THE NEW NOVEL – THE BRIDES OF THE VILLA … 1944 … BLUE
Flamur Buçpapaj
“Dedicated to all couples who forgot that a child is not merely their blood, but the dream they brought to life together. May this page serve as a reminder that a parent’s love never ends, even when the love between you does.”
Separation brings nothing good — only flashes of sadness and suffering.
Every feeling is simply a repetition of something that happened before, perhaps without realizing it.
“When beauty comes for the second time with the same mask of betrayal, it is not a miracle, but a repetition of the first mistake,” he said, casting a gaze that resembled a distant look stretching beyond the sea. He knew that this city, just like life itself, was filled with moments of joy and inevitable sorrow, yet these moments always returned, as if they were merely an ordinary part of the human experience.
Likewise, Durrës had its own distinctive light – a light that stirred hope and dreams, but also carried a hidden elegance, an elegance that contained within it a kind of perpetual pain. The seaside road, with its paved boulevards and many passers-by, was a mirror of the uncertainty felt by everyone who walked there. She, on the other hand, saw the world as an endless cycle – a cycle that, for her, was merely a repetition of past mistakes. Every time something new seemed like an opportunity, he knew it was a disguised chance, wrapped in the mask of the same betrayal. And when this bitter truth emerged, he could not help but see it as a natural failure of human nature – a failure to learn from mistakes and to move beyond them.
Sometimes he asked himself: Can we really escape the endless circle of repeated mistakes? Is there a way to free ourselves from this never-ending repetition? In the city of Durrës, people sometimes looked like figures wrapped in uncertainty, staring at the horizon that stretched beyond the sea, yet knowing deep inside that this horizon was always there – an illusion they pursued but could never reach. They were trapped in a world of novelty and betrayal, living life according to a familiar pattern. He was convinced that they, too, could not escape this cycle.
He knew well that this thought, this approach to life, was part of an inner struggle – a struggle tied to an indelible past and a present that always repeated the mistakes of that past. Durrës, the city he loved and hated at the same time, was only a reflection of this uncertainty. A city built on the foundations of history, filled with ancient traditions and embedded pain. Whenever he passed by the port, he felt as if he was facing a part of himself he had never fully understood. The sea before him, with waves crashing against the shore, was a reminder of what he had left behind – and of what, through that sea, kept coming back in the form of past mistakes.
For him, this city was like an event that always told the same story. It was as if people were destined to live according to a plan they could not change, except by repeating the same mistake – with the same passion and the same disappointment. But what happened when, after many struggles, he realized that this repetition was existence itself? Was it an endless punishment? Or perhaps, was it that kind of peace that comes from accepting man’s powerlessness against his inevitable cycle?
In the city of Durrës, he walked every day past ancient monuments where generations had lived. To see these monuments, to climb the city’s narrow streets, and to feel that history kept repeating itself, carried a clear message. History, just like the people who came and went, was always the same. And perhaps, in this inevitable repetition, he found a kind of stability – a small peace that could only be found by accepting the fate that repeats.
When Benet, his father, was a child, he was very close to his grandfather, but after what had happened, he had remained a closed-off man, one who lived with the pain of loss – not only of his mother but also of a broken dream. Armend’s grandmother, Asije, had left home, leaving behind many unanswered questions and a small boy who grew up without his mother.
Now, as Armend walked along the seashore, he felt it was time to understand more about the truth that had remained hidden for so many years. In his mind, that story – which had left a deep mark – was taking on a clearer shape, a new meaning. Armend knew he could never fully grasp his father’s pain, but he was ready to face the past, to help himself understand how what happened had come to pass.
He was beginning to understand that Asije’s betrayal of grandfather Beka was not merely a lost love story. It was a lesson about life, about the choices we make and the consequences they leave behind. Despite outward beauty, every choice carried its own weight, and one could not always reap what they expected from what they desired.
The memories of Asije, with her blue eyes and elegance, had now turned into something deeper for Armend. He had begun to understand that betrayal carried weight. It was like a sign of human fragility and human nature itself – always searching for something more, yet always losing something essential along the way.
He could not shake the thought that Durrës was a place that, like every old city, had lived without pause. Every stone, every alley, every building, for him, had its own story – a story that repeated tirelessly. Those who passed through seemed to have taken part in an endless performance, one where the same scene was always played. An ordinary spring day could be a profound experience for someone who saw more than just the beauty of the sea and the colors of the city. It could become a chance to understand something more about life, about what lay hidden deep beneath the surface of everyday life.
In Durrës, as in every other city of Albania, people could come and go, but they could never rid themselves of the past. It was always there, like a mirror reflecting their image, and the more they tried to look beyond it, the more they saw that the past was present – in every step, in every corner of the city, in every conversation held across the small café. It was not only the city’s history that kept this close tie to the past, but also the lives of the people living there. They were bound to what had been, and always prepared to repeat the mistakes that had happened before.
But was this repeated cycle a punishment, or an opportunity for growth? Were the people living in this repetitive city barred from the chance to learn from past mistakes, or had they simply learned to live with them? This was the question he had begun to ask himself every day, as he gazed at the sea and listened to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. Was there any possibility of change, or was Durrës – and the life he was living there – a reflection of the same familiar path, one he could not avoid because it was so deeply embedded in his nature?
One day, as he walked through the city’s cobblestones, he saw an elderly woman sitting in front of an old shop. She was there every day, sweeping in front of her store, like a reminder of a time that had passed and another that continued… One day, as he walked through the cobblestone streets of the city, he saw an elderly woman sitting in front of an old shop. She was there every day, sweeping in front of her store, like a reminder of a time that had passed and another that continued to move forward without pause. Like most of the people who lived there, she was a reflection of the city’s history. With each step, she revealed to herself a deep image of what had passed and what lingered in the background. She knew that every day, every passing moment, was an opportunity to repeat what had happened before, but also a chance to understand something more about life and herself. He stopped by her and greeted her.
But this woman, like all those who passed through the city, may have understood the truth he kept pondering: that it was not the possibility to change that mattered, but the way one saw that possibility. The past could be indelible, but it could be seen and the mistakes it carried could be acknowledged. Sometimes, it was not the effort to escape mistakes, but the ability to accept them and live with them that brought a measure of peace. And Durrës, with its beach, narrow streets, and old charm, was a place where all who frequented it could confront this reality.
“Mistakes are an invitation to learn,” he thought as he walked past the woman’s shop. “Yes, we can make mistakes, but can we learn something from them? Can we look beyond the mistake itself and understand what truly matters? Repetition is a chance to change, if we see it as an opportunity for growth.”
One quiet morning, as the sun rose over the sea and the beach lay silent, Armend walked near the water, letting the waves tease his feet along the shore. After a while, he noticed an elderly person observing him from afar. This was an old family friend, someone who knew and respected the history of that distant time. When she arrived nearby, Armend greeted her.
“Ah, Armend,” said the old woman with a gentle smile. “I see you walking here, like a lost soul, like your grandfather, Beka. Yes, yes. I know you’ve asked many times about the past, and I’ve decided to tell you. Not much time has passed since you approached me and asked one last time. I never wanted to speak and bore you,” the old woman said. As she lifted her downcast head and looked into Armend’s eyes, she wore clothing of an older style, showing she was from Durrës, yet with a presence that felt arrived from elsewhere. After a brief pause, she looked at the sea and the waves breaking against the shore and said,
“Well, my dear boy, first I’ll tell you that you have many traits from your grandmother Asija. You are tall, handsome, and have blue eyes like hers. You are also very persistent and clever like her. I had her as a friend… Her end was tragic. Still, it stings my heart, my child. Listen to the story of Asija and the Blue Villa. But do not be sad…”
“You will finally tell me,” he said after a brief silence.
Armend paused, looking into the eyes of the old woman, which held many stories to tell. He always stopped, so that she could speak words that might deepen the pain or soften it. He wanted to converse with her always, and his persistence paid off. He never ceased seeking the truth about his grandmother. He knew he could not escape the past, nor the betrayal she had left behind.
“Yes,” said Armend softly. “I’ve always heard about the Blue Villa, about Asija, but I’ve never understood why she betrayed my grandfather. Why?”
The old woman looked at him with a bitter smile, taking a deep breath before speaking.
“Asija’s story, as you know, is beautiful and painful at the same time. She was the first bride of the villa, an extraordinary woman, whose beauty no words could truly describe. With blue eyes and elegance, she was a woman who could have anything. But you know what? Even her beauty did not save her. Asija, although she had everything, wanted more. And she lost everything, leaving behind the people who loved her.”
Armend looked at her and understood that the word “more” could have many meanings.
“Why did she betray my grandfather, the one she loved most?” he asked, troubled.
The old woman paused, leaning on her cane. “Armend,” she said, “sometimes love is not enough. Asija wanted her life, but also the promises that led her to the illusion of happiness. It was not Beka’s fault, nor anyone else’s. She sought more, and in seeking so much, she lost what was most precious: trust, family, and homeland. She betrayed, not to harm, but to follow a dream that could never be realized.”
Armend looked at her, feeling a deep pain that went beyond words. “But wasn’t there any other way for her to be happy? Why did she have to betray to find it?”
The old woman looked into his eyes and spoke in a soft voice, heavy with deep thought. “Happiness is an illusion for those who seek it in the wrong places. Asija lost it, and only after losing it did she begin to understand that there was no turning back. She betrayed for a dream that would never come true, and this was the consequence she carried in her heart forever.”
Armend fell silent for a moment, contemplating the story he was hearing. After many years, he was beginning to understand his father’s pain, who had been left an orphan, and for the first time, he grasped more deeply Asija’s betrayal. He did not yet know how that pain could be eclipsed, but he understood that, like any other old story, it would leave a sorrow in his heart. This old woman would tell him much, and there was a lesson to be learned.
“Yes, I understand,” said Armend, feeling a light sea breeze on his face. “Asija wanted more, but perhaps what she wanted most was a burden she could not bear.”
“Let’s start with your grandfather, Beka Podgorica,” she said.
“All right,” said Armend, nodding. His mouth remained slightly open from curiosity. It was spring, and the land had just begun to bloom, with the first flowers soon to appear. He looked away from them and turned to the old woman. “Speak, grandmother. I’m listening.”
After clearing her throat two or three times, she began to speak quietly. For this was a story both painful and sad.
“Where should I begin?” she murmured. “Ah yes, Beka, your grandfather! Beka, the great merchant, was not a man who stopped until he reached his goals. After that unexpected encounter with the beautiful girl at the Ulcinj market, he could think of nothing else. That girl, named Asija, had extraordinary beauty that could not be imagined or measured by any wealth he possessed. Above all, he did not merely seek a wife, but a symbol of wealth, power, and prestige.”
At that time, Beka had built a commercial empire. His wealth stretched from cities across Albania to Thessaloniki and Shkodër, including breweries and many shops. He also owned several villas, located in the largest and most important cities. Wherever he went, people knew and respected him, viewing him as a model of success.
However, his wealth, which might have seemed like a life of luxury and pleasure, was only a façade hiding a deep emptiness in Beka’s soul. He knew that, although he had everything, he had no sincere connection with anyone. A lonely man, who could have everything, but for whom all these riches were meaningless without a true soul to share them with.
This was what drove him to pursue Asija. Not only because she was beautiful, but because she was an opportunity to create a relationship that would secure him more prestige, more power, and a name remembered by all.
After deciding, Beka went to the girl’s house, determined to take her as his wife. Yes, it was a sudden and unusual act for someone like him, who usually had everything under control. But Asija was not like the others. She had an inner strength that gave the impression she was not simply an object to be bought.
Still, Beka was determined. He made preparations for the grand wedding, spending immense wealth to organize it. The venue would be one of his beautiful villas, and the celebration would include the whole city, announcing his connection to the beautiful girl.
The guests, all those with ties to the merchant and aware of his status, attended the wedding. They saw it as an opportunity to celebrate and enhance their own prestige. Likewise, the city of Durrës, with its rich traditions and history, would be filled with events and festivities for weeks.
But Asija was not a woman who would simply wait to be bought by a wealthy man. In her eyes, it was an opportunity to pursue a goal of her own, one that went beyond wealth and fame. She felt that the wedding prepared by Beka would be more than a celebration – it would be a chance to embark on a new life, a life with far more than the riches of a powerful man. But she wanted someone else. She paused, then said, “All right. To begin, I will tell about the Blue Villa.”
The Blue Villa – 1944 The Blue Villa
The Blue Villa was the largest and most beautiful of all the villas Beka had built. Perched on a hill overlooking the sea, it offered the most breathtaking view of the entire city of Durrës. Its unique blue color shimmered under the sunlight, creating a magical atmosphere that gave it a sense of serenity and grandeur. The main door was large, with an imposing appearance and golden fittings, making the entrance resemble that of a royal palace. The exterior walls were adorned with various flowers, making the villa even more attractive, like a beautiful ornament crowning the city.
In its courtyard, there was a garden with exotic plants, vibrant in color and exuding a sweet fragrance. Flower beds with red and white roses created a peaceful and luxurious scene, a reminder of Beka’s wealth, but also of his love for beautiful details.
On the day he had decided to marry Asije, the villa was decorated with extra care and elegance. This was the day he had waited for many years—a day that would crown his wealth with a new love, even if this love also helped connect him to a powerful and prestigious relationship.
He sought out Asije at her home, according to the customs of the time. At first, she had waited for him impatiently, like any young girl from Ulcinj meeting Beka. She was—a beautiful and simple woman, yet with extraordinary charm. Initially, he loved her, but now, he had decided that she would become his wife.
In his hand, Beka carried a golden pouch with coins as a gift for Asije. It was a tradition he had followed with every wife, but for Asije, this gift was far more special. Both were well-known and respected figures in the city, and this moment marked an event that would be remembered for a long time.
Meanwhile, in the city of Durrës, preparations for Beka and Asije’s wedding were at their peak. Durrës, the port city Beka had often visited for business and trade relations, would host the ceremony. He had purchased the Blue Villa, and the wedding was scheduled for August 15, 1944—a set and important day for the city, marking not only a major private event but also a celebration for all citizens.
The ceremony was to be an event of special splendor: a wealthy wedding, filled with honored guests from every corner of Albania, and many invited from Thessaloniki and Shkodër. As was often the case, Beka had planned every detail, including food, music, and more.
Beka and Asije’s wedding would be an event remembered by the entire city. Durrës, filled with a festive atmosphere and the scent of the sea drifting from the shore, would awaken a sense of excitement in its narrow streets. Preparations had begun weeks earlier, and now every detail had been carefully arranged. Beka had insisted that everything be perfect—every table, every decoration, and every meal chosen with extraordinary taste.
The Blue Villa, still radiating a magical atmosphere, was in its final preparations for this grand event. After many months of work, and having spent days envisioning this moment, Beka could now see everything he had built come to life. He stood calmly, yet inside, he felt a deep sense of responsibility and anticipation. He looked at all those who would come to celebrate this day and knew that after the wedding, Asije would be his forever—this was what he had always sought, a union that would further consolidate his wealth and status.
Asije, on the other hand, was a wise and beautiful woman who understood more than others could see. She knew that marrying Beka was not only a chance to live in a luxurious world but also an opportunity to realize her ambitions, to have a strong voice in a society that often sidelined women. After that day, she would be more than a wife; she would be a symbol of power, a figure holding an important place in the society of that era.
The Wedding Day – August 15, 1944
The wedding day was beautiful, with warm sunlight making the city shine like never before. The streets of Durrës were filled with invited guests from every corner of Albania and from cities such as Shkodër and Thessaloniki. Everyone awaited being part of an event that would become legendary. In the city center, the grand cathedral had been decorated for the religious ceremony, after which all the guests would proceed to the Blue Villa for the grand reception.
Beka, dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a narrow tie, awaited Asije at the cathedral altar. Asije arrived wearing a magnificent gown, crafted from silk and featuring a long train that glimmered like gold in the sunlight. Her dress was a work of art, filled with delicate details that suited her strong and elegant personality. Her head was covered with a veil, and her eyes, filled with a mysterious sparkle, radiated confidence and determination.
The ceremony proceeded with proper solemnity, and after the priest’s honored words and blessings, the guests erupted in applause, and a joyous atmosphere swept through the city. What had begun as a relationship based on wealth and status now became something more—a union symbolizing the efforts of two people to create a new world.
The Evening Reception
The evening that followed was a grand reception at the Blue Villa, where all the honored guests, from the most distinguished intellectuals of the time to the wealthiest merchants and businessmen of Albania, celebrated until the early hours of the morning. Orchestra music played in the background, while dancing and conversations sparked indescribable excitement. Champagne flowed freely from glasses, and the delicious food served included traditional Albanian dishes paired with fine wines honoring this special day.
The villa was filled with chatter and laughter, but for Beka and Asije, this was not just an ordinary wedding. It was a moment that would mark the beginning of a new chapter in their lives, one they would face together—with wealth, but also with a passion that could keep their bond strong despite the challenges life might bring.
The Wedding Moment – A Magical Night in Durrës
The following evening was extraordinary. The Blue Villa became the epicenter of an event that would remain in the memory of the entire city of Durrës. The orchestra’s music resonated throughout, creating a dreamlike atmosphere, while guests, from the wealthiest to the common folk, joined in unparalleled excitement.
On tables draped with pristine white cloths, a variety of carefully selected foods were laid out, along with fine wines flowing freely from crystal bottles. The aromas of traditional dishes and modern cuisine blended, offering an unforgettable experience for everyone present.
Beka and Asije, elegantly dressed, were the center of attention. Beka, in his classic black suit and narrow tie, exuded power while also conveying a special warmth. Asije, in her stunning silk gown with a long train, appeared like a goddess. She sparkled in the candlelight, her warm and confident eyes revealing an inner strength that breathed new life into both of them as they endeavored to build their lives together.
After the religious ceremony, the guests moved to the villa, where the party continued until morning. Toasts were raised in celebration, and after each greeting, expensive gifts and tributes were presented to the newlyweds. The most moving moment came when Beka, with a warm smile, took Asije’s hand and, before all the guests, spoke words she would remember forever:
“You are my light, my future, and with you, I will spend every moment of my life. This is only the beginning, but every day with you will be more beautiful than the last.”
Everyone present was moved by these words, and the atmosphere grew even more emotional. Meanwhile, the music set a romantic tone, accompanying the wedding dances. They rose to perform the first dance as a married couple, and with every step, the guests encouraged them with applause and well wishes.
At that moment, Asije, always wise and calm, whispered to Beka: “This is only the beginning of a beautiful journey we will take together, beyond any obstacle.”
For Beka, those words gave profound meaning to the day. This was the moment of fulfillment, when everything that had happened until then gained its deepest significance. He knew that, regardless of wealth, status, and all the privileges they had, this bond was what would endure forever—the true love and respect they owed one another. It would always remain the same. This was the non-negotiable condition they had discussed that night.
Meanwhile, in Durrës, after the wedding, a special light shone over the city.
At the Blue Villa, after the ceremony concluded and the guests departed, the newlyweds, Beka and Asije, withdrew to their room for a quiet night, reflecting on everything that had occurred. They were tired but very happy. Everything had gone according to plan—the wedding had been a reflection of their wealth and status, but also a reflection of the relationship they had built.
The following day would mark a new beginning, a chance to discover more about each other and to build a bright future. This was a day that would be remembered as the moment they became part of a new chapter, a rich and wonderful chapter, filled with love, relationships, and new possibilities.
Beka and Asije’s wedding day had been filled with a magical atmosphere, helping the event evoke the deepest emotions in all the attendees. All of Durrës had come out to celebrate, and the city was filled with colors, lights, and joyful voices. For those present, it was more than a wedding—it was a celebration that would remain unforgettable for everyone fortunate enough to be part of it. The Blue Villa, where the ceremony had been organized, had been decorated by an entire team, with fresh flowers, colorful lights, and other marvelous elements that created an unforgettable atmosphere. The attendees were invited from all strata of society—from the city’s aristocracy to simple friends and relatives who had gathered to share this important moment.
After the religious ceremony, when Beka and Asije were declared husband and wife, the event moved to the villa’s grand hall. Everything had been planned in detail, from the food and drinks on the adorned tables to the music program that would accompany the night.
On this unforgettable evening, Asije looked stunning. Her long white silk dress reflected the light like a goddess, and her carefully chosen accessories were simple yet extraordinary, making her appear like a queen. She was the center of attention, and with a sweet smile, she warmed every heart present.
Beka also looked remarkable, dressed in an elegant suit that conveyed both strength and authority, but also the inner gentleness he held for Asije. He held her hand as if it were sacred, and his eyes expressed happiness and certainty.
Once the wedding ceremony concluded, it was time for the most important part of the night—the first dance as a married couple. With great excitement, they stepped onto the floor, moving to soft, slow music at first, and then shifting to a faster rhythm to match the joy and enthusiasm of the wedding guests.
“This is the moment we will remember for the rest of our lives,” Beka said, addressing Asije during their first dance. She looked at him with eyes full of love and replied: “Yes, it is our day, and it will always be special for us.”
A New Beginning
They were more than a wealthy and respected couple. They were two individuals who had found each other in the midst of a complicated world, divided by class and social boundaries. Every step they took together was a step toward a future they imagined as beautiful, filled with love and mutual respect.
At the end of the night, after an evening filled with joy and celebration, they knew this wedding was merely a beginning—a new start, where each day would be an opportunity to build something greater and more beautiful. And after that night, they would live together with a deep sense of love and dedication for one another, while all those who attended the wedding would remember the event for many years to come.
“Betrayal, dressed in the guise of youth, is nothing but a beautiful reminder of an old pain.”
“Alright, then, mother,” said Armendi, who until then had been watching the old woman with amazement and curiosity as she recounted her tale—the only living testimony of a bygone time.
The old woman lowered her eyes, and for a moment, scratched the ground with her foot. Then she looked up into his eyes and said:
“Shall I tell you everything? Or a summary, my son?”
Her gaze met Armendi’s, seeking approval.
“Or… leave it as a story?”
“Nooo!” said Armendi. “No, don’t leave it. Start! I’ve been searching for this, and I’m happy you’re going to tell me the story of my grandparents.”
“So I am from Ulcinj?” he asked.
“By origin, yes,” she replied, without letting him say more.
“Ah, very well, continue,” he said. “Don’t stop, or you’ll forget the story.”
He reached out and gently stroked her white hair. She looked like a well-kept old woman, and one could imagine that she must have been very beautiful in her youth. These thoughts came straight to his mind. Everywhere his mind wandered, but it returned to the idea that this old woman had once been beautiful—clearly so.
“Alright, continue,” he added. “I won’t bother you anymore.”
“Shall we sit somewhere?” she asked after a brief pause in the space between them.
It was spring, and the air was soft, filled with oxygen and the scent of the sea. Seagulls drifted slowly above the water, occasionally signaling the arrival of spring and renewal.
They walked a few steps together and stopped at the neighborhood café. An old place, made of oak and pine boards, constructed in a haphazard manner—ugly enough that it wouldn’t suit even a remote village… let alone a city like Durrës.
They sat at the last table by the window. Armendi offered her the chair and adjusted it for her.
“Ladies first,” he said, laughing.
Then the sound of his chair scraping the cement floor echoed slightly, letting out a dry creak.
“So, welcome, mother,” he said.
“My name is Nila,” she replied again. “Or have you forgotten?”
“I know, I know… I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” After a short pause, he added: “They say you were a beautiful lady,” and then, “and now you’re very well-kept.”
“Ah,” she said with a faint smile on her eyes, “custom and habit show through the soul, my son.”
She placed her hands on the table and began to move them with her slender, delicate fingers, elegant enough to admire.
“Did you fall on the piano?” he asked in surprise, looking at her face.
“Yes, yes,” she replied, smiling again.
“How did you find it?” she added after a moment, lowering her eyes to the table and then glancing around to observe the surroundings. Then she looked at Armendi and asked:
“Is there a waiter, or not?”
“There’s no waiter here,” Armendi replied. “Ma’am, it’s self-service, prepaid,” and laughed again.
*”Ah, a communist café, huh…” she said, showing clear disdain for the regime, while her green eyes—once beautiful—sparkled with subtle defiance.
It was 1989. The regime had just begun to shake. The first movements toward democracy had not yet started, but signs were everywhere. Dissatisfaction was open, and people no longer feared expressing themselves against the ruling party.
“Yes, ma’am…” he interrupted her from her thoughts, looking into her eyes.
“Ah, yes…” she said. “I got a little lost in my memories. Old age does its work, my son,” she said, looking directly into Armendi’s eyes. Then she added:
“Old age, in its main sense, is that phase of life when a person confronts the essence of their existence—with transience, with time as an experience, with memory as the bearer of meaning. It is a period of reflection on a life lived, where one, detached from the rush of daily life, seeks ever deeper the meaning of being, moving from mastery of the world to acceptance of it. It is the time when a person becomes a witness to themselves and to the temporality of everything.”
“Auuu…” Armendi exclai What did you do for work back in the day, ma’am?”
“I was a teacher. A piano teacher, at the high school of arts.
I graduated from the conservatory in Vienna. I’m not just anyone, my boy,” she added.
“You studied philosophy?!” he said, surprised.
“Yes, yes, of course I did. I studied philosophy in my first year, back then. General philosophy… and I learned it very well.
As an excellent former student, your family—Beka with Nilaj—invited me to give private lessons to the lady.”
“That’s why, when I came to Durrës, I became friends with your family… and with your beautiful grandmother.”
“Ah, how nice! Tell me, how did you meet? Keep it brief. Lady Asije was talked about a lot in the city back then.”
“I am also originally from Ulcinj. We were patriots, that is, and even from afar, we knew each other as family.
She came from a middle-class background, not wealthy. But traditionally, the women in her family were beautiful, tall, and very elegant. Her mother was the same—a beautiful lady, graceful and radiant.
Her father as well—a handsome man. Back in our time, he could have been a top model,” she said, laughing a little.
“You had beautiful great-grandparents, my boy,” she added.
“Yes, yes, go on, don’t stop,” he said.
She lifted her eyes and looked at him directly.
“I know you resemble her a lot, your grandmother. You are very handsome, tall…” and ptu ptu, she spat lightly on the ground, “may the evil eye never see you, my boy! You are a true star… or, as we used to say, a top model!”
“Hahaha!” he laughed. “Enough of that, Lady Nilaj. And you don’t look bad yourself. You must have been very beautiful.”
“Ah, youth, my boy…” she added, tears coming to her eyes. “Yes, I was beautiful, I won’t deny it. And a very good pianist.
I participated in the Vienna orchestra twice. But the love for my homeland called me here… and I stayed. Then us people from Ulcinj were occupied by the Serbs and Montenegrins… I had no way to go back.
But it turned out badly for me… I paid dearly for my love for Albania, my boy. The State Security never left me, always monitoring me, as if I were a foreign citizen and a lady of the former regime.”
“Oh, my son… what a hard life I’ve led! And the dangers of prison I endured—only I know,” she said.
“Yes, I hung on…” she added.
“I heard in the neighborhood that you’ve been looking for me many times.
I remembered you were from the Security, and I didn’t speak to you. But when I asked carefully, they told me you were the nephew of my close friend… or my patriot.
And I was eager to meet you. More precisely, my blood called me, as they say. And I decided to speak with you at length.”
“I know you’re a little scared of me, I guess… I understand,” he added. “But before you start the story, I’ll go get something to drink at the counter. What would you like, Lady Nilaj?”
“Ah, my heart! Nobody has called me ‘Lady Nilaj’ for a long time.
Alright, my handsome boy, whatever you want, take it.”
“I say we get two local beers,” he added.
Armendi walked slowly to the counter. He waited a little in line, then took out a fifty-lek note and paid for two cold beers.
“The local… to be honest, they were very good and original.”
He asked the bartender to open the caps, and she did—he held the bottles as if they were precious, and returned to their table.
Armendi was dressed in a blue jacket, apparently brought from abroad—a pair of blue jeans, and a blue shirt as well.
The blue matched his blue eyes and the blue sea perfectly.
“A natural combination,” Nilaj would say. “God, when He wants, paints everything beautifully—even His creatures, the sea, the land. When He wills, He works miracles,” she thought, watching Armendi.
As soon as their eyes met, they both smiled sweetly.
“Don’t say you’re comparing me to my grandmother,” he said.
“How did you guess, my boy!” she added. “To tell you the truth, you look like a copy of Asije when she was young.”
“Yes, yes, my boy, absolutely! Wait… sit well and we’ll talk.”
He settled into the chair. She, seeing that, said:
“I won’t tell you if you don’t sit… Sit properly first, then I’ll tell you,” she said.
He obeyed, leaving the bottles on the table.
“Shall I get glasses, or not?” he asked.
“No, no,” she said, “no need.”
“Well then,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “You’re going to tell me a saying about youth, right? Since you are a philosopher and promised me…”
“Yes, yes,” she added. “Don’t be impatient. Here it comes…”
“Come, cheers! And may you have health and happiness, my nephew,” she said, laughing.
“Now you are young and handsome. Enjoy these days, they don’t come back, my handsome boy,” she said. “Youth passes quickly, very quickly… Know it, learn it, and savor it!”
She thought for a moment, then spoke:
“Youth is the effort to build meaning in a desert that gives you no answers. And you walk, not because you believe, but because otherwise, you would sink.”
“Or to put it more precisely,” she added:
“Youth, philosophically, is the moment when consciousness awakens and seeks to understand the world, oneself, and one’s place in the universe. It is the period of identity formation, rebellion against authority, and the search for truth through experience. Youth embodies freedom as possibility—it is the project of the future that has not yet taken shape but carries infinite potential. It is the age of opportunities, but also of illusions, where existential questions arise more naturally than answers.”
“But for our story, what fits better is what I am about to say now,” she continued.med, astonished. “What have you…”
Armendi opened his eyes again in amazement.
“Go on, go on,” he said, “don’t leave the story halfway.”
“All right, my boy,” she added. “Sit down, sit properly first. Then I’ll tell you.”
Armendi sat on the wooden chair, a local craft. Then he pulled it closer to the table. She continued:
“How should I put it about youth… For example:
‘A young person is free only because they do not yet understand the price of choice—and only when they pay it do they realize that youth is gone.’
‘In youth, you seek a name for yourself; but the world gives only empty mirrors, which you fill with fear.’”
— Wow, Armendi widened his eyes. — “You amaze me, woman! You are very wise!”
She shook her head slightly, accompanying it with a smile.
“Look, Armend, when you are young, you think the world revolves around you. But when you awaken from dreams, you realize it was just a dream. Nothing was reality. Even your grandmother, Asija, was once very young and in love.”
“With whom was she in love?” he asked.
“Of course,” Nilaj said, “not with your grandfather. She was a city girl, with little schooling but very clever and beautiful.”
“I know that,” he said. “But tell me, who was grandmother in love with?”
“Not your grandfather. She loved a fellow citizen from Ulcinj. They had been in love since childhood and expected to marry after turning eighteen. Asija grew up, matured, and became, let’s say, a ‘city miss.’ Everyone who saw her widened their eyes at that kind of Albanian beauty. An original girl, with all the gifts of beauty that God had given her. Her lover was handsome too, but not as much as she was, and he was shorter.”
“I knew both of them whenever they came to town for holidays, because we were almost the same age. Imagine, my boy, this story happened sixty years ago.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, shaking his head. “I know, I know it’s an old story. But it’s worth telling me, because my parents never told me anything.
I only know that we are descendants of a very wealthy landowner. And that Vila Blu is ours, and sooner or later we’ll inherit it. That’s what they told me.”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “You don’t just have Vila Blu. You have many other properties that, if circumstances change, you will have to claim. Do you know about these?”
He interrupted her gently, as they say… he spoke with affection, in a soft, pleading voice: “So you knew everything, ma’am?”
“How could I not know, my boy? I know everything about you and my old friend, Asija. She trusted me completely: as a teacher, as a friend, as a fellow citizen. She never gave up her love for her first love. That’s why I say God made a mistake in letting us make such serious decisions in youth… and then we end up in the abyss or in trouble.
‘A young person is free only because they do not yet understand the price of choice—and only when they pay it do they realize that youth is gone.’”
“Well, my boy, I’ve troubled your mind enough… Today we’ve gathered for something else, not philosophy. Cheers!” she said, raising her cold beer and lightly clinking it with Armendi’s.
“Cheers!” he replied with a smile.
“Lady Beauty,” he added then, with a ceremonial sort of greeting.
“Eh, I was beautiful, I won’t deny it. But that time is gone… it feels almost as if I never existed at all. Everything passes, my boy… like water in a river. Nothing remains,” she said, her eyes misting with memories.
“Only the memory remains… and that stays,” Armendi added, entering into her inner reflection.
“Exactly, my boy,” she said in a soft, melancholic tone, as if she wanted to drift back in time to her youth in the beautiful city of Ulcinj, now beyond national borders and part of Montenegro. “Even today, my boy, Albanians there suffer just as they did yesterday… and the day before. But no, that is not our topic today.”
“Today, and in the days to come, I will tell you the series of the film ‘Your Grandmother and Grandfather.’ Beautiful… and rich.”
“Why?” he asked sweetly. “You’ll continue with a series? This sad story?” Armendi paused for a moment.
Then he looked fully at her, as if to uncover a secret untold. She didn’t speak immediately but looked at him with a warm smile. She said:
“You have beautiful eyes, my boy,” she said softly. “You resemble your grandmother—you are just as handsome as she was. Even if I were young today… I would have kissed you on the lips, you are that handsome.” She laughed lightly, with a sincerity that seemed to light up the whole place.
“Well, ma’am,” Armendi said, laughing humbly, “with these words you’ve completely embarrassed me. If this were a movie, this would be the moment the audience applauds.”
She laughed again, louder this time, but not to joke—just to feel a bit of life within her again. Then she said:
“No, my boy, now I can only laugh at memories. At the times when the boys of the whole neighborhood would chase me. And now… they hold the door for me because my knees ache!” She placed her hand over her knee, as if to convince herself it was true.
“Well, time waits for no one,” he said. “But there’s no reason not to love you. Actually, more so—we are happy that life brought us to someone like you.”
She looked at him with a feeling that was not just nostalgia but a kind of gratitude that had no name.
“Listen, Armend. Everyone forgets the elderly. They forget that we once had dreams, struggles, love… They forget that we were like them—beautiful, alive. But… you are not like the others. You listen. And you seem very clever.”
He lowered his eyes slightly, as if to hide the emotion rising in his throat. Then he raised his glass again:
“To memories! And to those who keep them.”
“And to those who share them…” she added. “Because without sharing, memories die twice.”
They lightly clinked bottles again. The beer had started to warm a little, but no one minded. They were warmed themselves.
“And to those who share them…” she added again. “Because without sharing, memories die twice.”
He said nothing, only looked at her with the silence that says more: “I am here, listening, feeling.” And she understood. She had lived long enough to read in people’s eyes what words cannot say.
A few moments of silence passed. From the window came the scent of a calm day, with the gentle breeze that only late spring brings. On the wall, an old clock with thick hands ticked with its rhythmic noise—like a memory that does not know how to stop.
“Do you know what I miss the most?” she asked suddenly.
“What?” he asked.
“That voice… when someone calls your name. Not as they do in the street, no. Softly, with love, as if waking you from sleep. Armend…” she repeated his name slowly, with affection, as if to kiss him on the lips. “The name is half the soul. When no one calls you anymore… a person begins to dissolve.”
He lowered his head. It was true. In the vast world that moves on without looking back, many voices are lost without notice.
“I will always call your name, ma’am. Beauty. Even when you are… gone,” he said slowly.
She looked at him for a long moment. Her eyes were wet. And without wiping the tears, she said:
“Then I am not afraid. Because I will still live… in you.”
Armendi could no longer hold the silence that had settled in his chest. He felt her voice enter a part of himself. These were like the words of a grandmother telling him bedtime stories in a low voice long ago. But this was no fairy tale. This was life speaking.
She rose slowly from the chair, holding herself with one hand on the support, and with the other she pulled out an old book, smelling of yellowed paper and preserved memories. A letter fell to the floor. An old sheet, in handwriting.
“What is this?” Armendi asked, bending to pick it up.
“Don’t open it, not yet,” she said. “That is for the end. When I am no longer here. You will read it yourself, alone.”
“But why wait…?”
“Because some things must be heard when the heart is empty, so it can be filled. Not now. Now, we are full.”
She laughed softly. A gentle, calm laugh, as if for the first time in many years, she had made peace with herself.
He did not insist. He took the letter, folded it carefully, and put it in his pocket, where his father’s wallet always was. These two items now accompanied him—a memory that had ended, and one that had yet to happen.
“Tomorrow,” she said. As he sat down again, he said, “We’ll watch the next episode: ‘When They Fell in Love for the Last Time.’ Beautiful… very beautiful.”
“I’ll be here. Early,” he said.
She said nothing, only nodded, satisfied.
Outside, night had begun to slowly fall over the city’s rooftops. But inside her room, the light of memories burned like a calm candle unafraid of the evening. He remembered her saying:
“Betrayal, dressed in the cloak of youth, is nothing but a beautiful reminder of an old pain.”
Then she shook her head in a gesture of fondness toward his grandmother.
The next day, the two of them met again, but this time at Nilaj’s house.
She had never married and had no children. She lived in a small apartment above Vollga, in that old neighborhood. There was only one room and a kitchen—given to her once by the regime. She never dared to ask for more. Not because she had children, but because deep down she was treated as a foreigner and an enemy—a woman who had studied in Vienna. This always prevented her from seeking more.
“Where did you live before the communist regime came?” Armendi asked, arriving at eight in the morning. There was no need to knock; the door was open, and in the living-kitchen area awaited the formidable lady, musician Nilaj.
“Look, my boy,” she said, “I didn’t sleep at all last night. You took me many years back. You brought me to the time when I was queen of evenings and concerts in Durrës and abroad. A time when a person had value, not everyone equally.”
“Greetings, beautiful lady,” said Armendi. He was dressed casually today, all in blue: just a tank top under a shirt, sweatpants, and Western-brand sneakers. She looked him over from head to toe, and after completing her “inspection,” said:
“You’re dressed casually today, boy. And with Western brands! Bravo, you’re a star, handsome, athletic. Lucky is the one who will take you. I hope she’s as beautiful as you, right? Because you, your beautiful kind, only connect with beauty, right? That’s what I hope. Do you have anyone in mind, or should I find someone from Ulcinj for you?”
“No, no, better not,” he said, sitting on the sofa opposite the stove, which seemed to be burning wood. He quickly glanced around the room and saw many photographs, concert posters, and diplomas of hers—almost all from before the liberation, and none after the communist regime took over Albania.
“Ah,” she said, “that time is gone, my boy. I never imagined I would end up like this—in an isolated socialist and communist country. I thought my homeland would make me happy, that I would have a family, be valued as a musician. But the opposite happened. They called me a foreigner, a bourgeois, and a spy.”
“I will tell you in the coming days what I endured… Not today. Today I’ll begin with photos and words about Vila Blu and why it dates back to 1944…”
“Shall I offer you coffee or tea?” she asked.
He didn’t speak, absorbed by the photos on Nilaj’s wall.
“Please, lady,” he finally said.
Today, Nilaj wore a black suit, a nice skirt, a bow tie, and a white blouse.
“You changed your outfit today, lady,” he said. “You’ve become European!”
“Ha ha,” she laughed. “Today is a new day, isn’t it, my boy?” She adjusted her glasses, lifted some of her gray hair away from her forehead, and said: “Today I will tell you what you’ve always asked me about…” She rested her hands on the small wooden table, where the cups were still empty.
Armendi watched her attentively. He had the feeling of entering a heavy, deep story, one not easily told. He felt he should remain silent.
“Do you know what remains in my memory as an unhealed wound?” she continued. “In 1945, as soon as I returned from Vienna… the last time I went abroad. I had just arrived in Durrës on the last train through Belgrade. It was winter. I carried my black suitcase, with two scores inside: a Mozart and a Brahms, which I treasured like possessions.”
“And what happened?” he asked gently, staring at a yellowed photo on the wall where she appeared in a concert hall, violin in hand, with a smile that no longer existed.
“At the port, I was met by a Security officer. He didn’t welcome me. He said: ‘You will be under surveillance. Be careful with the pieces you play.’ And they confiscated my Mozart. They left me only the Brahms, because, as they said, ‘It’s dark, but more acceptable to our new society.’”
“That’s absurd…” Armendi whispered.
“Absurd? No, my son. That was only the beginning. Then they forbade me from giving the concerts I had planned. ‘You are too aristocratic,’ they said. ‘A foreigner at heart. You don’t fit into the new socialist society.’ And they assigned me to teach violin in a secondary school in the suburbs. It was cold. The children didn’t want to learn, were afraid to come near. They told their parents I was a spy from Vienna.”
Armendi lowered his head. He had heard similar stories, but when spoken by someone who had lived it in body and soul, everything felt heavier.
“Why didn’t you leave again?” he asked.
She lifted her head. Her eyes filled with tears, though they did not fall… they mourned… because…
“Because… I still believed. I believed that Albania would understand one day. That you cannot fight music. That art is higher than ideology. But I was wrong. They left me alone. They didn’t give me the right to love, to be a woman, or to be a musician.”
At that moment, a long silence fell between them. Armendi noticed a broken frame in the corner of the bookshelf. Inside was a black-and-white photo of a young man with long hair, holding a violin, beside Nilaj. He asked:
“Is this…?”
“Yes. The only person I truly loved. An Austrian conductor. The love of my life. He asked me to leave with him in 1946. But I… chose to stay here. They forbade him from writing me. They destroyed every letter. And… finally, they told me he had died. But I don’t know the truth.”
A silence followed, an unspoken acknowledgment of the situation. He lifted his hand, placed it on her right shoulder, and said:
“Nilaj, you are a living monument!” Armendi spoke with deep respect. “You are not just an old person talking about the past. You are proof that that time existed. And it must not be forgotten.”
They both cried, but wiped their tears and decided to speak.
She took a deep breath.
“Now you understand why every morning I drink only black coffee, without sugar? Because even today is not sweet enough to cover what I have lost. But… perhaps you can bring back a little of the voice of that time. You seem capable of overcoming evil and what your family removed. You must help me tell the story of what happened.” She raised her gaze toward him.
“How can I help?” he asked.
“By listening. And by telling. I no longer have a voice to sing, but you have the arms to carry what I could not carry farther.” “Look,” she said, “I don’t want to keep these stories to myself anymore. The two of us will speak about the Blue Villa… and about your grandparents.”
Then, with a gentle gesture, she handed him a small copper teapot, handcrafted, gleaming, and elegant.
“Fill your cup with tea. Don’t be shy,” she told Armend, brushing his hair lightly with her hand.
He said nothing, only responded with a calm movement. Turning the pot with care, he filled his cup, then raised the thin glass toward her.
“Come on, cheers!” he said, clinking his cup lightly against hers.
“Cheers,” she replied with a warm smile.
Then, in a deeper and calmer voice, she added:
“And so that we don’t waste any more time… let us begin our tale.”
“Very well,” he said. “Go on, then,” and let out a small laugh.
I lived in the Blue Villa with my friend Asija—the beautiful star from Ulqin.
She was like the morning light spilling through the soul’s inner windows. Her hair was always neatly tied, her eyes full of life, her voice as soft as a sea breeze. Asija was more than a friend; she warmed the Blue Villa with her presence, turning every corner into small fragments of love and care.
On her wedding day, everything felt different.
The air was thick with emotion. Her white dress hung in the open window like a pure flag of hope. She laughed, but in her eyes I could see a trembling that only I could read.
“Asija, are you ready?” I asked, carefully combing her hair.
She didn’t answer immediately. She looked at me in the mirror. “Ready? You’re never ready for a great beginning. You just… walk toward it. And live it as it comes.”
She had not chosen her husband out of love.
She had chosen a man named Beka—wealthy, quiet, serious, a presence you could feel even in his silence. He had come from Shkodër to ask for her hand, his courtesy fitting him like a finely tailored suit. She respected him, but did not yet know all the worlds she carried inside herself. He had not taken her for love, but for her beauty. Nothing more.
That evening, after the music faded and the guests departed, he sat beside her on the veranda of the Blue Villa. They leaned against a thin blanket, drinking tea from old cups passed down through the family.
“Are you cold?” Beka asked, looking into her eyes.
“No. Not from the weather,” she said softly. “But from the unknown. From what we do not yet know will be.”
He was silent. He looked into her eyes, smiled faintly, and said:
“Asija, I can’t promise you a perfect life. But I’ll be beside you every morning. Even when you’re silent. Even when you feel like the girl from Ulqin who’s lost her sun in another city.”
She smiled, a smile touched by a tear at its edge.
“Just… don’t lock me in. Let me remain who I am. To laugh with you, but also to cry alone when I long for the waves of my home. I don’t expect love from you—only kindness and civility.”
He leaned closer, brushing her hand gently.
“You will be free, Asija. My wife should be like the sea—beautiful, dangerous at times, but always herself.”
And so their marriage began. Without noise. Without fanfare. With a silent promise on a veranda still carrying the scent of the sea and the sweet voice of Asija.
The days after the wedding flowed like a quiet river—silent mornings, evenings with the scent of the sea. Asija hadn’t changed. She walked barefoot on the veranda, teacup in hand, singing to herself—sometimes in Albanian, sometimes in her beloved Ulqin dialect that sounded like a childhood lullaby.
Beka returned early from work. Shipments had begun to arrive at the port—papers, customs, endless business. But his eyes tired faster than his hands. They always searched for the window where Asija stood.
One evening, as night descended over the Blue Villa and the lamps glowed in every corner, he entered the room more quietly than usual. Asija was reading. She lowered the book, looked at him, and asked without words:
“What is it?”
He sat beside her and touched her hair.
“I feel as though I haven’t yet entered your world. You’re here, but also somewhere else,” he said.
She lowered her gaze, silent for a moment. Then she spoke slowly, with a bittersweet smile:
“I grew up with a sea wind that speaks differently. I’m used to freedom, Beka. Not the great political kind, but the freedom I’ve had with myself—with my spirit. And sometimes, it feels as though I’m living someone else’s life. Not mine.”
He did not get angry. He did not flinch. He took her hand.
“Learn to be here too. I love you as you are. And if ever you wish to leave, tell me. I just don’t want you to be a prisoner to memories that will never return.”
She looked at him for a long time. Then she leaned in, kissed his cheek, and said:
“Don’t be afraid. I will stay here with you. But we need time—for this villa to become a home. Even for my soul.”
The walls still held her photographs from life in Ulqin. She played the violin, too. Armend was surprised—how could this be? He opened his blue eyes wide, and when he looked at Nilaj, she said:
“Beka never asked her to play… except once.”
Once, over morning coffee, he said:
“I’d like to hear you play one day.”
Asija looked at him with bright eyes.
“If you make me feel like someone once did, maybe… I’ll take the violin in my hands again.”
He smiled. And so, without many words, they built their shared life little by little—between memories and the effort to love without trying to change one another. In the stillness of their days, only the wind existed—blowing from the sea toward the land, and back again.
Love did not. It was one-sided—Beka’s for Asija.
“It’s not the flower’s fault it blooms the same way, but the gardener’s, who never learns from the thorns,” Nilaj said.
“It’s not the flower’s fault it blooms the same way, but the gardener’s, who never learns from the thorns,” Armend repeated softly to himself, his gaze resting on his cup of tea.
“Asija always said that,” Nilaj added, her voice softening with the memory. “She kept alive her love for a boy from Ulqin… a childhood friend, a neighbor—but more than that. They were like two branches of the same tree—grown side by side, bound together before life taught them the word ‘separation.’”
“And Beka?” Armend asked. “Did he love her?”
“Ah, Beka…” Nilaj sighed. “He loved her, in his way. But it was a love born more of pride than heart. He saw her once on the small beach, when she was returning in a white linen dress with wet hair. He was struck blind. He pursued her. He did not stop until he had her as his wife.”
“And she?”
“Asija never said ‘yes’ with her heart. She said it only with her voice. She had no choice. Those were different times. Families decided even for love. They married simply to settle in a beautiful city, to keep the family name, to avoid suspicion. But Asija… she never forgot Ulqin. Nor the boy there.”
“So she lived with one man, but loved another?”
“She lived with the memory of another. And Beka felt it. Sometimes he would tell me in secret: ‘She betrays me—because her eyes… her gaze is always far away.’ And I knew where—to the shores of Ulqin, to a boy who perhaps didn’t even know she still loved him.”
“And what did Beka do?”
“He grew jealous. He began to suspect, to watch her, to question her, to unsettle her. She never told him the truth, but she didn’t know how to lie either. She was present in body, but absent in spirit. She had no other man, but her heart was not free. And that drove Beka mad.”
“And the boy from Ulqin—did he know?”
*“No. Asija never wrote to him. She didn’t want to complicate anyone’s life. She kept an old photograph—two children holding hands on a rooftop. That was them. And she would often look at it, smile, and say: ‘It’s not the flower’s fault it blooms the same way…’”
“…but the gardener’s, who never learns from the thorns,” Armend finished. Nilaj turned her head toward him, touched his hand lightly, and said:
“Asija was a flower that bloomed the same way her entire life—for a single love. But she grew in the wrong garden.”
Her voice deepened, taking on the tone of a melody that slowly turns into a lament.
“In the beginning, Asija was happy. I remember when Beka brought her to the villa for the first time. She wore a rose-colored dress, her hair loosely gathered, and her eyes… full of dreams. But they began to fade quickly. The light in her eyes dimmed. Her words became scarce, her smiles increasingly forced.
She paused for a moment, then continued:
“Beka was not an easy man, Armend. He was possessive, cold, and above all, hungry for control. He didn’t want a woman by his side—he wanted a doll that moved only when he allowed it. And Asija… she wasn’t like that. She wanted life, colors, poetry, music. But Beka shut it all away. He forbade her to paint, forbade her friends, and in the end… he even forbade her words.”
Armend held his cup in his hand but didn’t drink, absorbed in her story, as if trying to picture a world where Asija was no longer who she had once been.
“One night,” Nilaj said in a lower voice, “she came into my room. She didn’t say much. She showed me her trembling hands and whispered, ‘I can’t anymore, Nilaj. He didn’t hit me tonight, but he killed me worse—he told me I wasn’t even worth myself.’ That night didn’t end in tears, but in silence. And I knew then: she no longer had the strength to cry.”
Nilaj stopped, took a sip of the tea that had already cooled, and went on:
“She stayed with him for many reasons—reasons we women know better than anyone. For the mother who begged her to endure, for the shame of divorce, for fear of the consequences. But above all—because hope is dangerous. It makes you believe that one day everything will change… but it doesn’t. At least, not for women like Asija.”
Her eyes glimmered with a cold light.
“And the Blue Villa… once full of laughter and light… became a place where the only sounds were Beka’s snores and Asija’s tired footsteps. That was the only life you could hear. I remained only a witness. Silent… like everyone else. I neither spoke nor interfered—I just watched. There was no life left there, no love. Love never came back between them—it only withered.”
Armend leaned forward, his voice soft.
“And now?”
Nilaj smiled faintly, a deep sadness in her expression.
“Now? Now I tell this story… because at last, I am no longer afraid. And because you, Armend, need to know: not every blue-painted villa is a paradise. Some are prisons dressed in beauty.”
She took a breath, then began again, her voice slowing at the start.
“I remember that evening as if it were today. Beka came home early. Silent, but his eyes spoke louder than words. I was there, preparing tea for the three of us. Asija sensed immediately that something was wrong.”
“What happened?” Armend asked, pushing his cup aside.
“He looked her straight in the eyes and said, ‘You are with me, but you’re not mine. Every time you embrace me, you don’t touch me with your soul. Every time you look at me, there’s someone else in your gaze… You don’t belong to me. You live for someone else. I made a big mistake with you.’”
“And she?”
“She didn’t deny it. She didn’t cry. She looked him in the eye and said softly, ‘I’ve respected you, I’ve followed you, but I have never loved you with the fire you expect. I am not yours. I never have been.’”
“He didn’t take it well, I suppose…”
“No. He stood up, shouted, and smashed his teacup on the floor. He said, ‘I gave you everything, and you gave me only silence! Are you still thinking about that sailor boy from Ulcinj? Still dreaming like a child?’ His eyes burned with anger and hatred. Then, without another word, he lowered his head and fell silent. A scene of horror, my son.”
“And what did Asija say?” Armend interrupted.
“‘It’s not his fault that I can’t forget him. Nor yours. It’s my fault that I agreed to live a life that was never mine.’ That’s all she said—and she admitted she had loved another man. Beka stomped his feet, but he didn’t hit her. Tears rolled down his face instead. He wiped them with the white sleeve of his shirt. After clearing his face, he said, ‘You are my mistake, but one I will fix. Love doesn’t grow from property or money—it comes from the heart.’ And then he went inside.”
Nilaj fell silent for a moment.
“That night was the end. They didn’t separate legally, but in spirit they did. They lived under the same roof, yet in different worlds. Asija never saw that boy from Ulcinj again. But every summer, when we passed near there, she would look toward the shore, as if waiting for something. Or someone.”
Armend took a deep breath.
“And you, Nilaj… how did you feel?”
“Like someone living next to a love that could never be. It taught me never to accept anything less than the truth. Even if it hurts. Even if it costs you everything.”
Nilaj’s voice grew quieter.
“Beka never calmed down. His doubts grew heavier each day. Every word she spoke, he turned into evidence. Every delay, every thought, every silence. It was torture between them—there was no love to calm, because it had never been born. Only a mutual resentment, gathering until it was ready to explode.”
“Did she endure it?”
“At first, yes. She swallowed all the fire that might have ignited. I think she carried a kind of guilt in her conscience. Not for any betrayal, but for what she kept hidden inside her: an unspoken love for someone else. But when she became pregnant, things broke apart.”
“He didn’t believe the child was his?”
Nilaj shook her head slowly.
“Not right away. When Asija told him, he went pale. He paced the room, and after a few minutes, he exploded: ‘Don’t tell me it’s mine just to keep me here! Who knows where your mind has been? With that boy from Ulcinj, huh? Or someone else I don’t know?’ His shouting deepened the divide between them.”
“My God…” Armend sighed.
“Yes, my son. And she… She didn’t shout back. She only leaned against the wall and said, ‘If you won’t acknowledge your child, I will. I don’t need you to believe me. I’m telling you for your sake, not mine. Because it kills me to think you won’t see this as your life.’”
“And then?”
“He left. For two days, he didn’t come home. I stayed with Asija. She lay in bed, silent, her hands on her belly as if protecting something that belonged only to her. When he returned, he didn’t apologize, but he began to act more gently, a trace of shame in his eyes. He knew he had crossed a line, but he didn’t know how to go back.”
“And she had the baby?”
“Yes. A beautiful boy, with Beka’s eyes and his mother’s silence. She named him Benet—Ben for short. She raised him alone, because even though they lived in the same house, he wasn’t there as a father. He was only a name on the birth certificate.” “And did she ever truly love that boy?”
“She loved him deeply. But she never fully admitted it. She always looked at him with a shadow of doubt. And Ben felt it. He grew up a boy who knew not to ask for much—only for his mother’s presence.”
Nilaj paused for a moment, then gave a bitter smile.
“You see, son, it’s never the flower’s fault for blooming as it always has—it’s the gardener’s fault for never learning from the thorns. He could have made a paradise in his hands, but he feared the shadow of a love he never understood.”
Armend felt a sting in his chest. “That’s a heavy story.”
“It’s life,” Nilaj said. “Asija lived with longing, Beka with guilt, and Ben with silence. And I? With memories that follow me like an echo.”
“Yes,” Armend replied, his voice full of sorrow, almost breaking into tears. “But the last month… before the birth… how was it? Did she still have hope that things could change?”
Nilaj sighed, then turned her gaze toward the window.
“No. There was no hope left by then—only a long, silent waiting. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: that house was no longer a shelter; it was a temporary station for Asija’s weary soul.”
“And then… what did Beka do?” Armend asked.
“He no longer spoke to her. Only short glances, as if to check she was still there. He spoke to me more than to her. One night, he said to me:
‘I no longer know what stands before me. She feels like a shadow that belongs to another mind, another heart. I love her… but she no longer feels like mine.’”
Armend frowned. “Strange… a man who says he loves her, but doesn’t believe in her?”
“Terrible, you mean,” Nilaj replied. “Because instead of facing his fear and healing the love, he closed himself off. He became a wall, not a hand. And Asija… she would look at him in silence, as if pleading without words: ‘Believe me now—or never seek me again.’”
Armend lowered his voice. “And how did she feel?”
“She was afraid. Afraid she might give birth alone. Afraid the child would be born into a world where no one waited for him with joy. Afraid that the love she had once felt—the true love, for that boy from Ulcinj—was now punishing her through the silence of a husband who could never forgive her for the dreams she’d never spoken aloud.”
“And then… the birth?” Armend asked.
“Yes. One stormy night. No pain compared to what her heart had felt months before. She gave birth in silence. I was the only one there. Beka arrived three hours later. He came into the room, looked at the baby, and said nothing. He just stood there, then turned and walked out.”
Armend’s voice was filled with wonder, his head lowered. “And… did she speak?”
“She said only one sentence—later, when he wasn’t there. She cried and whispered:
‘I no longer grieve that he didn’t believe me. I grieve that he never allowed himself to love as he truly felt—because I never betrayed him.’
Nilaj’s voice slowed as she held the cup in her hands.
“The boy was born healthy. His eyes were dark, but calm—as if he came with peace. Asija cried silently when she held him. They weren’t tears of joy… it was something deeper. Like release. Like an ending.”
“And Beka… did he change when he saw the boy?”
“No. He became quieter. He didn’t hold the child right away. He stood by the door, as if in a station he had no wish to step into. And when he finally spoke, he only said: ‘He looks like you.’
Asija didn’t answer. And he left again, without turning his head.”
“That’s a cold story… like a room whose windows are never opened,” Armend murmured.
“And it never fills with any air but that of the past,” Nilaj said. “Asija tried… she truly tried. She named the boy Ben. She spoke to him every morning with a light that came only from within her, because from the outside… there was only shadow.
Beka never embraced her again. He never returned, even when she tried to invite him to share a meal. That’s when I knew: a love that doesn’t start with feeling… will always end in silence.”
“And she never told him she still loved the other man—the boy from Ulcinj?” Armend asked.
“No. She knew it wouldn’t heal the wound—it would deepen it. She chose never to speak of love again. She gave all the love she had left to Ben.”
“Puu–puu…” Armend exhaled. “And as you tell me all this… I feel as if you’re speaking to me. Like a gentle warning.”
She gave a light laugh, then spoke.
“Maybe it is… maybe it isn’t. But do you know what I learned from Asija?”
“What?”
“That when love isn’t there at the beginning, it rarely appears later. And when doubt arrives before feeling, it never leaves. It only pretends to be trust.”
Armend sighed deeply. “And when a man doesn’t believe a woman who loves him… that woman will never be the same—never his again.”
“Just like a garden that will never bloom again, because it’s grown tired of hands that plucked it without love.”
Armend opened his eyes wide, leaning forward over the table, and whispered to himself: “Is this how stories repeat? With different faces, but the same wounds?”
Nilaj was gazing out the window at the sea. But when she heard his words, she asked: “What did you say?”
“Nothing… I just thought out loud. A strange feeling came over me. I listened to you, Nilaj… and it felt as if you were speaking about us.” Nilaj (looking at him calmly): “It’s natural… when someone holds up a mirror, you don’t see yourself, only others reflected in it.”
Armend: “And if… I, someday… become like Beka?”
Nilaj (without changing her tone): “Then I won’t be here in front of you anymore.”
Armend: “You wouldn’t even wait seven months?”
Nilaj: “I wouldn’t wait seven nights. Not because I don’t love you. But because in love, there’s no place for fear that grows in silence. I am not Asija. And you are not like Beka… as long as you keep this window open.”
(He cast his eyes toward the window. Outside, the evening was starting to fall.)
Armend: “Sometimes, it feels like I’m walking on a wire. On one side is your love, speaking of Asija and Beka… on the other, myself, afraid.”
Nilaj looked him in the eyes and said: “Then you must ask yourself: is it worth staying balanced… or taking the step toward it, and building the path together?”
(Pause. He turned his head and smiled lightly. For the first time in many days.)
Armend: “To tell you the truth… perhaps more than all the stories, this one scares me the most. Because it’s real.”
Nilaj set the cup on the thin porcelain saucer and gazed out the window. For a moment, silence fell like a light curtain over their conversation, then she spoke again—this time softer, as if opening an old box of memories she hadn’t touched in years:
“In fact… this whole story can’t be told without mentioning your grandparents, Armend. They were the soul of that villa. The foundation of every warmth we ever felt there.”
She took a deep breath, as if giving voice to sleeping memories.
“Grandmother Hana, Beka’s mother… do you remember her? Calm, with hair always tied in a neat scarf, hands that never stopped working. She kept the house alive. Every morning she carefully prepared tea—yes, in this very copper pot we’re using now—and placed it on the windowsill, so its aroma would awaken the house.”
Nilaj smiled faintly.
“She used to talk to the flowers, and always told Asija: ‘Whoever knows how to water a flower, knows how to keep a soul alive.’ She was the one who gave Asija her first warm words in that villa. But after her death… something broke. Like when a candle goes out and only smoke remains.”
Then her voice deepened again.
“Your grandfather, Ismail… Beka’s father… he was a different story. Just, yet harsh. He valued order and peace, sometimes to the point of blindness. He saw what was happening between Asija and Beka, felt the rising tension, but he didn’t intervene. ‘It’s not our business, Nilaj,’ he said one night. ‘They are man and wife. We don’t interfere.’ I understood: he was afraid of disturbing the balance, afraid of shaking a world built on old rules, strong as stone.”
She paused for a moment and fixed her gaze on Armend.
“But you must know, Armend: silence is a choice too. And the choices of the elders, the silence of someone like Ismail, shape the fate of young people like Asija… and perhaps like you. Vila Blu survived many storms, but it could not survive the silence. Your grandparents chose the path of traditional dignity… but sometimes, dignity kills more than a shout ever could.”
Nilaj took a final sip and looked out the window again:
“And so, today, I don’t want this story to remain locked in the silent rooms of the past. I want it spoken. Remembered. Because only by speaking can we free ourselves from burdens that are not ours to carry.”
The next day arrived with a pale but clear light. The large window of the room allowed the tired sun to fall upon the low table, where now, instead of tea, a coffee pot and two cups with carved rims had been placed. The morning breeze brought a faint scent of orange blossoms from the garden and the distant sound of waves slowly hitting the shore. Newly bloomed poppies in the garden lifted their heads toward the sun, as if to hear what was about to be said.
Armend arrived, as every day, a little earlier than usual. He carefully opened the iron gate of the garden and stepped onto the veranda. Upstairs, he opened the door where Nilaj waited, her gaze gentle but heavier than the day before.
“You’re on time,” she said, motioning for him to sit.
“I knew the story wasn’t finished,” he said. “And your line, ‘the last summer’… it kept me awake all night.”
Nilaj smiled lightly, but there was a fatigue in her eyes that wasn’t from sleeplessness. She filled their cups with warm coffee and began to speak, unhurried, in a softer tone:
“The last summer… was when Asija and Beka’s son turned five. His name was Ben, you know. And that name was no accident—Asija hoped one day he would become the light of her life. But when he turned five, the opposite happened. He became the mirror in which she saw all her own failures. And that year became the year of closure for both of them.”
“Closure?” asked Armend softly.
Nilaj nodded.
“Beka was given the chance to leave the country for a work contract. There were many doubts, but Asija did not make the slightest effort to stop him. She only said: ‘If you feel better there, go. I’ll be here, with Ben.’ It was a farewell without sound, without drama, without tears—the kind that hurts more than anything else.”
“And him? Did he ever come back?” he asked.
“No. He disappeared like a letter with no address. At first, he sent a lot of money, sometimes a cold letter… but then nothing. Asija didn’t seek him anymore. All she had left was the house, the boy, and a silence that grew heavier every day.”
“And the grandparents?” asked Armend.
“Ismail died that winter,” Nilaj said softly. “She invited him to step out on the veranda, with his chair, and an empty cup in his hand. Asija found him in the morning, dead, and for the first time in many years, she cried out loud. Not only for him, but for all the things she could no longer fix.”
Nilaj looked into her cup and added:
“Your grandmother Hana… remained. She was a strong woman. One day she told Asija: ‘If you want to survive, learn to be a light for your son, for there are already enough shadows.’”
“And did she manage?” asked Armend.
Nilaj lifted her eyes to the sea. The waves had grown.
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no… I’m not sure. But since that summer, Vila Blu was no longer called the same home. It became quieter, more closed. Like a box of memories that only opens when someone like you comes and knocks.”
Armend didn’t speak immediately. Then he said:
“And you, Nilaj… why didn’t you leave? Why are you still here?”
She smiled, but in that smile was both sadness and courage.
“Because someone had to stay and keep the memories. And maybe… tell the story.” And then, for a few moments, only the waves spoke again.
—Then she turned her gaze completely and said:
“Learn this, my son. What I am about to tell you is a theorem that cannot be proven.”
“Huh?” he said. “Tell me.”
“Listen then,” Nilaj replied. And she spoke clearly and briefly:
“If you don’t marry the one you love, every other marriage is a punishment you choose yourself.”
“Auuu,” he said. “You’re a philosopher, for God’s sake.”
“Yes—yes,” she said.
“But hear this story between the two of them. And learn it well, because I tell it for you, and for those who must not be forgotten. But also, you learn from my story.”
“I remember it like it was today,” she said.
(In the living room. Evening. The lights were dim. The boy had fallen asleep in the other room. Asija sat in the chair by the window, a shawl over her shoulders. Beka enters without knocking. He pauses for a moment and looks at her.)
Beka (softly, loosening his tie):
“Still there. Watching. Like every night.”
“Eh… bravo, for God’s sake. Don’t ever change.”
And he moved to leave—then her voice was heard.
Asija (without turning her head):
“Still late. Like every night. Still no time for me. I know you’re very wealthy. Everyone fears you. You make the law everywhere. But you married me. And I married you. Not the Blue Villa, which hasn’t laughed since 1944, when we married.”
Beka (approaching slowly):
“We need to talk.”
Asija:
“If it’s about the bills, I paid the electricity this month.”
Beka (sighing, tired):
“No. Not about that. About us.”
(…pause…)
“I’ve lived for years with a woman who isn’t with me. I’ve slept for years next to a body that isn’t mine.”
Asija (turning to him, calm but firm):
“You knew from the start that my heart didn’t belong to you. You wanted this marriage yourself. You sought it as a matter of honor, not as a love story.”
Beka:
“And the boy? He’s my son, right?”
Asija (opening her eyes slowly, but not answering immediately):
“Don’t use the child to justify your fear. He is your son, yes. But he is not guilty for the emptiness between us.”
Beka (eyes darkening):
“You never gave me anything. Not a smile, not forgiveness, not embraces. Who did you keep all that for, Asija? For the one from Ulcinj?”
Asija (voice hoarse, but not shouting):
“It’s not the fault of the flower that it blooms, but the gardener who never learned to care. You wanted a wife, not my soul. And now you want to turn all of this into judgment. But punish me for the mistakes I made, not for the feelings I didn’t have—for you.”
(Long silence. Beka has no words left. He leaves without saying anything. Asija turns again toward the window.)
After this long silence, their backs turned to each other, they went to the villa’s kitchen, consumed by doubt and disagreement.
Asija opens the door and invites her husband in to sit.
(Kitchen. The aroma of coffee spreads. Asija places two cups on the table. Beka sits, lost in thought. His eyes are filled with sleepless nights, but also with prolonged silence.)
Asija (calm, without drama):
“I made the coffee as you drink it. Bitter.”
Beka (looking away from the table, quietly):
“Like our life.”
Asija (sitting low across from him, resolute):
“It’s no longer life, Beka. It’s co-existence without breath.”
(…pause…) Her sigh is heard. Then she spoke:
“You don’t ask me anything anymore. Not about yourself, not about the boy.”
“Stop,” he said, annoyed. “Speak, if you will.”
Beka (blowing his nose hard, restrained):
“What should I ask you, Asija? The answers I get from your eyes. I feel… that you don’t see me as your husband anymore. It’s clear. There’s nothing left. Why do we even continue? You are my mistake, that’s all.”
Asija (lowering her eyes, calm, not angry):
“Between us there was no love. There was nothing. There was only your gaze, and you decided everything. I wasn’t market merchandise for you to buy. Between us there was nothing—no recognition, no love. Nothing, human being. But you decided for a love… that had no connection. I was a name you wanted to keep by your side, not a soul you wanted to know.”
Beka:
“But I loved you…”
Asija (interrupting):
“You loved the idea of a woman who wouldn’t oppose you, who wouldn’t hold you responsible, who gives you a son and remains silent. I am not that woman.”
(…pause…)
“I never forgot that boy from Ulcinj. But I never betrayed you. We wanted each other a lot as children. You ruined a love. But that love stayed on paper. We never touched each other. That’s why we married. I came to you a virgin, yes—or no?”
“There is love that happens only once, but its echo never dies—it remains in the mind like a memory that even time cannot erase,” she said, and fell silent.
Beka (does not move):
“You made a thunderbolt for yourself. Left without a family because you are fixated on him. I kept you as my wife. I thought you’d forget. With me, you were calm, for that fire in the sky.”
Asija:
“With you I was numb, Beka. And that is more dangerous than any fire.”
(…pause…)
“It’s not that I ever betrayed you, but I never loved you. And you knew it. You felt it. That’s why you became cold. And so, you cooled me too.”
Beka (voice breaking):
“And the boy?”
Asija:
“The boy is the child of this life we could never build. He is not guilty. I will always love him, and I will respect you as his father. But not as my husband.”
(Beka takes the cup in his hand, brings it to his lips, but does not drink. He stays frozen for a few moments. Then he places it gently on the saucer and stands.)
Beka:
“I ask you for the last time: will you stay?”
Asija (low voice, firm):
“No.” “I will leave. I will leave silently, as I have lived here. With the boy. And you will always be a name on his certificate, but not in my memories.”
(Silence. Beka leaves without closing the door behind him. Asija is left alone. The cup in front of her remains full. She lifts it, takes a small sip, and closes her eyes for a moment—as if to absorb the end of a long era.)
“First love is never forgotten. You must take the one you love, otherwise every marriage after it is a silent hell with someone you do not love.”
This was Nilaj’s saying, after she had recounted their story up to this point. Then she began again with the tale.
Nilaj, with eyes focused on the open window, said:
“She left… silently. Like a wind that will never return.”
Armendi remained silent, like a man who…
(doesn’t remove the cigarette from his fingers, but doesn’t smoke it).
Nilaj continued the story:
“Asija was not the type to make noise. All her pain happened inside the silence. Or not?”
Nilaj asked:
“Do you think it was right for her to leave?”
Armendi answered:
“Right?
(He looks down, as if searching for a piece of an answer on the floor)
There is nothing right in this story. Beka never understood what he had beside him. And now that she’s gone, he will understand too late… as always,” he said.
Nilaj:
“Beka likes everything he does not understand. The deep soul of people like Asija tires him. He loves it, but he cannot bear it.”
Armendi:
“But love is not something to bear. Either you surrender to it, or you lose it.”
(pause)
“And he chose not to surrender.”
Nilaj:
“Asija knew this would happen; she felt that a day like this would come. I saw it in her eyes—she waited until he grew weary.”
Armendi:
“That is the tragedy: what is waited for, sometimes comes.”
(He turns to Nilaj)
“And you? Would you tell Beka the truth?”
Nilaj:
“Which truth? That he’s a coward? Or that he lost a woman who wanted to help him save himself?”
(she clenches her fist)
“No. Let him understand on his own, let him suffer in silence, as she did.”
Armendi:
(bitter smile)
“She loved even his suffering. It seemed more real to her than any word he never spoke. She would have told him one day, but it never happened. They only remained silent and repeated nothing—neither love nor separation.”
Nilaj:
“Love does not always save. Sometimes it only shows how deeply a soul can be broken.
We must not flee from first love. It is the love of a lifetime. Every other love no longer exists. Love from childhood—It survives everywhere and above all.” she said.
“Asija left,” she said quietly. She left Beka a letter explaining everything.
“You have the letter?” Armendi asked, mouth open. “Was it the one she gave me too? Or which one?”
“No,” Nilaj said. “It’s the last letter before she killed herself in Ulcinj.”
“What kind of letter was this?” he asked.
“A farewell letter. Listen.”
She took from the drawer a yellowed sheet, worn by time, soaked with tears of parting and sorrow.
“Listen, Armend,” she said firmly. He closed his eyes from the pain, but she said, “Continue, please.”
Beka’s letter:
Beka!
I am not writing to curse you, nor to reopen wounds. I just want to tell a few things you may want to know one day, when all has fallen into silence.
You were not my first love. My heart once knew that feeling which asks for nothing, fears nothing, and rushes nothing. With you, it was different. I did not love you, but I did not hate you either. I accepted you as one accepts rain that catches you on the road—you can do nothing, just continue walking, drenched.
Love is not like vegetables bought at the market. You do not choose it by price, freshness, or appearance. Love either happens or it does not. And what happened between us… was more compromise than feeling.
You may be rich, powerful, surrounded by people who obey you. But no, you are not my king. You never were. I am not a woman to be ruled by money or grand words. I needed your heart, but you never gave it to me.
You can raise the boy with your surname. He is also yours, even though he did not choose this life. Raise him as you wish, but do not feed him lies. Do not tell him that his mother left because she was weak. Tell him the truth: that she chose not to die inside herself, to live outside a man who never loved her for who she was.
I will not return. I will die far from you, but peacefully. For the first time in my life, I chose myself.
Farewell, wild soul.
Life goes on.
Live it—you and my son. Without me.
Asija
Armendi, lighting a cigarette, looked Nilaj in the eyes:
“Did you read… the whole letter?”
Nilaj (softly, as if the words weighed heavily):
“Yes. She read it silently, as the sky darkens before rain. Not a sound. Her eyes froze on one point, like someone who realizes they have lost something they will never find again.”
Armendi almost cried, but
(tilting his head slightly, as if trying to understand the pain) added:
“And? What did she do with the child?”
Nilaj:
“At first, she did not touch him. She just sat in front of the cradle as if she did not know what to do.”
(pause)
“Then… she took him in her arms. She looked at him as if for the first time. As an outcome she had never imagined, as an unplanned accident on the road.”
Armendi tried to compose himself, and began to cry with tears falling like spring rain.
“Spring rain… the sweet rain of love,” he said, wiping his eyes with his blue handkerchief.
“She cried? For him?” Nilaj added. NILAJ
No. I have no reason to cry now. I cried before—once, or many times. I thought about Beka. His face was like a wall fallen inward. There was no pride left, no empty words. Only silence… and a boy left in the hands of a man who never learned to love.
ARMENDI
And you, what did you think? Would he be able to raise him alone?
NILAJ
I don’t know. Back then I thought, he has plenty of money. He could raise him. Maybe not as he should. But… perhaps this child would be his punishment… and his only hope to learn what love really is. The truth. Without conditions. Without cruelty.
ARMENDI
Exactly.
(He looks toward the window.)
Sometimes, fate does not strike you with tragedy. It simply leaves you alone—with everything you never wanted to understand.
Then he continued.
ARMENDI
(spoken again, looking her straight in the eyes, face pale like a violet)
Tell us… more, Nilaj.
What happened next?
What became of Beka… of the boy?
NILAJ
(takes a deep breath, looking out the window as if gathering memories)
Beka… didn’t speak for days.
He did not deny it. Nor did he cry.
He simply… accepted it. Life would go on; this is my child.
He took the letter in his hand and shut himself away. He didn’t hug the boy immediately. It seemed as if he was afraid.
Then one night, when we thought their whole father-son world might break, he covered him with a blanket, placed his hand on his forehead, and said:
“You will grow up without a mother… but not without love.”
(long pause)
The house was silent. Evening. The little boy slept in the cradle. Beka, tired, restless, sat in a chair nearby, holding a glass of water.
BEKA
(quietly, as if the boy could hear him in his sleep)
I know… she loved you. In her own way. Not the way I wanted, with orders and silence…
(takes a deep breath)
I didn’t understand her then. Or maybe I didn’t want to. Love is not held by fear… but by trust.
(pause)
She left because she was stronger than me. More real.
(his eyes fill with tears, but he does not let them fall)
And you…
(looks at the cradle)
You are not at fault. I will try to be the father she would have wanted for you. I will try… even though I am not ready.
(pause. He stands and approaches the cradle.)
BEKA
When you grow up, will you learn about your mother? I will tell you that
She… brought a sense of calm. Even when she spoke in anger, her soul trembled with truth.
She didn’t know how to play roles. And she never agreed to be a slave.
And I… I didn’t protect her.
(looks toward the window, as if searching for her in the stars)
But now it’s too late.
For us.
But not for you. When you grow up, seek her—she is your mother.
(leans over the cradle, gently touches his cheek, whispers)
BEKA
Sleep, my son. One day, you will forgive me… or forget me. Both are mercy.
“God has two mercies: one that forgives our mistakes, and another that lets us feel the consequences. The first is His love; the second, His wisdom. Because without pain, man would never understand love.”
He said, “My son, you will learn much from me,” and smiled faintly, covering his pain with his hands over his head.
She would have continued the story, but Armendi interrupted:
“I’m leaving late; should I leave it for today? Or will you continue?”
He gently addressed her. Nilaj said, “No, no. I’m not tired. Today—well, we know it’s afternoon, and the sun is very hot. We don’t know the date or time. Go get us two beers, please,” and she pointed with her eyes to the neighborhood store.
“Oh—okay,” he said. “Shall we drink beer there?”
“Yes, yes, there. Hurry, don’t be late,” she added.
Armendi went, bought two beers at the neighborhood store, and quickly returned to Nilaj’s house. She had left the door open. Inside there was a tired quiet, like a house struggling to breathe.
He immediately sat in a chair, heated from walking, and handed Nilaj the beer bottles. She took them silently. They poured drinks, and after a quiet clink, they said:
ARMENDI
Cheers… to lost loves.
NILAJ
(softly, looking down)
Cheers…
A long pause, as if gathering courage.
ARMENDI
Will you continue where we left off… what did Beka do after she left? You said he didn’t touch even the blankets. And the boy?
NILAJ
(slowly)
The boy was asleep in the cradle… He had fallen asleep. Beka approached, watched him for a long time. He said nothing. He kissed his forehead, silently, as if afraid to wake him.
ARMENDI
So… he didn’t leave like others say?
NILAJ
No. He didn’t leave like men who abandon. He left like someone who can no longer endure himself. He left everything behind: the cradle, his son, me… but he left no hatred. Only emptiness.
ARMENDI
(frowning)
And when he went outside… where did he go?
NILAJ
I don’t know… The door closed quietly. Then, no trace. No letter, no call, no address. It’s as if he vanished.
ARMENDI
And the boy?
NILAJ
The boy stayed at the villa. Beka kept him and decided to raise him himself.
“Wow, that’s great!” – said my grandfather.
“He didn’t abandon my father?” – “No, no,” she nodded.
At that time, Asija disappeared… I don’t really know what happened to her after that.
ARMENDI
Really? – he was surprised. – So, yes, yes…
NILAJ
Yes, that’s right… And life continued in silence. No answers, no signs. Only memories rising like dark clouds over my mind.
ARMENDI
And how did you handle all this?
NILAJ
With difficulty. Every day was a battle with myself. With questions that had no answers. Where was she? Why did she leave? Would she ever return?
ARMENDI
And Beka? How did he take it?
NILAJ
…He spoke of Asija. He didn’t speak ill; on the contrary, after a long silence he said: “She was my pillar. Without her, I would have fallen many times.” That was all he said about Asija. Then… only silence. He devoted himself to raising the boy as if he were the only one in the world for him. Without any doubt, without any step back.
Armendi: And the boy, how did he take all this?
Nilaj: He was small, but he felt the absence of his mother—though not as we did. For him, it was a void filled by Beka’s love. Small, but strong.
Armendi: And you, did you ever think of seeking answers from her? To find… a sign, anything?
Nilaj: Every day. But sometimes, I think some answers are more dangerous than the questions themselves. And perhaps she needed to vanish to save all of us.
Everything was quiet. Like a scene paused. After Asija left, she continued…
Armendi: You amaze me, human being…
(The boredom dissipated into the empty room of the house, where only a wall clock ticks. Even their breathing joined the conversation about her.)
Armendi:
(Looking out the window)
I still can’t believe it… Asija is gone. Without a single final word.
Nilaj:
(Calmly, with a hint of confusion)
Yes… she had made her choice. She felt there was no longer a place for her here. She had made the decision long ago, we just didn’t know.
I remember the day Beka told her, “Things will either mend or fade away.” She said nothing… only lowered her head. From then on, she was no longer the same.
She saw that she had no place in our lives. Neither with Beka, nor with the rest of us. She didn’t feel welcome. And when a person stops speaking, they stop staying too.
Armendi: And Beka, how did he behave?
Nilaj:
(Clenches her hands)
He was destroyed inside. He didn’t speak anymore. He sat alone for hours, frozen. Once I heard him talking to himself. He said, “If a soul leaves you, it’s not because it doesn’t love you, but because you didn’t feel it.”
He never knew how to love Asija the way she needed. He was constantly caught up in the battle inside himself. And when she grew tired of waiting, she simply… left.
Armendi:
Yet now that she’s gone, he seems even emptier. As if he’s lost himself. No anger, no words. Only silence.
(Pause)
Nilaj… do you think he could manage?
Armendi: I don’t know.
(Looks out the window at the fading light of the day)
And he continued the sentence left unfinished: “Alright, let me say my thoughts… Yes, but if he cannot bear this emptiness, he will follow her. Not physically, perhaps… but he will wither. Like a lamp that slowly goes out, silently.”
Nilaj:
Yes… he became withdrawn, silent, in shock. Let me describe it: what he thought and said to himself:
She left. And I did nothing. Not a word. Not a hand to stop her. Not a single visible tear.
I had become the stone watching from the window, waiting for someone to move her. But even she could no longer move.
As long as I had her near, I thought love would suffice by itself. Like air, taken for granted every day until it is gone. And now, her absence has filled the room… with pain.
Everything is here… her cup, the scarf she always forgot on the sofa, the scent she left behind. But she is not. And this absence is not empty—it is heavy. Like a black cloud covering the heart, leaving it unable to speak.
I loved her, but not as I should have. Not at the right time. And now, time itself has turned against me.
I am no longer the one who can ask for forgiveness. I am no longer the one who has the right to follow. I am only a witness to what I let go.
They say when love leaves, you feel it. Not just in your heart. You feel it in your flesh, your soul, in every memory that no longer carries its presence. And now, every step in this house feels like walking on the bones of something that once grew here.
Asija… even now you don’t hear me. The wind brings my words to you. Learn this:
I do not hate you for leaving. I hate myself for forcing you to go. I have begun speaking to your shadow.
In the sleepless nights, you come. Sitting in the empty chair, where you usually sat with your hands on your knees, with that gentle, yet tired look.
You do not speak. You just watch me.
And your silence screams louder than anything you could ever have said.
I speak to you. I tell you, “I love you.”
But it is too late. That word now has no body. It is like smoke exhaled in winter, vanishing without a trace.
I had everything. And I let it fade.
I let her believe it didn’t matter. That she could wait. That love perhaps always endures. But no one should endure endlessly. Love is strong, but not as strong as a human being. And Asija was only human.
Then I spoke to myself:
I fear she will forget my voice. And I… I am forgetting hers. More than pain, this is fear. The fear of oblivion. Oblivion is a second death.
I miss her, but not like one misses a body. I miss her like one misses meaning. A reason to exist. Now I feel I am here, but without purpose. Like a word outside a sentence. Like a gun without bullets in a war.
Once, I thought she needed me. Now I know it was I who could not live without her.
I will have to live with this emptiness. With this shadow that comes and sits every evening beside me.
Perhaps she will never forgive me. Perhaps I cannot forgive myself either.
But if one day she reads, hears, or receives a word that sounds like me…
…I want her to know this:
I never became better without you. Only lonelier.
Sometimes I tell myself: maybe she watches me from afar. Not to see how I am, but to confirm that her decision was right.
And if that is so… then I want her to see truly:
…Yes. I am empty. I am the one I could not be when you were here.
I am like a ship abandoned on the island of nowhere.
I have begun returning to the things she touched. The plate she ate from. Books she never finished.
I found a letter among them. Not for me. For herself.
At the bottom, she had written in pencil:
“If I ever leave, I do not want tears. I want understanding.”
She had planned everything. How tragic…
I sat down and cried. Not for what she wrote, but for what it implied. She did not need my sorrow. She needed me to feel close when she was still here.
But I was always one step behind. Or a world away.
I was like a cloud drifting into the unknown, pushed by the wind.
And now… now every day is a new burial of something that happened once.
A memory, a voice, a color. Like in a parallel world we have not seen. In a galaxy we have not discovered.
Even myself seems different. As if I am no longer the Beka she knew.
I am only… a survivor.
But what is a survivor when there is no one left to live for?
[At this point, Beka rises and looks through the mirror of a dark room. His reflection is blurred. He reaches toward the mirror as if seeking something beyond it.]
I fear that one day… I will no longer recognize even myself.
That I will remain only a memory of myself.
A silhouette that once loved, but did not know how.
A man who learned too late… that love waits for no one.
Armendi: And then, what happened? — he spoke with curiosity and sorrow.
“Speak, Nilaj! Don’t interrupt, please. I feel like crying from this love of my grandparents…”
Armendi: Nilaj, what are you doing? It’s late… or will you stay up all night? Don’t your parents wait for you? “Go, go… we’ll continue tomorrow,” she said, as if trying to close the sorrow that had enveloped the space where they sat. They didn’t even finish their beer. They were sad, and the evening was approaching.
“No, I won’t leave now… maybe not until midnight,” he said. Then he left, and Nilaj thought, You’ve filled me with poison and pessimism.
“Well then,” Nilaj said, “you know. Do as you wish, but tell me what you like so I can prepare it for dinner.”
“No,” he said, “nothing… just bread and cheese, if you have it. I don’t want food, I want the story of my grandparents.”
“Hahaha,” she laughed. “I’m a good storyteller… but these scenes, I can’t endure. I’ve seen them hundreds of times in dreams. I loved Asije. She kept me at home like her sister. But she never opened up to me. She never told me how she felt, or that she would leave, because she had left behind a love. A love from childhood… foolish! Do you understand?”
“She left an emperor and a goddess… for a pauper!” she laughed ironically.
“And Beka… a two-meter-tall guy, educated, rich, strong.”
“Beka was a star, really… even a boy! You know, I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful than him!”
“What happened next? Tell me,” Armendi said.
“Nilaj… yes, yes, I’ll tell you,” Beka had written a letter to her but never sent it.
“I know the text of the letter,” he said.
“Seriously? How do you know?” Armendi asked in surprise.
“She read it to me one night when we were drunk. It was… painful.”
“What did it say?”
“That she loved him, but she was afraid. Afraid he would never return the feeling. And so the letter stayed there… in the drawer.”
“Hm… and Nilaj, did she ever find out?” Armendi asked.
“No. She doesn’t even know the letter exists. Maybe it’s better this way…”
“Then tell me the text!” Armendi said impatiently.
“Yes, yes, hold on… Nilaj said. After a pause, she continued, ‘Alright, here, read it!’”
She had the letter.
“Wow!” he said, rising to take it.
When he opened it, his eyes widened as if he were nearsighted.
He held it between his fingers, gripped it tightly, and then… he looked.
Asije!
I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. Maybe not. And maybe that’s better.
I’m not writing to make you come back. That would be unfair from my side, now that perhaps you finally live without my shadow.
I’m writing because I have no one else to say this to: forgive me.
Not for what I did. But for everything I didn’t do.
For the words I didn’t speak. For the eyes I didn’t see when you cried.
For the nights you spent alone, even when we shared the same bed.
Learning to love when the other is gone—this is the greatest punishment one can inflict on oneself. And I deserve it. Every day, every night.
I remember your voice. Gentle, but firm when you said, “Listen to me!”
And I thought I always had time.
Now, time is what condemns me. Because there is no turning back.
Asije, you were my light, but I kept my eyes closed.
And when I finally opened them… you were no longer there.
Maybe you love someone else now. And perhaps he won’t make my mistakes.
If he does, then I am grateful you found him.
I am no longer who I was.
But I remain the one who loved you too late.
And that is all that remains of me.
If one day you see me on the street, don’t stop.
Just pass by like the wind.
I will feel it.
And I will know that I had something sacred, even if only for a short while.
I love you in silence,
Beka
“How is this possible?” Armendi said as he read the letter.
Then he continued, reading a few more lines, then paused:
“This… this is a different person. This is not the Beka we knew.”
Nilaj (softly):
“This is Beka who held everything inside. He didn’t know how to speak… until it became too late.”
Armendi (closing the letter slowly):
“Then why never give it to her?”
“Because… maybe he loved her so much he didn’t want to hurt her anymore. Or he loved her wrongly the whole time. I don’t know.”
Armendi (deep in thought):
“The letter is deep. But it’s not enough now.”
“Nothing is enough now. Every act has become too late. She didn’t know anything, right?”
Armendi, looking out the window in frustration, spoke again:
“But what if she read it? Now?”
“It would hurt her. Or… even if she read it, she wouldn’t come back. She was already a world away.”
“Yet… it’s like a call from the depths of the soul, even if no one is on the line.”
Nilaj (eyes full of tears):
“The one who wrote this is no longer the one who left Asije behind.”
“And we… how could we help? We weren’t there when they needed us the most.”
“Truly,” said Armendi with a deep sigh,
“maybe none of us knew how to be there for each other.
Even I, if I were there, wouldn’t have known what to do.”
“You’re not to blame,” said Nilaj softly, her voice breaking.
“And that… is the greatest tragedy,” said Armendi, turning the letter in his hand.
“And now, what do we do with it?”
“Nothing. It’s not ours. It’s his pain. His silence.”
Armendi (with a mix of revolt and sadness):
“But this silence is killing us all. Now that we hold it, it’s like having his heart laid bare. And we can’t put it back together.”
Nilaj (softly):
“Asije wouldn’t want this anymore. Not this letter, not this delayed guilt.”
Armendi (harshly):
“Maybe she should know! She should know that Beka… wasn’t entirely empty.”
“And what matters when everything has turned to ashes?” Nilaj said, taking a deep breath.
“People don’t return for letters. Or for regrets. They return only when they never truly leave.
And he… he let her go. Even though his heart screamed otherwise. This letter is like a wordless scream.” Armendi spoke (after a long pause):
“Will you keep it? Or shall we burn it?” he added.
“Nooo,” Nilaj said, shaking her head slowly.
“No. I will keep it. Not for Asije. For myself. As a memory.”
“A memory of what?” Armendi asked.
“I will keep it,” Nilaj said, voice firm but eyes teary, “to tell that—
That love cannot be saved with delay. And that sometimes, the words we don’t speak… are the ones that haunt us for a lifetime.”
Armendi looked at her for a long moment, then slowly lowered his head.
“And we… we are the ones who hear their echo,” he said, glancing at the letter in Nilaj’s hands.
“All of this… and yet she left.”
“Yes. She left. And maybe she didn’t even know what she left behind.”
Nilaj, taking a deep breath, continued:
“The boy stayed with Beka. Days passed. He… couldn’t hold himself from despair. He went far for work and returned weeks later. Because work keeps you away from the loss of love. And time… does not heal loss. That’s a lie. Listen to me, boy,” Nilaj said.
“But we know,” Armendi said quietly for a moment, then added: “Time no longer worked for Grandpa Edimë either…
That Albania was under occupation. The Germans controlled everything. Life… had lost its meaning.”
“Yes,” Nilaj said, voice breaking.
“Beka was not only desperate. He was an enemy. Against everyone. Against himself, against the occupiers, against memory.”
“But then,” Armendi said, “what happened? Tell me,” Nilaj?
“He wasn’t heard of for a long time. Neither the letter, nor a voice, nor a shadow.”
“And the boy?” Armendi asked again.
Nilaj added with despair, letting out a deep sigh:
“The boy grew up. With questions. With absence. With a father burning inside.”
“And Beka?”
“He slowly melted away. Like a stone worn by the wind, but never truly shattered. He was there, physically. But his spirit had left with her.”
“Yes… yes, maybe,” Armendi said, voice barely audible, “that’s how it had to be.
That letter… was the last effort to remain human.
And now, it is merely a testament. To a love that never became life.”
“It was a war,” Nilaj repeated, looking out the dark window. “Nothing was certain about what would happen next. It was said the Germans would leave and the Communists would come. And we… we would be called collaborators. And then?” she paused.
“And then… execution,” Armendi said, voice dry. “Without trial, without defense, without a word. Like in Russia.”
Nilaj lowered her head. For a moment, silence filled the room like a heavy dust rag.
“Beka knew,” she added softly. “He felt it every night as he slept, he saw it in dreams, in every sound of shoes outside the gate. He was no longer just a man who had lost the love of his life. He was also a man awaiting the end.”
“But why didn’t he leave sooner?” Armendi asked.
“Because of the boy,” Nilaj said. “And because, deep inside, he still hoped there could be another way. That someone would understand he wasn’t a traitor. That he had done what he could to survive.”
“But the Communists didn’t make such distinctions, did they?”
“No. They didn’t see a man. They saw labels: ‘enemy,’ ‘collaborator,’ ‘kulak.’ And for each, the bullet was the answer.”
Armendi took a deep breath.
“Yes,” Nilaj said, “Beka left. And no one ever saw him again.
“But he left the boy. And the boy… grew up with a name he never truly knew. An incomplete memory, a silent enigma.
He was taken by a German captain, leaving Durrës last. Beka didn’t want to leave, for he had only the child. But the situation was desperate. Partisans were entering the city, and he received word that his house was surrounded, that they would take him and execute him as a collaborator with the Germans. He couldn’t take the boy with him. No… he left him. Taken by the German captain. Beka didn’t want to leave. He had only the small boy and couldn’t leave him. But the situation was dire. Partisans were entering the city fast, and the news came cold as a bullet: his house was surrounded. They were looking for him. They would take him and execute him as a collaborator with the Germans.
He ran toward the neighborhood, but from afar he saw everything was lost. The house was blocked. Armed partisans were stationed at every corner. The door was forced open. Windows torn out. He could not approach. He could not take the boy.
He hid in the shadow of a wall, gritting his teeth. He wanted to scream, to throw himself among them, to beg, to explain… but he knew every step could be the last. And so, silently, with his soul bleeding, he turned back. He saw him but could not embrace him. Not for lack of desire—but because he had no way.
When the German captain asked, ‘Are you ready?’ he said nothing. He simply got into the car, eyes foggy with tears. His son, he neither saw nor touched. And from that day… he never saw him again.
The partisans found the child alone in his crib, crying in exhaustion. The house was destroyed, belongings thrown to the ground, walls still smelled of fear and haste. No one asked whose child he was. He was ‘the enemy’s.’ A commissar gave the order: ‘Send him to an orphanage.’
And so life was split in two: the boy to the orphanage—Beka into exile.
He left. He never knew what happened to his son. Whether he lived, or had died. Whether he had been raised, or left to ruin in oblivion. And it ate him from the inside. There was not a day without torment: Would he recognize him if he saw him? Would he forgive him? Or would he turn away?
He hid for years. Some said he went to Italy. Others, that he was seen in Greece. But one day, a dark piece of news spread: ‘He was found dead… a bullet in the head… in an abandoned shack near the border.’ It was never confirmed whether it was suicide or a silent punishment. The body was never found. The name was forgotten.
In the orphanage, the boy grew up without a last name. They called him “Arben.” He was alone. They never even told him his father’s real name. Only one day, much later, Nilaj—the only one who knew the truth—gave him a yellowed letter, folded in quarters. The letter had been written by Beka’s trembling hand, heavy with pain and hope:
“Dear Asije,
Dear Benet, little boy who cannot yet read this letter, but I hope one day you will understand. I could not take you with me, but my heart is always with you. Asije, take care of our son, raise him with love, and never forget who his father is.
Benet, one day, when you are grown, you will understand me. Forgive me for leaving you, but it was the only way to protect you. I love you endlessly.”
When Nilaj read the letter, tears flowed endlessly. She held it close to her heart, thinking of the little boy’s fate and the pain Beka had left behind. Nilaj entered the small orphanage room where Benet stayed. The little boy was playing with a few broken toys, his big, innocent eyes unaware of his harsh fate.
In a gentle voice, Nilaj sat beside him and took the letter from her pocket. “Benet, I have something for you,” she said, handing him the letter. “This is from your father. He loves you very much and has always thought of you.”
Benet held the letter in his hands but could not read well. So Nilaj began reading it aloud, giving every word with feeling and dedication.
Afterward, Nilaj hugged him tightly and said: “You are never abandoned, Benet. I am here for you and will always be by your side. I will never leave you alone. You have a family, even if it is different from others, and we will fight to raise you with love and strength.”
Benet felt warmth in his heart, and for the first time since his father’s departure, he felt that he was not alone.
“I will come for you,” Nilaj said with determination. “Until then, stay strong, because we have much to do together.” Meanwhile, she desperately tried to reach Asije, feeling every passing minute the deep pain of loss. Her heart was full of panic and sorrow as she sent messages, pleas, and comforting words, asking her to come immediately. She had to come, to tell her the sad truth, and take Benet from the orphanage, at least to give him a small hope for a better life. Beka no longer lived—she had left, unable even to say goodbye, unable to protect what she held most dear in life, her son. Now, he was alone, within the four walls of an orphanage, waiting for a mother who would not return, and with each passing day, he felt the world forgetting him. He was a lone child, with no hand to hold him, no familiar face to tell him he would be okay, that someone would care for him.
“But what happened to Asije?” Armendi broke the silence, voice barely audible. He knew the question was like a heavy stone thrown into frozen water, yet he could not keep it inside.
Nilaj paused for a moment. She felt her heart beating faster. The question echoed in her ears like a past coming back to bite.
“I will tell you,” she finally said, in a low but determined tone. “It had been a long time since I knew anything about her. Not a word. She had disappeared. She left only silence. In the end, I decided to go to the Yugoslav embassy.”
Her voice trembled slightly as she continued:
“I didn’t know what to expect. I asked for information about a woman who might no longer exist in the system… for Asije. Yet, I left my name, my new address, and phone number, hoping that one day someone would contact me, would tell me something… even if the worst.”
She paused for a moment, then continued:
“There, I met an embassy secretary. He received me calmly, with a faint smile. When he realized I spoke Albanian, he seemed relieved. We carried on the conversation in German, although both of us felt we were speaking about something beyond language. He was a cultured man, with eyes that seemed to have seen much and never said everything. He promised he would do his best to find her.”
“And…?” Armendi asked, leaning forward as if the next word could hit him.
Nilaj exhaled—a sigh that had been inside her for years.
“He told me they would contact me. I left without hope, but with the strange feeling that I had just left in foreign hands a story that belonged to me. Days passed slowly, like dragging shadows. Every time the phone rang, my heart leapt. Every time it didn’t, I held my breath.”
She turned her gaze to the window. The setting sun fell on her face like a distant memory.
“And then one day… they called me. But I haven’t told this yet. Not even to myself aloud.”
She paused. Armendi did not dare speak. Her silence was no longer a lack of words, but the weight of the past reopening wounds. He understood this was only the beginning of the story. A story that had not ended, because some letters never arrive, and some answers have no words.
The call came on a quiet afternoon, when everything seemed ordinary. The voice on the other end was official, cold, measured by experience with bad news.
“Ms. Nila, we are calling from the embassy. We have some information about the person you inquired about…”
Her heart rose to her throat. She did not speak. She only listened.
“Ms. Asije has passed away. The circumstances are severe… It is suspected that she was in a deep depression. She did not leave the house, did not communicate with anyone. She lived closed off, in complete solitude. No one cared for her. Some neighbors said they had seen her only occasionally on the balcony, but she never spoke to anyone…”
Nilaj lost her voice. Only tears flowed silently. She knew Asije’s fate might have been harsh, but not so final.
“And… how did it happen?” she finally found the strength to ask, her voice barely above her breathing.
“They found her in her apartment, in Ulcinj. She had left a letter, but… unfortunately, that letter never reached us. It was only mentioned by local authorities. It is said it was for her son. A farewell letter, perhaps an apology. But… no one has seen it since.”
I put down the phone without hanging up. The voice was still there, but I could no longer hear the words. The room spun around her, while the feeling of guilt tightened her chest.
“She needed someone… and I wasn’t there,” I thought. “I left her alone… in a world that had cast her aside.”
In that moment, everything took on a pale hue, like memories fading from the mind to protect against pain.
Asije was gone.
And the letter she had written for her son… that letter, which could have explained everything, which could have brought a glimmer of light into the darkness, that letter… was lost forever.
“But Benet?” Armendi asked, a hint of hesitation in his voice. “Who has cared for him? Who raised him? How is it possible that he never told me anything…?” Nilaj lowered her eyes, then slowly raised them, like someone about to speak a painful but unavoidable truth.
“Orphanage…” she said quietly. “They took him there in the first months. No one claimed him. Neither his mother’s family, nor anyone else. He was forgotten by all, carrying a dark biography on his shoulders from birth.”
Armendi was stunned.
“But… then?”
“Then… we—I became both mother and father—we, my friends and I, tried to stay close to him. We couldn’t legally take him home, but we visited often. We brought clothes, books, sometimes toys, and sometimes just came to watch him from afar. He recognized only me. He didn’t know who the others were. He called them ‘friends from the orphanage.’”
Her voice softened even more.
“Until the day he turned eighteen. It was time for him to discover everything—who he was, and how he ended up in the orphanage. Then we helped him find a job, a room to rent. Asija’s parents’ villa had long been seized. The wealth was gone. Nothing remained of what should have been his inheritance.”
“Did he know his own story?” asked Armendi, the words caught in his throat.
“No. No one told him. Not even I did. He had the right to live without the shadows of the past. As he is… purer than many of us. And despite all the pain he carried, he never complained. He worked, remained silent, moved forward.”
She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eyes.
“And I tell you from my heart: I love him as my own son. I always have. There is no blood relation, but there is a bond of the heart. And he, even without knowing everything, trusted me. He didn’t call me ‘mother,’ but… I felt that he carried me in his heart.”
Armendi lowered his head. He didn’t know what to say. Part of him was shaken, the other full of compassion. He had been so close to his father’s story… without ever knowing. And he had grown up in a place where the pain of a father’s childhood becomes a part of the body.
Nilaj extended her gentle hand.
“He is my family. And you are too. Don’t let me feel alone anymore.”
“But what about their love?” said Armendi. “Grandfather’s and grandmother’s love?”
Their love… had been forbidden from the start. A fire that burned everything around it, without regard for what it left behind. Asija and Beka loved each other blindly, passionately, recklessly, with the courage of those who believe emotions are stronger than any human law. But that love did not build; on the contrary, it destroyed.
From that fire of love and revenge was born a child abandoned by truth. A life that had to grow up without a name, roots, or memory. He asked for nothing—but bore the weight of others’ sins. And I… I witnessed it all. And though I was neither mother nor guilty, I became a refuge for that child. Not out of pity, but out of love.
Because love, when it bears no responsibility, becomes a silent crime against those left behind. And I… I learned to love that boy unconditionally, without demands, without another name than the one he chose for me.”
Armendi looked at her, eyes cast downward.
He stayed silent. Everything inside him overturned: the past, his parents, his childhood, his identity as a son, as a brother, as a human. He had lived his whole life with a rotten truth, wrapped in beautiful words and deliberate silence.
Beka and Asija… they truly loved each other. With a fire that ignored law, morality, consequences. A love like a fleeting rainbow—but after it, only clouds and rain remain.
And from that love was born a life—a boy—who grew up without light, without truth, without a guiding hand. He was the child of a hidden passion, of a sin that no one dared to acknowledge.
But stronger than forbidden love was Nilaj’s silent love—she who had no blood relation, but gave Beneti all she could: support, compassion, care. Never asking for thanks.
In that moment, Armendi understood: love without responsibility is a crime. Not with weapons, not with blood—but with silence, abandonment, fear. And the wounds it leaves are not easily healed. Not in the one who lives it, but in those who inherit the guilt.”
It was late at night. He wanted to leave. He didn’t know what to say.
“Look, my son,” she said, “now you are mine and my grandson’s, but never forget…”
“It’s not easy to live with the truth, but it is heavier to live without it. I saw them both, Asija and Beka, consumed by a love that did not belong to this world. They loved each other like children who do not yet know that every dream comes with a price. They weren’t evil… but they were weak.
“And their weakness gave birth to an innocent life. A life that grew up in silence, in oblivion, in an orphanage that could never replace the warmth of a family threshold. Beneti… he asked for nothing. He did not cry out, did not accuse. He simply remained silent and learned to live.
“I was not his mother. But perhaps, I was the only one who loved him unconditionally. Without showing the truth, without demands, without blood ties. And in my silence, I realized that love that does not bear the weight of truth is the greatest crime of the human heart.
“Someone may love and leave. But behind them remain fragments of life. Children without names, people seeking roots in the soil of others’ mistakes.
“I loved Beneti. I still do. Not as a legacy. Not out of pity. But as a human. And that is the only love that has never betrayed me.”
THE SECOND BRIDE
Flowers bloom only for a season. Their beauty is fleeting. Nothing withstands time—not even love. Could it be that events repeated themselves? Did the curse come from the Blue Villa?
“When the dogs of socialism pursue you with the howls of class struggle and corruption, when power is held through violence and fear, perhaps it is time to summon the sons and daughters of nationalism—not for revenge, but as a memory of a love that cannot be sold or desecrated.”
Armendi left Nilaj’s house late at night.
Nilaj felt relieved after telling Armendi the whole story about the Blue Villa and his grandparents. She revealed that his father, Beneti, had grown up in an orphanage, but she had cared for him like a true mother after he left. After communism was established, his grandparents, Beka and Asije, were declared traitors and collaborators with the Germans; their wealth was confiscated and given to the state.
Nilaj told Armendi about all the properties and land sketches that belonged to his family, not just in Durrës but elsewhere as well. She had never told Beneti about them, fearing he might be arrested if he claimed them. She believed he needed to stay alive—not only for himself but also for the spirits of her two friends, Asije and Beka.
She decided to tell Armendi everything because she saw in him a reflection of his grandparents: determination, the spirit of a fighter, and a remarkable physical resemblance to Asije—athletic build, dark hair, blue eyes. He was like a male version of her. Nilaj loved Asije and Beka dearly and, as a sign of memory and gratitude, she never left Beneti alone. She kept him in her home until he married and had his own house.
Nilaj had kept all this past a secret from Armendi for a long time. But now, seeing him as a mature man ready to take responsibility, she felt the time had come to tell everything. She did it not only for his rightful inheritance but because she deeply believed he was the true spiritual heir of Asije and Beka. In his eyes, she saw the honesty of his grandmother and the determination of his grandfather—a rare combination that made him shine like a star of a new era.
In her heart, Nilaj felt deep relief—she had kept a silent promise to protect the legacy and memory of her dear friends. She had fulfilled that promise by raising Beneti as her own son, and now, by handing the truth to his son, she felt the cycle was complete. Through Armendi, she hoped that the names of Asije and Beka would never be forgotten and that the truth would finally come to light.
Nilaj had entered her nineties. She was at the end of her life. She was very happy when she spoke with Armendi. Now she wanted to die in peace. She also wrote her will and gave it to him.
At the top of the letter, it read:
“You are my true family. You made me feel sincere, familial love. I will never forget you.”
Armendi left, leaving her at the doorstep of her house, waving goodbye. She did not move, did not leave, until he disappeared into the alley.
The next day was beautiful for Armendi. He was freed from the weight of years and the injustices of the regime—but also from the silent responsibility toward an unfortunate family. Since the time the Blue Villa was built, nothing had gone right.
The Blue Villa was more than a house—it was a curse. Beautiful architecture on the outside, but with foundations built on blood, injustice, and silence. For the couple, Asije and Beka, it became a source of tragedy—not because of its walls, but because of the time they lived in and the ideals they defended. With the fall of the old regime and the rise of the new, their love and devotion were repaid with betrayal and punishment.
The fate of their descendants remained tied to that villa like an invisible chain, passing from generation to generation. Beneti, their lost son, grew up in an orphanage, separated from his roots. Even when he emerged into the world, the past did not leave him in peace—a shadow that followed him without his knowing. Nilaj, the only one who knew the truth, became the guardian of memory and heritage, but also of silence.
In the end, the philosophy that emerged from this story was simple yet painful:
Places are not just spaces; they carry memory. A house, like the Blue Villa, can be a temple of love or a tomb of hopes. And when memory is haunted, inheritance itself becomes a curse.
Armendi left, leaving her at the doorstep, waving goodbye. She did not move until he disappeared into the alley.
For the first time, Armendi felt he had a place in this world, a story, a root. Until then, he had lived as if in the air, unaware of who he truly was. But now, with the will in hand and the memories Nilaj had shared, everything became clearer. The Blue Villa was no longer just an old building on the outskirts of Durrës—it was a testament to a bloody past, a symbol of pain, but also of resilience.
In the evening, he returned to the villa. He walked slowly through the empty rooms, feeling the scent of dampness and the heavy silence hanging in the air. Every wall seemed to speak—for Asije, for Beka, for the injustice they suffered, for the love that was never erased. In a corner, he found a dusty frame with an old photograph. It was them—the forgotten couple, their gentle smiles broken by history.
He sat on the floor, facing the photograph, and felt an indescribable longing. Not just for them, but for all those who disappeared silently, for all the stories never told. He vowed to rebuild the Blue Villa. Not for himself. But for them. For memory. For justice. To show that nothing is forgotten when someone remembers with heart.
It was the beginning of the 1990s. Communism seemed to be coming to an end. Armendi was watching the news on Italian television in their two-room apartment with a kitchen in the Iliria neighborhood, near the train station. The state had once given these apartments to his father. Because, in reality, he had millions in wealth, but it had been confiscated, and the state had given him a prefabricated two-plus-one apartment—like always, for people with a “bad” biography.
Although Beneti grew up in an orphanage and knew nothing of the past, even Nilaj had often kept information from him. She had told him only one thing: that his surname was Podgorica. Benet Podgorica—that was how he had been registered in the orphanage. But this was his real surname, Nilaj confirmed. “We are from Ulcinj,” she said. “Your mother and father are from there. We moved to Durrës after Beka built the Blue Villa. I am a distant cousin of Asije. And your patriot.”
By now, Beneti’s mother and your grandmother—Armendi always cherished grandmother Nilaj—were very close. She never went more than two days without seeing him, even though Beneti had moved into a new house and married Nela, also of distant Ulcinj origin. Thus, the story continued along marital and parental lines. Nilaj was the one who arranged and found the bride for her adopted son, Beneti. She cared for every detail of her adopted son’s life.
From the orphanage, on the first day, until the end of her life, their bond was strong—stronger than that of a biological mother.
“Even when you are not my biological mother, you are the one who raised me and shaped me as a human. To me, you are a god on earth—the embodiment of love and sacrifice that surpasses blood and birth.”
Beneti, although raised without biological parents, never felt the emptiness of loss. To him, Nilaj was everything. He did not call her “mother” often, but when he did, his voice trembled with emotion. It was a word he had lacked all his life, but over time he understood it had nothing to do with blood. It had to do with care, attention, sleepless nights when she stayed by his side with a compress, the way she changed his clothes, prepared his bread with the same love as if he were her own son. Armendi, on the other hand, saw Beneti as a man who held himself together, but who could not always hide his inner wounds. Often, when he spoke of the past, a long silence took the place of words. It was as if he were afraid to touch those memories. But Nilaj knew how to melt those inner icebergs. With a warm word, a small recollection, a look that said, “You are not alone.”
In the Iliria neighborhood, people knew them as an ordinary family. No one knew Beneti’s true story, except perhaps an old neighbor who remembered the days when Nilaj came from Durrës holding a small child by the hand, still wearing the orphanage clothes. But no one dared comment. Respect for Nilaj was immense. She had earned everything through work, dignity, and her generous heart.
“True love is not born from the womb, but from the heart,” she had once said when an acquaintance, with a sharp tongue, asked why she labored so much for a child who was not hers. “This is my son. Not because I gave birth to him, but because I loved him as if he were mine from the very first day I saw his eyes.”
Beneti had overheard that conversation from behind the door. From that day on, he decided that no matter what happened in life, he would never disappoint Nilaj. He would always be her son. With actions. With gratitude. With a silent, eternal love.
In the late winter days, when the sky hung low and the windows were fogged with steam, Nilaj would rub the tea glasses with an old napkin and say: “Being a mother is not giving birth. It is staying close. Waiting. Understanding even when the other does not speak to you.” She did not say this to receive praise. She said it because she felt it.
In the evenings, when Armendi slept and the house filled with silence, Beneti often stood by the window and gazed at the stars. It seemed to him that everything he had once lost had returned in another form. That fate, though cruel at first, had sent Nilaj as a sign of light. In her, he saw peace, protection, and a love that she owed him not by law, but gave freely with her hand.
Even when he started his own family with Nela, even when he got a good job and could finally provide for himself, Beneti never forgot who had laid the foundation for the person he had become. He knew that nothing would have mattered without someone who believed in him when he himself did not.
“If it weren’t for you,” he once said to Nilaj at night, “I would never have learned what it means to be a complete human being.” She looked at him for a long time, placed her hand over his, and simply said: “If it weren’t for you, I would never have known what it means to be a mother.”
And indeed, that was exactly how it was. She never left Beneti. She never married. She replaced romantic love with silence, with care for him, and chose to stay close until the end of her life.
She had been persecuted by the regime. She was always only allowed to be a music teacher, despite having graduated in Vienna and being the most renowned pianist in the Balkans. The Vienna orchestra had listed her name on the payroll, and her photograph hung on its walls. A beautiful, tall woman with green eyes and fair skin—a contrast to the sea, the mountains, and the Blue Villa that bore her name.
When people said, “You were beautiful,” she would laugh—laugh at her beauty and at her fate that kept her in communism. She never left, not even to Ulcinj, where communism was less brutal than here. There, it was weaker, and there was no class war like in Durrës. She was not allowed to leave. But in reality, in Durrës, her adopted son Beneti kept her there. Because in the orphanage, anything went—everything was bought and sold.
She went to the orphanage every day, observed, cared for him. It was love for this surname and this child that kept her in Durrës. For love of children is the strongest love that exists, after the pull that the sun exerts on the Earth, keeping it in the same orbit for millions of years.
Even the Earth does not escape its precise rotation around the sun. Is this eternal love as well?—Nilaj wondered. Her thoughts were clear, but wrapped in the fog of lost time. She did not speak much about the past. Not because she had nothing to say, but because she had learned that some pains, if spoken aloud, become sharper. Beneti did not call her “mother,” but in his eyes she was more than that. She was the first word he had heard, the first step he had followed, the first warmth he had known.
When spring came, she played the piano slowly, with a calm that came from the depths of her soul. She no longer played like she did in Vienna’s halls, with confident hands and audiences holding their breath. She played carefully, as if praying to time not to pass so quickly.
The small window in the room lit her face. There, the wrinkles starting from her eyes were clearly visible, fading somewhere among memories. Some days she remembered the scent of the concert hall, the bowing to the audience, the conductor’s voice. Some nights she remembered the prison of silence, unjust punishment, the shame that was not hers, but the shame of the times.
“I was born to play music, not to be silent,” she had once said to a committee that banned her from all artistic activity. And yet, she never remained silent in her soul. Music remained inside her, untouched. She only changed its form—sometimes in the way she looked at Beneti, sometimes in the way she closed her eyes while caressing the old sheet music.
In Durrës, she did not find fame, but she found a true life. She found a son she had not given birth to, but felt as her own more than anything. And she found herself, far from applause, but close to what is called fulfillment. The years passed with weary calm, like pages slowly turned by the wind over a forgotten table. Beneti grew. He was no longer the sleepy child in the orphanage, eyes searching for warmth in the midst of strangers. He had become a silent man, with a humility that came not from fear, but from gratitude.
Nilaj never asked him about his feelings. She knew his silence because it mirrored her own. They did not need words to understand each other—it was enough how he brought a wildflower in the morning, or how she lightly placed her hand on his shoulder when he passed by.
Once, when he was still a teenager, she told him she had been persecuted. She did not speak with heavy words or a trembling voice. She simply stopped in front of a window where the afternoon light played and said:
“A piano that is silent is like a woman who is not allowed to love. They did not stop me from living, but they stopped me from sounding.”
Beneti did not speak. That night, he stayed awake, eyes on the ceiling, as if to understand the dimensions of suffering she had never fully told him.
One day, he asked her:
“Why didn’t you leave, to Ulcinj or somewhere else? You could have had another life, mother…”
She laughed, but a thin mist gathered in her eyes. “There was no other life for me. You were the other life.”
And he understood. He understood that love is not always a free choice, but often a form of endurance. It is a root that does not move, even when the ground around it shakes.
Armendi felt calm after the conversation with Nilaj. He sat in front of the television and resumed watching foreign channels, as he often did when he wanted to escape from the grim reality. He was in his final year of high school, and besides studying, he had also learned the trade of a mechanic from his father. He was preparing for life—a hard, harsh life, especially if the communist regime continued. For the persecuted, the most they could hope for was a high school education and perhaps a second-rate trade. Nothing more was allowed.
But Armendi was different. Exceptional in everything. At school, he had no rivals—neither in lessons nor in sports. Football, discus throw, wrestling—he always scored the highest marks in all physical education disciplines. He was unmatched in appearance as well. All the girls adored him. Yet, with a certain quiet selectivity, his eyes had settled on one: Ermira. She was in her second year of high school, and her beauty was so striking that, if there were a contest, she would undoubtedly have been “Miss Durrës.”
And yet, without diminishing Armendi: to everyone, he was “Mister Durrës,” “Mister Albania,” perhaps even an unacknowledged European model. “The legacy of northern Albania,” they said. His body represented that pure lineage connecting Albanians to an ancient and proud race. Especially his blue eyes—a feature vanishing in much of Europe, but still alive in northern Albania. Those eyes testified to the Illyrian-Dardanian ancestry, a heritage untainted by Serbian, Montenegrin, or Turkish influence, unlike in central parts of the country.
His DNA resembled the ideal human—tall, over two meters, handsome, and exceptionally intelligent. Archaeologists already knew well: findings in northern Albania pointed to an ancient, deeply rooted Illyrian and Dardanian population.
His father, Beneti, had met Armendi’s mother, Nela, through Nilaj—the second mother. He had found her in Durrës, where many families with roots in Ulcinj and the north lived. It was Nilaj who had taken fanatical care to prevent the bloodline from mixing—that the Albanian root, the northern one, remained pure and untainted.
In the neighborhood where Armendi lived, time seemed to flow differently. The houses, though crowded and dim, held silence and fear inside. People had learned not to speak much, nor to dream. But Armendi was different. He was born with a challenge. He had the silent rebellion in his blood. He would not accept life as it was served to him, nor the fate the regime tried to impose. In his eyes, there was always a thirst for more—for freedom, for knowledge, for a life that did not begin and end with the square of school or a trade.
At night, when the city slept, he stayed awake. He read banned books that Nilaj secretly provided—through a long chain of trusted people, from Kosovo to Tirana. “George Orwell is an enemy of the people,” a teacher with strong party convictions had once told him. But Armendi knew that on such forbidden pages lay the truth hidden from his generation.
Ermira, meanwhile, felt this strength in him. It was an attraction that had nothing to do with looks or grades. She sensed something rare in him—a free, elusive spirit. Sometimes he spoke to her about the world beyond, about freedom that existed somewhere across the sea. And she, though raised in a more conformist household, listened without objection. Her heart beat in the same rhythm as his.
One afternoon, on his way back from school, Armendi stopped at the city square. There stood the bust of one of the great wartime figures, erected by the regime as a symbol. He looked at it for a long time, with cold, almost defiant eyes. “History is written by those who speak, not by those who remain silent,” he thought. And perhaps, for the first time, he decided that he would not be just another number in the list of model students ending up as mechanics in some neighborhood workshop. No, he had a different goal.
That same evening, he wrote a letter to Nilaj. A letter in which, for the first time, he revealed his idea of escape. The possibility of fleeing to the West—perhaps through Montenegro, perhaps by sea. It was a letter he did not end with “goodbye,” but with “if I do not return, forgive me.”
And as night fell over the coastal city, where streetlights flickered according to rationed energy, Armendi stood on the balcony, lost in thought. Under the dim light of a red lamp, he envisioned another life—a life where freedom was no longer a dream, but a right.
He would go to Rome. He had decided. As soon as he got the chance, he would leave. He would take his properties in Durrës and depart to make money, with the aim of restoring them, especially the Blue Villa.
He would marry Ermira, take her as his wife. He would go there and then come back for her, once he had secured residence papers in Rome. For this, he would consult Nilaj in the coming days. She knew best how to act, so that he would not leave the family waiting, as he was their only child, and they had no other children.
Of course, he would seek their permission. But he also loved Nilaj dearly, who was not only his grandmother but also his greatest supporter. She was a politician and musician, knowledgeable about this corrupt world full of hatred, inequality, and spying behind the scenes.
It was terrifying to know that the State Security had planted roots everywhere, and that they were being watched—not only through the phone, with all the era’s technology, but also via eavesdropping, even physical surveillance.
It was clear that security agents followed this family wherever they went, wherever they stayed or spoke. It was even suspected that a physical spy had been placed behind Armendi at school.
Armendi was the “new enemy” growing up and had to be monitored—this was the order of the Security unit in his neighborhood, especially now that unrest had begun in Eastern Europe and communism was collapsing everywhere. Our people had decided to stay at all costs—for eternity, if possible. The next afternoon, Armendi sat across from Nilaj on the small veranda of the house where roses bloomed, and the afternoon breeze seemed to try to soothe a hidden anxiety.
“I’ve decided to leave,” he told her. “To Rome. As soon as I get the chance. I can’t stay without school and be looked down upon in some office on the outskirts of the city, or be left without work. None of us who left with all ten of us were allowed schooling. We’d just become objects, victims of the Security, if this regime doesn’t fall.”
Nilaj didn’t speak immediately. She looked at him, her eyes hardened by years of persecution and pain, searching deeply as if seeking something beyond words. Then Armendi added:
“I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ll take the Blue Villa in my name, fix it up, and then… I’ll leave. I’ll work. I’ll make money. And… when I’m settled, I’ll come back to get Ermira… and the family, and you too.”
“I know I can’t stop you,” she said finally. “And I don’t want to. Life here is a wall with no door. But you must act with a clear mind. Don’t rush. You have your parents, you have me… we are people who have nothing but you.”
He lowered his head. He knew. He was the only son. The only one who carried the hope of the family on his shoulders. Yet at the same time, he felt an untamed longing for freedom, for a just life.
“Will you help me?” he asked. “Tell me how to act. How not to leave them waiting. How to leave without harm. And… how not to return broken. I don’t want to hurt anyone, do you understand?”
Nilaj rose, went to the bookshelf, and pulled out an old folder.
“I have some documents here. I know some people. Yes, I will help you. But be careful, Armendi: those who leave without thinking return as shadows of themselves. You won’t be one of them. Because you are more than an escape. You are a beginning. You are the only one for us. We live for you. Don’t you understand, my son?”
“Albanians no longer duel like men,” she said in a low voice, “but kill each other in ambush, treacherously. An old custom, now a norm. When communism came, it declared honor the enemy, and fear took power.”
“No,” he said, “I’m not in a rush… But I’ve made plans to marry Ermira. I’ve fallen in love, grandmother.”
After a moment he added:
“She’s very beautiful, and when you see her, you’ll accept her as my bride,” Armendi laughed, watching her reaction with a kind of fear.
Nilaj was approaching ninety. These were the final days of her life. Everything was ending for her—her life, her sacrifices, her love for people. She had lived a hard and dangerous life. She had lived only in dreams, because real life had been a hell.
She paused for a few moments, as if searching for the right words from a distant thought. Then she spoke slowly, with a deep voice:
“Be careful, my son… Be careful!”
The silence that followed was staggering.
“We Albanians are a people who kill each other,” she said at last. The words came out like a heavy sigh, more pain than judgment.
The grandmother smiled a little, with bitter irony at our nation. Then she added:
“But then… then they call us ‘mountaineers’!” and she laughed lightly, with a mixture of anger and disdain.
“I know, grandmother… I know,” he said, lowering his head.
“These mountaineers, they say! —” she said with a sarcastic smile — “They hate us… ‘supposedly these citizens’! Hahaha!”
Then she laughed louder, with that deep laugh from her chest.
“We are citizens, my son. For two thousand years we have had homes in Ulcinj. Where are we mountaineers or peasants? And Ermira, where is she from, you ask? From Durrës, grandmother! A beautiful girl.”
“Hmmm…” she thought. Then she spoke: “Very well, my child. I’ll ask about her family background. But you marry her! It’s fine. Don’t forget that words are truth. How the bride’s family is, that’s how your children will be born. But love… love has no room for stops.”
Then she looked him straight in the eyes and spoke slowly:
“You should never stop the first love. Because every other love ends in lies, separation, quarrels… and in the end, children on the street or in orphanages. Couples are not clear-minded. They have sex, enjoy it, then when they tire of each other… it’s too late. In life, descendants arrive who will suffer the separation of their parents all their lives. They remain alone, growing up on the street, at best in an orphanage. Otherwise, they fall prey to the mafia, prostitution… worse, they end up in prison.”
“They often become victims of rape, sexual harassment, physical abuse, mistreatment by caretakers and the stronger ones in the room,” she said with a muffled voice, as if from the depths of a memory she wanted to suppress but could not. “A life lived carelessly by a couple brings new tragedies, repeated in other life forms. And the pain doesn’t stop, my son. That’s why they say: ‘The fate of the orphan is the worst, there’s nothing worse.’ Not even death is worse, my son,” she said.
Then she sighed.
“That’s why I left you in the orphanage. Your father would have been imprisoned. You know… the regime had labeled him as the heir of a great landowner, with lands, factories, everything. And for him, the punishment was inherited…” the grandmother whispered, as if speaking to herself.
She paused, as if the memories weighed heavily on her chest. Then she continued:
“Just because he was born to a father who had land and factories, they took away his right to live as a free man. They closed the doors to schools, work, life. And I… I could not watch my son fade away within four walls, under surveillance, with a file over his head and silence behind him. That’s why I fought. I became strong. I raised him myself. Even when they left me without bread, even when they mocked me, and when the women of the neighborhood, passing by, would look at me. They never spoke to me.”
She raised her voice a little, with a proud bitterness:
“No one broke me, my son! They did not bend me. I raised him with dry bread and love. I wiped away his tears at night so he would not see me. And in the morning, I faced it like a warrior: head held high, as if nothing had happened.”
Then she added more quietly:
“And your father became a man. Honest. Silent, but fair. Even with wounds in his soul. Wounds he never removed. Because he knew what life had taken from him. And what the regime had taken.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but her voice did not falter:
“Now it’s your turn… Never forget where you come from. Never be ashamed of those who endured for you. We had no freedom, but we had dignity.”
He lowered his head. For the first time, he had nothing to say. As a child, he had heard stories about the regime, about prisons, about internments—but he had never understood the depth of the pain until he heard his grandmother speak like that, her voice breaking between pride and wound.
“Grandmother… I didn’t know you suffered so much,” he said finally, in a low voice.
“And how would you know, my son? I don’t want you to carry that pain. The past should not be a chain, but a lesson. But now that you know, don’t forget it.”
She looked at him for a long time, eyes weary from years but clear from experience. Her gaze said that pride and honor are the main pillars of her life. After a pause, she added:
“When you have children, don’t leave them in orphanages. Don’t tarnish their name. Don’t sell your soul for a morsel more. Honor cannot be eaten, and without it you are not a person. That’s how I raised your father. With honor, even without wealth.”
“I love you so much, grandmother,” he said, moving closer and taking her wrinkled hands into his.
“I love you too, my son,” she said, smiling, “more than life itself. That’s why I told you all this. Love is not only kisses and gifts. Love is when you endure, when you sacrifice, when you preserve memory even when everyone else has forgotten.” “How could you know, my son? I never wanted you to carry that pain. The past should not be a chain, but a lesson. But now that you know, never forget it.”
She looked at him for a long time, eyes tired from the years, yet clear from experience. Her gaze said plainly that pride and honour were the main pillars of her life. After a pause, she added:
“When you have children, don’t leave them in an orphanage. Don’t tarnish their name. Don’t sell your soul for an extra scrap of bread. Honour cannot be eaten, but without it you are no man. That’s how I raised your father— with honour, even without wealth.”
“I love you very much, Grandma,” he said, moving closer and taking her wrinkled hands in his.
“And I love you, my son,” she replied with a smile, “more than life itself. That’s why I’ve told you all this. Love isn’t just kisses and gifts. Love is when you endure, when you sacrifice, when you preserve a memory even when everyone else has forgotten it.”
A new bride, no matter how lovely, brings no light if her soul walks the same dark path as her predecessor.
He lowered his head again, but this time not from shame— from a maturity that was taking root within him through his grandmother’s confession. He had understood that there could be no future without knowing one’s roots.
“And be careful,” Nilaj warned. “Don’t let history repeat itself, my son. Choose your bride from good stock, not just anyone… not just because she is beautiful. Beauty fades, but blood remains. False beauty is the mask of a corrupt soul—it may shine on the surface but it darkens the depths.”
“Be careful, Armend… with the new bride,” she added. “Don’t do as your grandfather did, my boy. Not every beautiful face hides a pure heart. You remember what we went through with the first one—your grandmother—don’t you?”
Armend lowered his eyes without speaking, only nodding slightly.
Nilaj went on, looking out the window:
“We Albanians are a strange breed. When we make mistakes, we don’t learn… we repeat them. We love blindly, marry in haste, and repent in shame. And then the children… they suffer for our choices.”
“I know, Grandma. I’m not rushing this time. I’ve looked closely, I’ve felt it. She’s not like the first one—like Grandmother. She has a soul. Even if she has little, there’s a calmness within her… like a mother who hasn’t yet given birth but already feels the child in her heart.”
“Then that’s better. But never forget, my boy: better a woman with her hands tied than one with a filthy heart. False beauty in an evil soul destroys a home from within—like a worm eating away at a beautiful tree from the trunk.”
Armend smiled faintly.
“I won’t forget, Grandma. I swear it. You’re more of a philosopher than you know. But…”
“I don’t think the scene with Grandmother will ever repeat itself,” he added.
Grandma Nilaj.
“She left as time itself leaves—through occupiers and communists,” Armend said. “She erred in every way. She not only abandoned a child in the street, but also left my wealthy, handsome, and strong grandfather. She brought tragedy for the sake of a distant love with her neighbour. That love destroyed a great landowner like Grandfather Beka. That love drove Asije to take her own life—perhaps from remorse, perhaps because she had wounded a love in its midst and could not forgive herself. But she did not think of the child. Of herself, perhaps… yes.”
“How can a mother leave her child and run after her lover? That is not right, Grandma Nilaj. That is betrayal. And when the law does not punish it, God does—and perhaps even the descendants. Let us hope we carry none of that blood of treachery.”
“No, my son. Asije did not betray—she loved. And unfortunately, it was not your grandfather whom she loved. But yes, she betrayed him in her mind,” said Armend, his voice tight with anger and bitterness.
“Yes, yes, it was a great mistake. Beka was a star, a handsome man, the kind any woman would love. But Asije did not. It was a matter of outlook, my son. She was without higher education, untravelled. She did not see the world with the eyes to understand that life exists beyond her fence, beyond the city of Ulcinj.
Perhaps if she had read more books, seen another city, heard different music, she would have understood that life is not only a man who puts bread on the table, but a soul that keeps you warm. But she did not know what warmth of soul was. Raised in a home where men spoke and women were silent, where love was shameful and devotion was duty, Asije sought freedom as though it were air to breathe.
“She did not want to betray,” whispered Grandma Nilaj, eyes fixed on the window. “She wanted to live.”
The words came slowly, like a heavy confession she had kept for decades.
“She told me once, ‘I loved Beka as a friend; he respected me, he made me feel like a lady… but I never felt alive with him.’”
Armend lowered his head. It was as if he were hearing for the first time a story that belonged not only to his grandmother but also to himself—part of an inheritance he had never chosen but carried on his shoulders. He felt the weight of a bloodline that had never been just blood, but pain, choices, and fate.
“And the child?” he asked at last. “Did she think of him?”
Grandma was silent. It seemed she was wrestling with some distant, bleak memory, like a long night without a moon.
“She left with the hope that he would have a better life. That the other man would give him what Beka could not… And perhaps it might have been so. But you cannot measure wounds with logic—they leave marks for generations.”
“Then why do I speak of betrayal?” Armend asked. “If everything is so tangled?”
“Because we seek someone to blame when we cannot understand the pain. And often, those we blame are the ones we love most.”
Grandma rose. Her eyes were moist, but clear.
“Don’t judge, Armend. Not without knowing the whole truth. Love is sometimes flame, sometimes ash. And we humans live always between the two.
“Asije left Beka with a small child in his arms, on a damp March morning—without a word, without looking back. Nothing was simple. Inside her she carried more than one wound—she carried a silent explosion, a broken spirit that could not reconcile itself to what was called a ‘normal life’. Her love for the other—perhaps a mistake, perhaps an illusion—had blinded her reason. Yet she did not leave to be happy—she left because she did not know how else to live.”
In Ulcinj, she spent several years. At first, with the hope of a new beginning. She worked in a clothing shop, then in a café by the sea. Each day she looked at the water and hoped that one day someone from beyond that line of horizon would understand her. But no one came. The man she loved abandoned her. She remained a stranger in a strange city. Days grew long, nights bled into dawn, and inside her grew a silence that no longer spoke—only gnawed away. In her fourth year in Ulcinj, when her face had grown pale and her eyes had sunk deep with thoughts, she made a silent decision.
On her final evening, Asija wrote a letter.
It was for Beka, but also for their child—for the fate she had failed to protect.
Beka,
I am not capable of protecting myself, much less another life. I have hurt you, and I know it. I do not ask for forgiveness. I only ask that you remember me not as a woman who left, but as a soul who never managed to understand herself in time.
Tell our son he was born from a troubled love, but that it was never his fault. The fault was mine, because I chose to be far away, and in silence.
I can no longer live with this guilt.
May the burden I leave you be light.
—Asija
The letter was never sent. She left it in the drawer of her room, hoping someone would find it one day.
The next morning, they found her on the shore, silent, still, her eyes closed, her hands resting in her lap. They said she had drowned herself; there were no signs of violence. Another woman who slipped quietly from this world—most women dying innocent, yet carrying the weight of unfulfilled love on their shoulders. Victims of their first love, unaware that the world runs on other wheels, that life keeps moving forward in every direction.
Beka never received the news, nor the letter. No one told him. His life continued like a thick wall of silence. The boy grew up never knowing the truth about his mother. That truth lived only in a letter that was never read.
A buried drama on the shores of Ulcinj.
A woman lost.
A love that became a crime in silence.
And a letter that would never arrive.
“How do I explain the scene to you better?” Nilaj asked.
“Which scene?” said Armend.
“The one before the death—before the killing,” she said.
“All right, tell it again.”
In her small room, with damp walls and a cracked mirror across from the bed, Asija would sit every evening in silence. Days had passed since she had spoken to anyone. Weeks since she had gone into town. She had become a shadow of herself. The Ulcinj she once knew—full of life and noise—now meant nothing to her. Her eyes gazed across the sea, as if waiting for a small boat that would never arrive.
She was tired.
She tried to keep alive the memory of her son, but his face had begun to fade in her mind. She didn’t know what he looked like now. Had he grown? Did he have her eyes, or Beka’s?
Each evening she punished herself with memories. There was nothing heavier than being a mother and not knowing how your child was growing.
When she took the pen to write her final letter, her hands trembled. This letter was no longer for Beka. It was for God Himself.
O God, forgive me for what I failed to become.
You gave me the chance to be a mother, and I left.
You gave me a man who loved me, but I did not understand his love.
You gave me life, but I did not know how to live it.
Do not punish those I left behind. Let me be the only one You punish.
For I am already my own punishment.
She folded the letter, placed it on the old wooden nightstand, and walked toward the sea.
It was night. A starless sky, a silence that waited to be broken by a scream. But Asija did not scream. She entered the sea as if returning to a womb—the silent origin of death.
Her body was found in the morning by an old fisherman. He covered her face with his shirt and said nothing. He was used to such tragedies. The only words he spoke were:
“This woman had too much silence inside her. More than a body can hold.”
No one came to claim the body. She had no name now—only a letter, damp under the dim light of the lamp on her nightstand.
Beka never found out. The boy never learned that his mother had lived in the same coastal town for years—the very place they had once dreamed of visiting together.
Asija died as she had lived: in silence. Without hands to touch her, without voices to call her name.
And the letter, still unread, was burned with her belongings—like a charred page from a novel that would never be written.
“This is tragic…” said Armend. “It makes me want to cry, but also to punish grandmother. Foolishness! To fall in love with a useless man back then? Childhood love… what nonsense. Children don’t know what the world is. They live in the illusions of a beautiful world without war, without inner grief. They think every flight is a path to paradise… not to hell! They play at being lovers, when in life they will meet hundreds of other men and women…”
Nilaj lowered her head. There was a kind of shame in her eyes, but also an inexplicable sorrow.
“I know…” she said softly. “But we don’t choose how we love when we’re young. The heart attaches itself, even without knowing what life is. That grandmother… maybe she didn’t know any better. Maybe she thought that boy was all she would ever have. And when she realized he wasn’t, it was too late… She was already a mother.”
“But she had no right to leave…” Armend’s voice trembled. “A child… a life left behind. He was left on the street, Nilaj. And now we are carrying the consequences. From a love that never became life, but became a curse.”
“Yes,” whispered Nilaj. “And that curse is now upon us.”
A heavy silence fell between them. Outside, night had wrapped Durrës in a soft fog, as if trying to hide everything that had once happened in that coastal city. Memories never disappeared—they only changed form.
Grandmother Nilaj kept her eyes on the window. The sun was setting over Durrës, but inside her, memories were lighting another kind of fire—the kind of pain that time cannot extinguish.
“Because it’s not just a house,” she said in a weary voice, speaking of the villa. “That’s where Beka and Asija were married.”
“What?” whispered Armend.
“Yes, my son. It was 1944. The war was consuming everything around, but those two—young and mad for each other—decided to crown their love in silence. I was there. The only witness. That night was as beautiful as it was cursed.”
“Why cursed, grandmother?”
“Because that marriage brought the end. Beka was from a great family, with name and wealth. Asija… just a sweet, poor girl with no schooling, but with a heart full of love. That love shook everything. A few months later, it all collapsed.”
“What happened? After she left Beka—do you know?”
“She broke from the family. They disowned her. Cast her out. And Asija… she couldn’t endure it. She stayed a few years in Ulcinj, shut away, forgotten, with a child left behind. Then… one day, she simply disappeared. They found her… later.”
“You told me… she took her own life,” said Armend in a trembling voice.
Nilaj did not answer. She closed her eyes and touched her heart. Then she spoke quietly:
“That’s why you must be careful, my son, when you take Ermira as your wife. You carry the blood of those who separated, who were cursed… Be careful. After such a curse, pain passes from one generation to the next. And you… you are the son of the one I chose myself, with my own hands, knowing exactly what I was doing.”
Nilaj placed her hand on Armend’s shoulder, her voice trembling with memories:
“Now, please, be wise. Don’t let your bride repeat the story. Love is beautiful, but if you do not protect your family, it turns into tragedy. Don’t let the story of Asija and Beka follow you…”
Silence. The clock on the wall ticked slowly, piercing the heavy air of the room with an unrelenting rhythm. The lights were dim, as if aware that noise was no longer welcome in this house. Nilaj sat in her old armchair, holding in her hands a white scarf she had knitted herself in her youth, while waiting for Asija in the long nights of Ulcinj.
Armend stood in the doorway, ready to leave, but his feet would not move. Everything he had heard that afternoon lay on his chest like a stone he could not remove. He had come to tell his grandmother that he was getting engaged to Ermira. He had come with a joyful smile and a pure hope. But now… everything had changed.
“Grandmother…” he said at last. His voice trembled like glass on the verge of breaking. “May I stay here tonight?” Nilaj lifted her head slowly, meeting his eyes—eyes searching for calm, for direction. She said nothing, only tilted her head slightly in assent. He came closer, lowering himself onto the carpet at her feet, just as he had when he was a child.
“I’m afraid, Grandma. Not of Ermira—of myself. Of the road ahead. Of the mistakes I might make.
I’ll stay here tonight,” he said quietly. “I’ll sleep beside you.”
Armend sat in silence next to his grandmother in that house steeped in memories, where every piece of furniture seemed to hold a fragment of life. She had begun to fade slowly, like a candle burning down to its final wax. He could see it happening, yet could not bring himself to accept it. She felt it too—without any need for grand words—this was their last meeting. Her time to leave this world was near.
“My son,” she said one night, her gaze lost in some far-off place, “when the day comes for you to share your life with someone, choose wisely. Do not rush. Do not judge her by where she comes from, what she has endured, or what others have done to her. Look at her heart… see the person she is today.”
She paused, then, as if releasing a heavy burden from her soul, added:
“And guard yourself against the daughters of the old communist families. They are hard, stubborn, taught not to feel. I lived through those years. Everyone played a role, but many truly believed the lines they spoke. I don’t want you to be hurt, Armend.”
Her voice was slow, faint, yet her words sank deep—they were last wishes.
“When I’m gone, I want to be buried beneath the pines, in the cemetery of Durrës. It is peaceful there. But if one day democracy truly comes, if we are ever truly free, I want my remains taken to Ulcinj… where I was born, where I grew up, where I left my youth behind at eighteen.”
Armend said nothing. He clasped her hand—old, cold, soft—and felt something tear inside him.
She tried to smile, but her face trembled. She was now only the shadow of the proud woman who had once defied everything with sharp words and unflinching eyes. Now, at this final moment, she sought no answers, no explanations. She had only one wish—to not be forgotten.
“When I was your age,” she said softly, “I walked many roads, lost many people. But each morning I woke with the certainty that one day, someone would listen to me. Not as a mother, not as a wife—but as a human being.”
She fell silent. Her breathing hung by a thread. Armend looked around: the walls of the house seemed to draw closer, as if embracing her in a final farewell. On the wall near her bed hung an old photograph of Nilaj in her youth, laughing on a sunlit day she had long forgotten.
“Do you know what pains me most, Armend?” she said suddenly. “That I never saw my country free. I saw only colors, slogans, fear. I saw people sell their ideals for a sack of flour. I saw how silence became a virtue, not speaking out. You are different… do not become one of them.”
Her voice was no more than a far-off whisper, but in Armend’s ears the words were as heavy as stone.
“You will write,” she went on. “You will tell our story. Do not let me vanish without a trace. Tell of me, of you, of us… even if no one ever reads it.”
A pale moonlight entered through the window. They sat together in silence. He wiped her brow with a soft cloth and felt her body cooling, little by little.
“My time is slipping away,” she murmured. “Don’t forget, Armend. The pines. Durrës. Ulcinj…”
Her eyes closed. Her last breath left without a sound, like a leaf falling from a tree in late autumn.
Armend cried out—a cry that was neither fear nor panic, but an unnameable grief. He struck his hand against her heart, as if he could bring it back into rhythm, as if he could defy death itself with the touch of love. “Not now… not like this…” he whispered. But her body no longer moved.
He rushed outside, calling for the neighbors, pounding desperately on every door—the last hope that someone might undo this moment that split his life into “before” and “after.”
When the nurse arrived, she said little. One look, a deep breath, and then that quiet verdict that shakes the world more than any scream:
“She’s gone. Nothing more can be done.”
Her words hung in the air like a curtain falling over everything. Armend did not move. It was as if he were witnessing the end of a world and had no strength to stop it. His grandmother’s heart—the heart that had raised him, guided him, loved him with the gentleness of an age now vanishing—no longer beat.
And he understood that death is not merely a biological halt. It is the extinguishing of the light in a room where you learned to walk in darkness. It is an absence that does not shout but follows you in every breath. It is a simple, cruel truth: when someone who loves us departs, something inside us is altered forever.
In that room, where once there had been voices, breath, and hope, now remained only her last words, a silent testament that would follow him always: “Do not forget who you are… and where you must bring me back.”
Death… it is the essence of a second life. It is not an end, but a quiet crossing into another world, where time is no longer measured by clocks, but by the soul. For the good, it is a door that opens without fear—a white threshold toward a paradise where pain has no meaning and memories turn to light.
Armend felt this deeply, for the first time. As he looked at her still body, he understood that she had not died—not entirely. She had departed for somewhere else. She had crossed over, to where only those who have loved with all their hearts and lived with honor may go.
Paradise was not some far-off place. It was here—in the calm of her face, in the peace she left behind, in the silence that had taught him everything about love and patience. And now he knew: for those who live well, death is no tragedy. It is fulfillment. It is return.
Death is not the end. It is the beginning of another life—a quiet, inevitable passage from this world to the next, where time is no longer counted in hours, but in light. It is an unseen threshold where the soul is freed from the weight of the body and all the burdens of the earth.
For those who have lived with a pure heart, with truthful words, and deep feeling, death is not loss—it is… Fulfillment.
They are not extinguished—they pass on.
They are not erased—they are transformed.
Grandmother Nilaj had not left; she had simply gone ahead. She left behind her tired body, but carried with her all the love, the memories, and the words she had sown in the hearts of others. And in her departure, Armend felt for the first time: death is not the end—it is merely the first chapter of eternity.
He hurried back to his home. In the bedroom, he found his parents asleep. He was exhausted, unsettled, shaken. His breathing had grown heavy from the climb to the fifth floor. Then, a loud bang, followed by a cry that stirred the whole neighborhood.
“Father! Father! Grandma has died! Grandma has died!” he shouted, tears streaming down his face, his voice not the cry of a boy, but the howl of a soul.
The door flew open. Armend and Benet clung to each other, both in tears. The boy’s heart pounded fiercely, while the father’s tears flowed without end.
“Oh, poor me,” Benet cried, his wail shaking the very walls of the house. “Today my mother has died… And with her, the era of the Blue Villa is over…”
Neighbors ran to see what had happened. They could not grasp it at first, but grief had taken hold of that family.
“The dearest person in my life is gone…” Benet whispered, leaning on his son’s shoulder.
“May God comfort you,” came a timid voice from the doorway.
“Today my true mother has died,” Armend said, looking his father in the eye. “She was everything to me. With her died our untold history, and the trust she placed in you to protect it all. She was our legend… your mother.”
Benet wept like a child. “I loved her more than I loved myself. I will give her a magnificent funeral. I will spend everything I have saved. She deserves glory. She must never be forgotten. She was my mother, Nilaj… a blue rainbow that never fades in any season…”
He fell to his knees in the middle of the room, crying with pure, unguarded pain.
“Oh, my beautiful mother… I love you… and I will love you always, until I come to you…”
The Funeral of Mother Nilaj
The day of the funeral came with a strange stillness, as if nature itself bowed before her passing. The sky over Durrës darkened without rain, and the sea, which usually hummed with life, seemed frozen in her honor. In every eye there was sorrow, but the deepest grief lay in the souls of Benet and Armend.
Her body, wrapped in the blue shawl she had loved so much, was placed in the coffin with a tenderness that felt like a final caress. In her hands, they placed a bouquet of lavender—flowers she adored for their gentle scent, one that did not overwhelm but cooled the heart with memories.
By the cemetery in Durrës, in a quiet corner where the pines sway and the wind whispers through their branches, the grave was dug. Here she would rest—once the light of a home. She had chosen this place herself—not out of a desire for glory, but for humility and peace.
“Death is not the end,” Benet said to all who had gathered. His voice, weighted with grief yet rich with feeling, rang deep and true.
“It is a passage into another life, where there is no forgetting, no falsehood, where love never dies. My mother, Nilaj, has not left us. She remains among us—in every piece of advice she gave, in every morning she prepared for us, in every word she spoke that cannot be forgotten.”
All fell silent. Death no longer seemed an end, but a journey to another station, where her soul, without noise, without cry, had arrived.
“With her, an era has ended,” Armend murmured, placing a letter atop the coffin—a final letter that would never receive a reply.
They watched her until the earth fully embraced her. The pines swayed gently, as if in prayer for her soul. And the sea, perhaps for the first time, made no waves.
After the Silence
That night, after the funeral, Armend could not sleep. The stillness of the house was unbearable. It was the first time the home no longer carried the breath of Grandmother Nilaj. The house was still there—the old sofa, the coffee cup on the table, her shawl draped over the armchair—but the spirit that gave meaning to everything was gone.
He rose and stepped out onto the balcony. He looked at the stars. For a moment, he felt as if his grandmother was gazing down from above, with a quiet smile that spoke without words.
“Is death truly a loss?” he asked himself.
No. He no longer wished to call it that. His grandmother’s death was more than the end of a life—it was the completion of a cycle. Like leaves that fall in autumn to nourish the earth, she had gone to leave behind something greater: memory, wisdom, and a love that could never fade.
“She died as if the earth had stopped spinning for a second,” Armend thought, “but in that pause, my world lit up with the understanding that love cannot be buried. It flows through the blood, through voices, through the way I choose to love, forgive, and live.”
From that night, he knew he would never be the same. He had lost a second mother, but gained a new dimension of himself—he now knew grief, and through grief, he knew life more deeply.
Somewhere in his mind, he heard her voice:
“Do not judge a person by what they have, but by what they leave behind… And you, Armend, never forget where you came from. To be good is not a sign of weakness—it is an act of courage.”
He smiled faintly, his eyes wet. “I’ll keep my promise, Mother Nilaj,” he whispered. “I will live as you taught me—honest, compassionate, and brave.”
Tomorrow would come with the sun, but the true sun for him had set that day—and now it shone within him.
Letter to Grandmother Nilaj
My dear grandmother,
I write to you with trembling hands—not from fear, but from the weight of your absence. You are no longer here, yet you are everywhere. You are in the morning breeze, in the aroma of coffee that no longer tastes the same, in my voice when I try to speak with love and truth—just as you taught me.
I have realized that your death was not your end, but my true beginning. You left quietly, like a star fading to make room for another light. But even your fading left a trace—a light within that will never go out.
They never taught me in school that a grandmother’s love is a philosophy. You owned no great books, yet your words were deeper than any treatise. You would say: “Do not look at a person’s wealth, but at how they face another’s pain.” I have that written now, in my soul.
My blue grandmother—I call you this because to me you are like the sky: always there, sometimes veiled, but never gone. You gave me roots and wings. You taught me to stand strong without losing my tenderness.
Today, in this letter, I promise I will not forget a single word of yours. I will guard your legacy with dignity. And when I have children, I will speak of you as a legend—not one made to be believed, but one who lived to give light.
Rest in peace, grandmother. I will live so you will never miss me in vain.
With eternal love,
Armend
Benet was deeply shaken by Nilaj’s death. The entire city went into mourning. She had not been merely a renowned pianist, but a distinguished cultural figure who had educated entire generations and prepared dozens of young people for the conservatory. Her students were accepted wherever they applied. As a teacher, she had high standards and demanded devotion, not money. If you gave her your soul, she would take you in—otherwise, she would turn you away. Her pre-university courses were always filled with students dreaming of entering the Higher Institute of Arts. She selected only the best. She was an artist forbidden from stepping onto the stage because she carried the weight of a “bad biography” on her shoulders. Everyone called her the Viennese aristocrat. She dressed like one, moved like one, and in spirit, she truly was one: slender, tall, with green eyes and an inborn nobility.
A blue pianist — fused with the sky, and with the love of a blue God.
She was the best, but the regime never valued her.
They barely allowed her to live in the city. They barely allowed her to teach. Everything, for her, was a battle against permission. Watched everywhere, at risk for the smallest “mistake.” At any moment, she could have been exiled. Such a beautiful, fragile creature had become the target of a merciless system. She faded away in the blue of Durrës, far from the stage, far from her love for music.
“We’ll give her a grand funeral,” Armend’s father said firmly. “All of Albania must know that today our mother has died — and the mother of the blue city.”
“We’ll hang banners everywhere,” added Benet, her adopted son. “At every bus stop, at every train station. Her photograph must always be present.”
“Yes, yes,” said Armend, “we begin the work now. But I feel pain in my chest — and in my soul. All my friends will join in this funeral. Today, democracy has died. Independent thought has died. This will be mourned by all. Because, deep down, everyone knows that communism and the poverty brought by the Russian working class have destroyed us.”
“We will not leave our homeland in their hands. We, the generation of the nineties, will fight against evil,” Armend said, his voice trembling with emotion. “God has chosen us to overturn this injustice. Albania must never fall into the hands of foreign communists, Serbs, or Greeks. Our homeland must always be first, just as God made it — the most beautiful in the Mediterranean.”
Tears streamed down his face. He could not stop speaking. It was hatred and grief at once. Today his idol had died. For a long time, they had not spoken, because it seemed she had been threatened by the secret police, and he had struggled to persuade her to speak again, to return as the mother she once was.
“Age wears you down physically,” she had told him, “because gravity acts on every creature on earth. But the soul… the soul remains the same. It doesn’t age, it doesn’t shrink, and it never dies. It rises into the air and is reborn in other beings.”
She would always tell me:
Gravity is one of the fundamental forces that governs the universe, but its effects are most visible in the daily life of a human being. It is not only the force that keeps us bound to the earth; it is also a power that, over the years, contributes to the fatigue, bending, and aging of the body.
According to Nilaj, gravity acts constantly on earthly creatures, exerting unending pressure on tissues, muscles, and bones. Over time, this pressure materializes in visible signs of physical aging: wrinkled skin, a bent spine, slower steps. It is a kind of weight that time turns into an unforgiving mark on the body.
But Nilaj emphasized another truth: the soul is not subject to this force. It is not weighed down, it does not turn to ash, it does not dissolve under the pull of gravity. The soul remains light, untouched by physical laws. It keeps its light, its feelings, its memories, its faith, and its love — even when the body is bent with age. In her words, the soul “rises into the air and is reborn in other beings,” following laws that even science has yet to understand.
In this reflection, Nilaj saw the body as a temporary dwelling under the laws of the earth, while the soul belonged to the eternal sphere. A separation between the physical and the metaphysical, between what falls and what ascends.
Nilaj’s Formula for Aging and the Soul
P = G × T
(Aging is the product of gravity and time)
S ⊥ (G, T)
(The soul is independent of gravity and time)
This formula summed up her idea:
The body ages under weight and time. The soul does not.
She was a born physicist — and also an astrologer. She had studied astronomy at the university level in physics, not only in high school, at a French school in Ulqin.
Nilaj’s Formula for Radiation and Its Effect on Earth
R = f(φ, t, h, α, A)
Where:
R = intensity of solar radiation on Earth
φ = latitude
t = time/season
h = altitude above sea level
α = angle of incidence of the rays
A = atmospheric absorption (clouds, pollution, etc.)
Her personal, philosophical reflection:
Nd = R × Bi × Ps
Where:
Nd = the effect of radiation on a living body
Bi = biology / physical body
Ps = psychological and spiritual response
This formula united both worlds Nilaj bridged: the scientific world that measures light, and the spiritual world that refuses to be measured by rays.
From Nilaj’s diary — in her brown notebook, as Armend read aloud:
It doesn’t matter who finds this page. It only matters that they understand it. It only matters that they don’t forget.
The sun shines differently in every corner of the earth.
There are days when it burns, and days when it caresses you with gentle light, as if asking for forgiveness. The same star, but different feelings.
I understand it this way:
R = f(φ, t, h, α, A) — Radiation depends on latitude, time/season, altitude, angle of incidence, and atmospheric absorption.
And its effect on our body?
Nd = R × Bi × Ps — The effect depends on radiation, biological state, and spiritual state.
But that’s not all.
Because: S ⊥ R — The soul is not illuminated by the sun. It shines from within.
Gravity, time, force, exhaustion may act upon the body. But not upon the soul.
It does not age. It does not die. It rises — like the smoke of a violin that has never stopped playing.
Physics did not teach me this. Loneliness taught me. Silence, hardened by fear, taught me.
If tomorrow I am gone, remember this: a light that comes from outside is temporary. But a light that is lit within cannot be extinguished by anyone.
“We will always miss her,” Benet said softly. “She was a person of peace and culture. God sent her to us, perhaps as an answer to my mother’s prayer before she died… to mother Asije,” he added, crying.
“I have always felt her absence, but Saint Nilaj took that away. She replaced it with her love and peace.
She loved flowers — I know it well,” said Benet. “Once, she told me about them…”
We were sitting by the window of her house. She was looking out and said:
“Those red flowers… they always arrive at the same hour, like an invisible clock someone winds in secret.”
Nilaj left — and with her, the sea, and the flowers that were brought to her — never knowing who sent them.
“Perhaps,” she told me, “these flowers are sent by God. Perhaps they are His answer to the love I keep within me… or to someone else’s prayer.”
Sometimes I found them on the doorstep, sometimes on the bench. Near the piano.
Still wet with dew, fresh as if they had fallen from a meteor.
Who brought them? I never found out.
But some nights, I thought I could hear the wind whisper a name: Amen.
Like a rare sound, like a musical note suspended in the air, never falling.
Had the Creator been thinking of love when He made this world?
Or of peace, when He invented the color red in petals?
I believe He did. Because without love, even light has no warmth.
Without peace, music has no meaning.
God does not speak to people with a voice — He speaks through flowers, through stars, through a soul that burns without noise.
She always told me that… Benet finished speaking, wiping his tears away with his hand.
The sight and grief of a man mourning his mother no longer startled anyone. It was natural.
Everyone weeps deeply for their mother.
“God Himself created this love between mother and son — and the other way around,” he said.
The news spread quickly through the city. People passed the dark tidings from one to another:
“The professor is dead… the sweet one in blue,” they all said.
“The funeral will be at three o’clock, at the city cemetery, by the pines.”
The entire city gathered before Benet’s house.
He gave a short speech, aware that the Sigurimi still operated, despite the winds of change blowing through the city.
“The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away… She was a mother to us all,” he said.
“Today, we have all lost a part of our mother — a woman who educated us and sacrificed herself for us. She will go to God, for I know she was no ordinary person… She was a goddess.
Often, I felt she spoke with the air, with the sea, or with the birds. I knew she spoke to God, but I never intruded.
Thank you, Lord, for sending me this being after the tragedy with my biological parents. Lord, I love You,” he added, looking at the sky. “Perhaps the day will come when I will come to You…”
“You are my true mother, Nilaj,” Benet said, crying.
“Armend knows it too, and his children will learn it. We have one mother — and that is you.
Rest in peace, God’s own on this earth.”
People crossed themselves.
Five young men in black suits lifted her sky-blue coffin.
She had left instructions to be dressed in blue, like a bride, and for her coffin to be the same color.
At that moment, Ermira entered the scene.
Tall, graceful, with long hair and green eyes, as though she had stepped out of the light of a spring morning in Durrës.
She was dressed in black, yet in the shadow of mourning, she looked like a calm angel arriving from the sea.
She approached Armend and embraced him gently.
“I’m so sorry for her,” she said softly. “But souls like Nilaj never truly leave… They remain in every memory, in every step we take, in every kind word we speak.”
Armend lowered his head, trying to hold back tears.
“She was irreplaceable,” Ermira continued. “I’ve never met anyone gentler, deeper. Even the sea, near her home, seemed to calm when she spoke to it.”
At that moment, every eye turned toward the sky.
A flock of birds passed over the cemetery pines, and a soft breeze carried Benet’s last words back to them:
“Nilaj was the mother of us all… a goddess on earth.”
Ermira held Armend’s hand in hers.
“I know,” she said after a pause. “When I spoke to her, it didn’t feel like speaking to an ordinary person. She had something divine in her gaze. It was as though she could see straight through my soul — without judgment, only kindness.”
Armend sighed.
“I miss her… even though I’ve never said it aloud. She was more than a mother to me — she was the breath of the house, the one who made me believe in goodness.”
Ermira lowered her eyes, then looked to the sky.
“You’ll teach your children the love she gave us. Because her love doesn’t end here. It has been shared among us — like light, like memory, like hope.”
Armend looked into her eyes for the first time that day.
“You’re just like her. You speak from the heart. Thank you for being here.”
She embraced him tightly.
“I am always where true love is.”
In the background, Benet’s voice continued with his final prayer:
“Rest in peace, Nilaj. You are with us forever. And we are now the witnesses of your light.”
The New Bride
A new bride, no matter how beautiful, brings no light if her soul walks in the same dark footprints as her predecessor.
Ermira felt a silent weight in the air, something that could not be said in words but asked for a touch — an honest closeness.
She was now the new bride of the Blue Villa — the bride in the house of one of the most renowned men in the city.
She thought deeply about what she was doing, and her heart told her, Yes, do it.
It was a vow before Nilaj’s grave.
Then she told herself again: I will now be the wife — or the second bride — of the Blue Villa. Ermira felt a silent weight in the air—something that could not be put into words, yet asked for a touch, for an honest closeness. She was now the new bride of the Blue Villa—the bride in the home of one of the city’s most renowned men.
She thought deeply about the step she was about to take, and her heart told her, Do it.
It was a vow before Nilaj’s grave.
Then she said to herself again: From this day, I will be the second wife of the Blue Villa.
After these thoughts passed through her mind, she added once more:
Ermira (softly):
“I never imagined we would meet like this… in the midst of tears and memories of a woman so great in spirit.”
Armend (his eyes fixed on Nilaj’s grave):
“She… Nilaj… taught me that love is not just a feeling—it is a responsibility. She once told me: ‘The bride you choose must have a good soul, not just beautiful eyes. Beauty fades, but character is a light that never goes out.’”
Ermira (moved):
“Even though I didn’t know her as you did, I felt her strength the moment I walked in here. There’s no greater wealth than leaving behind a good name.”
Armend (turning to her):
“Yes, and that’s why I want to know you—to understand how you think, how you love, what you guard in your heart. Because I’m tired of beauties that hold nothing inside but emptiness.”
Ermira (smiling faintly, touching his hand):
“I’m afraid… I might only be a fleeting reflection of what you seek.”
Armend (calmly):
“No. Because you speak to me with honesty. Truth is more beautiful than any other beauty. And Nilaj would have wanted my love to follow thought, not desire—to be a choice of the soul.”
Ermira (her eyes filling with tears):
“Then let me get to know you… slowly… like opening an old, cherished book.”
Armend (smiling for the first time since Nilaj’s passing):
“And let this love be a continuation of the light she left us. Not a replacement. Not forgetting. But a new glow that doesn’t dim her memory.”
(One day after the funeral. The air is fresh. The birds are silent. Blue flowers still sit in their vases. Ermira sits in a wooden chair, a thin black scarf around her shoulders. Armend brings two cups of tea.)
Armend (handing her a cup):
“Nilaj always drank green tea in the evenings. She would say: ‘This is peace for the body and the mind.’ I’d like us to drink it in her honor.”
Ermira (taking the cup, smiling softly):
“Thank you. It’s strange how a woman I never truly met can touch me so deeply.”
(pause)
“But… perhaps I’ve felt her in your spirit—in the way you speak of her.”
Armend:
“She changed my life. She taught me not to be ashamed of pain. And to seek depth in others, not the surface.”
(studying her closely)
“And you… you have a stillness that’s not ordinary.”
Ermira (a little shy):
“Perhaps because I’ve had many storms. I learned to become quiet—not from sadness, but from watching.”
Armend:
“That’s the beauty I like. Not the kind that stops your eyes, but the kind that stops your mind—and won’t let it rest.”
(laughs lightly)
“For example, now I’m wondering—who are you, really?”
Ermira (smiling):
“I’m just a girl from Durrës who came to a funeral… and stepped out of her own loneliness.”
Armend:
“Can I get to know you better? No rush. No expectations. No comparisons. Just… to know you.”
Ermira (quietly, sincerely):
“Yes. Because I, too, feel this is no ordinary meeting. And I don’t want it to end here.” The evening light began to soften. The voice of the wind whispered lightly through the pine branches. Two people who once felt like strangers now felt like old acquaintances, connected by the memory of a rare woman and by a new light that perhaps had just begun to rise.
Love appeared in the background, after a sad death. God willed the continuation of life through the heirs of the Blue Villa. They felt a strong connection from the very first meeting at Nilaj’s house. Even from the sky, she contributed to them, to her people, as she always said. They allowed themselves the freedom to meet again, together, in some seaside café.
And so it happened, as we had predicted.
Late in the afternoon, the sun was slowly sinking over the sea, shimmering with the golden reflections of the evening. The gentle breeze carried the scent of Nilaj’s flowers, still fresh in the courtyard of the Blue Villa. Across from her house, illuminated by the dim lights of the small roadside café, Armendi and Ermira sat at a quiet table, facing each other. The café was almost empty; noises were few, only the gentle sounds of waves and the distant voices of children playing somewhere below.
On the table, a glass of water and two cups of coffee waited, ready to share not just a conversation, but also a new beginning. In the presence of Nilaj’s memory, everything seemed clearer—a natural continuation, blessed by her absence, now turned into an invisible presence. What was happening was not just a meeting—it was a new illumination, a hope budding between two sensitive hearts.
Ermira arrived wearing a simple white dress. The wind caressed her hair in different ways. Armendi was already seated at a table near the window, with two cups of tea in front of him. He looked at the sea as Nilaj once had. He saw her and smiled.
Armendi, dressed in a blue suit and blue shirt, said emotionally:
– I couldn’t not invite you. This place was hers. When we were tired of people, we came here, and she would tell me: “You cannot love someone who doesn’t notice the sea.”
Ermira, sitting down, slightly moved:
– Then I would have been her friend. I watched the sea every day, but I never saw it with the eyes you taught me to see it with.
Armendi, gazing at her, chuckled softly and caressed her:
– I think Nilaj would have liked this conversation. She would have said: “Great souls feel quietly.” Beautifully said, wasn’t it? He addressed her.
Ermira, after sitting down and taking a deep breath, said:
– I feel that she is here. Not in a mystical way… but in the way you look at me. In the way you care about every word. How you quote her words, and how much love you carry for her inside you.
(A brief silence, only the gentle sound of the sea.)
Armendi:
– To be honest… I am afraid. I don’t want to betray her memory, but… I feel that when I’m with you, something tells me I’m not replacing her, but continuing her. Like a hand pulling me beyond the pain.
Ermira, in a calm but determined voice:
– Love is not betrayal. It’s rebirth. If we lived only with memories, we would wither like flowers left unwatered. She would have wanted you to live. To love. To choose someone who warms your soul.
Armendi lifted his head from the emptiness of the sea he had been gazing at and said:
– And if… that someone is you?
Ermira, smiling softly, restrained:
– Let’s not rush. But… yes, I want to be the one who brings you peace. Not to replace her, but to walk alongside her memory, together with you.
(They raised their cups of tea. Their eyes no longer left each other. A new hope, a feeling that had just begun to breathe.)
Armendi looked toward the café window, beyond which the Blue Villa appeared, now quieter than ever. Then he turned to Ermira, sitting across from him, looking absorbed. The evening light softened her features, and her green eyes shone in that half-shadow with deep calm.
— How are you? — he finally asked, slowly and carefully.
Ermira smiled slightly. She did not speak immediately but, after thinking a little, said:
— Better now… being here. I feel that she is still with us. She must have been a good person, as they say, a healer, a protector, she said this, I think.
— Me too, — said Armendi. — It’s not easy for me… but when I saw you that day… when you told me, “I’m sorry,” I felt something soften inside me.
— I needed to be there, — Ermira replied, looking him straight in the eye. — Not just for you, but for her. She had something divine in her spirit… and now, I feel like she left me a legacy.
— What legacy? — he asked, a trace of anxiety in his voice.
— Not to remain alone, — Ermira said softly. — She loved life. She loved love. And in some way, she brought us together.
Armendi lowered his eyes for a moment.
— I’m afraid… that I’m not ready. That it might seem like I’m replacing her. And she had told me… that the bride I would take should have light in her soul, not just on her face.
Ermira gently placed her hand over his.
— I am not replacing anyone. I am continuing a new love. Blessed by the one who left, not built on her shadow. I love you and your family. That’s clear, — she said.
Armendi opened his eyes. He was happy and confused by her words. He could not speak immediately.
A quiet silence followed. The sun had already set, and the streetlights lit one by one. The voices of the children had faded. Around them reigned only a deep, peaceful calm.
— Will we meet again? — Ermira asked in a low voice.
Armendi did not answer with words. He only squeezed her hand and smiled slowly. And she understood everything.
Everything seemed like a perfect scene. In the ether, a love was unfolding, like the first loves. The most beautiful couple in the city had come together. At that table and at that grave, everything began.
Even in death, she performed miracles, Armendi thought to himself. This is her work, he added.
“Maybe Nilaj wanted it this way…” Armendi said to himself, caressing Ermira’s hand, the new star rising toward the Blue Villa.
They stayed together for a long time. They were also school friends. Both studied at “Jan Shpata” High School, a school that also offered music lessons. She was in the second year, and he in the fourth. Democracy was about to arrive as the old system ended. He hoped. And salvation would come from that great day.
He accompanied her near her home. She was very happy. Sunlight fell on her face—the sun of universal love. Now she belonged to Armendi, the most handsome boy in the Blue City, owner of the Blue Villa.
Everyone knew that the Blue Villa now belonged to him. Sooner or later, he would officially take it—it was the property of his legendary grandfather. The first tragedy in this century-old city had also occurred there. Asija had left, leaving her child. The Blue Villa had been spiritually destroyed. Then, as punishment, communism took it. This family had never truly enjoyed this villa. Armendi accompanied Ermira close to her house. He kissed her on the cheek and said openly:
— I love you.
The air between them warmed, and the sparks of love began to fall from both sides. Ermira did not remain passive.
— I love you, — she said, kissing him on the lips. — I have loved you for a long time, good man, — she added, brushing away a strand of black hair that fell over his face.
Her hair was very long, cascading down her back. It was a braid of beauty, with all its elements. God had gifted it to Armendi—at least that’s how it seemed on that spring day, when, after a great misfortune—the death of Nilaj—a new love was born.
Armendi and Ermira stopped at the Blue Villa. It still belonged to the state. No one lived there, but the spirit of the house seemed to watch everyone from afar. In that villa, there had been no mutual love. There had only been one-sided love—Beka’s for Asija—but not the other way around.
But now it was time for change, Armendi thought to himself. This was a different love. We love each other as free people, he added. There were no obligations or orders in this love.
They fell in love in the silence of a city that was changing, along empty streets in the afternoons, in small cafés where they drank warm coffee and laughed at the simplicity of everyday things. They met often. They began visiting each other regularly. He brought her books; she prepared desserts. Their love grew stronger every day.
At first, it was a gentle, pure feeling, like a barely audible melody. But as weeks passed, it became a necessity—a bond that kept them both alive after the pain each carried inside. Ermira still carried old shadows in her heart, not yet fully felt. Armendi, on the other hand, bore an old wound: the memory of Nilaj and the unresolved tragedy of his family.
He often looked at the Blue Villa from afar. It was an untouched dream, a memory he longed to turn into a home. He hadn’t told Ermira yet, but in silence, he had decided he would reclaim it—one day. The Blue Villa was part of the past, but for him, it also represented a future to be regained.
— One day it will be mine, — he said one evening, accompanying Ermira home. — Not for property, but to save a beautiful memory from being lost. It is my grandfather’s past, and they say I resemble him. Therefore, I won’t disappoint anyone. I will fulfill a legacy. This is the Blue Villa, our new home.
Ermira looked into his eyes and said nothing. She simply took his hand and held it gently. She understood. And she now loved him.
Their love was taking deep roots. They were young, but their feelings had the maturity of those who have known loss. And precisely because of this, everything between them felt truer.
“Even the most beautiful new bride cannot bring light if her soul walks the same dark paths as her predecessor,” Nilaj had repeatedly told him. He never removed her lessons from his mind…
The city quickly caught wind of the news: Armendi was going to marry. The new bride, Ermira, was said to be as beautiful as Asija, his legendary grandmother. The second bride was coming to the Blue Villa. People wished she would not suffer the fate of the first bride, though she too was very beautiful.
Everyone talked. Some with wonder, others with hesitation. In this small city, a woman’s beauty was not seen merely as a gift—it was also an omen, especially when tied to the Blue Villa.
The villa had been both the curse and the love of their family. Everything had begun there, everything had ended there. It was the house where Asija, the first bride, never loved the place, her husband, or the life offered to her. And she left, cursing everything behind—a ruined man and a child who cried night after night.
Now the pressing question in everyone’s mind was: would Ermira become the second bride who would curse this place too?
Because the Blue Villa demanded not only beauty—but patience, true love, and a soul that would never return to the shadows. The villa was like a church that forgave no unbelievers. It was a place where sins were either cleansed or multiplied. A good place, as they say…
But in the city, rumors began to spread. Those who knew the history of the Blue Villa, still calling it “the house drowned by a curse,” started seeing Ermira differently.
— She’s beautiful, — women said in the market, — but beauty does not always bring light. Don’t be fooled by her smile or the perfume she wears. The first one who entered laughed, then left, leaving everything behind, a young boy, and a man who never recovered.
These words, like whispers that never die, reached Ermira’s ears. She stayed silent, retreating further into herself, yet her eyes did not fade. On the contrary, they grew deeper, more searching.
One evening, while drinking coffee on her veranda, she told Armendi:
— I am not Asija. And I don’t want to be anyone’s shadow. We are not alike. I love you, and we are bound together by love. You are not rich, nor am I. I have no interests, only love, — she said.
Armendi looked into her eyes. He understood that she was struggling with something greater than love. With history.
— I don’t want you to be. I want you to be yourself. Only you.
— And the villa? — she asked. — Why do you insist on taking it?
— Because I lost everything there. And I want to gain something. Even if it has no material value. I want to fill it with voices, not silent memories.
Ermira remained silent. She understood that their love, as strong as it was, would one day collide with the past. And this was no ordinary past—it was a wall. But instead of leaving, she chose to stay. She was not intimidated by the Blue Villa, the women’s gossip, or the shadows that people carried as a curse through generations. She decided to stay and write the story differently. Not like the first bride. My fate, I decide myself, she said to herself. No one forces me to leave this villa because it is cursed. Fates are set by people themselves, she added. I am the new bride, and as a new bride, I will bring a new story.
Because, as she would always tell herself, “The new bride may not bring light, but she can open a window.”
The Blue Villa had never seen happiness, — said old Lirije, who had witnessed the first wedding decades earlier. — Asija was beautiful as day, but her eyes were cold. She walked the courtyard with resentment. She never loved her husband or the city. And she left everything behind… a ruined man and a child who cried night after night. Think for yourself—is that a house for marriage?
Afterward, it is a cursed place, all the women in the neighborhood would say. Maybe…
— But look, — replied a younger woman, — now comes Ermira. Another beauty. She seems gentler, more human. Maybe she will save the house.
— Or will she curse it again, like the first? — another would whisper doubtfully.
The memories of Asija were still alive in the city, even after many years. She had been different from the local women—elegant, distant, with a pride that intimidated. Just as she came, she left without looking back. And after her, the house remained empty. Not just of noise, but of joy. She, the bride, was a curse for Beka and his wealth. She had ruined the strongest man in the city. She was a bride… but a witch…
Now, with the news of Armendi’s marriage to Ermira, people shared fear and curiosity. It was as if history was repeating, but no one knew if this time the ending would be different.
— The villa needs a woman who is not afraid, — said an old man, a friend of Armendi’s grandfather. — A heart that does not flee. That house devours women who do not love the life offered to them. That villa needs a strong woman who will… As if preparing for a novel to be published in London, he calculated every detail, understanding the significance of his story. This was the place where a family would be reborn, a name that would live on in the city.
In silence, the city waited. And Ermira, unaware of the full weight that followed her, was preparing to enter a house that had known more shadows than light.
One day, Ermira told Armendi that, before they married, she wanted to visit the Blue Villa. She would prepare for many days to become the lady of that villa. She needed to know everything well: every room, every corner, and even to read about its past, everything it concealed—both on the surface and beneath.
— Even though it now belongs to the state, one day it will be ours, — she said with a determined tone. I must prepare.
Armendi smiled.
— In fact, it already belongs to us. Everyone knows this, — he replied. — The Blue Villa is more than a building. It is history, memory. It is both a wound and hope at the same time.
He held her hand and smiled gently. Well done. I can see that you are taking this seriously, — he said.
Ermira looked at him with calm, yet deep eyes.
— I want to see it myself, to feel it, before becoming part of this history.
He held her hand again and nodded. Alright, then…
— Then let’s go. Let’s restore this house to what it should be: a hearth of love, not a shadow of a curse.
It was a Sunday morning, the day that marked the beginning of a new love at the Blue Villa.
The day Ermira would enter the Blue Villa for the first time was clear, yet silent. The sky was bright, but a tension hung in the air, as if even the birds hesitated to sing above that roof, which had witnessed so much separation and so few smiles.
Armendi opened the gate. She said nothing. She just slowly looked up at the wide balcony with its handcrafted iron railings. The place where Asija once sat alone for hours, speaking to no one. The place where legend said she had cried the night before leaving forever. Ermira thought: Asija must have had mental struggles. How could anyone refuse such a man? Handsome, well-educated, tall… the wealthiest in the city. Well, she thought to herself, that’s history. Fools have their heads as men, she reflected again, smiling lightly without being noticed.
— This will be our home, — Armendi said, holding her hand tightly, as if to erase every hesitation.
Ermira did not let go. Her steps were slow but confident. The courtyard still smelled of old leaves and damp walls. Perhaps she also felt the shadow of the first woman who had walked these paths?
At the top of the stairs, she stopped.
— May we go in? — she asked, not out of fear, but out of a sense of respect, as if seeking permission from the memories of the past.
— The house is ours, — he said firmly. — And the future need not fear the past.
They opened the door. The air inside was thick, heavy with silence. Furniture covered in white sheets looked like ghosts of a bygone time. An old photograph hung on the wall: Armendi’s grandfather, young, beside Asija, smiling with a joy the house had never truly known.
Ermira approached and studied it closely. She said nothing, observing like an investigator. How could it be, she wondered, that Beka had been more handsome than her? How could she have refused such a man? How was it possible? Then she spoke:
— She was beautiful, — she said softly.
— But she was not happy, — Armendi replied.
She turned to look him directly in the eyes.
— I want to be, — she said again. I have no ties to your grandfather. She thought that he must not have been mentally well.
He smiled at her. He said nothing. He held her in his arms, and there, in a room that had witnessed both weddings and separations, two young people determined to change the course of history ignited the thread of a love that did not curse but prayed for light.
It was the early afternoon when they set out toward the Blue Villa. The road leading there was still cobbled, and the trees on both sides created a gentle shadow, like curtains guarding the secrets of the past.
Ermira walked slowly, silent. They went together. Armendi was at her side, quiet as well, as if both were feeling the weight of what awaited them. The Blue Villa appeared around the bend, with its large windows and a façade still majestic, though time had worn it down.
The gate remained closed, locked with an old key that Armendi kept—a thick iron key, a keepsake from his grandfather. She was surprised when he inserted it into the lock, and the door emitted a heavy sound, like a long sigh. He said nothing to Ermira, though he feared it might not open. And the door seemed to say, or at least it seemed so:
— Welcome, — it said, young man, as it opened and the aroma of old wood, mixed with memories, spread through the air.
Ermira did not speak. She simply said: Inside. You see it too, Armend?
The main room was empty, but the walls seemed to still hold the voices of another time. A half-open window allowed sunlight to penetrate the dust in the air, creating a golden, almost mystical light.
— There’s something sacred here, my love, — she said. I don’t know what, but we must verify, — she added once again. — This is where my grandfather got married, — said Armendi, pointing to a corner of the room. — This is where it all began… and where the end also came.
Ermira approached an old mirror hanging on the wall and took it with her. She cleaned it along the way and touched the glass, yellowed by years. Her reflection was faint but clear.
— It must have been this, — Armendi said. Look how beautiful it is. Carved with gold-trimmed hands and oak wood contours. You can tell how many gold coins it cost. Everything here is precious and beautiful, crafted by skilled artisans.
— Many women have come and gone through this house, — he said in a low voice. — But I want to be different. I don’t want to be just “the new bride.”
— Now it’s another story, — she whispered to herself with a smile. The history will not repeat itself. I have it in my own hands. I have no reason to be so afraid.
Armendi stepped closer, placed his hand on her shoulder, and looked her in the eyes.
— You are the beginning of happiness, and of a family with many children. Not the continuation of a curse.
She smiled lightly. She glanced out the window at the garden that had once been full of roses but now was only overgrown with weeds.
— We will plant the garden again, — she said. — With new flowers. With new life.
Armendi embraced her. For the first time in many years, the Blue Villa no longer seemed frightening. It looked like a house finally waiting to live again.
The news spread quickly. The neighborhood buzzed like it once had when something rare happened. “Armendi has returned to the Blue Villa,” people said at half-open doors, in street-side cafés, in the market. “And he’s brought a girl… as beautiful as light… they say they will marry.”
Some shook their heads in disbelief, some with longing, and some with fear. The Blue Villa was not just a building. It was an old wound of the city, a painful memory that no one had dared touch for many years.
— Have you seen her? — asked an elderly woman sipping coffee on the balcony. — Her eyes are pure. If she has a good heart, she might save this house from the curse.
— Asija was like a star, but she refused. She cursed the place. Now, will this one succeed? — added another.
Meanwhile, gossip and memories intertwined through the streets. Ermira began visiting the Blue Villa every afternoon. She cleaned the windows, cleared debris from the garden, and breathed life into every dormant corner. She brought a new mirror, a vase with fresh flowers, and a cream-colored curtain that softened the light. And slowly, that light began to spread into the hearts of the people.
— The regime is changing, it seems, — people whispered. — These are the final signs of communism, — said others.
Children who once passed the villa gate in fear now stopped to peek inside. One little girl even said:
— A princess lives there.
Ermira was that princess—not because she came from a palace or wore a crown, but because she had a pure heart and courage to face a house that carried the shadows of an old time.
In this new atmosphere, the colors of the villa appeared more vivid. And the city slowly began to believe in love again—and in the overturning of communism.
Inside the Blue Villa, the air was still heavy and silent. The wooden floor creaked lightly under their steps. The windows, although cleaned by Ermira days before, still appeared foggy from years of closure. An old dusty frame leaned against the living room dresser. Ermira approached and wiped the glass with her palm. Inside, a yellowed photo: Asija and Beka—young, beautiful, in a time when everything seemed possible. She thought she would be a princess and have many children with her love, with Beka.
— Do you see? — said Armendi in a low voice. — This was the only moment when my grandmother smiled in this house. After that, everything broke.
Ermira kept her hand on the frame a moment longer, as if she wanted to take away the pain of that time. Then she turned to Armendi.
— We are not them, — she said. — And I didn’t come here to replace anyone. This house lost a love. But it can gain a new one. We are not like them. They were once, now it’s us.
He looked at her long, deeply into her eyes, as if to see whether she truly believed those words. And he saw that she did. He took her hand slowly, and together they walked to the next room. There, on another dresser, a small wooden box lay covered with a handwoven cloth. Armendi opened it. Inside were handwritten letters, hairpins, a silver brooch, and an old set of keys.
— This was her room, — he said. — And now it’s yours. If you want. You are the second bride of the Blue Villa, Ermira. I hope you make history, have many children, and a happy ending, — he added.
Ermira said nothing. She went to the window, opened it, and let the breeze flow inside. The evening light touched the blue walls, and for a moment, everything seemed alive. She turned to him and spoke:
— We are not a purchased love, — she finally said. — We are a love born in its own time, in its own place. Like a spring after a long winter. We have no personal interests or money between us. There is no buying or selling. Those were in the past. Beka’s mistake was not giving her hand from the start, and she went away. Beka could have chosen anyone, and she had no need for him. She seemed… mentally troubled. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s how it was.
Armendi said nothing but embraced her. And for the first time, warmth returned to the Blue Villa—not from memories, but from a new life just beginning. A life that did not curse, but healed. The beginning is beautiful for everyone, he recalled. Let’s see how it continues, — he thought to himself.
They moved from room to room carefully, as if not wanting to disturb something sleeping deep in the walls. The furniture was still there—old, but well-preserved. On one dresser, a vanity table held a dusty old brush, as if left there yesterday by the hand of a woman who would never return. Memories are always sad, because you regret that time has passed and cannot be fixed. That is why we should not dwell on them, for they bring only shock and pain for what we have endured, and we are no longer who we were.
— This was Asija’s room, — said Armendi, walking slowly. — It has always been preserved this way. No one dared touch her things, not after her death, nor when the villa became state property. Like an altar frozen in time.
Ermira shivered. Something in the atmosphere was more than memory. A cold presence passed along her spine. Armendi looked up at the ceiling—it creaked. Clearly. Like a soft step.
— Did you hear that? — he asked, opening his eyes wide in surprise, afraid that only he could hear it because he was so connected to this story.
— Yes… — she whispered, confirming the event and grounding Armendi in reality.
— They are here, — said Armendi in a low voice. — Beka and Asija. Their spirits have not left. They feel that their grandson has returned. And they are not angry. No longer. Perhaps they are happy we are here. They feel our love. They accept it.
They stood in silence for a moment. A window opened slightly in the breeze. The old curtains moved like wings wanting to embrace. The wind went toward the sea. Perhaps they have reconciled in the other world and are together. After all, their lives belong to both of them and cannot be separated. Beka sacrificed for love. She refused that love with a folly that cannot be explained. This does not happen even in movies. This house and this love must live on. “This house is not cursed,” Ermira said, taking a deep breath. “This is a wounded house. And we have come to heal it.”
They descended to the ground floor. In a corner, near the large stone fireplace, they found an old photo album. They opened it. It was the life of Beka and Asija: their wedding, moments on the veranda, smiles frozen by time on paper. As Ermira turned page after page, Armendi stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder.
There was a story that had slept for forty years. It had remained intact, full of evidence and events that testified to their life in this Blue Villa—the long drama caused by the beautiful bride Asija, and the ruin she brought to the city’s most powerful man.
— They never had the chance to live happily here. But we can. If we are strong. If we do not forget their love, but use it as a foundation for ours.
— We will never be ghosts, — Ermira said. — Because our love is here, now, in body and spirit. And this villa will feel it. This villa will witness many children, many joys, many weddings. Our grandchildren will be proud of the Podgorica name. This name will endure.
Somewhere above, another creak. Then silence. Not a cold silence anymore. A silence that accepted, perhaps even blessed.
— They live together in the next life, — Armendi said. — That’s certain. Perhaps there they found peace and love for one another.
That afternoon, in the Blue Villa, something happened that could not be seen with the eyes—but felt deeply. Past and present made peace. And two new hearts, for the first time, felt at home. The Blue Villa had its own silence. A silence not empty, but filled with sounds within, with breaths lingering in the walls, the curtains, and the dust on the tall windows. Ermira felt it from the very first day—a feeling that was not fear, but a mixture of comfort and sorrow.
In the evening, as darkness fell and the city lights went out one by one, unexplained things happened inside the villa. Candles lit themselves in the fireplace. A glass moved across the table, untouched by human hands. In the large mirror of the upper corridor, sometimes two figures would appear for a few seconds—a woman with long hair pinned up, and a man in a black suit, seeming to come from another time.
Perhaps they were their spirits, or perhaps God was bringing signs of their love in a different way. I do not know, but we are amazed by all that happens in the Blue Villa. Beka left this world longing for the life and love of Asija, which she never returned. And now she has repented, and they live together in eternity.
It was Asija and Beka. Not to frighten. Not to seek revenge. But as a memory, as a welcome, as two spirits who had never left this house.
— They could not live their love here, — Ermira said one night, while they stood together by the lit fireplace. — Perhaps they were not allowed. Perhaps time did not allow it. Or people. Or fate.
But fate is written by people. Beka’s misfortune was that he took a bride he should not have. Asija deserved nothing—not love, not honor. She deserved to leave for her own youth, for her companion.
Armendi rested his head on her shoulder.
— Perhaps their spirits remained here because they were waiting for someone to close the circle. To accomplish what they could not. And that someone is us. You and I. Our love. We have sincere love. And ours is the first love. It is not because we come from other losses or loves, right, Armend? — she said.
At that moment, the door to the second floor opened by itself, slowly, silently. A gentle breeze drifted down the stairs. It felt like a caress, not a shiver. As if saying: “You are welcome.”
— Asija was a beautiful woman, but broken, — Ermira whispered. — She did not love this house because she never saw it as hers. Married out of duty, in a villa she did not choose. That is why she cursed it. But I will not curse it. I love it, because I am here with you. You are my eternal love. I do not love you for the villa, or for the wealth you will later inherit. Because you are Beka’s grandson, and that is how it will be. We have a love, and that is enough for both of us. Right, Armend?
A soft knocking was heard on the wall nearby. Three times. Not fast, not frightening. As if someone said: “We heard you. We understand.”
The happy spirits moved around them like a warm spring breeze, lightly rustling the curtains. Armendi and Ermira felt a gentle, almost affectionate presence in every corner of the Blue Villa. They were no longer afraid. It was like being embraced by the past—a hug that required nothing but memory and respect.
Every time they paused in front of an old photograph—Asija with her child, or Beka at the piano, long separated by time—they felt an unspoken word pass between them. Faces that had once smiled, but never completely disappeared. And now, as Ermira ran her hand over the dusty frames, the house’s spirits no longer cried: they watched with silent gratitude.
— It feels like they are forgiving us, — Ermira said, resting her head on Armendi’s shoulder. — It feels like they are blessing us, — she added.
— Not only that, — he replied, — but as if giving us their blessing.
— I hope so, — Ermira whispered. — There is no reason they should not be happy with the union of our love.
They continued through every floor, every room, unhurried, like lovers feeling for the first time that they were part of something greater—a love that began with pain but ended in light. The second bride of the Blue Villa was beginning her reign. Every piece of furniture, every staircase, every object felt the presence of the new bride who touched, cleaned, and prepared them for a new life in this villa, once a nightmare for the Podgorica name.
Now, a new love in a different time, yet within Beka’s bloodline. He was the grandson, reviving an empire and a legend like Beka.
Now, it was no longer just the state’s Blue Villa. It was a house where tragedy had occurred, but where hope could also be born. Armendi and Ermira had no purchased love, no interest-bound connection. They were two souls found by fate itself—and placed before history to soften it, to continue it with kindness.
That quiet night, the lights of the Blue Villa glowed softly. In the second-floor window, where Asija once sat, now sat Ermira, holding a book. As Armendi brought tea from the kitchen, she smelled a familiar floral scent—as if someone had placed a bouquet of mimosas on the threshold. But no one was there.
— They live again, — she whispered to herself. — They are showing us that they are together in the other world. United by unfulfilled love and regret, reunited again in the realm of spirits.
The whole story felt to her like an inner voice whispering in her ear and through the space of the Blue Villa:
“True love never dies. It only changes its name.”
Now, that love had new names, new lives. Children and grandchildren are not like us—they are different. They have another life. Philosophy comes only through the family name and its continuation. We no longer repeat ourselves. They stayed in the villa until midnight. In the Blue Villa, a calmness reigned that no longer frightened—they were wrapped instead in a sense of security, like an old cradle that has known you since birth. Ermira stood in the doorway of a small room on the upper floor—the room that had once been Beka’s. The sun streamed gently through the old windows, illuminating a doll placed in the corner—one of those toys that seem to guard secrets.
“Have you seen this before?” Armendi asked as he stepped in behind her.
“No,” Ermira replied, leaning closer. “Strange… it feels familiar.” She didn’t know why it had been bought, or who had brought it. “It seems almost magical… or is it just me?” she added.
— Hahaha, he laughed. He didn’t speak, only stared at the doll intently.
He sat beside her, and together they sat in silence for a few moments, letting the room speak in its quiet way. Words were unnecessary. Something invisible moved between them, like a memory arriving unbidden.
“They are welcoming us,” Ermira thought.
A faint creak echoed in the hallway. Armendi spoke after it.
“Yes—I thought the same. Otherwise, this house would be a home of witches or evil spirits. Perhaps the villa rejoices because it has long been without our presence.”
“The house is simply happy,” Ermira said, her eyes filling with a feeling she could not name—was it sorrow or compassion?
“No, it’s Beka’s spirit watching us,” Armendi replied softly. “He is glad we are here.”
He continued, “The theory of spirits is very complicated. Are they energy, a current, another life? Science has not proven it. That is why I am amazed and moved by what is happening here. This is a phenomenon no scientist has ever experienced. Spirits exist.”
Ermira interrupted.
— Hahaha, he laughed. “Exactly. Let’s leave it at that, since you say so.”
They walked on, pausing in front of the old mirror in the lower hallway. In the glass, light formed gentle waves. They felt the presence, but it did not frighten them. It was a feeling of belonging, of approval, a blessing from those who were no longer here.
“This whole house,” Ermira whispered, “is a living memory. But also a new opportunity.”
“They have come here… or perhaps never left,” Armendi added, thinking of Beka and Asija.
At the end of the hallway, an open window carried the scent of cherries from the backyard. Armendi took her hand and held it over his heart.
“I don’t want to leave here ever again. One day, this house will be ours—yours and our children’s. I will restore it, make it more beautiful, and build busts of our grandparents in the yard. They must always be here. Grandpa deserves it, grandma… well, now that they are reunited in the other world, we will not separate them.” He looked her straight in the eyes.
She smiled, a feeling deep within her. In that moment, the Blue Villa seemed to breathe again.
As night fell, it seemed the old spirits smiled lightly along the walls that had once wept. They had waited long… but now love had found its place again. That evening in the Blue Villa became an unseen ritual. It was not just a visit—it was a connection to something deeper, older than memory itself.
The evening light bounced off the large, old windows, creating circles of gold on the floor, moving slowly, as if guided by an invisible hand. Ermira paused before an old dresser in the main hall. There was a frame with a photograph of Asija at the height of her beauty. Her eyes seemed to look beyond the years, beyond the pain.
“Is she watching me?” Ermira whispered, her voice barely audible. “I don’t know if she will accept me. Perhaps she doesn’t like me taking her place…”
Armendi approached and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not a matter of acceptance. This house… this place… it’s wounds and love together. And you are giving it new life.”
“Asija didn’t love this villa, or my grandfather. She destroyed a love and a good man,” Armendi said.
A gentle breeze passed through the room, even though all the windows were closed. The curtains fluttered lightly, carrying the scent of roses—a fragrance Ermira had never experienced before, yet it touched her deeply, like a memory she had never lived.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
Armendi nodded. “The spirits are here. But they are not restless. They are… curious. They want to know us, perhaps. They need to be sure that we will continue the life they left unfinished, and that we will not make the same mistakes.”
They walked further. The large lower room, once a reception room, had a special glow. On the cracked plaster walls, the lights cast slow-moving shadows, like silhouettes of people passing peacefully—like Beneti searching for his mother, or Asija waiting silently for someone to love her, while not wanting anyone herself.
“She was a psychopath,” Armendi said. “There is no other explanation.”
On the high ceiling, a crystal chandelier swayed lightly, though there was no breeze. They watched and understood without words: the house was communicating. It was happy at last.
“It’s a way of saying, ‘We welcome you,’” Ermira said.
Armendi bent, took an old key from a shelf, and placed it on the table. It was the key to the upper room.
“When the time comes,” he said, “we will live here. But only when the spirits are ready to rest.”
At that moment, a faint creak came from the stairs above, like a careful step… and then silence. Not fear, but the presence of something beyond definition. A past sorrow, a love never completed.
That night, in the villa abandoned by time, Armendi and Ermira were no longer just a couple. They were the heirs of an unfinished story, one the house had waited years to see completed.
They did not stay longer. They left, locking the Blue Villa once more, which had been open only for a few hours. Ermira was delighted to have finally seen the interior of the Blue Villa.
Outside, darkness enveloped them. The night had long fallen. Rain was falling.
“Armend…” she said. “I love you.” She leaned on his shoulder.
“It’s not the same story, the same love…” she continued. “Beka bought Asija with gold, just because she was beautiful. Right?”
“Yes…” he replied, smiling softly. “That’s how the wealthy behaved back then.”
“The second was the Turkish inheritance of the imperial system, where a woman was a market commodity… she was bought, not asked. Dad decided, and that was it. That time is over now,” he added jokingly.
“It’s different, my love,” he said. “Calm down. We are in another century, and we have another love… no such customs. We live in the age of the atom and global warming.”
She laughed. Armendi kissed her on the lips.
“Don’t let the neighborhood see us…” she said with irony.
“You started it,” he replied, joking. “No, I’m kidding. You are my wife.” Then he caressed her and added:
“It’s alright, my husband…” she said, leaning fully on his shoulder. “You are my husband. Soon we will have a wedding, and then this villa will ring with the drums of our celebration. Let’s go, my handsome… Today we experienced the world of spirits wounded by love.”
He got on the bicycle, took her behind him, and they started down the hill toward the city. The road was well-paved—or rather, the old road passing by the Bird Villa, since the infrastructure had been built up to honor the king’s villa. The place was lush and green, with soft grass, acacias, and often some Mediterranean plants, shrubs, and short bushes dotting the hillside.
It seemed that the land had not been deforested by communism; back then, all the forests were destroyed to make farmland—a collective folly that yielded only barren soil and nothing more.
The road glowed faintly under the dim light of an old electric lamp that still worked. The wet leaves shimmered in the light like the scales of a golden fish. Ermira rested her head on Armendi’s shoulder, silent. Her breathing was slow, calm, like that humid night, as if it were erasing bad memories one by one.
“Have you ever wondered,” she said suddenly, “why the most beautiful places are always cloaked in silence?”
He didn’t answer immediately. The bicycle wheels crunched softly on the asphalt, like a quill across paper.
“Because noise is for those who don’t know how to see,” he finally replied. “True beauty is for those who pause… who don’t make love at first sight.”
“And we have paused, haven’t we?” she asked, a smile he couldn’t see but could feel.
“Yes… perhaps for the first time in our lives. When we do, it will be as husband and wife.” They laughed together, and silence settled between them—a silence free of fear, free of curses, because they were secure in their love.
She wrapped her hands around his waist. The night’s dampness soaked through, but it did not bother her. On the contrary, there was something cleansing about that light rain, falling like music on the empty road.
“Can you imagine our wedding?” Ermira asked after a moment. Then, after a pause, in a poetic tone and with inspiration, she added:
“In that Blue Villa? A grand wedding—the grandest in the village of Podgorica.”
“Yes… there will be life, with white flowers and open windows… where everything is spirit and air, not fences and walls.”
“And the music will carry to the village across the way. We’ll ride together on two white horses, like an imperial wedding, because we inherit a great name, and it must be honored.”
“And people will say: ‘Finally, true love has happened.’ The people of Podgorica will return. The time of democracy is coming, and those who truly deserve to lead this land—not the children of communists, lowborn and poor, who returned the rifles to their masters who yesterday had fed them bread—will rise.”
Armendi laughed.
“It will be a celebration, Ermira. But more than a wedding… it will be a beginning. A life where no one can buy us with gold.”
They continued along the road. The sky lay low over the city like a gray blanket. Yet in their eyes, there was light—not from outside, but kindled within. Armendi escorted Ermira to the door of his house, a small but warm building, with large wooden windows letting the sun fill every corner with warmth. He looked at her gently and kissed her on the cheek, a soft kiss carrying all the feelings he had been unable to express in words all this time.
He loved her as Beka loved Asija—love in other worlds, we could say. But now Ermira loved Armendi deeply, and it was a serious, profound union, filled with care and affection.
On her face, her smile was sweet and wistful, like a tiny light glowing in the dark. It was a calm feeling, a sense of security wrapping them both, as if, for a moment, the world was right.
The Blue Villa they had left behind was still visible from Armendi’s window. Its lights twinkled like small stars in the darkness of night, like a hidden oasis preserving something sacred—their love. Beka and Asija were there, they could feel it. “They haven’t gone anywhere, they still live there,” he thought to himself. He gazed at the villa as one would look at a beloved guest expected for dinner tonight—but who was delayed. The villa was his second love, because it held his origins and his family name.
The day had been long, but with a warmth not from the sun, but from their souls. As night fell, they both felt a new chapter beginning. It was clear: Armendi’s era had begun. And the blessing of Beka’s and Asija’s spirits accompanied them. The stage was ready for another love, and another person from the Podgorica lineage to make history—history that would not repeat itself in the same way, even with a sad ending like the first love of this villa.
Armendi held her hands on his shoulders and said softly:
“This villa, this town, every corner of this land reminds me of you. It is not just a place—it will be our story. A story filled with love that is never forgotten. Right, my love?” He looked at her with open eyes, perhaps fearing her answer.
She didn’t speak at first, but slowly approached and, caressing him, said:
“I love you, Armendi.”
He replied by kissing her again. In that moment, time stopped. A simple, innocent moment, yet filled with all the emotion that bound them stronger than any words. Love is like water flowing and nourishing the forest plants, yet also reaching the paved cities. It waters all hearts that desire one another for eternity—without interest, without fear, but with feeling.
Love is like a meteorite stone falling from the sky to the dark, dirty earth. It is pure, and purity cannot be stained by black or brown soil.
Ermira went to her house, leaned over the large window, and looked toward the Blue Villa hiding the memories of the past night. She recalled every word, every smile, every gentle touch Armendi had given her. A warmth spread through her chest, and as she lay in bed, her thoughts drifted slowly into a peaceful sleep, filled with beautiful dreams and promises for tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Armendi, in his house, sat by the window, feeling the night’s silence embrace him. He remembered every moment of their meeting—the way Ermira had rested her head on his shoulder, her soft voice, and the unspoken promise he had felt in that final kiss. His heart beat warmly, and he knew this love would not fade easily.
Even though they were apart, their thoughts flew toward each other. In the quiet of their homes, in the stillness of the night, the feeling of that special meeting continued to burn brightly—a flame that would not extinguish, despite the distance.
It is easy to describe what they felt after leaving. They spoke to themselves, as in a dream, conversing silently:
Ermira (in her mind): “How can a single night change everything? Every word he spoke, every touch, warms my soul. Is this love, or just a dream deceiving me?”
She placed her hands over her chest, feeling the heartbeat that would not stop.
“I must be strong… but why do I feel I want to stay there, close to him, even though we are apart? Why can’t I be without him now? How is it possible that my mind keeps returning to him? I am enchanted—not only by his beauty, but by the intelligence he carries. I must keep him close, before someone takes him away. He is a rising star. Perhaps he is thinking of me too… I am sure he is,” she added. Meanwhile, he lay awake, staring at the ceiling (in the silence of the room):
“Ermira… She is more than any dream I’ve ever had. Every smile of hers sparks a hope I’ve never felt before. But am I ready to give everything? Will she accept me with all my flaws?”
He rose and looked out the window toward the Blue Villa.
“My house will also be hers, even if she doesn’t know it yet. I will give her my love unconditionally, because only she is worth it.”
Ermira (lying in bed):
“Forgive me, my love, if I haven’t said it before so clearly… but I love you. I know it’s early, but this feeling is stronger than fear.”
At that moment, her eyes closed, and her dreams filled with Armendi’s face.
Armendi (silently):
“Even if the world separates us, even if there will be challenges, I will fight for us. This love is the only thing worth living for.”
Ermira (thinking silently):
“Why do my hands tremble when I think of him? Is this nervousness or a kind of joy I’ve never felt before? Maybe I’m afraid, but I feel this feeling changing me. Will I miss him? Will I remember every moment we shared, or will I forget quickly?”
Another scene:
Armendi (in his room, looking at a photo of them):
“When I was near her, time stopped. How can it be so hard to leave, when the heart only wants to stay?”
“Am I worthy of this love? Do I have the strength to protect what has just begun? I must protect it until the end. I love her,” he whispered to himself.
Ermira (lying down, eyes closed):
“I need to find the courage to be myself around him, without fear. He looks at me with a light that makes me feel special, but I fear the future. Perhaps love isn’t just about feeling good—it’s about facing every challenge together.”
Armendi (leaning on a pillow):
“Every time I think of her, I feel a new strength fill me. I never want to lose this feeling. But can we keep love alive when the world is so unstable?”
Ermira (silently):
“I will be strong, for him, for myself, for us. Because what I feel is not just a temporary flame—it is a fire that will warm me even on the coldest days.”
Time passed quickly in the city. A new queen was born. She was as beautiful as the first—tall, with green eyes. She embodied the beauty of central Albania, which must be acknowledged for its women, though her distant origin was from Ulcinj. Perhaps that was how God wrote it: to love the city they had taken from them, and which they would take back, he thought, smiling to himself.
She became the new bride of the Blue Villa. People looked at her with wonder and curiosity whenever she passed by. She seemed like a bride of a royal authority. The family of Armendi was so renowned in Durrës.
Rumors about this family had peaked during the years of socialism. Everywhere, people spoke of Bek Podgorica’s immense wealth, the first Albanian millionaire who had made a name in Europe with his investments—not only in Albania and Montenegro, but everywhere. People mourned the fortune the communists had taken. The gold found in the villa could be worth about two hundred million dollars today.
The Blue Villa stood locked, awaiting the wedding. Perhaps a new wedding, of a new bride, bringing happiness—and heirs to continue the Podgorica name for centuries.
Spring spent its days. Armendi and Ermira, now a couple, lived together everywhere and shared everything—like a royal couple.
Socialism was dying. Signs had come from Romania, people said. “It will be our turn soon,” others said in the city.
This city had seen many rulers and invaders. But more cruel than Russian socialism, these Adriatic shores had never witnessed. Even the sea no longer had waves, from the poverty and misery sown by the socialists. Where there is socialism, there is poverty. It is a theorem that needs no proof. Socialism is the rule of a wealthy group of Masons over the rest of the population. They pretend to care for the poor. They speak of poverty, but are themselves millionaires—and very rich ones.
And the foolish people love them, because poverty doesn’t allow long thinking—just a sack of flour at home, bread with yogurt, or pasta—rarely more. This was the staple food in Albania. And I forgot corn bread—in all the villages of Albania. So, corn bread and love for the party. That’s how it was, and that’s how it would remain in Albania, Nilaj once said. And it continued with socialism.
In its purest theory, socialism is born from a deep moral need: the desire for equality, social justice, a world where one does not trample another, where capital does not define human value, and where labor is the foundation of dignity. It is a dream born from pain and hope, from the rebellion of the oppressed and the imagination of poets. But in practice, 20th-century socialism, especially as exported by the Soviet model, turned into a system where ideals became dogmas, and freedom—sin.
Instead of eliminating inequalities, it created a new privileged caste living in the name of the people, but never with them. Bureaucracy became a religion, the party a god, and the ordinary person became a statistic in the measure of progress. Where emancipation was promised, fear prevailed. Where wealth should have been shared, silence was divided.
Socialism failed to grasp a simple philosophical truth: man does not live by bread alone, but by questions. And where questioning is forbidden, tyranny is born. A system preaching equality but banning thought is like a body without a heart—it functions, but it does not live.
In the name of the collective, socialism suppressed individuality. But history shows there is no honest collective without free individuals. The dictatorship of the proletariat became a dictatorship of fear, and poverty, a tool of control. Ironically, those who spoke most of the poor were usually the richest among them.
Socialism is not just an economic or political system. It is an ethical test for society. Its failure is not only technical but moral. Where justice is commanded, it loses meaning. Where equality is imposed by force, it becomes envy. And where freedom is replaced by uniformity, man begins to live not for truth, but to survive.
Life continued as always in the blue city, in the Blue Villa, and among the Blue Brides. Life went on as always in the blue city, in the Blue Villa, and among the Blue Brides. This city had seen much history, with kings and civilization, but never a humiliation like communism and socialism. The city had never experienced anything like it. It had been transformed into a city of spies, fratricide, and immorality.
Armendi called Ermira as soon as she finished her class, and the two of them set off for a coffee at the small café where they used to always go with Nilaj.
“We’ll always go there,” Armendi said. “I consider this café a place of pilgrimage. A sacred home of memories.” And after saying this, he looked at her, seeking her approval.
Ermira hugged him warmly. That hug was no ordinary embrace—it was like the hug of someone who preserves something pure in a polluted time. They would go there. Their love was sincere, pure, untouched by the contempt surrounding them. The young couple of the Blue Villa loved each other deeply, in their own silent yet complete way. They had a pact of confession and vow of love. It was at her café, where she always stayed.
They sat at their usual table. The old waiter recognized them and smiled without saying a word. He had always maintained a strange respect for them—perhaps because he had once seen them with Nilaj.
Before ordering, Armendi said:
“Ah, poor Nilaj… How often must he have thought here… about my father and my home, the Blue Villa. And about his friends, who turned love into drama. The drama came from Asije,” he said.
Ermira (in a low voice):
“He never drank his coffee without a bitter irony against the system. But today, she took that role. ‘This place is filth with a perfume of glory,’” she said, repeating Nilaj’s words.
Armendi: “Don’t forget he spoke other philosophical words too,”
Ermira replied: “And he added: ‘When you drink coffee in this place, either you’re dead inside, or you’re driven by conscience.’”
“Here, we live in socialist collectivism,” Nilaj would say. “Life has reached its peak of difficulty here with us.”
Ermira: “He didn’t hate anyone. In fact, he loved… more than they deserved. He was a saint. This is indisputable.”
Armendi (turning his empty cup in his hand):
“He used to say there were no more Albanians, only masks that spoke Albanian. We’re surrounded by spies everywhere. They’ll dig a hole behind your house without saying a word. Only with letters after the shop. And that’s the end of your story. You’d become a class enemy.
And: ‘Open a socialist,’ he’d say, ‘and inside you’ll find a Serb and a Russian holding his shoulders.’ Yes, yes, that’s how it is. I see fear and surveillance everywhere in a system that is fading. These are Masons, lady—a group of thieves who got rich off the backs of the poor people. The funniest thing is, they speak of poverty and equality—hah!” he laughed, a great sarcasm, and paused for a moment.
Ermira: “I remember my grandfather saying it with quiet contempt. And his face would turn to ice. ‘In this place, people do not understand freedom because they are used to a hand that strikes them and then caresses them,’ he said.”
Armendi: “But he was alone. He had no friends. Others were afraid, or were truly socialists. One alone against a great hypocrisy. Those who should have listened mocked him. And those who adored him feared him.”
Ermira: “We will not forget. My grandfather and Nilaj. Even for the sake of this coffee. For the sake of this table. For the truth that he and she never forgot.”
Armendi: “And for the sake of Albania that they dreamed of. An Albania where truth does not die in coffee, but is born in it.”
“This café we will call Nilaj’s Shadows,” they said together, in the same thought.
“How beautifully you found it,” she said to Armendi.
“Exactly, you placed your hand right,” he replied, and they touched hands. Then they repeated together:
“Nilaj’s Shadows.”
This was the café… the small café in the corner of the city that had become a silent sanctuary. At that window-side table, Nilaj used to sit—the only man who was never afraid to speak out loud, even when everyone else hid behind a fake smile.
Armendi and Ermira often sat there after he was gone, as if to preserve the shadow of a thought they did not want to lose. But that day, strangely, the word “Nilaj” was never spoken aloud—it was in every unspoken word.
Her image rose between them, a presence that demanded no permission.
“Socialism?” she said one day, as the coffee steamed before her. “Socialism is when they kill you with words and bury you with poverty.”
They listened in silence. It was grim, but never bitter. Harsh, but not without feeling.
“They do not want justice,” she continued. “They want you to believe you live better, when in fact you do not even have the right to think better.”
She took the last bite of the dry bread she had brought with her and said:
“If you want to know an Albanian communist, look inside a Serb. If you don’t find him there, dig deeper: you’ll find a Russian.”
Some laughed, some lowered their heads. But no one dared to contradict her. She had a strange way of speaking—awakening the conscience. Making you aware that you are a slave.
“Our rulers? They are all actors. They play the hero before the people and the servant before Belgrade and Moscow.”
“And the people?” Ermira once asked sincerely.
“The people? They are no longer people. They are a mass. A class. Organized idiocy. They don’t forgive poverty, they sell their soul to the party for a sack of flour and some pasta. Love for the party and corn bread—that is the combination that keeps us slaves.”
When she left the café, it felt as after a storm. As if a person had passed by who had spoken with God and was returning condemned by Him. Yet in her eyes could be read only a strange longing. A longing for an Albania that could have been—and wasn’t.
Unwritten Testament
The coffee had a special taste that afternoon. Perhaps it was the rain tapping lazily on the café windows. Or perhaps it was absence speaking louder than presence.
Armendi held his cup with both hands, not yet lifting it to his lips. His eyes were fixed on the table across from him, where once Nilaj had sat… Nilaj—always alone, always worried, always with a smile that no one trusted—not even himself.
Ermira watched her husband in silence. She knew that look. It was the look of memories that do not come merely to remind, but to show a path.
“Do you remember when Nilaj said…?” Armendi began suddenly, “…that Albania is not killed by the rifle, but by silence.”
Ermira nodded without speaking. She feared her voice would break the solemnity of that statement.
“He said something else I can’t get out of my mind,” Armendi continued. “‘Do not trust those who speak to you of equality while wearing clothes more expensive than yours. Do not trust them when they speak of the people, yet never walk among them.’”
He paused for a moment, then added in a lower voice:
“Nilaj was not just a madwoman speaking to the air. She wanted to leave us something. Not just hatred for socialism, but a way to stay clear-minded. A way not to sell your mind for a sack of flour.”
“She was harsh,” Ermira said, “but perhaps because she did not want to see us willingly become slaves.”
Armendi chuckled softly.
“Yes. And when we called her cruel, she said: ‘I am not cruel. Cruel is the one who knows the truth and does not speak it.’”
At last, he raised the cup to his lips. He took a small sip, as if to honor a sacred memory.
“I treat it as a moral testament,” he said. “Whenever I feel like being silent, I remember Nilaj. Whenever I feel like giving up, I recall his words: ‘Those who govern us are brothers with the Russian and the Serb. We must be brothers with each other, otherwise we will always remain servants of foreigners.’”
Ermira placed her hand over his. And for a moment, in that small café, it seemed as if Nilaj’s body had gone, but her spirit lived—through memory, through love, through consciousness.
In that moment, her unwritten testament was stronger than any book, any speech, any flag.
The coffee had begun to cool. Ermira leaned back in her chair, watching the window fog slightly. The lights of the blue city danced in her eyes like a wedding dress glimmering under the fine rain.
Armendi took out his small leather notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket. He always carried it. Since the day Nilaj had died. It was like a lost saint, without a grave, yet with words that had to remain.
He took a pen and began to write while Ermira stayed silent, preserving the calm of that personal ritual.
“Today, again at our café,” he wrote.
“With Ermira, my wife, the bride of the Blue Villa, we remembered Nilaj. The person who never accepted silence as a way of life. She taught us to speak, even when no one was listening.”
Ermira paused for a moment, drew a deep breath, and continued:
“‘They are all the same,’ she said. ‘Open a socialist, and inside you will find a Serb and a Russian. They do not belong to this country. They speak of the people, but despise the villages. They speak of equality, but drink French wine while the people eat corn bread.’”
How often she had heard her, Ermira said. Nilaj was a teacher of free speech. She was the freedom that would come soon.
The pen moved slowly across the yellow page of the notebook.
“She showed us that there was no working class in Albania—only a humiliated class. A crowd fed with lies and intoxicated with slogans. And this crowd, too afraid to think, idolized charlatans.”
Armendi looked up and saw Ermira, who smiled at him with love. He understood: she was keeping this testament within herself too.
“Nilaj never became a heroine. Because in this country, heroes are not valued. In this country, only those who are silent beautifully are valued. But I will keep her voice in this notebook—so that tomorrow, when my son grows up, I can tell him: ‘These are the words of someone who refused to become a servant of lies.’”
He closed the notebook carefully, as if it were a personalized gospel, a silent book of resistance. He did not put it in his pocket.
“She became more than a mother,” he said softly.
“She became part of my blood,” he added finally, “that woman. Not because she taught me what to think, but because she taught me to love the truth more than myself.”
Ermira moved closer and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Now you are her memory, Armendi. And our love… is her legacy.”
She had known the system very well, because she had lived and studied in Vienna. But her mistake was that she stayed here. She loved the homeland—and the homeland repaid her with tears, sorrow, and near-internment. She was everywhere surveilled. She lived in fear of arrest. Her life was cut short when she could no longer play the piano on stage. Armendi only watched her in silence. It was a quiet approval.
Outside, rain fell. But inside that small café, a calm light burned—a light no power, no forgetting, could extinguish.
The coffee had become part of the evening’s calm. The lights glimmered on the wet glass. Ermira sat next to Armendi, her head on his shoulder. He still held the notebook, but now he no longer wrote. He spoke, in a low voice, as if confessing to himself:
“You know, Ermira… Nilaj was not just a woman criticizing the system. She was something more. She was like a city between us. A silent Vienna that fate assigned to Albania. Even the way she walked, spoke, placed her fingers on the piano keys… reminded you of a culture this land never fully knew.”
Ermira smiled. It was true.
“She was like a character from a Stefan Zweig novel,” she said slowly.
“Like a woman carrying within her all the nostalgia of Europe before the catastrophes of the 20th century. And then… she fell under a regime that chained words, beauty, and sound.”
“Do you remember,” Armendi said, “when she spoke of Vienna? How her eyes lit up? ‘There,’ she said, ‘people read a score like it were literature. And read a novel as if it were music. There, music is not a luxury, but air to live.’”
“The German and French newspapers called her the ‘Albanian Mozart,’” Ermira added proudly.
“And the regime locked the piano. They could not control her soul. They did not want others to hear her freedom.”
Armendi rose slightly and spoke in a louder voice, as if addressing someone who was not there:
“She was a danger to power because she was fearless. Not just for what she said, but because her very existence showed that another life was possible. More beautiful. More noble.” “Freer.”
– “And she did it with just a piano concert,” Ermira added. “Just a finger movement that sparked light.”
“Ah, Nilaj…” Armendi said, gazing out the window as if speaking to the sky. “If one day Albania becomes what it could be, it will be because of you, even if just a little. Because you had the courage not to forget who you were. And to remind others what they could have been.”
A deep silence settled over the table. Only the distant sound of a piano on the radio kept the breath of life alive.
Then Ermira touched Armendi’s hand.
“She taught us not to accept darkness as fate. And you write it down. You preserve it. You are her archivist, Armend.”
“Not just hers,” he said humbly. “But of that Albania that never lived as it deserved.”
He opened the notebook again and wrote carefully:
“Nilaj: A forgotten Vienna in a blue city. A spirit that does not die. Music that must not be silenced. Albania will be made when we are worthy of it.”
“Edi, Armend,” Ermira said suddenly, looking him straight in the eyes.
“I know how to play piano. I forgot to tell you.”
Armendi’s eyes widened, as if waking from a gentle dream.
“Wow,” he said with sweet amazement. “A mysterious bride! You are full of surprises!”
Then he laughed and added jokingly:
“Don’t be like Asija in ‘The Blue City and the Blue Villa,’ who was mystery from start to finish!”
Ermira smiled softly.
“No, I’m not a character in a book. I’m just a girl who forgets to tell the important things.”
He kissed her on the lips slowly, with that feeling that happens when everything around you stops moving.
Time was passing. Night fell quietly over the blue city, but neither of them moved. Time seemed paused, chilled in the air like an eternal memory.
“When you are with someone you love,” whispered Ermira, “time loses its meaning.”
Gravity stops. Or perhaps relativity comes into play. The mutual pull makes time unnoticeable.
“Yes,” Armendi replied, “because time, after all, is relative. And with you, I feel nothing but… life.”
They stayed there, in the café that Nilaj had once turned into a temple of words and free thought, now transforming it into a quiet place of love and discovery.
“Let’s go,” Armendi said, “I have a little surprise for you. Since you can play the piano…”
Ermira hesitated for a moment, then smiled.
“Yes, yes, let’s go, wherever you want. I already belong to you. I have a surprise, you say?”
“Exactly,” he said, a playful sparkle in his eyes.
They both got up, paid for the coffee and water, and headed toward Nilaj’s house, only five minutes on foot from the sea.
The street was quiet; the air carried a faint scent of citrus from the gardens and the evening damp. The Blue Villa looked silent, but not cold. It was like a warm memory waiting to be revived.
It was evening. The streets of the city had a faint blue light, a blue more like memory than actual color. At Asija’s house, Armendi turned on a dim light over the piano and invited Ermira to sit.
She hesitated for a moment. Her fingers touched the keys as if asking forgiveness for the long silence.
“This was the part Nilaj called the ‘Melody of Silence.’ She had it handwritten in an old notebook, wrapped in German newspaper pages.”
Her voice trembled slightly. “I learned it by memory, from a recording I once found on a cassette… with her voice saying: ‘This is for a land that does not know how to listen.’”
Then she placed her hands on the keys, and the room filled with sound.
Clear, yet sorrowful notes. Like words that were never spoken.
As if they were suspended in the air, longing to be paper, yet never given paper.
A deep call, a gentle but unwavering protest – the music of a woman who had seen the sunset of civilizations and the dawn of lies.
Armendi remained silent. It felt as if Nilaj was there among them. As she had always been – a tall presence with big eyes, who no longer trusted the state, but only the beauty of the soul.
When the last note fell silent, Ermira rested her hands on the keys and turned toward him.
“Was it as you remembered?” she asked. Was this her composition?
Armendi did not speak immediately. Then slowly, in a low voice:
“No. It was more. It was Nilaj herself.”
“She is here with us,” he said. “She is everywhere – the composition, the piano melody.”
When the piano melody ended, played by Ermira’s elegant hands in Nilaj’s house, a silence fell that was not empty… It was a silence that required no applause, no words. It was the kind of silence that happens when you feel like a witness to something true, profound, and unrepeatable.
Armendi rested his head on his hand and watched Ermira with a focus that resembled reverence. He felt that what had just happened was not merely music. It was liberation. It was the voice of memory, perhaps Nilaj’s very voice, speaking through the sounds, through Ermira, reminding them that art never dies.
“You… you never told me you were this good at being a bride,” he murmured softly. “There’s something in the way you played… it was like a story without words.”
Ermira turned to him, touched, yet slightly embarrassed.
“I was a child when Nilaj taught me piano. She was the one who gave me my first note. She always said: ‘Play as if you’re telling a secret that only a few deserve to hear.’”
Armendi smiled. “She was a philosopher, a daughter of Vienna, as she called herself. She had the culture of the world, but also the pain of this country. And you… you brought that here tonight. You brought her back to life.”
Ermira slowly rose from the piano, approached him, and sat beside him. “She taught me to feel, not just to play. And in every melody I touch, I think of her, of what she represented. Because she was not just an artist. She was a free spirit in a country that hated free spirits.”
They stayed in silence for a few moments. The windows of the Blue Villa had begun to reflect the shadows of the night descending from the sea. In that house, between Nilaj’s memory and Ermira’s music, it seemed that history had not yet ended.
“You don’t know what Nilaj used to say when she taught me piano,” Ermira said softly, her fingers still touching the keys as if in remembrance.
“Look, my beautiful girl,” she would say, looking me straight in the eyes. “You are talented, and you are very beautiful. You look like one of our northern race!” Then she would laugh to herself. “All Albanians are beautiful,” she added with a sweet irony only she could wield.
Then she would pause, look deeply at me, and say:
“But you, girl, you seem like you will be my bride! I have a very handsome grandson, named Armend. Look carefully, girl… you might just fall in love!” And she would laugh again with that mysterious laugh of hers, like a secret code hidden in simple words.
“And I,” Ermira continued, looking straight at Armendi, “from that moment, when she told me about you, I began to have you in my thoughts. It was as if she had planted a dream in me with your name. Nilaj… she taught me to play, but she also taught me to love you.”
At that moment, her voice faltered slightly. She lowered her head and cried. In the background, two tears slid down her cheeks.
“These were Nilaj’s memories,” Ermira said. “She was more than a teacher. She was a mother to my spirit.”
Armendi did not speak. He simply reached for her hand and held it. He knew that that night, no words could surpass love, memory, and music. They stayed late, playing piano together. They did not go to their own home, but slept at Nilaj’s house. It was a beautiful spring night, crowning Nilaj’s effort to unite them as a couple on that city’s most beautiful street.
The morning was radiant. The rain had stopped, and the streets, the roads, the pines had enjoyed the moisture they had absorbed. Durrës had abundant, beautiful pines. The greenery in the city was sparse, because after communism arrived, everything had been cut down, forests destroyed, and the land left barren. Everywhere, poverty and misery had spread. It was Russian-style socialism that had taken over Albania.
They woke early, washed, dressed, and set off for school. They got on Armendi’s bicycle and rode slowly. Armendi was pedaling while she sat behind him, hands resting on his waist. It was clear that they were already husband and wife in spirit. Armendi would finish school that year and decide his path: escape to Italy or marry Ermira and stay in Albania, hoping communism would fall and he could reclaim the family inheritance. The Blue Villa, its courtyards – it was a symbol of the Podgorica family’s strength and prominence in the city.
The city by the sea awaited, ready to return property to its rightful owners, restore dignity to faith and family – not to social property or the foolishness of communism. Ermira felt truly at peace for the first time. She no longer feared words or what others might say. All her insecurities had melted away that spring night, where only piano voices, the scent of dampness, and the pale lights of Durrës had meaning. She belonged to Armendi, and he to her.
On the way to school, they spoke not a word. There was no need. Silence had become the language of love. The wet streets, the breeze from the sea, and the scent of pine trees accompanied them, witnesses to a new beginning, to a promise that required no words.
Armendi was deep in thought. School was ending, and life demanded big decisions. Italy was an opportunity. Freedom, another life. But also marriage to Ermira, perseverance, hope for change. He was not just a boy with dreams, but an heir to a family that had lost everything under communism. The Blue Villa was not just a house – it was history, memory, and justice.
Durrës awaited, not just him, but the return of its true owners, the return of dignity. There were many like him who carried in their hearts the wound of theft, humiliation, and denial of origin. Yet they remained stoic, hoping that one day all would be restored.
Ermira felt the weight of his thoughts. She leaned lightly and whispered in his ear:
— “Whatever you decide, I am with you.”
He turned and smiled. He said nothing. It was one of those moments when love needed no words. The road stretched ahead, like life itself, unknown, but theirs.
Armendi and Ermira entered the school yard under the pale light of the spring morning, hand in hand, unhidden, unafraid. It was the first time they had walked openly embraced and in love. It seemed as though they were gliding along a path made just for them, the wind playing with her hair and his smile shining like a promise.
Other students, teachers, even the old school guard, paused for a moment. Everyone saw them. They were the most beautiful couple of the year. Not just in appearance – though he was tall with blue eyes, and she had fair skin and a gentle smile – but because there was something more in the way they looked at each other: a kind of trust long absent in the school benches, in a society tired of silence and empty words.
In a place where love was often a heavy secret, an unspoken guilt, they dared. And that courage made the whole day shine brighter. At the end of the year, when everything was expected to conclude with report cards and farewells, there was a wedding. Not like the usual ones with noisy banquets and tiresome speeches, but a quiet ceremony in a garden filled with wildflowers, where the only music was their voices saying “yes” and the sincere laughter of friends, who were not surprised at all. Because they knew: true love does not wait for age, does not know fear, and does not hide. Their love did not begin with a spectacle. There were no kisses in the hallways, no social media posts, no photos with sweet captions. It was a love that grew in silence, in glances shared quietly, in letters exchanged secretly between the pages of books, in a tiny smile that lasted just a second longer than it should.
They hid. Not because they did not love each other enough. On the contrary. They hid because they did not want their love to be distorted by others’ eyes, by prejudice, by words that often wound more than silence.
Ermira came from a family where the word “love” was never spoken aloud. She was known as the mature girl, devoted to her studies, a model for others. Her parents were proud of this image, and any small deviation from it would have been seen as a failure.
Amrendi, however, was different. Known for his courage and outspoken nature, but also the subject of gossip—for a poem he had written in class, for the way he spoke to teachers—without fear, without servility. For the fact that he had once been alone in a system that always wanted people to be part of the crowd.
They hid because they did not want to lose each other before fully understanding what they meant to one another. They wanted to keep this bond pure, untouched, away from the world’s judgment, which often only sees what it wants to see.
And yet, every truth has a moment that can no longer be hidden. That moment came. They emerged openly—and it was immediately clear: this was not just an ordinary relationship. It was love.
Presentation Day
Amrendi and Ermira arrived early at Beneti’s house. It was a clear morning, and the scent of flowers in the yard carried with it the feeling of something new, something just beginning. Ermira wore a simple blue dress that highlighted her sweet features and natural elegance. Excitement could be felt in her hands, but her eyes shone. It was the first time she would meet Amrendi’s parents.
Beneti, Amrendi’s father, greeted them with the calmness of a man who had seen much in life but still knew how to appreciate the beauty in simple things. He was a man with a straight posture, a deep voice, and a gaze that penetrated without judgment. His wife, Nela, approached with a reserved smile, still beautiful, her serene features carrying the grace of a woman who had once been as lovely as Ermira, perhaps even more so. And she still carried that beauty quietly, in the way she moved, in the way she embraced her son.
The presentation ceremony was simple, intimate. In the living room, where light filtered through sheer curtains, there was a warmth that came not just from tea or pastries on the table, but from the feeling that something important was happening. Ermira was introduced as the “candidate for bride,” as Beneti called her with a calm but serious smile.
The four of them sat in silence for a while after the first words. But that silence was not heavy. It was the silence that occurs when something great passes from one world into another. And that day, Amrendi’s family lost nothing—it was the first time in many years that a wedding or a presentation with a bride would take place in the Podgorica household. It seemed as though history was repeating itself, the days of those who were once first were returning—and would do so again.
“The new bride, however beautiful, does not bring light if her spirit walks the same dark paths as her predecessor.”
They moved into the living room of the old Beneti house. It was a spring afternoon. Nela brought the first coffee for the guest. Ermira sat, hands folded on her lap, feeling the warmth of a home that had seen much but remained open to new beginnings.
Beneti (sitting across, with a slight smile, slow voice):
— Welcome, my daughter. This house has seen many times… and many brides. Today, it sees you.
Ermira (softly, a little shy):
— Thank you for having me, Mr. Beneti. It is an honor to be here. I hope to bring light, not burden.
Beneti (looking at her carefully, without judgment):
— Light, my daughter, does not come from the face. It comes from within. The shine in the eyes, the way you speak, the way you are silent… the way you forgive.
Ermira:
— I will try to be that. I have heard much about this house, about your history… even about what happened before.
Beneti (pushing the cup slightly aside, taking a deep breath):
— Asija… yes, she was the first bride. Beautiful. Graceful. But her spirit walked dark paths. She brought no peace. And this house—felt it.
Ermira (after a pause, softly):
— I do not want to walk those paths. I want to create a new path with Amrendi. To plant love, not fear. To grow trust, not doubt.
Beneti (slowly placing his hand over hers):
— Then you have taken the first step toward this house. Because, my daughter, the new bride, however beautiful, does not bring light—if her spirit walks the same dark paths as her predecessor.
Nela (from the kitchen, softly, full of warmth):
— I feel this spirit is different, Benet. She brings peace. I can feel it in the way she looks at our son.
Ermira (eyes slightly wet, but with a calm smile):
— Thank you… I will protect this house like the apple of my eye. As a promise to myself and to our love.
Beneti (rising slowly, lightly embracing her and patting her shoulder):
— Then welcome, new bride. Do not fear the past. Now, we are ready to build a different future.
Beneti (looking at Ermira, eyes slightly moist):
— You will be the lady of the Blue Villa. I’m sure you’ve heard its voice, haven’t you?
Ermira (softly, a little emotional):
— Yes… I have heard it. And I feel its weight. I know everything about the history… about the first bride, about your mother. I’m sorry that it happened that way. It is the communist system that destroyed human values, but also the one-sided, misplaced love of Beka for Asija destroyed everything.
(All eyes rest on her for a moment. No one expected such honesty.)
Ermira (continuing with a soft but firm tone):
— But we are not of the same time. We are different. We are in love. We were not bought, we are not together for interest. We have come from light, not from agreements.
(After a short silence, Nela’s voice rises like a light leaf on the table.)
Nela (taking a deep breath, warmly):
— Bravo, my daughter. Until now I have said nothing… but now I speak.
(She rises, approaches slowly, and embraces Ermira—a hug that is not just a welcome, but an acceptance.)
Nela (with quiet tears in her eyes): The only thing that matters is love. The Blue Villa will live only if true love dwells within it. Everything else is just the noise of the past.
Beneti (looking at his son, then at Ermira):
— I hope this house will protect you and not repeat any shadow of yesterday. Today, for the first time in many years, I am ready to see the villa with new eyes.
Ermira (holding Amrendi’s hand):
— And we will fill it with new life. With the laughter of children. With light. Everything that has been missing, we will bring back with a new step and a new love.
Beneti looked at Ermira with a warm smile and asked gently:
— When do you think it would be the right time for us to ask for your hand in marriage from your father?
Ermira thought for a moment, then replied calmly:
— When you feel ready, Mr. Benet. What matters is that we are both confident and prepared for this step.
Beneti smiled at her and said with satisfaction:
— Very well, then we will do it when the time is right. I am glad you are calm and determined.
Ermira felt relieved and happy. She knew a beautiful, though not easy, path lay ahead.
— I hope that one day we will have a beautiful wedding, — she said dreamily.
Beneti took her hand and added enthusiastically:
— We will have it, Ermira. It will be a grand wedding, in our home. After so many years, we will celebrate at the Blue Villa—in our new home.
Ermira smiled, moved, feeling hope grow with every word.
— Yes, — she said — and then, with your father’s blessing, we will celebrate the wedding as we should.
Beneti came a little closer and said in a low voice:
— My father, Bek Podgorica, will be proud. The sound of our wedding will be heard to the mountains, and we will hold a grand celebration as it should be.
Ermira felt her heart beat fast.
— It will be an unforgettable day, — she said, laughing, tears of joy in her eyes.
Beneti hugged her lovingly and said:
— Everything will go well, Ermira. This is just the beginning of a new, beautiful, and everlasting chapter.
Ermira:
— I know, Benet. It’s not just a ceremony. It’s the beginning of a new life. And I want it to be beautiful, but also sincere.
Beneti:
— I believe it will be. Our families have strong traditions, and that will make it even more special. You have been patient, and I am here to support you always.
Ermira looked at him with bright, slightly emotional eyes.
— Thank you, Benet.
Then she turned to Amrendi and said:
— I feel that with you, I can face any challenge. But yes, I want to know—when will the right time for the wedding be?
Beneti:
—I am happy with you as my new daughter. I want you to be free and fully certain about the step you are taking. Then that day will come…
— It will be when I see that you are completely calm and happy. I do not want to rush. But we should not wait too long either, because our families are waiting.
Ermira:
— Yes, they are always in my thoughts. But I want everything to happen in the best possible way.
Beneti smiled and continued with a touch of humor:
— When the time comes, we will hold the wedding at the Blue Villa. It will be the most beautiful celebration Benet Podgorica has ever seen. We will dance, we will sing, and we will celebrate until morning.
Ermira:
— I like the idea. It is good to have a place where we start our life together. And with your father’s blessing, everything will be joyful.
Beneti:
— Everything will go well, Ermira. Amrendi and you, our families, we will unite with love and respect. I am ready to await that day with a heart full of hope.
Ermira held his hand tightly and said with emotion:
— Me too, Father Benet. Me too.
Ermira:
— Mrs. Nela… since I haven’t spoken to you at all.
Nela (turning slowly and smiling):
— My heart… don’t call me “Mrs.” anymore, please. Call me “mother,” as this heart deserves.
Ermira (voice trembling, but with a clear light in her eyes):
— Mother… may I really? Can I say it?
Nela (taking her hands from the water flowing from the fountain, bringing her close and hugging her tightly):
— Beautiful Ermira, from the day I saw you beside my son, I felt that you were the one. Now you have become my daughter, not just a bride. Come here, embrace me! They hugged tightly. Tears of joy slipped from both their eyes.
Ermira:
— I don’t know what to say… only that I am so happy. And that I feel at home with you. You are very famous in this city, yet you are such simple people. I was surprised and deeply moved by you.
Nela:
— This is your home, my daughter. From today on, we will be a family. Soul to my soul! We will have a wedding that everyone will remember. We will laugh, we will cry, we will sing… but above all, we will be together.
Ermira:
— I feel it… I feel that I am no longer alone.
Nela (holding her face in her hands, looking her directly in the eyes):
— You will be blessed, my daughter. And you will have a mother who loves you, always by your side. I hope we will be a happy family and always together. Life has punished us harshly, but this system is against owners and Albanian nationalists.
(Another embrace. The sun sinks behind the mountains, and the garden fills with golden light. In the background, Amrendi’s voice is heard approaching, laughing.)
Days follow their unstoppable rhythm, like a river that flows with no return. Always present, yet always fleeting. Humans, powerless to stop it, invented a way to measure it: hours, minutes, seconds—illusory units to capture the ungraspable. But time is relative. It does not measure the same for everyone. If you live it well, with love and fulfillment, time flies. If you live it badly, in pain or emptiness, it stagnates, weighs, becomes a burden. Scientifically speaking, time is a dimension that changes with perception and motion. Philosophically, it is the mirror of life itself: the more meaning you give it, the more alive you feel within it.
Time does not ask. It does not turn back, repent, or stop for anyone. It is cold in judgment and blind in justice. It simply moves. We humans are the ones who try to hold it, understand it, give it meaning. In our attempts to control it, we set limits: we divide it into hours, minutes, seconds. But we cannot imprison it. It flows even when we stop, even when we forget to feel it.
For some, a year passes like a moment because they live fully—with love, motion, strong emotions. For others, a day may feel like a lifetime—when light is missing, when time is not lived but merely passed. Scientists see time as an axis that expands and contracts, influenced by speed, gravity, body, and motion. Philosophers, on the other hand, ask: “What are you, time? Memory? Forgetfulness? Death or rebirth?”
On a quiet evening, Beneti sat in his house dreaming of the Blue Villa, thinking: “How quickly everything passed… My struggle with life, the waiting, the pain, and then her—Ermira—like a light at the end of a dark time.” He smiled. “Perhaps time is not measured in hours, but in moments that change a person forever.”
After all these thoughts about time, Beneti lowered his head and sighed deeply.
— After this… difficult time, — he said softly, to himself. Days of happiness will come. Then he repeated the same words again:
— Now it seems to me there will be good days. Amrendi… he will bring light, happiness, and wealth to this house. He is a copy of my father—so talented, wise, hardworking. Thank God He gave me such a son…
Beneti lifted his eyes to the darkening sky, and a faint smile appeared on his face. Somewhere deep in his soul, a fragment of peace was taking hold. The wishes of a father who had seen much, lost much, but now was seeing a new light ignite the Blue Villa.
He lifted his cup of tea slightly:
— To you, Time… who tired me but did not break me. To you, Amrendi… who lifts me now. And to you, Ermira… who brings peace to this house.
THE WEDDING
“Marriage for love is a beautiful dream at first, but emigration fades its colors, until it withers like the petals of a rose in the heat of exile. Could the Blue Villa have been a place of curses for brides with the surname Podgorica?”
“In the Blue Villa, love was promised forever, but distance erased the vow. Every Podgorica bride carried a burden that was not hers alone.”
Nilaj’s house stood a little above the hill, overlooking half the bay. It was old but held a frightening calm within—as if it kept memories that did not wish to be revealed. In the months leading up to the wedding, the house filled with words, women’s laughter, wedding dresses spread over beds, and suitcases opening and closing without pause. But beyond the front window, the sea appeared sometimes clear like a mirror, sometimes turbulent and wild. Perhaps a sign.
The seaside club, on the other hand, was always lively. It was where she spent hours, alone or with friends, watching the lights reflected on the water at night. Everyone knew her there. The music from inside mixed with the sounds of the waves and the clinking glasses on the tables. There was something magical about that place, yet something uncertain, like a promise that could be broken by the wind at any moment.
No one spoke it aloud, but some began to feel a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather. The seaside club, once a refuge for her, began to seem like a stage where something more than a wedding would play out—perhaps a hidden fate, perhaps a silent curse on the women of the Podgorica surname.
It was Monday. The orchestra was set in the morning in its place, in a semicircle, in the small seaside hall. The venue was decorated, cleaned with care for the wedding. After the engagement, Ermira was already at Amrendi’s house—thus she had become a bride, as they say. The magic had happened. The rings had been exchanged, and both families were pleased with each other.
Beneti was the happiest. He visited the Blue Villa every day, where it had been born, and spoke to it. He often loved the villa and spoke to it with words of affection, but also reproached it—for it had not kept the family together. The villa had no voice; it did not speak. But there was a whistle in the air, the windows banged by themselves—it was the spirits still living there.
Beka was known to never leave that villa, because his love had happened there, and now he should be happy for the wedding his grandson was having, who resembled him so much: with the same beauty and intelligence. “Grandsons resemble more than sons,” they had always told him, but he hadn’t believed it—until it happened. The villa was joyful. It had never imagined it would once again become the property of its heirs.
It was an old love, between the villa and the Podgorica surname. Things that speak in silence are in love, says philosophy. Words are redundant. The wind takes them away. Actions remain.
Love had desolated this villa. Communism had raided it and violated it. Now it was time for it to return like a repentant bride and seek forgiveness for not coming sooner to the Podgorica family.
A silent but true love. This love would be renewed today, by the sea, on August 15, 1990—the very same date when Beka had married Asije, forty-eight years earlier. There would be a wedding in this city, in this former villa of the Podgorica millionaires.
Love forgets, travels through space—but it returns. It only depends on in what form and through which character. Today it had returned, in Beka’s blood. Love was coming. The surname was being revived.
These were the last words Beneti said to the Blue Villa, one day before the wedding:
“Before I leave, please, don’t let anything bad happen. We will come here again, like before, but this time with happiness and joy. We promise: communism will no longer separate us. Nothing else. I hope my father and mother are also here—either as ghosts or as living spirits. Because the soul never dies. I know this,” said Beneti.
“Today, the most beautiful bride of Durrës will come to you. Ermira will be the light of our house. I pray to God that nothing goes wrong.”
The wedding would take place at Nilaj’s house. Because she was my true mother. She raised me. She taught me everything. She is my mother. Nilaj—beautiful and kind-hearted—would remain forever here, in this city and on this hill. In this villa.
“Love often repeats itself,” he said. “Nilaj will be here. I will make her a bust at the entrance to the hill. People must know who she was—and what she did for us and for democracy in Albania.”
The beautiful pianist from Vienna, once appearing in newspapers all over the world, had been imprisoned here, surveilled, deprived of her right to work…
Her right to play the piano had been taken away.
Nilaj, once a renowned pianist, the pride of Vienna, who had performed in Europe’s grandest halls, in this small and gloomy country by the Adriatic, was no longer allowed to even touch the keyboard. The regime forbade it. For years, her hands, once hands of art, hands of the soul, remained silent. They were hands buried alive.
But now it was her time. The Blue Villa was reviving. It was like a cold body taking a breath again. And Nilaj, with all the pains of life, with all the lost years, was there. She was there when the news came that there would be a wedding. Not just any wedding—but a grand, rare, unexpected one.
Armendi, Beneti’s only son, was marrying Ermira. This news stirred the city. Word spread like the warm July wind: The Count was getting married! The Blue Villa was opening! It was rising again on its feet, like an empire that time had not killed, only put to sleep.
The wedding would be held at the seaside club—a small venue once, but for this event transformed. It was decided that the orchestra would be arranged in a semicircle, the same configuration as the halls where Nilaj had once played. It was a silent tribute to her. A resurrection for her.
The club was decorated with lights, flowers, and white curtains waving like ship sails. White chairs were arranged for over two thousand people. It was incredible. From Tirana, Durrës, Vlora, Shkodra—even from Kosovo—people had been informed. It would be a grand wedding. A celebration. An event.
“Armendi is getting married—the son of Beneti! The new Count!”—people whispered excitedly across the city.
The venue had never seen such an arrangement before. On the small stage, new microphones were set up, lights arranged, and instruments placed—the piano, violins, trombones, saxophone, even a harp brought from abroad. It was an effort to bring back the harmony of the past. It was a return. It was a promise.
At the center was a photograph of Nilaj.
Placed in a large, heavy frame, with a simple yet noble decoration, the photograph stood there like a silent icon, sanctified by memory. Smiling, young, her hair lightly pulled back, eyes clear, looking toward the light—as she had been when performing in Europe—Nilaj seemed still among them.
People approached the photograph with care, with respect, as if passing before a shrine. Some paused for a moment, making the sign of the cross in silence; others simply bowed slightly, as to greet a sign of greatness that had left its mark on their history.
Beneti had requested that it be placed exactly there—in the center, between the orchestra and the tables, so everyone could see it. It was the deepest honor one could give to someone who was not just a mother, but the foundation of that land’s soul, and the silent melody of this entire wedding.
On her photograph was written by hand:
“The Wedding Invitation”
And below, in large, clear letters:
“Nilaj is not a guest. She is here forever.”
At the bottom of the frame, a white ribbon bore words touching every heart:
“Love never dies. It lives in memory, in music, in light.”
“On August 15, 1990, by the sea, at the Blue Villa—the revival of love and the Podgorica name. We invite you to an unforgettable wedding. Armendi & Ermira.”
We love you, Nilaj.
“Love never dies. It lives in memory, in music, in light.”
The hour was approaching noon, and the air above the sea held a solemn calm, as if preparing the place for an event that would remain long in the city’s memory.
The orchestra was arranged in a semicircle, the musicians dressed in white and black, like a choir of angels called to illuminate the wedding. The piano was placed by the window overlooking the sea. It was that old piano—the one Nilaj had once played. They had carefully dusted off years of neglect, as if cleaning a sacred relic. Now it awaited the first hands that would touch it after so many years.
When the first piano note was heard, everything stopped. It was a simple melody, yet full of feeling—a greeting from Nilaj herself, a memory revived through the hands of a young pianist, whose fingers trembled slightly from emotion.
Then, the door of the venue slowly opened, and Ermira entered.
She walked calmly, in a white dress that flowed like a wave in the gentle breeze. Her hair was tied up, with a small blue flower, the color of the sea, adorning the left side of her head—in homage to the Blue Villa. Everyone’s eyes turned to her, but hers remained fixed on Nilaj’s photograph, as if receiving her blessing, as if she had awaited this moment all her life.
Beneti met her in the center of the hall, eyes teary, heart full. He knew: true love is never forgotten. It remains in the blood, in the name, in the house… and in the song that brings life back.
In a corner of the hall, near a column covered with white flowers and olive branches, stood Armendi. Dressed in a simple gray suit, but with a presence that showed strength and composure. His eyes looked at no one but… Ermira. He did not smile, but his face carried a deep glow, like that of a man who has waited long, yet never gave up.
When she approached, he extended his hand without a word, and Ermira gently placed hers into his. It was a calm touch, but full of trust. A calmness that speaks louder than any promise.
The hall was packed. The entire city had come—over two thousand people. Young and old, women in traditional costumes, men with white hats, children running through the courtyard. Everyone wanted to be there, to witness this rare day. The old count had arrived, the elderly doctor who had once saved Nilaj from a heart attack was present, along with Beneti’s former comrades, artists, teachers, people who had once been punished for their dreams.
Word had spread everywhere: “Armendi is getting married… at the Blue Villa… the place where love was tormented, but never died!”
Some called it madness, some a miracle. But everyone felt that this wedding was more than the union of two hearts—it was the revival of something greater, something deeper: eternal love, which survived distance, exile, silence, and pain.
Amid all those people, the Blue Villa no longer seemed sad. Its windows radiated light. Its spirit was alive. And somewhere inside, quietly, Nilaj’s photograph seemed to smile.
The orchestra paused for a moment. The violin fell silent, piano notes faded into the air, and a solemn calm enveloped the entire hall.
Armendi slowly rose, took Ermira’s hand, and led her to the microphone. His face was serious, yet illuminated by a warm inner light. He placed the ring on her finger and then spoke:
— “This is not just a wedding. This is a return. A return to the house of memories, to the Blue Villa where it all happened—love, struggle, loss, hope. Today, with this ring, I give you not only a promise, but also a pledge: that together we will build a life worthy of all those who dreamed of this day. Communism destroyed us, took our wealth, killed our loved ones. It was against all of us. Dear guests, it is time to crush this system, and the chaos it brought upon us.”
He turned toward the guests, who were now standing, touched. Then he turned his gaze toward Nilaj. He greeted all those present at the wedding, gesturing with his hand to each in turn. Finally, his eyes returned to the bride. And he said:
— “Ermira, you are my blue lily. With you, I want to start everything anew, here, in this villa that is reborn today. Communism took much, but it could not extinguish love. Today it grows again. We will restore our family values, inherited through the centuries—not with communist slogans, but with traditional national values.”
She looked at him with tears in her eyes and a smile. They embraced, while the audience erupted in applause.
The orchestra began again, this time with a gentle, pure waltz, like the sea in front of them. And they danced their first dance—under the open sky, with lights twinkling above the Podgorica name, which was finally coming back to life.
The waltz began slowly, like a soft wave caressing the shore. Armendi and Ermira turned to each other, hand in hand, and their first steps seemed like another vow—unwritten, yet profound. Soft lights shone upon them, while the orchestra’s sounds spread over the calm sea, as if it were listening.
The guests stood. Around two thousand—friends, relatives, well-wishers, simple people from the city and surrounding villages—had come to witness the wedding that had become a legend. For it was not merely a wedding, but a liberation, a sign of new times. The return of love to the home where it had once been wounded.
In a corner, an elderly man with white hair and deep blue eyes held his hand over his heart. It was the ghost of Beka. He watched Armendi, his grandson, with a longing only years could bring. A guest approached and said:
— “He resembles you greatly, not only in his smiling eyes but in his courage. Look how he speaks to the crowd, as if conducting life itself.”
Beka smiled and replied:
— “He is my continuation. But better. He will never leave the Blue Villa. He has understood that true love is staying in your home and giving it light.”
Beka left silently. No one saw him rise; no one heard his steps on the cobblestones leading to the hill. Only the full moon lit his silhouette for a moment above the Blue Villa. He slowly disappeared, like a beautiful memory fading at dawn.
The wedding continued peacefully. The sounds of the piano intertwined with the voices of the guests and the scent of flowers carried by the sea. The lights shone softly, as if not to disturb the spirit that had just departed.
— “Ghosts return only when they have a mission,” said an elderly man, standing in the doorway, eyes toward the hill. He wiped his tears slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if not to disturb the beauty of the moment, and added:
— “He has completed his mission. Now he can rest, in peace.”
In the background, Nilaj’s photograph still shone in the center of the club, like another moon—witness to love, pain, and reconciliation.
Later, as couples began to join in the dance, Armendi took the microphone again for a moment:
— “Dear guests, first let me share my joy and return to you the happiness of weddings. Today is a great day for our family name. Today I do not swear only to love Ermira. Today I swear that the Blue Villa will be our home forever. That no regime will ever take from us our name or our roots. Our love will live here.”
Then he turned to the sky:
— “Dear Blue Villa, wait for me. I am coming with the most beautiful flower in the world: the blue lily, with Ermira.”
As night approached its calmest hours, Ermira stood. She walked slowly to where Beka had stood, by the window overlooking the expanse of the Blue Villa. She touched the empty chair, as if to feel the warmth of his presence.
— “Thank you, grandfather,” she said softly but clearly. “You opened our path. Without you, this love would have found no shelter. Without you, I could not have found myself in this place that I will now call home.”
Armendi stepped beside her and placed his hand on Ermira’s shoulder. His eyes were wet.
— “What has been written will happen. I believe grandfather saw us. And I hope he is happy,” added Armendi. “In a way, he comes again, triumphant this time, defeating time and the communists.”
The grandfather addressed… the sky. “You are great.”
— “You did not leave, grandfather. You are here. In every step we take. On every stone of this villa. We will continue where you left off. The Blue Villa will live again. The Podgorica name will no longer be silent.”
He looked at Nilaj’s photograph and concluded with a firm voice:
— “Communism took much from us, but love returned it. Now it is time for life.”
The last light of the day struck the window where Beka had stood. A light, warm breeze was felt in the club. It was like a farewell sigh. A quiet promise that everything was now in its place.
It was Beka’s ghost walking invisibly around the Blue Villa, with a faint smile on his faded face. He rejoiced—for finally what he had once dreamed of was happening, yet never had the time to live: the wedding. The new bride had just entered the grand gate, and the villa, silent for so many years, now seemed to breathe again. She—the Blue Villa—was full of joy, even though time had worn her down. The walls needed restoration, the roof repairs, and the windows new light, yet she still stood gracefully atop the hill, proud as always. She was the most beautiful villa in the city—perhaps even more magnificent than the king’s own residence.
And the wedding, that long-awaited wedding, concluded. Yet its joy lingered in the air, mingled with the scent of roses and a faint whisper that seemed to come from another world. Beka had left his mission unfinished, but now his spirit rested more peacefully.
The last lights slowly faded in the courtyard of the Blue Villa. The evening breeze gently swayed the curtains in the old windows, as if the house itself were trying to say something—a silent thank you, a distant greeting to her lost son and to the grandson who now came to sow new life upon the traces of the past.
But Beneti and Ermira, their hands still bound by the newly placed rings, would not begin their life in that villa. The Blue Villa carried a wound that had not yet healed. It was the villa that Beka, Beneti’s father, had built for his marriage to Asije, the woman who took her own life in Ulcinj after their separation. It was the most tearful, the most tragic story the country had ever witnessed. Beka could not witness his grandson’s wedding; he fled Durrës when Russian-style communism seized everything and ended his life at the border, to avoid capture and execution.
Now it was the turn of his son—Beneti—to see his own child, Armendi, grow up in peace. And for that, a villa was not necessary—life itself was. Even if it began in a simple apartment entrance, built by the communists who had taken everything from them.
There, in a small entryway, among gray walls and winding stairs, Ermira and Armendi would begin life together. The Blue Villa would remain a dream—for tomorrow. It would wait for their child, the offspring of Armendi and Ermira, to grow. So that the family story would no longer end in suicide and sorrow, but in rebuilding—a life that no longer needed to hide, escape, or vanish at borders.
After the noise of fireworks, songs, toasts, and endless dancing, the city finally fell silent. The day, warm and exhausted from the heat of a furious August, seemed like a tired body after a feast. Under the dim light of a lamp left burning by forgetfulness, Ermira and Armendi entered the bedroom. The white dress, his black suit with loosened collar—all were thrown to the floor carelessly, as if the night itself no longer deserved any effort.
They lay on the white bed like two heavy stones, sinking into a sea of fatigue and fulfillment. For a moment, no words were spoken. Only their breathing could be heard, deep and slow, like the breath of the sea after a storm.
But bodies cannot sleep long when hearts are alive. Before morning had knocked, they awoke with a new calm in their eyes. Moonlight slid across the curtains as she went first, entering the bathroom, washing her hair, face, and skin—as if to cleanse not only the sweat of the celebration but the emotions that had simmered within her. He followed. They washed, dressed in simple clothes, and when they returned to bed, they no longer spoke as newlyweds, but as two souls that had joined long before—before words, before laws.
Then he gently touched her cheek, and she placed her hand over his chest. They made love with quiet, mature sensitivity, as if they were laying the foundations of a new world—their world.
Afterwards, lying on the still-warm sheets, they began speaking of the future.
— “Do you think the Blue Villa is upset?” Ermira asked. “She must have opened her large windows to welcome us… but today she has opened them only to the sun.”
— “You speak beautifully, my bride,” said Armendi, lightly taking her cheek and kissing it tenderly. “The villa will wait a little longer. We will go there tonight and hold our true ceremony, where we belong… and from where we came.”
They spoke at length. About the walls they would paint themselves, the gate they would open every evening together, the names of children not yet born but already present in their imagination—the daughter with her mother’s eyes, the son with his surname—the surname that would continue, not as a burden, but as an embrace.
In that room, scented with orange blossoms and the sweat of love, they rebuilt the world with words, gentle promises, and hope.
Late in the afternoon, as the sun began to fade over the distant hills, Ermira and Armendi set off toward the Blue Villa. There they would perform their second ritual of marriage—the spiritual one—before the memory of their grandparents, who they were certain would be there with them, invisible but present.
The villa was magnificent. Its large windows opened toward the west, and the main door stood ajar, as if awaiting them. A few close friends had arrived earlier to prepare everything. Candles were lit, and in the main hall, an old tape recorder played symphonic music by Mozart and Bach—a setting that transported the mind far away, into the aristocratic spaces of Western Europe. And in the height of the communist regime, this was no small act.
They slowly opened the door and sat in the hall’s chairs. The music flowed gently through the curtains, as if even the walls breathed to the same rhythm. The entire space was filled with a sacred calm, and for a moment, Ermira and Armendi felt they were not alone.
The spirits had come. They were there. Both felt it.
The hall of the Blue Villa breathed in the evening. Candles glowed softly, flames flickering. The Mozart music lowered in volume. Ermira remained silent, standing near the door. Armendi sat, eyes closed, slightly leaning forward, as in prayer. Suddenly, he spoke in a low voice:
— “Grandfather Beka… Grandmother Asije… Have you come?”
— “I am here.”
— “This is our villa… the one you once dreamed of in silence, when you were not allowed to dream. You built it with your hands, your memories, your hope. Come, grandfather… Come, grandmother… do you hear me?”
[Pause. A soft breath passes through the room. The sounds of the air seem to form words.] Grandfather Beka’s voice (calm, deep):
I hear you, son.
Your voice called me from afar.
This place is beautiful… more than I could have imagined when I was alive.
Grandmother Asije’s voice (warm, clear):
Armend… my little grandson…
How you have changed.
It warms my heart to see how you love your wife. Just as true love does: quietly, but with deep roots.
Armendi (emotional):
I have come to ask for your blessing.
To truly marry—not in the eyes of people, but in yours.
To know that you will be with us when our children are born, when we speak of you to them.
All of this… this villa… this life I want to build… is also yours.
Grandfather Beka:
My blessing is upon you, boy.
You are beyond my blood. You are the embodiment of the freedom we never had.
Build. Plant. Educate. Never forget your roots.
Grandmother Asije (addressing Armendi softly):
When you caress your child, think of the language you will speak to them.
Teach them not to bow before injustice, but never to forget kindness.
Armendi (voice trembling):
I will remember every day. I will do my best… more than I can…
Thank you for coming…
[Breaths fade slowly, but the aroma of candles and memories remains. Ermira approaches and embraces him.]
Ermira:
Did you hear them… or feel them?
Armendi:
I heard them. And I felt them… as if they were touching my soul.
[They continue their ritual together in the Blue Villa’s hall.]
The hall of the Blue Villa. Candles continue to burn. The lights are dim. The symphonic music stops suddenly. Only silence remains—a silence that does not frighten, but invites into eternity. Armendi takes Ermira’s hand. They stand before an old photograph of Grandfather Beka and Grandmother Asije, placed on a dresser with white flowers.
Armendi (calmly):
This is not just a marriage…
This is a promise before those who are no longer here and before those yet to come.
Ermira, I choose you not only for today, but for the times we have yet to know.
I choose you to build, to protect, to fall, and to rise together.
Ermira (voice trembling but clear):
Armend, I accept you not only as a husband, but as a companion on the life we will build.
With you, I want to laugh when it is light, and hold your hand when darkness falls.
This place… this villa… is our silent temple.
Let it be our home of memory, of feeling, and of new beginnings.
[Armendi takes from his pocket an old ring—a simple, faded silver ring. He places it on Ermira’s finger.]
Armendi:
This was my grandmother’s ring. She didn’t have much, but she had love that never faded.
Now it is yours.
[Ermira gives him a simple necklace with an old coin, a “two-lek” from 1940.]
Ermira:
This belonged to my grandfather. A memory from his departure. I saved it for someone who would understand that life is more than words.
Now it is yours.
[They both bow to the photograph. They stand in silence for a moment.]
Armendi:
This is our marriage.
Not with much noise, but with much heart.
Ermira:
Let us begin here. Illuminated by those who are no longer here…
…and for those who will come.
[The candles flare for a moment. It seems the air carries a familiar scent… like fresh bread from childhood, or the preserved aroma of love through generations.]
Grandmother Asije’s voice (faint, in the air):
Live. Do not fear pain. Fear not forgetting.
Grandfather Beka’s voice (distant):
Have roots, but open your arms everywhere.
My grandchildren will rule the world.
What I could not do… do it yourselves.
It is a duty to the bloodline and the family name.
[Armendi sits by the candle, eyes wet with emotion. He takes a deep breath and speaks softly, as if addressing his grandfather directly.]
Armendi:
Grandfather Beka, your voice reaches my soul.
Your words are the roots that keep me strong.
I know you did not have an easy life. You fought and won. It was not easy to fight communism and the heart of a grandmother who did not love you.
But you built a legacy that I will carry forward.
You ask me not to forget, and I will never forget.
I will preserve the history, the pain, and the hope you left me.
I will raise the children with your values, with the pride of manhood,
And I will teach them to be free and courageous.
In this changing world,
I promise to be the guardian of our roots,
And that our love for family, for you, grandparents, will be the light that guides us.
I will never let what you endured be forgotten.
I will turn suffering into strength and build a bright future.
Now, and forever, we will be together—both in the language of silence and the language of love.
[The faint voice of Grandfather Beka spreads through the room, a breath leaving but remaining forever in Armendi’s heart.]
Grandfather Beka (ghost): Armend, listen carefully, for these are my last words…
Man today has become unfaithful, without law, without morals, a monster that only knows how to devour anyone who stands in his way. Albanians, once proud, have now been torn to pieces under the weight of foreign rule and betrayals within themselves.
When Russian communism arrived, we lost everything: blood, clan, race… The wealthy were destroyed by the workers and their corrupt system. Law vanished, and evil multiplied. Unfortunately, with the death of Hitler and others, darkness spread even more.
Take care, Armend! Trust no one but yourself. Women? Now they are cold, changing like the seasons, and marriage is a real battle. Guard yourself against unfaithfulness, betrayal, the darkness that comes from within. Never forgive betrayal, Armend! Never forgive betrayal!
I am going now… but you, keep this command! Keep hope alive, keep memory alive, because only in this way will you rise and become who you are meant to be.
Never forget, Armend: history is your strongest weapon. Do not let it be lost.
In the end, the voice fades slowly, while Armend remains silent, eyes filled with tears and a heavy responsibility in his soul.
“Betrayal that comes dressed in the guise of youth is nothing but a beautiful reminder of an old pain.”
Promises of Love
Blue Villa. The warm summer evening had wrapped the coast in the scent of sea and lavender. Soft lights in the room illuminated their faces as Armend and Ermira stood close to each other on the wooden balcony, watching the stars light up one by one.
Armend:
“If tomorrow takes everything from us, I will hold this moment as eternity. I love you, Ermira. And I promise that not a single word, not a single hidden thought, will betray me in my love for you.”
Ermira (softly):
“In this villa, under this sky, everything feels real. Not a dream, but a promise. And yes, Armend… if you allow, I want to kiss you on the lips.”
They were still at the Blue Villa. Armend leaned forward and kissed his bride. Then he placed his hand on her shoulder and whispered,
“I love you, star of my life.”
Then Armend took her hand and placed it over his heart:
“This heart has only one name, Ermira. Yours. Even if the world changes, even if we change, I will never turn away from what I feel for you. I swear it.”
Ermira (eyes shining with emotion):
“I swear it too. No word, no thought, no temptation will ever take me from you. I believe in us, in this love, as I believe in the morning light after the night.”
A gentle silence fell. The breeze carried the scent of the sea. The villa’s blue lights reflected in their eyes.
Armend drew her closer, embracing her:
“This is not the end of a love. This is the beginning of a new life. Our marriage is not a coronation, but a spiritual covenant that will last longer than any paper marriage.”
Ermira (leaning on his chest):
“I do not want to fear the word ‘forever,’ because with you, it no longer feels like a burden. With you, it is rest.”
The Oath of the Heart
Night had completely fallen over the Blue Villa. Its lights glowed warmly, while the sea gently lapped the shore. On the wooden balcony, under the shadow of a full moon, Ermira and Armend faced each other. Silence was sacred. She took a deep breath and began her oath, in a calm but determined voice.
Ermira:
“Armend… I want you to know that I am not like Asija. I am not like the one who did not love your grandfather, Beka, who turned her back when he needed love most. I will never leave you alone. I will never see you as a burden, as fatigue, or as an obstacle… but as my missing half when you are not near.”
She reached for his hands and placed hers in his. Her eyes were full of light.
Ermira:
“I swear…
To be by your side when you are strong and when you feel broken.
To love you when the world applauds you, and even more when it forgets you.
To be your words when your voice is gone, and your rest when you cannot find peace.
I will love you unconditionally, without fear, without end.”
Armend (resting his forehead against hers):
“You are the gift I never asked for, but I have waited for all my life. And with this oath, you have made me the richest man in the world.”
Ermira (whispering):
“My love will never abandon you. Not in this life, nor in the next. This is my oath… the Oath of the Heart.”
They remained for a few more moments like that, silent, in an embrace that spoke louder than any words. Their heartbeats synchronized. On that balcony of the Blue Villa, where stars fell like blessings upon them, their love oath became sacred.
Armend (kissing her forehead):
“Ermira… with you, I fear no time, no old age, no loneliness. You are the promise that will never break.”
She smiled and felt joy. Finally, she said:
Ermira (softly smiling):
“And you are my shelter, my strength, my person. Whatever comes, we will face it together.”
And they looked into each other’s eyes, unmoving, completely absorbed in one another.
From inside the house, someone called: “The wedding car is coming!” The sounds of music were heard in the courtyard, where friends and family waited with applause. Ermira and Armend looked at each other again. No words were needed. They understood everything with their eyes.
They descended the stairs, hand in hand. Ermira’s dress swayed like rose petals, Armend in his elegant suit, pride in his gaze. Everyone greeted them with flowers, joy, and tears.
The wedding car was white, decorated with blue ribbons and white balloons. Armend opened the door for Ermira, and she sat carefully. He sat beside her. Hands tightly clasped, the car moved along the road, even though it was night.
They would no longer stay in the villa…
They were not only heading toward a house—they were heading toward a new life.
Beneti’s house, Armend’s father, was the first stop on a journey that began with an oath: a love that would never betray.
Love oaths last as long as one lives, because life always has stops and events that can make one forget. Especially women never make a truly sincere oath—perhaps it is best not to swear at all.
It was the first night after the wedding.
After making their oath at the Blue Villa, they called a taxi that took them to their home, in an old apartment with two rooms and a kitchen—Beneti’s residence.
The taxi driver took them immediately. The evening was beautiful. A light mist and the scent of sea iodide filled their noses.
Armend opened the car door for Ermira, and she sat immediately. They joined hands and looked at each other closely. Sitting together, hand in hand.
They took the back seat. Armend then placed his hand on her shoulder, stroked her hair, and said:
“I love you. You are so beautiful. Such a perfect creature that I barely dare touch… you are so beautiful, my bride…”
Ermira:
“Hahaha! Don’t exaggerate, my dear. Look at yourself in the mirror! How handsome you are… You are like a European model: tall, handsome, and strong—not to mention your intelligence. No wonder you were the best in school. You aced every exam, even if the communists would not give you a scholarship to continue higher education…”
And he lowered his head slightly, clearly feeling a tinge of sadness. Many students with straight A’s like you were not given the right to study. They ended up in workshops—either in construction or in cooperatives—because all of us had bad biographies. Meanwhile, those with Cs received the best scholarships. How unfair, how shameful!
She finished speaking.
Armend said nothing—he just watched. A small tear fell from his eye to the ground.
“No… they won’t give me the right to study. This is insane… But I have studied very well. I know everything about cars by heart. I’m an excellent electro-auto specialist and a good mechanic. I think no one can match me in electronics. Even as a subject, I got straight A’s. I love electronics most… I want to open my own service center, to fix cars in the future. Because communism is over, Ermira. Today they won’t give me the scholarship, but next year they will be gone. I feel it. Communism is over.”
“We know that, my dear husband,” said Ermira, brushing the hair that had fallen over Armend’s eyes.
“Look, my dear husband… My grandfather used to say: ‘Communism and socialism were invented by the Freemasons. They never disappear. They are humanity’s greatest evil.’”
Russian communism was the plague that swept across Europe. Now I tell you what my grandfather used to say: They never leave; they just change form and return. They are like chameleons. They appear as protestors or philanthropists, but they don’t care at all for the poor. They play this role—they are actors.
But in truth, they are against the family, for homosexuality, for single-parent households, for promiscuity among genders. “God forbid!” my grandfather would say… There is nothing worse. Perverse, filthy creatures in power. In fact, they are unrealized people in life. They have had no family, they use and sell drugs. They are lesbians and homosexuals. In the end, you can sum them up as soulless dark people who hold the stamp of the state in their hands.”
She finished her story.
Armend gently kissed her on the lips and said:
“My dear wife… you are very precise. I have studied this subject myself. I know socialists well. There are no more chameleons than them. Everywhere they are the same—in Italy, in America… the same cut. The same regime, murderous and brutal. They see you as an object. They have no feelings, believe me,” she said.
“I know, I know, my dear wife. Our oath is to love Albania and defeat the communists!”
“Yessss!” Ermira shouted, her voice long and drawn out. “I love you, Armend!”
And she kissed him again on the lips. It was a kiss of love. Of a noble future that does not know deceit, because in their veins flows noble blue blood. From those creatures who love their country, their family, and their people.
The taxi driver opened his eyes in astonishment—he had never seen such a beautiful, loving couple.
“Like in a movie…” he murmured, as he drove them to Beneti’s house.
The first house, the first welcome.
They were not only heading to a house—they were heading to a new life.
The taxi stopped in front of the old building near the port. Armend opened the door, offered his hand to Ermira, and helped her out. She still carried the scent of her wedding perfume, her hair simply tied, her face tired but illuminated by a new feeling: shyness, excitement, and a touch of anxiety.
At the door, Beneti, Armend’s father, waited. Beside him stood Nela, his wife, and on the other side—an elderly woman with a thin scarf over her shoulders: Ermira’s mother-in-law, Nela’s mother.
As soon as they saw them, all three stood. Beneti stepped forward, first embracing his son, then extending his arms toward Ermira.
“Come on, my daughter! I wish you a long life and many children, my beautiful daughter. May God bless you,” he said, kissing her forehead. He lifted his eyes to the sky and prayed for his son and the beautiful bride. “God bless, keep and grow my family. I think we have suffered enough… haven’t we, Lord?”
Then he turned to her with a bow, like a gentleman:
“Welcome, my daughter!” he said, his voice warm but strained with emotion.
“Glad to see you, Father…” said Ermira, bowing, kissing his hand.
Nela approached, hugged her, and gently adjusted her hair behind her ear.
“Oh my heart, how beautiful you are! You have brightened our house. Now we even have a daughter. May you live long!” she said, eyes glistening.
“Do not be afraid, my daughter. From now on, this is your home. May God bless you! We will support you wherever you go. And whatever difficulties come, tell us, my daughter. We will come running—not just Armend, but both of us. Now you are our daughter that we never had.”
She kissed her forehead lightly, with love and respect for the bride and the mother of her grandchildren. If there is one love in this world, it is the love between mother and child. But after that comes the love of a mother for her son’s bride. All other words are empty.
Ermira felt tears well up on their own. She had imagined this moment many times, but had never pictured it so warmly. The house was simple—two rooms, a small kitchen, a window overlooking the sea—but now it had meaning. It was the house of beginnings, first embraces, shy silences, and new love that would grow there, within yellow walls and voices of people who welcomed her with open hearts.
The four of them sat at the small kitchen table. Nela brought coffee; Beneti brought out a bottle of rakia; the mother-in-law, Nela’s mother, began telling stories from when she herself had come as a bride to the same house half a century ago. Those floors were prefab, just like their fates under communism.
The first night in the new house
After coffees in the warm silence of the kitchen, after stories that stretched like spider webs across generations, and after the last kiss on the forehead from the mother-in-law before she retired to her room—they were alone.
Ermira stood in the center of the small bedroom, holding a small bag, unsure where to place it.
Armend looked at her from the doorway and smiled.
“I know, it’s not a villa like where we had the wedding… but it’s ours. Our beginning. And… trust me, we will make miracles even here,” he said, taking the bag from her hand and placing it on the old wooden dresser.
Ermira lowered her head. She did not expect luxury. But suddenly, everything felt real. That small house, the walls holding the smell of old dampness, and the echoes of voices from people who had lived there for decades. Now, it was someone’s home. And every morning of hers would begin in this room.
“I’m a little scared,” she said softly.
“I am always scared… when I love deeply. And I love you deeply,” he added, turning toward her with sincerity from the depths of his soul.
Armend approached, placed his hands on her small shoulders, and looked her straight in the eyes.
“Do not be afraid. We will overcome everything together. Even the lack of a scholarship, even the old chains of this house, even the system that is falling… together. Because I trust you. And I want you to trust me too.”
She smiled, a half-grateful, half-forgiving smile for her fear.
“Trust,” Armend said, “is the bridge that connects two unique souls. It is born from vulnerability and planted with patience, making love not just a feeling, but a permanent covenant of respect, continuity, and remembrance. Without it, the bond loses depth; with it, every obstacle becomes an opportunity to grow together.”
“I trust you,” Ermira said. “And if one day, from this house with its small windows, with not-so-new curtains, a child cries somewhere in the corner, who will do the impossible to ensure this surname lives on—this child will be happy. It will be because we started happy from this night. From this room.”
He hugged her slowly. Held her for a long time. Outside, the sound of the sea crashed like a silent blessing for a beginning that was not perfect—but real.
The city lights shone beyond the small window. On that first night, in that modest bed, it was not only a young couple who slept—but a new world was created.
“The Invisible Threads of Life”
The day began with the noise of the bread truck passing every morning beneath the old building. Ermira had woken early, before anyone had turned on the lights. She got up slowly, so as not to wake Armend, who still slept with his hand under his cheek, tired from a night of fragmented thoughts and dreams. In the small kitchen, with walls carrying the scent of a bygone era, she began preparing coffee for herself and Nela. Armend’s mother came every morning from the other room, as if it were an unspoken habit—sometimes with gentle words, sometimes with silent reprimands.
“You woke up early, daughter-in-law?” Nela said, entering and placing a basket of vegetables from the market on the table.
“Yes, the city noise… and my thoughts woke me,” Ermira smiled, filling her cup.
“Life doesn’t wait, my daughter. It’s not like weddings. Here, everything is calculated. Poverty is extreme. These incomes are not enough for anyone. But we have nowhere to sink…”
Nela was not a bad woman. She had endured much in life—an ill husband, hard years of labor, a system that had promised paradise and returned only silence and disappointment. She loved her son with all her heart and now wanted to see in his wife a continuation of the patience she herself had cultivated over the years.
“We are now family in a large home, my daughter,” she said. “There will be difficulties, but we will move forward with the rhythm of this surname. Fate has brought us together, and now we share the same goal…”
Meanwhile, Armend had woken up and gone down to the old garage of the building, where he had started working on some cars for drivers who lived in the neighborhood. It was not work with papers. It was the first job with… “honor,” as he put it. He was a master both theoretically and practically. He knew exactly what he was doing, and people began seeking him out. From one car a week, he went to three. Then five.
They no longer went to the state workshop because it not only involved long waits but also had very old equipment, and a defect would take over a month to repair.
One day, Ermira found him sitting silently in the kitchen—Armend, Nela, and Beneti. In the middle of the table was a letter—a warning about the suspension of his activity by the state.
“We don’t have a license. Nor permission to open the service.”
“But this is unfair!” Ermira burst out. “He is not a criminal; he is a master. He has a dream. Is it no longer allowed to have dreams in this country?”
Beneti sighed. “This country was not made for dreams, daughter. It was made for endurance.”
“You are wrong,” Armend said. “I have no intention of giving up. If they close this door, I will open another. I will do it legally, properly, even if it takes years. I no longer want to hide. I want to build my life with my own sweat.”
Ermira approached and rested her head on his shoulder.
“You are more than a dream. You are the only man brave enough to move forward in this weary country.”
“Soon, they will be gone. It’s certain, I assure you, my wife. They have come to an end. They have nowhere to go without allowing private activity.”
“And I will open my own private service, in my name.”
“If I get Villa Blu, there’s plenty of space. I could open many things, not just a service,” Armend said, his eyes lowered to the floor from fatigue and despair.
In the evenings, Ermira returned home and spent time with her mother-in-law, who began to see her differently.
“You have a strong heart,” she said one night. “You are not only beautiful. You are patient. And for that, I have made you my daughter-in-law.”
Ermira felt a tear slip down her cheek. It was the first time her mother-in-law had accepted her wholeheartedly. Nilaj always said, “Don’t trust women’s love.” Do you remember that?
Days passed like water in a river—irreversible, unhesitant, without regret. Life flowed in the quiet of a place that seemed never to change, yet beneath the surface, everything was moving. The communist reality had begun to crack. Communism had fallen in Romania, and here in Albania, it floundered in its final agony.
People began to split into two paths: some thought only of leaving, starting anew away from old walls; others, with courage or perhaps illusion, wanted to stay, take loans, open small businesses, buy a car—the dream of every Albanian at that time.
Armend, sitting by the window of the narrow room, thought about his service. It was the dream that kept him alive in a reality that was collapsing and rising at the same time. “If I get Villa Blu, I could open many things there. Not just a service. I could build our real life,” he told Ermira one evening, his eyes tired from work and hope dimmed by every piece of news.
Foreign television spoke of the end of regimes. Student demonstrations in Albania, protests, voices that, for the first time, were not afraid—everything seemed to show a light at the end of the tunnel. But the party was still there. It had won the first pluralist elections, but no one believed anymore. It was like a wounded animal striking in the dark.
In that atmosphere, Ermira often faced her mother-in-law Nela. The elderly woman was no longer an enemy—she was just a person from another world who could no longer understand the present. But in her eyes, Ermira was never simply the girl who had to come to this house. And that hurt.
Yet, when their first son, Glauku, was born, everything turned in an instant into reconciliation. The tears that fell that day were not political. They were tears of joy, tears of hope.
But outside the walls of the house, the country was still dominated by the shadow of old power. There were people who did not give up their orders from the mat, from fear and control. Armend knew it: it took courage to build a future in this weary country. But he had made his vow—for Ermira, for his son, for himself.
In the nursery, soft afternoon light fell. Peace. The city noise came as a distant echo, and only the regular breathing of the baby filled the air with calm.
Armend sat beside the small bed where the five-month-old boy slept peacefully. He took the little hand in his palm and, with a… With a tired but warm smile, she began speaking in a low voice, as if her words were sent directly to his pure heart:
“My son… you are a miracle. You are more than any dream I’ve ever had. I want you to know, even now, while you are so little, that I love your mother more than anything in this world. I loved her the first time I saw her… and that love kept me alive when everything seemed impossible.”
He was silent for a moment, then brushed a strand of hair that had fallen on the baby’s forehead with his finger.
“But listen to me now, my boy… You will not share my fate. You will not grow up in fear, with lack, with voices telling you ‘no’ to everything. You will grow up with everything you need. You will have books, toys, sunny days, and peaceful nights. You will live in a free country… in another Albania, like the one your grandfather told us about, where people were proud, honest, and family held the highest value.”
He caressed the child’s cheek and continued in an even slower voice:
“Your mother and I will do everything to make this happen. We didn’t want much from life, just to see you smile, to grow up free, kind, wise… and never alone. You will have brothers and sisters…”
He shivered slightly in his sleep, and Armend gently kissed his forehead, as if sealing a blessing for the future that awaited him.
“You are my life, my son. And your life… will be more beautiful than mine.”
From the slightly open door, Ermira stood still. She had come quietly to see if her son had fallen asleep, but stopped as soon as she heard Armend’s voice. Every word he spoke fell like a warm tear on the wounds she had shared with no one.
He was speaking to their son—not loudly, not to be heard, but with that voice that emerges only when one speaks from the soul. And she, for the first time in a long while, felt an invisible hand press warmly against her chest. Not with pain. With love.
She leaned slowly against the doorframe. The words “I love your mother more than anything in the world” struck her heart like a wave, washing away all the doubts, fatigue, and silence she had shared with Armend. She could not hold back her tears. They flowed silently down her cheeks, without a sound, like forgiveness that had never been asked for.
She did not enter the room. She left Armend alone with their son and his words, which now belonged to them both. But when she returned to the kitchen, her eyes shone. She sat by the window and, for the first time in a long while, felt a small light within herself. A feeling that whispered:
Perhaps it is worth believing again.
She was employed as a caregiver in a children’s daycare. In the following days, it was Armend who took the steps to get her settled there. He wanted her not to feel lonely, to have a daily purpose, a place to go and feel useful. But above all, he wanted her to have her own salary.
“Soon you will return to being the countess you are,” he had told her with a restrained smile, while Ermira sat across from him, her hair carelessly tied back and a five-month-old baby in her arms. That day had not yet come. But Armend believed.
Their son had become the small blessing of their everyday life. Armend often watched him sleep and thought, “You really are my little Beka.” Then he gently caressed his forehead, afraid to wake him from a dream that should last forever.
The daycare was not large, but it had something warm: perhaps it was the worn toys, the children’s drawings on the walls, or the tiny voices that filled the air with life every morning. Slowly, Ermira found herself among them, like a flower blooming after a long winter.
She began learning their names, their whims, their tears, and their smiles. Some never let go of their toys, others wanted a hug at every parting from their parents. But there was another gift she brought every day: patience and compassion, things that could not be learned in classes, but only in life.
One day, as she slowly cleaned a plastic toy, one of the older educators came up to her and said:
“You have a mother’s touch, Ermira. The children follow you with their eyes when you move through the room. That rarely happens.”
She smiled softly, but something shone in her eyes. The feeling that, for the first time in so long, she had found her place—even if temporarily, even if for a few hours a day.
In the evenings, when she returned home, Armend always waited for her on the balcony. He watched her from below, as if wanting to read from her steps whether she had had a good day. He knew she was exhausted, but she hid her fatigue for the sake of their shared peace.
“You’ve come, my countess?”
“Yes,” she answered with a light laugh, “with three kisses and six toys in my bag!”
And in their eyes shone a life that, though simple, was being built on solid foundations: dedication, love, and patience.
Soon, one night, he bought her several dresses so she could change every day. He carefully chose the colors she liked, the fabrics that would fall softly on her body and make her feel like a bride every morning. Then he bought her a delicate gold necklace with a small blue stone in the center. A gold circle that shone like a silent promise.
“You deserve it, my countess,” he said softly. “We won’t wait for holidays anymore. You will be a bride every day, even when no one sees you, even when you are only with me.” She did not speak immediately. She only lowered her head, touched the necklace with her fingertips, and felt that he was the one who had loved her—not for who she had been, but for who she was becoming now, next to him: the “countess” of the future.
A tear of joy shone in her eyes. The night passed, and she dreamed beautiful dreams that were turning into reality. The next morning, she woke up early.
It was early morning, and the sun had begun to cast its first light over the roofs of the neighborhood near the port. Ermira put on one of her new dresses—a sky-blue one, long, light as a summer breeze—and, without telling anyone, went out to buy bread and milk for breakfast.
In the alley, the women of the neighborhood, who usually leaned on their doorways, saw her pass and fell silent for a moment. Then one of the older women, always suspicious of anything beautiful, said:
“Do you see? She dresses like a bride every day, as if she has a wedding.”
But another smiled kindly:
“She has a good husband, she loves him. And when a woman is loved, even the village street becomes a parade ground.”
Ermira heard the voices but did not turn around. She felt that the dress fit differently today, and a simple pride spread through her skin: that she was a mother, a wife, and someone loved beyond suffering.
When she returned home, Armend was waiting with their son in his arms. He saw how her eyes were shining.
“Everyone saw you,” he said, laughing. “Even I… but differently. I saw you as my wife who has survived everything and now seems like a bride every day. Not for a wedding, but for life.”
She said nothing. She approached, kissed the child on the forehead, and then rested her head on Armend’s shoulder.
“I don’t want a wedding anymore. I want you and this light we have now in our home.”
She said nothing more. She approached, kissed the child’s forehead with a warmth only a mother could give, and then lightly rested her head on Armend’s shoulder. He did not move. He held her as one holds sacred things—with silence and care. The feelings between them needed no words. They were already there, present in their shared breathing, in the closeness of their bodies, in the calm of the room bathed in soft evening light.
“I don’t want a wedding anymore,” she whispered. “I want you and this light we have now in our home. That is enough.”
He looked at her without interrupting. There was something deep in her voice, a desire for simplicity, for the truth of life without embellishments, without ceremony.
“I don’t want music, nor people talking nonsense, nor tables filled with strangers. I want your calm, your hands holding me, and this feeling that has no name… only we know what it is.”
The words came out as a whisper, a prayer. A small confession of what she had longed to feel—without fear, without expectation, only with the presence of someone who made her heart feel safe.
Armend did not speak. He only held her tighter. It was a silent embrace, yet full of meaning. In that embrace was everything that could not be spoken: forgiveness, acceptance, love.
“Please,” she said after a while, with a slightly trembling voice, “let this never change. Let us stay like this, without noise, without unnecessary words. Just us.”
He slowly turned his head and kissed her hair. Her scent, fresh and warm, reminded him of the beginnings, those days when everything was simply a dream.
“We will keep this light,” he whispered near her ear. “Even when night comes. Especially when night comes.”
She smiled, and her eyes filled with tears. Not of sadness, but of a feeling of fullness. That moment held nothing grandiose, but for them, it was everything.
The next day arrived gray and heavy. The sun seemed too weak to pierce the clouds. Armend got up early but did not want to wake either the child or her. He waited until nine o’clock and went out. His eyes were swollen from lack of sleep. He had decided: he would try to get the Blue Villa. There he felt complete, as if all the hardships they had endured would gain meaning. But everything depended on money. And money was not enough. He had to bribe the Party director and several other directors who held the keys to those villas.
“Without stuffing their pockets, forget it,” an old acquaintance had told him. “Here, things aren’t taken in order—they’re taken with envelopes.”
On the street, Ndriçimi called him. They had grown up together, shared bread and beatings in the neighborhood.
“Come, have a coffee, man,” he said, “you look like you’re melting.”
He stopped and hugged him, the two of them together.
They sat in one of the cafés that smelled of old tobacco and strong Turkish coffee. They had drunk there even when they had no money, even when they thought they would change the world.
“What’s wrong?” Ndriçimi asked after the waiter left. “Her, all right?”
“All right,” said Armend, raising his cup. “It’s just… I’m tangled in thoughts.”
“Hmm, what thoughts?”
“The Blue Villa.”
Ndriçimi raised his eyebrows. “The one on the hill? With twenty-three rooms and that veranda overlooking the sea? There are many villas, brother—”
“Yes, that one. I want to take it. Give her a new life. I think it would change our lives, both of us. A new beginning. What do you say, brother?”
“It’s beautiful,” Ndriçimi said, “but you know how it is… without under-the-table payments, they won’t even give you the key to the restroom there.”
“I know,” said Armend, “I need a lot of money. And fast. I’m thinking… then added, “Don’t tell me you’re going into debt.”
“Not just debt,” he whispered. “I’m thinking of selling everything, asking for help from acquaintances, maybe entering a deal I won’t like… But I will get that villa. By any means, brother. That villa belonged to my grandparents. That’s where I come from. I will never leave it in the world without taking it. I’ll fight, if necessary. Whatever these scoundrels want, I’ll do it—through good and bad. Let them choose, I’ll wait.”
Ndriçimi was silent, then looked him straight in the eye:
“Do you think it’s worth it? To take a villa with all that filth behind it?”
Armend did not speak immediately. Then, in a barely controlled voice:
“It’s not just a villa, Ndriçim. It’s her. It’s the feeling I get when I see her happy. It’s a life I don’t want to let go. And for the first time, I feel that maybe we could have something of our own. Not a rented apartment, not a room in our parents’ house. But a place where every evening the light is like it was last night.”
Ndriçimi remained silent for a moment. Then he inhaled his cigarette and said: “You know what you are? Like someone who—” He was ready to ignite for a moment of light. And sometimes… sometimes it’s worth risking everything for the truth and your wealth. Enough that those Reds enjoyed it…
After drinking their coffee, they went down to the billiard hall. The place was half-empty, only a few teenagers making noise at another table. Armend picked up the cue with a strange feeling, as if temporarily hiding a worry with an old game.
“Come on, let’s see if you’re still a master, or just thinking about villas,” Ndriçimi said, smiling to lighten the mood.
“If I win, you give me the money for the villa,” Armend said ironically and struck the white ball.
“You might win, sir, but you’ll have to go to the director yourself to ask for it, not me!” Ndriçimi laughed, then became serious. “Let’s see—whoever wins will stay, and the loser will start asking about the villa. Hahaha,” they both laughed.
They played two games. Armend won one, but it was clear he wasn’t there to win. His movements were slow; his mind didn’t follow his hand. After finishing the second game, they sat on the bench by the wall.
“Ndriçim, seriously now,” Armend said. “How do others do it? How do they get these villas?”
Ndriçimi looked him straight in the eye:
“They do it with services, or a great favor to the one in charge, or they open their wallet. You have neither connections nor a service to offer. You’re left with only the wallet.”
“But where do I get the money? Even if I sell my father’s house, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“I have an idea,” Ndriçimi said, lowering his voice. “Do you know that Party Housing director? Qemali. He used to be a friend of my uncle.”
“And?”
“And we could arrange a meeting with him. Talk openly. Ask how much he wants to push your name forward for that villa. But you’ve got to understand, we don’t part from him. Got it?”
Armend raised his eyebrows. “You mean we offer a bribe?”
“No, ask for a ‘favor,’ like everyone else does. Do you think the villa given to the biology teacher in ’91… was given because she had a good record? No. Her son brought the director an envelope with five thousand marks.”
“Seems dirty. But… if I don’t do it, someone else will take it. Someone who doesn’t care as much as I do.”
“Then you have your answer,” Ndriçimi said. “If you want to do it for her, do it. If not, forget it.”
Armend looked down, then slowly raised his head and said:
“Let’s meet the director. But not you. I want to face him myself. To look in the eyes of a man who sells hope.”
“Fair enough,” Ndriçimi said. “But remember: once you start down this path, it’s very hard to turn back.”
Armend didn’t reply. His heart was pounding, but not from fear—from the weight of the decision.
The next day. 10:45 a.m.
Ndriçimi gave him the address and said:
“Qemali’s office is on the third floor, old Committee building. Don’t take too long. Say what you need. If he asks too much, get up and leave. There are other ways.”
Armend climbed the stairs slowly. Each step felt like a small sin, weighing on his conscience. The office was quiet. The secretary, a woman in her fifties with tired eyes and smudged lipstick, gestured for him to sit.
“The director will see you in a few minutes,” she said, without looking away from the keyboard.
A few moments later, the door opened.
“Come in,” said a man simply dressed but wearing a gold watch. It was Qemali.
The office had old furniture but a calm that radiated power. A coffee machine hummed in the corner. An old photograph of a political figure hung on the wall. The quiet made you feel small.
“Sit,” Qemali said. “I hear you’re interested in a villa. Which one?”
“The Blue Villa. The one on the hill above Durrës, with the veranda facing the sea.”
Qemali shifted slightly in his chair and looked him straight in the eye.
“There are already several names on the list. It’s not free. And you’re not listed anywhere. You’re not party cadre, not a veteran, not a priority category.”
“I know,” said Armend. “But it’s my grandfather Bekë Podgorica’s villa. My father’s, too. And I am his heir. I came to discuss properly, and to reach an agreement. Others have started getting their confiscated wealth back. I came to reach an understanding, understand?”
Qemali smiled lightly, then got up and took a folder. He opened it and checked something.
“Listen. I’ll be straight: there are three names waiting, but if you bring a certain sum… we can ‘push’ the decision in your favor.”
“How much?”
“To be straight: four thousand marks. Two for the commission, two for ‘approval from above.’”
Armend was speechless.
“Four thousand? That much?”
“It’s not much for a place where you’ll raise your child,” said Qemali calmly, like a trained lawyer. “If it doesn’t suit you, say so. There are those who pay more. I speak openly because I know your story. Alright, young man.”
He looked him in the eye for about thirty seconds.
“I need time,” Armend said slowly.
“You have three days,” Qemali interrupted. “After that, your name is removed from discussion. I run this by order, not by anger. Understand? I’ve done my part; I don’t need to argue further.”
Armend stood, nodded, and left the office. On the stairs, he felt cold sweat. Like in a dream that was no longer a dream but harsh reality.
Ndriçimi was waiting outside.
“So, did you hear the price of your dream?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Armend, “four thousand euros. And part of the soul. You have to give it, Ndriçim. This man does you a great favor—take it while you can. Even they have low prices once. Later, the wolves from security come and take everything. Remember what I told you: get the money. I’ll help too. Alright, brother.”
That evening.
At home, the lights were off. Only a small lamp in the kitchen glowed. He opened the door slowly, exhausted. She, Ermira, sat at the table with a cup of cold tea in front of her. He sensed without looking that something was wrong.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He sat beside her and was silent for a few moments. Then he said:
“I have a chance to get the villa… but at a cost.”
“What cost?”
“Four thousand euros. A bribe.”
She didn’t speak. She got up and started walking slowly around the room. She paused, then spoke in a tone that was not anger, but disappointment:
“And you are ready to do this?”
“I want to give you a better life. A home. A beginning I never had… one neither of us had.”
“But if the beginning is built on a lie? What kind of foundation is that? If I take the money and it doesn’t work—”
“No,” he said. “It won’t happen. It’s Çimi’s friend, and he’s a guarantee.” It was a fortunate case, being the very beginning of their corruption. Later… let’s not even dream of the villa. They’ll give it to someone else, mortgage it, and then for the rest of our lives, it’ll be tied up in court.
“Other people do it. They take it. These ones? They sell out for money and then sell their morals like perfume. For the first time, I want to do something for us. I won’t let my grandfather’s villa become someone else’s property. I’m just struggling to figure out where to get the money.”
“Think carefully. I didn’t say to let it go,” she said. “I know you’ll be very successful. You’ll restore that surname. But make sure you’re secure, spiritually.”
“Is it really for us, or to fill some emptiness inside you with bricks?”
Armend lowered his head.
“I don’t know anymore…” he said. “I have so many thoughts in my head. But the one I want to follow will win. And there’s no one who can change my mind.”
She approached and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“If you do this, do it with full awareness. But don’t do it for me. Because I don’t want a beautiful life in a house that made us poor, that destroyed us economically. I’m with you, but I think we can get it, and not lose too much money. I believe you understand,” she finished speaking.
The next day.
He started looking for the money. He went to an old friend involved in car import-export trade.
“I want to buy an Audi. I don’t have the money,” he said. “How much do you need?” his friend asked.
“Four thousand, maximum.”
“Alright,” his friend said. “Sorry, brother.”
“Okay,” Armend said, frustrated and upset. “Forget it. I made a mistake coming,” he added, turning and leaving.
Then he went to a relative abroad in emigration. He met with him:
“I need money. I’ll pay it back in six months,” he said. The man didn’t trust him, because Armend was unemployed and had just started repairing old cars in the city.
“I don’t trust you’ll return it,” said the relative. “But… I’ll do it for your uncle. I can give you a thousand. That’s all I have…”
He collected three thousand. He was still missing a thousand. Days passed. Hope began slipping away like sand from a fist.
On the last evening before the deadline, he sat alone in the park, with an empty envelope in his pocket and a head full of thoughts.
Suddenly, an unknown man approached. He was elderly, with an honest face.
“I’ve been watching you for an hour, son. Something’s on your mind. You remind me of myself when I was like you.”
“Are you okay?” the old man asked.
“What have you done?” Armend asked. “Are things…?”
“No, son. Nothing. I know your problem and I believe it will be resolved tonight,” he said, then disappeared into the darkness.
They were in the park in front of Nilaj’s house—late evening.
Armend sat hunched over on the bench, hands in pockets, eyes fixed on the ground. The breeze carried a faint smell of the sea, but it didn’t calm him. He had spent the entire day trying to gather the money. He had managed only three thousand marks. He still needed a thousand more, and time was running out. The clock read 22:45.
Suddenly, a hand rested on his shoulder. He flinched and raised his head.
“How are you, my boy?” said a gentle voice.
Armend looked, confused. A man in his fifties, with an open face and a tired smile, stood in front of him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m your cousin… from Ulcinj. We couldn’t meet for years because of the party… and the security. I am the son of Bekë’s third cousin, your legendary grandfather. The old man who spoke to you is my father. He sent me to you.”
“Beka…?” Armend whispered. Everywhere… he solves problems… Wow, my great grandfather is divine… he muttered to himself.
His heart warmed. He had always heard his grandfather’s name, a man who never bowed to anyone—neither the system nor the party—who had many friends and cousins who fought for him.
“Yes, him. I came to meet you. I’ve been following your situation from afar. I know you’re going through a difficult time. We owe Beka a lot morally. He has done much for us,” he added, placing his hand on Armend’s shoulder.
“I need a thousand marks,” said Armend, quietly, without hesitation. “Sir… my father told me… we are your cousins. Let’s not be alone anymore. Our day has come,” he continued.
The stranger paused for a few seconds. He looked at him carefully, then gestured. “Stand up, brother. Don’t worry about this matter anymore.”
“Very well, the matter is done. I have the money, and I’ll give it to you. But I want only one thing in return.”
“What?” Armend asked, tense.
“Keep your grandfather’s name honorable. Don’t use it to buy rotten consciences. Don’t corrupt, but build.”
“It’s to get his villa… I want to restore it. It’s ruined, but I want to rebuild it. I want it as a symbol, a new beginning.”
The cousin was silent for a moment, then smiled.
“Good. I’ll bring it to you in an hour. Don’t worry. And… I want it back in six months. That’s all.”
“I swear I’ll return it,” said Armend, moved. He stood, shook his hand firmly. “God… and Nilaj… helped me. God is great, you know?”
“He’s always there. But we have to listen when he speaks through people.”
They embraced. The cousin left calmly into the night. Armend stayed rooted to the spot, overwhelmed. Now he had everything he needed. The villa was no longer just a building—it was heritage. Roots. A beginning.
The office on the second floor
It was still early when Armend arrived at the Executive Committee building. The sky was overcast with low clouds, and the cold morning wind slapped his face like a reminder that winter hadn’t left. Çimi was waiting outside, near the entrance.
“Are you ready?” Çimi asked quietly.
Armend nodded and showed the inner pocket of his jacket, where he hid a thin envelope.
“They’re inside. The German marks you asked for.”
“Good, then go.” Armend was dressed in a black suit, his hair neatly cut. He instinctively raised his hand, then they climbed the narrow concrete stairs.
They counted their innocent steps. The committee offices were cold, soulless, with poorly painted walls and a faint damp smell. The second-floor corridor seemed endless, stretching like a wait that would never end.
At the end, a door was closed. Armend knocked. A dry “Yes?” was heard. He opened the door. Behind a large wooden desk sat Qemali.
“Sit,” he said, without raising his head from the papers he was reviewing.
Armend approached slowly and sat in the chair across from him.
“I brought it, just as you said.” He took out the envelope and placed it on the desk.
Qemali looked at it for a moment, then picked it up slowly. He opened the envelope, quickly counted the banknotes with his eyes, and then placed it in the drawer.
“Good, good… Have you thought about what I told you?”
“Yes, I have. I’ll be ready. I just needed to know if… we are protected.”
Qemali smiled lightly, then stood and opened a cabinet. He took out a small, clean blue suitcase.
“This is yours. Inside you’ll find everything: information, instructions, and even the property certificate. The Blue Villa is registered in your name… You got it from those ‘big ones,’” he repeated. “And then?” Armend asked, his voice low.
“Then there’s no turning back. Enjoy it.”
The door closed with a heavy sound behind him. Armend descended the stairs with the suitcase in hand, without looking back. The morning was still cold, but now the wind no longer bothered him. Something colder was blowing inside him.
Outside, at the corner of the stairs, Çimi was waiting. As soon as he saw him, he spoke quickly:
“Hey, did you get the privatization letter?”
“Yes,” Armend said, holding the blue suitcase tightly.
“It’s in the small suitcase—the property certificate,” Çimi added.
“Yes, yes, I have it here.” He spoke in a rush. “It’s really yours, brother.”
Armend hurriedly opened it and began checking the contents. His eyes stopped on a white envelope with a red seal in the corner. He opened it and read aloud softly:
“Owner: Armend Podgorica. Payment value: fully paid. Decision: final.”
Accompanied by a map of the villa and surrounding land. The topography had been done beautifully. “Everything is in order, brother,” he said, placing his hand on the map.
Çimi lifted his eyes from the paper and looked at his friend seriously. Then he smiled gently.
“Finally, you’re the owner, brother. Congratulations!” he said, hugging him tightly.
Armend didn’t speak. He only felt his chest lighten for a moment, as if a burden he had carried for years had been lifted. Then he lowered his eyes toward the wet street, where the morning light reflected like a blurry mirror. In that moment, everything seemed unclear, but for the first time, the road ahead no longer seemed so long.
“Çimi,” he said after a while, “do you think it was worth all this?”
Çimi turned and looked him straight in the eyes.
“It’s worth it when you earn it patiently. It’s not just a piece of paper, brother. It’s your name. Your future.”
A car passed slowly by them. Somewhere in the distance, the first sounds of the waking day were heard. They walked slowly, side by side, while the blue suitcase bounced lightly with each step.
They left the committee building and hailed a free taxi waiting near the bus station.
“To the kindergarten, ‘Ermira,’” Çimi told the driver.
“Alright, let’s go,” he replied, starting the engine.
The road passed slowly, while outside the city, the morning rushed forward. But inside the car reigned an unusual silence, not matching the great news they carried. Armend looked out the window, saying nothing. He held the blue suitcase in his hand as if it were a sacred burden that must not fall.
When they arrived at the kindergarten, Ermira was standing in the yard, near the entrance gate. The little boy, wearing a blue hoodie, ran around her, while Nela, Armend’s mother, watched from a bench near the garden.
“There they are!” Ermira shouted when she saw them. “So, how did it go?”
“Here it is!” Çimi said, handing her the suitcase.
Ermira opened her eyes wide and laughed out loud.
“Is… this what we dreamed of?”
“Yes,” Armend said, gently pushing it toward her. “The letter is inside. The villa is officially ours.”
She hugged him with all her strength, her eyes shining. Çimi turned to Nela:
“Mrs. Nela, you also deserve congratulations. Your son finally made it real!”
Nela, hands resting on her knees, slowly stood.
“Well, son, may this day live long! Congratulations!”
Meanwhile, Ermira opened the envelope and read the words that legalized the ownership of the blue villa with emotion. Armend said nothing. He smiled, but inside, something weighed on him.
“It’s ours,” he thought. “But why don’t I feel complete joy? Why does it feel like this is only the beginning of a storm?”
Ermira looked him straight in the eyes:
“You’re not saying anything. Aren’t you happy?”
“I am, I am…” Armend said, his voice breaking slightly. “I just… need some time to get used to this.”
Çimi watched him carefully, as if he wanted to say something, but remained silent. He also felt something unusual on Armend’s face—a shadow, a premonition.
Deep in his heart, Armend knew: the good fortune that seemed to knock had a shadow behind it. A new chapter was opening, but not necessarily an easier one.
Days passed quickly. They moved into the blue villa the following weekend. It was beautiful, with large windows opening to the garden and a veranda where Ermira immediately placed a wooden table and two chairs. The boy ran from room to room, exploring it like a play castle.
“This is the life we dreamed of,” Ermira said one night, resting her head on his shoulder. “And now it’s ours.”
Even though very old and heavily worn, it was theirs. “But it will take a lot of money to restore it,” he added, troubled.
Armend said nothing more. He touched her hair, then gazed outside. In the darkness, the blue villa looked like a living body breathing in rhythm with his thoughts.
Every morning, he descended to the ground floor and stopped at a particular window. It was the one visible from the back of the house, where a dead tree stood as a witness of the past. Often, it felt as if someone were watching from there, even though no one was. There were nights when he woke up sweating, feeling an unrealized nightmare.
One evening, while Ermira was reading on the couch, he got up and said:
“I’m going out for a bit. I need some air.”
“Are you alright, love?” she asked, concerned.
“Yes,” he lied. “I miss the movement. In the city, I walked more.”
He went out quietly. The street was empty, the streetlights flickering cautiously, and the air carried an unusual chill for May.
He stopped at the corner where the light didn’t reach. He didn’t take out his phone, but didn’t call anyone. It was as if he were waiting for a message that would never come. His eyes stayed on an old notice sent by an anonymous letter: “Don’t rejoice too much. The past does not forget.”
The blue villa might have been his on paper, but in his soul, he felt it still belonged nowhere.
He slowly returned home. Ermira was sleeping, the book still open on her chest. The boy slept in the other room. And the silence was heavier than any night sound.
Late in the afternoon, the sun slowly hid behind the hill, leaving a soft orange light over the blue villa. Ermira had opened the second-floor windows and leaned on the frame, her hair waving in a gentle breeze.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said with a quiet smile. “Every morning when I wake up, it feels like a dream. Do you feel it too?”
Armend was hanging a curtain in the living room. He turned and looked at her.
“I do. I just… it feels like the house is teaching us to trust.”
“What do you mean by ‘teaching us’?” Ermira asked, smiling curiously.
He smiled slightly, but his left eye flickered for a moment, as if his heart were tied to a thread of premonition.
“There’s a strange calm here. Sometimes, I don’t know if it’s a good calm… or a frightening one.”
“You’re tired. All this moving, the papers, the responsibility… don’t burden yourself, love. Enjoy the moment.” She approached him and placed her hands on his shoulders. For a moment, they embraced in silence. Then Ermira continued:
“We’ll plant a flower in every corner. A new tree in the yard. We’ll give life to this house. We’ll fill it with beautiful memories that no shadow can erase.”
Armend squeezed her hands.
“Yes. We’ll try. But sometimes, I feel… like another wind is blowing.”
“Wind?”
“Like the wind that blows before the storm. Invisible, but cold. Like an omen…”
Ermira looked at him seriously for the first time.
“Armend… I know we’ve gone through many hardships, but this house is a beginning. Don’t let the past steal this moment from us.”
He lowered his head and whispered,
“But what if it’s not the past? What if it’s something that’s coming?”
Outside, an unexpected gust of wind slammed against the window. Both turned their heads. The stillness became heavier than before. The lights of the blue villa turned on automatically, like eyes piercing the darkness.
“In the first nights, everything seemed normal. Ermira had turned the upper floor into a little paradise: light colors, thin curtains swaying with the breeze, shelves full of books, and the scent of vanilla candles.”
But in the past few nights, Armend often woke up in the middle of the night. Always at the same hour: 3:33 a.m. His forehead was sweaty, his breathing heavy. He went down to the ground floor, sitting in the kitchen, staring out the back window where the dead tree stood.
One night, Ermira quietly descended after him.
“Armend, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t speak immediately. His eyes were fixed outside, as if waiting for something.
“Do you feel it?” he finally said.
“What?”
“The silence… but not the usual kind. This is different. As if someone else is here.”
Ermira approached, placing her hand on his shoulder.
“Is some old guilt weighing on you? From Asija? Or… is it inside you, this guilt, this destruction she brought?”
He remained silent. Then, almost without thinking, he got up and opened the old suitcase he had brought with him. Inside were only a few letters, an old photograph with his father… and a white envelope, without a name.
He handed it to Ermira.
“Open it.”
She opened it carefully. Inside was a letter with erratic handwriting:
“You know what you received. Everyone pays the price one day. In that house, there will be no peace. Because the one who left… the one who left without justice, returns without a body.”
Ermira read it in silence. Her voice trembled.
“Who sent this to you?”
“I don’t know. It arrived one day after signing the contract for the blue villa. No signature. No address. Just this letter. Could it be… Asija doesn’t want us to return here?” Ermira said. “The ghosts are here.”
“Armend,” she added. “She wanted this villa, not Beka. She herself was the curse. Believe me, my dear.”
They sat together by the suitcase. Ermira took a deep breath.
“We’ll face it together. Whatever it is, we’ll uncover it. But you must stay clear-headed, not lost in fear.”
Outside, the wind began to blow strongly, and a branch slammed against the window with a sudden noise. They both turned immediately. Something small fell from the ceiling. A speck of dust? Or…
“Please,” Ermira whispered. “Don’t leave me alone.”
Armend held her tightly.
But he felt it. This house would not be just a beginning. It was also a test. That Beka’s grandfather and his people… they had given him the villa to restart the reign of a surname.
Armend had gone into debt. On top of the heavy loan he carried, the villa required another hundred million lek as investment. He didn’t have it. He was unemployed in the classic sense—as people said around town—working here and there, like a mobile mechanic, from one car to another, from one client to another, without stability.
The family had to be secured. The villa had to be restored. And then, he had to reclaim the other properties—those taken, lost over the years, in silence, under a justice that could no longer be called as such.
Everything was done with money and gritted teeth against a justice that sometimes appeared, sometimes hid in smoke.
The fight for the blue villa had ended successfully. It was no longer just a building. It was a symbol of a forgotten time, of a promise. But now began the hardest part: to keep it standing, to revive it, to turn it into a center of life, a refuge where not only Beka’s memory, but also the figure he represented, would be resurrected.
Because he felt that in this journey, he was not building only a new present—he was rebuilding the first pride of an Albanian millionaire who had fallen not by his fault, but by forgetfulness and an era that tried to erase everything.
“You are not just an heir. You are the last witness.”
These words, written by an unknown hand, kept echoing in Armend’s mind. The letter had no signature, no date, but the still-wet ink gave a sense of urgency, like a call that tolerated no delay.
He reread it a second time. Then a third. As if trying to convince himself he wasn’t dreaming. Or losing his mind. The last witness of what? Of a forgotten story? Of a family secret buried among the stones of that ruined villa? Or what? He didn’t fully know. Was this letter a warning of what would happen? Or was it about the villa? Or… he wasn’t sure. But he thought it was the villa—exactly that.
It stood there, silent, perched on top of the hill, with the shutters hanging like tired eyelids. Once it had belonged to his grandfather, then his father, now to him. But along with it came a heavy burden—that sentence—that fate he had never asked for.
Debts had piled up. The walls were damp, the roof almost collapsing, many unpaid bills. He had neither money nor strength to face it all. But he could not leave. Not now. Not after that letter.
Then he made a decision. An idea that had been a vague thought before became a clear purpose. He would leave. He would get a visa for Italy. He would work a year, maybe two if necessary. Wash dishes, pick olives—no matter. It would be enough to earn what was needed to pay the debts, revive the villa—and above all, uncover the truth.
Because now, one thing was certain: it was no longer just about a material inheritance. There was something more. A memory. A truth that must not be lost. And he was its last guardian.
If he truly was the last, then it had to be preserved. He had to think calmly, wisely, about continuing his family name. Or perhaps preserve the grandfather’s memories. Perhaps, behind the anonymous message, lay a deeper wish: that he, Armend, would become like his grandfather—a capable man, with a name, a man who leaves a mark.
But how could he know for sure? How could he base his life on a single sentence written without a name? Yet that sentence had stirred everything inside him. Like a stone thrown into water, creating endless ripples, that sudden call had awakened something dormant in Armend: a sense of responsibility he had never felt before.
He could not decide. He was at a crossroads. Between leaving and staying. Between forgetting and remembering. Between a life to rebuild and an inheritance to protect.
In the end, in silence, he accepted that perhaps the only way to understand was to follow it. To start.
He decided to talk to Ndriçim during a game of billiards. In a quiet moment, as the balls slid slowly across the green felt of the table, Armend raised his head and said:
“Would you agree if I went to Rome for a year? To find work as a mechanic, in electric cars, or whatever… As long as I work, pay off my debts, and earn some money to fix the villa. It’s falling apart day by day, from time and lack of investment…”
Ndriçimi didn’t speak immediately. He closed one eye and struck the red ball, which hit two others and sent them into a corner. Then he turned to Armend and said in a low voice, almost like a dormant thought:
“Maybe you’re right. If it’s the only solution…”
(Pause.)
“Well, I say go. Get that Italian visa. Buy the ticket and leave. Go to the Promised Land.”
In Ndriçimi’s eyes, there was no irony, no excitement. Only a kind of quiet approval, like the consent given to a mouse that finally finds its way out of a maze.
The next day found Armend facing a blank page. It was time to write the reasons for leaving. But inside, he felt that he was not leaving only for money. He was setting out to reclaim something deeper—a memory, a promise, a truth that no one else would find if he didn’t return.
He didn’t wait long. The decision had already been made. The next morning, he took the first train to the capital. He went straight to an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about whom he had heard that he “handled matters.” His name was Sami Lega.
It was a little past ten when he climbed the dark stairs of the old building. In the narrow corridor, there was the smell of musty paper and old tobacco. He lightly knocked on the door three times.
“Who is it?” a voice called from inside.
“Armend Podgorica. I’ve come… as per our arrangement.”
A short silence. Then the door opened slightly, and a pair of eyes examined him carefully.
The official was dressed as always, in a faded gray shirt and neatly pressed trousers. He didn’t speak, just gestured for him to enter.
“You came on time,” he said curtly. “I don’t like those who are late.”
Armend didn’t linger in conversation but handed him the new red passport the regime had just issued to the people for traveling abroad.
The official himself was dressed in a blue suit and white shirt, which reflected in the director’s eyes and on the glass of his desk.
Armend was nervous but concealed it. He adjusted the collar of his shirt, took a deep breath, and said:
“I want to go to Rome to work for a year because I have debts and need money. According to the agreement, I have fifteen hundred dollars in my passport. I want a six-month visa, sir.”
The director didn’t speak immediately. He took the passport, opened it slowly, and began flipping through it carefully, as if looking for an error or omission. Then he looked up, met Armend’s gaze, and said:
“Do you understand what you’re asking? To go to Rome? For a year? It’s not as easy as you think.”
Armend didn’t lower his eyes. He had prepared for this moment. He had been thinking about it since the day he learned he could apply for a visa. He tried to remain calm:
“I understand very well. I want to work honestly. I don’t intend to stay forever. Just to pay off my debts. Then I’ll return.”
The director raised his eyebrows and smiled ironically:
“Everyone says that, Armend. Everyone. But you seem like a decent young man… Let’s see.”
He pressed a button on the desk, and after a moment the door opened. An employee entered with a file in hand.
“Take this to the relevant department. Let them prepare the documents and ready the file for the embassy.”
Armend took a deep breath. He knew nothing was certain yet. But at least the first step had been taken. As he left the director’s office, he felt his hands were sweaty. He wiped them on the palms of his jacket and inhaled deeply. The long corridor of the government building felt even colder, longer, more distant. His steps felt heavy, as if he carried a stone of expectation on his shoulders with every step.
In his mind, a voice kept repeating: “Will they give me the visa? Will they let me go?” He knew well that everything depended on the will of one or more officials, who often acted without any logic other than fear and an invisible command.
When he stepped outside, the sun blinded him for a moment. He paused on the stairs and lit a cigarette. Other people were waiting in line to enter, most with papers in hand—passports, certificates, maybe a photograph prepared for visas. All with drawn, tired faces from waiting, from hope, and from unspoken fear.
A man around fifty, with thinning hair and a shoulder bag, approached with a greeting:
“Did you get the answer, son?”
Armend shook his head:
“Not yet. They told me to wait.”
The man sighed, looked toward the building, and added:
“It’s not the waiting that bothers us. It’s that we often wait in vain.”
Then he slowly walked away, saying nothing more.
Armend stayed there for a while longer. Then he threw the cigarette, crushed it under his shoe, and headed home. He had much to think about, but above all, he had to wait. In this place, everything began and ended with waiting.
Three weeks passed. Every morning, Armend went to the immigration office, climbed the stairs, asked at the counter, and received the same answer:
“Still no response. Wait a little longer.”
Those words became a daily refrain. At home, his mother waited with tired eyes, watching from the doorway whenever she heard footsteps.
“Did you get the visa, son?”
“No, mother. Not yet.”
She no longer spoke. She returned to her quiet chores, thinking her son might never leave.
Finally, one Monday morning, while standing again in line, an official in a gray suit with neatly combed-back hair appeared in the corridor and called:
“Armend Podgorica!”
His heart leapt. He rose immediately and approached. The official handed him an envelope. He opened it at once, hands trembling.
Inside the red passport was a printed letter, sealed. He read:
“Your application for a six-month work visa in the territory of the Italian Republic, specifically the city of Rome, has been approved…”
He didn’t read further. He turned the letter, without the seal, as if to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
The official observed his reaction and said in a formal tone:
“Take the visa. Go, don’t stay here any longer.” He repeated it. “Don’t delay. Others are watching. Nothing will be done here anymore. You have no work here, sir,” he said again.
Armend shook his head, unable to speak. Then, when he stepped into the street, he began walking quickly, as if unburdened. He walked without stopping, not knowing exactly where he was going, with only one thought in mind: “I’m leaving… finally, I’m leaving.”
That evening, he met Çimi at the neighborhood billiard hall. There was always noise there, dim light, and cigarette smoke rising toward the yellow lamps. They played a game of billiards and, as usual, spoke in low, restrained voices, like people aware that every extra word could echo somewhere else.
“I got it,” Armend finally said, without looking him in the eye. “The visa. Thursday. I’m leaving…”
Çimi paused for a moment, looked at the billiard balls as if he had forgotten their purpose, then said:
“I knew you’d get it. They couldn’t stop you. But Ermira? Will you tell her yourself, or will she hear from the neighborhood?”
Armend lowered his head. That was the hardest part. Harder than documents, long lines, or fear of rejection.
“I have to tell her myself,” he said. “I don’t want her to hear it from someone else. But I don’t know how… How do you tell a girl you love that you’re leaving and you don’t know if you’ll return?”
Çimi nudged the red ball into the corner of the table and watched it roll for a moment across the faded green of the felt. It fell into the corner pocket of the billiard table. After seeing the ball disappear into the pocket, he lifted his head from the cue’s aim and said:
“Tell her the truth. It’s better to face real pain than a beautiful lie. She will understand. She will suffer, but she will understand.”
Armend could not speak. He just stared at the table, as if there he could find an answer.
“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” he said after a while. “I have to. Before it’s too late.”
They finished the game in silence. The balls had stopped on the damp felt of the billiard table, but their thoughts did not cease. With the slow steps of a gloomy evening, they walked toward the small café near the street, not far from Nilaja’s house. It had been a long time since they had sat there. Now, everything seemed different—faded, like a memory that no longer held the warmth of the past.
Armend sat by the window, watching the streetlights reflected in his glass of water. His breathing was heavy. He repeated to himself, like a prayer no one could hear:
— If she were alive… she would save me…
Nilaja had been the voice of reason, the calm strength that knew how to shape chaos. If she were alive, she would speak with Ermira. With her simple and convincing words, she would calm her. She would tell her that a year is nothing when love is true. That waiting could also be a testament of love. She would explain that he was not leaving just to leave, but because he had to—because debts had to be repaid, family wealth had to be put to use, and life could not be built on empty promises and baseless dreams.
— Nilaja… — he whispered, as if to bring her name back into the reality slipping from his hands.
In her absence, everything seemed colder. His words no longer carried the weight they once had. Ermira did not understand. She did not want to understand. And he could do nothing but leave. Emigration was the only path. Italy—a promised land—no longer held the shine of imagination or the certainty of a solution. Only necessity. An exit. An escape from a reality that no longer forgave.
If Nilaja were alive… she would speak softly, calmly, in that way that reminded you of things you had forgotten existed. She would tell Ermira everything he could not say, filling her heart with confidence.
But she was gone. And with her, a chance that would never return had died as well.
The Missing Voice
The café was quiet, absorbing the clinking of glasses and the distant hum of cars. Armend sat before his coffee as if it contained some answer. It was the third night in a row he had visited this place, each time at the same hour. The people who came there were usually the same—calm, tired, vulnerable.
He felt himself becoming one of them.
He remembered Nilaja in the corner of the lounge, with her measured and wise words. She did not need much to persuade someone. She had that rare ability to speak to another without attacking them, to make them understand without breaking them. If she were still here, she would take Ermira by the hand and say:
“Don’t be afraid. He will come back. This is just a step back for a higher leap.”
But she was gone. And he no longer had words capable of carrying such weight.
Every day that passed, Ermira would grow colder. There was an unspoken tension in her voice, in her gaze, in those silences between sentences. He had promised so much—a life together, a home, a new beginning. But life did not listen to promises. Life demanded solutions.
— Will she wait, Ermira? — he asked himself. — Will she truly wait for me?
On the wall opposite, an old photograph of the old neighborhood turned his gaze to the years when everything had been simpler. When people were separated not by great obligations but by small misalignments of time. But now, time was no longer theirs.
His mind returned to the letter he had started writing but then torn apart:
“Ermira, I have to leave… Not to abandon you, but so that one day I can return to you as you deserve…”
The words seemed weak. Incomplete. Like grains of sand on melting snow.
He would leave. He would go to Italy. A work visa, a wait in some city with a difficult-to-pronounce name. He would work. Send money. Send words of triumph. Send patience.
But what he could not send was love. That, in absence, fades. And he remembered Nilaja—her words about love from afar, about the distance between them.
And that absence would follow him wherever he went.
“When hearts are separated from eyes, memory fights against forgetting—and love, in silence, asks whether distance is a test or an end.
Far from sight, but not from the soul—if it is love, it waits and does not fade.”
He decided to tell Ermira about the visa and why he would leave for a short time, and that he loved her just as before. Their love was and would remain the same. He only asked that she swear to wait for him. She trusted him and was a very clever and noble woman.
He did not waste time and called her to their old meeting place—the old port.
The old port was strangely silent that evening. The lights yellowed over the water’s surface, like faded memories that had no place but the sea. Armend leaned against a rusty lamp post. His heart beat to the rhythm of a departure he did not want, but that time had made necessary.
Armend stood a little further, hands in pockets, eyes toward the horizon. He had chosen not to speak. He knew his Ermira better than anyone and knew she needed the truth.
Ermira’s footsteps could be felt on the wet stones. Armend turned, and their eyes met—the eyes of a love that had endured much, but not yet everything.
— I knew you were here, — she said, her voice trying not to tremble.
— And I knew you would come, — he replied.
He approached slowly, like someone approaching a great truth. From his pocket, he took out a red passport. It was the visa letter. The document that would take him away temporarily, but felt heavy in his hand like a silent punishment.
— I got the visa, Ermira. I will leave. For a short time. “I didn’t want there to be a fuss at our home because I didn’t know how you’d react. That’s why I called you here, my heart,” he said.
But before I leave, I want you to know something:
She opened her eyes but said nothing. Her eyes filled with tears, but no sound came. Armend knew she would not agree with this event and continued:
“My love for you hasn’t changed. Only the place is changing, not the feelings.”
She said nothing. She just looked at him, counting the seconds separating them from absence. She did not move, only stared with tears in her eyes. He kissed her again on the lips. She did not react.
Then, full of fear, he said:
— I’m not asking you to promise me, just… “I ask you to trust me. To wait for me. To remain who you are: my strength, my breath of return.”
Armendi, silent, approached. He looked into Ermira’s eyes and said:
— “I have seen many loves extinguish before they even caught fire. But your love—yours—is inexplicable. And I believe in it. You must believe in it too.”
Ermira took a step forward. She extended her hand to Armendi and said:
— “Lift your brow a little, so I can look into your eyes.”
She ran her palm lightly over his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, and added in a soft voice:
— “Look… I know I don’t like this story, but there’s nothing I can do. I know it takes money to put things back as they once were… and I know I will suffer for you.”
Tears filled her eyes, and they began sliding down her cheeks. Her voice trembled:
— “But marriage is hard, Armend. It’s not just flowers and kisses. It’s also suffering… also sacrifice. Children to raise, a husband to support, a house that doesn’t live by itself. My husband will become a count like his grandfather, a ruler. But we will never give up.”
She said this while crying, but there was determination in her voice. The tears were for love, not for lack of strength. Then she turned and said—
— “I swear. I will wait for you. In this port, in this place. Our love is not an experience that ends with distance. It is a one-way path. And I am yours in every step of it.”
Armendi embraced her tightly, his words turning into a simple, clear, eternal whisper:
— “I will return. And when I do, we will be stronger than ever.”
As night descended on the port, three shadows stood close together—Nilaj also appeared as a shadow. Her walk seemed joyful, yet sad. She appeared caught between two feelings that would not let her rest. She had understood that all women are the same: sooner or later, they betray. Everyone knows that a woman’s vows do not last long. Nothing in this life is truly yours. All is a temporary illusion that life grants on earth. The more you talk about women, the more you realize: they were generally unfaithful from the start of life…
Nilaj appeared as a shadow too. Her walk was light, but within her she carried a weight that neither a faint smile nor her attempt to appear calm could hide. It was a strange mixture of joy and sorrow. And she, like many before her, already knew the silent truth that lay at the end of so many love stories:
A woman’s vow is soft as her words, warm as her touch, but it is not always eternal. Women vow with their hearts, but their hearts change—sometimes from pain, sometimes from loneliness, sometimes from someone else who comes at the wrong time.
Betrayal does not always happen intentionally. Sometimes it is born as a new hope, as a need to feel alive, as revenge against a man who did not listen, did not see, did not love enough. Yet, a broken vow remains a wound—for both.
Nilaj knew this. She had seen it in her mother, her sister, her friends. And now… she felt she was experiencing it herself.
“Betrayal that comes cloaked in the garments of youth is nothing but a beautiful reminder of an old pain.”
Nilaj did not leave. She did not like Ermira’s vow. She simply lingered in a corner of the space, where the light never fully reached.
— “Betrayal that comes cloaked in the garments of youth,” she spoke slowly, in a voice that seemed to come from another time, “is nothing but a beautiful reminder of an old pain.”
Armendi could not speak. Those words were neither accusation nor forgiveness. They were a truth arriving from afar, with the wind of something broken forever.
— “I didn’t understand back then,” she continued, “that love is not just a feeling. It is also patience. It is also absence. Also fear. And when we left… we left empty what could have been our salvation.”
She smiled faintly, as if to say, “now I know,” and dissolved into the air, leaving behind only a sense of cold—and a sentence that would remain in his mind forever.
Women’s Vows – “Return”
Before leaving, Beneti handed Armendi a piece of paper with an address carefully written on it.
— “This is the address of a major electronics and electromagnetic equipment owner in Rome,” he said. “My father was a close friend of his. Just so you know, he owes me a lot.”
Armendi took the paper and put it in his pocket.
— “Call him as soon as you land at Rome’s airport. Rest assured, he will hire you and take good care of you.”
At that moment, he embraced his father tightly, as if leaving a piece of his soul in that hug. Then they continued talking, while the suitcase stood ready near the door.
— “We decided to rent out Villa Blu,” he told his father. “Maybe a hotel or a state enterprise would be interested. You will return to our old home—your room and your kitchen. Is that okay, father?”
— “It will be only temporarily, until I return. I will send you money every month. You will live well, and we will start paying off the debts, little by little,” Armendi said.
His father smiled and hugged him again, but he could not resist expressing a hidden concern.
— “But how will you leave the woman alone, son? She is young, beautiful… She cannot stay alone with a child and me. Your son is growing up; he needs his father. I am the grandfather, not the father, son…”
Armendi was silent for a moment. He knew he was right, but he had made a choice. He would leave for a greater purpose.
— “Don’t stay long,” his father said. “I will keep an eye on Ermira… even though she has sworn loyalty…”
Then his voice hardened, interrupting his words. He spoke firmly:
— “Ah, son, she is a different race… a low race, working class. Slaves, however free they are, remain slaves. Low races, no matter how high they climb, end up where they were. That family is not for us, son… You only took her for her beauty… Did you, son? You did, acting like your grandfather. You took Asija because she was beautiful. You didn’t ask where she came from or who her father was… Beauty is temporary, son. You will learn this saying yourself. Race, son, matters. A good race makes you proud wherever you are, not the working-class one. Remember this…”
Armendi lowered his head. It was not the first time he had heard these words, but now there was no time to argue.
— “I hope I’m wrong,” his father softened. “I hope Ermira will be like a sultana, not a slave…”
— “We hope so, father,” Armendi said in a lost voice. “I won’t stay long. I will return, restore the Villa, take over the beer factory in Korçë, and the tobacco one… We will reclaim all our wealth.”
— “Amen,” said Beneti, raising his hands. “God before, you after Him.”
“A man does not choose the race he is born into, but he chooses the human heights he reaches within it. Races divide the body, not the soul—the truth of a man begins where prejudice ends.”
Beneti looked out the window. The morning sky was pale, like a dubious promise. He spoke without looking at his son:
— “Listen, I am not a racist, but I have seen life up close, son… And life has taught me that races cannot blend like water and oil. They may appear to for a short time, but when left alone, they separate naturally.”
Armendi frowned. He felt the weight of those words like cold coal on his chest.
— “Father, a man is not a race. He is will. He is choice. Ermira loves me, and I love her. Isn’t that enough?”
— “Do you know what love is, son?” said Beneti in a gradually softer voice. “It is fire that burns fast. Then comes life. Comes hunger, comes debt, comes a child crying at night… And there you discover who is truly for you, and who is only a daydream with open eyes.”
— “I will stay by her side,” said Armendi firmly. “If she falls, I will hold her. If I fall, she will hold me.”
Beneti was silent for a moment. He looked at his son with a mix of pride and fear, as if to say: “Don’t trust man too much.” But instead, he said:
— “I hope you are right, son. Please, don’t lose yourself on foreign roads. Don’t forget who you are.”
Armendi threw his arm over his father’s shoulder.
— “I won’t forget. But I want to become someone you never had the chance to be. I will do what my grandfather started—the empire of the Podgoricas. It will return like before, Bonaparte, father…”
Beneti paused. Tears rose to his tired eyes, but he did not let them fall. He only hugged him tightly, whispering into his ear: — “God be with you, son.”
And he left…?
Rome, late afternoon
Two days after his last conversation with his father, Armendi quietly left Rimasi, carrying a small suitcase and a heavy weight on his chest. The flight with Air Italia was calm, but his mind flew faster than the plane—toward the unknown, toward a new life, far from the stones of home and the presence of his father, which followed him like a shadow.
The plane landed at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Fiumicino, one of the largest in Europe. The terminals gleamed under the golden afternoon light. The air smelled of metal, strong Italian coffee, and a silent rush that only large cities know. The noise of suitcases, the loudspeakers announcing flights, the border police with practiced eyes—everything spoke in a different language.
Stepping outside, he smelled Rome for the first time: a mixture of ancient stone, soft dust, and nameless flowers. The sky was dense, like a warm cloth draped over the city. Cars hurried by, while yellow taxis waited with half-open doors.
Rome did not greet him with words—but with its silent grandeur. From afar, he felt the pulse of the ancient city breathing through the centuries. There was something immortal in the way light fell on the buildings, in how voices mingled in the air, in how everything was both old and new at the same time.
Armendi paused for a moment. He knew he was not just in another city. He was at the start of a new chapter. And new chapters do not begin with noise—but with breath.
He opened his phone and looked up the number his father had given him. Now, everything depended on him.
He took a taxi that he saw nearby and got in. He did not speak but gestured with his hand to start. He put on dark sunglasses to look more like a gentleman than an immigrant. Once settled in the back seat, he turned his gaze to the window. He was dressed casually, as if going on a picnic—yet so far from home.
The taxi moved smoothly from the airport, weaving through wide streets toward the heart of the city. The driver, a quiet man with sharp eyes, glanced briefly in the rearview mirror.
— “Where shall we go, sir?”
— “To the Trevi Fountain, then somewhere near the Capitoline Hill. I want to feel the city… before work starts,” said Armendi, in a voice trying to sound confident, even though everything around him was new.
The driver nodded and began to drive. He did not speak again, simply following orders.
The city passed by like a silent film in the afternoon light. Narrow streets, scooters buzzing through traffic like bees, mothers crossing with children, and everywhere buildings of yellow stone, with façades carrying time upon them, yet not feeling its weight.
The Trevi Fountain suddenly appeared, a marvel carved from stone. Crystal-clear water poured over white marble, while crowds stood around, eyes wide with wonder. Some tossed coins with hope, others posed for photos, but Armendi stood a little apart, simply observing.
Here, he felt a kind of calm for the first time—a voice telling him: Here, you can be someone, if you do not forget who you are.
The taxi then turned toward the Capitoline Hill, where history and power meet in silence. The square, designed by Michelangelo, unfolded like a frozen scene between sky and time. From above, Rome stretched like an ancient language waiting to be read again.
— “Beautiful city, isn’t it?” the driver finally spoke, glancing in the mirror.
— “Very beautiful. But there is a kind of sadness inside its grandeur,” said Armendi, his mind heavy with thought.
— “It is so,” smiled the driver. “Rome always reminds you that even emperors had to leave one day.”
They both laughed. The driver realized Armendi was a foreigner and did not comment further, only watching him carefully through the mirror. Armendi seemed to him both very wealthy and very smart.
The taxi continued toward Piazza Navona, the Colosseum, and streets where street music mingled with the noise of ages. For a moment, Armendi felt like a single point in the ocean of history.
— “Keep going, drive on. I want to see everything,” he told the driver.
The driver widened his eyes. Is this an archeologist? Or what…? A mysterious passenger speaking beautiful Italian, whose identity remained unclear. They drove on without speaking further.
The taxi entered the central streets of Via del Corso, one of Rome’s most famous avenues. On both sides, buildings looked like massive stone books, with large windows and wrought-iron balconies. Ochre and faded red façades, marked by centuries of dust and time, resembled wise faces silently observing passersby.
Armendi studied every detail—the elegant signs, the large doors with forgotten family crests, statues at the corners of buildings seeming as if they might speak. The road opened further into Piazza Venezia, where the giant white building of Altare della Patria—the Altar of the Fatherland—rose like a choir of white stone. Bronze horse sculptures, the statue of Victor Emmanuel II, and the stairs ascending toward the sky made the place seem more like a monumental dream than a living city.
Then came Via dei Fori Imperiali, a road connecting past and present. On one side stood the ruins of the Roman Forum, columns reaching toward the sky like the fingers of forgotten emperors. On the other, modern buildings lived quietly, not disturbing the grandeur of the past. The entire street felt like an open-air museum under the golden afternoon light.
Next, the taxi passed Via Veneto, famous for its elegance, where luxury hotels and cafes with verandas were filled with finely dressed people. Marble façades, windows with silk curtains, and entrances with red carpets revealed another Rome—the Rome of art, cinema, and the old aristocracy.
Through the open window came the aroma of strong coffee and passing perfumes. Rome was not just a city: it was a living mixture of times—a mosaic where every stone had a story, every window a memory, and every cobblestone an ancient shadow.
Armendi rested his head against the seat and thought:
This city takes you silently, wraps you like a cloak, and says: learn from me, but do not copy me. Create your own path.
He remembered he should drink coffee in Rome—to follow the ritual his father had told him before leaving. He also remembered Beka, who had been in Rome for the first time, drinking coffee there, the same café his grandfather Beka had once visited.
Armendi asked the driver to stop somewhere he could drink coffee and take a breath of all the grandeur surrounding him. The taxi stopped gently at a corner near Piazza Navona, and the driver said:
— “Here is a good place, Caffè della Pace. Old, famous, with a true Roman spirit.”
— “Perfect,” said Armendi. “Exactly what I wanted. My grandfather once drank coffee here.” He spoke to the driver in Italian. The driver opened his eyes, amazed by the beautiful coincidence.
Armendi got out and looked around. Caffè della Pace was small but elegant, with a dark stone façade partially covered by green ivy. Outside tables were set on the cobblestones, while inside, tall windows with thin curtains and ceilings decorated with faded paintings gave it a refined charm.
He sat at a side table, where the evening sun gently fell over the cups and glasses. A thin waiter in a black vest with a tired smile approached:
— “Buonasera, signore. Cosa desidera?”
— “An espresso… strong,” said Armendi, in Italian he had learned from old books and Nilaj’s Italian-Albanian dictionaries.
For several minutes he did not speak. He watched the square, the people, and then the coffee became a pretext to rest his mind. He felt that in this place, in this forgotten Roman corner amid eternal streets, his grandfather Beka had once sat.
— “Ah, beautiful Rome,” he murmured. The Count had returned, almost speechless.
Then he lowered his head, letting his dark hair fall over his eyes, the striking blue eyes that caught the attention of every woman passing by—even those sitting in cafés. At that hour in the café, he looked like a German top model—or who knows? He carried himself with a Western elegance in every action and gesture. This grace, he knew, was thanks to Nilaj.
Armendi slowly lifted the cup in his hand and took the first sip of espresso, while his eyes wandered over the old cobblestones of the square. The soft sounds of Rome reached him like a distant melody—the voices of tourists, the clinking of cups, the faint rustle of leaves. For the first time in months, he felt a deep calm inside him, a calm that came not from rest but from purpose.
Here I am, he thought. In the heart of a city that doesn’t know me, yet welcomes me as if I belonged. Rome doesn’t ask who you are—it confronts you and says: Show yourself, and I will see if you deserve to stay.
He remembered the address Beneti had given him before he left. It was a rented apartment, not far from his grandfather’s friend’s factory—a man who had once been one of the pioneers of electronic equipment in Italy. This would be where he would temporarily begin his new life.
The neighborhood was called Garbatella—an old area full of community spirit. It was where real Romans lived, with balconies laden with clothes drying in the sun and children playing in the streets.
The street was Via Giovanni da Capistrano. The apartment was on the second floor of a red-brick building, with a small entrance covered in climbing plants and a shared courtyard where every morning the scent of neighbors’ coffee drifted in.
I’ll start here, he thought. I’ll work, pay my debts, send money home. And then… I’ll return with my head held high.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Perhaps he wasn’t a sultan yet, but he didn’t feel like a slave either. In that corner of Rome, with a bitter coffee before him and hope burning in his chest, Armendi felt that life was offering him a second chance.
After finishing his coffee, Armendi paid in Italian lira—a new, crisp note, unwrinkled from use. He thanked the waiter and left Caffè della Pace with a quiet sense of purpose. On the way to Garbatella, in the taxi, he thought of everything he would have to face. The Roman sun was beginning to set over the eternal city, casting the façades in the golden hue of hope.
The driver stopped in front of the building at Via Giovanni da Capistrano, No. 17.
— “Here it is,” he said. “The area is quiet. Mostly old working-class families live here, but they are good people. Good luck, my friend.”
Armendi paid the driver what he asked, without taking change. The driver smiled, bowed slightly, and left.
Maybe he didn’t realize I’m Albanian, Armendi thought with a smile. Forgot, I said, huh? he chuckled to himself again.
Armendi got out and took a deep breath. The building had small windows with clean white curtains, and an old wooden door that creaked lightly as it opened. Inside, a narrow, cool corridor led to the stairs. An elderly woman with large eyes greeted him from the first floor—without words, only a nod.
The apartment was modest: a bedroom, a small living room with an open kitchen, and a narrow balcony overlooking a shared garden. But it was clean. In the fridge, someone had left a bottle of water and a note:
“Welcome, Armend. We are friends of your grandfather’s friend. When you’re ready, come to the factory. The address is Via Ostiense 147. The factory is called ElettroMagni. We will be waiting.”
The signature was just one name: G. Magni.
Armendi sat on the bed, glanced at the note, and felt warmth in his chest. He had arrived with very little—no extra clothes, nothing but a single bag, heavy memories, and a promise to fulfill.
Tomorrow I’ll go there, he said to himself. For myself, for my father, for my son.
That first night in Rome, the city’s voice came softly through the half-open window. Yet he did not feel like a stranger. He was a foreigner, yes, but finally beginning to build his own place.
The next day, a new beginning
The following day started with a silent dawn. In Garbatella, light brightened the worn balconies, while neighborhood women tended flowers or called children by ancient Roman names. Armendi dressed in his best clothes—a neatly ironed blue shirt and gray trousers. He looked in the mirror, trying to see himself as a worthy worker, a determined man.
At 8:30 a.m., he arrived at Via Ostiense 147, in an old industrial area of Rome, near Gazometro and the Tiber River. At the end of a quiet street leading to a concrete-and-glass building, a simple sign read:
ELETTROMAGNI — Electronic Systems & Electromagnetic Waves
G. MAGNI, Technical Director
He entered the factory yard, hearing the rhythmic hum of a generator and a dry cough from inside. A man of about sixty, with white hair and clear eyes, emerged from the main door, carrying a folder and a smile that hid both experience and skepticism.
— “You must be Armendi. Beneti’s son, and… Beka’s grandson, right?”
— “Yes, sir. That’s me. Thank you for having me.”
— “No need for thanks,” said Magni, shaking his hand. “Your father and grandfather did much for us in difficult times. We do not forget.”
He looked at the young man before him. There was something in his gaze—a kind of stubbornness born of early responsibility and suffering.
— “You’ll start with technical work, cables and signaling. If you succeed, you’ll move to design. We don’t forgive mistakes here, but we reward the capable. Take the uniform. You start today.”
Armendi took the blue uniform and helmet, feeling a surge of pride, even though it was only the first step. He did not know Rome well yet, but he now understood one thing: this city gave nothing without a fight, but offered everything if you remained loyal.
At the end of the day, as the sun set over the ruins of Ostia and the factory closed its gates, Armendi stepped onto the street, muscles tired but spirit light. He knew the road was long, but he had begun to walk it.
That first evening after work, Armendi returned to his apartment in Garbatella with dusty hands but a full heart. After washing and eating something simple he had bought at a local store, he sat at the table and took out a letter. It was the first he had written to Ermira since leaving.
Dear Ermira,
I don’t know how to begin these lines. Perhaps because of our silence, or because I cannot embrace my son every morning. I miss you both. Saying I miss you is too little—the absence of you kills me.
Rome is a large, noisy, beautiful city. Its people are strange: busy, yet they take time for a long coffee; foreigners, yet they smile. Today I started work at a large electronics factory—a friend of our grandfather. Remember Grandpa Beka? He always kept us near the radio. Life is strange: now I work with signals and electromagnetic waves.
I have a small room, but enough. With a balcony from which I watch the simple lives of people who have seen much, like me. I have no luxury, but I have hope. And I have a promise to myself: that one day I will return what I took from you—security, protection, love.
Believe me, Ermira, every cable I connect today is a step toward my return. Don’t fear the distance. It is only space. Love is stronger. Even if you have ever cursed me, do not feel bad—I have loved you every day.
Kisses to our son. Tell him that his father is working for him—that one day he will have more than just memories.
With longing and pain,
Armendi In the end, he folded the letter, placed it in an envelope, and wrote the address. He would mail it in the morning…
Life went on quietly on both sides of the Adriatic. Armendi went to work. He was punctual and very diligent.
A few days later, when he was alone again in the evening, under the dim light of the lamp hanging in the simple room with worn furniture, Armendi sat down and wrote another letter to Ermira. He was tired, but thoughts of her and of their son gave him strength.
Dear Ermira,
Today was the fifth day of work. My hands have become like my father’s when he worked at the construction site: rough but honest. I’ve begun to get used to the machinery for soldering cables. Engineer Magni watches me with stern eyes, but I feel a certain respect. Yesterday he said: “You are not Italian, but you work better than many here.” I laughed with him, but inside I felt a spark of pride—not for myself, but for you—for you and our son.
Rome is vast, but sometimes I feel small within it. The streets are warm in the morning, especially when I pass along the Via Appia Antica, where the Roman legions once marched. Today, during the break, I had a coffee at Bar dei Sogni, near the factory. I’ve taken to sitting alone, writing a few notes in a small notebook, and thinking about life.
Ermira, I know you are tired. I know it is not easy to stay alone with a child and a silent old man like my father. But be patient. I will send the first money this coming weekend. It is not much, but you will pay the electricity, the bread, perhaps even a new pair of shoes for the boy. Tell him that his father is well and working like a man.
I am no longer the boy who left with tears in his eyes from the blue villa. I am a man now. A man rebuilding his life from the broken stones of the past.
Do not forget me.
With longing and respect,
Armendi
Armendi sent her letters every week. He loved her.
Ermira replied less often, which did not go unnoticed, but he never mentioned it.
Life flowed like a quiet river. Everywhere, it was the same: with pain, with suffering, with joys and victories. Someone loses, someone wins—the law of nature.
Although he felt emptiness in every word he didn’t receive from her, Armendi never stopped writing. He hoped that, somewhere deep down, she read the letters carefully and kept them. Perhaps her silence was not rejection, but a kind of waiting… a form of inner protection.
He began to learn to accept that not every love is returned with equal strength.
But this did not make him weaker; on the contrary, it clarified his feelings.
Because sometimes, the very act of love is beautiful enough, even when no response comes.
He just worked.
After a long year in Rome, with cold nights and exhausting workdays, Armendi had kept only one sacred thing: his correspondence with Ermira. He wrote her regularly, heartfelt letters, filled with love, hope, and dreams of being reunited. At first, she replied with sweet words, news about their little boy who was growing up, the flowers on the balcony, the birds singing on the roof of their old house.
But over time, something changed.
Her letters began to arrive less and less.
A month without a reply. Then two. Then a short letter, only two lines. No greetings, no sentiment.
He felt a terrible emptiness. Something was wrong.
One late night, while drinking a strong coffee at Bar Arco Romano, with his hand trembling over the table, he gathered courage and wrote a simple letter to his father:
Dad,
Please, tell me the truth.
What is happening with Ermira? Why does she no longer write to me? How is the boy?
Do not hide anything from me. I am a man. I can bear it.
Just don’t leave me in the dark.
Armendi
His father replied after two weeks. The letter contained careful words, but between the lines, the truth he did not want to say could be read:
Son,
Ermira is fine. She has started working long hours at the daycare. She is very tired and has no time to write. The boy has grown and needs a lot of care. She is sometimes upset, but she is living her life.
I help her as much as I can, but I am not her father. I know it’s not the same.
We’ll wait for your return.
Do not draw conclusions prematurely.
Your father
The letter said nothing… yet implied everything.
In the nights that followed, Armendi began to sleep less. His eyes remained open toward the white ceiling, imagining the words that were no longer being written to him. Had he lost Ermira? Or was she still there, but no longer for him?
A phone call
One late evening, when a heavy quiet had fallen over Rome, and loneliness hung over Armendi like a lead cloak, the phone rang.
He answered it with a bad feeling in his stomach.
His father’s voice, slow and sorrowful, came from the other end of the line:
— Armend… can you hear me clearly, son?
— Yes, Dad. I hear you. What happened? Did something happen to you? Is the boy okay?
— The boy is fine. He’s growing up. But I… I have to tell you something that I would never want to say like this, over the phone.
— What happened? Tell me.
— I saw Ermira. With my own eyes.
A heavy silence fell over the line. Only Beneti’s deep breath and the pulse beating in Armendi’s ears could be heard.
— What did you see? — he asked with a trembling voice.
— She was kissing someone else. On the park benches, near the daycare.
Armendi’s face went pale.
His father’s voice continued, sorrowful:
— At first, I didn’t want to believe it. She had been acting badly toward us for some time. She didn’t speak to your mother at all. She had become harsh, cold, distant. I felt that something had changed, but I didn’t want to intervene. But that night… it killed me. She was with an unknown man, older than her. They were laughing, and then… they kissed. Not like people who act on the moment, but like lovers who had done it many times before.
Armendi was speechless.
His hand trembled over the phone. He wanted to speak, to scream, to deny everything. But he couldn’t. Only one word came out of his lips:
— Are you sure? “Yes, son. I saw it myself. Forgive me for not telling you sooner. I wanted to believe it was just a crisis. But it’s no longer a crisis. She is no longer the one you knew.”
Armendi closed his eyes and saw before him a year of sacrifice, loneliness, work, hope… now burning out like a cigarette in the mud. All of it for a woman who had forgotten him.
“Thank you, Dad… I love you.”
“I love you too, son. We’re with you. Don’t give up. But don’t deceive yourself anymore.”
Then the line went dead.
That night, Armendi didn’t sleep. He left his small apartment in Trastevere and walked along the Tiber, under the dim lights of Rome. A solitary man in a foreign city, with a broken heart and a truth he could no longer avoid.
Armendi returned to the apartment in the early hours of the morning. Without speaking, he opened a cheap bottle of Italian wine that had been sitting in the corner of the kitchen. He had never touched it before. Today, he felt he had to.
He poured a glass and drank slowly, looking out the window where the street was dark under Rome’s night lights. His gaze was empty. His mind in Albania. His heart in pieces of deceit.
“How could everything collapse so easily?” he asked himself.
He had come to Rome to build a better future for them. He had worked like a horse, sacrificed every moment of happiness for a shared dream. But now… the dream was alone. It was only his.
He drank another glass. And another. Not to forget. To understand. To avoid breaking apart.
“Maybe she was never mine?” he asked himself.
He had loved her like a believer prays. Like a man who asks for nothing in return, except sincere love.
But she… she had chosen another path.
That Roman night, among slow sips and deep thoughts, Armendi did not become weaker. He became clearer. He understood that his path was no longer for others. He had to build it for himself.
“Time to return.”
After two weeks of silence, inner conflicts, and sleepless nights, Armendi made the decision. He had drunk the cup of disappointment to the bottom. There was no reason to stay in Rome. The apartment he rented in Trastevere now felt empty, foreign. The factory where he worked—meaningless.
The flight to Tirana was calm, but his thoughts were not. He did not know what he would find—at home, or in his heart. But one thing was certain: he would no longer hide behind empty promises.
When the plane landed at Rinas Airport, the warm Albanian air hit him like a deep memory. He knew he wouldn’t stop in Tirana. He immediately got a car and headed toward Durrës. He needed to see the sea. He needed to feel the land, the waves, to breathe deeply the salt that had raised him.
He arrived in Durrës in the evening.
The city was alive. Children played in the streets, young people walked along the seaside, and the distant roar of waves crashing against the castle’s concrete walls.
He sat at a seaside café, “Rafaelo.” He knew it from before. Now it was more modern but still carried that Albanian flavor—warm service, strong coffee, people speaking loudly.
He ordered a simple espresso, no sugar.
“I’m returning… but I am no longer the same,” he thought.
Before him was the sea. Vast, limitless, calm but dangerous. Like life itself.
“I’ve returned, Dad…”
After finishing his coffee, Armendi walked toward his home. He moved slowly; the streets of Durrës seemed narrow, yet familiar. Every step held a memory. Every turn, a closed wound.
When he arrived, the courtyard gate was open. He immediately sensed that his father was waiting. He hadn’t been told about the return.
Beneti was sitting on the veranda, an old jacket over his shoulders, a cigarette slowly smoking. His eyes lifted slowly and saw his approaching son.
“You’re back…” he said quietly, without standing.
“I’m back, Dad.”
Beneti put out the cigarette, then stood. They didn’t speak for a moment. Then they embraced—a manly hug that needed no words.
“I knew you would come,” said Beneti. “You’re not one to leave forever. You grew with deep roots, not with dreams carried away by the wind.”
“And Ermira?” asked Armendi softly.
Beneti lowered his head.
“She’s gone. With that boy. I haven’t seen her since. Not a word left. Your son is with me. Every night he asks when you will return.”
Tears filled Armendi’s eyes, but he did not cry. He had already poured his pain into silence.
“I’ll raise him myself. I’ll be both father and mother to him,” Armendi said quietly, his eyes glistening with a few tears. “No more time for sorrow, Dad. She made her choice. Now she will face the consequences… She will regret it soon enough, but it will be too late.”
Beneti looked him straight in the eyes.
“You have my blood, son. Love does not break us, betrayal does not undo us. They make us stronger.”
After a few days of silence and caring for his son, Armendi learned from an old friend that Ermira had returned to the city for a few days to collect some documents. She now lived in Tirana with another man but was not yet officially divorced.
He could not live without confronting her. She deserved to hear the truth from her own mouth, not from the gaze of others.
He met her at a café near the train station in Durrës. Ermira arrived with dark sunglasses and her hair tied back. Beautiful, but cold. Her eyes were empty. He waited in silence, and only when she sat down did he speak:
“I won’t prolong this. I just want you to tell me: why? Why like this, without a word? Where did all that vow go? All that so-called love? All that we spoke and lived together?”
She lowered her head. Then, without emotion in her voice, she said:
“I don’t love you anymore, Armend. It’s not your fault. Nor mine. It just happened. I got tired of being someone I wasn’t. I missed freedom. I missed the life I couldn’t have with you.”
“And the boy? What about him? Was he an obstacle to your freedom?”
She was silent. It was clear his words shook her slightly. But she didn’t react.
“You don’t deserve that child,” he continued. “He will grow up with love, not absence. With honor, not deceit. He has no mother now, only a father. He despises you because he has learned the whole story. He knows the truth. My fault was falling in love with a lowly race like you—a race of traitors, unfaithful. I cannot kill you, stay calm. You deserve that filth I took from you. Stay there. Disappear from my life, worthless scum. I am now a wealthy man. I paid for the reconstruction of the villa. I claim everything. I even bought houses in Rome. You would have been there too. But you are the past. Go—get lost.”
She said one last plea, softly:
“I admit, I was wrong. Time will tell why, and how it happened.”
He did not answer.
It was over. But it was an ending that had to happen. God acts as He should, never wrong, Nilaj’s words once reminded him. God removes what is excessive, son…
She would say, he thought.
“Look,” he said. “This is the last meeting together. It’s over.” Armendi remained cold and decisive. After she fell silent, his voice low but full of contempt, he said:
“Take your clothes. Your dresses. Everything that reminds you of yourself. Some of them I will burn. I don’t want a single trace of you left in my life. No scent, no shadow, no memory. You are a filthy traitor. Base blood. You’re a Slav who tried to hide under the name of an Albanian woman. But no land will hold you that knows honor. You are so vile.”
Ermira began to tremble, her face turning pale.
“Armend, I…”
“Don’t speak. You are forbidden from approaching the villa and my house. Don’t you dare appear in front of my parents. Or in front of my son.”
He pulled a folded letter from his pocket.
“This is the declaration you will sign. Read it yourself. You know what it contains. After that, you will leave. You can hug the boy one last time. Then you will be only a shadow in his memory. I will make sure he grows up strong and pure, without your stain.”
She began to cry, but there was no room for mercy. He showed her the way.
“Leave. Close the door behind you. And never open it again.”
She left in silence.
The next day, Armendi lit a small fire in the courtyard. He threw in some of her dresses, old letters, and cold memories. His young son watched him quietly. Armendi knelt and said:
“We will start over. Just you and me. And we lack no one. Dad is here. And he will never leave.”
Time to leave. Nothing holds you here anymore.
Armendi took his family and left Albania. The Blue Villa was restored with care, using the old stones that carried the history of an entire generation—but no longer held their spirit. It had become beautiful as never before, but empty at heart. The beer factory in Korçë was in the process of privatization, and he had begun negotiations to bring it under the family’s name. A symbolic act: reclaiming the dignity and wealth that had once been denied.
In Italy, Armendi had obtained residency and, with the help of his grandfather’s friend, had laid the foundations of a new business—a bar-restaurant that soon became a well-known gathering place for the community. Profits followed quickly. He also bought several bar-restaurants in Durrës and later privatized a hotel in the city center. A modern legacy for an old family.
But Durrës was no longer the same. The city of lost loves, empty expectations, and unkept promises could no longer hold him. Not even the Blue Villa, built in 1944 on his grandmother Asia’s birthday. People said that villa had been cursed from the start—not because of the walls, but for the fate that prevented anyone inside from truly being happy.
Now the Podgorica family was being reborn, as in the past—but with a new, pure, chosen love. A love of aristocratic blood, as befitted their lineage and history. A history that had witnessed collapse and was rising again, wiser, stronger, and prouder.
Armendi boarded the ferry slowly leaving Durrës’ coast. The sea before him was endless, with large waves breaking like angels under the last sun of the day. The moon rose slowly on the horizon, bidding farewell to the place where he had spent the most painful years of his life.
In the darkness of the night, Armendi remained silent, watching the waters embrace the ferry. An inner voice rose in his mind, a dialogue with himself, filled with what he had taken and left behind:
“I cannot forget the oath of women… Old Nilaj was right. Not all are traitors, but most? Perhaps the law of nature. I understand now why our loves turned into shadows of the past. I left Ermira there, in the mire of a world that did not want her. She could be nothing more than what she was… A ray extinguished between the darkness of betrayal and coldness. But is she to blame? Or does life force us to choose paths we do not want?”
The sea around the ferry was calm, but in Armendi’s heart, the waves of hope and the wounds of a closing chapter still surged.
The endless sea before him, the lights of Durrës fading slowly in the distance, marked the farewell to the city that had once been called home. A deep, heavy inner voice said to him:
“The oath of women is like the sea—deep and obscure. Some waves appear calm, but beneath the surface lies a storm. In the end, love is an oath that is often broken by the laws of nature and men.”
He turned for a final glance at the departing city and held in his heart his last words:
“Farewell, my city… I wanted to conquer you, but you abandoned me. Now I am only a sailor in foreign seas, seeking peace in a world that has forgotten me.”
“How good that I took my grandmother’s ring,” Armendi thought with pain and resolve, as the ship drifted farther from Durrës’ shores. “That traitorous hand deserves nothing. No vengeance, no mercy. I will not pursue her, nor hurt her, but I will not forgive her.”
He raised his hand, looked at the old ring, inherited through generations, and whispered:
“The ring of repentance will accompany her to the grave. This is the greatest punishment.”
Then he lowered his eyes and thought calmly:
“I will find love again… God knows. But more than anything, I want my son. I want my family. And a life built on dignity, not lies.”
The betrayal of a woman you loved is like the silent breaking of a sacred mirror—it no longer waits for you whole, only fragments that confront you. Yet the new wind of the sea erases memories, and perhaps my angels will bring me a new love… But the wounds of the soul cannot be healed by wind. They remain silent, like waves crashing within.”
The sea was calm but deep, like his thoughts. The lights of Durrës faded behind him, as the ship embraced the waves slowly, as if it too had a farewell to experience. The wind carried the salty scent of a new beginning, but also the bitter taste of an ending. He stood on the deck, leaning against the rails, eyes on the horizon, heart frozen between two worlds—not departed, not arrived.
He clasped his grandmother’s ring in his palm, as a sacred pledge. Behind him remained an old city, a dead love, and a curse of abandonment.
“Farewell, my city… I wanted to conquer you, but you abandoned me. Now I am only a sailor in foreign seas—with hope that beyond these deep waters lies a harbor without lies.”
“Ius iurandum mulierum simile est mari — altum et obscurum. Nonnullae fluctus placidae videntur, sed sub superficie tempestas latet. In fine, amor est iusiurandum quod saepe a naturae legibus et hominibus frangitur.”
He turned one last time to the receding city, and in his heart, he kept his final words:
“Farewell, my city… I wanted to conquer you, but you abandoned me. Now I am only a sailor in foreign waters, hoping for new love, but carrying an old wound.” “The betrayal of a woman you loved is like the silent shattering of a sacred mirror—it no longer waits for you whole, only fragments remain to confront you. Yet the new wind of the sea erases memories, and perhaps my angels will bring me a new love… But the wounds of the soul are not healed by the wind. They remain silent, like waves crashing within.”
The end. Armendi left and never returned to Albania. Where he once had dreams, now ruled the old laws of the ex-communists, who still held the fate of the country in their hands. A regime that had not changed, where power remained with the same people, continuing to enforce laws according to their own interests, crushing any hope for change.
He rented out every property he owned in Albania—the villa, the factory, every asset he had managed to preserve with effort and pain. That old world, which perhaps had once been his home, was now only a distant memory. He chose to build his life far away, in places where people do not see him as an enemy of the past, but as an opportunity for the future.
Albania had become a country where ex-communists still held power, and where Armendi no longer had a place. He left, never to return. He took his family with him. He left nothing behind. He had obtained permanent residency papers in Italy.
But he left a letter.
A Letter of Longing for the City and Lost Love in Durrës
Durrës, my city,
City of the sun and of my former dreams,
I write to you from afar, not as one who leaves with longing, but as one who leaves with a wound in his soul—a wound you did not heal, but deepened.
You gave me everything: the sea, the warm air, the streets where we walked hand in hand, the bench where I first kissed what I believed was my love. Yet you, my city, were also the silent witness of my ruin. You saw when she—Ermira—who swore to me under the moonlight, sold me for a fleeting kiss on another bench, with another face.
She left me, like ash leaves the fire, like a promise fades from the lips of a woman who does not know the word “loyalty.” I took my grandmother’s ring with me—because that hand that betrayed me did not deserve it. And I left the villa, the house, the memories… you, Durrës. Because when love dies, its place is no longer home.
But I am not vengeful. I do not want to burn, destroy, or curse. I only want to move forward. Because perhaps the angels of the sun—those who light even the roughest seas—will light my way too. And perhaps one day, another love, deeper and purer, will come. Not with empty vows, but with a silence that speaks the truth.
Farewell, my city.
I wanted to conquer you, but you abandoned me.
Now I am only a sailor on foreign seas,
with a wound that no longer cries, but remembers.
Armendi
Rome
One quiet evening under the light of a new hope
When one door closes, it is not the end of the world. It is simply a reminder that the path waiting for you was not the right one. Life is not a narrow tunnel, but a labyrinth with many entrances and exits, where each turn gives you a chance to find another light. It is not rejection that defines us, but the way we rise after it. Somewhere, at an unexpected corner, another door will open. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps not where you expect, but it will come—maybe under a different name, maybe with a different face, but it will come.
And when it does, you will understand: what happened to you was not the end, but the first step toward what was truly meant for you.
The End
