Ismail Kadare - The Siege

“He is still very upset. He spends his days at the foundry.”

“He was very fond of his assistant.”

“Yes, he was badly affected by the man’s death. He stays on his own these days.”

“Is he working?”

“Oh yes. He has conceived an implacable hatred for the human race, and it keeps him chained to his work. He’s planning a monstrously large new gun.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But I’m afraid this campaign will be over before he has a chance to try it out.”

“Perhaps the next expedition …” The chronicler didn’t finish his sentence.

“Of course,” the Quartermaster agreed. “Next time, and the time after that, the gun barrels will get bigger and bigger.”

The direct and evil glint came back into his eye.

“By the way, Giaour the architect has apparently been summoned back to the capital. He’s been appointed to another job. Guess what?” The Quartermaster whistled through his teeth. “He’s been appointed architect to the siege of Constantinople!”

“Why? Are we preparing for yet another siege?”

“Yes, we are. And it seems that it will be the last of all. Byzantium will fall.”

“May Allah hear your words!”

“Yesterday we took delivery of the new war-cries to be uttered during the assault. What are you gaping at? Oh, of course, you didn’t know that the wording of the main slogans yelled during an attack are worked out up on high …”

“That really is the first time I heard speak of such a thing,” the chronicler confessed.

“Well, for decisive battles, the slogans come from the Centre. This time, one of the cries, which happens to be the most important one, is rather odd. The attackers are supposed to rush forwards chanting ‘Rome! Rome!’”

“Really?”

“I guess you understand the significance of that word. What it means is that while the Empire is girding itself finally to destroy the Eastern Rome, Constantinople, here it is refining the details and performing a dress rehearsal for its onslaught on the Western Rome, that is to say, on Europe … And when that happens, this field will be turned into a blood-soaked hammam …”

W hen the clouds first appeared in the sky, as if waking from long slumber, the enemy attacked us even more furiously than before. We had been waiting impatiently for those clouds, and when they began to breast over the line of mountains surrounding us, we rushed to our church in great joy and rang the bells. But the clouds left as they had come, without bringing us rain, hail or anything at all. Those fitful, teasing clouds had only served to arouse the dragon .

We knew that the most awesome army in the world was camped beneath our walls, but none of us imagined that its ability to attack us was inexhaustible. Like an avalanche or a roll of thunder coming not from on high but from beneath us, their army bears down on us and is set on grinding us to dust .

At each onslaught they use engines of war we have not seen before — new kinds of ladders, assault towers on wheels, iron balls clad with spikes like hedgehogs, and all sorts of other diabolical inventions. During the last attack we saw some of their soldiers wearing hoods, and we thought it was just some new stratagem of theirs, intended like so many others to strike fear into our hearts. But we soon found out what it was really about. The hooded soldiers had hauled repugnant vermin to the top of our wall. Rats were thrown into one of our freshly dug wells. Two other wells were better guarded. As soon as the guards heard the cry of “Rats! Rats! ” they covered the wells with great metal lids. Our blacksmiths are working day and night to make rat traps which are being set in as many places as possible. They clack shut all the time, and the noise keeps us from sleeping .

They have tried everything to overcome us. God only knows what they will try next! But someone had to stand up and face this maniacal horde. As we have been chosen by history for this role, and we have accepted it, that means it is our fate and our cross .

Day is dawning. The sky is overcast. But this time the clouds are of a different kind. They are heavy and laden with rain. Our men have gone up on top to see what is going to happen. They are whispering, as if they were in a sanctuary. The heavens that seemed to have abandoned us for so long now appear to be filling up. Along with the clouds, the divinities are coming back to us too. With their thundering chariots, their lances and the scales of Fate. Among them, the Good Fairy of Albania has apparently been seen, with the Bad Fairy scurrying behind her. Arberia’s hour is about to sound! Lord, do not abandon us!

Inside the tent the atmosphere was hot, humid and stifling. With some effort, the chronicler penned a few more lines and then laid his head in his hands. He wasn’t in the mood for writing. The rumble of the cannon scattered his thoughts like a flock of crows. He read over his unfinished sentence for the tenth time: “In the raging storm of battle the crocodiles charged the ramparts again and again, but fate …” The raging storm of battle. It was a fair and fine image, but he wasn’t too sure about “crocodiles”. Raging storm evoked the sea most of all, but it’s a well known fact that crocodiles only live in rivers, so that strictly speaking he should have written “crocodiles in the stream of battle”. But the image of a river just wasn’t as strong as “raging storm,” which, by summoning up an image of the sea — of its constant noise, rolling waves and sudden fury — fitted a battle rather well. He would rather drop “crocodiles” than lose “raging storm”. Anyway, when he’d started on this passage and sought an image for soldiers swimming in the waves, he’d hesitated between several fish and beasts of the sea, but none of them seemed to fit the glorious combatants. “Fish” seemed too soft and smooth, “shark” too treacherous and greedy, “whale” too heavy and “octopus” far too repulsive. Whereas crocodiles, because of their strength and killing power, could indeed be likened to soldiers crawling towards the walls of the citadel, especially as their impenetrable and scaly skins were quite like soldiers’ shields.

“In the raging storm of battle the crocodiles charged the ramparts again and again, but fate …” It was a hard sentence to finish off, and he had a headache. He was tempted to write “… did not smile on them,” but “smile” seemed the wrong word here. How could there be any smiles in the midst of such horrible butchery? He put his quill down and stared pensively at the pages he had written in a hand now weakened by age. One day, they would constitute the sole remains of all this blood spilled beneath a burning sky, of those thousands of dreadful wounds, of the roar of the cannon, of the yellow dust of forced marches, of the unending, nightmarish ebb and flow of assailants beneath the castle walls, of men clambering up ladders under showers of hot pitch and arrows, falling to the ground below, then clambering up again alongside comrades who don’t even recognise you because you are already disfigured by your injuries. Those pages were going to be the sole trace of the soldiers’ tanned hides, of these innumerable skins on which sharp metal, sulphur, pitch and oil had drawn monstrous shapes which, when the war was over, would go on living their own lives. To cap it all, these pages would also be the sole remnants of the myriad tents which, when they were dismantled, as they would be in a few weeks’ time, would leave thousands of marks on a wide empty space, looking as if it had been trampled by a huge herd of bizarre animals. Then, next spring, grass would grow on the plain: millions of blades of grass, utterly indifferent to what had gone on there, with no knowledge of all that can happen in this world.