From Shkëlqim Abazi
Part twenty-five
Memorie.al / I were born on 23. 12. 1951, in the black month, of the time of mourning, under the blackest communist regime. On September 23, 1968, the sadistic chief investigator, Llambi Gegeni, the vile investigator Shyqyri Çoku, and the brutal prosecutor, Thoma Tutulani, mutilated me at the Department of Internal Affairs in Shkodër, split my head, blinded one eye, and deafened one ear, after breaking several ribs, half of my molar teeth and the thumb of my left hand. On October 23, 1968, they took me to court, where the wretch Faik Minarolli gave me a ten-year political prison sentence. After they cut my sentence in half because I was still a minor, a sixteen-year-old, on November 23, 1968, they took me to the Reps political camp, and from there, on September 23, 1970, to the Spaç camp, where on May 23, 1973, in the revolt of the political prisoners, four martyrs were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad; Pal Zefi, Skënder Daja, Hajri Pashaj and Dervish Bejko.
On June 23, 2013, the Democratic Party lost the elections, a perfectly normal process in the democracy we aspire to. But on October 23, 2013, the General Director of the “Rilindja” government sent order No. 2203, dated 23.10.2013, for; the dismissal from duty of a police employee. So Divine Providence intertwined with the neo-communist Rilindja Providence, and, precisely on the 23rd, I was replaced, no more, no less, by the former operative of the Burrel Prison Sigurimi. What could be more meaningful than that?! The former political prisoner is replaced by the former persecutor!
The Author
SHKËLQIM ABAZI
Continued from the previous issue
R E P S I
Forced labor camp
Memoir
So, they taught me as much as I needed! Now instructed, I felt ready to face anyone. The compassionate elders, without my knowledge, had even taken care of the small details that I hadn’t thought of. The next day, they had put a guard behind me, or a bodyguard, as they call it today. When I started my daily ritual, that is, the hammering with the chisel and hammer, at almost the same time as the previous morning, the shriveled shadow entered the hall. His face, like in a malignant painting, had a kind of smile stamped on the carnival mask. The disgusting sight gave me a chill. Perhaps this impression was also encouraged by the feeling that I already knew that I had a spy in front of me, known to everyone. The first feeling that burst from the depths of my soul and was reflected in my eyes, like that jaundice that is passed on foot, was contempt.
Although ready to face the anti-honor, as I considered it at that moment, I lost the ability to hide my emotions. Some heroic episodes that I had not thought of before came in and out of the cells of my brain. Heroism, the personification of youth, seemed to give me wings; first I thought of hitting his spy face with a hammer, but the advice of the elders; “stay away from those ugly faces, may the evil take them with it”! Restrained me and I backed down. “Hey, patriot, how are you doing today!” he addressed me with a fake smile. “Leave those tools aside, man, come on let’s chat a bit!” – Then as a joke, he added the very famous saying of the years of socialism; “the works of the state and the water of the sea, never end!”
He started rubbing his hands together, brought them to his mouth and blew on them to warm them up. “Wow, it’s a real winter today; it’s freezing your snot on the tip of your nose! – He added tactlessly. – I can’t understand how those wretches manage, on the disembarkation terraces! So, on one side and the other, the frost and come on, pierce the calcified ground! – He complained again, as if he was weeping for the poor people, who were forced to dig and move three cubic meters of rock with wheelbarrows. – “Thank God, we have the work inside, because there we would have died completely!” – He rubbed his hands together a second time and added: – “Good for you, you came and found a corner! Others have been here for years and have not been able to settle in! Where did you get the connections, for goodness sake?! You must have had a strong friend!” – He pretended to be surprised.
I don’t know how I held back from replying! If I had reacted, the answers would have been fists or a hammer to the head. To hold back the rage, I clenched my jaw until it hurt. I had decided to go all the way. So I waited for him to get to the point. “Let me hear where he’s going with this, then we’ll see and do!” and with patience I overcame the anger. “You only came here for that? – I asked him as if I was naive. – I left with the hope that you would help me, with your experience!”
When he heard this expression, his face lit up, the carnival mask grinned, a pair of rotten and sparse teeth, yellowed in the middle of this ochre-colored mask. The weak winter light, which entered from the barred window behind his back, contoured the colors even more. The play of light and shadow added to the creepy appearance of a crouched hedgehog, and the figure of a satisfied miser, who was rubbing his hands, sniffing the prey he was taking out on the path.
“Of course, man, I will help you, of course! After all, it’s our duty, because we are our own! But how can I help you, if we don’t get a little closer? – He was laughing near the window, where the bands of light, gave him a mottled appearance. – But, you also have to give me a hand, right?” “What can I do specifically?” “Well, for example, give some signs of repentance, so that the command understands that you have the potential to be rehabilitated. I know, you need help! First you need to choose your friends; this is the alpha of prisons. This is what the command here aims for. The prisoners, who choose correctly, are treated a little differently” – he crouched even more, then continued: –
“Man, I don’t understand, what’s with you and those old men?! Their group, are not seen in a good light by the command. Oh brother, the clock of these limbs is stuck at forty-four! But times have changed, but let them see! Because they don’t have eyes in their heads, brother! After all, they have the power and you can’t break the wall with your head!” Undoubtedly, when he slandered the elders and poured out this flood of low insults, some nervous tic must have twitched on my face. Maybe he caught it in a second, because he twisted his tongue immediately.
-“I’m not saying they are bad, no, no, they are not! But, this is how they see them! They consider them incorrigible; they see them as uncorrectable, on the path of treason. They have divided the people here, oh buddy!” I was boiling inside. The scorching crater of the volcano of anger, was about to erupt from the depths of my chest. While he was adding the dose of poison that he was throwing on my friends, the anger was increasing in the same proportion, to extraordinary dimensions. My patience reached a critical point, but the game had to be played to the end. – “Come on; get to the point, because I don’t understand you completely?” – I prompted him again like a naive person. – “What, you want it clearer than this! Oh, buddy, call a spade a spade; they have sentenced you to a little, but, they don’t care, they will increase it fivefold! Did you get it? You go in for five, and you get out after fifteen years!”
-“What, this also happens?”! – “Oh, what a thing to say! What doesn’t happen here, oh buddy?” – He was silent for a moment, as if to make a suggestion. – “But for low sentences, they usually also apply pardons! Both with amnesties and with prayers, when you complete half of the sentence. But to benefit, you need the support of the command, without their recommendation, no one looks at them. In fact, the best thing would be for the camp command they to make the request. But even among them, the person whose signature is most valued up there is the camp operative! – He was silent again; perhaps he did it on purpose to give me time to slowly chew on the garbage he threw at my feet. His eyes like a weasel’s were constantly darting around the entire space of the hall, without focusing anywhere. These devilish eyes de-conspired their owner, as a cunning cheat. – Here we are now, I believe you understand, without the operative you have lost the case?” – He continued and was silent.
Since we are on the operative, I need to explain in a few words, which this man was who made the sun and the rain, in prisons. At the time when I arrived in Reps, the operative was the arrogant braggart, Pjetër Tarazhi. As a scion of the family of the Heroines of Mirdita, he inspired endless hatred towards any opponent of the Party and Enver Hoxha. Despite the fact that his function did not belong to any high hierarchical rank, such as the camp commander, he nevertheless enjoyed a bad reputation, because his activity took place in the shadows and all the prisoners feared his evil soul, and even the military personnel themselves, avoided him like the devil avoids holy water.
He claimed that he was a perfect craftsman in his field, while I think the opposite; he was simply a stuck-up thug. I base this on the fact that during his reign, the number of spies decreased, some of those who under pressure had accepted cooperation, finding themselves under the pressure of being discredited in front of their fellow sufferers, could not stand his arrogance and, either they threw themselves on the wires where they found certain death from the soldier’s rifle, or they ended up in pavilion seventeen, as irreversible schizophrenics.
However, cruel to the point of sadism, callous to the point of cynicism, he became the terror of the prisoners. He openly showed class hatred, especially towards clerics and intellectuals, but consistent young people were no exception. When some unfortunate person ended up on the barbed wire, he would give the order to lay the corpse in the camp square, meanwhile, proud, triumphant like Roman consuls in the arena of gladiators, he would walk back and forth in front of the dead body, with his hands crossed behind his back and, after throwing endless insults on the disfigured body of the deceased, he would kick it with the tips of his boots, and pour out indescribable curses and insults that no pen could describe:
“Filth, scumbags, vermin, old carcasses! Rotten servants of world imperialism! Whores and prostitutes of bourgeois harems! Vile enemies of the Party and comrade Enver! This is the end you will all suffer without distinction, you and your relatives and anyone else who will dare to cross our victorious Marxist-Leninist march!” Then, after adding another insult towards the dead person, he forced the prisoners to perform the same gesture.
When he saw that no one was obeying him, he incited the spies. He hoped they would be the first to do it, but when one of them tried to leave the line, the harsh looks of his fellow sufferers forced him to retreat, the others would grab him; so, in the end the operative remained alone in his sadism. When he realized the failure, he would get furious and start foaming at the mouth. He would also pour out a flood of curses and insults, threatening that we would also suffer like that unfortunate person, then like a blind beetle he would retreat outside the enclosure to take it out on the first person who would fall into his hands. He was really black-hearted; I would soon see his mischief too.
“Oh friend, being on good terms with him means making a place for you! Not that he is some central figure, like the commander, but with his signature, you can get out of prison! Then for outside in freedom, it’s worth even more because without him, you can’t take two steps! But with his support, you can find a good job, and you also escape other troubles, such as internment or further surveillance. You need it even more because you are young, because as soon as you get out, they will conscript you. If they send you to a work department, it’s over, you’re screwed! The surveillance will not leave you; you have the prison behind your back! But with his support and recommendation, they can take you to a special department and later you never know, if they see that you have shown clear signs of improvement, they can even open the doors of the Party…”!
“What! What did you say?” – I couldn’t stand it and interrupted him in surprise”. “Yes, man, why are you surprised? This has also happened!” I looked at him as if I would swallow him alive, not so much because of the surprise, but because of the hatred that was almost tearing down the walls of the cave of patience. I was really surprised at how I managed to restrain myself! All the things I was hearing pushed me to crush his head with a hammer, as if he was a maggot. Reason restrained me. I made up my mind: “Come on, let him express himself to the end, then we’ll see and do!”
“Oh patriot, but how will I get in touch with the operative, because he doesn’t know me and he doesn’t know who I am?” “Oh, to get in touch! Oh-eh, there is no great difficulty; we will see how the opportunity presents itself!” “Okay, let’s say I got in touch, but then, what happens next?” – I asked him again like a naive person. “What task will they give you? How should I know? Nothing! Oh-uh, experience has taught me that they don’t ask for anything big!” “For example?”
“Well, for example, the operative will instruct you exactly, and then I will also help you to realize them as soon as possible. That’s why you need a friend, right!? First, this. Second: The best thing is not to have these conversations with those old men. Because, you never know what they might incite you to do then!” He was silent, he hunched his head over his knees that were shivering from the cold or the emotions of the moment, I don’t know what to say! Anyway, without giving me time to compose myself, he continued:
“And people will talk! Let them talk, man! Maybe they will even call you a spy! But let them say it, man! You look at your own chimney, so that its smoke goes straight! Don’t worry about what people say, look at the path and go forward! Honor, people will say?! But, man, why are we others without honor?! No, my dear, we have honor and even more! Yes, we have our own honor, but!” He was silent a second time, maybe he was hoping for the miraculous effect of his lesson, and then he started again:
“Oh brother, we are in prison, here! It’s every man for him! Oh, oh-h-h-h, if I had listened to the moralists’ nonsense, today I would have the pickaxe and the shovel handle in my hand, like the others. What can I tell you, have you seen how those wretches end up when they don’t meet the quota? Of course, how could you not have seen them, tied up at the poles! Well, no, my dear, I don’t covet that kind of honor! I don’t want to end up like that! My head hurts! Why, were we born to be heroes? No, please, I am made of flesh and blood! I have a family, oh buddy! I want to get back to my wife and daughter as soon as possible! Whoever wants to be a victim let him be! Who has stopped him, is the road open? I for one, no, I don’t want to! Do you understand now, how they are divided here, the heroes on one side, and we honest ones who have been caught by the wheel and want to fix our biography, on the other side. Well, what kind of brave man is there against the state, man!”
He was silent once more, from the deep sockets; his eyes like a snake’s eyeballs emitted some hypnotic sparks. Maybe he was hoping he had paralyzed his prey, so at that moment he took the last step, the dismantling: “Listen, my buddy, don’t let your conscience gnaw at you! No, what will they say, what will they say?! Nothing, man, don’t even think about it, just drag the stick and don’t leave a mark behind! Even I at the beginning, felt a little weak, but I got used to it and now I am at peace with myself. Oh brother, we only have one life! Come on, let’s live it, because we don’t come back again! And here where we are, we have to find a way, to get by better than the others! Do you understand now? That’s why I eat and drink, I don’t do any work, and then I hope to get out before the friends in the group. That’s why I advise you: find the way and forge ahead!”
To make the path he suggested more pleasant, he started singing a cheerful song. In my childhood years, I had often heard this banal song from the happy drunks of my neighborhood when they would sit by the river with a glass of raki, with two olives and a stalk of onion and they would start: “Go ahead, I’ll kiss your forehead, / with a pickaxe I’ll dig your grave. / Go ahead and don’t be afraid, / because you have elastic pants”, etc. banalities. This Gypsy song with a drawn-out cadence, which in the circumstances where we were seemed out of place, although the singer tried to give it cheerful notes, it came out forced and the voice that sang it, sounded as if it was wailing.
Even before the echo of the last note faded, a shadow broke through the door towards the place where we were sitting. Meanwhile, a powerful slap was slapped on the face of my interlocutor and the dry crack echoed on the ceiling of the laboratory hall. He, as if he had been thrown away by the fury of a cyclone, was knocked against the wall. The shadow acted quickly, so I couldn’t make out the person, then a flurry of fists and kicks followed on the crouched body. The surprise stunned me but I composed myself and got up to give a hand as well.
With my patience exhausted, I was just waiting to let off steam. I had been boiling for minutes; the anger tore open the crater of reason, my eyes went dark, hatred eclipsed my brain. I raised the hammer I was holding in my hand; I aimed to give him the fatal blow. But at that moment, the shadow gave me a shove from behind and the hammer crushed the plaster on the wall in front, crumbling the plaster. I lost my balance and fell on the crouched man. I got up quickly and raised the hammer again. A hand like a vice grabbed my wrist and pushed me away. “What are you doing, have you gone mad? Get out of the way, I’ll deal with this!” “Please, I’ve been enduring him for an hour; let me get rid of the stinker!” – I yelled at the shadow.
“Shut up! I’ll fix his saddle, this donkey foal!” – The curses were followed by a storm of blows. – “Listen, you scoundrel, I’ll take your soul out of your a…, because you are stinking up all of Reps with your filth! Why, you son of a dog, will we let you make everyone like yourself! End it here, because if I don’t clean you from this world, don’t call me Muharrem Dyli! Get up, wash up and break your neck! If you open your mouth, you’re dead! Did you hear?” – He shook his fist in his face. – And once again I’m telling you; take this advice to heart, because we are here! – He threatened him for the last time.
The fallen man tried to get up, but the blows had badly dazed him, he couldn’t get his balance. When he raised his head, I noticed a trickle of blood running from his nostrils and one split eyebrow, hanging like a flap over his swollen eye. – “Take him to the faucet to wash, until I find Dilo!” – He ordered me and threatened him again: – “Listen, you clown, don’t take a step from here, or I’ll cut that spy carcass into pieces and concrete you in the quarry! He fell and got hurt, that’s it?” – He turned to me. He walked away with short but fast steps, while the two of us remained. I accompanied him to the faucet that was behind the bathroom door.
“This is the price your profession pays! I believe the debt went to its owner!” – Then I added without ceremony. – I should have given it to you, he gave it to you! But, no problem, we are here! If the chance comes, I’ll pay the debt, and with interest!” – I threatened him. He was silent and was throwing cold water on his face, the blood was not gushing out as before, but some clotted pieces had layered on his chin and on his shirt.
-“I got out of your debt, you will regret it, but it will be late!” – He hissed like a snake. – “Oh scoundrel, you haven’t had enough yet! Thank your lucky stars that you got away with this, because the next time, if you dare to cross me, I’ll beat you up myself!” – And I dunked his head in the faucet water. Of course I was telling the truth, because at that time I was under the effect of the rage of youthful heroism, like a drunk who acts under the impulse of alcohol vapors, ready to do extreme things.
A few minutes later, I heard the door hinges squeaking. Dilo, with the first aid bag under his armpit, appeared quickly. As soon as he saw the injured man sitting on a crate, he went near him. As he was walking, he gave me a meaningful look: – “Wow! What happened to you, you little grasshopper! You’re completely crippled, you unfortunate man! But why, man, have you fallen so badly, huh! Open your eyes when you step, man, because this is a place of trouble, all iron and nails! Come on; help me lay him down here, boy, because he’s also from Berat!” – He put down the bag and brought another crate to form a kind of bed. – “Thank God he saw and picked you up, otherwise who knows where this would have ended up!” – He winked at me to let me know that he was aware of the whole event.
To be in sync with him, I replied: “Yes, Dilo, you are right; this is what we patriots are for, to be there for each other in need! How does he look, isn’t he too damaged?” – I added with cunning. – “No, man, what do you mean, a little! But, he is a tough bone, this one, oh boy-y! Yes, he was a sailor, man!” – Again he winked at me cunningly, the letter “y”, he emphasized it as “i”, like all people from Gjirokastër. I understood, this speaking with innuendo, was a form of pressure for me to keep quiet.
He took out a wad of cotton, some bandages and a bottle of iodine from the bag and started cleaning his nose and the split eyebrow. He put a bunch of bandages over his swollen eye and attached them with leukoplast, then he blocked both nostrils with a wad of cotton, he approached his ear and told him: – “Be careful with your mouth, it’s not good for you to open it, because… it bleeds!” – He added. – “When we get back to the camp, we’ll sew him up at doctor Naim’s, but until then, come on let’s go to Qazo’s blacksmith’s shop, to warm up a little!”
They left leaning on each other. When he reached the door, Dilo turned back towards me once more, he winked at me: – “Thank you for the help, boy-y!” – He greeted me and they left. In the afternoon in the camp, I found out that Muharrem had been assigned as my guardian angel. I thanked him for this gesture, him and my elders. With the brothers Riza and Muharrem Dyli, who were also my father’s friends, I would form a close and long friendship, which would continue until their death. I will talk about them separately, when their turn comes.
This was the last meeting with the spy, without the presence of others, for as long as we were together. Because he did not stay long in the camp, he was sent on missions to the cells, to spy and influence the sentencing of the wretches who had been singled out to populate the political prisons. When he returned, to rest for the next round, he was put on a special food regimen and assigned to the “tekahyt” brigade.
On the other hand, I also did not have the fate to last long in this brigade, because some circumstances, which did not depend on me, influenced it, which we will talk about below, so we no longer had the chance to meet. I don’t know exactly if he reported the event with me and Muharrem, for this I do not have facts, but the later developments made me believe that he undoubtedly must have informed the masters who assigned him that task. Memorie.al
Continues in the next issue
