“If you can help me in my work,” the miller told me, “you shall have board and lodging here, and my protection as well. I am getting old and I’m no longer able to do a lot with my hands. My only son has gone into the mountains with the partisans. Only I warn you: no monkey tricks or I shall hang you from one of the beams in my loft.” And that was our contract.
It’s more than a month since all that, and now I am responsible for a whole heap of jobs; I cut wood in the forest, I keep the mill-race clear, I fix back tiles when they fall off the roof, I fill and empty the sacks.
My mates in the battalion and all my family must certainly think I’m dead. If they could see me as I am now, an ex “Iron” soldier, covered all over in flour, with this cap on my head, they would be flabbergasted I should think and certainly end up bursting out laughing.
25 February
It’s very cold. The wind has blown so violently all day that I feel it’s going to rip up the mill by its foundations. Not much work. The winter is such a hard one that there are very few villagers prepared to risk the journey to the mill to have a sack of maize or wheat milled. The fields are deserted this year. The few peasants who do come tell the most terrible stories.
The howling wind. Day and night. I have the feeling that the wind is howling over the whole world.
March 1943
The miller treats me quite well. Yesterday I repaired a section of the roof that had been damaged by the wind. The miller was very pleased with my work. He said:
“Well, soldier, you’re very good with your hands.” Then after having looked me up and down for a moment he added in a bantering tone: “It’s only war you don’t go for much, I take it.”
I blushed up to my ears. It was the first time anything had been said about my desertion.
He slapped me on the shoulder then.
“I wasn’t trying to needle you,” he said with a smile. “It just came out without my thinking.”
His words have haunted my mind all day. I’ve noticed that the Albanians all have a profound respect for bravery. They despise cowards, and apparently I have given him the impression that I am one. A hulking great fellow like me, six foot one!
I would really be sorry to be thought of as a coward here.
I’d be ashamed in front of Christine especially. She’s not yet seventeen, and every time I see her I feel my heart emptying suddenly, like a burst bladder. Just like that!
Afternoon
Today something extraordinary happened. I’d gone to cut wood in the forest and when I came back I saw a man sitting on the step, outside the mill. I paused and listened, absolutely stunned. The man was whistling a tune from home. I went closer, and then I saw that the rags he was wearing were the remains of one of our uniforms. I shouted:
“Hey! Friend! Welcome!”
We threw ourselves into one another’s arms, then we sat down together on the step.
In no time we told each other our stories: the units we’d deserted from, what became of us, the work we were now doing. He had come with his boss, a local peasant, to have some sacks of maize milled. He told me that from all accounts the “show” - in other words the war - was coming to a close, that nobody would go so far as to ask us why we had fled, rather the opposite, it would be us calling to account those who had despatched us to this “show”. Then he told me confidentially that there were lots of soldiers like us working for the Albanian peasants. We both burst out laughing when he told me what he did: anything from taking the cows to pasture to rocking the babies like a nanny.
“It’s only with the women that you have to pull your belt in,” he said. “The Albanians are touchy about their honour. Run after a woman and they’ll cut yours off, mark my word! But you, my friend, I have the impression you’re onto a cushy number,” he added with a mischievous wink. “I caught a glimpse of your boss’s daughter just now. Fantastic!”
“You’re mad! I wouldn’t even dare think about it. You just told me yourself what the risks are.”
“Yes, yes, I did, I agree. But I have the feeling that here it’s different. It’s a beautiful spot, so peaceful. Like I said, you’d think you were in Switzerland.” From inside the mill we could hear the monotonous rumble of the stones milling the maize.
He took out his tobacco tin and rolled himself a cigarette the way the peasants do round here.
“Listen,” he said, his eyes half-closed, very thoughtful. “You haven’t heard anything about the ‘Blue Battalion’?” I shuddered.
“No,” I answered quietly. “Why?”
The mention of this name was enough to snuff out all my cheerfulness. “I see you’re scowling. But don’t worry. They’re patrolling central Albania, slaughtering all and sundry, but you’re not to let it bother you …”
“Will they have another go back here?”
“Who knows … what they’re after in particular are the deserters.”
“Shush!”
I stood up to avoid hearing any more of his soothing remarks that he kept larding so gaily with grisly details.
My miller and the farmer were engaged in a long discussion inside. When the maize was finally milled the two visitors each threw a bag over one shoulder and set off home, the farmer in front, the soldier bringing up the rear.
Sunday 2 April
Every time I hear the little bells tinkling on a bridle I am delighted at the thought of company, because the loneliness here is beginning to get me down.
The miller is a good, just man, but he has the drawback of being a man of few words. I have noticed that Albanians are generally far from talkative, and especially the men. All he does all day is suck at his pipe, and God alone knows what thoughts he is turning over behind those clouds of smoke. I have more conversations with his wife, “Aunt Frosa” as I call her. She’s forever asking me questions, about my parents, my relatives, my home. When I confess to her how much I long to see them again she looks at me with a sympathetic air and shakes her head.
“Poor boy,” she says quietly, and then she goes off to knead her bread or wash up.
“And while you’re away,” she asked me one day, “who is looking after your animals?” I laughed.
“We don’t have any animals.”
“Not even any cows?”
“No, not even any cows. We live in town.”
“And besides, even if you did have any, with you being away the wolves would have eaten them all by now. Ah, my boy, these days men themselves are tearing one another to pieces like wild beasts, we don’t need to talk of wolves.”
I could think of nothing to say to that. Another day she asked me about my medallion. “What is that you wear round your neck, my boy? It looks like a big Turkish penny.”
I laughed.
“It’s a sort of sign we soldiers wear, so that we can be recognized if we’re killed in battle. Look, just below the image of the Virgin there’s a number. Do you see it?”
Aunt Frosa put on her spectacles. They are rather absurd-looking spectacles with one lens cracked. “And who gave you this?”
“Our leaders.”
“May the lightning strike them!” she said, and walked away still muttering.
Those are the sort of things Aunt Frosa and I talk about. As for Christine, I see her very rarely and actually speak to her even less often. She’s the one I’d really like to talk to, of course.
Especially since I can get along fairly well now in Albanian. But we never see her at the mill. She’s busy all day with her housework, and the rest of the time she spends knitting. Even when she comes to tell us that our meal is ready she only stays at the door for an instant. She throws me an evasive glance from those dark, gentle eyes of hers, then she quickly turns her head away.
Sometimes she calls to me from a window without even bothering to come downstairs:
“Soldier, tell papa food is on the table!”
The fact is I think about her, come evening time; sometimes I play with Djouvi, the big dog. Sometimes I let my eye
s wander across the sky as I listen to the brook splashing; then I go off into my daydreams again.
April
Today Christine smiled at me.
Last night some bandits tried to break into the mill. They wounded Djouvi. He is badly hurt. The miller and his family are very upset.
May, about 3 o’clock
A villager came by with a Turkish watch hanging from his neck. It’s a long time since I last saw a watch.
I dream about masses of things, but it’s Christine above all that I have on my mind. All sorts of crazy thoughts go through my head. I know that they’re crazy of course; but all the same I enjoy letting them run on and seeing where they lead.
Yesterday, round about noon, I was stretched out near the race and having nothing better to do I was throwing pebbles into the water. The poplars were rustling all around me and I let myself be lulled into a doze.
Suddenly I heard a terrific noise: footsteps, voices, whistles, horses’ hoofs. I jumped to my feet and what did I see? A long column of our soldiers had almost reached the mill. I wanted to run away, but, I don’t know why, I did the opposite, I ran towards them.
“Is that the mill?” one of them asked, making a sign to me that the others couldn’t see.
“Yes,” I answered in terror.
“Right! Burn it down, men!” he cried, and led off at a run.
The other soldiers followed him. I joined their ranks. I don’t know how or why but my legs were suddenly free again, and I felt light and strong as though my body had been freed from a spell. I was suddenly filled with the same fever, the same ferocity I had felt the year before, when we burned those six villages one after another during the winter campaign. We all rushed forward bellowing like crazed, stampeding animals. Two men set fire to the mill. Another group had seized the miller and were dragging him outside. They took him out into the yard and shot him.
I thought of Christine. I leaped up the stairs of the house two by two. There were soldiers coming down dragging Aunt Frosa bound hand and foot. When she saw me she spat in my face and cried: “Filth! Spy!”
But I didn’t care. All I could think of was Christine. I ran into her room and threw myself on her bed. She was trembling all over. “No! Soldier! No!”
But the blood was pounding in my head. I had to be quick about it. There was so little time. I pulled off the counterpane, frenziedly ripped off her thin nightdress in my impatience, and threw myself on top of her.
“Soldier! Soldier!”
I woke with a start. It was Christine’s voice calling me. Beside me, as before, the quiet water lapped, and there was the smell of hay. I had fallen asleep briefly.
“Soldier! Soldier!”
I walked towards the house with heavy steps. Christine had appeared at the middle window.
“My mother wants you,” she said.
I was still rubbing my eyes.
If she knew the nightmare I’d just had!
24 June 1943
The inhabitants of Gjirokastër are evacuating the town. They are passing all the time, exhausted, carrying their belongings bundled on their backs. The women carry their children in their arms and the old people drag themselves along behind as best they can. The place is in panic. They say that the town is going to be burned down. Some claim that it has been mined and is going to be blown up. The fugitives are taking refuge out in the country.
Gjirokastër itself is being bombed every day. I sometimes climb up into the poplar growing beside the brook and look across at the town. I was stationed there for over a year with my regiment so I know every street and alley, all the café-keepers and the gofté sellers. I also know two tarts in Varosh, one of the poorer districts.
The planes are punctual. They come from the north, so they usually appear through the Tepelene gorge. The anti-aircraft battery at Grihoti is the first to open fire. The noise of the shells bursting doesn’t reach as far as here though; we can only see the white puffs of smoke they make. Then the guns on the teqe hill go into action; but the planes seem just as unconcerned by those as by the first ones. They float on tranquilly towards the town, and then I begin to imagine the wailing of the sirens down there in Gjirokastër, and all the people rushing helter-skelter down into the cellars. It seems unbelievable that all the fear and horror battening on that town can be caused just by those three tiny objects flying overhead, glinting in the sun like silver coins tossed up in the sky.
The last anti-aircraft gun to open fire is the old one roosting up in the citadel, an old blunderbuss that everyone makes fun of.
From here it’s easy to follow the manoeuvres of the planes as the pilots come in, gradually losing height, then suddenly dive onto the military airfield, then make off, placid and gleaming, as if the columns of black smoke that rise at once over the town are nothing to do with them.
All that is in the daytime. At night the town ceases to exist beneath its blackout. First the darkness swallows up the streets and low houses, the bridge straddling the river, then it blots out the various quarters, one story at a time, starting from the ground floor, and the bridges over the streams, until at last it reaches the citadel, the steeples, and the minarets with their untidy stork’s-nest hats.
Yesterday evening, as I watched the town being enveloped in the darkness and disappear, I remembered a similar night, almost three years ago now, when our company, on its way south, marched into Gjirokastër for the first time.
It was a stifling night, there was rain in the air, as soon as we arrived in the Grihoti barracks, even though we were whacked, covered in mud and feeling depressed as hell, we asked to be taken to the brothel. Our commanding officer gave permission for us to go, and immediately, as though by enchantment, all our vitality came flooding back, and just as we were, covered in mud, with several days’ growth of beard, without even having unslung our rifles from our shoulders, we fell in again and marched back out through the main gate of the barracks. The brothel was in the very centre of the town and we had another kilometre to march in order to reach it. But now our legs were no longer heavy. We made silly jokes and teased one another as we marched along the dark road; and we were in our seventh heaven. We had heard a lot about this brothel and couldn’t wait to be there. A prince’s palace would not have been more enticing.
We were stopped at our checkpoint on the bridge over the river, then when the sentries had passed us through we left the highroad and took a short cut.
Our heavy army boots clattered on the cobbles, and the inhabitants behind their shutters and their heavy doors must surely have been trembling with fright at the thought that yet another massacre might be about to take place. If only they had known where we were going!
At last we reached the “house”. It was a very dark night and the muggy air made it almost impossible to breathe. We halted outside the entrance. The officer acting as our guide pushed it open and vanished inside.
The house was dark and silent. There didn’t seem to be any other clients in there.
“Perhaps they’re asleep,” one of us said in a worried voice. “Even if they have got their heads down, they’d better get them up again, and quick about it,” someone else said.
“Hear, hear!” another joined in. “We’re in uniform and they’ve got to respect us. Especially since we’re only passing through.”
“Here today, but where will we be tomorrow, eh?” a small voice added.
But just then the door opened, the officer re-emerged, and we rushed over to cluster round him.
“Now listen,” the officer said. “You can go in straight away, but no noise, you hear! Any rowdiness and it’s back to barracks right away! Right, fall in again!”
We arranged ourselves as best we could in two ranks, God knows how. We were just rearing to get in there.
“Now pay attention to me,” the officer said. “It’s very dark in there, but all the windows are open because it’s so stifling hot, so we don’t want any light. If any of you men takes it into his head to strike a matc
h or use a lighter he’ll live to regret it. There’s a checkpoint not far from here with a machine-gun nest.”
“No problem, sir,” two or three voices murmured in assent.
“We don’t need light. We’ll get by without…”
“Yeah, it’s not light we need, it’s … “
“Quiet, you damned idiot!” the officer grunted. “Now, silence! The first five or six, forward!”
There was a scuffle, and they disappeared into the darkness of the courtyard beyond the door.
“Don’t get your rifles mixed up!” the officer cried to them as they vanished. Then turning back to us: “Six more follow me!”
I was one of those six. We crossed the flagged courtyard as though we were drunk, then went up the stairs and ended up on a landing with a long passage leading off it. It was dark along the passage and so stuffy you could hardly breathe. A pause, then I realized that all the others had melted away into the blackness and that I was all alone in the passage. I felt my way along it in the darkness, I heard a raucous gasp, then another, the blood rushed to my head, I dived through the first open door and heard a sound of violent panting. I rushed out again and found myself in front of another open door. In the shadowy darkness I could vaguely make out a white form in one corner of the room. I went in, took two more steps, then stopped.
“Come on,” a soft voice said.
Shyly, I moved forward a few more steps, then stretched out my arms and touched her. She was completely naked. Her body was so moist with sweat that my hands slid over it. I felt my eyelids drooping and couldn’t find the bed. “Take off your rifle,” she said gently.
I unslung my rifle and leaned it up against the wall. Then she lay down.
I couldn’t make out her face in the dark, but to judge by her voice and her breasts she must have been very young.
“I’m sorry,” I said a few minutes later as I lay briefly relaxed in her arms, “I’m sorry for being so dirty.”