The Way of Muri Read Online Free Page B

gates to the iconostasis were all that remained. Traumatised by recent events, the spirits were conversing in quiet, sorrowful voices. They couldn’t stop trembling and crying. There was no peace, even at night.
    Besides the elementals two Croatian prisoners were also sheltering in the damaged church, one of whom was quite young. Like all peasants, they smelled of bread and sheep’s wool. The humans were unable to hear the hundreds of thousands of ethereal groans inside and outside the church. As far as they were concerned, absolute silence had descended on the world around them. The men standing guard outside the church, who had hidden them here and ordered them to lie still, had long since forgotten about them and disappeared into the night. The prisoners could simply have got up and left, but neither of them was to know this. So they carried on lying obediently on the bricks, terrified to move for fear of incurring the wrath of their non-existent guards.
    ‘Oh God!’ groaned the young man. ‘My legs have gone numb. I’m just going to turn over…’
    ‘Silence!’ hissed the older man, in a terrified whisper. ‘They told us not to move. Don’t you understand what is expected of us? We’re not allowed to make even the slightest movement.’
    ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ complained the youth.
    ‘I said no,’ whispered the older man, beseechingly. ‘Just lie there, for God’s sake, or they’ll kill us. Just breathe, and don’t do that any more than you have to!’
    ‘But it’s completely quiet out there. Maybe, maybe…’ The youth’s voice cracked with the inconceivable boldness of his thoughts. ‘Maybe they’ve left their post for a little while? We might as well turn over while we can…’
    ‘No,’ answered the older man. ‘They’re just hiding in the silence, those Muslims. I know they are. They’re still out there, watching with their sharp eyes, and listening. If they hear anything, we’re sure to die… and it will be a quick, terrible death.’
    ‘Won’t they kill us anyway?’
    ‘If we lie as still as mice, at least we might live to see the dawn.’
    They both fell silent. The angelic spirits and other elementals that were spending the night in the church sighed in sympathy.
    ‘Death will take them in the morning if they stay there like that,’ agreed the spirits. ‘They’re honest peasants, and there’s no doubt they’ll go to Heaven, but it would be better if they could live a little longer!’
    The prisoners lay trembling on the bricks, oblivious to the sighs and whispers all around them.
    The spirits turned to the cat. ‘What are you smirking at?’ they demanded.
    ‘All they have to do is stand up,’ answered Muri, stretching lazily. ‘They just have to walk ten or fifteen paces and look outside. They’ve only got themselves to blame!’

    The morning sun threw the smashed cupola into sharp relief. A moment later its rays fell on the wall opposite the low windows, and the roar of gunfire started up again. The spirits, who had curled up wherever they could find a spot, began chattering simultaneously and scurrying about like insects. The prisoners kept their noses pressed into the fragments of brick.
    Muri left the church and headed towards a house that had just been demolished by a missile and was therefore no longer a target. The cat ran along the warm boards of the collapsed roof, which lay in a heap in front of the house, then deftly jumped onto the dusty windowsill and lay there like a miniature sphinx. There was no point trying to leave the city for the time being so he remained there, a witness to the war. He took it all in – the scraps of lead and iron flying through the air, the soldiers and civilians running about in every direction and the vast hordes of divine and demonic creatures swooping and colliding overhead.
    What was happening in the sky was truly an impressive sight to behold. All over the city, the souls of those who had been blown up or shot