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

hardly any sign of the grave left now, except for a big stone that presumably marked its head. As for the plane, there was nothing left of that but a pile of rusty metal. One of the villagers told them how they had gradually stripped it of all the items that could be of any use to them, from the tyres and other rubber components - burnt during the war in place of candles - to the heavier metal parts, which had been put to innumerable different uses.
    Two of the workmen started digging straight away. The others began making their way back to the village. The rain had stopped long before, but the ruts left in the track by carts and tractors were still full of water. Here and there half-used haystacks loomed, still dripping wet. Between the cypress trees, the steeple of the old church stood out in the distance against the sky, and from a field even further away there came the muffled roar of a tractor.
    They ate lunch in the vehicles, then went to have coffee in the co-operative club. The room was very smoky and there were almost no tables to be had. A little radio was shrieking its head off, the volume turned full up. The villagers were all chattering at the tops of their voices. It was easy to see, from their sun-bleached hair and their creased skins, that they were plain-dwellers. Also, the timbre of their voices was different from that of the mountain people - gentler, more melodious.
    As he sipped his coffee, the general let his eyes wander round the walls, trying to read the slogans blazoned there in bright red print. All he could make out were the words “imperialism”, “revisionism”, “plenum”, and the name Enver Hoxha at the bottom of a brief quotation.
    After a short while, the expert rejoined them in the club. He was accompanied by a young man wearing a very wide-ribbed corduroy jacket. Both men came over to the table where the general was sitting and the expert did the introductions.
    The young man fixed his grey, slightly astonished eyes on the foreigner for a moment, then turned back to the expert.
    “It’s very simple,” the latter began. “This week we expect to be doing exhumations in the two military cemeteries outside your village. We have our own workmen of course, but to get the job done quicker we should appreciate some help from you as well, if it’s possible.”
    The young man paused for a moment in what appeared to be embarrassment before replying:
    “The fact is our men are rather busy just at the moment. It’s right in the middle of ploughing for one thing, and also our tobacco and cotton aren’t doing too well this year. And apart from that … “
    “But it would only be for a few days,” the expert broke in. “And of course all the co-operative workmen we use will be properly paid. These people” (and the expert indicated the general and the priest with his eyes) “are prepared to pay thirty new leks for every grave opened and fifty for each opened grave that proves to contain one of their men.”
    “We pay well.” The general emphasized the point.
    “It’s not a question of that,” the head of the co-operative said. “I’m wondering whether this kind of work is authorized by the government…. I mean, if…”
    “Oh, you can set your mind at rest on that score,” the expert interrupted him again. “I have a permit from the Presidency offices. Take a look.”
    The young man read the document held out to him, then thought for a moment.
    “As far as I’m concerned, I can let you have ten men for three or four days.”
    The general thanked the young man and the visitors rose to go.
    No one in the village had even heard of the existence of the two Blue Battalion soldiers who had been killed and buried in the area.
    The general spent over an hour with the Albanian expert trying to work out, with the help of the information on the map, the precise location of the graves. Finally they succeeded. The spot turned out to be inside the co-operative’s calfshed. Accompanied by