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house we were waiting for Xhexho. And come she did, breathing heavily as always, her nasal voice booming as she walked through the gate. “Have you heard, poor things?” she called from the steps. “Babaramo’s daughter-in-law’s milk has run dry.”
    “God help us,” my mother said, going green in the face.
    “You should see what happened there. They looked all over for the magic ball, on the ceiling, under the floorboards. They turned over the mattresses, emptied all the chests. They turned the whole house upside down until they finally found it.”
    “They found it?”
    “They did. Right in the baby’s cradle: nails and hair of the dead. You should have seen them! Wailing and crying. They kept it up until the oldest son came home and went to tell the police.”
    “It’s the work of witches,” my mother said. “Why can’t they find them?”
    “Has anything happened at your place?” asked Xhexho.
    “No,” said Grandmother. “Not so far.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Witches,” my mother kept repeating.
    “What about Nazo’s boy?” Xhexho asked. “Have they managed to get rid of his curse?”
    “Not yet,” said Grandmother. “They called the hodja twice but nothing yet. They’ve turned the house upside down looking for the magic, but they can’t find it.”
    “Too bad,” said Xhexho. “Such a good-looking boy!”
    I had heard about this business with Maksut, Nazo’s son. He had been married just a short time when the rumour started that a spell had done something to him. Ilir had heard about it at home and told us. We were very curious to find out what was going on in that house which had been struck by a spell. Not until much later did I understand that it had affected Maksut’s performance of his conjugal duties. We would sit by their door for hours, but it seemed that nothing unusual ever happened. Behind the windows everything was as quiet as it had always been. Nazo and her daughter-in-law still hung the clothes out to dry in the yard and the grey tomcat invariably lay on the roof warming itself in the sun.
    “What kind of spell is this?” we asked each other. “No screaming. No hair-pulling.”
    One day I asked Grandmother, “What is this spell on Nazo’s boy?”
    “Listen,” Grandmother said, “these are shameful things you shouldn’t talk about at your age. Got that?”
    I told my friends and they got even more curious. In the evening, when the hodja was praying in the mosque and the storks’ nests atop the chimneys and minarets looked like black turbans, we went to wait outside Nazo’s house to see the young bride. She came out and sat with her mother-in-law on a stone bench near the door. Her fingers toyed with her long braids and a strange, fascinating light flashed in her eyes now and then. Our neighbourhood had never seen such a splendid bride. Among ourselves we called her “the beautiful bride”, and we liked it when she looked at us as we ran past Nazo’s front door chasing fireflies in the twilight. She would sit there watching us with her big grey eyes, but her mind seemed elsewhere. Then Maksut would come home from the market or the coffee house carrying a big loaf of bread under his arm. The bride and her mother-in-law would get up silently from the stone bench and he would follow them inside, closing the heavy door, which creaked plaintively, behind him.
    Behind that stone threshold, the spell must have been working. We felt sorry for the beautiful bride who disappeared every night behind that grim door. The street seemed empty, and we didn’t feel like playing any more. Through the window we watched Nazo light the kerosene lamp, whose dim yellow light would have depressed anyone.
    “Yes, Selfixhe,” said Xhexho, “it’s all our own fault. People have just gone too far. They say that in a few days all the men and women of the city are going to parade through the streets with flags and music, shouting ‘Long live shit!’ Has anyone ever seen such an