“A flisni anglisht?” Do you speak English?
The man shook his head. “Jo.”
“Damn,” Remi murmured, and pulled out her iPad.
The man called out, “Earta?”
A little blond girl scampered around the edge of the building and skidded to a stop before Sam and Remi. She smiled at them, then up at the man. “Po?”
He spoke to her in Albanian for a few seconds, then she nodded. To Sam and Remi she said, “Good afternoon. My name is Earta. I speak English.”
“And very well,” Sam said, then introduced himself and Remi.
“Very nice to meet you. You would like to ask my father a question?”
“Yes,” Remi said. “Is he the caretaker?”
Earta’s brows furrowed. “Care . . . taker? Caretaker? Oh, yes, he is the caretaker.”
“We were curious about the graveyard. We were just there, and—”
“A shame about what happened, yes?”
“Yes. What did happen?”
Earta put the question to her father, listened to his answer, then said: “Two months ago, a storm came in from the bay. Heavy winds. There was much damage. The next day, the sea rose and flooded the lagoon and part of this island. The graveyard was underwater. Much damage there too.”
Sam said, “What happened to the . . . occupants?”
Earta asked her father, then asked them, “Why do you ask?”
Remi replied, “I may have distant relatives from here. My aunt told me one of them was buried here.”
“Oh,” Earta said with some consternation. “I am sorry to hear that.” She spoke to her father again, who replied at length. Earta said to Remi, “About half of the graves were undamaged. The others . . . when the water receded, the people were no longer under the ground. My father, my sisters, and I were finding them for several days afterward.” Earta’s eyes brightened, and she smiled. “There was even a skull in a tree! Just sitting there. It was funny.”
Remi stared at the beaming girl for a moment. “Okay, then.”
“The government came and decided the bodies should be taken away until the cemetery can be . . . um . . . fixed. Is that the right word?”
Sam smiled. “Yes.”
“Come back next year. It will be much nicer then. Less stinky.”
“Where are the remains now?” said Remi.
Earta asked her father. She nodded at his explanation, then said to Sam and Remi, “Sazan Island.” She pointed toward the Bay of Vlorë. “There is an old monastery there, older than this one even. The government took them all there.”
22
VLORË, ALBANIA
“Well, that’s a bit of bad luck,” Selma said a few minutes later when Sam and Remi shared the news. They were sitting on the hood of their Fiat in the parking lot. “Hang on, let me see what I can find out about Sazan Island.”
They heard thirty seconds’ worth of keyboard clicking, then Selma was back: “Here we go. Sazan Island, largest island in Albania at two square miles, strategically located between the Strait of Otranto and the Bay of Vlorë in Albania. Unpopulated, as far as I can tell. The waters around the island are part of a National Marine Park. It’s changed hands a number of times throughout the centuries: Greece, Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Italy, Germany, then back to Albania. Looks like Italy put some fortifications on it during World War Two, and . . . Yes, here it is: they converted the Byzantine-era monastery into a fortress of some kind.” Selma paused. “Oh, well, this could be trouble. Looks like I was mistaken.”
“Caves,” Sam predicted.
“Swamps, alligators—oh, my,” Remi chimed in.