22. Chapter 22
A ria
"I was nine," Aria said quietly, her fingers curling into the worn edge of her robe. "We lived just outside Gjakova, in a two-storey house near the edge of town. It wasn't much, but it was ours. All my aunties and uncles lived nearby.
"I remember thinking the whole world smelled like stew and sawdust. Back then, I didn't like that smell.
My mother was in the kitchen that night-she made stuffed peppers, the way her mother taught her, with spiced rice and lamb and mint.
And bread. Always bread, warm and soft, wrapped in a tea towel. "
Her voice softened. "My father came home later than usual.
He smelled like wood glue and sweat, his shirt always brown from the sawdust in the shop.
He was quiet that evening. Said something was happening in a village nearby, men whispering about roadblocks and disappearances.
But I didn't really understand. I just remember how he kissed my forehead and looked tired. " She blew out a shaky breath.
"The house had creaky stairs and handwoven rugs. We had grapevines curling along the fence and a fig tree in the back that I used to climb, even when they told me not to. You could hear the bells of the Hadum Mosque at midday, drifting through the streets. "
"Sometimes, on Fridays," she continued, her eyes distant, "we'd walk to the ?arshia e Madhe-the old bazaar.
The stone under my sandals would be warm, and my mother's hand was always wrapped around mine so I wouldn't get lost in the colours.
There were stalls of fabric, copper pots, dates, and roasted chestnuts.
The shopkeepers would laugh and call me bukuroshja vogel , little beauty. I believed them."
She gave a small, broken laugh. "I thought Gjakova was the biggest city in the world. I thought the world ended at the river, where the Krena flowed past the stone bridge."
She glanced at Crispin, almost apologetically. "I didn't know about borders yet...or war. All that I took for granted changed that night."
"My mother had a voice like honey on toast-soft, slow, and always tired." She blinked. "But the night the soldiers came, there was no voice. Just shelling. Windows rattling and bursting. I remember someone's TV screaming the national anthem."
Her hands twisted in her robe. "My brother, Erjon, was fourteen.
He dragged me out of bed. He put a hand over my mouth and whispered, 'Stay quiet.
' The three hid in the cupboard in my room when we heard the door being broken down.
The cupboard had a false panel where we used to hide during games of hide and seek.
Lule was already asleep. She was three. She didn't wake. "
"They opened the cupboard once," she said flatly, "but didn't find the panel. Then they left. "
Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "We stayed hidden for hours. I had to pee, but Erjon told me to be quiet. So, I just...went."
There was silence as she got lost in the memory, her eyes glassy. "We heard the footsteps. Someone was shouting orders. Something scraped against the floorboards, probably guns. I heard my mother screaming, and then it all stopped."
Crispin's breath hitched, but he said nothing.
" Erjon went to the window once we were sure they were gone. I tried to follow, but he turned and hugged me and whispered, 'No. Don't look. Promise me, you won't look.'" Her eyes glittered bright, but the tears didn't spill. "But I didn’t keep my promise."
"Days later, when the house stank of old milk and something sourer, I looked. Their bodies were in the courtyard. My Mami and Babi left there to rot. Flies were buzzing." She inhaled sharply. "I never told Erjon what I saw."
Crispin was silent, utterly still.
"We stayed there, rationing biscuits. We were terrified to leave. The water lines had been blown. One night, Erjon went for water, just down the road. I was watching Lule when the door creaked open." She closed her eyes. "It wasn't Erjon."
Her next words were flat. Dead.
"He was a stranger, and he looked...wrong. Hungry."
She seemed to look through Crispin now, as if lost in a terrifying memory .
"I tried to run, but I was very small for my age. He caught me."
A beat.
"I don't remember much. Maybe it is a mercy, not remembering being raped. I remember screaming, and he hit me on the head. I thought I would die. I was in and out of consciousness, I think. Lule was screaming. And then Erjon was shaking me. He had hit that man with a pot, again and again."
She swallowed. "Erjon didn't say anything. He handed me the water bottle and told me to clean up. It hurt so badly and... and... there was a lot of blood."
Her hands trembled.
"That night, he said we had to leave. We wrapped Lule in a sheet and walked through alleys we knew so well. We made it to the old bakery. We thought it would be safe."
Her voice dropped lower. "But someone saw us. There were shouts and gunshots. Erjon turned to me, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, 'Run. Don't stop. I'll lead them away. Meet me at Daja's* house.'" Her voice cracked again. "I never saw him again."
"The house was empty. Daja was long gone. The neighbours said she'd gone north. A man came a few days later, but I didn't know him. He had papers. Money. The neighbours seemed to know him well. Said Daja had paid for us to be smuggled out. "
She gave a bitter smile. "She hadn't."
She looked at Crispin in the eye, unblinking. "It was hell-that long journey. Lule got sick-burning up, shivering. I thought she would die. I don't know what they planned to do with us, but we were caught by the coast guard. They processed us and sent us to a family who said I was their niece."
Another pause.
"I wasn't. But they spoke Albanian, and I thought it would be safe. They beat me, made me cook and clean. I didn't see a school for six months. Finally, a social worker came, and she could see something was very wrong. We were starving. I...I told her."
Aria looked down. "You know the rest. Foster homes. School. I started working at sixteen."
She pulled her cold hands away from where he was holding hers tightly and folded them neatly in her lap. Her eyes said give me space . Crispin reluctantly withdrew, as though he feared she might vanish if he let go.
"That's why I'm like this."
Crispin's mouth parted, eyes rimmed red, but he said nothing.
"I don't need your pity," she added gently. "I don't want your guilt."
"I don't feel pity," he whispered. "I feel so small. I am so sorry. "
She met his gaze one last time, continuing like she didn’t hear him. "That was the first cut, Crispin. You were the second."
Silence hung between them like a shroud.
Crispin still sat back on the floor, his hands empty without hers. But Aria didn't look at him. She stared out the window, where dawn was just beginning to bleed into the sky.
Then, in a quiet voice, she said, "I never finished school."
Crispin looked up.
"I can't read very well. My teachers tried, but by then, I was already behind everyone else. Everything in my life came second to keeping Lule fed and warm." She gave a small, dry laugh. "So, no, I'm not clever. I'm not educated."
She drew in a slow breath. "I've never done anything but menial work. Cleaned toilets, made beds in hotels where no one ever looked you in the eye. Washed dishes. Chopped vegetables. Waited tables." A pause. "Worked as a carer. I am the 'help'." Her voice cracked slightly.
"I'm never going to amount to much more than I am right now-I know that. But I brought up my sister, and that's something. That's mine. My parents wouldn't have approved of me being with you...any of this. But I think... I think they'd be proud of how I raised her. "
She paused, her shoulders rising with a deep breath. "When I first met you, I hadn't been in a relationship before."
She said it simply, not as a confession, but as a fact.
"I'd only ever known pain and fear of a faint memory of a nightmare. But when you looked at me, when our eyes met, I felt something." Her voice went softer, distant. "You were the man I would've dreamed of if I'd had the kind of life that allowed dreaming."
She finally looked at him. Her eyes were full of remembered pain.
"I began waiting just for glimpses of you. Then, for the short, secret meetings. And when we finally came together-" she swallowed, "-I thought maybe...maybe I wasn't broken. Maybe it was possible for me to be a woman. To be wanted, not used. You gave me that. And for that, I am grateful."
Her limp fingers fluttered like a startled butterfly for a second.
"It crept up on me slowly. This love. It felt like coming back to life."
A long silence followed before her voice dropped, barely above a whisper. "But it was different for you, wasn't it?"
Crispin opened his mouth, but no sound came .
"You were ashamed of me." Her voice didn't break, but her heart was in every word.
"I was your dirty secret. Your quiet sin tucked behind closed doors while you smiled for pictures with someone else."
She looked away, towards the pale sky. "I told myself I was strong enough to endure that, but I wasn't. And I'm not."
*Daja-aunt