explosive power.
Our defenders had to rely on ancient
weapons, guns that ignited chemical
explosives to propel metal shells. These
were quickly disassembled and removed from
their position after each shot, because
the enemyтs computers could backtrail the
trajectory of our shells, which had only
crude aeromaneuvering, to direct a deadly
rain of birds at the guessed position.
Since we were cut off from regular supply
lines, each shell was precious. We were
supplied by ammunition carried on mules
whose trails would weave through the
enemyтs wooded territory by night and by
shells carried one by one across dangerous
territory in backpacks.
But still, miraculously, the city held.
Over our heads, the continuous shower of
steel eroded the skyline. Our beautiful
castle Hohensalzburg was sandpapered to a
hill of bare rock; the cathedral towers
fell and the debris by slow degrees was
pounded into gravel. Bells rang in
sympathy with explosions until at last the
bells were silenced. Slowly, erosion
softened the profiles of buildings that
once defined the cityтs horizon.
Even without looking for the craters, we
learned to tell from looking at the trees
which neighborhoods had had explosions in
them. Near a blast, the cityтs trees had
no leaves. They were all shaken off by the
shock waves. But none of the trees lasted
the winter anyway.
My foster father made a stove by pounding
with a hammer on the fenders and door
panels of a wrecked automobile, with a
pipe made of copper from rooftops and
innumerable soft-drink cans. Floorboards
and furniture were broken to bits to make
fuel for us to keep warm. All through the
city, stovepipes suddenly bristled through
exterior walls and through windows. The
fiberglass sides of modern housing blocks,
never designed for such crude heating,
