The following is excerpted from a new story featuring Kostandin Bitri. In this story he is eight years old and has been sent by his parents to live with his aunt and uncle in another village.  

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excerpt from Borderlands

I was staying with my aunt and uncle for the summer, near the eastern border in Kukës District. I was sent there right after school ended.

            My parents waited until the day before I was to leave before telling me their plans. It came as a shock and I admit I was upset. They said they had no choice. Many families had made the same decision: to send their children to stay with relatives or friends in other parts of the country, where it was safer. I didn’t want to go and told them I didn’t care what other people were doing. I looked them both in the eye, defiant. But a part of me knew I couldn’t fight what was happening. I’d known for a while that something was wrong, that where we lived was under threat from unseen, disruptive forces. Sometimes, on clear nights, I could hear the echo of detonations from the far side of the lake, sporadic but shrill and ominous. My parents said staying with my aunt and uncle would be like a vacation, a chance to have fun and not worry so much, because even though I was only eight years old I’d turned into a worrier. I always had something on my mind, eating away at me. I’m still like that, I don’t know why. My mother said that where I was going there would be lots of kids my age. I’d make new friends and the days would go by so fast I wouldn’t miss my friends here. But her smile tightened when she said this, and her face looked like a mask. Then she glanced down and away, like she couldn’t bring herself to meet my eye, and I knew she didn’t believe what she was saying. But it didn’t matter. The arrangements had been made. The next morning we went to the station and they put me on the midday train. I had no say in any of this.

            The journey took more than eight hours. My mother had packed a lunch for me, an apple and three boiled eggs. I ate all of it within the first hour. The train laboured along a winding route, climbing hills and descending into valleys, skirting the edge of small villages without stopping. In some places tall trees crowded in on the tracks and the forest became so thick the inside the train grew dark and you couldn’t see anything. But then the forest thinned, and, like a miracle, or like in a film, fields and farmhouses appeared out of nowhere, maybe a factory with square unmarked buildings and chimneys spewing murky smoke into the grey sky. Or a dirt road where a wagon was being pulled by a donkey. For a while it rained. I sat alone, watching dully through a curtain of water as the countryside flashed by outside the window. I’d been awake most of the previous night, so it wasn’t long before I was struggling with fatigue along with hunger and anxiety. I tried very hard to not be afraid.

            I fell asleep. When I awoke we were approaching our destination.

            Shkodër is a bustling, noisy place with busy streets and crowds of people. Sitting on the train, I couldn’t help missing it already. Every morning I took a bus into the city, to the 32nd Junior Patriot’s Academy on XXX Street. We lived about twenty miles outside of town. Our house was on a dirt road, in a hamlet called Shiroka, along the shore of Lake Skutari. Shiroka was just houses and scrubland, but there were some squat, single-floor stone buildings nearby—mainly offices and shops and a couple of cafés clustered around the village square. But walk five minutes until the cobbled path gave way to dirt and sand, and just beyond a fence or stone wall, you could see overgrown fields of yellow grass, tethered donkeys, goats and sheep grazing. Down by the water the fishermen would be pulling in their catch. Years later I recalled the clean smell of the lake and the buzzing of insects in the pulsing heat of late afternoon, and it would be transported back there, a child again. It was a tranquil, soothing place to grow up. When I was small, it was easy to pretend I was in a magic kingdom a thousand years in the past, where civilization didn’t exist. My fantasy world was a medieval one of castles and kings and warriors defending the realm. I could spend entire days in that world, evading an encroaching enemy, outsmarting bloodthirsty barbarians, saving the day over and over again. But then I’d remember my parents, my home, my warm bed. I’d remember that Shkodër and its shops and teeming streets were only thirty minutes away on the bus, and I would smile even though no one could see me. My life was complete.

            All of that is gone now.  

 *

My Aunt Megi was waiting at the station when my train arrived. I was the only one who got off. It seemed like a lonely place. There was no one else around. And the station was hardly a station at all, just an open clapboard shelter with a single bench and some planks of wood laid over the uneven ground to form a platform.

            Megi was my mother’s older sister. Her husband was Felix and they had a daughter, Esi, fifteen years old. I had come to stay with them because children were being evacuated from the area where we lived, near the western border. My parents had told me I had met felix and Megi before, and I had no reason to doubt them. But I must have been very young because I had no memory of such a meeting.

            My aunt was a short woman, thickset, with her hair covered by a red kerchief. She wore a long jacket, which looked odd, like a tunic, over a dark flouncy skirt. This, together with her smooth-skinned, pale face and pinched expression, gave her an antiquated appearance, like she’d crossed not just many miles but many years to meet me. On her feet were thick-soled leather boots, well-worn and scuffed. She looked like a peasant, a Roma—a thought that came to me unbidden and which I tried immediately to put out of my mind.

            Megi didn’t greet me by saying hello or asking How are you? or How was your journey? The first thing she said to me was, “Do you have the envelope?”

 *

That morning my father had presented me with a plain brown envelope stuffed with flat, uniform bundles, like stacks of paper. He hadn’t actually handed it to me. He opened my satchel and pushed it inside himself. He told me not to touch it.

            “Just a little something for Felix and Megi,” he said, grinning like he was embarrassed. “A small gift.”

            I took the envelope out of my satchel now and gave it to her. To my surprise, she didn’t open it to inspect the contents or even glance at it. She snatched it from me and with a nimble, furtive gesture deposited it in the burlap bag that hung from her shoulder on a string. She did not smile or thank me.

            “Come,” she said, and took me by the hand.

 *

Megi transported me from the station along a series of bumpy twisting roads in a cart drawn by a donkey. She said the donkey’s name was Ephus and that he was twenty years old and would probably die soon. For some reason the idea of a dead donkey seemed to amuse her, and she erupted in laughter, braying as if she was herself a donkey. Along the way we passed hayfields and clusters of weather-worn huts and other uninspiring wooden structures in various states of collapse. There were people with implements working in the fields and some of them paused in their labours to scrutinize us as the cart lumbered by. Megi did not acknowledge these people. No one called out a greeting. The road narrowed as we left the fields behind. On both sides the forest closed in, looming over the cart, and I was reminded of the train and the eerily shadowed interior of the cabin when the forest blocked the light. We journeyed another mile or so and did not encounter any other travelers. It was quiet place and seemed peaceful. The only sounds were the crunching of the wheels as they rolled slowly over the uneven dirt surface and some distant screeching of crows. I was too tired to ask questions and Megi maintained a resolute silence. At one point I sensed movement, and from the corner of my eye saw her raise a slender bottle of clear liquid to her lips. She tipped her head back and swallowed, then tucked the bottle away somewhere within the folds of her skirt. I angled my head in her direction and regarded her silently for a moment, her sharp-featured face in profile. She looked nothing like my mother, whose smiling eyes and youthful graces charmed everyone she met. Megi seemed to inhabit two worlds at once. She was not old but was no longer young. I felt, as the cart inched forward, like I was being pulled back in time. I knew where I was and how I had got here. But as we lumbered along it seemed increasingly unlikely that I could be here, in such a strange place, so far from home.

            Eventually we arrived at a squat single-storey dwelling on the edge of a scruffy patch of stony soil. For about the last half hour of our journey I had seen no other houses or structures. By this time the sky was beginning to dim and I struggled to absorb details of what was to be my home for the summer. The house was situated at the foot of a hill. Behind the house, beyond a collapsing stone wall at the rear of the property, the ground rose steeply and was densely forested. The house was of simple cinderblock and mortar construction, coated with rough spackling. The front door was unpainted, worn colourless from exposure to the weather. On either side of the door were two square, crack-paned windows, glowing with a ghostly, wavering light. The roof was clay tile, patchy with lichen and stained with age. A narrow brick chimney in back emitted a meagre trickle of smoke. Set apart from the house to one side was a wooden shack like a small barn. I assumed this was where Ephus the donkey spent his nights.

            I was anxious and hungry but exhausted. I could feel my body sagging. I knew I would not be able to stay awake much longer.

            Megi led the way inside. I followed her across the threshold, carrying my satchel and a cloth bag containing clothes, books and toiletries. The interior was awash in yellow light from three or four flickering oil lamps. There was a table with four chairs, a hearth with a crackling fire and a massive stove of a type I had never seen before. Next to the stove, chopped and split firewood was stacked in neat rows against the wall. Just above a kitchen sink and tap, a window provided a view through to the back of the property, but I couldn’t see outside because in the minutes since our arrival it had become dark. The air smelled of smoke and something else, savoury and wholesome.

            The strangeness of everything was upsetting. I didn’t know what to make of it. My parents had sent me here but I could not believe this was what they wanted. I looked around, searching for a word to describe what was before me, and as I did so my confusion grew. I didn’t want to cry—I was too tired—but nevertheless tears pushed their way up and leaked out of my eyes. I quickly wiped them away. I seemed to be overwhelmed by swarms of sensations, grabbing at me, coming at me from all directions. I was sweating and weak. I felt I might collapse. I wanted to go home. I was famished and needed to eat. I needed to sleep. And I needed to go to the bathroom.

            Then I realized Megi was talking.

            “As you can see, Kostandin, we don’t have much. You will find life here is different from your life with your parents. We live simply. We work hard. While you are here with us, you will work too and earn your way. We expect nothing less.”

            She laid the bag containing the envelope on the table and regarded me with a neutral or blasé expression, like my presence in her house—though perhaps an inconvenience—was of no account. At that moment, staring into her eyes, I couldn’t begin to imagine what she was thinking.

            “Now, we’ll get you settled.”

            She turned and approached the hearth. I let my gaze drift for a moment and as I did so remembered that her husband, Felix, and daughter, Esi, were somewhere about. The house was so small, I thought, where could they be? But I didn’t want to say anything.

            “You must be hungry,” I heard as, with her back to me, she bent down. She lifted something which turned out to be a black iron pot, lugged it to the table and removed the lid. She went to a cupboard above the sink and retrieved a bowl.

            She brought over a ladle and a spoon. I didn’t see where these had come from because I was transfixed by the pot, the steam emanating from it, the rich, satisfying fragrance of blended herbs. Saliva had gathered in my mouth. I was in danger of drooling. Somehow my satchel and bag were on the floor.

            “Come,” she said, and dragged a chair out from the table.

            The remainder of that evening passed in a blur. She fed me a stew of mutton and root vegetables and I ate until I could eat no more. A glass of water materialized on the table and I guzzled that. It was the best glass of water I’d had in my entire life. As I ate and drank she busied herself with something at the sink. I forgot about Felix and Esi.

            When she came to clear the table she was swaying on her feet, but I assumed she was just tired, from her daytime chores and fetching me from the train station. I was about to thank her for the meal when she turned and indicated something I had not noticed before, a ladder fixed to the wall leading up to a square hatch in the ceiling. There was a loft above us.

            “You will sleep there,” she said. “But you must be quiet when you go up because Esi is already in bed.”

            Exhaustion was getting the better of me. I nodded and told her I had to go to the bathroom.

            We went out through the side door. With tottering steps she led me along a narrow path that took us beyond the ruined stone wall, along the edge of a grassy patch behind the barn where to my left there was a grove of trees with grotesquely twisted limbs. Beneath the hazy glow of a crescent moon, she raised her arm and pointed in the direction of a wooden hut standing amidst a snarl of bushes and creepers.

            My mother had neglected to mention any of this.