A Story

A curtain of leaden clouds had covered Tirana. Thick clouds that looked like a gray baking lid. True, it lacked the heat to bake what lay beneath it, but it dressed everything in a silver-gray suit, rendering the whole environment silent and marble-like.

“Let’s go,” he told his girlfriend, “it must be very beautiful by the lake today, or rather, it will be completely different from other spring days. Nature has dressed both the trees and the sky in a rare suit.”

“It is melancholy,” she smiled, not wanting to spoil his mood.

A cloud descended over the state university like a hand and circled the roof, looking like one of those large caps students wear when they get their diplomas, but dressing the building itself in a leaden, gray suit.

Holding hands, both he and Shpirtmira left the Institute of Arts behind and took the uphill path through the trees. They had not returned to this area for years, not to say since their early youth, when their feet and eyes could never stay still. Everything had changed; the trees had grown, and the narrow alleys of the past had turned into wide paths, with a sculpture or an artistic space created by human hands appearing here and there. They walked all the way up to the pass holding hands. Shpirtmira was dressed lightly, her hair carefully combed, her fragile shoulders bare, wearing a thin dress that showed off her narrow waist, which sloped down and curved at her hips, resting on two beautiful, straight legs. They had met only recently and were coming to this place to seal a beautiful feeling like love. He was slightly graying, past his fifties, while she might have been about ten years younger, but as beautiful as in her youth, with a smile that sprang from her chest and made her eyes shine, the skin of her cheekbones looking as crimson as the petals of a pink rose under the morning sun. He came from afar, while she lived in Tirana. She came from an old family from Tirana; her father had been a noble wealthy man in his time, and her mother a fashion designer for that era. Shpirtmira had grown up under their care and was an only child.

When they reached the hill, they heard from afar the song of songbirds in the large Zoo.

“In all my life coming out here, I have never seen the lake like today,” she said, casting her eyes up and far away where the clouds seemed to kiss the hills, and under the rays of a sleeping sun, they gave the clouds an incomprehensible, indecipherable glow and hue.

“You grew up here, my dear,” the gentleman squeezed her hand and kissed her on the forehead. She rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, like the clouds on the mountain pass, and then lifted her head. The newcomer from afar read her gaze and her joy at the same time. Passersby turned their heads and looked at them with a sense of companionship; everyone thought they were married, since their age was past the midpoint of life, but they were in fact newly in love. Shpirtmira had two sons, one of whom was in university, while the newcomer’s children were grown and settled abroad.

The breeze rocked a tuft of grass that had opened its leaves, swaying with its greenery from one side to the other. Shpirtmira saw it, took out her phone, stepped closer, and took a picture. Her lover laughed.

“It is very fragile, thin-stemmed like a ballerina,” Shpirtmira said. The newcomer cast his eyes on her waist and laughed.

“Why are you laughing?”

“I am looking at your waist, my goodness; even though you are of a mature age, your girlish charms still sleep inside you.”

“They have been waiting for you,” Shpirtmira laughed, lifting her long hair with her small hands and letting it cascade over her shoulders.

She took light steps, as if taking care not to disturb the peace of the forest. The newcomer watched her from behind as she swayed, and she looked to him like a musical note that, under the conductor's rhythm, jumped from the line to the space of the staff.

“Come, why are you staying behind?”

“To read your steps and movements,” he told her. Shpirtmira turned her head to look forward, and her long, flowing hair whipped around, releasing sounds through the wind like a violin orchestra. Her small, beautiful, and highly harmonious foot stepped lightly from one side to the other, making her waist more beautiful and her shoulders more graceful. The newcomer had stopped and was watching her elegant walk, which he had often included in his stories and poems. Shpirtmira turned and saw that he had stopped; she opened her arms and called out to him, “My dear, come,” grabbed her long hair with both hands, lifted it up, and then let it cascade over her shoulders like a waterfall.

They were taking this walk on this first date by the lake to seal their love, between the blue lake and the dense greenery around it. The newcomer stepped up and placed both hands around her slender waist as if holding a ring, and squeezed it tightly; Shpirtmira put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Across the lake, a sunbeam pierced the leaden curtain of the cloud and cast light on her beautiful, oval face. A light breeze blew over the lake, scooping up a few drops of water like dew as if with hands, lifting them up, and then they fell, disturbing the beauty of the lake, which was as smooth as honey. They stepped right up to the water, and with their hands intertwined, they threw a handful of rose petals that Shpirtmira was holding onto the water. For a moment, the unexpected happened: from above, a sprinkle of rain dotted down for a second like tears, and the sky parted and opened. Silence; only the sunlight was fuller and more beautiful. The rose petals had not yet fallen onto the water; a breath of wind held them above the water and drifted them along without touching the surface, then shook them lightly as if wanting to sift them like a sieve sifting flour, and they fell onto the calm surface of the lake, which mirrored the sky with its brush-stroked colored rays, and the two lovers standing by its edge.

“How beautiful the lake is today!” The expatriate newcomer showed Shpirtmira the reflection.

Shpirtmira threw another handful of rose petals. A gentle current carried them off somewhere and brought them back again to the two lovers. A beautiful game this was, which made them both feel good by this lake, and in each other's arms.

The expatriate reached into his pocket and took out the gift.

“Shall I open it?”

Shpirtmira had frozen. The newcomer had pulled from his jacket pocket a box, not very large, but made of velvet and wrapped and tied with a golden ribbon.

“This is the gift of our union,” the newcomer said. “Shall I open it?”

Shpirtmira had lost her voice, her gaze had drifted, and her heart was beating fast. From the zoo, the chirping and singing of the birds grew louder. Shpirtmira came to her senses:

“Open it, but if it is a bird and it flies, be careful, because we want its chirping for our whole lives.”

The expatriate smiled:

“Our life must be a song,” he told her and kissed her. “We come from poles of suffering and seek nothing but a little happiness.”

He opened it carefully, as if afraid he might hurt what he had hidden inside. The moment he opened the lid, the earth trembled beneath their feet, and the lake began to wave powerfully. The water reached their feet, while the trees shook like jinns, making noise and whipping up a wind. The lovers were frightened and closed the box. Silence reigned everywhere. Everything returned to how it was before. They looked into each other's eyes and embraced. They were afraid to let go of one another. He took out the box again and opened it, and with clenched hands, he pulled out a gold chain and a key. A powerful storm brewed around them.

“Put it inside and close it,” Shpirtmira said.

“Nooo,” he said, “let it blow, let it thunder, let it pour rain and snow, I didn't get it to keep it in a box, but for you.” The wind picked up, snatching at Shpirtmira’s loose dress; it took the thin cardigan she had on her shoulders and tossed it over the lake. A great fountain rose up, and then swallowed the blouse into the depths.

“Let’s go… let’s go… I am unlucky, I am cursed,” Shpirtmira said, and leaned on his shoulder. The trees swayed, while the clouds settled over the lake, cold and leaden.

He reached out his hands and placed the chain and the small gold key around her neck. Like in the tales of Aladdin, silence reigned. The trees did not move and the lake did not breathe; in a corner of it, a girl with long, flowing hair emerged from the water. She was naked, her hair covering her entirely, the water reaching up to her calves. The water that dripped from her long, beautiful hair created a rustling sound that released a sad melody and rhythm.

“Who are you?” Shpirtmira spoke.

“I am her!”

“Which her!?”

“The one who holds the key of pain, which is why you have chosen an unsuitable place for your love. I was once a beautiful girl, like you today, madam, and my lover gifted me a key of love in this place. A key that opened the gates of my dreams, but which I never opened. Here I received my first kisses, and promises, but they killed my love.”

“Who killed it?” The expatriate was trembling all over.

“The system. It executed my love by firing squad, because it killed my lover, because he wanted to fly far and high, he wanted to fly to other, more beautiful lands and lakes together with me.”

“And then?” Shpirtmira had broken out in a cold sweat!

“Then, to bear the weight of the key and the pledge we made, I came and drowned myself in this lake, to drown all the pains of those who want their love to fly free like the song of these birds, for which the system built a zoo to drown out my pain with their song. But also to forget as quickly as possible the event of that century that killed the loves and the future of those who loved it and flew to see it, to touch it, and to feel it.”

“Our key and our pledge cannot be drowned,” they said in unison. “We came here to seal our future, and we will build this future where we want, and how we want.” The girl with the beautiful charms combed her long hair with her fingers, and with both hands she lifted it into the wind along with the weight of the water, throwing it back, and splashed the two lovers with a pearl-like shower of crystal dew.

“May you have a long and happy life together,” she said. “May you rejoice for the tens or hundreds of loves that died without their flights and joys, but also without the chirping of souls emerging from the depths of the spirit. May you also rejoice for my love, which has waited at the bottom of this lake for fifty years for a word, a hope, and a pledge that, in the future, loves will be free and long-lasting.”

The girl turned her back and vanished into the depths of the lake; the water turned blue, while the trees combed their hair in its mirror. The two lovers kissed deeply and remained holding each other tightly, as if to prove that they too, like nature and their love, were happy.