To the balcony in front/ Sunday's story by Agim Xhafka

2024-05-12 10:01:00, Kulturë CNA

As soon as I returned from school for lunch, after eating the warm dish that my grandmother brought to the table, I would take a break on the windowsill before starting to prepare the lessons for the next day. I supported my elbows, put my hands on my cheeks. I put my face close to the glass and looked at the palace in front of me.

No intention, just to graze the eyes ie. But since the people on the other side were close, I could see their eyes, and even if I concentrated I could understand the words they uttered from the movements of their lips. So I put it off for a few minutes. As far as the grandmother approached, who always asked me:
- Did the beauty come out?

She had her favorite term for women who were starstruck in appearance. He didn't know the words of our age, peach, swoon at your sight, my magic, etc., etc. She punctuated the conversation. She said beautiful and I understood a miss of the world, not of the palace anymore. While he was talking like that, I looked at the balcony of the third floor. Almost at three o'clock in the morning, Zhani appeared there, that's what they called him. She got married a few months ago to Gole, the generic Çalaman.

On the day of the wedding, Jean took her seat on the balcony like the queen of England on her throne. He would sit there in the corner and stare up. As if he saw someone on the roof top. The deep evening occupied her motionless. Golja was sticking out his muzzle at the adjacent window at that time. He was dark-skinned, but he looked blacker because he worked with oils and diesel for the engines he fixed. And he could see, but not up. He looked left and right.

Like those cars that are driven by remote control. That's how the hours passed. Zhani on Golja's balcony next door, by the kitchen window. They did not see each other. Grandma and I both looked at them.
- How slandered the husband is, - I said to my grandmother.
And it was strange how that female omen married her father almost at her age. I really liked that creature and often brought it to my dreams since high school. But I didn't break down since Golja had filled his mind. If he were so smart, he would be an engineer, or a doctor, or... I couldn't figure out the riddle until one day my mother briefly explained it to me.
- Well, he took it so beautifully that he is NE. She is THEM.

I didn't understand anything when he told me the first time. But I did not ask further. In the meantime, every afternoon I looked at the miss's balcony. That's what I called it. Jean sat there like a statue. Eyes up and stiff for hours. On warm days, a bird came to him. I am not afraid of her.
- The birds also love the beautiful, - always said the grandmother.

In winter as well, but not without moving. He was shivering from the cold and over his head was a rug from the ones we put at the foot of the bed. It was cold and he protected himself with that rag that shook according to the vibrations of his body. But he never played from that corner of the balcony. There, stoic, like the border guards of the pyramids. Begging overwhelmed me, so I asked my mother about WE and THEM.
- WE are us, she started.

He saw that I was laughing because it was known that WE were us.
-It has another meaning. I mean WE are the majority who live well, who have the right to leave for example from Korça to Tirana. That we go and buy in the store. That we send children to university, that we employ doctors, teachers, doctors. That we get regular leave every year, that we go to the beach sometimes, that...

After resting a bit, he continued:
- THEY are them. That they walk on the street and no one talks to them. Those who don't go to school, who have to get permission to come from the village to the city, whose families have them in prison, who lead a difficult life, who...

As much as I want to say, I don't understand anything, she summed it up:
- So Zhani is THEM. She could not marry because no one takes a wife from THEM from US. That's why Golen admitted that Golja was stubborn, courageous and took the danger in his eyes.

At that moment I remembered my friend Marjana. I had it in my class for years. Then I would see her from the school window when she and her mother would run to the fields to pick the vegetables that were sold in the market. She was expelled from school because someone reported that she had a ballistic grandfather. So Marjana became ATA. But I marry him, not let it be THEM, I promised myself. And Marjana.
From that moment I saw two worlds in one house.

WE were Golja at the window, THEY that Zhani was at the balcony. In fact, I loved Zhan, he attracted me. But I felt sorry for both. Even Golja, she too. I saw the two of them, who were never together. Jean alone in the kitchen until her husband returned from work. Then again alone on the balcony.

Sometimes in the company of birds. The goal in company with himself. She really survived by that man, but until she spent a minute with him, it became clear that her heart did not accept it. Halli had thrown it into that pond.
After I went to university, when I returned to Korça, I didn't have time to sit by the window. So for a few years I forgot to look from the opposite balcony. Until one day, it was summer, I looked across the balcony...Golen. He used to live at the place of... Zhan. Still, just like her.

- What about Zhan? - I asked my mother.
-Died. Got plevit from frosty days.
I felt pain, but I didn't ask how he died, was he hospitalized, did people come to the funeral, did they put flowers, did the birds sing at his grave, did he have a brother, sister, mother or father? It was pointless to ask. That at that time there was only one answer. In short, no.
I felt guilty for being WE. I cried for ALL OF THEM. /CNA