“Por hene asht shum i mire” (“But the moonlight is very good, too”), I objected, and saw the moonlight glint on a rifle barrel. “Why is Government House lighted? And why are you in our courtyard?”
“There are orders,” the man replied. “Ahmet Bey Mati has spoken. The American zonyas will go into their house.”
He would say nothing more, and there seemed indeed nothing else to do, so we went. The sound that lifted us from our pillows once more was one that I shall not forget, nor willingly hear again. It came through the night like a supernatural thing of hate and fury and irresistible power. We did not know what it was; we had no power to wonder what it was; we heard it with an agony of fear, involuntary, uncontrollable as the pain of a stripped nerve. I remember now that instant and eternity of time, and cannot bear the memory. I had not known that even in nightmare one could drop into such abysses of the human spirit. Then Tirana seemed to explode like a bunch of giant firecrackers, and with such relief as I cannot describe I cried: “Rifles! They’re taking Tirana!” And we tumbled out of our beds and grasped wildly in the darkness for our clothes.
Rifles are human possessions; rifles are solid things that at worst can only kill. The sound of the rifles, multiplied a thousand times by echoing courtyard walls, muffled and enabled us to bear that other sound, still faintly heard through the uproar. “It’s only their war cry,” we babbled to each other. “It’s the mountain men fighting. That’s all it is.” Coherence came back to our minds. “It’s the Dibra,” I said. “Dibra and the refugee Kossova men, come to take the government away from the Toshks.” And we ran out into the courtyard.
The rest of that night was anticlimax. Bafflement. Weary and chilly, we came back to our house at three o’clock. We had explored the courtyard, finding only that the shadows were full of silent, waiting men. They spoke little; they said, in reply to our questions, that they did not know what was happening. We had ventured out of the courtyard into Tirana, that low white town that, to the eye, seemed sleeping in the moonlight, and to the ear was bedlam. Bullets were whizzing, scattering white plaster, smashing tiles. But mosques and minarets, arcaded streets, arched stone bridge, rippling water, were peaceful in the moonlight. No human being seemed to be abroad, save us two, who wandered like forsaken ghosts through the incredible clamor.
The windows of the Vocational School were alight, the American flag was over the gate. We found the Americans making ready a midnight luncheon in the kitchen, whose windows were barricaded against bullets. Great Scott! they said, why hadn’t we stayed in bed? Have some baked beans? We ate the beans and explained that we wanted to know what was happening. Who knew what was happening, in Albania? said they, yawning. Better go home to bed; time enough to find out in the morning what was happening. So, weary and chilly, we went home to bed. The rifles were still crackling like madly popping corn, tiles were still crashing from roofs and plaster from walls, but the war cries were still. We slept fitfully.
A tapping on our window sill roused us again. The moonlight was gone from our wall, the open window was a square of paler darkness in the darkness. “I beg your pardon, I sincerely beg your pardon,” said a voice in French. “This is most unconventional, I know. But if you will pardon the lateness of the hour, may I ask you to permit us to call?” It was the voice of His Excellency Spiro Koleka, Minister of Public Works.
He came in, accompanied by the secretary of the Prime Minister. We sat up in our beds, coats around our shoulders, and told them where to find chairs and cigarettes. They said that if we did not mind they would not light the lamp. We asked what had occurred.
“Rien, rien du tout, mesdames,” said the Minister of Public Works. “Tout est tranquil.”
“The ancient Greeks had a saying,” began the secretary, gave us that saying in Greek, and continued to speak for some time, not uninterestingly, of Greek and other philosophers. The social tone of that early morning call was impeccable. Good breeding required that we maintain it. We sat exasperated in the dark, saying to ourselves that we would gladly murder these two uncommunicative men. But we felt that to ask them to leave the shelter of our house would be murder, in cold fact. In the wan daylight of six o’clock they thanked us for our hospitality, and went.