By Aleko Likaj
The first part
Memorie.al / They lowered the coffin to the ground for a moment. They had crossed the threshold of a house, which looked more like an old barangay, behind the city police station, where they had been eavesdropping for years. Two women moving towards the door. One of them locked the lock and put the key in the pocket of an old black jacket, stained with ink. The other woman searched for something in the bag she carried on her right shoulder, then approached the head of the coffin. The man who was there, with a pair of thin mustaches visible in the distance, made a sign of refusal. From the window of the bedroom, leaning on the ledge, I saw “Zuk” – the gray one of the Municipality of Cërrik. Together with the driver, a worker in overalls covered in lime and plaster, opened the back of the car that looked very old. They stood there. Maybe someone from afar, from an angle I couldn’t see, ordered them. It had to be a shadow. Maybe the new Security officer, newly arrived in that small town, who had taken it upon himself to replace the face the red man, Karlo, who had been tracking Liri Belishova and her daughter, Drita Çomo, for more than three years.
Silently, the coffin was set on its way again. The four people who could barely carry him crossed the channel that separates the broken asphalt from the backyard. Both women wore skirts but appeared to tire quickly. There on the road they sat him down again. One of the men asked to change and the woman with her hair in a bun came out first. He was carrying the bag on his arm. It seemed to hinder him. In an instant he rubbed his hands together.
Maybe from fatigue. Liberty, two meters away, lightly passed her hand over the bright surface of the coffin, as if she wanted to caress once again her daughter, who was lying inside as if in a deep sleep. Then he wiped away his tears with a handkerchief. One of the men grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up, resting her against his chest for a moment. It seemed to be coming. The other man came over.
Something spokes to him and then he put his hand on his trembling shoulders. Returned from our palace. Then he looked at the other two palaces that stood in front of him. Surely, he noticed closed windows and open curtains. He realized that the city was listening. Silent and taciturn. With a feeling of fear, but also pity for the girl with special, graceful eyes and one of the most beautiful in his spaces. My mother motioned for me to close the window.
A moment ago, she had stretched her head, and whispered: “What a desert Liri found. The raven, she…”! My friend, who was the new bride in our house, lightly bit her lower lip, as if she wanted to tell me… “don’t…be evil! You want to destroy us”?! We had arrived that morning from Elbasan where we had been living together for two months. At the end of the week, as usual, I gathered at my parents, whom I felt as if I had abandoned and forgotten them.
The father was reading “The Voice” in the kitchen. He hid his small gray eyes, under the glass crystal of his glasses, and from time to time, he let out a sigh. Gettiu had his mind…! I followed him in a single moment with my eyes from the open door and felt really bad. You couldn’t speak even though a shy girl was leaving this world locked inside a box. Not completely unknown to us, although no one from my family could speak to him.
We hadn’t. But we knew him. Even her life, down to the details. With my younger sister, it was often greeted with a slight nod. They were the girls next door for a few years, even though my sister was a few years younger. She often told us, but one day her father told her; “You are small and you don’t understand some things. She is not free. She lives like in a real prison. Sins…”!
– “They are putting him on the ‘Zuk'” – said my little sister, who stuck her head out the window for a single moment, shaking me from the haunting. They were actually placing the coffin in the body of the car. that a moment ago he had transported mortar for the brigade of municipal masons, who were repairing the facade of the city’s only bathroom, somewhere near the cinema, in the center of Cërrik.
This time the worker and the driver were pushing the crate towards the middle of the vehicle. Then they rubbed their hands, as if trying to wash them. Perhaps to say that: “In this story, we are completely innocent.” But this moment did not last long. Lirina, one of the men took her by the arm, to ride forward with the driver, but she refused.
She seemed more bent than usual. Maybe also from the weight of the disaster that had fallen on his head. The other woman closed the door, slamming it shut. “Zuk” – moved and took a left turn, in front of the nursery and then diverted to the main road that leads to Elbasan. Somewhere behind the neighborhood of Malasej, where a part of the Cham families of Cërrik lived, as well as some Gypsy families, the city cemetery was also located. The car emitted a thin puff of smoke and finally disappeared from our sight just a moment later. I felt a weight on my chest. I stopped breathing in an instant. It was a human pain…! I will never forget that moment…! That’s how it stayed in my mind to this day.
I don’t know why, but Drita Çomo looked like a real Anna Frank to me. This idea had begun to occupy me from the moment I had seen her leave silently for school, one morning in September. In a simple dress of a sweet maroon color, cut simply, to a palm below the knees, she timidly passed before me. We were at the intersection of the road coming from the hospital, in front of the police station, which then branched off to the “Tomorr Sinani” gymnasium and the only “boulevard” of the city of Cërrik.
She was still underdeveloped. With a straight, thin and fragile body like a blade of grass, which is swayed by a light spring breeze. Silent and sad. With a face the color of wheat, extending slightly downwards and with rounded cheekbones. A portrait of a child that expressed nothing but pain. Maybe fate had struck him to suffer, like the great ones, a kind of persecution where his freedom was denied. The latter was hanging on the back of a Security operative, who had been following them for years, like a shadow. Even scary.
Those days I had seen the film of Anna Frank in the cinema of the city. Perhaps this was the reason I connected her portrait with this protagonist who had moved me. A strange idea and thought popped into my head. This girl, like Anna, needs to keep notes. Maybe even a diary. Light had something to say in those queues, going through the day in solitude, as if in a prison where bars were really missing. The appearance, three times a day, in front of the counter of the policeman Hetem, or Qinam, who were peeping in the window of the nearby room…!
It was the beginning of the 70s. Liri Belishova, the former member of the Political Bureau, had remained in my mind since my distant childhood, in a photo, with her short cut hair rounding her face, where the brightness of her two small eyes was particularly striking. black When he came to Cërrik, they settled him in our neighborhood. A few days before he came, they had set up a shack for him near the city’s police station. Three meters further, in front of the door, the hospital road passed. It was right next to it, behind two two-story buildings of Soviet architecture, populated mainly by oilmen working below, in the plant. As a workplace, they provided him with one of the large warehouses of the Consumer and Trade company.
Her task was: selector of greens in the sector that came from cooperatives. Her husband, Maqua, former Minister of Agriculture, was in prison. Of course, with a heavy and prolonged punishment. When I saw it for the first time, I felt a kind of disappointment inside myself. Freedom was not like what I had seen in the picture. I was young at the time, not yet twenty-five years old. I worked as a teacher in the villages of Dumre, on the border with Kuçova, and I came home only on weekends, just to take two walks in the evenings, on the boulevard that ran from the city cinema to the front of my house. Total 300-400 meters.
Liri Belishov’s family was closed within the four walls of the house and did not have this kind of “privilege”, to be seen as a “horse in the plow”, where usually some young boys, newly arrived from the village with work in the factory and who dreamed of a career. Girls also came out. Mainly high school girls or even students coming from the capital, to spend two days with their families. On the side, on the sidewalks, there were mainly magicians, some minors and monkey, but also agent, who were not few in this city.
A good part of the families who had a kind of “luxury” on the balconies facing the boulevard, as soon as the afternoon came. They drink coffee. Women wore sweaters and kept half their gaze from the “boulevard”. They discussed and talked about the news of the day that had arrived from some absurd rumor and of course, they also did the biographies of the people in front of them, during that round that ended quickly, around seven o’clock.
Then the city closed itself within the walls of the house, to fall asleep immediately. Tomorrow they all had to be ready for work. Of course, with new energies, which they needed to give the highest yields, “for the good of society”. It was on this boulevard that I would see, one evening, Drita Çomo, the girl who had already acquired a fascinating beauty, with an almost childlike face that radiated nothing but goodness. She was older. She was a high school student in her penultimate year. It was probably only half a lap. Maybe it could have been as far as MAPO – here, in the center. He was accompanied by the daughter of the regiment commander. I was with a friend. He pointed at my shoulder, because he was a little taller than me, as if to say: “Look how it’s done”!
– “She is the daughter of Liberty. See what a neat body she has. And how good it is! Omens girl… the desert”! – he said then and was filled with breath for a moment. My friend followed her for a moment with his gaze until she disappeared around the bend, at the end of Petref Latif’s balcony. He was on his way home.
– “How fast did you grow up”?! – I was surprised.
I really liked that girl, who had a special world and nature. During that time, a boy of average build, with a thin brown portrait, had caught my eye. He was no more than seventeen years old. It was Petritis, son of Liberty and brother of Light. Of course, he lived with two or three boys who had behavioral problems in that small working-class town. At least they had the courage to accompany him at that time.
On a rainy day, I had come down from the city library and had to stand under the shelter of the cinema. Somewhere, in the corner, I saw Petrit speaking passionately. I heard that they were discussing football. They were talking about the Albanian championship of that time. The boy spoke passionately about one of the capital’s teams, which wanted to win the title. A few months later, in the summer and vacation season, in the flower garden of the city, around a bench, together with these friends, they continued to discuss football again, even though the championship was over.
– “He is a big fan”. – said Qani Arapi, who lived in a house opposite that of Liria. Only the road separated them. – “What should the black man do?! Except for that can discuss. He has it out of trouble. Karlua intercepts him”.
The Security Man, Carlo, was a red-faced, woolly man with a nearly red head. His jaw was very elongated and at first sight, it resembled a stalled horse. That’s how he walked. One shoulder always sagged, his eyes were big and as if they were confused. It was said that he was from Shkodra. He had been following Liria for several years, there, in Cërrik. For this they had brought him, it was not known from were. He lived in a house near Qani. The two windows, the one of the kitchens and the bedroom, were facing him, from the Barrack of Liberty. He checked her as soon as she opened the door to go to work, at the consumer warehouse, behind the Municipal.
It was said that he enjoyed the glass and, in most cases, he remained in a state of ecstasy, where he smelled nothing but alcohol. I had heard that it was also fun after women. At that time, it was said that he had also taken a lover of a waitress, whose husband had just died of cancer, leaving her a widow with a little daughter. Karlua wanted to impose himself with a violent nature and rude words, not at all elegant.
He insulted you for nothing. He threatened you and made it a reality. I was told that he called the police on the beautiful boys of the city, because he saw them as rivals. He pressured them. He even managed to make someone a collaborator. The origin of this is unknown. Dirty and secret jobs were done a lot at that time. I never spoke to him.
Freedom was not shared. He checked her several times at Gani Elez’s warehouse, during working hours, even though she appeared three times a day at the police, to make the attendance list. He had unlimited power over her family. Instantly, when I got to know the character of this guy, who was removed as Fusheja, I thought of Drita. He could return to the girl, in the name of duty. I don’t know, but in those days, I thought well of this kind of adventure, towards that fragile girl, who also radiated an indomitable character against such farces.
He could hardly get his hands on that horse-face, which smelled of alcohol. But he had other things on his mind. The barmaid constantly treated him with drinks. He even gave them some bottles with him. She was at an age where she was looking for love and bed. She lived alone in the city, in a palace, which was not noticed by anyone.
A friend of ours, who lived there, kept telling us that Karloja came after midnight and left around morning. He probably told his wife that; “was on duty”. Yes, this work began to wind down. Not only in the city. A Municipal technician, who accidentally entered his girlfriend’s buffet, found them behind the counter, in the small alcove.
The barmaid shouted with pleasure, not controlling herself, and Karlua snorted like a wild pig, making several sounds, completely incomprehensible. Behind the technician, at that moment, there are two more customers. Karlua with his pants down his legs hung up on them and threatened to destroy their lives if they opened their mouths. But the word got out and the story passed through all the families of that city, in the form of rumours. Mine told me this incident, which had become the top topic of the day, as I returned as usual from the village at the weekend.
– “Liberty also saved – he told me, patching up, there on the balcony. – That code will be removed. That’s how it’s spoken.” But Liri Belishova, with her son and daughter, had no way to escape. Someone would replace Karlo and she would again be under the power of persecution and psychological persecution, just like before. After a few days, another agent arrived and Karlua was no longer seen in Cërrik. Where he went and what happened to his life, I still don’t know anything to this day. I believe that they will not have forgiven him. Sometimes the dictatorship made examples, even of its most pious sons. The young man, unlike the face of the horse Carlo, did not stand out at all. This time the stalking strategy was more specific and silent.
It was dusk again. In fact, darkness seemed to come quickly, painting the sky with a black brush. The poplars, on both sides of the road that leads to Elbasan, resembled a strange figuration from those of contemporary paintings. From the streets and the main square of the city, the few people had begun to thin out, and at the end of summer they looked more tired and sleepless. Together with two of my friends, village teachers, we passed through the flower garden. Someone suggested that we sit for a few minutes on a bench in the flower garden.
We stayed and continued to discuss, about trivial things of that time. One of us spotted Drita Chomo. I don’t know where he came from, but he calmly walked past us clutching a book to his chest. I followed it with my eyes, as it disappeared behind a green massif, in a narrow asphalt alley of the flower garden, which led out in front of the shops and the “1 May” Club. After a moment I felt the presence of another man, who stood silently by our side. It was completely unknown to us. Something spokes further. He was holding a “Ylli” type bicycle, which was fashionable at the time. Country production.
One of our comrades got up and approached him. We saw him light his cigarette and realized that the young, tall, slump-shouldered guy was a smoker. Then he took the road to Elbasan, with the bicycle he should have brought from there.
– “He asked me about Light. – said our friend, who lit his cigarette. – He said he had come from Elbasan. He seemed madly in love with her. Maybe he didn’t know the danger of hanging out with him.”
My other friend didn’t feel well. He moved from the bench as soon as our smoker said that the boy had also told him an intimacy that; “he had touched his lips”!
– “This bastard is in vain. – said with a breath the one who moved. – Drita, even though she is an old girl, even though she lacks that feeling, I can hardly forgive a moment of love, even for this birko, who travels from Elbasan, here, on a bicycle, in the name of ardent love”.
It seemed that my friend had a dose of anger and did not believe what was said, there, between us, by a stranger. I didn’t trust that guy either, and I still have that belief to this day. He should not have known her suppressed and closed world. Even, perhaps, the circumstances that followed him since his birth. This was a memory that faded with that evening, leaving behind that strange configuration of trees, that moonless night…!
Three days later, at my house, the daughter of the regiment commander, Rajmonda Bulku, told me privately: “Drita is a poet. She writes emotional poems”! Maybe they were classmates. Together with Vanina Canin, who later graduated for chemical engineering, they had become like three inseparable friends. That’s what I thought at the time. The latter, daughters of communists, but who could not translate the society of school and gymnasium gangs in any other way. They always shared in the corner of my building, there, on the balcony of Petrefi.
A few days later, Rajmonda brought me another poem by Drita. It was a sheet of squares, from the math notebook. Only three stanzas. Written in a script that sounded like pain, coming from the bottom of her soul. The poem spoke of an evening that lacked stars…!
Many years later, this poem, I don’t know why it was not included in the volume prepared for her with a note from Kadareja herself. Maybe he should have lost. It may have ended, hand to hand, but also in some drawer of the State Security, there, where the undeclared secrets of monstrous tracking were kept.
A few days later, the father brought home a friend of his. They were known since the partisan life, in the southern areas. They had maintained the company until later years. I don’t know how they met. That evening he was our guest. The next day, while the mother was preparing lunch and the guest had to be escorted down to the Papri station, to then travel by train to Tirana, the two men sat and talked there on the balcony.
Weekend and midsummer. The sun was burning since morning. A grape vine, planted there for several years, when we arrived from the capital with a transfer to Cërrik, cast a shadow. That day, as if to respect my friend, I hadn’t gone to the beach on the Shkumbin river, where we teachers spent the summer under the sun’s rays next to fine sand, like that of the Adriatic beaches.
Of course, the conversation between the two old friends also went to events and people known years ago. It was lunchtime and from the surrounding kitchens, the smells of fried peppers, but also of meat, which we had not begun to miss in the market, could be felt.
On the corner of the sidewalk appeared the portrait of Liri Belishov: arched body and face slightly raised on drooping shoulders. He walked calmly as if he had already finished all his duties. Along the entire length of the palace, she seemed to trudge over the pavement that had begun to crumble from the erosion of the winter and spring rains.
I spotted it first, as the two men continued to reminisce about their old friends, telling stories about them that ended with light humor. I leaned a little over the edge of the balcony and pretended to taste it from the gymnasium. The passage of this woman, several times a day, in front of our balcony and kitchen window, had become, so to speak, a ritual that we did not miss.
From time to time, newcomers or neighbors, who came there to drink a coffee, mostly women, friends of my mother, started and told the news of the day about Liri Belishoven, our exiled ghetto. There was no shortage of feats for those who guarded and eavesdropped on the Çomo family. We used to learn there, for example, when Liria was getting ready to go to meet Maqo in prison. She was interested in the meeting permit, which she had filed with the police a month or so ago, whether she had arrived or not.
I noticed that too. The friend continued to tell stories of friends and exploits.
– “Moreee! Do you remember Liria”? – the father asked under his breath at a moment when the haunted woman was walking in front of our balcony.
The other immediately turned his head.
– “What do you say, bro, Zeqooo”, – he said, looking at the detainee, who continued to walk slowly on the sidewalk, ten meters away. It broke in the face immediately. A ray seemed to spray him for a single moment. He pursed his lips tightly and shook his head slightly. Memorie.al
The next issue follows
