THE SHALA VALLEYS
“It is called ‘The Mountain Song,’” he said. “But it isn’t one of the songs of the trails; it is a song of the large villages of Kossova. I think it isn’t more than fifty or sixty years old, because it is a love song. Love songs are new in Albania, and you find them only in the villages.” And he sang:
“How beautiful is the month of May
When we go with the flocks to the mountains!
On the mountains we heard the voice of the wind.
Do you remember how happy we were?
“In the month of May, through the blossoming trees,
The sound of song is abroad on the mountains.
The song of the nightingale, ge re ge re ge re.
Do you remember how happy we were?
“I would I had died in that month of May
When you leaned on my breast and kissed me, saying,
‘I do not wish to live without you.’
Do you remember how happy we were?
“I wish again for the month of May
That again we might be on the mountains,
That again we might hear the mountain voices.
Have you forgotten those days of beauty?”
Again and again he sang it, while we tried to follow with our voices those unwritten notes that express so much more clearly than any words the beauty and fleetingness of spring. And when, unexpectedly, we came upon five young men drawn up in a line to greet us, we could not believe that the way had been so short and that we had come to the village of Shala.
It was indeed Shala, and in a moment we were being welcomed by the padre and escorted up a stone stairway into his rooms above the church.
These were better rooms than Padre Marjan’s; the windows were not broken and the walls were solid. But they were bitterly cold, and this priest was not our Father Marjan. He was older, squarer, more sturdy, his hair was iron gray, and his presence was commanding—so commanding that it was a bit chilly. He led us formally into a large, bare room, where there were a long table and four hand-made chairs; he gave us each a chair and himself remained standing, talking with grave formality, in Albanian, to Perolli. Little pools of water spread around our feet, as though we were umbrellas.
We sat there half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. There was no fire; the room had the feeling of a room that has never had a fire in it. We suggested to Perolli that he take us into the kitchen to get warm, but he silenced us with a glance; indeed, it was obvious that we were in the hospitable hands of the priest and that it would be an unforgivable affront to make such a suggestion to him.
We were so cold from the first, holding ourselves so tight to prevent our shivering from becoming uncontrollable, that I do not know when the real chills began. It was Alex’s gray-blue lips and cheeks that first alarmed me. I said to Perolli that he must get us warmed. He said that before long we would have something to eat, and that would warm us.
Then I saw Alex’s cheeks turn to a hot, burning red, and I said: “Perolli! You’ve got to get Alex a chance to get into dry clothes. Can’t you see she’s ill?”