Early this morning I crawled to one of the apartment windows facing the city. I suspected I’d be the only sniper in position at such an hour. With luck I might catch a careless citizen out collecting water or bread, one of those who trusted that every Serbian sniper would still be asleep, nursing a Slivovitz hangover.
As I slowly raised Gilhooley – also up early and, as always, enthusiastic and keen to get down to work – above the window ledge, he was suddenly wrenched out of my hand and flew, doing a complete somersault, back across the room. I stared at him over my shoulder: the top of his head had been blown off and his dark glasses lay skew-whiff across his woollen face. I was shocked. As for the headmaster, he looked traumatised, possibly dead.
‘Mr Gilhooley, are you all right?’ I whispered. Inching my way back from the window, I picked up the stick on which his head had perched, also the damaged balaclava with articles of clothing now protruding from it. ‘Thanks, Gilhooley. That could’ve been me.’
‘I wish it had been,’ he said in his usual supercilious tone. He sighed. He sounded as if Fate had dealt him a poor hand.
Were those to be his last words, I wondered? It was certainly typical of him to be so self-preoccupied at such a time, not sparing a moment to consider my feelings, my miraculous escape from Death’s embrace. I grinned nevertheless, relieved that he was still alive. But he was in a bad way, with half his head missing and his pulse weak, if not non-existent.
For a moment, I contemplated leaving him where he was and running up- or downstairs, to a different room to see if I could spot the enemy sniper, but my heart wasn’t in it. If someone was now targeting me, as Santo had always warned me would happen if I became too successful at sniping, then perhaps it was better if he thought he’d killed me. So I sat outside in the corridor and had a cigarette. Later I patched up Mr Gilhooley, who was still moaning and carrying on in a desperate bid for sympathy. His brains, full of blackboard ephemera, useless history dates, the names of boys and girls and teaching rosters, I stuffed carelessly back into his cotton skull. ‘You should live,’ I said. ‘Don’t go on about it.’