By Xhevair Lleshi
-Namik Mehqemeja – meteor-
Memorie.al / On October 23, 1992, the three Mehqemeja sisters came to my house. They had an amulet wrapped in silk cloth. “We know your pain,” they said in one voice, leaning against each other on the couch. – Pain goes to pain. They are the creations of our brother, Namik. Handwritten. Parts from magazines, newspapers. Let’s trust you together with the pain, which even after so many years kept us alive…”! And they laughed a little; they just drew a beautifully designed thin line…!
It was getting late and since I couldn’t sleep I started dealing with Namiku, twenty years old. The picture was falling in the most extreme ambit. From any position you were placed, he could see you, follow you. I don’t know how to describe today the downward slide of his smile that foretold fall, which made it exactly as befits the man, with a perfect glow. It seemed to me that it was coming from the bottom of the earth and it definitely wanted to see the dazzling light of the sun. Even though it catches your eyes, that light is coveted. Otherwise, death would not be so beautiful!
He really shined, bursting into bursts of joy, but almost drowned in a drop of water, rolling among his friends, writhing under himself. He did not feel injured, nor tired, but insulted by fate and the evil of the human spirit. Perhaps an incredible, weak, phlegmatic, scornful drive that humiliated you to the end of your soul, a state of hell within personal freedom. Had he explained this situation to anyone? They had caught him armed and with tracts in the middle of nowhere. Responsible for the youth of the “National Front”. Namik Mehqemeja and Resul Dollani. Two friends, two fellow citizens. But Namiku had something more and he didn’t know where to hide it: his poems!
They burned him, so unwritten, like a fire, which instead of warming him tormented him. Can poetry burn? It can never be trusted. Except for Namiku, those minutes were scorching, enveloped in supreme love. Freedom was coming, bursting into the turquoise sky. A long wander from being non-existent, without the possibility of meeting needs, without identity (he never wore any means of identification!), without the empty arrogance that surrounded him from everywhere, without coming close to those who cheered and sowed death everywhere, consumed by the longing of a damned man, waiting to be killed, waiting to be frozen in order to gain eternal freedom.
Killers of an age, of a destiny. That fate comes to everyone but few see it. This is similar to seeing the colors of light: find me one who sees them, at that moment when fate (light!) flashes the seven colors of the rainbow…! Everyone would say about him: this is Namik Mehqemeja. The partisans caught him at night. Stop! He stopped who are you Silence. Come closer! Hands up! Who? Aha, he’s not talking. Control! What are these? Tract! Ballistic tracts?! Dear citizens…! Electric light fell on the stamped paper! “Rise against the red beast…! Black days are approaching…! Don’t believe…”! “Whoah, whoah, whoah! This is our Brave! Is this what we are looking for?! He came like a goat to the butcher! Linking hands! Handcuffs! Do not move until we open their brains”!
And they handcuffed the talented young man. Poetry sparkled in his soul. Surprising and sharp, thin findings, with a light sprinkling of humor and irony, which, if you looked carefully, sounded and took on a dull color, in the heavy weight of the grotesque with an oppressive width. Nobody let him study (fate or war?). He was constantly looking for something lost, neglected, and would suddenly jump to the thick notebook to pour out the verses. He was twenty years old.
And two partisan boys handcuffed him. He could not resist, he liked to meditate at all times, to see the phrase he was thinking about again and again. For another, this might be confusion. But Namiku did not recognize this feature, even in the period of a deep crisis, he had just been arrested. He lived in the moment with his beautiful thoughts, dried by the embers left behind by the poetic fire. At that moment he thought of the house, his room, and his little sisters. Somewhere in a corner of the room, a well-made table with glasses, an alien typewriter, a vase where a fragrant white rose was stuck, which reminded him of Boccaccio…!
I read the poems in a foggy whisper and my lips were dry. I definitely wanted something to drink. He wanted a girl. The eyes, the hair, the new sky, the lips, the hidden chest, struggling with the magical truth. He loved her very much. A sweetheart, who liked rhymes, verses, poems. And the prose that moved with the rhythm of poetry. No deadlock. Without the sfrat. Abyssal edge…! Namik himself was sharp-faced; there was something subtle about that face, something that stayed deep in your mind: his magical, perfect look that forced you to leave your mind behind him, with a prominent intelligence that could not be hidden. In his portrait, the signs of invincible will immediately stood out! And for this he gave evidence.
“You are killing your brother! Do not do this, because one day you will regret it deeply! Even after a century, yes! Don’t listen to the red sirens; don’t pretend to follow the Nazi black wolf, terrorizing your brothers. Cursed are they, the distant others, but not you, my brothers…”! In clenched jaws, clear black eyes, framed by a cold snarl, were recognized from afar. They were the very special eyes of Namik Mehqeme. And who could curse his bound body, full of blood and radiating power. I convinced myself that he could have become a great athlete! Every part of his body was amazing. He did not stop writing. Even when he thought he wrote, because he remembered perfectly.
Each day resembled the next, coming or going, with the same intensity, but not the same characteristic. The days are really similar, but they are by no means the same. Even two sunny days are never the same. In the drama that plays out behind them, there is no equal tragedy, no similar comedy, and no comparable truth. To say with conviction that someone like him would quickly become a great writer, because his creative energy was summed up in thin and tight lips, unfolding and writing on his forehead, the thoughts he chewed with surprising strength. Such could be the creative force? Even in a 20-year-old boy, you could immediately tell the breadth of thought.
He never said two words the same, there were no passive words, he was not shocked by stuttering or sudden interruptions of thought. His words and sentences, thoughts and expressions, were an inexhaustible stone. And the filtered water flowed, liquefying magically…! They were entering the headquarters. “We have caught one of the brave men of Balli”! “Interrogate him,” said the night patrol guards. He would surely endure everything: torture (and even torture a poet associates with poetry!
Even they, yonder, with their sharp teeth, ask for it with extraordinary filth!), the cutting of the tip of the tongue, the great desire, to open his skull and get his thoughts out, even the first blow with a chisel to the temple, was one of the sure tests, to achieve detachment of thought during the answers, accompanied by sharp blows, the simple attempt, to gouge out his right eye (think: right eye!), by left hanging, the destruction of the collarbones, hitting them with a mallet, filling the body with water, until suffocation – almost delirious drowning, through a deformed and insolent rant.
In those moments he saw his lover, inside, with surprising clarity: the long black curls, the big eye (big as any other!), with long eyelashes of its own, the red lips and full, the slender and fragile body, the thin and arched eyebrows with an incredible refraction, which gave him a priceless gift: the look full of incomparable wonder…! They could leave him without bread. Even without water. They often brought him to a state of extremity, when you could ask for death like a pearl, or they punched him in the middle of the stomach after he had eaten, and he vomited endless bile. Just bile.
He no longer extended his words, he had no strength, he could not even trust his thoughts anymore. He looked tired, terribly tired, but strangely, with the heavy shadow of undiminished energy in the rhythm of his eyes and breathing. The darkness could not enter them. There in the depths of it, there was light abounding, lucid clarity, futurity inherited, curious curiosity, perfect future. There was no fog there, no, there was no wind. Inside the poet, it was eternal peace. He neither asked nor complained, but only thought. Meanwhile, the seasons were changing: how fast the thoughts were running, how fierce the storms and explosions often were, it almost made his head explode. Because the hour was coming and they wanted to express themselves, to rush out.
His memory was doing amazing work. How did this happen? How could this happen? And they laughed, like mad dogs. “Look at the fool,” they said. – Watch him dissolve himself. Like those flyers of his that he wanted to distribute”! At that moment, his tormentors froze. One of the leaders of the partisans came Black Lion. “What about you brother’s uncle? Why are you here? Why are you like this? Let him be a brother! I was told it makes the most beautiful tracts! I have also made tracts! Now I don’t do it anymore! Now we are at the end. The Germans broke the nut, fled over there. This is the dawn of freedom. And this is our right! I am a poet too. I also knit verses. Who are you talking against? Against the invaders! Against you, treason…”!
Namiku barely outlined a pain that resembled a smile. And stammered: “I know you as much as you know me!” I love you as much as you love me. But leave the poem aside. She will live beyond us, away from you and me! Did you come to torture me? Here you have me. Do what you have to do! Now…”! I can’t say exactly what happened that night. I don’t even know what Namik Mehqemeja was thinking on that dark, starless, moonless and cloudy night. I can only say that no one slept that night, neither the partisan torturers, nor the one being tortured. He was living in an absurd place, alone, with a thought firmly fixed in his brain, which drove him away at the sight of it, at the approach, with a fire that burned brightly, without letting out the emotion of pity.
This was the only fire without smoke, a condition gnawed by the phantasmagorical creature. I see him even now where he is: sitting on a rock, shirt torn, bleeding, thirsty, and lost in his stormy thoughts. No one could ask for the word of honor, mercy, murder, wounds, or to tie them up and cure the pain…! Namik Mehqemeja, wrote with vigor, as lively thoughts came to him, in the thick notebook, which I now hold in front of my hands. He also read voraciously with the light of his eyes, weighing the words in his pupil. After writing, the letters calmed down, lay softly as under the moonlight.
Dostoevsky’s works are no longer in their house (later I would give them a gift to my three sisters, in Albanian!). He burned the red spoon, which he described in his maluta tracts. It seemed to him that he gathered all the goodness (and vices) of the world to light the poetic fire. He was reading Tolstoy’s “Father Sergi” and was seized by a state of spiritual terror. It was all collected from Gogol’s great book, “Dead spirits”…! He didn’t know where to keep his mind before. He read only in Italian. “The Red and the Black”, “The Budenbrokes”, “The Saga of the Forsyths”, “War and Peace”, “Don Quixote of Mancha”… He did not want a crippled formation. And he remembered the feverish words of the Father, Mit’hat Frashëri. The great prophet, the beautiful man. The great seer.
They had met several times. But the shadow of half his face appeared in front of his eyes under the light-shadow prism. A dark shade, with strong contrast…! The bitterness of the fex wanted to laugh, healing the wounds. “Masquerade”! The pezm thundered. What was he thinking? Luan Qafëzezi was full of laughter. He watched Namik’s thoughts spiral and became a pasha when he saw the end. “From now on, this poet would be an avowed enemy, shunned, slipped, crushed, scared”, Luani was saying to himself, hungry and in a kind of panic, from the cursed everyday life, wandering on his little head, opened by the poetic buds, which could be accessed next to those criminal buds.
The thought rushed and shook him violently. Could he forget this night? Never! It was becoming clear to him, like the light of the sun amidst the darkness and blasphemies. The father, Mit’hat Frashëri, spent hours waiting for him. He definitely wanted to meet her. Namik came rushing in, like thoughts coming to him suddenly. “Albania got the seal, boy! Just think not to face them with weapons. It would be best if we ran away as soon as possible. Do you know what it means to fall into the mouth of shadows? No? Learn it: bit by bit”! “I have sisters Father! I can’t leave them”! “You are doomed, son. Loneliness awaits us all like a gaping mouth. If I beg you, it’s time to run away together: you and the sisters! This poetic spirit cannot withstand them”!
“They have nothing to do with my Father”! Great God! What is happening to me like this! On command: come”! “No, Father! No! Here is my place…”! The echo crossed the walls and Mit’hat Frashëri ran away. Outside, the car was waiting for him with its headlights off. And the thoughts were roaring in the poet’s head. Then chance would descend on the battlefield. She caught him along with the ballistic tracts. Wild and unyielding nature rose above man’s consciousness and became a motive. It turned into an invincible impulse, which would drive him to go towards heroism. Could he be ashamed? Why not. This monstrous shame fell on the fragile shoulders of Good, always being under the exhausting comfort of Evil. That’s why he wanted everything to happen and quickly, because then, he would be left without strength, he was afraid that the moment would come and he could not hide the aggressive destruction.
It seemed a terrible thing to kneel. “After all, we are human and it can happen. Brrrrr. Terrible…”! I was afraid of the moral evil, what was trumpeted the day after the victory, that by keeping him alive, they would have the opportunity to shame him, dragging him through the streets. Humiliation. That’s what the musaqazimists did in Berat, with Baba Dud Karbunara. In the end, so why didn’t the people throw stones at him? Why not spit it out? The edge of a great disaster. History repeated itself. That he didn’t want, not this guy from “Balli te Kombi”, but no one else…!
He looked quite worried; he felt the disaster, the wild trap and the endless sadness, was shouldering him to the ground. And it could fall there, on the mud and on his blood. Unconscious, of course. Maybe eventually relaxed? Suddenly he raised his head and saw the sky. They were outside, without being understood. They dragged him. It looks like they got out of their car. Up the ceiling of nothingness. Dome of distant, distant lights. A nervous tic woke him. The wonder itself. And how could this guy wake him up? The sweat on the cheeks and in rows on the face, washed away, strongly disliking the laughter of suffering.
The masquerades could hear any of his wise thoughts, which he told them as they came, immediately, within the poetic momentum that gripped him and never let go. I have always loved this sublime and supreme moment, illuminated by the blessed light. Strong mark. The ground was being prepared for him in a hurry. At that moment the fatal screams would be heard. Darkness. A few words that came from far away. “We don’t have time anymore”! – was heard the voice of someone who had filled the cups, finally crumbling the amazing lines that would be written someday. And next to his ear: “Do you have a last wish”?
“No. Never. I have only living wishes! Maybe someone will be born with these burning desires…! I don’t want a comb! I don’t want stupid and crazy words…”! The dry and strong frosts that tore the night far beyond. Namik fell, stammering; “My freedom, my misery, the beauty of…”! While even the killers stammered the phrase; “In the name of Freedom”! “In the name of the people”! These phrases remained in force for half a century and the place where Namik Mehqemeja was killed is still unknown. His remains, no one remembered where they were. Nobody showed the crime. Because he had taken the whole memory with him! Maybe Luan Qafëzezi may have taken a talisman. How does he know?!
Meanwhile, the manuscript given by the sisters as a big pledge (they therefore had saved, just to repay the trust!), to see the publication; “The soul is tears”. Then it took place in the poetic Anthology, of the period 1920-1944. Meanwhile, I only meditate on the life cut so cruelly of that great poet and man. The wind took his tracts and kept them in the sky, until October 1992…! I wander in the cemetery of the martyrs and look for a new grave of a martyr of Freedom, which even to this day, I have not been able to find…! They killed Liria, the magical beauty…! Memorie.al
