The novel ‘A Woman between Two Men’, with an Albanian-American Theme, is authored by Carrie Hooper and Skifter Këllici
Mary recalled the film, “Escape at Midnight”, based on a true story from the seventies in which the famous actor, Brad Davis, played Bill Hajes, an American who was arrested by the Turkish police at the airport in Istanbul after they found drugs hidden all over his body. Kreshnik had done the same thing. Mary thought about how much the man had suffered in the large, dark, Medieval prison in Istanbul until one day, he escaped.
“In some countries like Singapore, such crimes are punishable by hanging,” said Kreshnik, his face sullen. “I often think the best way to escape the snare of drugs and avoid death would be to turn myself in.”
Mary raised her eyebrows in terror and said, “I hope it never comes to that! Get away from Max as soon as you can.”
“I’ve thought about that, but it’s not that simple. If I did that, he wouldn’t think twice about killing James who raised me but also got me into this mess. But we’ll see. The past few weeks, Max hasn’t asked me to do any of his dirty work. But you never know.”
Mary’s eyes sparkled.
“Why did you choose me to tell your secrets to?” she asked.
Surprised, Kreshnik shrugged his shoulders and said quietly, “In the first place, I wanted to tell you that I met Dolores purely by chance. She wanted to see me. Secondly, I needed to tell someone my burning secret. That way, if the police caught me, people would know I was not a criminal.”
“Kreshnik, I give you my word according to the Albanian custom,” said Mary.
Kreshnik’s eyes shone.
“You know, Nik, Ralph Kallagan told me about how your father died a hero’s death.”
Her face lit up.
“Really? He told you that?” Kreshnik asked, surprised, and wrinkled his forehead. “I will never forget that day. Kallagan took me by the hand, and together with James, we rode in the ambulance. When my father lost consciousness, Kallagan took me away so I wouldn’t see him die. I remember when he came to my father’s funeral.”
“Why didn’t you remind him about that before the police beat you?”
“James wondered the same thing. I didn’t want him to know that the son of the man who was considered a hero in San Diego had become a drug trafficker.”
Mary regretted that she had brought up the subject. So she said, “You are young. You will make something of yourself.”
“What do you mean? I just turned 27.”
“We’re the same age!” Mary said, surprised. “Do you mean I’m old?”
“No! You don’t look a day over twenty.”
Kreshnik had confirmed what Charlie, Wilma, and other friends had said. But Mary did not want to give him the chance to express the admiration typical of a young man in love. Therefore, she said, “Kreshnik, that cut on your eyebrow could become infected. So after we say good-bye, go and get it treated right away at a hospital or a clinic.”
She bit her lip. She had forgotten that she had treated a similar cut on his arm at the beach. She could treat him now. She had the necessary medicines with her. Kreshnik recalled that when he was cleaning the bloody cut in front of the bathroom mirror, James had told him in a mocking tone to go to the hospital and have Mary tend to it. Now she was there as she had been that afternoon.
“Thank you. I’ll do that,” said Kreshnik. Then, as if remembering something, he added, “I forgot to treat you to a coffee or something else.” He wanted their meeting to last as long as possible.
But Mary, getting up from the table, said, “No. It’s time to go.”
Her cell phone rang. She took it out of her bag and was speechless when she saw the name Charlie Smith. “Should I talk to him or not?” Mary mulled over this question in her mind, then brushed it aside. She hated herself for having done that. Still, she kept her composure.
“Anyway,” she said, avoiding Kreshnik’s persistent look, “before we say good-bye for good, I want to say one more thing.” She emphasized the words “for good.”
“You are a handsome young man except when you get angry like that night at the hospital or when the police beat you. Your eyes appear to catch fire! They could burn you alive!”
“I know I lose control when I get mad.”
Kreshnik was silent, and his eyes betrayed his sadness. Mary chided herself for having brought up that particular fault of his.
“As I said, you are attractive, but you have to like yourself. I’m sorry I offended you that afternoon at the restaurant. But you have to take better care of yourself. If you do, you will look better.”
Mary regretted her short lecture. She thought some of her words sounded stale. She rose from the table, not wanting to part with Kreshnik inside the cafe. She did not want to attract the attention of those who drank and talked even though they were no longer watching her.
Once outside, she said to Kreshnik, “Well, good-bye. I wish you all the best. Take care of yourself. Try to get out of this awful business one way or another.”
She paused for a moment, then continued, “Don’t abandon your literary or musical pursuits. Write poetry. More specifically, write about your future partner. Publish your work. Maybe I will see your poems in Literary Magazine. I read it once in a while. And please, please promise me you won’t confront me again and that you will forget me as I must forget you. My future husband, Charlie, stands between us. Good-bye, Nik!”
She felt like a teacher giving advice to a student and noticed that his fiery eyes met hers after nearly every word. After she finished speaking, she reached out her hand to him, lightly touched his burning fingers, then withdrew it for fear he would hold it forever. Afterwards, she hurried to her car. Kreshnik stood alone on the sidewalk in front of the cafe.
Mary did not look at him as she drove away. Neither did she look through the rearview mirror. She hated herself for having deceived Charlie by meeting Kreshnik and not answering the phone when he had called. He had left her a nice message and had promised again that he would pick her up at the hospital when her shift ended at 11:00. Mary would deceive him a third time when he asked her why she hadn’t answered the phone. She had not yet decided what she would say. It nearly scared her to death when she realized someone in the cafe might have been a friend of Charlie’s. He might run into him later that day and might tell him, with or without malice, that he had seen Mary talking to a bearded guy. If the trap Charlie had set for Mary when she went to meet Kreshnik had only been a hallucination, Mary’s meeting with Kreshnik at the cafe had been real. Thus, she could not tell Charlie that she had gone for a short walk. Otherwise, she would have been caught in her lie.
She scolded herself for having gone to that cafe with Kreshnik. She could just as easily have apologized to him over the phone. That would have resolved everything.
Mary decided to be even more present in Charlie’s life just as he would be in hers no matter where they were. In bed, they would embrace physically and spiritually with feverish passion.
Kreshnik still stood in front of the cafe. The phrase, “for good”, which Mary had uttered twice, had become a high wall like the Great Wall of China which would separate her and Kreshnik forever. When he saw Mary’s car disappear down Market Street, he bowed his head and headed home.
James continued to drink while he watched a movie on television.
“Max called about a half hour ago,” he said as Kreshnik came into the living room. “He asked for you. He called your cell phone, but you didn’t answer.”
“It was off,” said Kreshnik.
He suspected Max had wanted to give him news he didn’t want to hear.
“I’m sure that Davenport girl’s moans of pleasure excited you. I saw you from the window when you went out to greet her. She walked slowly toward you.”
“You exaggerate, James! We just went out for coffee.”
“And you planned another hot date,” said James in a mocking tone.
Kreshnik did not pay any attention to him.
“What did Max want?” he asked.
“He wanted you to call him as soon as you got home.”
Kreshnik screwed up his face in anger, took out his cell phone, and dialed Max’s number.
“Hello, Boss. You were looking for me?”
“Forget about your plans for tonight. Come to my office around nine,” Max’s voice boomed.
“All right, Boss.” Kreshnik clutched his phone as if he wanted to break it.
“I take it he wants you to do something,” said James.
“What else is new?”
Kreshnik took a glass out of the kitchen cupboard, filled it with whisky, and drank it in one gulp, something he rarely did. James opened his eyes wide.
“I’m going to get some sleep,” said Kreshnik, distracted. “Then I’ll go to Max’s office.”
He sighed and added, “I don’t know if or when I’ll be home.”
“Don’t say that,” muttered James. A cloud of sadness covered his brown, mischievous face.
Kreshnik stopped at the door. “If I leave tonight, I will call you. Please don’t call me.”
Then he opened the door and left.
“Stay safe,” sighed James. “And come home as soon as you can.”
Max kept one hand on his desk, and in the other, he held a cigarette which he smoked now and then. Dolores sat cross-legged in a chair opposite him.
“Have you noticed the way Nik has been acting these past few weeks?” asked Max.
“It seems to me he has lost his focus because he has fallen in love,” said Dolores. She walked over to Max and put her hands on his neck.
“Didn’t you lose your ability to concentrate when you fell in love with me?” Max wondered.
He kissed Dolores gently on the cheek.
“He has become distracted because his lover isn’t interested in him,” said Dolores. She kissed Max just as gently, but on the lips.
“You could have an attractive guy like that if you wished.”
“Me?” Dolores chuckled.
Max’s words stung even though they were meant to be funny.
“I don’t like tough guys who never smile.”
“How do you know his lover isn’t interested in him?”
“I didn’t want to tell you before, but now, the time is right. I saw her with my own eyes one Saturday afternoon. A few months ago, before you went to Mexico, Columbia, and elsewhere on business, I saw her in a club in Del Mar Beach. That afternoon, when you didn’t come, you called me and told me to spend the night alone in a hotel because you had an unexpected meeting with a boss. Remember?”
Max nodded. He remembered the day’s events as Dolores had described them with one exception: he had spent the night in an expensive hotel with another woman whom he had paid well.
“We were sitting at a table and enjoying a drink,” Dolores continued, “when suddenly he fixed his gaze on a woman who had just come into the club. She looked lovely, she really did. He looked at his watch, suppressed a scream, left me alone, and ran after her like a crazy person.”
“Did he meet her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you give him what for afterwards for leaving you alone at the club?”
“Would I let a jerk like that humiliate me?” Dolores fumed.
Max gasped after her burst of bitter indignation. Afterwards, his eyes grew somber.
“If it is as you say, that woman could be trouble,” said Max. “In our line of work, you can only concentrate on one thing. We have to get rid of anything that could cause a problem.”
He paused for a moment.
“Especially, as in Nik’s case, when it is a matter of love. He is tough but sensitive.”
“Even more so because you’re leaving for Long Beach tonight,” Dolores remarked.
“Do you know the beauty?”
“I didn’t get a good look at her that night, but I think she works at a hospital.”
Max rubbed his mustache.
“I won’t say a word about this to Nik,” he said. “I’ll encourage him.” (Continues)
Click here for Part-1, Part-2, Part-3, Part-4, Part-5, Part-6, Part-7, Part-8, Part-9, Part-10, Part-11, Part-12, Part-13, Part-14, Part-15, Part-16,
_________________
About the Authors
Carrie Hooper was born and raised in Elmira, New York. She has been blind since birth. She received a B.A. in vocal performance from Mansfield University, Mansfield, Pennsylvania. She went on to receive an M.A. in German and an M.A. in vocal performance from the State University of New York at Buffalo. After completing her studies, she spent a year at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden as a Fulbright scholar. Carrie currently lives in Elmira, New York. She taught German, Italian, and Romanian at Elmira College. She has a passion for foreign languages and in addition to the languages mentioned above, she is also proficient in Swedish, Spanish, and Albanian. Music also plays an important role in Carrie’s life. She teaches voice and piano lessons, gives vocal concerts, plays the piano and organ at a church, and sings in a community chorus. Carrie not only loves music and languages, but also enjoys poetry. She has published three books: “Piktura në fjalë” (“Word Paintings”), a bilingual collection of poetry (Albanian-English), “My Life in My Words”, and “Away from Home.” She has also translated texts from Albanian and Romanian to English.
Skifter Këllici was born in Tirana, Albania and received a diploma in history and literature from the University of Tirana. He worked as a journalist, scholar, and sportscaster on radio and television. He is the author of several novels and nonfiction books, including the children’s books, “Memories of the Old Neighborhood” and “In the Footsteps” as well as the historical novels, “Assassination in Paris”, “The Murderer with the White Hands”, and “September Disaster.” He wrote the screenplay for “In the Footsteps” which won a special prize at the International Children’s Film Festival in Giffoni, Italy in 1979. He has lived in Boston, Massachusetts since 1999.
[The book ‘Disastrous September is being reproduced in episodes with the consent of the author]
