the last book I ever read (The General of the Dead Army: A Novel by Ismail Kadare, excerpt four)

from The General of the Dead Army: A Novel by Ismail Kadare:

“Of course there were some people who didn’t want anything to do with a petition like that, and who disapproved of any kind of letter or request at all being addressed to the occupying powers. But we ignored them. We clung firmly to the hope that something would be done for us. You must remember that this was still the beginning of the war, and there were still many things we hadn’t quite cottoned on to as yet.

“But of course no heed was paid to our request. A few days later a telegram arrived: “Brothel to be opened for reasons of strategic order stop.” The old postmaster who was the first to read it didn’t grasp the meaning of the message immediately. Indeed, some people said that it was written in one of those coded languages they were always using then, and that always did seem to be incomprehensible. In the telegram were the words “ethnic Albanian” which was deemed to mean the mayor’s fat wife, and so forth. Someone even said they were all wrong to be making a fuss about the opening of a brother, that it was all to do with the opening of a second front. But such comforting thoughts did not last for long and everything became clear: it wasn’t a second front that was about to be opened but, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a brothel.