How to reach immortality

[Ullmar Qvick]

HOW TO REACH IMMORTALITY

This little story begins at the university of Prishtina. As most of you know, Prishtina is a woman who is suffering the throes of childbirth and nobody knows how it will all end. Some say "the baby is already born" and feel quite at ease. The mother is having pains and cries out "no. not yet, oh, oh, oh!" and there are even those who claim that the baby is stillborn, abortive. We know the baby is a girl, that she will be named Liria, and to give life to such a child is no easy task....

Well, this was just a little ouverture, and I am expected to write about the subject "How to reach eternity".... "You are just an imposter, how can Eternity be reached in a city where you try to tell us that not even Freedom is within reach?" growls the intelligent reader, and what can I say? Just wait and see, just that...

I attended the three weeks seminar organized by the University for foreign students of the Albanian language and literature. In the group were three Americans: One girl who is not important for our story, so we leave her outside, a young student called Philip Hubbard and his professor Leonard Newmark. Len and I shared a room at "Hotel Bozhur", a fact which was more or less torture to him. Being a professor at the La Jolla University in California, Len's built-in clock - the one in his brain - was nine hours wrong.... This meant that he could not sleep.... at 11 PM his clock said 2 PM and at that time back home he used to be fully awake holding lectures.... Poor Len was forced to wriggle in his bed, sleepless, listening to Ullmar's snoring.... After a few days he couldn't stand it any longer, and he was given a separate room - against an extra fee. I guess it was worth it!

Len and Phil had a textbook called "Spoken Albanian" under preparation, and they discussed this project almost daily with the Albanian linguist Rexhep Ismaili. I was somewhat puzzled why those three serious scholars started giggling and tossing forward in an attempt to hide the texts they were working on every time I came close.... Had I done anything wrong, I thought, why didn't they let me into it? - After three weeks I returned to Sweden, this question still unanswered.

Some months later the textbook "Spoken Albanian" arrived by mail from Phil Hubbard. The dedication text was: "Another acquisition for the largest Albanian library in Sweden.... Miku yt Phil Hubbard."

In fact Phil had visited me a couple of weeks after the end of the seminar. He was using an Interrail card and could travel cheaply all over Europe. After a stay with a German friend he announced his intention to arrive at my home in Sweden. There was one problem however: I lived some 100 km from Karlstad, which was the nearest city Phil could reach by train, but he was to arrive in the evening and there were only bus communications with Hagfors, where I lived. So where was Phil going to stay overnight? As a student he had little money - even American students are seldom rich! Then I got an idea: a young female student had called me a few days earlier, asking for information about Albania. She was a student at the Teachers' Training College in Karlstad. Perhaps she could help?

I phoned the girl and she was more than willing to assist. She promised to be on the spot when Phil's train arrived. And there was plenty of room at the campus, many of the students were on leave at the time... Half an hour after the estimated time of arrival Phil phoned me and told me he was in good hands, everything under control. The following day he phoned me only in the afternoon, a bit embarrased. He said: "I hope you don't mind if I come one day later? This girl.... is something extra, I am sorry Ullmar, but I must have some more time with her." Well, I realized that he had hit the jackpot - he had not only got shelter for the night but plenty more....

The following day Phil came to visit me, but already the same evening he returned to Karlstad. Soon, however, he had to go back to the United States. The little romance died due to lack of oxygene.... But there is an epilogue. A couple of years later I was invited to hold a lecture about Albania at the famous Univerisity Library of Upsala, Carolina Rediviva. Among those present in this magnificent building was a girl who looked at me very attentively throughout my lecture. Of course I felt flattered, but something told me that there was something behind, not only my irresistable charm! And then came the explanation: She was the girl from Karlstad! She knew what I also knew, that Phil was married now and so life goes on.....

Still you may be wondering about the furtive behaviour the three gentlemen Len, Phil and Rexhep had shown towards me. When I started glancing through the textbook I found a startling sentence at the beginning of Unit 5 "How's the Weather?":

- A Swedish tourist, Ullmar, has recently arrived in Tirana. And then, all through the books, in most of the conversation exercises the same Ullmar is doing this and that during his stay in Albania!

What the three gentlemen didn't know is that according to the authorities the number of Swedish citizens whose Christian name is Ullmar is just TWO. (There is a third person who got this name but it is not his used name.) So it was not difficult to recognize who this Swedish tourist was....

This is how I spent three weeks in Prishtina and so gained immortality. I am and shall always remain the eternal Swedish tourist to Albania. The small plot arranged by Mr Newmark, Mr Hubbard and Mr Ismaili had been successful....