From Agim Xhafka/ THE WOMAN WITH TWO HEARTS

2023-06-18 12:08:00, Opinione CNA

I had just started high school. I went to school with Naqe, who lived on the next floor of the building. His name was Stefanaq, but I called him short. In fact, he got angry and shouted:

- Don't call me Naqe, but Stefi, do you understand?

That's what you always say and I always called Naqe. He looked at me fiercely, but softened after I explained.

- Stefi is called Gole's grandfather and you are still not a father, let alone a grandfather.

One morning when I was waiting for him at the door, Stela, my sister, came out. His mother came behind him.

- Good job, daughter, and you will become like Nerënxa to me! - she congratulated her.

As soon as Stela finished high school, she started working at Leshpunuesja e Korça. He will make carpets, Naqja told me. And while she fled like a butterfly, my mother's congratulations came to me without meaning: "To become like Nerënxa!"

-Who was Nërenxe talking about?

-For ours, for Ladi's grandmother, she told me and entered the house.

At that moment I thought that either Niqka, that was the name of Naqe's mother, was playing with the brains of her head, or she wanted to say another name, but her tongue brought out Nerënxa.

Because Nerënxa was an invalid with one leg, with a wooden prosthesis that in those years made the carpenters so heavy that she wanted half an hour to climb the stairs to her house on the second floor and... oh mother, oh mother, what a noise he made wooden legs. Every step he took sounded as if a car was being unloaded with stones. That's why you couldn't wish a girl, be like Nerënxa.

At lunch, I asked my grandmother to tell me why Nerënxa had one leg.

- Participated in a demonstration against fascism and the occupying soldiers fired shells at people. One of them completely cut the bone and blood vessels. In the hospital, they sawed him because otherwise he wouldn't be alive, she told me.

I didn't believe it at all. If it was true, she would come to school and show us her bravery. But when I asked my father and received the same answer, I said to myself, wow Nerënxa is brave without fuss, a hero without bragging! And I started to see him with more respect.

Later, over the years, the invalid of the palace appeared to everyone as if she had four or five legs, not one. And he struggled to forget the lack of a leg himself, but others did not understand it either. I remember that the baker used to bring the bread to Jani himself. He grabbed one side with his right hand, pressed the other side to his stomach and held the cane in his left hand. He walked like a proud horse, he didn't allow anyone to approach him. Or when he went shopping to Sofroni. He stood in line like everyone else. He looked down on those who approached him for help or wanted to take him to the top. He took his place behind the last one he could find and as a favor he had a chair that the seller brought him. She sat there and as she walked in front of her, the chair that she was playing in the place creaked.

Day after day Nerënxa became a kind of administrator of the palace. No salary, no reward. It often happened that one of the women had a sick child, Nerënxa came to hold it, feed it, give medicine to the kalaman so that the mothers would not miss a day of work. It was sometimes an "alarm clock". For example, every time Berti, the bus driver, had the line of the Nerënxa mine, he would knock on the door at 4 in the morning.

- Get up son, wake up the day!

Yes, he mostly received congratulations from the men of the palace. That this benevolent woman used to go to the milk shop before dawn and queue up for all the family members who asked her the night before. For himself he would leave the chair as a sign, then on the men's side he would place bags, stones, bricks and uncle Andoni would take his turn with an old hat. So they were taken from 5:30 until they got close to the store and the delivery truck arrived. They bought two bottles of milk each, as much as was allowed, and each one did not leave without wishing:

- Nerenx, may the day be a thousand!

Now when I remember all the episodes, Nikka's congratulations for her daughter Stela make sense to me:

- Be like Nerënxa!

He spoke about the heart of this tireless woman, about the essence of her life; to be useful to people, because life had shocked her severely with the trauma of missing a limb. It was evident in her demeanor that she had made a compromise with the disability brought on by the shell. He did not submit to pain and weakness, but agreed that both would live together; blackness and mutilation. But not to hinder each other, but to help each other. One afternoon I witnessed this compromise. I went to meet Ladi, her nephew, in the room I saw Nerenxa with a prosthetic leg in her hand. He caressed her, rubbed her and spoke to her:

-You threw a lot of tricks today, you broke my knee. But you will calm down, you have no other way, you have to let the wound rest, otherwise I will change you. I'll tell Miri to make me a new prosthesis out of soft maple wood and I'll throw you out the window. No, no, I'll hold you, I joked.

And while he was rubbing the wood with one hand, he was applying cream to his knee with the other. The days passed with such prominence for her that it seemed to us that even if we wanted to learn ballet one day we would turn to Nerënxa. As the wonder of a November afternoon happened to us. While we were playing football among the mahals in the square in front of the palace, the game became so wild that we were not able to shoot for goals or insult each other. At one point Golja said that without a referee we will not be able to play. We liked this solution. We were thinking about who will be the referee.

- Let's make Nerenxa, - I said.

My brother looked at me with surprise:

- How will Nerënxa follow us in the field?

He was right, but I was also right. Fortunately Nerënxa was chatting with Hajri at the entrance of the palace.

- Will you be the referee of our football match?

- I act like I don't act, she said.

And ran up the stairs. He will take the whistle or the sneakers, those from the other village mocked. But here Nerënxa went to the top of the balcony on the second floor. As the captain of the ship he owned the whole field. He blew the whistle and shouted:

- Game!

A unique, exciting look. Arbitration from the balcony.

Now Nerënxa no longer lives. He's been gone over there for years. They buried him together with the prosthesis. But he lived just like us normals. He really had a broken leg, but he lived it hard, hard every second. That there was not one in her chest. There were two hearts...