Pilo Zyba - a self-portrait

LETTER TO MY OLD FRIEND … Grigor Jovani

Monemvasia... 27.i.2010

For the attention of…

Mr…. Vahid Hyzoti

Mr. … Roland Gjoza

Mr. ... Hyskë Borobojka

Mr. ... Bamkë Çomaga

Dear friends!

I have been meaning to write to you for a long time. But as you can see for yourselves, I am very late. After what you will read below, I think the blame for the delay of this piece, “or other pieces” that should have been written, is somewhat justified and relieves me of some of the guilt of this “delay”.

Since we sought “freedom” and grew wings and flew far away, I cannot

say that we migrated, because migratory birds return to their nests every year. We, oh my friends, are seeing each other less and less.

It is true that we could have written a letter or two, but,

“being free”, working 16 hours a day “for our own good” and not for the good of the country that “welcomes” us, having all the good things like “offices, income, free time, transit permits and the freedom to create”, “the things we sought and found”. “Living in the complete happiness we sought”, we have no time left to write letters to our friends and comrades. Times have changed; now we are free and we write about important problems such as: “What is love”, “How to betray our wives”, “How to leave our children on the street”. We gather in groups of friends for these things and discuss how to become Europeans, “How to steal”, “How to rape”, because we think Europe has these fine qualities, and we like this visible face of it.

My late grandmother used to say: “Choose friends who are better than yourself.” I took this advice of hers with me on the roads of the world, along with others like “A good brave man has many friends”, “Make new friends but do not forget the old ones”, etc. My grandmother lived for more than a century; she lived and saw many battles and joys, traveled and lived in many countries, and in the end, she laid her head on the threshold of her house and said: “My life was a book, a novella lived and not written; you,” she said, “who read it, draw your own lessons.”

How could the poor woman know that the novella she wrote over 107 years,

today’s new pensioner talents write in a week. Their imprisoned talent was like a faucet; true, it found nowhere to flow to water the fields of thought, but this stream, this pure water with spiritual healing properties, gathered every day, and in the moment of freedom it burst across the fields and ditches to grow the fruit of personal and national glory.

Do you see, Mr. Hyskë, what a mistake our honorable Bamkë made

with his friends, when they would return the thoughts we had put on paper to be reviewed and revised several times, and why? Because they wanted the wheat separated from the chaff; ah, these ancient thoughts. Worthless thoughts still remain thoughts, only, worthless thoughts. Today no one looks at them until they see the light of publication, “a crime against the hours of thought and the ink of writing”. And from the very root of the word bot-tim, it means my world that I present to others. And this world, oh my friend, is blooming, very abundant. This creative world in Greece has taken the form of streams, rivers, and threshing floors. Yes, yes, threshing floors. On the threshing floors of art, here in Greece, threshing is done winter and summer, not just at harvest time. The threshing is done freely, “every man for himself and God for us all”. It develops and breathes in width, length, and shallowness, since there is no depth. It is created individually and collectively. Several “Antho-logies” have been published, which in Greek means blossoming words, selected blossoms. If this is taken into account, we are a blossoming tree giving the flowers of thought throughout the world.

Socially, its momentum is sweeping. Starting with friends, a few of them create an association. Four friends create five associations, and six friends create a league. All of these became so numerous that the embassy in Athens sought to maintain uninterrupted ties with them. It sought to know their activity, which “is sleep and opium”.

The relationships of some people with the same thoughts, oh my friend Vahid, are called “thought leagues” when they have to do with thoughts, “writers’ leagues” when they have to do with writings, “dancers’ leagues” when they have to do with dances, etc. These leagues, Mr. Vahid, do nothing but untie the tongue and let it loose to graze in the meadows of self-interest; they “sing” and poison true art. They sow and reap in the field without casting seed, and trumpet a good harvest indeed. The “best” of them, once slipped from their chains, run and bark that they were born for fame, and women are their only game. Truth be told, they have some keys, a stamp and a place, but they have no face, “the face of an association”.

These kinds of associations, of writers, dancers, drinkers, oh my friend Roland, multiply every day, not like mushrooms after the rain, since it rarely rains lately. These associ-atrocities gather and do a lot of work; I know some of them, which every Sunday gather their members in a stall, “excuse me”, in a hall. All around the coffee cup and the raki they weep over the woes of society, instead of poetry. When they gather to debate, with papers and buckets in their hands, they talk of growth, without putting a comma or an exclamation mark anywhere. They polish and brush the author, the great fruiterer, who with talent and a beautiful pen,

like a butterfly, blackens the white page up and down and makes art. There has also come onto

the scene an art of the times; books and paintings are accompanied by forewords from a

man and writer of name, who plays the role of the editor, who drinks and gets round as a drum, and drops his words like an empty pumpkin. His hair is white, like a pear tree in bloom, but the pear tree bears soft fruit, while he with his axe-like mouth, day and night, issues mandates. He says, I am well-known, “not even his mother knows him, since she hasn’t seen him since the day he left”, I have works, he says, with trumpets and fuss, “his works are a hole in the water”. He gives opinions on the talent he has discovered and holds in his hands, to give to society, with the help of democracy. What can I say and recount to you? Do not think, oh friend, that I am finishing, for this “sun” seems to have no setting.

I remember when Mr. Bamkë and his friends gave me a prize

25 years ago; I was so happy I couldn’t sleep at night. I was

so pleased that others valued my work. Today, oh my friend, I sleep peacefully because

you can get a prize whenever you want, even without writing a thing. Not to mention that you get it from a commission and a phantom association that has neither chairmen nor members. Gogol had foreseen it, this advanced time. He bought and sold dead souls. In our time, dead souls are not bought and sold, but prizes with inscriptions, with praises, that “raise” the value of literature in the bosom of society. Up to here there is no harm, but further on there are traps and ditches. After two or three prizes and praises, the association “Mandata” drafts a paper, with four or five members, who in good faith, without stepping on anyone’s toes, propose that the talent be validated, and decorated. Because the generations to come will not know true values, so the decoration is a paper that will speak when he dies. Profound, indeed! After this, the stamps are set, chickens are slaughtered and roasted. Scientific titles are added, with masters and doctors. Naim’s bones tremble in his grave, bearing the name of the prize on his shoulders. The conclusion and the tally: literature goes to the dogs, while the talent goes hungry. There are other beauties too, with good news that I catch wind of. You toil a whole lifetime in the field of the military, the decoration is proposed for values in that of literature. It doesn’t matter about the fields, as long as like ticks, a man in life, has decorations to stick.

The name is trumpeted for the lyricist, who confuses the apple with the fig, who hangs a tie around his neck, like a long tongue, or like a shovel, and it goes so far that, I swear, I heard it myself with these ears at a square in Omonia, that Bamka himself, I don’t know how true it is, supposedly said one Monday, while drinking and eating, that “the lyricist was indeed delayed, but he was validated, along with his retirement, his lyric poetry sounds, not like a pensioner, but, like an artist and a dancer, of a 20-year-old age”.

I could throw into this letter, some other work too, like the ones you read, but I said since it is the first time, let’s not plow too much in this field. Let’s leave room for the autumn works too and talk when the time comes to prune the vineyard. Let’s see how the winter crops will be, across the associations and fruit trees. And if the worm of wickedness comes alive and continues to move, doing damage to society, we must not prolong it further, we must spray the forests and fields, and the thoughts and noses they stick everywhere, we must make mincemeat of them and soften their backs.

Oh, my friend Hyskë!

To tell you the truth, we miss gathering together (express this thought to Bamkë too) and “Let’s light it up once*” to talk about these “Cracked people*” because in seeking quality, they are calling us “Beggars of time*”.

I remain hopeful that my letter will find you safe and sound.

I hope the power will not be cut off while you read the letter I am sending you. Even if the lamps stay lit for twenty-four hours, they cannot illuminate the injustices on the back of our just, wise and hardworking people. As for the water, I am not asking you, since we do not need it; I do not believe it can wash away the problems with authors and their rights. The path this letter will follow to reach its friends will be short; it will be simple and clear. Not like that of our politicians, who seek it

persistently to pull us out of backwardness and, instead, plunge us deeper into the mud of backwardness and problems without head or tail. Speaking of tails, send me a broom handle to Athens, but made of cornel wood; if you can’t, tell Bamkë and order one from somewhere around Devoll. I need it to beat the dust out of some sheepskins and to sweep away some rubbish that has blocked our path.

With respect, your friend and student

Pilo Zyba

[email protected]

Athens .... March.... 2009

Note

*“Let’s light it up once” is a book of humorous stories by the writer Gaqo Veshi, pseud. H. Borobojka

*“Cracked people” and “Beggar of time” are books by the writer Dritëro Agolli, pseud. B. Çomaga.