Broken April

Chapter 7 wraps up the storylines and finalizes the tragic tone that’s been building throughout Broken April. In the end, Bessian’s fears are fully realized. His marriage has turned into a tragedy, filled with new ambiguities. As he and Diana depart, “Bessian felt that he was bringing home only the outward form of his wife, and that he had left the woman herself somewhere in the mountains” (215). Adding to the ambiguity, Kadare suggests that Bessian’s destroyed marriage is the price Bessian must pay for writing about the High Plateau and profiting from it.

Bessian’s own psychology is damaged as well. The respite of the city isn’t as appealing as it should be: “He thought of all that, and all at once the world that awaited him in the capital seemed terribly pale and insipid compared with the one he had just left” (214). Bessian exits the story unsure about both his life and his marriage. For Diana, whatever she saw and experienced in the tower of refuge is left unanswered. The final passage concerning the couple further emphasizes the murky state in which she exits the story: “A white, mysterious mist came down upon them, like a curtain lowered on the play just ended” (215). Bessian and Diana return home, but they go obscured, shrouded in mist. Both characters are worse off by the end of the story, which gives them tragic endings.

Gjorg’s ending is similarly tragic. Blinded by his emotions, he ignores his own safety. His bessa is ending, his freedom nearly gone. He even thinks he may have seen a member of the Kryeqyqe family but gives it little attention: “Perhaps it was an illusion, but perhaps he had seen aright, and someone was on his heels in order to kill him as soon as his bessa was over, at a time when he had not yet become fully aware of the need to protect himself” (204). Gjorg has spent most of the novel wondering what purpose his shortened life has. Now that finding Diana has become his purpose, he focuses on that mission over his own safety. His desperate search for Diana ends unfulfilled. He meets a bullet instead. Dying on the road, Gjorg thinks “This is it, he thought, and really the whole thing has been going on too long” (215). Gjorg is only 26, and yet by the end of the story, he feels his life has gone on for too long. A young man greeting death with open arms makes for a tragic ending, matching the tone of Diana and Bessian’s conclusion.

Furthermore, Gjorg’s death is implied but never confirmed. The closing passages suggest death but don’t affirm it for the reader. Leaving Gjorg’s fate ambiguous plays into the misty image cast over Diana and Bessian as they depart the High Plateau. Kadare leaves all his characters in worse states. Their desires lead them astray and result in emotional and physical pain.

Kadare keeps the ending of Broken April from being too bleak by offering a glimmer of hope. Coming upon a pristine waterfall, Gjorg thinks of Diana’s purity and remembers hearing about cities that draw power from water. He connects the concepts to find a sliver of optimism:

They made light by means of water, but not just with any old water, because water is as different as men are. You could only do that with the noble water of waterfalls […] if that were to happen on the High Plateau […] the Kanun would become somewhat more gentle and the Rrafsh would be rinsed somewhat of the death that flowed through it, just as poisoned lands got rid of their salt when they were irrigated (205).

Gjorg sees the potential for the High Plateau to become a less hostile place. The long and violent history of the Kanun can be cleansed, but only with nobility. Whether or not that nobility can develop in the High Plateau remains unknown. Still, Gjorg’s optimism, despite how his life has unfolded, provides a dose of existential agency. Gjorg might die before that nobility can come to the High Plateau, but throughout the novel, other characters have echoed similar sentiments. Diana, Bessian, the prince of Orosh, and the doctor all remark that the High Plateau would be better off with a more peaceful practicing of the Kanun. In Broken April, change comes slowly, but the glimmer of hope is there.