“It’s not true. It’s mine, it’s my house.”
“Who in your family joined the resistance?”
“My uncle.”
“My brother’s a partisan too!”
Then we started arguing about the size of the flames. Each of us boasted that the flames from his house were higher than all the others.
“Mine’s the one all that smoke is coming from. One time when the chimney caught fire…”
“Smoke doesn’t count.”
“If you want to see something, just wait till my house burns.”
“Yeah, wait till my Grandfather’s Turkish books go up; they’re as thick as baklava,” I said proudly.
“Wait till my grandmother catches fire! She’s got so much fat on her she’ll go up like a torch,” said Lady Majnur’s grandson.
“Shame on you! How can you talk about your own grandmother that way?”
“She’s a Ballist, my grandmother is.”
“Ilir!” his mother called, “Ilir!”
One by one we all peeled away. As I was about to go back I saw Nazo’s daughter-in-law sitting all alone on a bare hillock, wearing a lovely jacket with a fur collar. The moon had just come out, and her pretty head stood out from the white fur collar as though from mist.
“Good evening,” she said to me.
“Good evening.”
She put her hand on the nape of my neck and ran her fingers through my hair, which had not been cut for a long time.
Then suddenly she asked me:
“What have you heard about Maksut?”
I looked down and didn’t say anything. Her fingers stiffened for a moment on my neck, then relaxed their grip.
“It’s burning,” she said, looking off towards the fires. “Are you sorry?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Well,” she said, “I hope it all burns down entirely.” (The word “entirely” sounded strange on her lips.) “So that nothing’s left but ruins. Do you like ashes?”
I was dumbfounded.
“Yes,” I said.
At that moment, in the moonlight, her eyes looked to me like two magical ruins.
Who are you then? How come you don’t know the birds, haystacks or trees? Where do you come from?
We come from that city over there. What we know about is stone. They’re like people, stones are: they’re young or old, hard or soft, polished or rough, sharp, pink and pock-marked, pitted or veined, sly or dependable enough to hold your foot when you slip, faithless, glad at your misfortunes, faithful, remaining on duty in foundations for centuries, dull-witted, morose, proud, dreaming of bearing epitaphs, modest, devoted without hope of reward, lined up on the ground in endless cobblestone rows like nameless people, nameless to the end of time.
Are you serious or crazy, or what?
And now, just like people, they’re splattered with blood by the war.
Lord, what kind of a city is that?
A city of the ordinary kind.
Ordinary? No, that’s not a city at all. It is an abomination.
WORDS OF UNKNOWN PERSONS
Don’t give me that about yellow hair. Who knows what’s under those iron helmets? They march. They march. Fighting rages everywhere. Where are we going in the darkness like this? I can’t stand it any more. Some day it will be beautiful, the sky will be clear. Where are you going? It is snowing in the mountains.
EIGHTEEN
At break of day, in the far distance, the city awoke, all alone and moody. Though it seemed very far away, on its fate depended everything around it: the mountains, the villages and the valleys. Fire in the city was an alarm signal for the whole surrounding area. Now, half deserted, like a prehistoric city in which life had ceased long ago, the nearly empty stone shell awaited the Germans.
The road that would lead them there (as it had led so many armies) now writhed at the city’s feet, begging forgiveness. But the city, proud and haughty as always, did not so much as glance at it. Through its clouded windows it gazed out at the horizon.
At first no one knew what had happened when the German reconnaissance patrol reached the city gates. We only found out later. The patrol was met with rifle-fire and grenades. The surviving motorcyclists turned back as quick as a flash. Then the road remained deserted for a while, sunk in a deep silence. The city had observed the time-honoured custom, and now calmly awaited reprisals.
They were not long in coming. This time tanks led the way. The road was black with them. The tanks did not enter the city but stopped on the road, and only their long gun barrels turned slowly towards the city. The Germans waited for some time, expecting to see white flags go up. But all remained grey.
Then the shelling began. It made a heavy, monotonous, pounding noise. The whole valley was filled with the sound of iron smashing against stone. Broken pieces of walls and roofs, the limbs of houses and the heads of chimneys, flew in all directions. Grey-black dust settled over everything. Two men who tried to raise a white flag atop one of the houses were shot dead by others determined not to surrender. A third man, snaking his way across a roof dragging a white bed-sheet, was hit as he tried to unfurl it. He collapsed on it, and as he rolled down the gradient he wound himself in the sheet as in a shroud, then plummeted to the street below.
The shelling lasted for three hours. Finally, in the midst of the grey backdrop of death, someone managed to wave something white. No one ever found out who it was that rose up like a ghost over the city only to sink back down into the abyss after waving that white something at the Germans. Exactly what it was no one knew – a flag, a handkerchief, or maybe just a headscarf. What was certain was that this white thing would long stick in people’s minds.
The Germans, apparently observing the target through binoculars, immediately caught sight of the white patch which clashed with the chaos of dust and debris. The shelling stopped. The tanks swung their gun turrets and began climbing up towards the city. The whole earth trembled. The tank treads clanked, echoed and struck sparks as they flayed the cobblestones. The air was filled with a hellish din. The nearly abandoned city had been invaded.
It was later learned that just when the tanks were rolling up Great Bridge Street into the city, roaring like monsters, Aunt Xhemo and the crone Granny Shano were standing at their windows talking to each other.
“What’s all the noise for?” Aunt Xhemo had asked. “They could just as well have come in without all that ruckus.”
Granny Shano had replied:
“They all make a lot of noise on the way in. But when they leave, you don’t hear a thing.”
At dusk the city, which through the centuries had appeared on maps as a possession of the Romans, the Normans, the Byzantines, the Turks, the Greeks and the Italians, now watched darkness fall as a part of the German empire. Utterly exhausted, dazed by the battle, it showed no sign of life.
Night fell. After the thunder that had swept over the whole region in waves, the world seemed deaf. In the restored calm, the thousands of refugees scattered through the surrounding villages and countryside, who had watched and listened to what was happening, stood as if turned to stone.
What was the city doing now, up there in the dark, alone with the Germans? According to the prophecies, this was to be the last year of its millenary life. The men with yellow hair had finally come.
In the village where we were staying hardly anyone slept that night. We all stood outside, silent and expectant. The very few who went inside to nap soon came out again, wrapped in their blankets. No one spoke or raised his voice. All eyes were turned to where they thought the city was. It was deep in black. Iron tank claws were sunk into its chest. No light. No signal. It was being strangled in darkness.