Summary
Chapter II begins as Gjorg travels to the Kulla of Orosh to pay the blood tax. He walks in the rain, passing by silent settlements and men carrying sacks of grain. He begins to think about the laws of the Kanun, and realizes that “its powers reached everywhere, covering lands, [and] the boundaries of fields” (27). The narrator reveals that “the rules of the blood feud were only a small part of the Code, just a chapter” (27).
Along the road, Gjorg encounters a bridal party. Remembering his deceased fiancée, Gjorg thinks that “perhaps it was better for her that she had gone first to where he would soon overtake her” (28). Gjorg tries to push thoughts out of mind, but he cannot stop thinking about the Code and its laws, to the point that he feels as though “he were trapped in bird-line in the bloody part of the Kanun” (30).
The origins of the blood feud between the Berisha and Kryeqyqe families is described. It is revealed that seventy years before the action of the plot, a guest knocked on the door of Gjorg’s grandfather’s home. While nobody knew the man, they were required by the Code to provide him food and shelter. The following morning, Gjorg’s great-uncle “escorted the unknown guest to the outer limits of the village” (31). Shortly after Gjorg’s great-uncle turned his back to return home, the guest was shot. According to the Kanun, a man is responsible for the life of their guests, and therefore were tasked with avenging the death of this guest. When it was discovered that a man in the Kryeqyqe family had killed the guest, the blood feud began, and it is revealed that “forty-four graves had been dug since then” (33)
Gjorg continues walking and laments the fact that the blood feud had ever begun in the first place. He notices an airplane passing in the sky, an unusual sight in the rural region. Finally, Gjorg spots an inn in the distance. He enters inside, and orders a plate of beans and a cup of coffee from the innkeeper. As he is eating, a small group of men enters the inn. Gjorg recognizes that one of the men is Ali Bikan, “the famous interpreter of the Kanun, of whom he had heard since he was a child” (38). Gjorg wonders why Ali Binak is in this part of the country, and concludes that it must be a dispute about land boundaries.
Gjorg continues his journey to the Kulla of Orosh. After taking a fork in the road, he stumbles upon “the ruins of a house” (41). He realizes that the house was burnt down as punishment for breaking a law of the Kanun. He then notices that the whole village has been destroyed, and he remembers a case in which a village refused to avenge a death, and was destroyed as punishment.
Gjorg continues walking, and thinks of the various punishments dealt to those who defy the Kanun. He thinks back to when his “father reminded him of his duty” to avenge his brother (44). Gjorg remembers that his father felt hatred toward the Kryeqyqe family but that Gjorg “could not hate the man he was supposed to kill” (45). Still, he remembers fearing the punishments he would be dealt if he did not avenge his brother. If Gjorg had not avenged his brother by the time that the bloodstained shirt turned yellow, his fellow villagers “would begin to hand his coffee cup to him and to his kin under the leg” – a humiliating gesture (46).
Gjorg remembers when he finally decided to kill Zef. Before he was able to kill him, his aunt came to visit from a distant village. She implored Gjorg not to continue the feud, and to seek a “blood settlement” from the Kryeqyqe family (47). The ritual, to “exchange a drop of blood with each other,” would effectively end the feud (48). An old member of the Kryeqyqe family, however, refuses to accept the settlement. Gjorg therefore became a “justicer” and left with no choice to avenge his brother (49).
Gjorg then remembers when he first fired at Zef but failed to kill him. Gjorg’s family was forced to pay a large fine, and Gjorg grew so sick that he was “bedridden for two months” (52). After he healed that March, he decided that he would try again to kill Zef.
Gjorg continues along the path. Finally, he sees a castle rising from the fog in the distance. Arriving at the castle, he notices that the entrance door has been left ajar. He walks into a dark room where several men huddle around a fireplace. Gjorg begins to talk to the men, and they share stories of their travels to the castle. Gjorg is frightened by the realization that every man around him has killed another man.
Analysis
It would be fair to regard Broken April as a work of existentialist literature. Put simply, it is a novel that follows a character, Gjorg, as he contemplates the nature, and limits, of his own existence. During his walk to the Kulla of Orosh, Gjorg ponders the role that the Kanun, and his family's blood feud, have played in the construction of his fate. In particular, through the absurd circumstances surrounding the beginning of the Berisha/Kryeqyqe blood feud, Kadaré makes the case that seemingly minor events–in this case a stranger knocking at Gjorg's grandfather's door–can come to define one's entire existence.
In this chapter, Kadaré describes the psychological effects of living under the Kanun. Indeed, the legal code has such prominence in the lives of the people of the High Plateau that even while Gjorg is walking alone he cannot stop thinking about the Kanun, and fearing the consequences of breaking its rules. In this way, Kadaré shows how the Kanun continue to retain power. While it is governed by the Prince, and judged by figures like Ali Binak, it is also enforced by the citizens themselves. It is these citizens who shame and ostracize those who do depart from the standards of the Kanun, and it is Gjorg's own father who pressures him into killing Zef.
In a sense, Kadaré demonstrates how each legal system is socially produced. Indeed, we all participate in the creation and maintenance of a legal order, even if we are not always actively aware of this fact. Of course, our own legal systems might not be as punitive or arcane as the Kanun, but Kadaré uses this extreme example to make the point particularly clear.
In this chapter, Kadaré's own interpretation of the blood feuds becomes clearer. While it is obvious that he is opposed to the bloodshed, he also demonstrates that the blood feuds are not without their appeal to those who participate in them. For example, Gjorg thinks of the families that have not been caught up in the blood feuds and he believes that "sheltered from that danger, they hardly knew the value of life, and were only more unhappy for that" (34).
It goes without saying that this is not enough to justify the fact that Gjorg has just killed another man; however, it is clear that Kadaré is not content to simply condemn the blood feuds. Rather, he wants to examine why the blood feuds might have persisted for such a long time, despite their incredible human toll.
