By Maksim Rakipaj
The twelfth part
Memorie.al / Maksim Rakipaj, originally from Përmet, whose family had helped and supported the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, after graduating from the Navy School in Vlora, in 1972 he was appointed an officer in the Merchant Navy, where he served with dedication until in 1977, on the “Durrësi” steamer, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in political prison, as part of a “group”, which also included his colleague, Aladin Kapo, the son of Hysni Kapo’s brother. Family biography was also the reason for his punishment. After the end of the war, two of his uncles were sentenced to political prison, his grandfather was declared a kulak and in 1976, his father was expelled from the party. Maksi began serving his sentence in the Ballsh camp and in 1979, he was transferred to the Spaçi camp and then to the Qafë Bari camp. He was released on September 12, 1984, benefiting from a reduced sentence, from an amnesty. After being unemployed for a long time, with many hardships, he got a job as a miner in the Mzezet mine, he worked until 1991. After the 1991s, he started working in the administration of the Municipality of Durrës, he served until 1997 and after that, he returned to the Merchant Navy (the last captain of the transoceanic ship “Vlora”), until he left Albania for Italy, (illegally on a dinghy), where he currently lives for many years. Since the 90s, in addition to various jobs, Maksim Rakipaj has also devoted himself to writing, such as; poetry, prose, fiction or documentary, translations, etc., publishing several books, such as: ‘Prophet – Khalil Gibran’, (translation from English ‘Toena’ 2003), ’20 love poems and a song of sadness’, (translation from Spanish, ‘Toena’ 2003), ‘Alive after the shipwreck’, (published by ISKK, 2014), ‘Bukowski – poetry’, (translation from English, ‘ENEAS’, 2015), ‘Trilusa m’Tirône’, ( translation from Italian, ‘UEGEN’, 2015), ‘Anthology of Arabic-Persian Poetry’ (English translations, ‘UEGEN’, 2015), ‘The Complete Sonnets of Shakespeare’, (English translation, ‘ADA’ 2016′) , ‘Survivor’ (autobiographical novel, ‘2 East, 2 West’ 2018), ‘Nobelists – poetic anthology, (UEGEN 2019), ‘Hymn of happiness’ (‘JOZEF’ 2023), etc. From the creativity of Mr. Rakipaj, Memorie.al is publishing the book “Survivor”, (published in 2022 by “JOZEF” Publishing House in Durrës, directed by Mr. Aurel Kaçulini), where he has described his life chronologically, where the part the main one is that of serving the sentence in camps and prisons, as well as various characters, his co-sufferers that he met in the communist hell, etc.
Continues from last issue
3 – Endless meanness
…There is not a week that the auto prison does not come to Spac. New convicts come, confused, just convicted. They find old acquaintances, their fellow citizens or fellow villagers. Create their own circle of friends. They bring the latest news from “Voice of America” and other radio stations, which speak against the regime in Tirana and the rumors are boiling. The strange mechanism at work here filters the news into rumors and truth. News related to the dictator’s health is awaited with interest…! “Aha, it’s not long, he died, the dictatorship ends… history has shown it.” Our minds lied to us!
How those years flowed, after his death, until today, is known. But let’s get to the memories. Transferees from other camps also come. They come re-convicted, from ordinary camps. The re-convicts of Spaçi are also coming. I see Fatos Lubonjë as the first re-sentenced person to return to Spaç. It looks small, so yellow, weak. He seems to have suffered a lot. I remember, struggling up the stairs of the palace, cursing loudly…! X.Y also comes from Ballshi. People are wary of him, because word has spread that he is a spy.
I met him in Ballsh and I don’t believe those words. I socialize with him too, I keep myself safe anyway, where he knows; “what if it’s true, that he’s a spy?” X. Y., is not bothered by the words that have been opened about him: “You know Max, – he says to me one day, – why don’t I tear my head off for that talk? Because I still have 6 months of prison left, I can’t wait to go home. I don’t want to be re-sentenced. From the technical office and the other spies, they remember that I am theirs and maybe they leave me alone”!
I have heard the story of his imprisonment since I was in Ballsh. He worked in a cultural institution in Tirana. Quiet man, work-home. Married with love to a girl, one of the most beautiful in Tirana in those years. He also had two children, a boy and a girl. Everything was about beauty, until the police commander Q. B., who had a brother who was a member of the APS Political Bureau, noticed the beauty of his wife. He didn’t have a hard time throwing it in his hand, the brainless beauty. To have sex with him as quietly as possible, she got rid of her husband, madly in love with her friend. Kollaj at all, 2-3 false witnesses and they give him 8 years in prison, for “agitation and propaganda, against…”!
The children grew up and over time they realized that their mother had begun to go with one lover or another. She had become a high-class courtesan. After the divorce with X.Y., “for the sake of the children, you understand, my dear, that otherwise they cannot get a higher education, not that I don’t love you…when you are released, we will be together again”. A week before his release, he receives a letter from the children, who wrote to him regularly. I see him put the paper in his pocket, quite shocked.
I approach him and ask carefully: “Not good news”?! He leaves the letter in my hand, like a somnambulist… I take a quick look, they wrote badly, about their mother, they told him that they had kicked out of the house, because he was absent for weeks and when he came back, he made up excuses for services, but the girl did not follow him and you saw him with different lovers on the beach, or in other cities. I returned the letter: “What are you going to do now “?!
– “What am I going to do, I’m going to humiliate them. How dare they talk like this about their mother, who became a piece of shit, until she provided them with a university, kept them alive, without a father, all these years! They are all slander…. I don’t believe a word of this…”!
I offer him a cigarette and invite him for a coffee: “Let’s talk, calm down, in a few days, you will go home and clarify things calmly…”!
– “Thank you, Max, I don’t want coffee, my tension increased a lot from the paper…! Live for the good word and… please, don’t talk about it with anyone, you understand…”!
– “Don’t worry, my friend, stay calm. If you need me, come without an offer.”
The day before his release, he was called to a meeting. We were together, he was waiting for his wife to come, to bring him the release papers. He flew: “Wait for me, huh. It’s been half an hour and I came”!
He came back quickly, with the bag of stuff in hand. Her eyes were red, from tears: “She was, she brought me the good suit, the one I wore when we got married” and swallowed her tears. – ‘I’m not worthy of you anymore’ she told me. ‘I betrayed you, a thousand times. I can’t look you in the eye anymore’! ‘No, my love,’ I said, ‘what do you say, this is a bomb for me. I couldn’t wait for this day. I love you, you understand, don’t you!? I’ve forgiven you for everything, whatever you’ve done…! It’s not your fault. We’ll be together now, forever…! We have two kids…! ‘No, no, I can’t, the kids are grown up now. I haven’t been with them for a year… Go home, they love you, they can’t wait for you”! And he left, he left crying… he left.
The next day, when I saw him off, he was dressed as a groom and seemed quite at ease. “Good luck”! I wished him, – “and thank you for making it to this day”! “No”, – he told me, – “like me, don’t let anyone get it…”!
4 – Does anyone love like this anymore?!
…Today is Sunday. In Shkodër they say “Sunday”. I first heard it from Ndoc Narac, in Tresh i Lezha. It was Sunday, July 1964. In those years, my father worked there and we were all in Tresh; around 10 o’clock, the door rings. My mother opened it and welcomed the friends; they were an elderly couple, more or less in their seventies. My father came out and saw them: – “Ooo Ndoc, you did well to come. Miss Eva, good morning”.
I was 13 years old and I looked in amazement at the couple, who looked like they came from a trip, with the time machine, in terms of etiquette and manners in speech and not only that. Even in combing the hair. In clothing. The way they looked at each other, all love, like teenage newlyweds. It was clear from the accent that Mrs. Eva was a foreigner, but only from the accent, her Albanian was completely correct. A beautiful Albanian, a woman from Shkodran like Ndoci…! In time, I found out the story of the Naraçi couple. And it is not a story read, or seen in those Brazilian and Turkish soap operas, that women follow with scarves in hand…!
The boy Ndoc Naraçi, son of a well-known family from Shkodra, finished his higher studies in Vienna. Full-bodied, blue-eyed, blond-haired, he was indistinguishable from the locals. An excellent student and a handsome boy, he never missed an opportunity, from the famous Viennese balls, where he made many friends from large Austrian families. There he also met Mrs. Evelyn, of Polish Jewish origin, married into a large and rich Viennese family, she also had two sons from her marriage. He met Ndoci and they both fell in love with each other.
On the eve of the 30s, Ndoci graduated as an engineer in Vienna. Evelyn divorced her husband and came to Albania with Ndoc. They got married. Happy, rich, in love. They both loved Albania, music, poetry, traveling around Europe. They lacked nothing. The hand of the young engineer is in all the constructions of the time. His talent caught the eye of King Zog I, so in 1935, Ndoc Naraçi was appointed Minister of World Affairs (Minister of Construction) in the government of the time. Happiness is complete: minister at a young age, with a beautiful woman who loved him, who spoke 4-5 languages and learned Albanian immediately. Happiness that would later be cut short, brutally, absurdly. But that would never hurt their love.
She was eternal. The Italian occupation began after ’43, a year under the Germans, it was not easy for Ndoc, with a woman of Jewish origin. But they managed to survive even that. No one spied on them, no one betrayed them. The war ended, the country was destroyed, Ndoci was ready to get down to work, for the reconstruction of the country. There was no need for the “popular” power after ’44, for the services of ing. Follow Narac. They arrested him on the charge; “enemy of the people”. They sentenced him to 10 years; they confiscated all his property. Mrs. Evelyn was invited to leave Albania as a foreign citizen…! Proud, he refused the offer to leave the country. She did the most mundane jobs, to live and help her husband, in prison.
She who had grown up with maids, who cleaned her house, cooked, washed her clothes… worked as a maid, laundress, foreign language teacher privately and never separated from her boyfriend, until he got out of prison. In the 60s, one of the sons from Mrs. Eva’s first marriage, worked at the American embassy in Paris, came every year to the Durrës beach, where he stayed for about two weeks, to meet his mother…! “What can I bring you mother, there is nothing here…”?! – “Only books, my son, only books…”!
He was returning to Tresh in Lezha, after meeting his son with suitcases full of books: French, English, Italian, Russian, German…!
They died in the early 90s, a few days after each other, almost simultaneously, of course, in Shkodër.
Their Shkodra was all buried; Shkodra of art, of poetry, of music, of love, of anti-communism, sent them off as they deserved: with love.
(Note: Any inaccuracy of mine is only related to some date, maybe. But I didn’t give much importance to the accuracy of the dates. Ndoc and Evelyn Naraçi, are eternal, like their love).
CHAPTER III
Journey to the North (not for tourism)
Spac
I had heard a lot about Spaçi, as early as in the Ballsh camp. Spaçi and the Spaçians are spoken of with respect here, after the revolt of May ’73. Very soon, I would have the chance to become a spacian too. Kapllan Shehu himself (who had now moved to Lushnja, as head of the Branch) promised me with screams and reddened with anger as early as May ’79, much more than that. And suddenly, in the second week of July ’79, when I was waiting for my people to meet me (I turned 28 on the 15th), the loudspeaker boomed: ALL WHO WILL HEAR THE NAME SHOULD COLLECT THE THINGS OF THEY WILL BE LINED UP AT THE GATE IN 5 MINUTES…!
…My name is third on the list. I don’t have time to meet anyone, dozens of policemen in the camp became a fence between us and those who remained there. Only Aladdin, who helped me get my spoils, barely managed to hug me: “Don’t worry, brother”!
The gate opens, we go out, the gate closes. There are three trucks. The first is with heavily armed soldiers. In the middle, is our truck. Behind us, another truck with soldiers. Above the driver’s cabin, a two-legged machine gun and a soldier, one with him, with his finger on the trigger. Two policemen are in the back of our truck, discovered. One of them shouts to the soldier with the machine gun: “You bastard, take your finger off the trigger of the machine gun, because you’re going to kill us all”!
They bind us with German World War II handcuffs, two people, a pair of handcuffs. I am single. The policeman ties me up alone, with me alone and last: “You, Max, will sit next to me, at the end of the truck. The handcuffs have been left loose. “Hold on tight, don’t fall, because you gave us “! he orders me smiling. Meanwhile we leave. I see him with surprise. I don’t know him, because he has never served inside the camp.
– “My name is Fatmir”, – he introduces himself – “You don’t remember me”?!
– “No, how do you know my name, Fatmir”?! – I speak to him by name, with which he is being very affectionate.
– “It’s not your fault. The day you met the mayor of Lushnja, you were a smoke, Makso. You couldn’t see with your eyes. I was behind the door and heard your whole conversation. You left me speechless…! Hahahaha…! Especially when you said: I will come to take you to the grave, when I get out of prison…! Ahaha, you made him talk to himself. Halal. That’s why I let the shackles loose, you know. When I told your conversation to a friend of mine, who is a policeman in Fier, he laughed so hard, he said about you.
Fatmiri seems like a good guy. He keeps me talking all the way, until we reach Spaç. Anyway, I’m very attentive in conversation with him, but he doesn’t ask any provocative questions, he even talks more than I do. Arriving in Spaç, he shakes my hand tightly and says: “I wish your health, Max. We are the same age and I am very sorry that you are in prison. That’s life. Don’t worry, tomorrow it’s no surprise, I’ll be put in me here. So. Come on, be good”! I haven’t seen it again. I salute him, wherever he is, if the day comes and he reads these lines. There were good people even there, where there shouldn’t have been!
…We are being checked again by the policemen of Spaç. Very diligently, meticulously. Once the control ends and the life of Spaçi begins. I am worried about the family, because I was expecting them in two days, in Ballsh. A friend helps me and I send a telegram home with the new address. But the telegram is a week late. Grandma, mother and my brother, Dashi, went in vain, all the way to Ballsh. There they are told briefly: “The convict Maksim Rakipaj is no longer in this department. We have no idea where he is. Ask the Ministry of the Interior”! At the ministry, they don’t get any answers. They are told only this: “He has been transferred, to another re-education ward. Later, come to ask”! “Later?! When”?! “Later, I said. Come on, good day”! When they finally receive my telegram, with the new address, they calm down. Calm down, I said?! Ehhh…!
When Monday comes, I start working in the mine. The first three days are for “instruction”, for getting to know the mine and technical safety rules. It feels like you’re going to hell. For someone like me, unaccustomed to hard physical work, it is real horror. They tell me that I will work, in a group of three: a miner and two shovel workers. The group rate is 8 wagons filled with ore (2 tons of ore per wagon), two pairs of rebar, concrete or wood, and one pair of beers.
– “But brothers are made by miners – says Zef Nishi, the convicted brigadier – Daggers don’t make you, no one makes you a miner, Max. Maybe they will make you a novelist”.
– “What do you mean by novelist”?! – I ask timidly.
– “Levelist?! Here, pushes the wagon with me, like the one over there…! Any ALL at the end of the month, you get it, because it depends on the rate of the brigade. The work of the leveller, below 100%, is never done, he takes at least; 7- 800 ALL per month”.
The first three days, I work as a leveler. The wagon must be filled to the brim and taken out to be unloaded in a large warehouse. Below, big trucks come to be filled. Even with Durres license plates. The wagons have to be pushed, on some thin rails.
– “Do you see this metal platform?! This is the plate, it serves to turn the wagon, from one gallery to another”.
I make some routes, helping an old leveler, he does not bother to teach me:
– “Oh, I have to do the norm. See what I do, you do too. Tomorrow you will be alone, no one will help you”.
The next day I am alone. From the first road, my wagon derails, full. Four wheels on the ground. What about now?! I come around, hopeless. I try to lift it, to put it back on the rails; where he shakes. Here comes a novelist, with his wagon:
– “What the hell, my god! You have eyes on your forehead, haven’t you, you forgot about me, this wagon shit?! What are you waiting for, give it to me, wake up because I’m late”!
– “I tried, but it doesn’t move”, – I say.
– “Kuku, for me, I need to raise the wagon with you too, now “.
It seems Shkodran from the dialect.
– “I lost my head, because I lift myself” – and in the blink of an eye, the wagon was put on the tracks.
– “Where are you from? How do you say the name”?
– “Durness.” Max, what about you?
– “From Shkodra.” I don’t know shit, Enver, but they call me Ruke. When I left, a hodge muttered, said to the old man: Enver was the name. And the old man didn’t spoil it. Who are you with, who do you care about?! As if there were no other names?! Mafmut, let me be called; Shit, short. But not Enver, by God! And to make it worse, they curse my mother, day in and day out, like in the camp, like in the gallery. I was a little late in the queue, for example, except when they start with a hoe, with a drill book, be careful, because a couple of wagons are coming…”!
And indeed, as soon as they recognized Ruken, they started: – “Oh Enver whore, you have become ass like a plate of pyrite, why did you block the road. Oh, shit Enver, you found the meal for dinner, eat it in your ass… ahahahh… Oh great god, die, Enver”!
– “Amen, my God! Well, I know that you don’t have it with me”, – Rukja doesn’t break the silence – “I helped this young man, lift the wagon with me. His name is Maks, he is from Durrci”.
– “Be fully matured, Marx and Enver… ahahaha. (this Labi, from the dialect). Listen, brother, you’re a good boy, you’ll have everyone’s help, you’re lazy, you’d better tell them to find you a place from the offices, because this is where you’ll leave your head”!
…This is my first introduction to mining. After a few days, with the new organic, I was assigned a miner in area IV. To learn how to use the hammer, I have Agim Hamit, from Vlora. Dawn is a little shorter and stockier than me. We quickly build trust in each other.
– “You and I, they didn’t put miners on us, to make the brigade’s plan – says Agimi – but to take out our souls, little by little. They give us fronts with the hardest rock. From 8 atmospheres of air, which is normally needed, for WUP hammers, from the compressors in the fronts where they are like our work, who want to die in dust, they do not even send 4 atmospheres. You will see for yourself. Even workers, they give us the weakest. Someone is also a spy of the command”.
And I really see it. Dawn is right. I have two employees: Islam Spahi and Ahmet Kolgjin. Islam is powerful, but it does not say to the spade. He knows French and French poetry very well; he is also a painter. Great man, rare friend. Ahmeti, raised in exile, as a child. Yellow, weak, with 5 diagnoses in the heart, but he works hard, with all his heart. Knows several foreign languages. I know the French encyclopedia, ‘Larousse’ almost by heart. There is no field of art, science or fees that Ahmeti does not know. May your memory be eternal, my friend Ahmet!
The Brigadier is unhappy, with the work of my group:
– “I’m sorry, but I have nothing to do. It’s been two days since you couldn’t finish a pair of hole. You have the armament for a black page. I have reported to the brigade police, Mark and the technical office. If you didn’t make the beers even today, the dungeon is waiting for you, Max”.
– “If that’s the case, I’ll go to the dungeon right now. With 3 atmospheres of air, which comes to me, not me, but not even the best miner, can’t make beer, stay here with me and see for yourself”.
– “I don’t just have your front; I have a brigade to follow. Come on, keep working”!
Little air, it barely rotates the baromina, if I force it, it stops completely. I made only two hole, from 80 cm. I have to make 8, or 9 beers, from a meter deep. I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head, I see the brigade policeman, Mark Marku. There are 2 or 3 policemen with this name. This seems like a calm, quiet guy. I never laugh. He motions to me to turn off the hammer. Do as he tell me. I follow him, until we are away from the front of the gallery and the mist of dust. We sit on two beech logs, which I have to arm the gallery. He asks me in a tired voice where I’m from, what’s my name.
– “Rakipaj, you said?” What about Xhaferri, the director of Reclamation of Lezha”?
– “I have a father”.
– “I drank it, a coffee in Laç, with Xhaferri. Tall man. I am very good friends with my uncle, who is the director of Laçi Park. No, take it! See how life turns. Today I am a policeman, guarding Xhaferri’s son! My uncle told me, but I didn’t know it was you. From tomorrow, you will have air, as much as my sister begs, I will come with her to the front. If there is no air, don’t shave it, leave it alone. You don’t put your fingers on the rocks. As long as I’m a companion policeman of this brigade, you don’t have me in the dungeon, for work of beer without air. Dad, are you coming? Yeah, eh. Thank you very much.”
Mark keeps his word. But, no matter how much I do the rate every day, I never manage to get any money in Spaç, even when I complete more than 100% of the monthly rate.
– “Don’t even expect to receive – says Agim Hamiti – With our money, spies pay, those whores of the command”.
I was also told by the writer Halil Laze, who was in a strong group with engineer Xhafer Agaraj and former topographic officer, surveyor, Diogen Nako. They made over 150% every month. When he had gone with the policeman Mark to complain to the convicted normist, the latter, angry, had taken a piece of paper out of his pocket and shouted angrily at the policeman: “And these, how am I going to pay them?”, eh? Do you know what they told me?! Go talk to those big commandos, you don’t have to talk at all, with me…”! Memorie.al
The next issue follows
