By Visar ZHITI
Part One
Memorie.al /…It began on the morning of a nameless day, why nameless, it was May 22nd and it is called “The Day of the Revolt of the Prisoners of Qafë-Bar? – yes, because the days in prison are very similar, like the prison uniforms, with stripes, the days like this, the nights like the black uniforms of the police. Inside the barbed wire it seemed as if there were exhausted saints and crazy devils. The night brigades, the third shift of prisoners, had returned from work, they had been waiting on their feet for 2-3 hours and no order had been given to go to the dormitory. Half of them were sleeping on their feet. Leaning on the wall, on their friend, on the stairs, on the barbed wire. Black marks on their faces, either from the unwashed, or from the horror they saw in that fragment of a dream.
-“What happened, why are they holding us? Two prisoners, Pisha and Nikolla, have not fulfilled the norm”. -“Why?”?! – “There was no material and they don’t want to return to the mine, they are objecting”. They had scraped the material with a shovel, “nothing is left, not a grain of mineral was left, the floor looks like it was swept, there is nothing left, and dirt came out”! “No”, – the police shouted, – you have to return. Command order. Back to the first shift”! “We don’t have to return”, – the prisoners insisted. – We are tired, we want to sleep, to die”! -“We won’t let you die without fulfilling the norm”! “Back to dinner”. “No, now”! “There is no material, my lord, it wasn’t our fault”! “Whose, ours”? – the police shouted.
“Whose? Yours!” – the prisoners would return.
Face to face. Claw to claw. The two Sokols rushed forward, the one with the surname Sokoli again and Progri. What do you want? What do you want? Norm! There is none. It seems to be bursting. Tom Ndoja, Martin Leka, Kostandin Gjordeni, Lush Bushgjoka came. Others behind them. We were right there. Go. Go. Clenching teeth, jaws. Put your hands down…!
Bam an iron – the skull rang? – With an iron Spaç’s revolt began, a prisoner was kidnapped and left the dungeons. They were beating the canister, so that everyone could gather in the canteen. I looked at the canister, as if I had never seen it before, a hanging cannon shell. Is it empty or does it have explosives inside, it could explode, when, when? Why are they locking us up? Don’t they want to beat in front of everyone those who opposed? – “If they give up, we will answer them”, – someone muttered next to me. – We are ready. What we were going to do later, we will do now…”!
I trembled all over. Had a party really been founded in prison? Like…stone…was… What were we going to do later, an uprising? Death, death. The police were increasing. Their black crowds as we had often seen these lately. We continued to enter the canteen one by one. Like a swamp raised high in the sky. That of hell, dried up, full of the skeletons of prisoners. Like rain, bone dust will fall on us; bones will fall from above, old lightning bolts, skulls…!
I rested my elbows on the dirty top of the long table, still unwiped, bread crumbs from the first shift, spilled juices, pieces of bone. The other tables too. Large, black flies were buzzing around with a not at all annoying buzz. On the contrary, they distracted us from what was going to happen and we didn’t know what it was. It’s enough that we’re all together.
About 10-15 policemen entered. They spread out at the front. Then other policemen entered with other prisoners with their hands cuffed, or tied with wire, dressed in work clothes, with faces blackened, so much so that they were unrecognizable. They…! A barbaric silence fell, which was broken when the guard officer entered. As usual, he didn’t greet, there was no need.
“What’s the norm (j) you, convicts? What? What do you give us work for nothing, or can’t your asses sit comfortably, you? I’m talking to you. We keep you here for work and not for stories. In the gallery, take it, who will hear your name! You scum, you scum”!
“Your mother’s scum”, – muttered a voice behind me. The guard officer’s voice smelled of burnt army scum, mixed with pork fat and idiotic communist partisanship. – “What, scum”? – He asked, without thinking about the question. As if he were pulling out rusty nails with a beak, his dirty “scum’s rang out. Wow, what a small vocabulary, most of it banal words, with the dialect of the South and the North.
A prisoner, with his jaw clenched and tied with wire, was about to answer from above, his ragged verticality standing out. “Don’t talk,” the policeman snapped. “The guard officer is talking. You’re a repeater!” “What?” the prisoner asked in a loud voice. “Crime. Crime,” the guard officer shouted. “Who threw the state mattress out the window, my soldier or you, the enemy?” A long silence spread through the air. Officer “Ce” said: “Fulfill the order, act!” His mouth opened and closed as if it had been smeared with gun grease.
The policemen moved. The beating began. In front of us. The bound prisoners tried to avoid the blows, they moved away, but the kicks with boots, so big, Stalinist, crushed their bare calves, they sat down a little in self-defense, but the punch was not understood where it came from, groans, blood. They doubled over to reduce themselves, but numerous punches, rubber batons fell on them, until they themselves fell to the floor.
“U-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u,” – a scream rose everywhere. It was hoarse. The first time we raised our voices together. Strong dogs. The policemen stopped their barbaric spectacle for a moment, as if the devil had cut off their electricity. The guard officer ordered: go on, let the enemies starve! The beating resumed with more zeal and our mixed voices roared: “Eeeeeejjj, what are you doing?”?! Our shout gave us courage, we believed it.
– “Enough, don’t you have a tuuuurp”? – the bravest voices shouted. “Kri-mi-ne-lë! Open up,” I heard a gasp nearby, “get up”! The long bench was pulled up, lifted up, pushed hand by hand and jumped straight onto the heads of the policemen, crushing everything in front of it, hats with stars, necks and shoulders, signs, windows. The military group did not have time to collect itself.
The guard officer was the first to be stunned and pointed his finger at the hall that was shaking. The policemen rushed to the front rows to hit them, but they were hit by other benches, with brooms and plates. This was happening at the top.
The prisoners from the rear climbed onto the tables to see what was happening. Dust, screams, and the tearing of boards, then of arms. Other braver ones, the bravest, were pushing forward, riding on their backs and heads, towards the battle. One table was lifted up and thrown with a crash where the police and the guard officer were unable to escape. Other tables were lifted into the air. The door was blocked by prisoners.
Stools were flying like wooden blocks, crashing, breaking glass. The counters, the bread and soup counters were opened, one of the cooks would stick his head out, pull off his white cap or apron, and then someone else would slam the counter shut from the inside. “Don’t look,” a voice said, “what do you have to witness?” Leftover aluminum cups, other plates, incomprehensible objects were flying here and there in the air, crashing against the walls as if a prison storm had gone mad, neither escaping nor resting. Epilepsy.
Krrrraaaaaaaauuuu, the tables that were being torn apart made amidst the liberated noises of the living. Many prisoners were now with sticks in their hands and trying to reach where the biggest fight was, push, open, I have nothing to do with you, but with the dictatorship, to throw themselves at the policemen, who did not know how to defend themselves. They were being shot at from all sides, shouting “no”!
The guard officer, while trying to calm the situation with a laugh, was only making it worse. “Take off the handcuffs from your fellow sufferers, where did you leave the keys, criminals”?! The cafeteria seemed too small for the battle. Everyone was getting in each other’s way. If you opened your arm to hit someone, a soldier of course, you would hit another, a prisoner. – “Break down the door, push yourself”, a voice shouted. – “Let’s go out and let them see who we are”!
The door was knocked over and, stepping on it, policemen and prisoners rushed out. A crutch was swinging everywhere. – “Look, look, Haxhi Baxhinovski, Bajram Vuthi with levers, where did you find them? And the knives? They belong to the canteen. I stuck them in his stomach”? “Who? The officer…”?! Lazar Shkambi rolled down the window ledge. “Eviva”! – Vlas Koçi shouted, – “Down with these people’s Party”! The military cap with the red star of the guard officer was on his feet. He tried to take it, he even fell down himself, and whoever pulled it out from under the prisoners’ feet to avoid stepping on it, Petrit seemed to me, he has a clown from the village, who shouted.
The guard officer, perverted, did not understand why his orders were no longer valid, were not being carried out, on the contrary. “How is this possible? What is happening?! Don’t do it, – he said, – there are serious consequences to this-oh!” And he backed away as he saw prisoners throwing themselves at the policemen, and other prisoners trying to restrain their comrades. As he waited, unharmed, for them to throw themselves at him too, it occurred to him that he did not have a revolver. Why he was not allowed to have it with him among the prisoners? Only his empty holster hung on his belt without meaning to.
Better, than his enemies would have kidnapped him. What should I do? Stay, leave, but from where? Where? Other fights broke out in the yard, started from inside, continuing with scuffles and scuffles. In the hall, without moving, alone, was only Zoi of Myzeqesë. “I won’t leave,” he said, “without being given an order. I don’t break the rules. I’m an opponent like Socrates. I’ll stay here, an hour, two days, a week, until the order comes.” He raised his voice so that there were witnesses, because he had said exactly that during the riot. He was working on air engines, instead of pigeons going to prison. Feathers in the air, scribbling.
A fellow prisoner approached the guard officer. – “Anyone, does he have any revenge to carry out”? “Run, – he said, – run, save your head! Don’t you understand? Uprising! Who knows where it will end up? Run, I told you…”!? An order awaited him, from whoever he was to carry it out immediately. The guard officer hurried along the path woven with barbed wire, he seemed to be the biggest, and he hurried towards the gate, to take him out to the exit in front of the command.
He felt called, down with communism, it seemed to him that he heard it very close, they don’t have it with me, it seemed to him that he thought, boo-bo, this thing took him deep, it seemed to him that he thought again about the previous thought and stones, many stones behind his back, where were the stones found? – What a bad purge, it seemed to him that other footsteps were following him, perhaps his policemen, were they the prisoners? – Did they want to capture him, hold him hostage, lynch him…? – And ran away screaming to give himself courage.
He would have answered that he had left his hat with the red star in the enemy’s hands. But he could not turn back. The enemies were indeed after him, but the soldier in the tower above the gate emptied his automatic rifle. Where, where? In the air, why? But from the window below the command post, another officer fired a revolver at the prisoners. One of them stopped, knelt down and put his hand on his shoulder near his neck. Where it burned him. Seeing his own blood between his fingers, he didn’t feel any great pain, he said, death is nothing, oh!
Fortunately, the bullet had not penetrated deep into his flesh. There should be no danger to his life, no, those who surrounded him were saying. Danger to life or death? Let me go, push on, let’s attack. Who is wounded, who? That young boy from Durrës, Kosta Gjordeni. Another one nearby took off his shirt and placed it over the bloody wound. -“Does it hurt?” – “No, it burns a little.” – “Let’s rub it with tobacco, it will stop the bleeding,” said a mountaineer and lit 4-5 cigarettes that he had previously rolled.
– “Don’t let the blood go to waste, let’s make a flag, like in the Spaç uprising. Drink better, some weakling who has no blood”. – “Enough, there is no ambulance here, we are in battle. Whoever wants duty let him come…”! – “Long live the Starless Flag”! – Hysen Xhani had shouted in Spaç. – “Down with the Tirana government”! – “Here is death, here is freedom”! – Other calls were heard. – “We don’t work in the gallery…”! “Long live the European Union”! – Bedri Çoku’s voice rose above the others. This call went unheard, like; Europe is uniting, what about us?
– “Is there organization? Horror? Illegal p…art…”!
Beyond the siege, at the rustic building of the prison command, restless movements and a doubling of guards were seen. Here too, within the barbed wire, the chaos was calming down, while alarmed voices could be heard: “What are we going to do?” -“Shall we hold the police hostage? Release the captives, oh captives,” someone shouted.
THE UNION OF THE TWO REVOLTS…!
The remaining policemen, torn and with black marks on their faces, without speaking, made their way to the big gate. –“Who has the keys, who, shall we take them?” –“No, no, they don’t have keys either, when they go in, but they have them outside at the command post. I can’t stand us rushing in.” Another machine gun was placed on the small terrace above the gate. The barrels raised towards this side accompanied the exit of the last policemen. –“Really, there are none left? What? Policemen. No, no…”!
“Free”!?… We were seized by a fluttering feeling; we could fly now, without police, how beautiful, free within our captivity, the sky was evaporating, ready to fall. He looked at the clouds. More look at me from behind, are my wings coming out? The chaos was worrying differently. Without panic, but not wise, sometimes it passed there, sometimes it moved to the other side. What should we do now? The most zealous, the instigators of this rebellion were looking for those former ones, the survivors of Spaç’s revolt, the great rebels.
-“Ah, what a revolt that was! Where are you, why aren’t you alive now? Why so helpless? Not all of you, no”, – he nodded in silence. “Spiro Nasho, speak”! They looked at him with eyes that were both clear and enigmatic. – “I told you, not everyone. We know that anything can happen”, – they seemed to be saying. – “We can’t even tell the grave what these people did to us back then”. – “Fill in water, let it be just in case…” – Spiro muttered, but when Napoleon…! – “Oh, I know, I know…! In Spaç we used to pour pots of food at the feet of the police, as a sign of protest. That the government, or the party, or whatever the hell rules this country, opposed Helsinki, the signing of the Magna Carta for European Union and Security. It called it a capitalist-revisionist farce…”!
At night we wrote slogans against it on the prison walls: “Down with communism and Enver Hoxha”! “Long live freedom, Europe, America”! A young insurgent was waving his comrades by the arms – slowly because it made me even more tearful – to erect a barricade, he said, on the road where the police and commanding officers would come. – “Let’s put the canteen tables, the benches, the mattresses, the barber’s hut, the canteen vats, the emulation stands, the entire library, and our troops.”
The unbelievable happened. The prisoners overcame a crowd of police, they wanted to enter the camp, they were unarmed; but they immediately became weak, as stones, plates, curses, thick books of Enver fell on them. The police were ordered to retreat. The situation was relieved somewhere and immediately worsened somewhere else, as if for balance. Groups of prisoners were formed and dissolved, whose freedom now seemed to be covered by a net, a black veil… of widows. – “Will you write poetry like this”? “You dressed our women in black”! – the echo of this call was repeated.
They spoke loudly, we had missed our voices. What hope was there and what could be done? – “Let’s do what we have to do”. – “What, tell me”. – “Let’s break the siege, let’s attack the barbed wire. They can’t kill us all…! Here’s death, here’s freedom”! – “Where did this cry come from again, what rebels brought it”? I knew it from books, in the theater, in history, and now it echoed before me, a living oath! – “Where are we, in Spaç, in revolt? Like there…! Will we raise the flag again”? Someone was found who gave an order: “You, you, you, run to the laundry and the canteen and fill all the cans, kettles and pots with water.
We’ll have them during the siege. I’ll go too”, said Skënder Tufa, the youngest, but so weak that they didn’t even have to put him in the gallery, he hadn’t yet passed 50 kilos, but he pushed the wagons with me. – “I have been waiting for this day, that is why I have been punished,” he said, “our group wanted to arm the prisoners and attack…! They will cut off the water like they did in the Spaç revolt, voices were heard. They left us without water for five days…! You go and take the knives and machetes from the canteen and from the barber, so that they are not misused. Even the spoons with the garuzhdat. And the torn boards. Collect as many stones as possible. But also courage. It is worth dying as rebels, not as prisoners…! I know where there are a lot of stones and bricks, we will demolish the wall. How did the wounded man become? Out of danger”. Memorie.al
Continued next issue
