“Those planes are done for now,” Bido Sherifi said at the cafe, where he was having a drink with Avdo Babaramo, who was talking about gunnery. Half the men in the cafe were listening in awe.
“Gunnery,” sighed Avdo. “You don’t have the head for it, Bido. But where can I find anyone smart enough to understand?”
All afternoon people came to their windows or onto balconies hoping to get a look at the anti-aircraft battery. Most people looked towards the citadel, certain that the new cannon would be installed up there, as the old anti- aircraft gun had been. But evening fell and there was no sign of any gun barrels. Some said that the battery had been hidden on the outskirts of the city. People were disappointed. They had expected to see gigantic guns with long barrels set up right in the middle of the city, as befitted weapons on which the city relied for its defence. But all they had, it seemed, was a battery hidden far away behind hills and bushes.
“Now in my day we had real artillery,” Avdo Babaramo said, raising his last glass in the cafe.
After this initial disappointment, however, the very secrecy surrounding the anti-aircraft battery seemed to inspire confidence among some people.
Everyone was eager to see its first battle with the bombers. People anxiously awaited the next day, when the bombing would start.
Monday dawned. But strangely enough, the British didn’t come that day.
“The swine must have heard about our battery,” Harilla Lluka shouted round town. “Those cowards, they must have heard…”
“Stop braying like an ass, you idiot.”
“… the louts.”
But on Tuesday they came. The siren, as usual, wailed at the sky. Forgetting their earlier impatience, people now rushed downstairs into our cellar. Harilla Lluka was as pale as a sheet.
We heard the menacing, monotonous drone of the engines. Harilla felt that the planes were looking for him personally because he had insulted them so viciously the day before. The noise came closer. Everyone listened open-mouthed.
“It’s started, do you hear?” someone said.
“Quiet!”
“Listen! It’s firing!”
“Yes, it’s definitely firing.”
A continuous rumble came from the distance.
“The battery!”
“Why isn’t it louder?”
“It’s stopped.”
“No, there it goes again.”
“Why can’t we hear it properly?”
“Who knows? Modern weaponry!”
“When the old anti-aircraft gun fired, the whole earth trembled.”
“When was that?”
“In the old days.”
“Quiet!”
The rumble of the cannon drowned out the drone of the engines for a moment, but then the roar of the planes came through again, louder, more threatening. They sounded angry. A hush fell over the shelter. The sound of the gun couldn’t be made out any more. The planes howled savagely. Their shrieks shot into the ground like huge, pitiless stakes. The earth shook. Once. Twice. Three times. As usual.
“They’re leaving.”
Our battery, which had in fact never stopped firing, could now be heard again. Then suddenly, in the midst of the sadness caused by the defeat of the battery in its first duel and the thought that nothing had changed, came a wild cry from the street outside:
“It’s on fire, it’s on fire!”
For the first time people ran out into the street before the all-clear had sounded. The streets, windows and courtyards were crammed with heads bobbing madly up and down to see, see, see.
“Look!”
It was white and in its wake a long and fatal plume spread majestically in the wind. It was falling across the sky, and the plane, with its pilot who would be dead in a few seconds, drifted steadily down and disappeared over the horizon. An explosion ripped the air.
The sinister grey plume still hung over the city. As people shouted, howled and cursed, the north breeze, now gathering strength, twisted the smoke in two or three places and finally broke the plume into little pieces. The fragments billowed over the city for a long time.
The crowds of people filling the streets and squares began to move. A throng raced towards the northern edge of the city, where the plane must have crashed. Those who stayed behind came to their windows or climbed up courtyard walls and onto rooftops to watch the crowd, which had passed Varosh Street and was now streaming into Zalli Street. Moments later, the head of the cortege was lost in the distance. Its tail stretched out endlessly.
It was dinner time, but no one budged from the windows and walls until shouts were heard, “They’re coming back, they’re coming back!” And so they were. First they were seen at the end of Zalli Street, then they spread out over waste ground, and finally reappeared in Varosh Street. The crowd had become a horde lurching forward drunkenly. Kids ran alongside and up ahead of it bearing the latest news.
“They’re bringing it, they’re bringing it,” they shrieked.
“Bringing what?” idlers inquired.
“The arm. The arm.”
“What did you say? Speak up.”
“They’re bringing the arm.”
“What arm?”
“Did you hear? They’re bringing something. But what? I didn’t understand.”
“An arm.”
“An arm of the plane? Planes have wings, not arms.”
The windows, balconies, walls, chimneys and roofs swarmed with people leaning out to get a better view. You could already hear the hum of the advancing crowd. It was getting closer. The din blanketed everything.
At last the horde arrived. It was a truly unbelievable sight. Aqif Kashahu, drenched in sweat, with his eyes bulging and hair over his eyes, was in the lead. He held aloft a cold, wax-like, off-white object.
In the streets there was pandemonium.
“It’s a man’s arm!”
“The pilot’s arm.”
“The arm of an Englishman. The arm was all that was left.”
“The hand that dropped the bombs.”
“The swine.”
“The poor Englishman.”
“How horrible! Close your eyes!”
Aqif Kashahu kept waving the severed arm for all to see.
The hand stayed open.
“Look, he has a ring.”
“Look, he has a ring on his finger.”
“A ring. You’re right. A ring on his finger.”
Now and then Aqif Kashahu let out frightful cries. People around him tried to take the arm away from him, but he wouldn’t let go for anything in the world.
His wife, watching from a window, began wailing and tearing at her hair.
“Aqif, please, I beg you, throw it away, drop it, it’s the devil’s claw, drop it!”
Someone fainted.
“Take the children away!” someone shouted.
“God save us!”
