By Shkëlqim ABAZI
Part twenty-nine
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
“But it is not meant for you!”
“We are sacrificing also in the name of our executed fathers,” Skënder tried to explain. “Okay, ego, I will sacrifice myself in the name of the minorities.”
“Go away, Jorgo!” I pleaded with him again.
“Okay, pedhimo (my boy), we lived together, we will die together!”
“May you take the blame on yourself?” Dervish burst out, grabbed a crowbar and threw it onto a pile of stones.
“O Theos, na muti manas to komunismos (Oh God, Communism fucked us up!)” Jorgo let out a Greek curse, made the sign of the cross, grabbed the crowbar, and took up a corner on the side of the ordinary camp.
The two side walls and the one above the square, we had “fortified”; after Jorgo took the back side, we “fortified” all four. Time was closing in; even if you wanted to, you couldn’t shirk the duty because the hordes of Special Forces (sampistë) surrounded us.
Those who entered through the main gate you saw, but just as many others came in from the labor camp and surrounded the territory, in five echelons, as if they had encircled four hundred people. In every pillbox, five automatic rifle barrels threatened us, not counting the thousands who completed the cordon after cordon, while above, a helicopter patrolled so low that you could hit it with a stone; above that, the ‘Mig’ fighter jets climbed and dived in a strafing run.
The calls to ‘surrender’ you and we heard, perhaps all of Mirdita, because they raised the loudspeaker so high that I believe it must have been felt from Zogu’s Bridge to Qafë Morinë.
But we made the decision, perhaps the most absurd decision ever made by those surrounded in castles or caves. The castle defenders or cave dwellers decided to sacrifice themselves, but they were armed and tried to pay for their death dearly, while we only had our hearts and some pieces of bricks and stones, one crowbar, and one shovel or pickaxe handle. In a way, we signed our certain death, voluntarily!
We were conscious of the extreme gesture, but the time called for sacrifices, and we became the offerings that fate marked. It could have been any fellow sufferer, because we were neither the best, nor the bravest, nor the smartest, nor the chosen ones; we were not cut out to be heroes – we were you, you were us, but the divine will pointed its finger precisely at us!”
“You were special! You became heroes and, at the same time, the voice and the arm of the suffering Albanians!”
“We huddled head-to-head and swore to resist, like a team on the field. Then we prayed to God to ease our expected pain; I even prayed for Him to take my soul immediately and not leave me in the hands of the criminals. But it was not meant to be; I was destined to circle hell until 1990.”
He paused, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. With three puffs, the ember reached the filter. He put it out, lit another, and inhaled and inhaled. He put that one out too. Beads of sweat ran from the smooth part of his prominent forehead, hung over his thick eyebrows like amber beads, joined three or four at once, and rolled down the wrinkles of his cheeks, then descended onto his neck, wetting his open shirt over his chest.
“It’s hot, huh!”
“Hot!”
“Just like that day?” I nudged him.
“Oh-e-e, I will confess the heat of that day to the grave!” He lowered his head: “Keep my mind clear, oh God!”
“Mountaineers, special forces, wrestlers, boxers, and all the criminals that Kasëm Kaçi and Diko Zeqo had fed and trained specifically for that day, rushed from all directions. We watched them from the arena box like sacrificial lambs being marked.
For a moment, Oso Kuka appeared to me in the powder tower, surrounded by the lake waters and the boats of the besiegers, but he repaid death a thousandfold because he was armed, whereas we only had some pieces of bricks, stones, stakes, and one crowbar!
Nevertheless, as long as we had ‘ammunition,’ we forced them to retreat under their iron helmets and plastic shields; neither the hundredfold numerical superiority, nor the grappling hooks, nor the ladders, nor the ropes were of any use to them, because the hail of bricks and hard objects rained down on their heads from four directions.”
“Oh dear!”
“Our arsenal ran out before the battle even began. Meanwhile, bursts of bullets set the sky ablaze; smoke and soot hid the sun. I believe you saw it from the square where they kept you confined?”
“The darkness, which we mistook for a cloud, blurred our eyes; the roars, crashes, and thunder deafened our ears, but no one saw what happened between you and the attackers, because we were corpses, upon the square full of thorns…!”
“The trench battle did not last long. The plan to jump from the roof failed, because the ground was black with helmets and everywhere was covered with rubber mattresses. We repelled the first ones who tried to climb onto the roof without difficulty, but they multiplied like swarms on the oak branches, while the shooting continued without stopping. I don’t know if they were live rounds or plastic, but some burning pinpricks nearly paralyzed me.
Meanwhile, they increased the number of swing ladders; consequently, the attackers on the roof multiplied, while we huddled back-to-back, like bulls when attacked by a pack, and defended ourselves as best we could. Everyone was shooting to protect themselves and to protect the comrade next to them. Eventually, they trapped us in a snare. Each of us had to face one hundred Special Forces and boxers at once. They knocked down Skënder! Three of us remained on the terrace.
It was Dervish’s turn! Two of us remained. They threw Jorgo down too! Alone…, like the slave among the pack of beasts, in the arena! The dream had come to an end!”
“Then oblivion…?”
“We saw the stretchers dripping blood, and we were terrified and felt as if our bones were stripped from our bodies, as if our brains and hearts were plucked out, and our blood sucked dry, so much so that we didn’t even feel the pain in our joints! No one uttered a sound; the universe held its breath, butterflies froze on the flowers, birds remained suspended in the sky, and the sun broke through!
Then the decimation began. For every ten names, they singled out one, lynched them, tied their hands and feet, and tossed them like sacks of chaff onto the beds of the trucks. One filled up and left; another filled up and left! Twenty-seven raving dragons set off from the hell of Spaç toward another hell more terrifying than hell itself…! Lord, oh Lord, what a massacre! Whoever remained in the square cursed the day they were born?”
A silence settled that defeated silence and spread the veil of stillness over the old memories.
“And then?” I continued, trembling head and body.
“I felt as if I touched the ether, where the impossible became possible! I was now cruising in the multi-colored world, without handcuffs, without a town crier, without appeal, without mines, without wagons, without barbed wire, without an operative, without police, without a commissar, without Marxist-Leninist works, without ministers and gun barrels that threatened you with death, without…!”
“You seemed to mention death?!”
“Even death tasted sweeter than death! As I was looking for life: I hate you; I found death: come; but neither one nor the other deigned to listen to me! I did not want to return from the abyss and enter the troubles of life. I experienced it this way myself; I don’t know about the others. Where was I at that moment?”
“Nowhere!”
“The Devil knows where they threw us! I could only perceive pain, because my eyes and brain were not functioning; my imagination was huddled in the crevices of oblivion. My eyelids weighed like sacks of sand; my eyelashes and the dried remnants of blood were intertwined as if they had been sewn with nerve threads. Would I ever manage to peel them apart, or would they remain sealed like this forever? Had my eyeballs burst in their sockets, like incubating eggs? I don’t know what to tell you; I couldn’t imagine the sight, but surely they had disfigured me to the point of monstrosity. Where have they thrown me, oh Lord, into hell, purgatory, or paradise?”
“…you aimed to overthrow the Party and Comrade Enver, eh?! We know that the Marxist-Leninist light stings your eyes, because you are hostages of the bourgeois past and your fathers’ privileges, but we will bore out your eyeballs so you won’t see the socialist paradise, we will squeeze your moldy heads on the proletarian anvil, and we will hang the Party’s noose around your necks and banish you to endless hell!”
“Hurray-a-a! Party, Enver…!”
“What do you have to say, defendant!” roared the phantom throat of a phantom man, as the other phantoms applauded the phantasmagorical phantoms.
“Hurray-a-a!” the arena thundered.
“Blood dripped from the cracks of my lips, and the words crumbled before they were even out, while my tongue moved like a clumsy worm in my cavernous mouth, swaying freely from one side to the other; it did not strike ivory walls, only some broken bits that stung and pricked like glass.”
“Where did my teeth and molars end up, oh God?!”
“…even if one is left, we will pull it out! Do you want teeth, your lordship, to tear apart the communists? We will pull out every last one! A toothless wolf, even a shepherd is not harmed! A beheaded enemy, make him prime minister, he poses no danger! This is what the history of the world proletariat, the glorious teachers of Marxism-Leninism, and Comrade Enver teach us!”
“Hurray-a-a! Hurray-a-a!”
“Glory to the immortal Marxist-Leninists!”
“Long live the eagle-eyed Party, led by Comrade Enver Hoxha!”
“Enemies to the rope!”
“Hurray-a…!”
“We make no compromises with the enemies of the Party! They want the right to speak, even! We will shorten your tongues to the root, leave you perpetually mute, and the issue is closed! You demand freedom, huh? Yes, sir, we will give it to you in abundance; besides the handcuffs on your hands, we will add shackles to your feet! You aim for democracy? The people’s democracy is more than enough for us; we will offer you up in the sewer pits! You wanted Albania in Helsinki, too?
“Well, we will send you to the boondocks! You wanted it like America, even? We will hang you in Cuba! You wanted the eagle without the star, eh? Well then, enjoy the black crow and we will keep our five-pointed one! We heard you wanted to recruit the army, eh? Alright, we will join you with a bullet in the back of your head!”
“Hurray-a-a!”
“Long live the glorious people’s army! All the people are soldiers, enemies to the rope! Long live Comrade Enver Hoxha!”
“Enemies to the bullet!”
“Hurray-a-a…!”
“Oh God, my limbs went numb!”
“We will shorten the arms of the political scoundrels who defiled the dictatorship of the proletariat to the elbow!”
“Hurray-a-a!”
“Enemies to the rope!”
“And the one-faced executioners shook the hall with ovations. They dragged us out smoothly like the innocent Abel, the blind Homer, the crucified Christ, and sealed us behind the benches, some twisted around a policeman, some against the stunned and crippled wall, God forbid, even some dead, and we moaned and heard here and there a passage from the bloody masquerade.”
“Did you say dead?!”
“…Yes, we will execute you even if you are dead; we will bring your corpses out of the grave and hang them along the roads and squares, for the crows to peck!”
“Hurray-a-a!”
“Long live the people’s justice!”
“Traitors like the mouse, are judged by Be…i Spa…iu! No, Fehmi Abdiu,” because Bedri was declared an enemy.
“Skënder, uncle, did you tempt the soldiers?!”
“You are sentenced to death, even though you are dead, by firing squad!”
“Hajro, pasha, you didn’t leave a single minister unscared with the ghost of your father? We will send you there! To death: by firing squad!”
“Dervish, bey, did you aim to scare our brave men? To death: by firing squad!”
“You, Pal the Catholic, did you want to terrorize us with the shadow of the cross? We will crucify you! To death: by firing squad!”
“Mersin-Picasso and crow-scribbler, Twenty-five [years]!”
“Luan-American-head, Twenty-five!”
“Paulin-De Gaulle-European, Twenty-five!”
“Hodo-Bey-German, Twenty-five!”
“Helsinki-Justice, Twenty-five!”
“Robespierre-Beheader, Twenty-five!”
“Jorgo, the faithless-Greek, Twenty-five!”
“Kazaz-Ballist-Chickens, Twenty-five!”
“The sentences are final! The serving of the sentence begins today, 05/02/1973.”
“Those sentenced to death have the right to appeal to the Presidium of the People’s Assembly. The living lose this right!”
The Chairman! Signature.
The Members! Signatures.
The Secretary! Signature.
The Prosecutor! The Bullet!
The Seal!!!!
These were more or less the things said at the special trial, which no one else understood what was special about it, except for the organizers, the leaders, and the utterers of the monstrous sentences.”
“And then?” I asked curiously.
“What then?”
“How did things unfold?”
“They stripped us naked as always, arms and legs, and threw us in solitary confinement.”
“Didn’t they treat your wounds?”
“What is that word, man? They sentenced us, cursed us, and left us to be eaten by maggots!”
“Didn’t they touch you?”
“They did touch us, man, of course they did, but… with clubs! As soon as the old wounds dried, they opened new ones, and we were reduced to rags, so much so that we envied those who were executed!”
“I wanted to ask about them; what happened with the petitions for clemency?”
“What petitions are you talking about, man?”
“The requests addressed to the Presidium of the People’s Assembly?”
“Oh, come on! Why would they condemn us only to pardon us?! If they meant to do that, they wouldn’t have condemned us at all! Besides, who would write them—the dead?”
“I’m talking about the procedure?”
“My friend, communists recognize no law or procedure! They took them that very night, and God knows where they took them! They executed them, buried them, threw them away, and forgot about them! May they find peace in heaven!”
“Didn’t they even wait for the answer from the People’s Assembly?!”
“Who would ask them for accountability, I ask you? They were both the governor and the judge themselves!” He thought for a moment and added: “I don’t know, maybe after the execution, they wrote some piece of paper!”
“But they announced it to you!”
“They informed us to terrorize us! The same thing happened in the camp; they gathered us on the terrace and communicated the sentences: Four to execution, eight to twenty-five [years]!”
“Then…!”
“I can imagine.”
He fell silent; a saffron yellow spread over his face, and a cough choked him.
“Waiter, a glass of water, please!”
I handed it to him; he drank a few sips and poured the rest over his head. The stream hung like a waterfall of tears, crossed his neck, wet his shirt, and he looked like a drowned chicken.
“You’re not well, Dashi?” that state worried me.
“Oh God, this happens whenever I remember it!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
“Thank you, my friend! I needed to be relieved; who would understand my pent-up frustration better than you?”
I was speechless. Instead of me thanking him, he did it.
“Shall we go have lunch!” I invited him.
“We will see each other another time, because last night I left dinner prepared for them; I shouldn’t leave them without lunch today too!”
We parted. We haven’t seen each other since that day, but we communicate through third parties. These are the things I flipped through today, making a comparison between my notes and the newspaper….! I started with the handwritten petitions, but I gave up because I lack the original documents to compare the calligraphy. I moved on to the report compiled by Feçor Shehu for the state bigwigs. Generally accurate. Although he had partially attempted to erase the cause of the revolt’s outbreak, which was not only Pal Zefi’s refusal to return to solitary confinement for the third consecutive month, but also a number of factors that neither the criminal minister nor the general director of the Police, the sadist Kasëm Kaçi, cared to mention.
Some of those who caused the cup of patience to overflow and hastened the event were the psychological terror exercised by the command, case by case, the cruel punishments, even to the point of permanent disability and even loss of life; the prolonged shortages in food and clothing supplies; the deliberate interruptions of meetings with family members and correspondence; the successive searches and confiscation of books; the non-observance of weekly rest days; accidents in unsafe tunnels that cost human lives; the miserable hygiene that prevailed in the kitchen, the mess hall, the bathrooms; the lack of showers and laundry facilities; the stench everywhere in the territory; the animalistic conditions in the dormitories, where space was reduced from seventy to forty centimeters; the political pressure of Commissar Shahin Skura and the relentless diversions of the operative Fejzi Liçaj, through spies and immoral individuals, etc., etc.
Regarding the slogans shouted those days, I have nothing to add; the report entirely expresses the truth and reflects them accurately, because they served as accusations that took human lives and leaders. The subsequent actions, from the destruction of the stands for socialist emulation and Marxist-Leninist quotes to the nationalist slogans that were shouted, have been narrated correctly. They add the waving of the flag without the star atop the building, but they “forget” to mention a “small” detail, the fact that bursts after bursts of projectiles were poured onto it, denaturing it into tattered rags, full of holes. The report speaks clearly about the political nuances and demands, and also about the brutal intervention on the third day, the violent clash between the four prisoners and the four hundred Special Forces. Extremely accurate regarding the drastic punishment of the four with capital punishment and over eighty others with decades [in prison]. Memorie.al
Continues in the next issue
