And what happened was this: on the afternoon that preceded the dinner, after the tanks and armoured vehicles had rumbled and rattled their way into the town, there stepped out from one of the military cars onto the city square Colonel Fritz von Schwabe, commander of the German division and bearer of the Iron Cross. His legs still stiff, he stood surveying the scene and announced, "Gjirokast?r. I have a friend here."
His aides thought he was joking but the colonel went on in the same tone of voice, "A great friend, from university, my closest friend, more than a brother to me."
His aides expected laughter to follow this statement. "I was joking," he would surely say, and explain himself.
But nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary, he gave his aides a look of the kind they had never seen and told them his friend's name. He mentioned the college in Munich where they had studied together and his address. "Big Dr Gurameto. Der grosse Doktor Gurameto, 22 Varosh Stra?e, Gjirokast?r, Albanien."
The aides heard their commander order this Albanian to be found and brought to him at once.
Four soldiers mounted two motorcycles with sidecars. Armed with machine guns, they sped off with the address of the man they were looking for.
At this point the town's inhabitants still had not emerged from the shelters, so nobody saw the soldiers knock at Dr Gurameto's gate and escort him away.
At the city square the colonel's aides finally believed what he had told them, but as they noticed how anxiously he waited for the man he claimed to be his friend, their suspicions were roused again. Was he really a great friend, closer than any brother, or someone wanted for arrest? They waited to see whether this famous doctor would be given a medal or shot for some crime, of what sort nobody could say.
The motorcycles returned, first one, then the other. All eyes were now focused on the mysterious doctor. Apparently the man would be neither decorated nor executed. This was something harder to credit: a sentimental reunion, as if from the last century or even the age of chivalry.
At first the doctor stood nonplussed and failed to recognise his college friend. Perhaps it was the passage of time, his military uniform or the two scars on his face. But then the meeting went as it should.
The doctor and the colonel embraced and their tears of emotion finally dispelled every shred of doubt. Such a touching encounter, so…no, no, it couldn't be of that kind. Neither of them seemed that sort. And yet there was something behind this. Colonel von Schwabe, although young and of relatively modest rank, had strong connections in Berlin, the capital of the Reich. He might know things that nobody else did, for instance that this doctor was about to be appointed the governor of Albania.
The emotional reunion continued, as touching as the discovery of a lost brother in an old ballad.
"Like the Nibelungenlied, eh? Or the Kanun of Lek? Dukagjini? Do you remember what you told me in the Widow Martha's Tavern? About Albanian honour, hospitality?"
"Remember it? Of course I do!" Big Dr Gurameto replied. He was overcome by nostalgia too, but now and then an inexplicable shadow crossed his face.
The colonel also looked pensive.
"I've dreamed of this meeting for so long," he said. "I used to talk to people about you and the things you told me. I used to read Karl May's adventure stories about Albania. People thought I was crazy. They didn't know how close we were. You know, when I believed I was on my deathbed I thought of you. I even had the delusion that it wasn't our military surgeon operating on me, but you. Do you remember telling me about that terrifying dream you had, in which you were operating on yourself? I dreamed that you were operating on me. The instruments were in someone else's hand, but I dreamed it was you who restored me to life. You brought me back from the grave."
The colonel broke off and laid his hand on one of the scars on his forehead. When he spoke again, his voice was slow, almost heartbroken. "And so when they gave me orders to take this tank division and occupy Albania, my first thought was of you. I wouldn't invade Albania but save it, unite it with the eternal Reich and of course, before anything else, I would find you, my brother. And I set off happily to the country where honour rules, as you used to say."
His voice faltered and he fell silent for a moment. "Dr Gurameto, they fired on me in your city."
His voice was now hoarse and he frowned. Big Dr Gurameto stood frozen to the spot.
"I was fired on," the colonel went on. "I was betrayed. The advance party barely escaped with their lives. When they told me, my first thought was again of you. It was my fault for believing you. Nostalgia had turned me soft and without thinking I had put my men in mortal danger. I was beside myself. 'Gurameto,' I shouted, 'you traitor, where's your Albanian honour now?'"
The doctor stood transfixed, speechless. The colonel's voice grew faint.
"I sent you word. I dropped thousands of leaflets from the air. I told you I was coming as a guest. I asked the master of the house, 'Will you receive guests?' And then came your reply. My men escaped by the skin of their teeth. When I saw my soldiers bent low over their motorcycles, I almost howled. All those things we talked about at the Widow Martha's Tavern, did they mean nothing? Where is your honour, Dr Gurameto? Have you nothing to say?"
The doctor finally found his voice. "I didn't fire on you, Fritz."
"Really? It was worse than that. Your country fired on me."
"I answer for my own house, not the state."
"It comes to the same."
"It doesn't come to the same. I'm not Albania, just as you're not Germany, Fritz. We're something else."
The colonel lowered his eyes thoughtfully. "Something else," he murmured. "Well put. You're an amazing man, Gurameto. You always were special. You're the superman, aren't you? You don't belong to the real world."
"Nor do you, Fritz."
"You mean that's why we don't get on with the rest?"
"Perhaps. I'm still the person I was."
"And I'm not? You mean that this uniform of mine, these scars, the war, the Iron Cross have changed me? I tell you, they haven't, not in the slightest."
"If that's true, Fritz, and if you're still the same person, I'm inviting you to dinner at my house, according to the customs we spoke about. Tonight."
The colonel raised his hand to his scarred brow, as if struck by a blow. His icy stare seemed to say, "Come to dinner, in this country where they fired on me behind my back?"
He put his arms round Gurameto but this time his embrace was cold. Gurameto interpreted it as a refusal of his invitation and tensed his neck. But the reply was the opposite. Their final words were partly in Albanian and partly in archaic German.
As evening fell on the city, Big Dr Gurameto felt the weight of a sorrow he had never known before. He listened to the sounds of preparation for the dinner and looked out from the first floor veranda towards the gate of his yard, where his guest would knock.
The colonel came at the promised time and, strangely, his car drew up without a sound, as if it had glided through the air above the city to avoid being seen by anybody.
His guest seemed to have arrived so stealthily that the master of the house asked him if he should draw the curtains and turn off the gramophone.
To his surprise, the colonel said no. Certainly not. Wherever Colonel Fritz von Schwabe goes for dinner, especially in Albania, let the lamps be lit and the music sound, as custom demands. "You invited me to dinner, and here I am," his voice boomed.
Smiling, he bounded up the staircase, followed by his aides and a soldier carrying a case of champagne. They entered the great drawing room, kissed the hands of the lady and daughter of the house and gave a curt nod to the doctor's prospective son-in-law.
The slight embarrassment on both sides, perhaps because this was the first time any Albanian house had welcomed German servicemen, vanished at once when the guests took their places at the dinner table. Clearly the evening would go well. Cheerful toasts were raised. The conversation flowed without longueurs and paused without stalling. The colonel and his host sometimes talked tête-à-tête, teasing each other with recollections of student days, which inevitably involved the names of drinks and young ladies. Mrs Gurameto's sparkling eyes showed that this did not offend her in the slightest. Following the tradition of university feasts, the guests were provided with masks, which they wore or set aside as the fancy took them.
"My God," sighed the colonel. His voice was not loud, but a silence fell. "My God," he repeated, "for weeks, months, I've dreamed of visiting a house like this."
His expression clouded over again. His voice softened, as it had that afternoon in the city square.
"For so many weeks, so many months," he continued softly, "as I crossed the wasteland of Europe, with death and hatred all around me, I yearned for a dinner like this. Of all the possible houses in this whole sorry continent that I dreamed of visiting, yours was the very first."
"I believe you," Gurameto replied calmly.
"Thank you, brother. The prospect was doubly inviting, because the house was yours, and because it was Albanian. It was just as you said, like in Lek? Dukagjini: 'Give me your word of honour, oh master of the house!' What a magnificent phrase. The whole time I was thinking, quite rightly, that our ancient German customs are close to yours. The world has forgotten these customs, but we will bring them back. That's what I told myself, as I travelled across wintry, frozen Europe. It was all ours, we were winning all the time, but something was missing."
One of the officers tried to seize the opportunity of the silence to raise a toast, but at a glance from his superior he left his glass where it stood.
"And so, as I told you, when the order came to occupy-I mean to unite Albania, my first thought was that I would visit my brother. I would find him wherever he was. And look, I have come. But you…You fired on me, Gurameto. Treacherously, behind my back."
"It wasn't me," the doctor said quietly.
"I know. But you know better than I do that your Kanun of Lek? Dukagjini demands blood for blood. German blood was spilt. Blood is never counted as lost."
Dr Gurameto awaited the verdict with his eyes closed.
"Eighty hostages will wash away that blood. While we are dining here, my men are rounding them up."
The expression of the master of the house turned to stone. He had heard something about this, but had thought the order would be rescinded.
Everybody waited to hear how he would reply. That rigid face would produce something. For instance he might say, "Why tell me this?" Or, "You are my guest. Show me the respect that I have shown you." Or he might simply pronounce the old formula that followed an insult to a table, according to the Kanun of Lek? Dukagjini, and go to the window to announce to the people that his German guest had violated his hospitality.
But Big Dr Gurameto said nothing of the sort. The thought in his mind was of something entirely different.
In fact it was not a thought at all but a sudden, incongruous flashback of the strange dream of which the colonel had reminded him a few hours before on the city square. Instantaneously and with blinding clarity he saw himself stretched out on the operating table. He looked up - the surgeon operating on him was himself. This came as a surprise to him but what struck him most was the expression on the surgeon's face. It did not reveal whether the surgeon recognised him or not. Gurameto even wanted to say to him, "It's me, don't you know me?" But at that moment the surgeon, with the scalpel in his hand, gave a slight sign of recognition, as if this patient were a person he had met before. Again, Gurameto wanted to say, "Careful, be gentle, don't you see it's me, your own self?" But the surgeon donned his protective mask and Gurameto could only try to interpret the expression of this mask. It changed, sometimes suggesting that the surgeon would be gentle, as if to himself, but at other times the masked face conveyed the opposite impression, that he was the last person from whom Gurameto could expect kindness.
Gurameto wanted to question the surgeon but the anaesthetic prevented him. The expression of the mask grew sterner. It seemed to say, now that you're in my hands, you'll see what I'll do to you. The torture continued. The mask bent over him. As the surgeon was about to make the first incision, he whispered, "Don't you know that a person's worst enemy is his own self?"
The colonel was talking at the dinner table but his voice came as if from a distance. The doctor could not be sure if he heard him correctly. "You brought me back to life, Gurameto." His voice was soft, very faint. "You brought me back to life, but to your own misfortune."
Of course this evening was his misfortune. From now on the whole city would revile him as a traitor. In the days, months and years to come, even after his death, this was how he would be remembered.
He wanted to wake from this nightmare too, but what came from his mouth were only a few calm words. "Fritz, free the hostages."
The dinner table froze.
"Was?"
The master of the house looked forlornly at his guest. "Free the hostages, Fritz," he repeated. "Libera obsides."
"How dare you?" A lump in the colonel's throat strangled his words. "How dare you give me orders. If you weren't…"
The colonel left the phrase unsaid, but everyone knew what he wanted to say. If you weren't my old college friend, from that tavern on the other side of ravaged Europe, there would be Armageddon here.
The colonel put his hand on Dr Gurameto's shoulder, as if comforting someone in shock. In a gentle, soothing voice and with a playful smile, he said, "You gave me an order in a dead language. What did you mean by that, my friend?"
The officers at the table stared wide-eyed, moving their hands from their champagne glasses to their revolvers and back again.
The colonel repeated his question and added, "Was this a slight to the German language?"
Gurameto shook his head but his explanation was confused. It had nothing to with German. He loved Latin and always had done. He had spoken in Latin impulsively, without thinking. They had spoken Latin in their student days, to tell each other secrets.
The colonel thought for a moment, and sipped his champagne. "You asked me to free the hostages," he said quietly. "Tell me why!"
"They're innocent," the doctor replied. "No other reason."
As they sat at the dinner table, outside in the darkness German soldiers were knocking on the doors of the houses of Gjirokast?r.
The doctor asked how the hostages were being selected. Was their fate written on their faces?
The colonel replied that every tenth house was being chosen, as in all reprisals. "Dr Gurameto, you want justice as much as I do. Listen to me! Hand over whoever fired on my advance party and I will release the hostages. On the spot. I give you my word. I give you my word of honour, according to the Code of Lek? Dukagjini."
Gurameto did not reply.
"That's my bargain with the city. This offer is on the table."
Still Dr Gurameto did not speak and the colonel leaned over, his face close to the doctor's. "If the city won't hand them over, give them to me yourself."
The doctor said nothing.
"Gurameto, my brother," the colonel said more gently. "I don't want to spill Albanian blood. I came as a guest, with promises and gifts, but you fired on me." His voice was once again disconsolate, broken.
"Give me those damned names," said the colonel, now almost pleading. "Give them to me and the hostages are yours, instantly."
Gurameto shook his head in refusal, but diffidently. "I can't," he said. "I couldn't even if I wanted to. I don't know who they are. I don't know their names, because they don't have any."
"Now you're playing games with me."
"I'm not joking, Fritz. They don't have names, only nicknames."
One of the officers, apparently belonging to the Gestapo, nodded.
The colonel raised his hands to his head and the doctor drew close to his ear, like at the beginning of the dinner, when they had teased each other about their confidences at the Widow Martha's Tavern.
The colonel listened and then said very softly, "Gurameto, you know some deep mysteries that nobody else does."
Dr Gurameto's reply was a startling one. "So much the worse for you. Free the hostages!"
"I can't." Now it was the colonel's turn to say this.
"Yes you can," said Gurameto. "You know you can."
"If you can't give me their names, at least give me their nicknames," the colonel said in a broken voice.
The guests listened to this crazy conversation, understanding nothing and unable to tell any longer who was giving orders to whom. It was as if the two men were caught in a trap from which they could not escape. Big Dr Gurameto was totally different from what they had thought. Now nobody would be surprised to see him the next governor of Albania, or even Greater Albania, just as had been predicted on the city square. His demeanour suited the part. It would not be unexpected to hear the doctor addressed as "Your Excellency".
What Fritz von Schwabe said was not far short.
"I'll give you seven hostages," he announced in an exhausted voice.
