)

Hana is smiling, sitting all alone in the cramped guardian's office. Remembering herself as Mark, whatever else it makes her feel, can't not give her pleasure. She even smiles at Jack, just like that, without saying a word. The world is at her feet. Less than three months have gone by since she left Rrnajë and here she is, thanks to Shtjefën, with a job. She's so happy that, if she could, she would give herself a big
hug.

If the job is like this first day then everything will be ok. She just needs to pay attention. She needs to be hard-working, punctual. Not be scared of the language. Speak to the drivers when they want to know things, pronouncing every word carefully. Not be in a hurry. She's new to the country, and she can say so without raising any red flags, Lila has explained over and over. In America having just arrived is no big deal. In Europe you're immediately labeled inferior, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. If you say you're Albanian you're toast. America's much better from this point of view. It's tough for newcomers, but the Americans are so used to foreigners they hardly take any notice. And then they don't pry into your private life. No questions asked. They're always going someplace else in a hurry, and they mind their own business. Hana likes the part about minding their own business more than all the rest put together.

A high-powered car is pulling into the half-empty parking lot. The woman driving is massively overweight and Hana catches herself thinking she will find it hard to get out of the vehicle. She gives her the entrance ticket, which the woman puts on her dashboard. So far, so
good.

The day goes by without incident, marked by nothing other than cars coming in and cars going out. Hana irons out the crumpled, mostly one-dollar bills with her hands and puts them into tidy piles. She goes over everything three times, just to be extra
sure.

Jack comes back to pick up the day's earnings. The guy doing the night shift is with him. From Poland originally, he speaks in monosyllabic grunts. If he were a bit friendlier, she might even tell him she's Albanian
–
after all, they were once in the same communist bloc
–
but the guy clearly has no intention of starting a conversation.

Hana waits for Shtjefën to come pick her up on the sidewalk, leaning on a streetlight. It's a cold evening. It has suddenly become winter. She focuses on the sneakers she's wearing for the first time today. They're white and blue and go well with her dark-blue suit and white shirt. The shirt has a left breast-pocket with a pink border. Hana strokes the stitching as she waits.

Shtjefën pulls up in front of her. Hana could easily get a bus home. It was only a few stops, but Lila and Shtjefën insisted.

‘Hop in,' he calls out to her. ‘Have you been waiting long?'

She climbs in, a bit distracted.

‘Is everything ok?' Shtjefën asks her. ‘Why didn't you wait at the bar instead of standing here getting cold? You had money with you, right?'

‘Everything's fine. It was easy.'

‘I told you
so.'

Shtjefën pulls away from the curb, his tires squealing. He needs a haircut and some rest, she thinks, so she decides to keep quiet.

He doesn't stop at home, but carries on driving without any explanation. In Gaithersburg he announces that they're on their way to buy her a used Honda.

‘The son of one of my workers owns a small garage, and he's giving us a great price on a car that was headed for the junkyard.'

‘Does Lila know about this?'

‘She'd tie you to the bed rather than see you go. We need to present her with a fait accompli. I'll pay, for now. You can pay me back when you have the money.'

‘Lila's not going to like
it.'

‘Your cousin is very understanding. You just have to know how to handle her,' Shtjefën says with a sly smile. ‘And I know how to handle
her.'

Hana is so happy she's ashamed of it. Her left breast is itching. This is too much all in one
day.

‘Shtjefën, I'm
…'

‘Relax,' he says, interrupting her. ‘And stop thanking me. I can't take it anymore, all day it's thank you this and thank you that. Have pity on
me!'

Less than an hour later, Hana is the proud owner of a white Honda, which she drives home extremely cautiously, tailing Shtjefën. When they get home, Jonida lets out a shrill ‘Wow!' Lila looks sad but content. Hana says she's going to buy four steaks from Whole Foods and there's no way the family can stop her, though they never shop there. It's a place for rich people who only eat organic, and the prices are way too
high.

Hana pats the Maryland drivers' license in her pocket, leaps into the twelve-year-old Honda, and takes off. She comes back with meat and salad, wine from another store, and two packs of cigarettes. She spends nearly 100 dollars.

That evening she eats, drinks, and smokes, and even Jonida seems to have very little to say about it. At around eleven, her niece falls asleep and Lila has to take her to bed. Hana has knocked back so much that she feels as drunk as a lord. When she ends up in the bathroom with her head in the toilet bowl, her cousin doesn't dare go and help
her.

‘I'm sorry, Lila. It won't happen again,' Hana says the next morning, before leaving for
work.

She parks in her reserved spot. For the rest of the day she feels foolishly proud of herself.

When she gets back home, she still has a headache. She decides to devote her evening to a map of Maryland. One day she'd like to drive as far as Annapolis, the state capital, and see a bit of Chesapeake
Bay.

Shtjefën and Lila are at the movies in Rockville.

‘They're like honeymooners,' Jonida comments. ‘God save us from these old romantics!' But she's secretly happy for them, and kissed them both on the forehead as they
left.

Auntie and niece spend no more than an hour together. Hana asks Jonida to explain a few things about the computer to her. Just the basics, she insists. But she is slow to pick it up and things need repeating. Jonida grumbles. Perhaps it's for the best, Hana thinks. I'll learn in my own time. She's happier on her own. Since she left the mountains, she misses her solitude. In the old days she would have done anything to have a bit of company. Now she feels her life is over-crowded.

It's Thursday. Summer has come with a vengeance, asphyxiating in its humidity. Hana has not touched alcohol in six months, since she got drunk on her first day of work. Tonight, however, she decides to buy a bottle of wine. She hurriedly steps out of the studio apartment she rented three weeks ago. It's noisy and cramped, overlooking the chaotic traffic of the Rockville Pike, and fifteen minutes from Lila and Shtjefën's place. It's 600 dollars a month, two months' deposit hands down. She signed a contract, which made her anxious. Pages and pages of quibbling articles full of legal terms that sent her running for her dictionary to look them up with meticulous diffidence.

In the neighborhood store, the young salesperson short-changes her by five dollars. She demands her correct change and he apologizes. Hana smiles.

Equally hurriedly, she returns to her apartment. When she opens the door she stops on the threshold. She is satisfied with what she sees. After a day's cleaning the apartment is as spotless and tidy as a hospital.

Everything is under control, she thinks. Just carry on as you are doing, calmly. First, drink a glass of wine. Then take your clothes off slowly and observe your naked body. Then make love to yourself and see how you
do.

She carries out the first part of the plan
–
a glass of wine, a toast to herself, a slight tipsiness to coax her on
–
but the wine fails to do its job. She applies herself to the second part, but when she tries to make love to herself she feels nothing but embarrassment.

‘You're pathetic,' she sneers. And goes to
bed.

Before falling asleep, though, she swears to herself that the following Thursday, her day off, she will have a serious day of reckoning with her body. It's not enough just to touch yourself until you feel sore. She reaches the conclusion that she must study herself in the mirror. Deal with the sight of her flesh. Look at herself. She has a whole week to work on it. Otherwise why spend all that money on the mirror she hung in the corridor? She bought it in Ikea for thirty dollars. The hum of the air conditioning unit rubs her nerves raw. She tunes into it for a while and slides into sleep.

Seven days later she has an appointment with the mirror.

Let's take these rags off, she says to herself.

The hum of the air conditioning is still there, accompanied this time by the low rumble of the fridge. She turns the air conditioning unit off and closes the blinds. The building opposite is very close and there are no curtains on the windows.

She takes off her light-blue cotton t-shirt, but leaves her bra on. She takes her slippers off and places them carefully in a corner of the corridor, near the table with the phone on it. She takes her jeans off. The sky-blue panties she bought are a bit too big; at the next sales she'll buy some that fit better. Now she knows she needs extra small. She positions herself in front of the mirror.

She looks the other way and unclasps her bra. The air in the room is getting close. She closes her eyes and works her thumbs under the blue elastic. Her fingers meet over her flat stomach
–
every woman's dream, Lila says. She can feel a vein pulsing somewhere under her skin, to the left of her belly button. She keeps her eyes shut and shifts her hands downwards.

She slowly pulls down her panties, to her knees, to her ankles, folds them and puts them on the table. They are her last barrier of defense. She goes back to her original position and opens her eyes, being careful not to meet her own
gaze.

She has no idea whether what she sees is beautiful or not. She's seen so few naked bodies in her life: Aunt Katrina when she was already old, and Uncle Gjergj when he was dead and they had to prepare him for the wake. She can't remember ever seeing her mother in the
nude.

She's happy that this time at least she's getting over her embarrassment. She feels better than she thought she would. She's spent so many years thinking about and fearing this moment and now it's just an ordinary instant of time, crudely banal, not at all special.

Stripping off in the freezing cold
kulla
and throwing water over yourself while standing in a copper washstand was not the same. For one thing there were no mirrors, and anyway she was Mark then. The rigors of mountain life crept into your most hidden thoughts. You did whatever the Doda family code of honor required you to do, and looking at your own naked body was simply wrong. That was the ancient code of the mountains. The Kanun inspired the greatest fear of all. It was as powerfully outlined and yet obscure as a recurring nightmare.

Hana tries to bring her attention back to her body. The man that she thought would still be tenaciously inhabiting her is no longer there. That man was only a carapace. Lila was right: Mark Doda's life had been no more than the sum total of the masculine gestures Hana had forced herself to imitate, in the skin worn leathery by bad food and lack of attention. Mark Doda had been a product of her iron
will.

All that remains of that earlier existence are the sticking-out ribs and straight, shapeless legs she sees in the mirror. The breasts are no bigger than a young girl's. Hana feels her vulnerable optimism begin to crumble and she puts her clothes back on quickly before it's too
late.

She goes into the tiny kitchen and makes herself a Turkish coffee. Lila has given her a
xhezve
coffeepot to brew it in. She watches the black liquid rise into a froth and takes it off the burner. She drinks it black, without sugar. She rinses out the cup. Then she calls Lila, who immediately asks her if anything's happened. Since Hana went to live on her own, Lila imagines disaster striking all the
time.

‘Nothing. I just wanted to say
hi.'

‘There's something else,' Lila insists.

‘I looked at myself in the nude. I didn't look so
bad.'

Hana can sense her cousin smiling at the other end of the
line.

‘I never doubted it,' Lila says. ‘But there was no convincing
you.'

‘I think you need to help me with stuff like body cream and all that. My skin is really
dry.'

Lila asks her if, by any chance, she's asking her to come over right away. Hana pauses. Then she confesses it would be great if Lila could sleep at her place, just tonight.

‘I'm coming. I'll throw some clothes on and be right on over.'

‘Thanks, Lila.'

They've turned the lights off. They both stare at the ceiling without saying a word. The bed is a queen size, not really big enough for two people, especially with one of them Lila's size. They bought it in a Salvation Army store. It creaks even when you don't shift your weight. Hana has christened it ‘Jim.' In Albanian the word for ‘bed' is masculine; in English things aren't masculine or feminine. So she calls this bed ‘Jim.' Who knows whom he's arguing with to make such a racket. Maybe he remembers when he was still in the forest and couples used to lean on him to make love. He must miss the forest.

Hana enjoys giving names to things in the house. Not everything, just the big pieces of furniture. She started this game with Jonida, and her niece loved
it.

Lying next to her, Lila smells of
soap.

‘How are you going to live like this, Hana?' she murmurs. ‘All your life on your
own?'

‘Every now and then, you'll come. Like tonight. And then it'll be nice.'

‘It's sad all the same.'

‘No it isn't.'

‘How come you never get angry? If I were in your position I'd go crazy.'

The veiled light of a lamppost and the distant roar of traffic cut through the silence. It's not a great area to live in. They say it's not safe. But Hana doesn't feel any danger when she goes out. And anyway, she can pay the rent here with the little she makes at the parking lot, and it's not far from Lila's.

‘You didn't answer my question,' Lila pushes. ‘How come you never get angry?'

‘Who should I get angry with?'

‘I don't know … ' Lila pauses as she rests her hands behind her head. ‘With your crippled life.'

‘Crippled? Well. I did feel angry, the first year after Uncle Gjergj died. But it wasn't really anger.'

They listen to the night.

‘Have you ever been in love?' Lila asks
her.

‘Once. I think that's what it was. There was a boy. I could have loved him, but he left for France. He left before it turned into love.'

‘Did he know you liked him? Did you ever tell
him?'

‘Kind
of.'

‘Kind of
how?'

‘We were in Albania, Lila.' Hana smiles up at the ceiling. ‘You keep on forgetting.'

‘Some things you forget, you're right.'

They stop talking for a while.

If you're a woman and you're Albanian, and you're from the mountains, and you're Catholic but your guilty-as-hell Christ was banned by the communists, then you don't have much choice but to try to suppress all those things they forced down your throat and had the gall to call
life.

It wasn't life. It was the annihilating breath of fear. It was pain a whisper away from the atrocious pleasure of hearing death knock at the door, then move on. It was a daily ration of menace, a nightmare you couldn't escape.

In order not to go crazy, you try to forget, though of course you still carry the burden of your past under the cloak of everyday life. At that moment, in the middle of the night, it was sufficient to say, ‘We were in Albania, Lila,' for it all to come rushing
back.

‘Tell me about the boy you liked.'

Hana tells her every detail, more than she has ever confessed, even to herself. She had written at least twenty poems dedicated to Arben Leska. They had helped her keep her head straight during the first few winters she had spent as a man, in between drinking raki and slapping the shoulders of the men of Rrnajë.

One day up there in the mountains a group of journalists had arrived to shoot a documentary. The communists had just left. Albania was in chaos. One of the foreigners
–
they were Italians
–
had donated a CD player, together with a few discs, to the village hut. There was a song about the Ten Commandments she had liked and she understood some of the words.

Honor your mother, honor your father, and honor his stick too.

She had honored what she had to honor. Now it was all over and she didn't want to ruminate over her pain forever.

‘Shall we go to sleep?' Lila asks. Without waiting for an answer, she turns on her side and falls asleep, snoring gently.

The next morning it is raining just enough to wash away the defects of the roads and buildings around her. Lila has already gone, leaving behind a waft of cheap perfume.

Hana makes an effort to do something about her appearance. She's wearing the same pants, same shirt, same shoes. But she has two lipsticks. One is discreetly pink, the other a cherry red. This morning she chooses the bolder one and she's happy with her choice. As she goes out she looks back fondly at her apartment.

She climbs into her car and strokes the steering wheel before firing the engine. She loves Route 355. She knows every junction, every exit indicating a no through road. She even has a special feeling for the long sequence of traffic lights inviting her to pass, nearly always green for her. As she's driving she thinks back to the evening before in Lila's company.

It's not true that she wants to forget Rrnajë. It's not true at all. She may never find a man who's prepared to love her. She may never even receive a caress, even by mistake. She may be a parking-lot attendant until the day she dies. At the end of her life she'll probably speak excellent English. But somewhere in the middle, in the folds of all these maybes, sooner or later, she'll go back to the village for a last goodbye.

It's not a matter of settling accounts, or of having something to show
off.

It's a matter of love for love's sake. She has a debt of love to Rrnajë. It's as simple as that. And that's how it will always
be.