The General of the Dead Army by Ismaíl Kadaré, Derek Coltman Page B

stood a car with a canvas-covered lorry parked behind it. The two vehicles were identical with their own. A man in uniform, tightly belted into his raincoat, was standing beside the green car. Another man, dressed in black, was standing with his back to the road.
    What is this mirage? the general asked himself, his mind still half asleep. Am I dreaming? He felt it must be himself, the priest, and their own workmen he was looking out at. He screwed up his eyes and lifted his arm to wipe away the mist obscuring the glass. It wasn’t a mirage.
    “Just take a look over there,” he said quietly to the priest. And the latter, turning in the direction indicated, made a gesture of surprise.
    “Would you stop here, please,” the general said to the driver.
    The man brought the car to a halt The general wound down the window on his side and pointed over to the right.
    “Take a look at those men up there,” he said to the expert.
    The man turned his head and screwed up his eyes.
    “Who are they? What are they up to?” asked the general.
    “Evidently just what we’re doing: digging.”
    “How is that possible? They have no right to excavate without informing us.”
    “It is their own soldiers they are looking for,” the expert said.
    “Heavens! Anyone would think I’m having halluciations.”
    “It is over a year since our government signed the contract with theirs, but their preparations took them longer than they expected and they did not begin work until this past summer.”
    “Ah! Now I understand. Is he a general too?”
    “Yes, a lieutenant-general. The other man is the mayor of one of their cities.”
    The general smiled and said:
    “All we need now is a general with a
hodja
in tow.”
    “There would be nothing very surprising in that. The Turks may well come to fetch their dead back one day.”
    While this exchange was taking place between the general and the expert, the two strangers standing on the side of the road had turned around and were looking towards the newcomers with curiosity.
    “Let’s get out,” the general said, opening his door. “They are colleagues of ours. It might be as well to get to know them.”
    “What for?” the priest said.
    “We can pool our experience, since we’re all in the same profession,” the general said with a laugh.
    As he walked closer he noticed that the other general had had his right arm amputated. In his remaining hand - the left one - he was holding a fat black pipe. The civilian was a corpulent, bald man.
    The introductions over, they conversed for a while in bad English while the two lorry drivers lent each other a hand on some small matter.
    Ten minutes later, having taken leave of their new acquaintances, the general and the priest set off again.
    And this was the first time they had run into them again since that day.
    “There they are,” the general said as he and the priest entered the restaurant.
    They acknowledged one another with nods of the head.
    The newcomers sat down and ate in their turn, mostly in silence. The expert and the priest did exchange a few words now and then, but the general, a hint of a scowl on his face, seemed put out about something. As soon as they had finished eating the expert went up to his room.
    The general and the priest left the restaurant and went out into the lounge where the other general and the mayor were sitting smoking.
    “We sit here like this every evening,” the mayor said. “We’ve been in this town a good week now, and this is how we’ve spent all our evenings. Where is one to go? They tell us that the place is very pleasant in summer, that there are various places of entertainment open; but at this time of year there are no foreign tourists, and also there’s this icy wind blowing off the river day and night.”
    “We could have come here before,” the one-armed general said, “but the football championship was still going on, and they wouldn’t give us permission to excavate inside the stadium