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Автор Исмаил Кадаре

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Arcade Publishing® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ®, a Delaware corporation.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

10 9876543 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61145-621-9

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THE WINDOW LOOKED DOWN on the street, where the passers-by, all muffled up, seemed to be hurrying along as fast as they could, A three-wheeled delivery van pulled up beside a tobacco kiosk, where drivers often stopped to buy cigarettes.

It struck old Hasiyé that the van was attracting a lot of attention. She wiped a space in the misted windowpane to get a better look.

Yes - three or four people had paused to stare at what the van was carrying: a tub containing a lemon tree. She could imagine the questions they’d ask the driver as he got back into his seat. “Where are you taking it?” “Where do they sell them?”

Suddenly the old woman thought she recognized Ana among the crowd.

She was just going to tap on the window to attract her attention when she remembered that Ana was dead — had been dead for a long time.

She sighed. More and more often lately she found herself not only getting the order of events mixed up, but also confusing real facts with things seen only in dreams. She tended to mix up the living and the dead, too, but she didn’t mind too much about that. Most females of her age had the same problem: it was supposed to be typical of old women. Sometimes she thought that was why people treated them with respect.

She looked out into the street again. Ana was still there. Beautiful as ever, she was standing somewhat apart, gazing with a melancholy smile at the people hovering around the lemon tree. Why don’t you just go on sleeping peacefully under the ground where you were buried? thought Hasiyé.

She could hear her grandson learning his lessons in the other room: “Sing, O goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus!” Would there never be an end to all this anger? she muttered to herself. Of late it had been getting worse instead of better.