The Girl at the Byrektore (continued)

This is the second half of the first chapter of my new novel, The Girl at the Byrektore. To read the first half, see my previous post.

“Unë jam nga Tiranë,” she says in a surprisingly lilting voice. It’s the first expression of anything he has heard in her voice, like it’s the first time she’s been allowed to say anything that wasn’t byrek-related. “Po ti, nga je?”

The man cannot believe his good fortune. 

“Unë jam nga Amerikë. Por jetoj këtu, ne Tiranë.”

The American isn’t a typical American. He has spent a year and a half in this new society and already sounds more Albanian than he realizes. He doesn’t know how or why, but his accent is almost entirely Albanian. 

Like a chameleon, he has simply blended into his surroundings. He has become part of the concrete jungle that is Tirana, and completely perfected his accent; every word that comes out of his mouth sounds like a native’s.

“Por je me origjinë shqiptare, apo jo?” the girl asks, curious.

The American laughs. Always, the same questions. Like they are reading off a script, like they have all been briefed with the same playbook and told to adhere closely to a manuscript composed by the same writer.

“Jo, nuk jam shqiptar.” 

He is not of Albanian origin. 

There’s nothing easier than telling the truth, especially when it elicits such an open demonstration of awe. That a foreigner could so easily and entirely absorb a new language and its accent and fool a native into thinking that yes, I am one of you, a bit estranged, taken out and washed up on the shores of a foreign country perhaps, but yes, after all, you and I, we are the same, we are of the same gjak, the same blood, you could be me if fate had decided to switch our tracks even just a little bit - the girl’s eyes go wide with the realization.

More byrek

“Ooo-aah,” she says. The same sound they all make. The eyebrows lifting up, the mouth forming such a sweet, innocent, childlike ‘O’ shape. “Pra si te flet shqip kaq mirë?”

“Kam mesuar pak,” he says, nonchalant. Like he doesn’t know that the language ranks as one of the most difficult in the world, that it’s not a language that you just pick up, that even after six months of studying, yes, even after all that energy expended and nights spent memorizing obscure grammatical rules about changing cases and gender, he has the Albanian of a four-year-old. “Kam bërë një kurs për gjashtë muaj.”

He responds flippantly - what is six months of a course when you live in a country and need to learn its tongue? He does not care. Even this short display of linguistic limberness shows he is not so American. It shows he is not so ignorant, not so closed off to the world around him. It shows he is capable when he applies himself. And that the application can stick, even if he isn’t trying any longer.

“Mirë.”

The last mirë comes out apprehensive, yet with a smile. This is something the American loves about his new country: how easily its people smile.

The girl behind the counter passes the simple black plate with a napkin and his byrek on it to the man. He picks it up and turns around when she surprises him with another mirë.

“Ju beftë mirë.”

“Faleminderit!”

He scurries over to one of the small, hard plastic tables against the windows of the byrektore. The crumbly dough and warm cheese are savory and salty on his lips. The American pulls his phone out. He places his wallet down on the tabletop to hold it up.

But a telltale green notification on his lockscreen stops him in his tracks. The American’s shoulders hunch up as he reads its message.

“Henry, I have a client hoo wants to by a policy but his icnome is only 680. We can do smtn?”

The man sighs and puts the phone facedown on the table. 

He scarfs down his two pastries. The meat in the second byrek is tangy and hot and burns the inside of his left cheek.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he gets up, leaving his belongings on the table.

“Keni tres leches?”

The girl is busy, her back turned to the American. She is sweeping crumbs off the back counter. She turns around, one hand still on the hard granite of the countertop.

“Po, kemi. Dhë jane shumë te mira!”

“Mirë, do marr një, te lutem.”

“Je mirë sot? Ti duket i stresuar.”

She bends down to take one of the tres leches out from the frosty glass display case. It’s in a small tin foil can. Slightly hardened brown jelly jiggles on top of the soft layer of condensed milk. 

“Po, jam pak i stresuar.”

“Pse?”

He laughs. He loves how easy it is to speak Albanian with this girl. He loves how easily she smiles. His shoulders come back down below his neck.

“Puna ndonjëherë është shumë e vështirë.”

He loves talking to the young woman with ivory-speckled hazel eyes. He lets the sentence roll off his tongue. The words have become so easy and regular on his tongue, he has gotten so used to complaining about work and how difficult life in a call center can be that he sounds almost completely native when the words leave his lips.

“Me vjen shume keq.” Her beautiful eyes are full of sorrow and her lips pout. 

The man feels almost terrible for having told her about the work problems, because someone as beautiful and innocent and easygoing as this young girl working in a pastry shop in a Balkan back alley does not deserve to know that, sometimes, work is difficult.

“Ah, s’ka gjë,” he says. He pulls some loose change out of his pocket and slams it on the counter, loudly. The sound is abrupt and entirely out of place in the quiet, secluded byrektore. He suddenly feels uncomfortable and chuckles unconvincingly. “Do të kalojë.”

“Po, shpresoj.”

She pushes the tres leches towards him in its tin can. Her fingers linger on it for just a moment before she pulls them back under the counter.

“Një lugë?”

“Më fal?”

He had not been expecting the words and perhaps, after having spent as much time as he has in the land of double-breasted eagles, the American has become slightly Albanian himself. He had not anticipated what she would say and, therefore, when she said the perfectly clear and intelligible words, they could not compute in his mind.

“Do një lugë për ëmbëlsirë?”

“Po, po,” he shakes his head from side to side.

The girl smiles at him before straightening back up. She is almost his height. She extends a hand forward with a plastic blue spoon wrapped in a napkin.

“Jë buftë mirë.” 

“Faleminderit.”

The little ceremony sends color rushing to the American’s cheeks. He grabs the tin and sits back down at his table. 

He shovels the runny, sweet cake down his throat as if he’s just gotten off a deserted island. 

“Si është?”

Her voice calls out from behind the counter. She is watching the man with the faintest smile on her lips. 

“Shumë mirë. Shumë, shumë mirë.”

He feels self-conscious to be repeating the same word, over and over and over again. She will think he is stupid and that he has memorized just a few words to impress her. 

But the girl laughs and turns around again to resume cleaning the countertop.

Besides. Half the language is mirë this, mirë that. You would think everything in Albania is perfect, having learned just the basics of the language. 

The man finishes the rest of his dessert in a few minutes. He slurps the milk at the bottom of the tin and looks at his phone.

He knows he should go back and talk to the operator who could not spell to save his life. He knows that if he doesn’t, he will regret it tomorrow. He crumples up the tin in his fist, a sharp corner protruding into the soft flesh of his palm. With his other hand, he holds the plate.

“U’kenaqë?” the girl asks him once he’s approached the counter. Did he enjoy the byrek? Did he enjoy the dessert? 

“Po,” he smiles at her. “Shumë.”

The American is mentally kicking himself in the ass again. He doesn’t know why he can’t say more than those two or three words that every foreigner in Albania learns on their first day in the country.

“Sa kohë ke jetuar këtu?”

Is she reading his mind? Does she know that he wants to continue the conversation? Is that why she asks how long he has lived here?

“Dy vjet e gjysmë.” 

The grey-flecked saucers go wide and the woman leans forward. She places a rag on the teak countertop next to the cash register and places her free hand on her hip.

“Uaah, sa i mirë,” she exhales the words. They come from deep inside her, so the American knows that they are sincere.

But all the words that Albanians say are sincere. He knows that already. 

“Po, ka kaluar shumë kohë.” 

The words are polite, Albanian Americanisms. They are treading water. They say nothing more than repeating what has already been said.

“Dhë…familja juaj, është e lumtur që jeton këtu?”

The American’s shoulders involuntarily freeze again.

The same questioning from every single Albanian he has met ought to have prepared him for this moment. Ought to have lubricated the words on his lips, made it easier for them to tumble out of him.

But he is a deer frozen in the headlights. His heart starts to pound

He hears nothing but the slow, steady rumble of a car engine and the acidic scent of exhaust filling his nostrils as he walks slowly down the dark concrete steps leading into a suburban New Jersey garage, a faint wailing in the background reaching his ears.

“Je mirë?”

The American starts, shaking his head. 

“Po, po, më fal,” he chuckles. He flashes the young woman a Hollywood smile. That’s what Wanda used to call them. ‘Hollywood smiles.’ 

“Do marr një byrek tjetër me veta, te lutem.” 

The words sputter out of his mouth. The machine is coming back, he is trying to get up and running. It will take a moment for the apparatus to stabilize.

The American leans forward just so and suddenly their faces are too close for a customer and the clerk in a byrektore. He smells a soft undertone of flour and dough on her skin and briefly wonders if she is also the one baking the byrek. 

“Hajde,” she says shakily. She stretches the middle syllable, extends the simple response that means nothing and everything in this former Ottoman colony. A word so bastardized and ubiquitous that it has come to mean everything but its original meaning. “Cila byrek?”

The American had not thought about that. His plan to re-ground, to regroup and find himself back on physical footing in the byrektore in the backalley behind his office had not gone that far. He had simply wanted to come back and find himself on planet Earth again,  in a small bakery in Tirana. 

“S’edi.” The words come out defiant. He leans back and looks at the glass display one more time. “Ndoshta…me mish?”

He invites her to comment, to opine, to say anything about the pastry he will take home and eat on a simple, sinking sofa in front of the television set. 

“Hajde,” she repeats the word-that-means-anything again, shaking her head, side to side. The girl bends down and takes a byrek filled with meat and places it in a small to-go bag. She also stuffs the small bag with a handful of napkins emblazoned with the logo of the bakery in brown print. 

“Kalofshi bukur,” she smiles timidly, passing the bag. 

The man takes it with his right hand and with his left one fishes around in his pocket for spare change. 

“Teteqind?” 

He doesn’t know when his brain made the switch from logic to illogic: when did he become so accustomed to tacking on an additional zero at the end of every sum of cash he hands over to the electronic store clerk, girls at byrektores, smiling crones on the street corner hawking cabbage from the village? When did he learn to do as they do and reference every price with the old currency?

He pulls a fistful of change out of his pocket and spills it on the countertop. 

“Një sekondë…” he mutters more to himself than to the girl. Mixed in the jumble of coins are small euro cents which are almost indistinguishable in size and color from the local Albanian lek. 

He sticks his tongue out between his teeth as he fishes out a silver fifty-lek coin and retrieves two other amber-colored coins.

“Faleminderit,” he thanks her. 

“Te lutem. Ju buftë mirë!”

That innocent, sunny smile is splayed across her face. 

He hesitates for a moment before allowing the next jumble of words to tumble out of his mouth.

“Si e ke emrin??” 

He knows he has probably crossed some invisible red line. He knows that he is not supposed to ask young women at pastry shops their names, not supposed to ask them any of the questions he has asked the young woman.

“Une jam Safjola. Po ti?”

Safjola, what do you say we get out of here? What do you say we go out on the town tonight? Just me and you? Safjola - I think you’re really beautiful, and I’d love to get to know you better. Would you do me the honor of getting a drink with me tonight?

“Unë jam Henry.”

“Gëzohem, Henry.”

“Edhe për mua,” he mirrors the platitude back to her. 

But he means every syllable of the ancient words rolling off his tongue. 

He opens his mouth again to tell her that when his left pocket starts to vibrate. In the quiet, early evening stillness, the sound expands and fills the interior of the simple bakery.

“Faleminderit shumë,” he thanks her again. The American flashes the girl a smile as he puts the phone against his ear and turns to leave the byrektore.

She gives him another wide smile.

“Po, me thuaj,” he mutters into the phone. He is already on the street. 

The man takes one of the byreks out of the bag and bites into it. 

Without stopping, he closes his eyes for just a moment to savor the taste.

“Okay, okay, Gerta, I’m coming back to the office. Please, just relax, don’t do anything until I get back.”

“But Henry, the client is on the line right no-”

“I’ll be there in two minutes, please, just keep them on the line!”

The American hangs up and sighs, stepping on an empty cigarette box on his way back to the office.

I would leave to hear my subscribers’ thoughts on this first chapter. Feel free to leave a comment below!