By Shkëlqim ABAZI
Part forty-eight
S P A Ç
The Grave of the Living
Tirana, 2018
(My memories and those of others)
Memorie.al /Now in my old age, I feel obliged to tell my truth, just as I lived it. To speak of the modest men, who never boasted of their deeds and of others whose mouths the regime sealed, burying them in nameless pits? In no case do I presume to usurp the monopoly on truth or claim the laurels for an event where I was accidentally present, even though I desperately tried to help my friends, who tactfully and kindly deterred me: “Brother, open your eyes… don’t get involved… you only have two months and a little more left!” A worry that clung to me like an amulet, from the morning of May 21, 22, and 23, 1974, and even followed me in the months after, until I was released. Nevertheless, everything I saw and heard during those three days; I would not want to take to the grave.
Continued from the previous issue
“However, the week spent in the cell was worth it because it gave us that juridico-sociological lesson, at the mouth of that gallery from where we observed the sunset, which reddened the whitish basin and hid another labor camp, behind the hills of Reps, where freedom was sought.”
The Grave of the “Titans”
In the “holes of Polyphemus,” collapses were constant. “The Son of Poseidon” attempted to multiply the shadows in the “Kingdom of Hades” and threw thousands of tons of abrasive rock and sand over our heads, poured dozens upon dozens of sulfuric acid streams; a collapse would occur almost every shift, and on special days, two or more, but they didn’t always result in victims, or the permanently maimed. Upon this forgotten corner of the globe, “Penelope’s shroud” took on its true meaning, because existence did not unfold as elsewhere, but crawled, crawled, and crawled without arriving anywhere.
It seemed that even God had abandoned that small piece of the globe, so much so that according to legend, even the special emissary had not noticed it when he passed by and named it: S-P-A-Ç! S’PAÇ! (Didn’t have it/didn’t find it) S’PASHË! (Didn’t see it); perhaps even now that He saw it; He pretended not to have seen it. Maybe He wanted to complete the ancient prophecy, which I had heard from the old man from Mirdita: “That’s right, since time immemorial it has been called ‘S’paç’ here, and now recently, they have buried the ‘Titans’!”
God had left the “Desert of the Titans” to the mercy of atmospheric agents, with dystrophic, almost barren vegetation, exposed to long winters, violent rains, heavy snow, dry summers, scorching sun, which over the course of centuries had acted upon it and beneath it, until the crust had reddened and crumbled, and as a result of erosion, fissures had increased, often penetrating deep, while the human hand added the tremor of mines three times in twenty-four hours, multiplied by the number of galleys and the totality of fronts, one can imagine how the tuff-sandy formations had decomposed.
On the other hand, the exploitation projects were not the most perfect. Driven purely and solely by utilitarian goals, the engineer-technician staffs had not bothered to undertake preventive measures for the protection of lives, but had sketched out some precipitous holes and, a quick, slapdash job, just to snatch the wealth from the underground. They advanced haphazardly beneath the surface, towards the pockets where they hoped to encounter rich layers. Encouraged by the big shots in Tirana, who under the pressure of the threat of non-realization prioritized the “plan,” no one cared about accidents.
“The plan, comrades, and the plan!” the big shots in Tirana howled, and the flunkies rattled their irons and whips and translated it: “Not all of you have died yet, but the plan must be fulfilled!” The directing staff, as responsible for the implementation of those pseudo-technical safety rules they had approved themselves, rushed to implement the Party’s directives and tore open every horizontal gallery, without optimal dimensions, scraped out tunnels that twisted under the earth’s crust, unarmed or… armed with beech trunks, which under the effect of sulfuric acid vapors, rotted before settling under the cracked ceilings.
Terrorized by permanent non-realizations, terrified by the shadow of the big shots hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles and advertising the expo of the Maliq “saboteurs” with their necks broken by the rope and dozens of skulls riddled by execution squad bullets, the wretches added extra flaws to the shortcomings mentioned above; they simulated deliberate “collapses,” whenever the “plan” was jeopardized, and to achieve their goal, they faked some blast, supposedly “accidental,” in rich pockets, leaving behind ready-to-exploit reserves. With the passage of time, from successive landings, these “firing ranges” emptied and deflated, while the underground pockets expanded and created huge caverns, like the scaly skin of a rachitic skeleton.
The vertical erosion sent shivers down your spine! Under the effect of the continuously flowing underground water, the collapses advanced in height, forming conical chasms with terrifying shapes, many of which reached the crust and not infrequently broke it, ending up on the surface. When you saw the craters with narrow mouths and immeasurable bottoms, you thought that Egyptian pyramids were hanging over your head. Except that they ascend and scrape the skies, while those here plunged beneath the bottom, somewhat surpassing the danger of the desert curses.
But there was also an essential difference: the ancient Egyptians confined the remains of the Pharaohs in grandiose tunnels, to perpetuate them through the millennia that would follow, certainly, after settling their accounts with the world of the living. In the Spaçian pyramids, they crushed the living, to unite them with the dead, so that they would be forgotten forever. The absorbing chasms, a criminal work of the human hand and intellect, surpassed crematoria. How many lives would be lost under them! How many unfortunates were physically maimed! How many others and others live traumatized!
The designers exploited the vampire mouths, which in some cases ended up outside the wire perimeter due to their shallow depth, also for macabre purposes: whenever they wanted to disappear or re-sentence someone, they assigned them to those underground pyramids, where even if they escaped the anger of “Polyphemus” who endlessly spun abrasive rocks and sand, they could not avoid the claws of the State Security, which used the hole as an accusation. In one of these great chasms, they “appointed” my friends from Gjirokastra, Ahmet Hoxha and Sali Çako, who attempted to reach freedom through the unattainable crater. Although only for five days, in court, they were served it as material evidence and re-sentenced for escaping from the place of serving the sentence, the former to death and his colleague to twenty years of imprisonment.
The Devil’s Table
It happened that I pushed through a fragment of my youth under such a chasm. I passed under it over six months, fourteen times a day. When I first saw it, I was stunned and remained like someone who can’t swim and splashes around in the puddle. I felt like the abyss swallowed me! The light of the lantern could not kiss the walls of the abyss. I looked around, darkness! I raised my head up, again darkness! But somewhere in the depths, about a hundred meters up, light! Yes, authentic light, a ray of sun! The pipe through which they entered came down very narrowly, like the end of an elusive mirage.
“Perspective vision!” the forgotten term came to mind, ever since the explanations of the Technical Drawing professor, Dashamir Bibaja.
“Come on, why did you stop?” Osmani’s voice, which had advanced several meters, brushed my ear.
“What did you say?!”
“I asked you, why you were distracted?” he repeated.
“Ah, ah!”
The position where I stopped gave me goosebumps.
“What the devil of a chasm is this? Or some chimney for ventilation?”
“What chimney, poor thing, a collapsed cavern!”
“Collapse?” it escaped me unconsciously.
“One of those that demand a head! Hurry your feet before you get hit by a rock!” and he pushed the wagon further.
I left and ended it there. Since we were forced to pass under this chasm every time we came and went, the curiosity of an explorer was awakened in me. Every time I traversed it, I raised my head and focused even for a few seconds on the damp walls, then my gaze slid up and fixed on the opening until the wagon pulled me along, sliding. Over time, the curiosity grew, one time I stood still in the middle of the void.
“You again?” Osmani burst out, as if the previous incident hadn’t happened days earlier.
“I’m dying to see it!”
“I don’t understand why you are risking it, dear friend? What is there to see there?”
“Just curiosity!”
“Get away from the devil’s table, brother! Lower your head, pray to God to protect you, push the wagon and cross it, without ending up crushed under a rock!”
I followed him without a word. Midway through a shift, our wagon got stuck right in the middle of the “devil’s table,” where I had attempted to stand twice. Now it was a forced stop; a pile of stones had blocked the tracks, and the wheels could not go further:
“What a disaster has hit us, damn it! Quick, the darkness will swallow us in this devil’s trap!” Osmani spun the rocks from one side to the other. After a few minutes, we managed to pass the point of danger. When we found ourselves under the caps of the armature, he stopped, panting, slumped over the protruding nose of the wagon, and turned to me:
“Sit down; compose yourself, our soul almost left us!”
I sat next to him and lit a cigarette.
“Want one?” I extended the packet to him. He took it like never before.
“I don’t smoke, but I don’t know what came over me!”
Perhaps he felt bad that he was wasting a cigarette on me, which was quite an expense under prison conditions.
“Light it, it’s not the end of the world, it’s just a cigarette!”
He lit it and inhaled a couple of times, but the cough smothered him; “kum-kum.”
“Damn, it’s like vinegar!”
“I’m not cut out for this sport, friend!” he complained and, with two fingers pressed together, tossed the freshly lit cigarette.
After a flare of sparks, it fell and continued to burn, while the fire flickered like a firefly at night until it disappeared into the darkness that dominated the cave.
“This cave is very big!” I seized the opportunity to start a conversation.
“It’s not natural; they opened it about a year ago.”
“How? Who?” I interrupted him, astonished.
“Engineers, man!”
“I suppose they needed it for ventilation!” – And I craned my neck to glance at the bottom of the funnel, but I couldn’t see because we were positioned far away.
“What ventilation are you talking about, mo?!”
“Did they need it for aspiration and bore this type of furnace?”
“Nobody worries about our health, my friend!” – he paused, because the cough drove him.
“For what, then?” – my curiosity increased.
“To realize the ‘plan’, dear friend!”
“The ‘plan’?” – I scribbled, like them, the communists’ great word.
“This basin had quite rich ore, they weren’t getting a single nugget in the fronts beyond, and so they put in some mines and blew up half the mountain!” – he explained to me.
“Blew it up?!” – I feigned disbelief.
“Why are you surprised? It’s not the first time; they do this year after year!”
“It surprises me?!” – I truly didn’t want to believe my ears.
“Don’t be surprised, you will see it!”
I couldn’t stay put; I got up and walked toward the darkness.
“Where are you going?”
“To see!”
“What are you going to see?”
“The cave!”
“The what, man?”
“The crater!” – I specified.
“You can’t see anything there, you fool, and it’s higher than the Pyramid of Cheops!” – he observed.
I turned back. With the lantern overhead, I surveyed the walls of the cave, to create a rough image of the abyss I had been traversing for days. Under the dim light, a circular area appeared to me, the size of a volleyball court. Dark streams ran down the smooth walls, forming irregular puddles all around. The vertical walls with rock outcrops and inlets rose frighteningly towards the earth’s crust, while the circular shape continuously narrowed, ending in a hole where the sunlight was clearly visible.
The ray that fell from the zenith stunned me; I returned to the wagon, almost blinded, and sat on its protruding nose, with thoughts darker than the blackness that opened above my head. My colleague said nothing; for the first time, he allowed me to explore the cave without scolding me. After about two minutes, which felt like hours, he asked:
“Well, had enough of ‘Polyphemus’?”
“This entire apocalypse, could they have caused it themselves?!” – I don’t know if I was addressing him or the abyss.
“You doubt it? I’ll repeat it, this perimeter had rich ore, and they blew it up and completed the ‘plan’. Are you convinced now?”
“This looks like…!” – I was about to add something else, but Osmani interrupted me.
“And they exploited it, and exploited it endlessly…!”
“And this entire cave was created?” – I completed the sentence.
“Dig today, and dig tomorrow, some after a week, some after a month, until it came out at the top of the mountain!” – he paused and breathed like an athlete finishing a sprint.
Silence was surrounded by silence and aimed for muteness, deafness, death, the grave, and the sensation of suffocating compression.
“Does that opening take you outside the perimeter?” – I asked suddenly.
“Which one?” – he seemed caught off guard, because from what I saw, he took off his hat and scratched his head.
“The one that looks like a well funnel?” – I specified.
“Ah-a, hmm! No, it’s about a hundred meters inside the wires.”
He paused, resting his chin on his left hand, while moving his right hand in the air.
“Hey kid, did your mind give you the idea to escape?” – he turned to me unexpectedly.
“Why not? It would be a miracle if we realized it!” – I confessed my desire, which he must have sensed in the darkness.
“Get it out of your head! This goal cannot be realized anywhere, even when the holes end up outside the perimeter.”
“Why?” – I urged him, just to prolong the conversation.
“It cannot be reached, because you cannot climb that slope, even if you are an alpinist who may have climbed Everest. Everest is indeed difficult and has eternal ice, but it is in open space and with a little skill, you can reach the summit, whereas the Spaçian chasms are unattainable because they have walls covered in moss and are slippery, with outcrops and inlets that can collapse instantly. But even if you reach the top, the automatic rifle and the dog’s teeth await you. I advise you, get those thoughts out of your mind if you still have them!”
I took out the packet, and when I lit the second cigarette, Osmani put his head in his hands, and it was unclear whether he was thinking or dozing.
“Who knows how many must have been lost under these pyramids?” – I broke the silence.
“Oh-u-ah, they have been killed, mutilated, scalded, and gone to the dog’s fat! Eh-ee!” – he let out a prolonged sigh from the depth of his throat.
“And they continue to put us in this hell?”
“Who asks about our lives? After all, ‘one enemy less’, the command completes the ‘plan’, they increase the number of decorations and praise sheets, and the Party also gets rid of political opponents and terrifies the people!” – he concluded and put his shoulders to the wagon.
In the shattered underground, you had to keep your eyes peeled, protect yourself, and increase caution for others. The permanent danger had induced an inexplicable solidarity for those unfamiliar with the mines. The first one to notice signs of a collapse, feel the armature crack, or spot a pebble breaking off from the scraped ceilings, immediately moved away and warned his comrade about the looming danger.
“I warned you today, so you will do it tomorrow,” the gesture of the messenger seemed to say, and the other repeated the refrain. By implementing this mute obligation, those who were assigned to work in that zone ensured their survival, protected themselves and their colleagues.
In the first days, I noticed excessive care towards me, but I took it as a friends’ obligation, trying to familiarize me with the enigmas of these holes, as I lacked experience in the pyrite zone. As the days passed, I realized that this was done with everyone, meaning this practice was a miners’ routine, inherited long ago, which had been strengthened over the years, transforming into solidarity; thus, traumas were minimized and lives were saved.
Not once did I happen to meet foreigners who warned me of the expected danger. As soon as I stepped into the described area, I would find meters of collapsed gallery, piles of rocks and sand, so much that the brigade could work all day and not be able to clear it. Individuals seen in positions of antipathy, or in opposition to each other, ignored grudges at the work front, and as soon as one perceived the danger, he immediately notified the “opponent.”
This ordinary solidarity in this zone had turned into an obligation; by fulfilling this obligation, which was not sanctioned in any regulation, everyone protected themselves and defended the other.
Slave in the “Hole of Polyphemus”!
I spent over six months in the “hole of Polyphemus.” It is unknown how much longer I would have stayed if the calamity hadn’t happened. At the dawn of one night, I was pushing the wagon alone, because the colleagues were rushing to catch the cycle to escape Captain Prengë, who was waiting to crucify us behind the posts with barbed wire. On the way back, I loaded some timbers onto the wagon and was crawling, covered in dust, towards the front. Damn, that Tuesday morning, everything went wrong for me!
After a hundred meters, the wagon ended up off the plate; I had to put my shoulders to it to put it back in place; as soon as I got to the mouth, the wheels stopped on a pile of stones, which had broken off the scarp and blocked the track; “May your day be darkened, oh ‘Polyphemus’, worse than your light has been darkened,” I cursed and rolled some with my hands, and some with a shovel down the slope. At the trimming point, I barely turned the cauldron, the ore was stuck to the sheet metal from the excess water and would not detach. I hit the bottom with a crooked bar, but the clang of iron on iron echoed all the way to the stream, the mouth of Spaç multiplied the echo, and the night returned it to where it began.
“Don’t bang the cauldron like that, man, or do you want to damage socialist property?” Preng Rrapi threatened behind my back.
I did what I could with a short-handled shovel and did not answer him. I found no help with the timbers; I arranged them with difficulty, fixing one end on the lips of the cauldron and pushing the other from behind. On the way to the front, I did not exchange words with anyone:
“Damn, what a gloomy day (or rather night), there’s not a soul left! May a plague have fallen on everyone?!” I rushed after the wheels, but I can state without exaggeration that the wagon pulled me more than I pushed it. Halfway there, the caps creaked.
“Polyphemus is threatening, as he does every day!”
I paid no attention, not even when the mice ran on both sides of the tracks. I had become accustomed to their quirks and didn’t heed the squeaking friends who warned of something unusual. Since the beginning, mice have been historical allies of miners, even artificially increased, because they are born with the instinct to anticipate seismic tremors, catch the signal with their sharp antennas, and rush to move away from the threatening perimeter, thus becoming messengers of danger.
I saw the crowd of squeakers rushing, alarmed, under the weak light of the lantern. However drowsy, their fear of the unknown, which had not yet happened, surprised me; because they feared it more than the wagon wheels that could crush them. When the cracking became frequent, I reflected, but it was too late, I had advanced considerably. When the rattling deafened me, I turned the wagon and followed the puffs of air, but after two or three meters, a powerful crack sounded, followed by a rumbling that extinguished my lantern, while the wagon stalled, and I remained in the dark, not knowing which way to go. Memorie.al
Continued in the next issue
