THE CHIEFS OF SHALA PROBATE A WILL--WE VISIT THE HOUSE OF LULASH--A
JOURNEY TO UPPER THETHIS.
I may say that such agitators will have a very bad time of it, as
doubtless all agitators deserve to have, since all agitators always
have had it. There was a conference that afternoon in the padre’s
bedroom, and this time it was the padre who wanted the principle of
private property established. A man had died and left a piece of land
to the Church, and the padre wanted the land to build the school on.
Four chiefs of Shala sat beside the desk, on a bench brought in for the
purpose, and Padre Marjan, gaunt and earnest in his Franciscan robe,
talked the case out before Perolli. (Perolli was no longer a hunted man
who might be turned over to the Serbs; he was now an honored guest,
emissary from an allied tribe, whose words were heard with respect.)
Padre Marjan had written down the testator’s dying words in a notebook.
He read them, those little mysterious marks on paper. They said that
the man had made much land--every foot of earth is made by incredible
labor of uprooting bowlders and building stone walls to catch
washed-down soil--and he felt that he was leaving enough land to the
tribe to stand as his contribution, without this one small piece. That
piece he wished the tribe to give to the Church.
There was also a statement from the man’s wife, saying that her husband
had long wished the Church to have that piece of land, and that she and
her children wished it also.
“Those words are written words,” said Perolli, gravely, the eyes of all
upon him. “Therefore they are holy words; they are as the words of the
saints.”
“That is doubtless so,” said one of the chiefs. “But this man was not
a saint, and, besides, how can he give away land? Land belongs to the
tribe of Shala.”
“It is not as though I wished to take the land from Shala,” said Padre
Marjan. “I do not want it for myself. I wish to build a school upon it,
and the school will be for all the children of Shala. It will be for
the good of the tribe, that their children can learn to read and write.”
“Glory to your lips,” said another chief. “But since it is for the
children of Shala, let it be built on the land of Shala. Build our
school upon it, and all our tribe will bless you.”
“But this man left the land to the Church, for the welfare of his soul.
It is written here upon this paper that the land belongs to the Church.
It is the Church that will build the school in Thethis; I myself am
already teaching your children, and even when the new teacher comes
from Tirana the school will be under my care. I am the servant of the
Church in Thethis, and this land must belong to the Church.”
“We will think about it,” said the chiefs.
“Shall it be said,” demanded the padre, “that the Americans have come
from far across strange seas to bring money to build a school for the
children of Thethis, and that the people of Thethis will not give even
one small piece of land?”
“But,” said I to Frances, “why do you want to take land from the tribe
and give it to the Church?”
“The Church is the only light they have up here; the only center of
inspiration and learning,” said Frances. “See how the people come to
the padre’s kitchen; see what he means to them. I’m not a Catholic, but
can’t you see that if the school is to be a community center the Church
must have it? They don’t know how to make it what we want it to be,
themselves.”
“Very well,” said the chiefs. “You may have the land, Padre Marjan.”
My opangi had arrived. The edges of the leather had been turned upward
and joined across the toes by an intricately woven network of rawhide
thongs. Another network made a heel piece, and there were thongs to go
around the ankles. With the opangi came a pair of short, knitted purple
socks reaching just to the ankle, where they ended in points bound with
black braid and stiff with gold and silver embroidery. These were
really separate linings to the stiff and hard opangi, which had to be
soaked a long time in water and put on wet, in order to get them on at
all.
Very conscious of my feet, which seemed large and unwieldy flopping
objects at the ends of my legs, I went across the flat, wet fields with
Perolli to drink coffee in the house of Lulash.
The house of Lulash was different from any of the others we had seen.
It stood on a castlelike rock; we went up to it by a stairway cut
in the side of a cliff that rose almost sheer for so far that the
waterfall pouring down it looked like a motionless streak of snow near
the top. A natural bridge of rock crossed the little space between the
cliff and the rock on which the house of Lulash was built; a furious
little stream roared beneath us as we crossed the bridge, and then
there was another stairway leading up to the house.
Lulash and a dozen men and women of his household stood outside his
door to receive us. No rifles were fired. We passed through a double
line of salutes and greetings and into a high-arched stone doorway.
There was a little hall, floored and walled with stone, and a massive
stone stair leading upward. This we climbed, and were in a large
whitewashed room, lighted by a window and furnished with beautifully
painted chests and a few hand-woven rugs. But this was not the only
room; there were others, and, leading us through several arched stone
doorways, Lulash brought us into the living room, where I exclaimed,
“My house in San Francisco!”
It was exactly the same--long, wide, with the large gray stone
fireplace in the center of one wall, folded blankets of goats’ wool
piled like cushions around it; the alcove where my bookshelves used
to be was there--an old carved chest stood in it; and there were my
windows, where the nasturtiums used to grow and the orange curtains
frame the blues of San Francisco Bay and the Berkeley hills and the
sky. I went to those windows at once. But, no, the magic departed;
there was only the flat wet lands of Thethis below me, the stone houses
and stone fences, and beyond them the blue and purple and white and
black and rose color of the snow-crested mountains with a hundred
waterfalls. Beautiful, but like the stranger’s face that shatters the
wild, irrational expectation of having found a friend in an impossible
place. I turned my back upon those windows.
But it was, it was the living room that I remembered! The gray
walls--but these were of plaster; the black floor; the huge gray stone
fireplace. Even the rug on the wall, where my treasured shawl used to
be. “It _is_ my house!” I said, while Perolli looked as though I had
suddenly gone mad, and all the others stood concealing their amazement.
“Tell them that it is exactly like my house at home, far away on the
other side of the world.” And I sat down on a pile of folded blankets
before the fire, not yet sure that I was not dreaming and that the
strange chests and stranger figures of turbaned men and barbarically
dressed barefooted women would not vanish when I awoke.
“I did not think,” said Lulash, “that any of our houses would be as
fine as an American house.” He was so pleased that his hand quivered a
little on the long handle of the tiny brass pot in which he was making
the coffee. So I told them that only our finest houses are of stone,
that my house was of wood, and much smaller than his. But all our
houses had windows, I said.
“Yes,” said Lulash, wistfully. “Windows are very good; I always wish
that all our houses had windows. But first we must have a _besa_ of
peace among all the tribes; it is not safe now to have windows, a man
never knows when his tribe will be ‘in blood’ and enemies will shoot
him through windows. You see that mine are so placed that it would be
difficult to shoot through them, and I have heavy shutters for closing
them at night, when the firelight makes it easier to see us from
outside.”
But he was pleased that I praised his windows; he had gone through
many other tribes and down into Scutari to bring up the glass of
which he had heard, and made them with his own hands. They were on
leather hinges so that they would open and let in the air; he said he
had observed that sunshine and air were good things, and, if good
outdoors, why not good in houses? “But it will be a long time before my
people can have windows,” he said, sadly.
He did not think it was good to keep the sheep and goats with the
family, either; all his flocks were driven at night into their own
quarters, on the lower floor of the house.
Houses are the most endless subject in the world; all of humanity
and its history is expressed in houses, and while the coffee cup was
passed back and forth I told about American houses; about the log
cabins of the pioneers, such a little time ago as crude as those of
the Albanians; about the loophole glassless windows, and the pegs on
which rifles were hung; and about farmers’ houses in New England, where
the cattle live under the same roof, at the end of long sheds; and
suburban houses with gardens, and apartment houses where whole tribes
of people live, going up and down in movable rooms. And then I spoke
about water power and said that it became electricity--Lulash asked me
eagerly how it was done, but I did not know--and that brought us to the
whole subject of machinery. I drew a picture of a spinning wheel for
them and explained it, but they said it would not be practicable on the
trails, where the women did most of the spinning; a woman could not
carry her baby in its cradle and a spinning wheel, too; the spindle was
better; and I agreed with them. But if men and women did not work so
hard carrying water from the springs, they would have time to sit in
the house and work a spinning wheel, and I said that water could come
into houses in pipes, and Lulash and I discussed for some time how a
hollowed-out log could bring part of the waterfall into his house. But
he said regretfully that a log was so expensive; cutting a tree meant
destroying so much pasture for the goats, and it took a long time for
a tree to grow again. And I saw how princely had been his gift of a
hundred trees to be burned to make the lime to make the mortar to make
the schoolhouse, and the infinite labor of such a life made me realize
the stupendous obstacles mankind has overcome in climbing out of it.
And I thought that it was the long struggle to wrest from the unwilling
earth the material necessities of human life that turned humanity’s
terrific energy in the course it still follows, though the need for
it is past, and that perhaps some day this energy, turned into other
channels, will make the life of civilized man as rich in spiritual and
emotional values as it now is in material things.
The gay Cheremi, bringing our breakfast of Turkish coffee next morning,
spoke with proud nonchalance in English. “Padre gone,” said he. “When
wake, no padre. He is went.”
The import of these words came slowly to us. Awakening in that chill
room, to find ourselves between crimson sheets, beneath blankets of
woven goat’s hair, and to see the scarlet-sashed, scalplocked Cheremi
bearing the brass tray with its coffee cups, had always a quality of
unreality. It was not so much an awakening from dreams as to them. In
the transition from unconsciousness to consciousness we must traverse
so many centuries to feel at home, that we arrived a little breathless.
But, “The padre gone?” Frances cried, after an instant. And we sat
dumb, staring at Cheremi’s beaming. Any impossibility was probable;
we did not question that the padre had disappeared in some strange
fashion, and our minds, while we hurriedly dressed, were not concerned
with the manner of his going so much as with what we should do
without him. We were prepared to deal gallantly with the catastrophic
emergency, as the walker up stairs in the dark is prepared for the last
step, which is not there.
For when we found Perolli squatting by the kitchen fireplace, busy
with long-handled coffee pot and spoon, he confirmed Cheremi’s report
absent-mindedly. “Mmmhm. He went at dawn. Off to hear confessions in
upper Thethis. Getting ready for Easter. More coffee?”
He seemed more abstracted than this anticlimax justified, and we drank
coffee again, in silence. The kitchen was dismal, a poor and wretched
place without Padre Marjan. Rain was pouring steadily outside, and the
house was filled with roar of waterfalls as a shell is filled with
sound of the sea. In those moments of cold gray light by the fire which
was dying slowly under hissing raindrops, I realized the courage and
endurance of Padre Marjan--of all the priests who, in these mountains,
keep alight a warmth and gayety of spirit for their people.
“I’m going to upper Thethis myself,” said Perolli, at length. “Like to
come along? We’ve been invited to visit Sadiri Luka, the richest man in
the Five Tribes.”
We roused ourselves with some little effort, for the grayness of the
day, the chill, and the ceaseless sound of pouring water were like an
actual weight on muscles. We swept the floor painstakingly and long,
with the pine bough. We went down the draughty stairs and out into the
downpour to bring back a wooden bucket of water; we tried to stir the
sullen embers into a blaze to warm it; we gave up in despair and washed
the coffee cups in water cold and sooty. We made the beds; we went up
and down the stairs, bringing water, emptying wash basins, carrying
ashes and wet wood. Our admiration and reverence for Padre Marjan grew
like Jonah’s gourd while we did these things, which he does every day
before beginning his work. At last we set out, opangi laced and staffs
in hand, to go to upper Thethis.
A day of comparative dryness had broken our fishlike habits, and water
seemed again an unkind element in which to be moving. Crossing the
flat valley in single file, accompanied by the sucking, slushy sound
of water-filled stockings, we said little. The sheets of rain blurred
our sight, and the sound of it dulled our hearing. But when we began
cautiously to climb the slippery trail that edged up the mountain side,
exercise had begun to warm us, and we escaped from the silence which is
to human beings a more unfamiliar element than water.
“How can he be the richest man in the Five Tribes? I thought these
people were communistic,” said Alex.
“The tribes own only lands and houses and most of the forests,” said
Perolli. “A man or a family can own flocks, or buy and sell when they
go down to the cities. Sadiri Luka’s the richest man because he went
down to Ipek. He was a merchant there, and everyone is rich in Ipek.
How I wish I might show you that valley, my own valley--it is more
beautiful than you can imagine. There are such rich fields--the cows
stand knee deep there in greenness like a carpet--and the best fruits
of all the Balkans grow there. And butter, and honey, and fine flour,
and quantities of the finest wool that makes the beautiful rugs of my
people--there is everything in Ipek that you could wish to have, and
both hands running over. I mean,” he added, grimly, “there _was_. Yes,
Ipek was a rich and happy place before the Serbs came. And if Sadiri
Luka----” He broke off, on such a savage note that we were startled.
“You see,” he resumed with a note of eagerness, stopping to point
with his staff, “just over that mountain--no, that one, farthest
east--well, just over that mountain, and down through a little gorge
where there will be violets soon, and then around the curve of the
hills, there begins my valley of Ipek. In four hours I could go there.
I know every step of the way. My father and my mother are there, and I
am the only son, and I have not seen them for two years, nor my houses,
nor my fields. And I could go there in four hours.”
“Do you suppose,” said Frances, nervously, “that the Serbs have
field-glasses? If they had, Rrok, they could recognize you from their
lines up there. They might be looking at you right now.”
“If they even had any code of honor,” he continued, not heeding her,
“if they had any proper respect for women, I could go straight through
their lines with you girls beside me, and I could go to see my people,
and I could show you what a country Albanians make when they only have
land to work, and we could come back again--we could do it all in one
day. There is not a tribe in our mountains who would not let a Serb
come and go in safety, with a woman beside him. But the Serbs---- And
Christ tells us to love our enemies! How can we? How _can_ we?”
It was the unanswerable passionate question, and we did not try to
answer it. We went on, the little valley of Thethis narrowing below us,
till mountain overlapped mountain, and the gorge between was filled
with a foam-white green river. From time to time we struggled through
a waterfall, and there was one huge torrent that, leaping from a cliff
above the trail, arched over it in a curve that seemed solid as glass,
and we passed beneath it. Then, descending, we came to the little
valley of upper Thethis. Perhaps six or ten houses were scattered
there, among broken-off fragments of cliff as large as they, and
between them all the level land was glistening with water at the grass
roots.
The house of Sadiri Luka was notable for its stone-walled courtyard and
its broad balcony. The heavy arch of the gateway was mediæval in its
grim solidity; we escaped from the rain to the peace of its shelter,
and there were welcomed by Sadiri Luka. He was middle-aged, sturdy,
even a little stodgy of figure, among the lithe mountaineers, and
this appearance suggested the successful business man--a suggestion
incongruous with his picturesque clothes. His trousers were the purest
white that new wool can be, his fringed jacket the densest black, the
colors of his sash were clear and gay, and his silver chains were
massive. There was even a heavy silver ring on his finger. And there
was no rifle on his back.
The courtyard was a litter of cornstalks, almost entirely covered with
a roof of woven branches; evidently it was the home of flocks now out
in the rain attended by a shepherd cutting leaves for them. An arched
doorway opened into the first floor of the house, where we saw a
pensive donkey gazing profoundly upon the liquid gray weather.
Obviously this was a rich house, and we followed Sadiri Luka
expectantly, up the stone stairs and down a long hall mysterious with
closed doors, to a large room full of color. There were rugs on the
stone floor, rugs on the stone walls, floor cushions covered with rugs
in front of the fireplace. There was no other furniture save a row
of old rifles on a wall. Their slender four-foot-long barrels were
inlaid with silver, their curved thin butts were of silver chased and
enameled, their triggers were intricate flint-lock affairs, and we tore
our eyes from them with a wrench, to reply with proper courteousness to
the welcome of our host.
While he made the coffee a woman came quietly through the door beside
the fireplace and greeted us with poised and gracious dignity--one
of those many beautiful Albanian women who, because they were so
poised and so silent, remain a background for all our memories of
the mountains, more mysterious behind their level eyes and courteous
phrases than Turkish women behind their veils.
Sitting on the cushions, we drank the coffee and the rakejia, from time
to time responding to the greeting of other guests come to meet us.
Perolli was quiet, fallen into one of the moods which we had learned
not to interrupt with requests for interpreting. There was constraint
in the atmosphere, and when, presently, he fell into low-voiced talk
with Sadiri Luka, we tactfully engaged the others in such conversation
as occurred to us. I forget how it happened that we first mentioned the
ora. There were, of course, ora in Thethis, we were told, but no one
remembered any news of interest concerning them. Then, prompted by the
incessant sound of rushing water, we inquired if there were ora of the
waters as well as of the forests.
“The old men know these things,” said a handsome youth, somewhat bored.
He was a traveled young man; he had been in Budapest and Bucharest, and
spoke their languages as well as German and Italian, and--from wherever
gotten--he wore an American army shirt. Ora did not interest him. “Old
man,” said he, politely, turning to an aged chief beside him, “what do
you know of the water ora?”
The old man took the amber mouthpiece of his long cigarette holder from
his shrunken lips and blew a reflective cloud of smoke. The alert Rexh
produced my notebook and fountain pen from his pajama pocket, laid them
beside me, and leaned forward, attentive.