From Lek Pervizi
Second part
Memorie.al / The metal pot of the great camp bag rushed unrestrained into all the nooks and crannies of the barracks. He ran between the corridors of the scaffolding of the two-story beds, where the prisoners slept, stacked one on top of the other like sardines, on top of each dirty and unwashed layer, from the day they were also part of the prisons. That deafening shriek entered under the blankets, wildly teasing the ears of the convicts to the depths of their bodies. Insults and curses erupted from all kinds of people. They didn’t even have the right to sleep! Sleep was the only escape from the daily toils. What was going on? Shouldn’t they be removed from there? Control? Who was the fugitive?
Continues from last issue
They were katandisun as well, in a group of Stone Age people. Bone and skin Rags. We didn’t leave or shave. All mud and dirt. Hungry like desert animals. It hurt the stone and the wood!
When he found himself at the barbed wire fence and saw across the street, ten meters away, a family of three people, a man, a woman and a girl, unknown, I understand that it was a mistake. Ah, thunder, thunder! How am I doing now? The non-commissioned officer of the guard, a haughty captain from Kurvelesh, was looking at him angrily and snorted:
– Oh, what are you waiting for? Come on; tell me what you have to say. You have five minutes!
The woman on the other side spoke:
Yes, this is not our son…!
– What do you say my friend…?! You asked for Genc Pervaza, I brought you Genc Pervaza!
– We asked for Genc Preza and not Pervaza…! The woman continued.
-Genc Prevaza, Genc Preza, same thing my friend! returned the captain, a rude face lab, with two fingers to the forehead. But, when he saw Genci, who was left as a fence post, because he didn’t know how to keep them, he scolded him:
-What are you looking for here, when you are not theirs? Are you going to eat wood!
Genci had to leave and spread his wings as they told me, and they look alike. Then he turned to the captain:
– I’m going to call Genc Prezen in barrack number six. Meanwhile, he spoke to the visitors:
-Excuse me. As you can see, I was called by mistake. I’m going and tell your son, that I have a friend, and tell him to leave.
-Who told you to babble? Where are you leaving? Who will you throw to me? Go ahead! And push Genci with the muzzle of the machine gun.
– What is my fault in this…?! They call me without coming! Genci had to be protected.
The captain’s forehead was wrinkled and narrowed even more, out of anger. You put Genci in front and led him to command.
He muttered to himself, I’ll fix the saddle for that guy!
He felt very offended and this took Genci by the neck. He was found before the evening shift of the camp director, wearing the uniform of a police lieutenant colonel. He was sitting behind a table, on which a car window was placed. Behind him, hanging on the boards of the barracks, is a photograph of Stalin, with that combed and twisted mustache, looking out of the photograph with a satanic smile, as if he was enjoying himself and congratulating them for the criminal acts committed by those Albanian communist militants.
– How is work? Spoke the stately commander.
The captain told him how, this rogue jailed him, and he was appearing again and again in meetings with people who did not know him.
– Right? Said the director, raising his thick eyebrows.
– They informed me that they wanted me in a meeting, so I went. What is my fault in the meantime, if they called me by mistake?! I took it upon myself to announce what they were looking for, because I know him, Genci defended himself.
– Yes, yes, things that happen… like dukes have called you one after another. What’s your name? Asked the headmaster curiously. Genci’s heart fluttered.
– Genc.
– Boy who?
-Genc Pervizi.
-How? Genc Pervizi…?! The son of General Prenk Pervizi?
– As you order, Genci spoke with a half-elf.
– Yes, we are looking for you in the sky and you are on the ground…! Come come…! I fixed the saddle, you enemy and thief! Take it and stick it on wood, this mascara! The commander snorted his face red with anger.
Genci had tried all kinds of beatings in the dungeons. But this time, they’re going to screw it up. They slammed him into the isolation shack and left him there until morning, lying on the ground, without bread, without water and without layers. He had lost his senses. When he came to, he was found tied to that post, among the square of barracks. Experienced the disgusting spitting ceremony.
But the torture caused by the flies, which had covered his whole body and were constantly hovering over him, was beyond measure. He never understood how he could cope with that situation. Without any hope of salvation, Genci came to the conclusion that the cycle of his life was closing, there after that hun and at the mercy of the flies. Maybe he would have luck in the afterlife.
As a Catholic believer, he did not give himself up, but went through a prayer that he had learned since childhood. May God have mercy on him and forgive him the mistakes he may have made in life and save him from those troubles. To take him to his kingdom.
What a game of luck! After spending all his childhood and youth, from elementary school to the end of the Aviation school in Italy, a full 13 years, he was suddenly involved in the communist spider’s web, with no way out or escapes. A prepared boy with a strong and brave character, those beasts of the investigation was surprised by his invincible determination. They had sentenced him to ten years, together with three other friends.
Now, we stuck to that pillar, they wanted to defeat and humiliate him and, they didn’t know that they were humiliating themselves, as criminals and anti-Albanian and anti-human executioners. With all the great pains that crushed his body and the disgusting torture that the armies of flies gave him that attacked him from all sides he did not give up and with a spirit between his legs, a stoicism to be emphasized, waited for the end of the torments, which it could only come from death.
That day, another sub-lieutenant, gypsies, terror of the camp, had arrived as a guard officer. A tall, big-boned hawk, with hollow cheekbones, Mongolian. Black hair, black eyes, black eyebrow, black catfish, black face and black soul. A real jungle beast that could not distinguish a man from a straw man. He was talking about horror. He was holding a thick wooden stick in his hand.
– Now the end has come for me! Genci said to himself.
The lieutenant, after having assisted in the spitting ceremony and escorted the prisoner to work, stopped in front of the pillar, gazing at the unlucky tied behind it. He had been brought up and down the camp on some other errand, checking the barracks and the guards.
He used to imprison someone who was sick; he gave orders to the camp policemen. When he later returned to the square where Genci was tied to the post, he ordered the guard to do another job and took him away from there. In the middle of the field, the pillar, Genci, the flies and the mustard officer remain. He started shouting and yelling in high-pitched, humiliating epithets.
A reactionary and the son of a reactionary. Criminal and son of a criminal. Traitor and son of a traitor. He considers himself the son of the general, that number one enemy of the people, the party and our government. Why, we don’t know how you and your friends helped him escape? Dog son of dog!
Here you will leave your bones! There on that pole you will die! And while he was coming around, he hit a stick…a pillar near Genci’s feet. The flies that had covered him flew away, let out a humming noise, and immediately came back in their black sheets again.
– Scream! Every time I hit the post. Do you understand? Genci was surprised and scolded. What was that behavior? Maybe a provocation? The lieutenant then spoke to him again:
– Listen, doesn’t be afraid. I know I’ve got a black nose. But I want to save you. He never forgot the good things of your father, when he was commander in Korça. That’s how it was. Let me shout, yell and curse. He was a man of men! Do as I say. Do you understand? I owe your parents a debt, and I will pay it off!
After saying these words, he resumed cursing and yelling, growling menacingly, and gave another blow to the trunk. Genci felt again that the stick had not touched him at all. Again the flies mingled and hovered around him for a while and settled down where they were.
– Good luck, whatever you wrote, we’re done, and we’re done! He said to himself, and let out a scream as if he was being stabbed. If it was a provocation, a big deal, let them kill him! Better dead than alive for the series! Some of the sick prisoners, who were leaning against the base of the barracks, were terrified and ran inside.
What was the black Genci taking away from that dirty Jew!? At the door of the headquarters, there was the director himself, followed by several officers and policemen. Here, now yes! Now we have found the man who is going to hack that bastard. Meanwhile, another shot on the post made Genci to lower even more. The beautiful thing was that every time the pole was hit, the flies rose up like a black cloud and, after coming around a little, returned to the stained body of the condemned.
Whatever happens, I can adapt to this game, he said to himself. Apparently he had mustard all along. But why? Do you say salvation came to him from where he could not expect it? Meanwhile, the swearing of the officer and the screams of the prisoner resounded caressingly in the ears of the command team and the policemen and guards, up to the top of the police station.
Such people were needed for these accursed enemies and reactionaries, to hack them and take their souls, with a gasp! The director returned to his office followed by the others. There was someone who dealt with the prisoners.
The lieutenant left and the guard came back. When the prisoners returned from work, they found out what was happening to their friend. They were stunned when the scene was repeated several times before their eyes and ears. Now Genci had no escape. It had fallen into the hands of a criminal. Everyone’s conviction was complete. He was destined to be sacrificed. Desolate boy!
The next day when they gathered in the square for the appeal, they saw the pillar empty. My heart froze. What happened to Genci? Why not…! Someone managed to find out that they had locked him in the isolation barracks, in the last grade. It was not worth holding on to the Hun. These were barbaric actions of that executioner officer. We curse them!
Genci had been removed from the stake, at night, after the prisoners had fallen asleep, and they had thrown him as if to die in the punishment barracks. Under those conditions, he thought they would impale him again the next day, to spit on him again. But he knew what he had said and took it to the command, where his word went, and that thing did not happen. Genci was not tied to the post anymore. Apparently, the officer of the guard had emphasized that now he was finished, and there was no point in tying him to the pole, that’s how he dies.
What actually happened when Genci was removed from the pillar? Late at night, the lieutenant had returned to the barracks with a flask of milk and two rations of bread. Genci had drunk the whole gourd at once and had eaten two rations of bread on the spot, so hungry was he. He had gained some strength and had slept all night without being disturbed by anyone. The game turned out to be a real deal, or better said, a miracle happened. That event became even more mysterious, when this officer was behind them they said:
– As for me, don’t break your head. Yes mom, shut up. This remains between us. Me and you and no one else! Otherwise, take me and myself! Genci sat there constantly racking his brain, how that miracle happened, that he was saved from the hand of an executioner!
Before handing over, being the guard officer that he was, the gypsies took Genci out of the dungeon. He liked the word for better or for worse. Of course always for the worse. What happened was an incredible exception. But as they say, the exception makes the rule.
A man of ninety-nine, the work flowed to perform a single good, as the folk tales say. This matter remained an unexplained mystery. With that man, Genci was never seen again, nor did any other prisoner manage to see him anywhere, in prisons or camps.
Later it was revealed that, after the Greek provocations of August ’49, he had fled to Greece. Medet! Genci said, now I’m blaming my father for saving your son! Maybe such a thing, it could even resemble. What had driven that man so cruel to the other prisoners, to become his savior?
Kudos to the general that I got him one or several good ones?! What gratitude?! Is there any other reason…?! Which one…?! Could it have been a conspiracy to send him as an agent and spy among the fugitives of Greece?! Only God could know all these things and the Communist State Security!
Meanwhile, the Greek provocations of August 1949 broke out. The camp was urgently transferred. The prisoners were returned to their respective prisons, where they would take themselves. Where would they play next year? In what swamp or mine? In the conditions of the prison, the convicts, who stayed together in large separate rooms, could talk to each other. Friends wanted to hear that strange, almost unbelievable story. It was also to pass the time. The prisoners had acquired a strange property.
They told their tortures and torments, with a tragicomic humor. We laughed at the creepy scenes they had experienced. Genci, for his part, was brooding over that whole event. Thank God for enlightening that cat’s mind. Otherwise his life would have come to an end; we tied him behind that hunch, smeared him with drool and covered him with hordes of flies.
He remembered, when he was overcome by a great despair, he had cried, Oh God, don’t leave me! At that moment, it was as if he felt in his soul that something extraordinary would happen, a miracle that would save him. And so it happened. That’s all! /Memorie.al
