The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare Page A

the speaker, being a lady in this city, or occupying “lady
status” did not depend so much on the title and property of a husband. Rather, it was something to do with large houses. It was no coincidence that a foreign architect had called these houses
“ladies in stone”. According to him, inside these great houses no doubt constructed by deranged craftsmen, under their gingerbread ceilings and behind the pitiless glare of their
windowpanes, there took place a mysterious and sophisticated process, like a retreat into a moonlit distance, which was the first symptom of the formation of a lady. These ladies were imagined as
impossibly pale, their breasts and waists dazzlingly white, with a dark enigma hidden under silk that made the senses reel.
    A sigh of relief followed the conclusion of the talk.
    The next paper was easier to comprehend because it dealt with the events that had led to the death of the poor cultural official and also took a clear political position. From the very start the
speaker did not hide his hostility to the ladies. He considered their songs, which many people recalled with tenderness, to be indubitably decadent. As for their coffee ritual, evoked in the words,
“The coffee service arrives/Like a decree from the sultan”, this might be thought to describe a custom of aristocratic dignity, and even inspire admiration. But it struck this expert,
who had been nurtured at the bosom of the people, merely as evidence that the ladies of the city were not just discriminating aristocrats, but women of power. Intoxicated by his own eloquence, the
speaker lifted his head high to announce that these women had tyrannised the city for years.
    An intervention by the chairman asking for this contribution to be cut short only spurred on the speaker. He did not stop but screeched that these ladies not only wielded power but were the
city’s hidden face, its soul, its exact reflection. This, he claimed, was the explanation of the insane fantasies that flourished in this city, fictions about dinners for the dead and the
like.
    LADIES IN MOURNING
    There was no doubt that the ladies were being targeted and it was obvious too how entirely irrational this was.
    Paralysis gripped the city. Some of the punishments ordered by the capital city, astonishingly, were interpreted as acts of revenge on behalf of the ladies themselves. The speaker who had so
taken them to task was a case in point. “I would arrest the dog,” said the Party chairman, “but those hags would be over the moon with delight. ‘Look,’ they would say,
‘he insulted us, and see how he suffered!’”
    There were more meetings on the subject. Meanwhile most people privately thought that this campaign should never have been started. Gentlemen were easy to deal with. You summoned them to court,
found them guilty and chained them up. But you couldn’t do anything to ladies. They rarely left their houses, only once, at most twice in as many months. They were as elusive as mirages.
    When summer came to an end the Party chairman did not commit suicide as had been long expected but was dismissed, and this seemed an admission that the cause was lost.
    But this conclusion was premature. The very moment of the ladies’ apparent triumph proved the truth of the expression, “win a battle, but lose the war”.
    It was just after midday on 17 December when Madam Ganimet of the House of the Hankonats, dressed in her winter fur coat, tottered in her high heels across the intersection of Varosh Street and
the road to the lycée , when a woman greeted her from her right-hand side. “Good morning, Comrade Ganimet!”
    The lady so addressed stopped in her tracks, as if struck by a blow. There for a moment she remained, in the middle of the crossroads and then slowly, as if trying to identify her assailant,
attempted to turn her head. But her neck would not obey her.
    “It’s me, Comrade Ganimet. I’m Rosie, from the neighbourhood Committee. Are you