Summary
The fourth chapter shifts to focus on yet another character: Mark Ukacierra. Known as “the steward of the blood,” Mark is tasked with collecting the taxes created by the blood feuds (129). He is described as being feared by everyone, including the Prince, who is also Mark’s cousin.
In addition to his job as the collector of the blood tax, Mark “was also in charge of the castle’s archives” (131). In particular, he gathers writing about the Kanun and the blood feuds. Mark expresses a suspicion towards Bessian, who he had met at dinner the previous night, because Bessian “had written about the Rrafsh himself, but in such a way that you could not tell whether it was well meant or not” (133). Mark is also “frightened” by Diana’s beauty and admits that he “had no faith in these guests (133).
Mark is fearful that “the Code, and especially the blood feud, had shown signs of weakening” (135). For Mark, this is a particular problem because it has led to falling revenue from the blood tax. In fact, in the year in which the novel is set “the monies collected were less than seventy percent of the revenue of the corresponding period in the preceding year” (136). As such, Mark fears that the Prince is growing frustrated with him, and that he is failing in his job as “the chief instigator of feuds” (136).
Mark begins to riffle through The Blood Book, the written record of all of the killings during the blood feuds. The book extends as far back as “the years 1611-1628, that tallied the largest number of killings in the whole seventeenth century” (138). Mark continues to study the number of killings throughout the century. He realizes that on March 17 there would have been no killings–the first day of its kind–a blank–in a century–if Gjorg had not killed Zef (139).
Mark thinks about the writing that has been done on the Kanun and the blood feuds. In particular, he detests the belief that the blood feuds have become “a capitalist enterprise carried on for the sake of profit” (141).
Mark turns his thoughts towards the High Plateau. For him, “the great plateau was divided in two parts only–the part that engendered death, and the part that did not” (143). For him, the deathless area is a “sterile portion of the region” as it does not produce any blood tax (143).
As the sun rises, Mark thinks of the “fertile fields of the High Plateau” where killings occur (146). He describes how “the people who had blood to redeem tilled their fields because it was their turn to kill” whereas those who owed blood “left the fields untilled” (146). In this way, the blood feuds have caused food shortages and poverty; however, according to the rules of the Kanun “each man chose between corn and vengeance. Some to their shame, chose corn, others, on the contrary, vengeance” (147).
Mark then thinks about the places in the region protected by a special bessa, “where it was forbidden to take vengeance” (149). These special bessa zones include mills, the regions surrounding waterfalls, and particular roads and inns. Fearing again that the Prince is dissatisfied with his performance as the steward of the blood, Mark decides to travel to the “towers of refuge” where men are shielded from vengeance in order to figure out how he might increase the number of blood feud killings (153).
Feeling nauseous, Mark wonders if he is “blood-sick” (154). In the novel, “blood-sickness” designates the embodied form of guilt that comes from participation in the blood feuds. As morning comes, Mark questions why he has facilitated the “torrents of the blood of generations of human beings that streamed all over the High Plateau, the blood of young men and old men, for years and for centuries” (155).
In Chapter V, the narrative focus returns again to Gjorg as he walks back to his village after visiting the Kulla of Orosh. During his journey, he encounters a cairn marking the grave of a man killed in a blood feud, and he thinks to himself, “here’s what will be left of my own life” (158).
Gjorg returns back to his home and he immediately goes to sleep. The days pass by, though Gjorg “had no heart for work” and feels that anything he does will be useless given that his bessa will soon expire (159). He contemplates fleeing the High Plateau to work as a woodcutter in the city but decides against it. Instead, he decides to wander the Plateau for the final days before the bessa expires.
In the following days, Gjorg travels aimlessly through the Plateau. It is now April, “but spring was hardly in possession of things” (161). He spends much of his time listening to the stories of other travelers. He also begins to look for Bessian and Diana’s carriage, in the hopes that he can "meet those eyes again” (163). In general, Gjorg feels that his life is filled with “periods of utter vacancy and great discontinuities” (164). He continues to search for the carriage but is left with “the conviction that he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction” (166).
Analysis
Just as Bessian offered a different perspective on the culture of the High Plateau, the character of Mark offers another view into the workings of the Kanun and the practice of the blood feuds. Whereas Bessian's character presents an idealized vision of the culture of the High Plateau, Mark's character reveals a cynical and manipulative aspect inherent within. Moreover, just as Kadare made a caricature of Bessian, he again makes a caricature of Mark's vileness and villainy.
At this point, it is helpful to have some more background knowledge of the context in which Kadaré wrote the novel. Between the years 1945-1991, Albania was under the rule of a Communist dictatorship. For over 40 years, Enver Hoxha was an authoritarian figure who jailed, and even murdered, figures who opposed him. As is common in authoritarian regimes, Hoxha's administration banned any writing or art that was deemed critical of the ruling government, and often punished the artists behind them. Thus, in an attempt to critique the state while still passing the censors, artists like Kadaré resorted to using allegories–or stories that, upon further analysis, contain a deeper meaning (for more on this aspect of Kadaré's writing, see the article by Rebecca Gould included in the citations section).
In this way, Broken April can be read as an allegory for authoritarian rule. From the safety of the castle, Mark and the Prince stoke up the blood feuds so as to maintain their control and affluence and characters like Gjorg become too afraid of the consequences to resist. Indeed, they become so frightened of punishment that they begin to police each other's behavior.
Here, Kadaré shows that cultural nationalism can be manipulated to destructive ends. Indeed, the characters in Broken April continue to participate in the blood feuds on the grounds that it is an essential element of their local culture. While they might believe that the practice of the blood feuds unites them as a distinct culture, Kadaré shows that the opposite is true, and that this is merely an excuse to justify the continuation of an inhumane practice. In this sense, chapter IV is crucial to understanding Kadaré's broader argument about the blood feuds.
In the brief Chapter V, we return again to Gjorg. Having returned from paying the blood tax, he has achieved the final task required of him. All that waits is the end of his bessa, and this plunges Gjorg into a state of despair. In this state, however, Diana emerges for Gjorg as a figure that can offer salvation. In this way, Kadaré suggests that love–although he does not use that word–has a redemptive quality, and that the thought of a beloved individual can offer hope even in a situation as dire as Gjorg's. While it is clear that he will soon die never having seen Diana again, what matters is that the idea of Diana is enough to help him cope through the final days of his life. In this sense, the novel is, to quote Bessian: "tragically beautiful, or wonderfully tragic" (68).
