Memorie.al / Ahmet Golemi was born in Tirana, in 1936. After completing his studies at the “Vojo Kushi” Higher Institute of Physical Culture in Tirana, he worked as a Physical Education teacher and boxing coach, since from 1951, when he first became national youth champion, he practiced that sport, even being five years national champion and four years runner‑up in his weight class, until the communist regime banned boxing in 1963. During the period he practiced boxing, but also afterwards, Ahmet Golemi was considered the Albanian “Mohamed Ali”, also because of his resemblance to the world champion Cassius Clay. Likewise, alongside boxing, Golemi had a great passion for writing and literature, and in the late 1960s, while working as a literary editor for the newspaper “Sporti Popullor”, he published the book “Fundi i dorezave të zeza” (The End of the Black Gloves). Also because of the ban on boxing, Golemi from time to time expressed his reservations towards the communist regime in power, mainly with a group of young literary friends, such as: Bedri Myftari, Zyhdi Morava, Roland Gjoza, Sadri Ahmeti, Kosta Dhamo, etc., most of whom were arrested and sentenced to political prison. As a result, in 1978, the State Security arrested Ahmet Golemi as well, and after several months of investigation during which physical and psychological torture was used against him, he was sentenced to 5 years of political prison, accused of “agitation and propaganda against the people’s power”, where one of the charges brought against him was his admiration for the world champion, boxer Mohamed Ali. After his release from prison, he worked as a labourer, and only after the fall of the communist regime, in the early 1990s, Golemi returned to writing, being very active in the press and as a boxing commentator in television studios or at matches held in the Albanian ring, at national championships or some international event, where he broadcast with great passion. Likewise, after the 1990s, he published several books, such as: “Humbja e parë” (The First Loss); “Përbindëshi i bardhë” (The White Monster); “Pasionet” (Passions) as well as many stories in the contemporary press. Ahmet Golemi passed away on 15 May 2021, at the age of 85. The text we have selected here for publication is taken from one of his stories, which is a real event, where he recounts how during the time he was in “Prison 313” in Tirana, the investigators put pressure on him and used psychological and physical violence, in order for him to testify against the well‑known writer Ismail Kadare, a close friend of Golemi, before and after his imprisonment.
The Investigator at Midnight
…Nimeti tried to get up to do his usual walking, which somewhat eased the burden on his brain, but he remembered that this was not allowed after the changing of the night guards. The question of why he could be summoned at midnight had tormented him for a long time and continued to torment him completely.
“Why at midnight,” he thought for the umpteenth time. From those who had entered his cell, he had learned that the constitutional law defined the investigation period as 75 days and that physical and psychological pressure by the investigator was severely punishable by law.
“Bullshit,” he vented painfully and fixed his tired gaze again on the door. The opening of the heavy door found him standing, as the rule required. The guard gave the newcomer a nasty look, while he wanted to complain about this kind of investigation, outside any reasonable rule.
But his mouth did not open. This one too, like the others, he thought. A detail in the great machine that trampled and crushed souls and lives of innocent people. But the way he put the handcuffs on him touched him. He knows me, or he has a human heart, he thought again.
His cellmate curled up even more under the thin blankets. After openings and closings of doors with padlocks along the half‑lit corridor, from the first floor to the second, we found ourselves in the investigator’s room.
He was awaited by the second man himself. His sharp gaze, like a hunter’s, carried within it a dose of impatience. He reached out his hands to the guard, so that, according to the rule, he would remove the handcuffs, but he, with his head down, closed the door. The room was the same. Empty, almost of furniture.
It was as if made intentionally to strip your thoughts and quickly get you to where the provocative questions of the malicious man wanted. The shelf on the right, taken from some house raid by Security officers years ago.
On the left, in the corner, a small iron cabinet served as a safe. On top of it, a post‑war radio. (One of these we had had at home). The radio too as a trophy from some other raid. Next, the window with bars.
It was said they had been placed in all the office‑rooms, after a defendant who could not bear the tortures had thrown himself out the window. Beside it a chair where, usually, witnesses sat. On the opposite wall, the photograph of the satrap prime minister. Below it, the other chair, where the victim sat. This one also with concrete legs.
A defendant, after losing his patience, had grabbed that chair and hurled it at the investigator’s head, had taken his pistol and tried to get out. Since then, the chairs and tables had legs embedded in concrete, while investigators were forbidden to carry a weapon during the investigative process. Midnight had come on time and the investigator continued to stand.
He moved impatiently around Nimeti, without speaking. In his place, a colleague of his was lounging, well‑built, in a suit and tie. The investigator’s swarthy face, with eyes that moved like a devil’s, looked tired. Finally, he decided to ask. He was looking for needles in a haystack. But that was not the purpose. Otherwise, he would not have bothered to ruin his sleep.
Nimeti understood that his side questions resembled the maneuvering punches a boxer throws, to disorient his opponent, and when he saw fit, he would unleash the decisive blow.
Then, with a strained expression as if trying to insinuate himself supposedly with humanity into the exhausted brain of the defendant, he asked with an articulation of feigned intimacy in his voice, which to Nimeti’s ears came as disgusting: – So, well, finally tell us about that intellectual, the well‑known writer you associate with.
Then the investigator made the basketball game stop sign with both open palms, everything is going in your favour. “Bastard – Nimeti vented inside himself at once. – I know where you’re trying to get. You’ve been clinging to him for a long time to get him in your hands. But I’ll never lay him out as an appetiser on your hated table. Mediocre and perverse, that’s what you and your pack are.
Who knows how many you have taken down with your demonic black soul! I know you will take me too, but what you’re asking for, I won’t sell for anything, even if you freed me right now…”! – Well, I see you won’t confess openly – the investigator interrupted his train of thought and, approaching him, began to tighten the handcuffs to zero. He felt them squeezing his soul and his throat.
The only thing that helped him at those moments was the disgust, which grew with the pain. – Hit him! – The other shouted as if in his sleep. The investigator clenched his hands into fists and tried to strike. His bewildered eyes were fixed on the face of the defendant, wrinkled from emaciation, as if wanting to hypnotise him.
– Hit him, don’t hesitate! – rang out more loudly, as an order, the other who had stood up. Instinctively the investigator raised his left fist, but again hesitated. Instead of an upward blow, Nimeti felt unbearable pain that darkened his vision. The right kick had struck hard against the handcuffs and they instantly did their work. After a pause, when his vision cleared, he felt the breath of the investigator’s foul breath in his nose. He clenched his jaws and turned his head towards the door. – T.A., hundred‑and‑twenty kilos, didn’t resist me, and not you! – the investigator shouted full of spite and kicked again with more force against the handcuffs.
At first, Nimeti tried to lean against the wall, but his consciousness darkened and he crashed badly onto the floor. As for the investigator, as if satiated by some previous torture, he opened the door upholstered on the inside with cotton, to muffle the high tones of gasps, and ordered curtly: – Take him! The guard, who stood numbed behind the door, entered clumsily.
He went down on his knees and lifted the defendant in such a way as if he were an acquaintance. He pulled him slowly close to himself, put his arm around his waist, while he rested his numb arm on the guard’s shoulders, and went out into the corridor. They had covered a few metres like that when he heard: – We’ll see each other again at midnight, my dear!
This was only a warm‑up…! The guard turned his head first. Behind him, with the movement of a sleepwalker, Nimeti looked at the man who had shouted. He wanted to react, to express something, but could not. His jaws remained as if paralysed from the tight clenching, while he heard the grinding of the guard’s teeth. His humane gesture eased him a little. It seemed to him the answer to what the investigator had demanded.
They descended the stairs and when they stood before the dungeon, he spoke to him softly. – Wait, let me take them off, – and when the handcuffs remained in his hands, he added: – Go, go and freshen up! Nimeti took steps towards the bathroom. Only then did he understand the reason that had worried the guard. Blood was flowing from the open wounds. In the cell, he lay down crushed and moaned. And then he felt calmer.
His spiritual relief was increased by the fact that he had not uttered from his lips the name that was being demanded of him. Meanwhile, the peephole at the door opened and in the small square, the small and beardless face of the investigator appeared. – Tonight you got off lightly. But remember well, because we have who knows how many more meetings together – he spoke in a voice like a snake’s whistle. Memorie.al
