The General of the Dead Army (11 page)

The priest listened attentively for a while. “It is difficult to render it faithfully, but the meaning is more or less: ‘I have fallen struck to death, my comrades, I have fallen in the depths of Arabia.’”

“So it is a song that takes place against the desert,” the general said as though in a dream, and in his memory, like a dazzling carpet, the desert unfurled itself to infinity. He tried to walk on that carpet as he had done a quarter of a century before, in his lieutenant’s uniform.

The priest continued to translate:

“‘Go and see my mother on my behalf and tell her to sell our bullock with the black coat.’”

Outside the song was being drawn finer, finer, as though it was about to snap, then suddenly recovered itself, was wrapped once more in the thick texture of the accompanying chorus, and finally flung itself again at the sloping walls of their tent.

“ ‘If my mother asks you about me…’”

“Yes, what will they say to that mother?” the general said.

The priest listened again for a moment.

“It goes more or less like this,” he continued, “‘If my mother asks for news of me, say that her son took three wives’ and ‘that many guests attended the wedding’; in other words he was struck by three bullets and the crows and rooks came to prey on his corpse.”

“But it is horrible!” the general said. “Didn’t I warn you?” the priest answered.

Outside, like a spring being stretched, the song was drawn out finer and finer until it finally snapped.

“They are sure to begin another in a moment,” the priest said. “Once they begin singing it takes a lot to stop them.”

And before long, as he had predicted, the chanting did begin again in the other tent. First of all they heard only the high, heart-piercing voice of the old workman, then another joined in to repeat a phrase, and finally the chorus enveloped the song in its folds and sent it soaring up, proud and harmonious, into the night.

They listened for a long while without comment.

“And this one,” the general asked at last, “what is this about?”

“The last war,” the priest said.

“The war generally?”

“As far as I can make out it’s about a Communist soldier who was finally killed after being surrounded by our troops. And the song is dedicated to him.”

“It wouldn’t by any chance be that boy who hurled himself onto a tank, the one whose bust we’ve seen in various places?”

“I don’t think so. The song would mention it.”

In the other tent the singing had begun again. “There is something heartrending in the way they draw those phrases out and out till you think they’ll never end,” the general said.

“Yes, really heartrending. It is the primitive voice of their ancestors still.”

“I feel shudders up my spine listening to them. They frighten me.”

“All their epic folk traditions are the same,” the priest said. “The devil alone could tell us what these people are expressing in their songs,” the general said. “It’s easy enough to dig holes in their land, but as for getting into their souls, no, never.”

The priest did not reply and a long silence filled the tent.

Outside, the song continued to unfurl slowly like the previous ones and the general had the feeling that the sounds were surrounding him, creeping up on him. “Will they go on much longer?” he asked.

“How can I say? Till daybreak perhaps.”

“Listen carefully,” the general told him, “and if they ever allude to us in their songs, make a note of it.”

“Of course,” the priest said. Then he glanced down at his watch. “It’s late,” he added.

“I don’t feel like sleep. Let’s have a drink. Then perhaps we’ll feel like singing too.”

The priest shrugged, as much as to say he didn’t drink. The general shook his head sorrowfully.

“You’ll never get a better opportunity to learn. Winter, a tent on a mountain, alone in the wilds … “ Outside the song rose and fell, rose and fell. The general produced a flask from his grip. “Well, I’m sorry,” he said, “I shall have to drink alone,” and as he filled his glass his giant’s shadow moved across the inside of the tent. The priest had got into bed.

The general drank two glasses of brandy one after the other, then lit the paraffin burner and put a coffee pot to heat. He had long been accustomed to making his own coffee when alone. The coffee he made seemed to him to have a bitter taste.

He stood for a few moments with his hands clasped behind his back, his mind elsewhere, then walked out of the tent and stationed himself just outside the entrance. A fine rain was still falling, and the night was so silent and so black that he had the feeling that he was nowhere. There had been no singing from the nearby tent for several minutes now.

Perhaps they’re just having a rest. They’re sure to start up again, he feared.

And a second later, like an arrow, the singing did sail up once more into the night. The old roadmender’s voice, leaving those of his companions behind, rose higher and higher, stopped at last, remained hanging for an instant, then broke off suddenly to fall back and mingle once more with the others, like a spark falling back into a bed of glowing embers.

Somewhere in the distance lightning flashed, momentarily lighting up the slope below, the workmen’s white tent, and the lorry parked beside it, apparently on the verge of hurtling down into the valley. Then everything was cloaked in darkness again.

The general listened to the song and tried to sense what its meaning was. Like all the others it was a sad and solemn song. Adieu, adieu.

Perhaps he is singing about his dead comrades, the general thought. One of the visitors who had come to see him before his departure had told him that the Albanians often made up songs about comrades killed in battle. Who knows what goes on in that old workman’s head, he said to himself. He goes all over his country finding graves and digging memories of the war up out of them. He must certainly hate me. I can see hatred in his eyes. Not that it could be any different. We are mortal enemies, yoked together to the same task, like a pair of oxen. One black, the other no less so. The joy of the one made the grief of the other. A grave-digger who digs up graves six days a week and sings on the seventh. A general who did likewise six days a week, but neither could nor would sing on the seventh. And if I were to begin singing, if I were to sing my song about the dead I collect, who knows what horrors would come pouring out then?

T
HE GENERAL SLEPT ONLY
fitfully for the few hours that remained before morning.

He was wakened by the voices of the workmen as they wrenched the pegs of their tent out of the frozen ground. Then they threw it, soaking wet, into the lorry, on top of the big packing cases, beside their shovels and picks.

The two drivers had started their engines and were running them to warm them up.

The priest was already up and making coffee. He sat listening to the pleasant murmur of the burner as the little flickering flame threw its uncertain glow up into his face. The pale light of dawn was visible through the open flap of the tent. The general felt a wave of homesickness.

He wished the priest good morning.

“Good morning,” the priest replied. “Did you sleep well?”

“No, not well. It was very cold. Especially from midnight on.”

“I was shivering too. Would you like some coffee?”

“Please.”

The priest poured the coffee into the cups.

A little later they had left their tent and the workmen were busy striking it. The rain had stopped, but the ground was still sodden, and the opened graves down in the big cemetery half filled with water.

To the east, behind the high clouds, the sun was rising above the horizon, an alternately wan and dazzling blur of light.

In the car it was warm and the general fell into a doze. They had been driving for more than two hours when the driver braked suddenly. The general wiped the mist from his window and looked out. Right in the middle of the road, looking very small in his tight black jacket, stood a peasant boy signalling to them to stop. The lorry squealed to a halt only a few yards behind the car.

The driver stuck his head out of the window. “We haven’t any room. Sorry, lad!” he shouted. But the boy gabbled something in reply and indicated the side of the road with one hand.

“Who is that man?” the priest asked.

The general wound down his window to see better. On the side of the road, a black cape over his shoulders, an old peasant was seated on a big stone. He had a big handkerchief spread out on his knees and was eating a breakfast of maize bread, cheese, and onions. In front of him, on the side of the road, lay a coffin. A little way away a mud-caked donkey was standing motionless on the verge.

“What’s happening?” the general asked.

“How do I know?” the priest answered. “We shall find out eventually.”

The expert had got out of the car and was talking to the two peasants. The old man shook the crumbs from his handkerchief and pulled himself to his feet. The expert came over to the car.

“Well?” the general asked.

“They have the remains of a soldier.”

“One of ours?”

“Yes,” the expert said. And then, gesturing towards the coffin:

“He was working for this peasant when he was killed.”

The general opened his door and got out of the car. The priest followed and went over to the old peasant.

“I didn’t quite follow,” he said.

“The soldier was working for this old man,” the expert repeated. “He’s a miller, and the soldier was employed in his mill. That’s where he was killed.”

“Ah!” the priest said. “Was he a deserter?”

The expert questioned the peasant anew, then came back:

“Apparently he was a deserter.”

The general, who had missed these last exchanges, now joined them, walking very slowly and wearing a grave expression. It was the attitude he always adopted when in the presence of the Albanian peasants.

“Now what is all this about?” he asked.

Those cold, depressing days were behind him, the tent pitched among the mountains was a thing of the past, and now that he had a clean uniform on he had regained a sense of his own importance.

The old man’s face was cadaverous, his eyes grey and tired.

Unhurriedly, he took out his tobacco pouch, filled his pipe, then lit it from his lighter. The general let his eyes rest on the old man’s fingers, as brown and dry as tinder, and his big, still-powerful hands. The boy just stood there staring, eyes wide with wonder at the sight of the general in uniform.

“We have waited here three hours,” the old man said. “We set out before dawn. They told me yesterday you would come this way, so I decided to come here with my grandson and wait. We stopped many cars and lorries before yours came; but all the men in them said they weren’t carrying any dead men. Two of them even thought I was mad.”

“Was it you who buried him?” the general asked. “Yes,” the old man said. “Who else could have done? He lived with us.”

“Ah, so he lived with you. But I should like to know, if possible, what sort of agreement you had come to with him. What could this soldier from a great regular army be doing with you, I mean how was it possible that he remained in your house of his own free will and found the life acceptable? You are a peasant, are you not?”

The expert translated, simplifying the general’s words.

The peasant removed the pipe from between his lips and looked the general in the eyes.

“He was my labourer. Everyone will tell you that.”

The general scowled and reddened at this insult. It was only now that he understood what had happened all those years ago. He gave the miller a sidelong glance as though to say: “Ah yes, it’s easy for you to talk like that now, old peasant!” and nervously lit a cigarette, snapping two or three matches in the process.

“The man was one of those deserters who worked on Albanian farms,” the priest explained.

The general grimaced.

“What was his name?” the expert asked the miller.

“I’ve no idea,” came the answer. “We all just called him ‘Soldier’. And that was all the name he ever had here.”

“When did you dig him up?” the expert asked.

“The day before yesterday,” the old man answered. “I heard that someone was coming round to collect them all so I decided to dig him up and deliver him to you. Better the poor fellow should rest his bones at home, I said to myself.”

“Did you find a medallion with the body?”

“A medal?” the old miller asked in astonishment. “Oh, he wasn’t the kind for winning medals. Work now, there he hadn’t his equal. But war, no, that wasn’t something he was good at.”

“No, grandad, not a medal,” the expert interrupted him with a smile, “a medallion! Something that looks like a coin, but with the image of the Virgin Mary on it.”

The peasant shrugged.

“No, I didn’t find anything. I picked up his bones one by one, but I didn’t find anything like that.”

“You did well,” the priest told him. “You did your duty as a good Christian.”

“And who else was there to do it?” the old man said. “Of course it was my duty to do it.”

“And we thank you for it,” the priest said, “in the name of the soldier’s mother.”

The old man moved closer to the priest, who seemed to him to be an affable and kindly person, and began talking to him directly, gesturing from time to time towards the crudely fashioned coffin of unseasoned oak.

“I made it yesterday,” he said, “and this morning, before dawn, the boy and I started out. We had a bad time of it getting from the mill to the main road. There was mud up to our knees. The donkey fell twice. Just look at the mess he’s got himself in! And it wasn’t easy to get him on his feet again.”

The priest listened to him attentively.

“And the soldier, was it you who killed him?” he asked suddenly in a quiet voice, fixing him with his eyes.

The old peasant made a gesture of stupefaction and removed his pipe from his mouth as if to clear it. Then he began to laugh.

“Are you quite right in the head? Why ever should I have killed him?”

The priest smiled too, with the air of someone saying: “These things can happen, you know.” The miller, addressing nobody in particular, gave a brief account of how the deserter had been killed by soldiers of the “Blue Battalion,” the punishment battalion, that unforgettable autumn.