“I swear to the ruler of the Albanian Alps, Lekë Dukagjini, that to my dying day, to my dying day I shall not touch a man, I shall not touch a man and I shall preserve my virginal innocence, renouncing for all times the woman in me.”

This passage captures the beginning of the sworn virgin oath, a key moment of self-erasure. The incantatory repetition of phrases like “to my dying day” and “I shall not touch a man” emphasizes the vow’s gravity and permanence. This act directly engages the theme of Identity Rewritten by Survival, framing the transformation as a transgressive renunciation of self.

“Bekija’s murder is the smartest thing I ever did, they gave me a shotgun and a watch, now I could smoke and drink and move with the men, go to the pub and visit the men’s social clubs, they teach me to stand like them, legs apart, the kids in the neighborhood begin to call me bate Matija.”

This quote reveals the psychological complexity of Bekija’s transformation into Matija. The declaration of self-“murder” as a smart move exposes a deep internal conflict. Matija gains male privileges and social status but only by completely eradicating her female identity, illustrating the fractured psyche central to the narrative’s exploration of gender.

“[I]s this house being built or demolished.”

This closing line of the chapter is a powerful metaphor for Matija’s state of being immediately following her oath. The ambiguity of the house’s status mirrors her own uncertain identity. This rhetorical question encapsulates the novel’s central conflict, framing her transformation as an act that is simultaneously one of creation and destruction.

“[M]y father didn’t touch me for the first year of my life, avoided me in the house, didn’t speak to me, I can’t touch this worm, I’ll crush it with my paws, look at how tiny it is.”

This quote chillingly illustrates the destructive impact of patriarchal expectations. Murash’s visceral rejection of his own daughter, whom he calls a “worm,” reveals the depth of his disappointment at not having a son. It establishes the foundational trauma of Bekija’s childhood and foreshadows the extreme measures she must take to survive.

“I realize now that picking truth was always the braver choice. Dare was for the liars, the cowards who masked themselves behind their bravery. For those who preferred to jump in the river, to run away, or to kill instead of telling the truth.”

Sále’s letter provides an important counter-narrative to Matija’s narration, recasting the family’s tragedy by redefining courage. This passage directly critiques the Kanun’s violent honor code, contrasting it with the bravery of telling the truth. It suggests true courage lies in confronting painful realities, rather than masking them with performative, aggressive acts of violence.

“I saw my father’s razor stabbed into the window frame, a slim shadow rose from it and fell on my face like a mustache, dark and gluey, curving downward, I glimpsed myself in the mirror, could almost feel the coolness of the razor on my upper lip.”

This scene marks the symbolic birth of Bekija’s masculine persona. The razor, an icon of manhood, casts a shadow that allows her to visualize herself as male for the first time. This moment of quiet transformation foreshadows her eventual oath and establishes the razor as a key symbol of the erasure of her female self.

“Kuka’s hand clenches my mouth, Kuka’s hand is now an inextricable part of my face, I take this hand and this stranger’s body as my own, ding ding ding ding, I am no longer in this scene, I am witnessing everything from outside of my body.”

This passage depicts sexual assault through the lens of dissociation, a trauma that precipitates Bekija’s ultimate transformation. The surrealistic imagery of Kuka’s hand becoming “an inextricable part of [her] face” conveys the violation’s deep and lasting impact. Her out-of-body experience signals her impending self-erasure, as she must “kill” Bekija to survive.

“[A]m I getting married or getting buried.”

This question from Bekija’s dream merges the rituals of a wedding and a funeral, illustrating how marriage under the Kanun shows a death of female identity and autonomy. The surreal imagery, with rifles and wailing women, emphasizes the violence inherent in the patriarchal tradition she is being forced into. It also resonates with the earlier passage concerning the house ambiguously left in a half-built state, using the same sentence structure and dichotomy to extend the effect of the earlier metaphor.

“Bekija, choose, who will it be, me or your brother.”

This choice presented by her father encapsulates the cruel reality of the Kanun’s honor code. Bekija is forced to condemn either her father or her brother to death, a decision that highlights the patriarchal law’s destructive power and its disregard for individual lives, especially female agency and emotional well-being. The idea that one of them must die for the honor of the family is a false dichotomy, especially considering the roles that both members play in Bekija’s life.

“Sále’s chair sits empty, there’s a shotgun propped on it, I glare into the floor, into two shoe-shaped hollows, a fly has landed inside one.”

This image powerfully conveys absence and impending violence after Sále flees. The empty chair, the shotgun, and the worn hollows in the floor create a scene of domestic dread. The juxtaposition of a mundane setting with the weapon symbolizes the void Sále has left and the certainty that death will now come for their father.

“[H]e’s a dead man walking to death’s door.”

This stark declaration highlights the fatalism embedded within the Kanun. The besa doesn’t offer hope, merely a countdown to a predetermined execution. The passage illustrates how the law transforms a living person into a condemned figure, stripping away his future and reducing his existence to a grim waiting game for death.

“Sále killed it, the lie is a worm.”

This repeated phrase (“the lie is a worm”) exposes a foundational moment of childhood betrayal and self-deception. The metaphor of the worm suggests a corruption that grows from within, festering over time. This lie, told to gain favor with her father, establishes a pattern of survival tactics that erodes Bekija’s relationships and foreshadows larger, more destructive betrayals.

“I clear my throat and I ask what have you brought me, a wound or death.”

In this moment, the narrator sheds her identity as a grieving daughter to assume the stoic role of family head, as demanded by the Kanun. Her ritualized question is not one of emotion but of protocol, demonstrating how the ancient law forces individuals to suppress personal feeling in favor of performing a public duty.

“[G]oodbye, Bekija, the razor descends down Bekija’s right side and glides the foam up Matija’s neck.”

This quote captures the key moment of transformation from Bekija to Matija. The act of shaving is depicted as a ritualistic erasure of a female identity. The razor physically separates the past (Bekija) from the present (Matija), symbolizing a definitive, self-inflicted goodbye to her former self to embrace a new, male persona.

“[H]ome is where they clip your wings.”

This aphorism redefines home as a place of confinement and stunted potential, metaphorically reflecting Matija’s experience of living under the repression of her family’s restrictive rules. It connects directly to the recurring motif of the pigeons, whose clipped wings prevent them from leaving. Even if Matija were to realize her freedom in isolation, it takes a long time for her to use that freedom to her advantage.

“[M]y body is a moth, nailed to the wall by the pins of her eyes, eyes green like seaweed, eyes like little frogs, eyes without a body, pupilless eyes, bodiless eyes.”

This metaphor illustrates Dhana’s effect on Bekija during their key encounter in the dairy. The image of a pinned moth conveys a sense of beautiful, fatal entrapment, suggesting that Bekija is held captive by her desire. The disembodied, predatory imagery of Dhana’s eyes emphasizes the overwhelming power of their connection. This hints at the fear that Bekija feels in the moment, even as she longs for her connection with Dhana.

“You knew Nemanja would shoot you because you were no longer pure, so you decided to take the oath and become a sworn virgin and choose death for me instead.”

In his letter, Sále reframes Bekija’s act of survival as a selfish betrayal that directly condemns him. This line explicitly links the Kanun’s brutal purity laws to the novel’s central tragedy, demonstrating how the patriarchal code forces characters into impossible choices. Sále’s accusation highlights how personal survival becomes intertwined with familial sacrifice, and how Bekija prioritized her own safety over that of her brother’s. This justifies Sále’s actions, including running away and stealing Dhana’s letter to prevent Bekija’s happiness.

“the bus rocks my body, something sprouts in my stomach, it’s not a weed

I know what it is, it’s a flower, it has thorns and it’s called Dhana”

As Bekija recalls Dhana’s letter on the bus to Sofia, she feels the chronic stomachache she has experienced ever since she was young. This passage reverses the effect that Dhana had on Bekija, signifying Bekija’s regret over the lost time and the misunderstanding between them. She compares Dhana to a flower, an object of beauty, but highlights the detail of thorns to show how the memory of this flower ironically causes her pain.

“[O]nce you enter the revolving door nobody asks you where you’re off to, the wings spin and you must move forward, you must not lag behind, you must not be too quick, if you force the carousel the back wing can push you and trip you, if you can’t balance the correct tempo and you get your directions confused you can get really hurt, attention.”

The narrator employs an extended metaphor to describe Bekija’s arrival in Sofia, comparing the bus station’s revolving door to the inescapable momentum of fate. This imagery suggests a lack of agency, portraying life as a mechanism that propels individuals along a set path. It reinforces the sense that characters are trapped by circumstances.

“In simple terms, the dominant twin, the woman, ‘consumed’ her brother in their mother’s womb. The fetus was successfully removed, and the woman is recovering.”

The clinical, detached language of the newspaper article reveals a shocking medical truth that explains the source of Bekija’s chronic abdominal pain. The discovery of the fetus in fetu literalizes the theme of identity rewritten by survival, suggesting Bekija has unknowingly carried the male heir her father always wanted. This physical reality mirrors her psychological absorption of a male identity, suggesting that while she thought she needed to be a boy to earn her father’s love, she already proved herself stronger than her male twin by absorbing him in the womb.

“[T]hat night was the most beautiful night of my life but at the same time it was the most awful night of my life, because the Kanun decrees that if the bride isn’t a virgin on her wedding night her husband must kill her.”

Bekija articulates the central paradox of her life, where an act of deep love is simultaneously a death sentence under the Kanun. This quote crystallizes how the rigid patriarchal honor code transforms queer intimacy into a fatal transgression. It demonstrates the direct conflict between personal desire and the violent enforcement of social law.

“This is us, and the ritual of our souls’ reconciliation could not be described more beautifully—two clock hands shoot out of their timepiece and pierce the celestial hemisphere.”

In her farewell letter, Dhana uses poetic imagery to frame their love as a beautiful but violent event that exists outside of normal time. The metaphor of clock hands piercing the sky suggests their connection is both transcendent and destructive. It captures the tragedy of their relationship, fated to be a momentary, world-altering collision rather than a sustained union.

“maybe Dhana is right, maybe we both have to take responsibility for our actions, and so what if God put a birthmark on each of us, right where our clavicles met, above the heart, why is loving someone sometimes not enough, where am I supposed to go, who am I supposed to give all this love to, the stray dogs”

Bekija’s internal monologue on the road back to her home village internalizes Dhana’s departure as a form of rejection that disillusions her from romance. She references the God-given matching birthmarks, which she previously cited as a sign that they were destined for each other, to emphasize their absurdity. She had taken a pattern as a sign of something greater, but misinterpreted it to fit her own desires.