“Babo digjet e Klodi krihet”: who are the “brave” and the “traitors”

By Agron Gjekmarkaj

The chronicle is enchanted by the brave and records Babo’s traitors!

“Qyqja, moj nene, qyqja, moj nene,” was heard the murmur of Ekonomi when he saw Klodi Spaçi dressed like girls with red ribbons!

This is what they call: Babo burns and Klodi combs his hair, Evisi whispered in his ear, grabbing his lapel.

First God takes your mind, then the rest slowly! Gaz Bardhi, you take them all at once! Erzin first. He has become like a ghost, out of the file, into the file!

The aunt, the cunning old woman, never did anything without chickens, became a drum — what do I need, she thought, Vlora with Gysi.

The latter, they say, had called her to scold her in his office over some permits and things in the South, and she was in tears! That’s where he broke her heart. Ditmari swears she is sensitive, for he knows her secret orders and she has suffered.

Sypetrit Malaj was only firing shots from behind, bam-bum, bum-bam, from stress and fear, so much that Niko told him: “Blessed are the Opposition’s batteries, for they don’t stink, but you, you damned one, have eaten carrion, may death wash you, you had not a drop of mercy!”

His stomach made noises like a combine harvester!

Delina held a cloth dampened with apple vinegar, as in protests when they throw tear gas! As soon as she removed it, she let out a sigh of relief.

The Interior Minister, the bold Demir Demo, entered secretly, as befits a brave man, and left sneakily with rabbit pride! He wasn’t looking for trouble! They say he will come out himself with a rifle on his shoulder, dressed in fustanella, riding a horse, like Osman Gazepi once in Berat, to tame organised crime.

The stout man Gonxhe (wider than tall in health, though in mind a cunning wheeler-dealer, even though he can’t read or write) took a mammoth-angelic stroll, just to be seen, and left! “What do I need,” he said in the corridor, “I have a frozen heart, for Gysi has called me to his place six times.” Wasn’t it said to him, hey, wasn’t it said? One day I rebelled, I dodged him: “I’m in Butrint.” “Fine,” he told me, “I’ll wait whenever you return.” What could I do, I went to him at midnight, we drank a glass of that much-talked-about wine! It was good, you’d lick your lips.

Those who went to his studio to do favours, to switch positions, sat with bowed heads like the wretched and had their bellies tucked in!

Through their teeth, one said: “Let’s form the association ‘Gysi’s godchildren’ and protect one another from troubles.” “No,” said someone, “he was younger than us. Since we are the sons, let’s call it the ‘Holy Covenant’.” So it was left! Those who had eaten their fill abstained.

Only Klosi came out to speak like the shyta (the goat that sought horns and lost even its ears) and mumbled two-three sentences drowned out, like that rustle through trousers! Then, cowering and dizzy, he sat down! Nobody told him: “Well done!” Some let out nasty remarks — it’s from insomnia, for vice works its hundred, of course!

Thursday’s session was surreal, the whole shame of the majority remained in Qefserja’s hands! “Speak,” they told Koçia, “speak, beja fora, show yourself, what can you do for our Babo in these miserable times, for if Etilda were here, she’d overturn the government’s wooden bench, like the ‘Mother Albania’ monument, would she lead us?!”

“Go on, light it,” they told Nufi, “launch your rockets, press the buttons, shake, you scoundrel, fire, burn, make it embers, damn all those scoundrels down there!!!” “No way, I’m a peaceful man, I’m of the pen, of thought, my weapon is culture,” he said and hid under the table!

Pirro Dëngu looked at him with contempt. “If I were there, as once, now I’d bring the army and crush them, they’d be caught red-handed and this matter would close with heads held high, for we have raised our behinds and bowed our heads,” he sneered today! A tear the size of a walnut fell on the floor!

“Call Karakaçi,” they raised the wail, “let him come and make battle, fight like Oso Kuka, for the opposition is drowning us,” Bora advised, while herself puffing on a small pipe!

“Eh,” said Igli, “where would you catch Enea Laraska (in the southern dialect, Karakaçe = laraska)!! Light feet, fair face, and then he has the gift of speech.” “But maybe he’ll move his finger,” Bora insisted. “Eh, not for this job, bezani,” Igli, “but for that other real one!”

In this boredom and gloom, Shalsi, with the unbearable lightness of being, took out two slices of bread with butter and some salami slices inside and ate them, as if on another planet! He also rubbed his belly! Fatmir Xhafa, just like in Bregu’s song “The Deep One Who Treads on Vices”, like that, unfelt like a pharaoh, was seen no more.

Damos pleaded with tears in his eyes, sisters and society: “Speak, come out, for Neta will make pancakes of you, come out and defend Babo, for things are dire!” “Gladly,” he said, “I’d do it, but I have gym hours, Babo has said a sound mind in a sound body, then he trusts Zeniqeja, not me, I can’t disappoint him, I’ve never wronged him!!!”

Kostaqi watched him clearer and clearer and suffered deeper and deeper. “Ah, if I were a deputy there, those scoundrels would see how I’d roast them on a spit one by one, like Lumë lambs,” and a vein was about to burst from his forehead and take the fields like oil gushing from the ground!

“Bah, mezallah,” said Koçia after a long hesitation!

“For this black day we have Qefserja,” who, emerged as from legends, was striding over a speech prepared by others!

Some stunned ones were uttering as in a trance a strange word: “Kartela, kartela”! Kidi, supposedly to defend him, but as if driving a nail into him, said: “For you are heartless, you even remind him of the injury to his veins!”

Braçja knocked, as other times, on the doors of the chronicle! He asked: “How do you know that Mamica and Tao go to Babo’s konak?” “Babua himself told us,” we said, “he asked us as a favour to spread the word that Mamica found God’s path and you, little troublemakers, throw away your knives, enough with war games!”

Braçja blushed when we confided to him that Qefserja will be waiting for you to do your self-criticism, accompanied by Erjo Mile as witness, no flowers, no Turkish delight, no portrait. Then she brings him the concentrate! Ervin Hoxha asked Ogi: “Shall I stand up and make a scene?” She stopped him: “Stay, take notes and hand the list to the ‘Chronicle’, for you are not ready yet after the traumas you’ve suffered! This is a more useful action.”

Erjon Malaj was beating his temples with his fists — “What has befallen me, what has befallen me” — he wailed!!! “Nobody speaks, they’re hiding,” he complained. “You speak.” “I won’t,” says one, “for my grandfather died last year, it’s the anniversary, my heart won’t do it.” “You speak,” I tell another. “Don’t turn it on me, I dreamed last night that I bit my tongue with my teeth and I’m in no mood.” “Will you talk?” “Ah, no, my mare foaled in the village, I have joy, come let me treat you!”

Nobody wanted to cry: “Ah, uncle Tao, uncle Tao, how you leave me alone on doomsday! May I go bald, may I, for staying with the little ones,” he lamented!

Well, Tao kept his word, the scoundrel has his eye on Nikollaqi’s chair! He waits for October. Even Babua saw it, with all the troubles that have befallen him, he had given him a big and generous smile to illustrate his wisdom on Facebook, for he had supposedly raised Albania’s flag in the greetings even with the radar off!

Let nobody worry about Bledion Nallbasi!

He had fallen into a great indecision! He saw Mamica in a blue dress inflating her cheeks, pulling a toscanello, pack thing, overly hissing pack thing, the lad talking to himself! “As if Rutja shrunk it!” If nothing else, he said, “this battle must be won, to have that dress for judgment day as a shroud!” Termeja approached him and said: “Hold on, brother, nobody has found the bottom of worry, it’s an endless forest! Oak after oak the axe breaks.”

The evil eye of the socialists, who that night eyed Babo greedily with a wicked gaze, had fallen on Jorushi of the Tabaks. The new trousers, cowboy-like, were torn, luckily, near the shoes! He went on limping that far and didn’t stop his momentum!

The deputy leader, the governor Flamur, complimented the “Chronicle” with measured, unhurried, all-weighed words, that it deepen its self-criticism, without falling into pessimism! Meanwhile, Bernard Banushi, the çiarçif of toskëria, weaves great plans, the smoke of which will soon come out over the chimney!