The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare Page B

coming along to the meeting tomorrow?”
    Rosie’s quarry remained rooted to the spot. Then she raised her hand as if in search of support and lifted it to her chest. Her knees trembled and she collapsed on the cobblestones.
    Some passers-by contacted the hospital, which sent its only ambulance at once.
    This was merely the start. Now that a hitherto unsuspected method of bringing down the indomitable ladies had been found, it was open season everywhere. Like seagulls at the end of their life
span the ladies of the city fell one after another, wherever they were caught by the fatal cry of “Comrade!” The same scene was repeated: first they froze on the spot and reached out a
despairing arm as if for support from some kind gentleman. Sir, your arm, please. Then there was an attempt to see where the blow had come from, a catch of the breath, a trembling at the knees,
followed by collapse.
    Mrs Nermin Fico and Mrs Sabeko of the House of Zekat both fell on the same day, the first as she was setting out from home and the second when returning from a social call. That same week it was
the turn of Mrs Turtulli as she crossed Chain Square. A lady of the Kokalari House, emerging out of doors for the first time in two years, on hearing the cry of “Comrade!” tried to
flee, but her knees gave way and she crumpled on the spot. Mrs Mukades Janina, rumoured at one time to have been the king’s secret fiancée, slumped halfway across the Old Bridge, while
her assailant, suddenly taking fright, ran away. A lady of the Çoçoli House managed to protest, “I’m not a comrade!” before she fainted, but others fell without a
word. The two Maries, Marie Laboviti and Marie Kroi, could only manage an astonished cry of “Oaaah!”, covering their mouths with their hands as they did when teased by street urchins;
but this time they did not laugh.
    And so it continued, on Castle Street, by the Powder Magazine, in front of Xuano’s shop, by the State Bank and at Çerçiz Topulli Square, where in 1908 our hero
Çerçiz shot the Turkish major, after challenging him, “Hey Turkish scum, here comes death from Çerçiz!” All over the town the ladies fell one by one.
    Everyone noticed how few of them there were now.
    Strangely, now that they were so much less visible, people thought about them more often, recalling places “where the incident happened”, and other details, such as the case of Mrs
Meriban Hashorva, carried home on an army stretcher, or Mrs Shtino, who after a gypsy girl shouted “Comrade!” expressed her dying wishes on the way to the hospital. At these
“sites of incidents” a stonemason whose name was never mentioned was said to be putting up plaques with the names of the ladies and the day and exact time of their fall.
    It was now universally understood that after all that had happened, the ladies had shut themselves up indoors, never to emerge again. Among them were Mrs Pekmezi and Mrs Karllashi, two ladies of
the House of Shamet who used an old family alphabet for their correspondence, and also a lady of the Çabejs, another of the Fico family and finally an elderly Kadare lady with her sister,
Nesibe Karagjozi.
    Clearly the ladies were beaten.
    DAY 2,000
    The setting of their star brought no joy. Secretly, people felt remorse at this disruption of the natural order. There was a feeling that the ladies would be gone for a long
time. It would take decades, if not centuries, for the great Houses to produce new ladies, for only these cultivated families possessed the expertise. Without them it was predicted that the city
would turn savage, but nobody knew in what way. The code of the ladies’ secrets had never been broken. Now their culture had been extinguished and it was impossible to say what might grow in
the ashes they left behind.
    Superficially the city remained the same. But to the much-abused surrounding villages and small towns, it seemed that the hour to settle scores had struck. Yet they did