The Fall of the Stone City Read Online Free Page A

other in mid-celebration or attempted to kidnap the lady of the house; dawn had
broken to reveal hosts and guests poisoned together. Yet none could be compared to the dinner of this night.
    Reaching back deeper into the past, people remembered Christ’s Last Supper, as told by the scriptures, and were sure they would find the answer there. But as soon as they felt they had hit
upon the truth, it eluded them again. Clearly, neither Big Dr Gurameto nor any of his German guests were Christ, but it would be going too far to identify either with Judas. With a sigh and a
prayer to the Lord to forgive them these sinful thoughts, they tried to empty their minds completely.
    Among the scattered houses of outlying neighbourhoods fresh news was slow to arrive so people made do with the old. Even an hour later they were still arguing about machine guns making music.
Shaqo Bej Kokoboja, who had once found himself on the Prussian–Russian front by mistake, said that all this talk was nonsense: he had felt the bullets of a Schwarzlose machine gun on his own
back and its sound was as familiar to him as his old lady’s snoring. When others retorted that nobody was talking about those old First World War blunderbusses but about Schubert – ever
heard of Schubert? – he lost his temper. “Give over, all those Schuberts or sherbets are just popguns. Don’t tell me a machine gun can do a foxtrot or a cannon can play an
opera.”
    In one of these isolated houses a dinner was recollected from the distant past. Its memory had been preserved down the generations like a legend or a children’s bedtime story. The tale
concerned the master of a house who was bound by a promise to invite a stranger to dinner. He handed the dinner invitation to his son with instructions. The son set off in search of an unknown
passer-by but became frightened on the lonely road. Passing the cemetery, he threw the invitation over the wall and ran through the darkness, not knowing that the invitation had fallen on a grave.
He returned home and said to his father, “I’ve done what you told me.” At that moment there appeared at the door the dead man with the invitation in his hand. The father and his
family shrank back in horror. “You invited me and I’ve come,” said the dead man. “Don’t stare at me like that!”
    Meanwhile, the dinner at Dr Gurameto’s continued. Nobody knew what was happening inside the house until news of a different kind spread, this time as welcome as an April breeze. It floated
gently, more delicate than a rainbow, vulnerable to the slightest current. The irresistible wind from the Gorge of Tepelene seemed to help carry it to its proper destination: the hostages were
being freed.
    The news was breathtaking; people could not get it into their skulls. The hostages were . . . the hostages were not being shot, but released. They had not fallen, shredded by bullets in the city
square. They were slipping away, one by one, each to their own home. Oh God! It was Big Dr Gurameto who had performed this miracle!
    The wave of gratitude towards him was uncontainable. Hearts melted, knees gave way, heads bowed. The heads then lifted to raise a proper cheer for Big Dr Gurameto. Never before had the mania for
comparison, exalting one at the expense of the other, undergone such a reversal. The whole city felt bound to fall to its knees before Big Dr Gurameto, to wash his feet with tears and beg pardon
for having doubted him. At the same time it was obliged to turn against his rival, the little doctor, this Judas of Europe and the continent’s disgrace, who had rejoiced prematurely at their
hero’s downfall.
    The little doctor was mystified. He and his supporters understood nothing of what was going on. Little Dr Gurameto had never nurtured any ill will against his colleague, and had always shown him
every respect. But this in no way affected the violent movement of the barometer, which seemed to put paid to every nagging