The General of the Dead Army by Ismaíl Kadaré, Derek Coltman Read Free Book Online Page A

there just from their expressions. The fiercer the fighting was the more enigmatic their faces.
    At the edge of the village, in a piece of fallow land, a considerable number of graves had been arranged in rows. The cemetery was surrounded by a low wall, breached in places. The men lying there are all ours, the general said to himself. And he drew his long waterproof cape closer about him to keep out the chill of the thought. A little ahead of him, standing quite motionless, the priest had the appearance of a black cross in a Mexican engraving. It’s easy to see how they came to get themselves surrounded, the general thought. Then they must have tried to escape by that bridge over the river there, and that’s where they will have got themselves wiped out. What idiot of an officer could have led them into a hornets’ nest like that? There’s nothing on the graves to tell us.
    The Albanian expert began the customary formalities. Further on more graves appeared. They were all very much closer to the village and had red stars at their heads. The general recognized it immediately as a “martyrs’ graveyard,” as the natives of the country called the plots where the partisans were buried. In this one, seven of his countrymen had been buried beside the Albanians. Despite the spelling mistakes it was still possible to make out the names of the seven on the little metal labels with their red stars, together with their nationality and the date of their deaths - identical for all seven. On a stone plaque nearby was the inscription: “These foreign soldiers died heroes’ deaths, fighting beside Albanian partisans against the forces of the Blue Battalion, 17 March 1943.”
    “That Blue Battalion again,” the general said as he walked between the rows of graves. “This is the second time we’ve come across Colonel Z.’s tracks. And according to our lists there should be two men of his battalion buried in this very village.”
    “We must ask the villagers whether they know anything about the colonel,” the priest said.
    While the visitors were busy entering their expenses, a number of men from the village had unobtrusively gathered along the graveyard boundary. Then a few women had appeared too. The children had even ventured further forward and were now standing there whispering in one another’s ears and shaking their little blond heads. All eyes were on the little group walking up and down between the rows of graves. An old woman carrying a keg on her back joined the villagers.
    “Are they taking them away?” she asked in a low voice.
    “Yes, yes, they’re taking them away,” several voices murmured in reply.
    Her burden still on her back, the old woman surveyed the scene in the cemetery for a while with the other villagers. Then she walked forward several steps and spoke to the workmen:
    “Make sure you tell them not to mix those seven up with the others. We mourned those with our own, according to the custom.”
    The general and the priest turned round to look at the old woman, but she had already turned and was walking away. They watched her little keg swaying from side to side for a moment, then she was hidden by a bend in the road.
    The villagers strung out along the edge of the cemetery were so still that it would have been easy not to notice their presence there at all. They all stood watching with the utmost concentration, determined not to miss a single movement made by these men walking up and down inside the cemetery, their coat collars turned up against the cold, apparently searching for something, though without success. “Work in both cemeteries will begin tomorrow,” the general said. “Today we shall try to find the two Blue Battalion soldiers and the crashed pilot.” Everyone in the village knew about the pilot. The wreckage of his aircraft had been strewn all through the little wood on the far side of the village. The pilot had been buried by the peasants themselves, near his plane. There was