Summary
Broken April begins in media res–or in the middle of action–with an unnamed figure “lying in wait behind a ridge that overlooked the highway” (7). This figure is armed with a gun, and he uses the scope to see into the distance. We are told that this “was the second time in his life he had lain in wait to take revenge” (8).
Suddenly, a man appears in the distance. The man with the gun–we are now informed that his name is Gjorg–aims the scope on the other man and fires. Gjorg walks towards the body, and, in order to “follow the custom,” he turns the dead man on his back (10). Leaving the body, Gjorg comes across a small group of people and he says to them, “Over there, by the bend in the road I killed a man” (10).
Near dusk, Gjorg arrives back at his family's home, or kulla. His father notices that he has blood on his hands, and he tells him to wash it off. His father then instructs him to “tell the village about the death” (11). In the distance, he hears someone calling “Gjorg of the Berisha has shot Zef Kryeqyqe” (11).
Zef’s body is brought back to the village, and the townspeople excitedly share news of the killing. It is revealed that Gjorg’s family is going to try to secure a bessa, an oath that will protect Gjorg from a return attack from the Kryeqyqe family, because “according to the Code, the Kryeqyqe, blinded by the newly shed blood, had the right to take vengeance on any member of the Berisha family” (14). At first, Gjorg is granted a 24-hour bessa, with the possibility of a 30-day extension afterwards.
Zef’s funeral takes place the following day. Gjorg’s father demands that he attends the burial to “‘honor the man’s soul’” (14). Gjorg protests, explaining that he is the gjaks or the killer, and his father responds, “for that reason you must go” (15). Gjorg attends the burial, and then the dinner reception, dreading the fact “that he could never run away” (16).
At the end of Gjorg’s one-day bessa, the elders in the village request an extension from the Kryeqyqe family. As “the killing had been performed in accordance with the rules” the extension is expected to be granted (18). The narrator reveals that Gjorg had “always been thought quiet and sensible” by the local villagers (18).
The Kryeqyqe family approves of the bessa extension. Gjorg, however, is not relieved, for he knows that after the bessa expires, “death would lurk all around him” (19). It is revealed that Gjorg killed Zef to avenge the death of his brother, and that the bessa will expire on the seventeenth of April. It is also revealed that Gjorg’s former fiancée “had died a year ago after a long illness, and since that time there had been no woman in his life” (20).
Gjorg’s father gives him a purse containing “five hundred groschen'' to pay the blood tax required after every killing (21). He then instructs Gjorg to walk to the “Kulla of Orosh,” a journey that will take a day (21). Gjorg’s father then instructs him to look out the window where “a shirt hung on the wire clothesline” (22). The shirt was once owned by Gjorg’s brother, Mehill. After Mehill was killed, the shirt was “hung blood-soaked from the upper story of the house, as the Kanun required, until the blood had been avenged” (22). Because Gjorg has killed Zef–and thus avenged his brother–the shirt has finally been cleaned. The narrator then indicates that a bloodstained shirt has been placed outside of the Kryeqyqe’s kulla.
Analysis
Kadaré is a writer with a refined sense of suspense and intrigue. A key element of Broken April is the slow and deliberate revelation of essential information. Indeed, the novel begins with a momentous event before we even know who Gjorg is or why he might be killing Zef. Only as we read further do we learn about the Kanun and the 70-year blood feud between the Kryeqye and the Berisha families.
At the same time, Kadaré also withholds a great deal of information from the reader. We learn that Gjorg is 26 and has a deceased fiancée, and that is nearly the extent of Gjorg's character exhibition. More than anything, we learn about the particularities of the Kanun: we learn about its relationship to marriage ceremonies and to the blood feuds, and we learn about the punishments that follow for those who break its laws.
This discrepancy between the exposition of Gjorg's character and the Kanun is entirely intentional. In a sense, Kadaré is suggesting that Gjorg's fundamental character is that he lives under Kanun law. His personality, his profession, and the details of his daily life are dwarfed by the fact that his fate has been decided by the Kanun-sanctioned blood feuds.
In this first chapter, Kadaré also describes the sociology of the blood feuds. That is to say, he describes the place of the blood feuds in the cultural and social relations of Gjorg's community. In most places in the world, it would be normal for one to be arrested after committing murder. This is not the case in Gjorg's community, however. Instead, Gjorg goes so far as to attend the funeral of the man he has killed and is protected from repercussions for 30 days by the bessa. Instead of being angry or ashamed that his son has killed another man, Gjorg's father gives him money to pay the blood tax. Thus, it is made abundantly clear that killing is regarded in a vastly different way in Gjorg's culture than in most other societies.
It might be shocking for many readers to discover that Broken April is based on a real cultural practice in northern Albania. Kadaré is aware of the unusual–and indeed shocking–nature of the blood feuds described in the novel. While he is critical of the violent and destructive nature of the practice, however, he is keenly aware of his status as an outsider to this culture and thus is cautious not to condemn the culture of the High Plateau outright. In subsequent chapters, we will see how Kadaré explicitly engages with the topic of cross-cultural engagement.
