From Përparim Hysi
Memorie.al / Major Zeqir Bahiti, I knew him in Shengjin, when I went to perform military service. Three years, I say, is not a short time to know a man who, quite by chance, I am a soldier and he is the highest superior in the department, but now we became friends. I don’t know in ron yet or not? If he lives, let him be 100 years old (he must now be close to 80), and if he doesn’t, let him rest in peace, because if I remember him with this writing, I do it alone , as a sign of gratitude and respect.
I, that December of 1964, had received the call-up to be mobilized in the army. The date was also set for me: December 21. But here, I had lived with all my friends (I also had a 1-year-old son), with her people, suddenly, at lunch, I felt that they were calling me. I go out and see a civilian, who with an urgent summons (presented it to me), appealed to me to follow him to the Military Branch.
No matter how surprised I was by this “emergency call”, I followed the “civilian”, leaving my friends as worried as I was, but even more so myself. As soon as I arrived at Dega, they put me “emergency” in the car filled with others who, according to the head of Dega, were only waiting for me.
“Yes, I have the call on the 21st and you are taking me today”?! “Carry out the order”, he almost whined, the head of the Branch, who was a colonel. I laughed dressed as a groom – because I was a groom – but, since they took me “urgently”, you are doing me a favor.
The car that would pass there from my house would stay for 10 minutes, until I took off the groom’s clothes and put on whatever clothes, and then, on the car, but where? It was a “military secret”. So I did. The bike was left in Dega and that “civilian” was going to return it to my house.
I climbed the stairs of the building in one breath (we lived on the second floor) and, while I gave the shocking news to my mother that I was leaving the army, I grabbed a pair of torn trousers (zhele-mel, as the Shkodrans say), pulled them with a piece of wire, instead of a belt; likewise an old coat, which had only one button to fasten and, while the desolate mother gave the pin (didn’t mothers rejoice when the sons went off to be soldiers, especially to defend the border? Look at the folk songs of that time!)
Her horse raised, as if in alarm, all the women of the neighborhood, who ran first, so that they not only kept the “iso” in this horse, but from the pockets of their aprons, they took out as much money as they had and , after they kissed me all over the cheeks (and today I feel that bit of love and solidarity), they also cried, as if they were seeing off their sons.
The car had 14 recruits and, among them, I knew three or four from civilian life. That’s it – I thought, it’s not a little. They don’t say in vain: the drowned man is also caught by a straw. This knowledge, which was my only consolation, in this departure “kolotumba” to the army.
The trip to that “military secret” place took quite a while. At night we arrived in Lezha and at that time, I had never even been to these parts. As we left Lezha and got to the road leading to Shkodër (we thought that there would be a “military secret”), surprisingly, the car turned left, and we held our breath 8 km away from Lezha, in Shengjin.
In the dark, we didn’t even know what Sëngjini was, but we saw how the lights reflected on the sea and we started to become romantic. -“So beautiful”! – I said that I had not opened my mouth until then. Sotiraq Ferra (I knew him because he was the only bookseller in Fier), a resourceful guy, who did not eat his stick easily, tells me: – “Now the night is beautiful, but let’s see the day. May the day open your eyes.”
When we arrived at the “heart” of Shengjin (Raqi was right: this town at that time could fit in your pocket and there was nothing beautiful except the sea), we made another turn, about one km., and we arrived at “military secret”. There, no matter how late we came, they were waiting for us. Like the officers, but a little more the old soldiers. The latter, from experience, knew very well that the recruits came with full packs and so they were waiting.
And they were not left without anything. I was the only one who didn’t take anything from home, I laughed because they took “kollotumba” from me. Actually, I wasn’t all that lost. The soldiers, known and unknown, heard of my “robbery” and filled my trunk so much that I suffered like that step-son. Midnight came and we were taken straight to the silo. The beds were two-story and I chose the “first” floor. About me: bookseller, Sotiraq Ferra.
But when they were settling down for sleep, the sergeant arrived and after familiarizing us with the rules, suddenly and without remembering, he says: – “You, fellow soldier, are the first post”. Then the second Raqi and the third post, I don’t remember who it was. Well, according to the place and assembly. Without putting our feet well, we started from the task. When he woke up, they took all of us (we were 14 people) to clean the territory.
After this action, they brought us a bucket of water to soak our dirty hands, because there was no water in Shengjin and our battery was a little too far from the sea. We “soaked” our hands and went for breakfast, which wasn’t just breakfast. You’re forgetting the Valar mule that killed Ali Pasha, that we pretended to eat more than we did.
As soon as the morning was over, a lieutenant led us forward and, breaking through the brambles and bushes, rather through a goat road than the mountainous terrain we were breaking through, we arrived at the seaside. It was December 14, 1964. A dry wind was blowing.
It was so windy that it seems to me that the Indian writer Prend Chad wrote about the “Mother of Winds” in vain. “Mother of the winds” is located in Shengjin, Milot and Tepelena. The wind of Shengjin – or the wind of the three mountains, as it was called, took our caps and threw us into the sea.
We put them under the waist belt. Yes, it was useless. Janina, it seems, had a father. The lieutenant ordered us not only to undress half-naked, only in shorts, but also, up to the waist, in water. An order out of elementary logic, but where is logic in the army? The army itself, isn’t it called by the great Napoleon “a necessary folly”?!
We peeled off, got into the ice-cold water, and there, dozens of meters from the shore, there was a ship loaded with firewood left in the “reservoir”. Our task was to unload that ship and “take the wood to the stere” (land). Very cold, but the human body acclimatizes easily. It becomes numb and no longer feels.
Lieutenant, like a bug on the head. From then on, it seemed to us that this painful ordeal was never going to end. When lunch came, we thought we were saved from penury, but he didn’t say it. The soldiers worked as in wartime. Without completing the task, there is neither bread nor rest. Lunch was being broken and, as the work continued, we saw another officer coming.
We saw the lieutenant approach the soldiers and, as soon as he received the command “calm down”, he told the officer who had arrived, and then left. This one remained. The one who came had the rank of major and, as was presented to us, was the commissar of the department. Well, I thought, this commissar has come, and we will escape. Older, yes, but with a higher rank, yes. Then this is also the biggest of the Party, and he will cry for us. Yes, the calculations, I had done without the inn.
The major was watching the work we were doing (we had been working for over 6 hours), he couldn’t help but notice my work in particular. To tell you the truth, I have never eaten physical work and, when I got into trouble with this “gogol” ship, every time I got out of the water, I ran there from the bushes, almost, for urgent personal needs. The major crossed it once, twice…and, when he saw me again let myself out of the bush, he called me to report:-
“Soldier who”? – “Soldier Hisi”! – “Where are you from, fellow soldier?” – “I’m from Fieri, fellow major”! – “More,” he told me, “where have I come across this surname Hysi, in many soldiers who are not from Fieri”, he said calmly. I, being inspired, that really from my tribe, there were many soldiers and they were not from Fieri, I told him: “My parents are from Skrapari”.
– “Hey,” he shouted like Archimedes, when he shouted “Eureka”, – “that’s what I thought too, but you know, brother friend (later this “brother friend” had a “license”, but I would understand when I got to know him better), he said to me, “I have one of your soldiers as a friend, and do you know what he says?” – “How do I know?” I asked naively. “Here’s what he says,” the major told me a little triumphantly: “The day doesn’t go by doing the threshing floor!” Therefore, don’t see you from the bushes anymore, get down to work.”
“Bad, lieutenant, but why did you run away? – I said to myself. This one, the major, is pretty “usta”. I made the samaritan, so that it sits behind your back. I went to work, what else would I do? The day broke pretty well, the sun was setting and I, partly from fatigue and partly from boredom, also told the major.
I came closer to his feet (he was standing on a log there on the sand (pretty protected from the wind) and without batting an eye at me, in the eyes of all my friends, I said to him: “Comrade major”! – “Huh, brother, – he said to me, – what do you have?” – “I also have, – I told him not without sarcasm, – a friend from Skrapari, who taught me a song”.
-“What song”? – he became curious. “Aha,” I said, I don’t remember the whole song, but I remember two verses. The song says: – O derivish, o rondokop / lunch and dinner I eat tok”! The major caught the poison subtext of the verses (we almost sawed to eat) and, without getting angry at all, said to me: – “Not only a lazy dog, but also a big pheasant. By regulation, he has to put you in jail, but I’ll forgive you on condition: see that beam over there? Throw it on your back and head for the battery.”
They used to say to her: “you bluff me in your arms and the mule from your hand”. And I threw that lonely beam, the major “made sure” that no one eased my burden. When we arrived at the battery, the sun had set and the food in the kitchen (the dishes had been laid out since lunch), was ice cold, the juice was frozen on the side, and hunger was eating my elbow. As a “defeatist”, I said to my friends on the way: – “We have been brought here to die”.
And how good: none of them were the eyes of the “king” and that’s all, not enough, but a little too much, to end up in the dungeon as a defeatist or as an enemy. After we ate that cold dish—and my tongue couldn’t help but lick: to die and we’re eating dead food.
But the dish, however cold, filled us with energy, because it shouldn’t be different, like Kristaq the Priest (oh, what a good and generous man he was. May he rest in peace, because he was suffocated with gas, in the years of democracy) grabbed the accordion and we, as if we had come for a wedding, took it and danced. Forgetting what I removed, even from the beam on my back, I say to my friends: – “We have lied to you. We don’t have to die.”
Two days after this incident, we had gone down to the headquarters building. This was built at the time of Zog and looked like a relic, compared to all the others that Shengjini had then. The office rooms were large, paved with precious tiles, and apart from the offices, there was also the Red Corner. In the lobby (pretty spacious too) a billiards court, a ping-pong court and right in the middle, on a table (around it and armchairs and chairs), he could see a chess board, with stones made for fun.
I have played all the games, but especially chess and cards. As soon as I saw the chessboard, moved by an instinct that I could not overcome, I let go and grabbed the stones with my hand. An officer who saw me, says: – “Why, what do you think, fellow soldier, we called you here for chess”?! I blushed as if I had done something wrong and, as I was getting ready to apologize for not restraining myself, suddenly the major appeared: “brother friend”!
He, it seems, noticed my passion and told me: – “This game is not like the bush. Officers around, gave him a laugh. I did not know then, that the major in the 50s had made a name for himself as a chess player, and suffered from the same “disease” that I suffered from. He took a stand and invited me to a “duel”. He grabbed two stones, ground his hand and told me to choose. I got the white one. “Very well,” he smiled. The whites who will encourage him”.
The officers crumbled. Their big man and the “eunuchs” were playing, don’t they laugh when the “Veziri” laughs or rather: the Sultan? My mouth has always been uncomfortable. I say: – “I’m really a soldier, but in chess I’m a general”! That’s all it took, and the Chief of Intelligence (he had sharper antennae, like a servant), says to him: – “Comrade major, how can you stand it, with this one insulting you, the ass”?!
– The Major didn’t even pay attention to these mediocre eunuchs, he was concentrating on the game. I won the first game and, when we were playing the second, I took, as I usually do when I play, almost as if I was singing something over and over again, enthusiastically; “Chess, fellow major! Chess”. You can’t feel the Major when he was playing. When he felt the loss, he blacked out and blushed (because he was a little red in complexion by nature) and thought about how to get out of the mat’s trap.
This meeting of mine with him ended three to one. – “Straight”, I shouted enthusiastically. Surprisingly, he said to me with an Olympic calm that I have not noticed in anyone: – “No, brother friend, you did not beat me. We are divided equally”! – “But how did we share a draw, when I won three games and you, only one”?! And he – “well, that’s why I can’t forget it, he tells me: – You really won. And you got a big win. I, didn’t I win once? So, and I got a small victory. So, we are even, brother friend. Do you understand or not”?
And hugged me, giving me many friendships. Later, we often encountered him. And we were divided yes “draw”: because there were big victories and small victories. A “equalization” scale that that clever and good man had invented.
Epilogue:
Getting to Shengjin ahead of time did not happen in vain. The man who was in charge of recruitment in Fier had “bribed” and removed someone from the list and quickly wrote my name with a pencil. So, I ran “dummy” for someone else. But not every evil, the people say, brings only evil. Rysheftçiu, you had nowhere to find information about me, quickly and quickly, and on the card you wrote in pencil that I was; grandson of the general….Hysit.
That’s it, and was there a “cartabyanka” stronger than that, to escort me “kollotumba” to Shengjin?! This “card blank” was like a strong guarantee that I entered the secret office. I didn’t have the general as an uncle, but as a cousin, even a little distant. Enveri shot my uncle (Hilmi Hysi, with the Group of Deputies in 1947). And when it became a fait accompli, that this “uncle” general, came one day and met me there at the garrison.
Now you couldn’t help yourself to that job. Straight to the secret office and I was privileged. With the Major, my brother’s friend, we became very good friends, because we played chess, where I took a big one and he took a small one, and we got a “tie”, but if I remember it, it is the fact that, whatever it was for the representative of the Party in the unit, he never punished any soldier and was always close to their problems.
In the small “courts”, the soldier-officer, Major Zeqir Bahiti, sided with the soldiers. Besides chess, he had a passion for fishing and the office of the “commissar”, he had turned into a “warehouse of fishing equipment”. Anyone who came to inspect it from above was expected at the commander’s office that his “was damaged by moisture”. I have many memories of Zeqir Bahit, but, perhaps, I will continue another time. Memorie.al
