By Adriana Dine
From the “Hell” of Qaf-Bar, to the “Paradise” of a family from Qaf-Bar, the unknown history of the communist dictatorship!
Memorie.al / It were January 7, 1983. It was a cold winter, and snow had blanketed the entire northern part of the country. I had determined in time the day of departure to meet Dina, in the prison of Qafë-Bari…! So that only by praying to God, to help me, I should take that road, of course accompanied by someone, either from my people, or from people from Dine’s family; because it was impossible for me to make those long and arduous journeys alone…! The trip that time, in the heart of winter, I got to do with my beloved father, who never leaves me, in all my troubles, and who always had my back, for everything, and who never got tired never nor did he ever complain, about anything.
In order to catch the first train, we left Savra there around half past four in the morning, in the bitter cold, accompanied by one of the brothers on a bicycle, to carry the bags to the train station. Now that I remember and write this event, my flesh shudders…! They were the vicissitudes of a road, of many of those who took the roads of prisons, a few of the others, such a story may have happened to them.
After traveling for almost the whole day, we arrived in Fushë-Arrëz in the afternoon. Like the winter it was, the days were short, the weather icy and snowy. At the transport vehicle agency, we got stuck. “Skoda” for drinking in Qafë Bari, no one passed…! While we were waiting, we were thinking that we couldn’t continue for that night, because the cold had entered us to the core, and we had no sign of hope… when suddenly a truck appeared, one of the pyrite ones.
It seems, the driver recognized us right away, after that frosty day, you couldn’t see human legs, and we, covered in wind and frost, immediately caught the eye…! Even those trunks filled with food saved during two or three months from the last meeting, proved that they could not have another destination: but the Prison!
Without properly raising his hand, the driver stopped and asked us: “For Qafë-Bari, I believe”? “Yes, for Qafë-Bari” – we said with one voice, me and my father! He nodded his head in approval, “Get in from the other side…”, and got down, opened the door for us, helped us pack the bags with food… and soon we were on our way…!
When he saw us still shivering from the cold, he cursed the winter in those parts and we felt inside the car, the air warming up. At that moment, my father gave me a look, as if to say: “Don’t worry… every problem has a solution, even today’s one, got a solution, don’t forget that without sacrifices, nothing can be done…”! And this warmed me more than the breath of the car.
The road that time from Fushë-Arrëzi to Qaf-Bari was a real horror. Not only narrow and unpaved, not only with innumerable turns and zig-zags, but to my horror were those cliffs that made my death so close on one side, and the rocks that sat like hawks on the other side and in places they looked like they were going to fall on our heads…! “Oh my god, – I whispered after every turn… – Help me”!
An indescribable feeling of fear and uncertainty… my body shuddered, not forgetting the rapidly descending darkness and the whiteness of the frozen snow around us, making our way hellish…! In many places, the road became very narrow and frozen, it was impossible to pass. It seemed like my heart was going out of place…! The driver squeezed hard behind the wheel and none of the three dared to say a single word…!
Baba tried several times with his humor, to remove half of the evil from me, but it was not easy. When the driver told us that we were approaching the prison, we felt relieved, but what we saw was that the snow had passed over a meter. Only a few narrow alleys were visible, leading to the shadowy prison bars. It was a deep darkness that could put two fingers in the eyes.
I felt terrified and numb… but I don’t know where my father’s strength and courage came from, because he suddenly took away the sadness that took over me, as if by magic. Before getting out of the car, the driver informed us that it was impossible to take another way back, with this terrible cold and snow…! Then the father, with enough tricks, begged him: “If it’s possible, let us spend this night of horror, there is his truck”?!
He looked at us somewhat surprised and turned to his father, saying: “How can I leave him alone in the truck, all night of God!!! You, an old man with a young girl, almost a child in the mountains! As soon as my nana finds out about this, she’ll sleep with me”! Baba thanked him even for those words he said to us: “Finish the meeting once, at this time, I’m filling the truck… then we’ll see and do it”!
We were in front of the big gate of the prison, when suddenly the guard officer appeared. I explained the problem to him first, as a woman, but he welcomed us with his first feet: “There are no meetings tonight at this hour! Tomorrow, installments”!!! He told us in a beastly tone, which left me no chance of conversation. Then the father also approached and what did he talk to him…?! After a while of waiting, when the mountain climber was doing his job properly with us, the officer reappeared: “Okay, okay, come on, you’re only going to meet for five minutes, let’s not talk”!?
I wanted not to cry, but to scream at that moment. After 13 hours of road between winter and mountains, after so many adventures, because I couldn’t mention them all, they didn’t allow us to meet, but even when they turned their hearts to stone… just five minutes…!? “Oh my God” I muttered to myself. I had almost three months without seeing my husband, Dina, and for all the longing of three months… the longing was only 5 minutes!? It actually took five seconds, because during all that time we were under pressure from the policeman, who was looking at us and checking the clock, to leave a moment earlier, and for him to go sit by the stove.
What a terrifying meeting, where you can neither ask nor answer, nor see that person properly, but he can neither see, nor ask nor speak…!? A perversion of emotions that no one can describe…! It must be something photographic in the human soul… that one second of life, gives value to eternity…!
We left the trust to Dina, leaving her in real anxiety and terror…! Where would we go and where would we drown, to spend that night!!
We walked on those open snow paths and set off on the road… just like that, without even knowing where to go. We walked where our feet took us… when, not even a hundred meters away, someone called us across the field. It was that driver who brought us to prison. He came to meet us…! That night they had not allowed him to charge the pirit. The whole time, he had observed the whole scene with the police and was waiting for us with his car turned off, somewhere in the corner.
When we approached you, in a firm tone, as if it were an order, he told us: “Tonight you will come to my house! It’s not in the honor of Pukjan, an old man and a young girl left me, on a big road, between these scary mountains, and a winter night like this”! He said it with a kind of pride and confidence, that no one would take his word for it…! Not that we had any other escape options…!
“God bless him”! – He gave it back to me, and we left without reaching out and without contradicting him. The attendant lit two cloth flares with kerosene, one for himself and the other for us, which he gave to father to light the way…!
I don’t even know myself, how we got that courage and set out like that through those paths between the snow and the forest, among those scary fires, in the faith of that pukjan, who printed us with light on those paths, which even during the day to dare to do it…! We continued on the road carefully and he helped us, whenever we were in difficulties, and kept us with courage.
I was scared to the core, but I wondered with my father, how he could cross those thin rocks without breaking his neck. I could see that she was taking the food of the desolate grandmother, who was almost seventy years old, but I could not do anything to help her…! After some time, he asked if we had many roads…! Apparently it was tired!
“We came,” said the driver, “we’ll arrive in a little while”! We walked for a good while, which seemed like a century, when a stream appeared in front of us, over which it was said that there was a wooden bridge…! I believe from the most primitive ones, who have never seen me before. The whole bridge consisted of some ropes woven in the form of a braid…! Where we stepped, they had put some boards, which looked rotten to me, with space between them.
For every step we took, we were swinging like on a swing…! The earth on one side, the ice on the other side and the sound of the stream where we could end up, were a horror and a torture, that even today, I can’t find the words! Pukjani, all the time, he printed us, talked to us, helped us and kept us busy…!
After an exhausting fatigue and death anxiety, we arrived in front of a door…! It was the home of the Pukjan mountaineer. When the door opened, I thought of salvation, but as I entered, I felt like I was in hell… even though I had grown up with suffering and deprivation all my life, I thought that nothing would impress me in life. But no, no way!! Even today, when I remember their house, that kind of poverty and scarcity, my flesh shuddered, and I can never forget it.
The driver had a wife and a son. He lived together with his older brother, who had a wife and four children. They had their mother, an old, but noble woman, who came out to welcome us and spoke to us like the master of the house. Some time ago, an accident happened to them, a part of the house burned down and the whole family lived in a narrow and long corridor, where you could see a total of two mattresses and a fireplace, with plenty of wood.
We felt that they came down quite deserted, for that condition, they went out and prepared something and laid the dinner table for us. For food, they gave us groce…! If that miracle were to happen, to come across a grain…! They also put some cheese, some onions and some brandy on us. They used cheese very sparingly, and kept it as if they had a piece of roast meat.
Baba, as an easy-going and unpretentious man, filled the table with his humor and endless stories…! It was not noticed that the joker, that from time to time he made everyone laugh, with his humor and jokes. After we finished dinner, the driver’s wife invited me to sleep together, as she told me; “In my room, there are beds and blankets, while my brother-in-law and his wife, and my mother and children, since they have nothing to cover themselves with, keep the fire burning all night and sleep together, in that same corridor…!
That night I slept with the driver’s wife and she hugged me all night. He was very sorry for my fate…! I was only 23 years old, and for years I had been forced to take the streets of Spaçi and Qafë Bari prisons, those indescribable Albanian hells.
But there was no end to the generosity and kindness of those mountaineers from Pukja. I have never forgotten them, and I am very sorry that I am not capable enough to describe it as they deserve, and to be able to reward their waiting…!
I was born and raised in internment camps: where we had plenty of poverty, barangays, and mud huts, but I had never seen and experienced such poverty and squalor.
Then there are many other qualities that give value to a person and lift him up, such as the generosity, kindness and hospitality of that family, who opened the door to us on a night of terror. They welcomed us, let us into their house, even though we were “sworn enemies of the people”, which for the communists was a taboo.
During the conversations that night, they did not provoke us, nor did they ask us, nor did they mention the prison, as if it was not the cause of what was happening, and we did not provoke them either, about who we were, and why we were there, because we knew very well, that we had burdened them enough, even with our presence, in their house.
I’m stuck, and I can’t get it out of my mind, why wasn’t there a way to learn at least their last name…?! Because we didn’t ask them, neither about the name nor the surname, because we didn’t burden them like that, and they didn’t do such a thing either…!
Because no one thought that in the future, if we were given the opportunity, we could reward them, even with symbolic gratitude, for their noble hospitality…! Which continues to be the most beautiful day of my life…?
The next day, before daylight, the Pukjan driver dropped us off at Fushë-Arrëz and left us satisfied and proud…! Leaving us to continue in our troubles, of camps and prisons and him in the truck of pyrite, those wild roads…!
May God bless that wonderful Pukjan family, those people, whom life had really thrown into hell, if it had not been able to kill the kindness and hospitality in their souls! Memorie.al
