Broken April

“The funeral took place the next day around noon. The professional mourners came from afar, clawing their faces and tearing their hair according to the custom. The old churchyard was filled with the black tunics of the men who had come to the burial. After the ceremony, the funeral cortege returned to the Kryeqyqes’ house. Gjorg, too, walked in the procession. At first he had refused to take part in the ceremony, but at last he had given in to his father’s urging. He had said, ‘You must go to the burial. You must also go to the funeral dinner to honor the man’s soul.’” 

Kadare creates a visceral image of the funeral by describing the mourners as clawing their faces and tearing their hair, enhancing the drama of the scene. The old churchyard and black tunics contribute to the dramatics as well. Gjorg is then thrown into an inherently absurd situation by being forced to join the procession for the man he just killed. His participation in the funeral puts his character in an uncomfortable situation, building tension, and also provides a direct example of the peculiar customs practiced by the people of the High Plateau.  

“The streaks on their faces and foreheads made them look as if they were wearing masks. Gjorg imagined how his own mourners would look when they had gouged their faces. He felt that from now on the lives of all the generations to come in the two families would be an endless funeral feast, each side playing host in turn. And each side, before leaving for the feast, would don that blood-stained mask.” 

Gjorg does not mourn with the Kryeqyqe family. He does not weep. Rather, he understands his life will likely end similarly to Zef’s. Gjorg recognizes that his family and the Kryeqyqes could be stuck in a murderous cycle for generations. Gjorg’s meditations on his own mortality creates interior drama and raise the narrative stakes, while his musings on the blood feud between his family and the Kryeqyqes provide the building blocks for Kadare to create a cautionary message about violent traditions. 

“It was only half an hour since he had been granted the thirty-day truce, and already he was almost used to the idea that his life had been cleft in two. Now it even seemed to him that it had always been split like that: one fragment twenty-six years long, slow to the point of boredom, twenty-six months of March and twenty-six months of April and as many winters and summers; and the other was short, four weeks, impetuous, fierce as an avalanche, half a March and half an April, like two broken branches glittering with frost.”

As Gjorg’s bessa will end in the middle of April, the title Broken April becomes appropriate and significant in this passage. Additionally, Kadare employs a striking metaphor to describe Gjorg’s remaining days, portraying them as fierce as an avalanche. The metaphor is appropriate for the novel given Kadare’s emphasis on the natural world in his prose. Conversely, Gjorg’s previous life, his first 26 years, are not enhanced with a metaphor and are described as boring. This difference creates a strong contrast as to how much Gjorg’s life has changed since the story began. There is no going back for Gjorg. The stakes are elevated, and a somber and dark tone develops.

“However, the rules of the blood feud were only a small part of the Code, just a chapter. As weeks and months went by, Gjorg came to understand that the other part, which was concerned with everyday living and was not drenched with blood, was inextricably bound to the bloody part, so much so that no one could really tell where one part left off and the other began. The whole was so conceived that one begat the other, the stainless giving birth to the bloody, and the second to the first, and so on forever, from generation to generation.”

Here, we see the impact and danger of normalized violence. While the blood feud makes up a small part of the Kanun, it nevertheless dominates the entire belief system. Gjorg feels the entire Code couldn’t exist without the blood feuds and recognizes the violent cycle his people are doomed to repeat. In Broken April, violence cannot be isolated; it spreads and never ends, and the novel develops into a cautionary tale about the ramifications of allowing such normalized violence.

“The committee that was formed at once to determine if the duty of avenging the unknown guest fell to the house of Berisha, considered everything minutely, and concluded at last that the Berisha were indeed the ones who must avenge him. The stranger had fallen face down with his head towards the village. For that reason, according to the Code, the Berisha who had given the stranger shelter and had fed him, had had the duty to protect him until he left the village lands, and must now avenge him.”

Chapter 2 provides the backstory for the blood feud between the Berishas and the Kryeqyqes. The story proves to be absurd. Because of the way a stranger’s body fell, the two families become stuck in a cycle of killing one another. Kadare critiques the concept of the blood feud by showing how it is influenced by randomness and bad luck. The Berishas and the Kryeqyqes don’t villainize each other. Instead, the belief system they practice pits them against each other.

“He tried to call to mind families that were not involved in the blood feud, and he found no special signs of happiness in them. It even seemed to him that, sheltered from that danger, they hardly knew the value of life, and were only the more unhappy for that. Whereas clans that were in the blood feud lived in a different order of days and seasons, accompanied as it were by an inner tremor; the people were more handsome, and the young men were in favor with the women.”

The story avoids becoming simplistic in its message about normalized violence. Previous passages portrayed Gjorg as questioning the Kanun and the blood feud, but here he sees the benefits. In Gjorg’s opinion, those in blood feuds aren’t only more attractive; they are also happier. By seeing the positive aspects of the blood feuds, Gjorg becomes a more complex character. He considers the Kanun critically and is unafraid of changing and developing his opinion.

“He could not put out of mind that icy morning in January when his father had called him to the great room on the upper storey of the house so that they could talk privately. The day was particularly bright, the sky and the new-fallen snow were dazzling, the world shone like glass, and with a kind of crystal madness it seemed that it might begin to slip at any moment and shatter into thousands of fragments. It was that sort of morning when his father reminded him of his duty. Gjorg was sitting by the window, listening to his father who spoke to him of blood. The whole world was stained with it. It shone red upon the snow, pools of it spread and stiffened everywhere. Then Gjorg understood that all that red was in his own eyes.”

A pivotal memory for Gjorg is the morning he is told to avenge his brother’s death. Kadare fills the passage with vivid imagery. The sky and snow dazzle, glasslike, fragile, and beautiful. Then, Gjorg crosses a threshold, the delicate morning breaks, and he enters a world of blood and revenge. At the end of the passage, Gjorg realizes that it is not the world itself that has changed, but himself. The world hasn’t become stained with blood; he has. By having Gjorg’s father be the one who sends him on his mission, Kadare shows how cultural violence is passed down and taught by older generations.

“Now he felt that he could not say which life was better, a quiet life dusted over with forgetfulness and excluded from the machinery of the blood feud, or that other life, the life of danger, but with a lightning bolt of grief that ran through it like a quivering seam. He had tasted both, and if someone had said to him now, ‘Choose one or the other,’ Gjorg would certainly have hesitated. Perhaps it took years to get used to peace, just as it had taken so many years to get used to its absence. The mechanism of the blood feud was such that even as it freed you, it kept you bound to it in spirit for a long time.”

Gjorg’s internal conflict continues to develop. He’s torn between two options: a simple and forgetful life, or an exciting one with grief. Worse, he can’t make a clear decision, and he recognizes the grasp the blood feud has on him. Gjorg’s inability to decide which direction his life should take, and the question of whether he’s even able to adjust to a peaceful life, increases the dramatic tension in his storyline. His decisions become more impactful and meaningful.

“‘The Accursed Mountains,’ he said softly, with a slight tremor in his voice, as if he were greeting a vision that he had been expecting for a very long time. He felt that the name, with its solemnity, had made an impression on his wife, and he took a certain satisfaction in it.”

This passage foreshadows the deterioration of Bessian and Diana’s relationship. They literally traverse a cursed mountain range, suggesting the events that take place there will have a negative impact on them. The tremor in Bessian’s voice when he sees the mountains implies weakness. Nevertheless, he feels a sense of pride when the mountains make an impression on his wife, demonstrating his inflated ego. In arriving to the High Plateau, Bessian displays arrogance, but also a subtle layer of fear.

“Leaning against him, her eyes closing now and then with the jolting of the carriage, as if to ward off the sadness that the barren scene aroused in her, she thought in a fragmentary way about the days when they were first acquainted and the early weeks of their engagement. The chestnut trees lining the boulevard, café doors, the glitter of rings as they embraced, park benches strewn with autumn leaves, and dozens of other such memories—all those things she poured out upon the endless waste, in the hope that those images might in some sort people the void. But the wasteland did not change. Its wet nakedness was ready to engulf in a moment not just her own store of happiness but perhaps the heaped-up joy of whole generations. She herself had never seen such a country. The mountains that loomed above her were well named ‘the Accursed Mountains.’”

This passage shows how environments can be used as antagonists. Again, Kadare utilizes rich descriptions to create a lush memory. The images of parks and cafes and autumn leaves paint a beautiful picture, a stark contrast to the unforgiving landscape Diana now enters. The High Plateau resists being supplanted with Diana’s memories, showing that Diana cannot escape the harshness of the environment, even in her head. The landscape is formidable and demands Diana face it head on without filtering her experiences with nostalgic niceties. In this way, the Accursed Mountains become a villain for Diana. Once again, Kadare mentions the everlasting strength of the High Plateaus, capable of affecting many generations, a message he consistently weaves into the text.

“He spoke of the absurdity of life, and the reality of death in the North country, about the men of those parts who were esteemed or despised essentially in terms of the relations they created with death, and he brought up the terrible wish expressed by the mountaineers on the birth of a child. ‘May he have a long life, and die by the rifle!’ Death by natural causes, from illness or from old age, was shameful to the man of the mountain regions, and the only goal of the mountaineer during his entire life was laying up the hoard of honor that would allow him to expect a modest memorial on his death.” 

Bessian has a detached, academic understanding of the High Plateau. He also loves to talk and pontificate. By giving Bessian these characteristics, Kadare gives exposition to the reader without the information feeling forced. It makes sense for Bessian’s character to ramble about the things he knows, and we also learn as he speaks, getting a sense of a richer and fuller world. The passage also reiterates the dominance the blood feud holds over the North country. However, Bessian’s words are broad generalities. He assumes all mountain men wish to die honorably by the rifle. Gjorg’s chapters show how much more complex and troubled the situation really is.

“‘I’m not making fun of you,’ he said with the same playful air. ‘I have the very same feeling. The guest, the bessa, and vengeance are like the machinery of classical tragedy, and once you are caught up in the mechanism, you must face the possibility of tragedy. But despite all that, Diana, we have nothing to fear. In the morning, we’ll take off our crowns and be relieved of their weight until the night.’”

This is another passage demonstrating Bessian’s arrogance. He doesn’t respect his wife’s feelings. He doesn’t try to understand her emotions or to find out what he did that made her feel made fun of. He merely becomes defensive and dismisses her. Bessian’s statements about tragedy also foreshadow the tragic events of the novel. He continues to see himself as a detached observer, failing to recognize that in coming to the High Plateau, he and Diana have become players in the tragedy he speaks of.

“The grey daylight found its way only sparingly into the carriage, and in addition the velvet upholstery absorbed part of it, deepening the gloom. Bessian thought that he might be in the early stage of a coming defeat, at the moment when one cannot tell if the savor is pleasant or bitter—for he thought himself sufficiently acute to see defeat where others would still see victory.”

The use of color adds drama and builds the tone of the scene. Grey daylight lacks the warmth and brightness of more colorful shades. Velvet upholstery is a darker material and contributes to the somberness of the moment. As Diana sits quietly, unengaged, Bessian senses defeat with her, and the scene foreshadows the deterioration of their marriage by the end of the story. Bessian himself recognizes he is a person who sees defeat where others see victory, showing that despite his arrogance and intellect, he is weak and a defeatist.

“The carriage began to move. The stranger’s eyes, that seemed very dark, perhaps because of the paleness of his face, followed the square of window where Diana’s face appeared. She too, even though she knew that she should not be looking at him still, did not have the strength to turn her eyes from the wayfarer who had loomed up suddenly at the side of the road. As the coach drew away, several times she wiped away the mist that her breath left upon the glass, but it condensed again at once as if anxious to draw a curtain between them.”

Diana and Gjorg share a passing moment, but it is significant for both. When speaking with her husband, Diana dips in and out of attention, annoyed by her husband’s ego and pretensions. Upon seeing Gjorg, on the other hand, Diana becomes enraptured. She cannot look away. Her inability to express exactly what it is about Gjorg that entices her adds mystery to the story, giving her an interior conflict to grapple with. The condensation of the window, and its constant obstruction of her view of Gjorg, contributes to the tragic mood of the story. Diana and Gjorg fascinate each other but remain out of reach and hidden from one another

“Diana sensed that she was losing the defenses that protect a young woman from the very idea of having strong feelings about another man during the time of her engagement or when she is very much in love. This was the first time since she had known Bessian that she allowed herself to think quite freely about someone else. She thought of him, the man who was still on leave in this world, as Bessian had put it, a very brief leave, scarcely three weeks and each passing day shortened it further, as he wandered in the mountains with that black ribbon on his sleeve, the sign of his blood debt that he seemed to be paying even beforehand—so pale he was—chosen by death, like a tree to be felled in the forest. And that was what his eyes had said, fixed on hers: I am here only a short time, foreign woman.”

This passage demonstrates how interior conflict can be used to increase the drama of a story. As Diana thinks about her encounter with Gjorg, her emotions become more articulate and complicated. As the allows her feelings for Gjorg to rush through her, the stakes of the story become greater. Diana, Bessian, and Gjorg are now more connected and enmeshed. A layer of intrigue is added to their stories. Unbeknownst to Bessian, his wife is thinking of Gjorg. Similarly, Gjorg and Diana pine for each other but remain unaware how the other feels. Here, Kadare demonstrates how thoughts can add tension to a story.

“Beyond the glass was anguish and night. She let their tremors pass through her while her eyes searched insistently for the tiny lost glimmer of light in the chaos of darkness. It was there down below, in the same place, as if suspended above the chasm, flickering wanly, about to be swallowed up by the night. For a long moment she could not take her eyes from the feeble red glow in that abyss of darkness. It was like the redness of primeval fire, a magma ages old whose pallid reflection came from the centre of the earth. It was like the gates of hell. And suddenly, with unbearable intensity, the guise of the man who had passed through that hell was present to her. Gjorg, she cried out within her, moving her cold lips. He wandered forbidden roads, bearing omens of death in his hands, on his sleeve, in his wings. He must be a demigod to face that darkness and primal chaos of creation. And being so strange, so unattainable, he took on enormous size, he swelled and floated like a universal howling in the night.”

The natural world continues its villainous role. The darkness oppresses and chills. What light there is makes Diana think of hell. These descriptors, combined with Diana’s terror, continue to put her at odds with the exterior world. Diana finds respite not in the natural world, but in another human—Gjorg. Fantastic descriptors further enhance Gjorg’s significance for Diana. He is described as having wings; he enlarges and swells, able to battle even the oppressive landscape for domination in her thoughts. Unlike Diana’s memories of the city, which were insufficient in taking her mind off the landscape, Gjorg gives her hope. Still, she recognizes the danger Gjorg is in, further building the tension of the narrative.

“Something was blighted, something was rotting away visibly around him. And he was the one who had to account for the decline of the number of killings in the blood feud. Last night, the prince had said—rancorously, looking sidelong at him— ‘There are some people who would like to see the Kanun of our forefathers softened.’ What had the lord of Orosh meant by that look? Was it Mark Ukacierra who was responsible for the fact that the Code, and especially the blood feud, had shown signs of weakening recently? Couldn’t he smell the stench that rose from those androgynous cities?”

Mark Ukacierra gives new insight into the politics of the High Plateau. Gjorg experiences the Code and the blood feud firsthand. Bessian and Diana provide a detached, observational lens. Meanwhile, as a steward, Mark shows how the Code is enforced. He is an agent of the Kanun, rather than a victim or academic. Additionally, Mark displays a conservative mindset. He views the modern cities as reeking and unpleasant. The passage adds tension to the story, as Mark’s perspective shows the reader that the Kanun is more fragile than previously shown. Even something as powerful and long-lasting as the blood feud can wane.

“Look, on March 16, there were eight murders; eleven on the eighteenth; the nineteenth and the twentieth, five each; while the seventeenth had just missed being without a single death. At the very idea that such a day might come about, Mark was terror-stricken. And to imagine that it just might have happened. That dreadful thing would indeed have come to pass if a certain Gjorg from Brezftoht had not arisen and bloodied that day of the Lord. He had saved the day. So that, when he had come last night to pay the blood tax, Mark Ukacierra had looked into his eyes with compassion, with gratitude, so much so that the young man was taken aback.”

The first two chapters describe Gjorg’s conflicted emotions over killing Zef. He does not hate the man he killed, and the short amount of time he has left as a free man weighs on him. He feels his life has been split in two. In Chapter 4, the novel shows Gjorg’s actions through the perspective of a devout steward of the Kanun. While Gjorg suffers emotionally, Mark is grateful for what Gjorg did. He doesn’t consider Gjorg’s depression and trauma. Mark values his belief system more than human life, becoming a cautionary example of how harmful belief systems can be, even when their advocates don’t recognize it.

“[…] supposedly, the general decline that was the hallmark of our own era was reflected in the decay of such keystones of the Kanun as the bessa, the blood feud, the status of one’s guest, which having been at one time elements of sublimity and grandeur in Albanian life had become denatured in the course of time, changing gradually into an inhuman machine, to the point of being reduced at last, according to the author of the article, to a capitalist enterprise carried on for the sake of profit.”

Mark’s role as steward is another character detail that allows Kadare to seamlessly give the reader new information. Because Kadare places Mark in the archives of the tower of Orosh, it is logical that he would dwell on the contents of the articles he passes by. Kadare uses this opportunity to introduce more arguments about the blood feud. According to some writers and thinkers, the Kanun has become a money-making enterprise, tarnishing its worth. Kadare returns to these concepts through the rest of the story, building a cautionary message about the commodification of violence and the way it can destroy communities.

“In reality, with its gloomy appearance, bronze door-handles, and complicated lines, the carriage reminded him of a coffin that he had seen at one time, when he had been on his only journey to Shkoder, in the Cathedral, between a funeral cortege and solemn organ music. And inside that carriage, butterfly-coffin, were the eyes of the woman with the auburn hair, that he had breathed in with a sweetness and an emotion that he had never felt in the presence of any other being in the world. He had looked into women’s eyes in his life, and many of those eyes, ardent, bashful, stirring, delicate, artful, or proud, had looked into his, but never eyes like those. They were at once distant and close, understandable and enigmatic, unmoved and sympathetic. That glance, while it aroused desire, had some quality that took hold of you, carried you far away, beyond life, beyond the grave, to where you could look upon yourself with serenity.”

Diana’s feelings for Gjorg have been expounded upon in earlier chapters. In this passage, Gjorg’s emotions for Diana are further explained as well. Gjorg experiences sexual attraction, but beyond that, he sees Diana as ethereal, a force that allows him to see himself in a holy light. Conversely, Diana’s own husband regularly makes unwanted advances toward her, driven primarily by bodily desires. Bessian seeks sexual gratification, whereas Gjorg seeks personal redemption. Both men put Diana into a difficult position, objectifying or pedestalizing her, contributing to Kadare’s commentary on the role of women in Albanian society. The coffin-like descriptions of the carriage allude to Gjorg’s death. In the end, his pursuit of Diana’s carriage gets him killed.

“A week ago the members of a certain family had put to death one of their girls, who was pregnant. There was no doubt that they would promptly kill as well the boy who had seduced her. In the meantime, the boy’s family learned that the baby whom the young woman had not been able to bring into the world was a male child. The family forestalled their adversaries by declaring that they were the injured party in regard to the young woman’s kin, and argued that while the young man was not connected with the victim by marriage, the male child belonged to him. In so doing, the boy’s family made the claim that they were the ones who had a transgression to avenge, and that accordingly, it was their turn to kill a member of the young woman’s family.”

This passage demonstrates how much more valuable men are to women in the culture of the High Plateau. A woman can be killed for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and yet what offends the other family is the loss her unborn son. The relentless snare of the blood feud comes into play as well, in another example for how easily two families can become wrapped up in a blood feud.

“There are families that are unable to pay the compensation for two wounds, and they choose to discharge the debt by taking a human life. There are others that are ready to ruin themselves, to pay for as many as twenty wounds received by the victim, in order to keep the right, once their victim is well again, to murder him. Strange, isn’t it? But here’s something that puts all that in the shade. I know a man from the Black Ravines, who has supported his family for years on the indemnities he has received for the wounds his enemies have inflicted. He has escaped death several times, and he is convinced that, thanks to the training that he has had, he can escape dying by any bullet whatsoever, and without a doubt he is the first man in the world to create in some sense this new trade—that of making a living from his wounds.”

Spoken by the doctor who assists Ali Binak, this story continues to flesh out the Kanun and expose its peculiarities. Families will ruin themselves financially so that they can seek revenge, and, in an extraordinary circumstance, a man will allow himself to be wounded to make a living. Through these examples, Kadare continues to show the reader how a belief system can create harm and hardship for the people living under it.

“Your books, your art, they all smell of murder. Instead of doing something for these unfortunate mountaineers, you help death, you look for exalted themes, you look here for beauty so as to feed your art. You don’t see that this is beauty that kills, as a young writer said whom you certainly do not care for. You remind me of those theaters built in the palaces of Russian aristocrats, where the stage is large enough to accommodate hundreds of actors, while the living room can scarcely accommodate the prince’s family. That’s it. What you remind me of is those aristocrats. You encourage a whole nation to perform in a bloody drama, while you yourselves and your ladies watch the spectacle from your loges.”

Of all the characters in Broken April, it is the doctor who challenges Bessian the most. He isn’t afraid to disagree and debate. The doctor pushes back against Bessian’s ego, finding no value in Bessian’s art either. The doctor sees Bessian’s work as classist and exploitive, a commodification of the struggles of the poor designed for the rich. Through the doctor, Kadare questions the role of art in society, suggesting it is not enough to study rural communities and that a helping hand should be extended as well.