A Bed for the Wretched – Chapter 18

A Bed for the Wretched – Chapter 18

“Good day…” Kirche greeted the men. “I was running, that’s why I am like this...” Are you tired?” asked Pando, and before Kirche had a chance to answer he added: “Let us sit then. What do say Numo?” “Let us sit…” replied Numo as they looked for a place to sit on the rocks. “I see you all the time. You usually sit down at the side of the meadow right? And I thought, once the exercises were completed I would come and join you. I saw you early this morning but I did not notice when you left. Then I thought to myself, who knows when I will see them again,” concluded Kirche. After they sat down, Numo put his crutch down and asked Kirche: “What did those guys in the jeep tell you?” “The tall guy boasted a lot. He said that we were like eagles, falcons and some other kinds of birds and that we were ready to go to the front and surpass our fathers and brothers who sacrificed their lives in Gramos and Vicho. He also said that he had received strict orders not to send us back even though, with great pleasure, he had performed another great job for the revolution in not sending us to the battlefields. However, he said we needed to be educated. And did you know that yesterday they sent teachers? They came from Suk. One has one eye and is partially deaf and the other is missing a leg. They gave us reading material from ‘Nepokoren’ and ‘Nova Makedonija’. They said that we will soon start learning to read and write and each one of us will receive half a pencil in a notebook, like they gave us when we were in Romania...” concluded Kirche. “What? What did you say?” asked Pando. “What were you doing in Romania?” “Didn’t I tell you that we were in Romania?” responded Kirche with a surprised look on his face. Pando patted him on the head and said: “No, son, you have not told us about that...” Kirche adjusted himself. His eyes were gleaming like those of a child, not of a soldier. His face was bare and pale with no beard stubble. He looked lost in his shabby uniform, too large for his body frame. He broke a piece of cornbread and for a long time picked at it with his long fingers. “I did tell you about how Marianthi left the place, right?” “Yes! That you did tell us,” replied Pando. “And about Giorgi? I never did tell you about Giorgi? Did I?” inquired Kirche. Pando indicated “no” with his head.

“I told you about the ‘sands’ outside of Durres, right? Giorgi was there. A skinny, pale, exhausted looking boy. He was from Kostur Region but I don’t know from which village. He had a large head and his hair was cut short down to the skin. He constantly wore woolen home-made socks torn up at the feet with his toes sticking out. Wherever he went he was always alone. He walked around with his fists under his chin. He had wide eyes, wet with tears and he sobbed a lot. His lips constantly trembled and he was afraid of everything. No one ever saw him laugh. He never ran like the others to greet the locomotive and the train cars on the railway. He was always alone and there was always fear in his eyes and face. He never laughed and was never mischievous like his peers and the other children. It was not good that such a person was among us. We teased him, pushed him around and laughed and made fun of him. He sat there leaning against the wall and cried and cried: ‘Mamo! Mamo! They will beat me...’ He always kept pebbles in his pocket. When someone came close he quickly pulled out one, raised his arm and loudly, while crying, threatened to throw it at them saying: ‘Go away! Go away or I will hit you with this…’ Most of the time he defended himself by spitting at the kids who teased him. When Marianthi first saw him doing this she said: ‘This boy is crazy and should be sent to a sanatorium.’ Oh, how Giorgi cried when they dragged him to a wagon to take him away. He kept yelling, ‘I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go!’ and then they slammed the door on him. Then when they opened the big barbed wire doors for the wagon to leave, hundreds of children came out and waited, leaning on the barbed wire fence. Poor Giorgi was crying and screaming as loud as he could. Then we heard the slow steps of horse hooves clapping on the uneven cobblestone road and he was gone. We almost forgot about Giorgi, until late November when we were told that we were leaving for Romania. One afternoon a wagon arrived in the big yard and stopped in the middle of the square. I heard someone yell out: ‘crazy Giorgi is back’. We then all ran and gathered around the carriage but Giorgi did not want to come out. The wagon driver had to drag him out. He grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and pulled him out kicking and screaming. He kept yelling: ‘No! I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to be here!’ And who can blame him after how we treated him. It seems he was treated better where Marianthi had sent him,” concluded Kirche. At this point Kirche stopped talking, bent his head forward and stared at the long grass in front of him. He then pulled up his socks to his knees and remained silent and expressionless, his face changed and he looked angry and cold. Pando and Numo looked at each other. After a few moments of silence, Kirche continued. “Well, who knows? The way we lived with Marianthi, we could have been the ones living in a madhouse and not Giorgi. After Giorgi was pulled out of the wagon, one of the ‘mothers’ approached him and managed to calm him down. The next day when we climbed into the trucks, an Albanian driver took Giorgi into his cab. While we endured the cold and wind in the open back of the trucks, Giorgi traveled in the closed, warm and comfortable cab with the driver. We arrive in Elbasan in the evening. The entire truckload of us slept in one room, some on the floor and others on benches. There were no beds. We left at dawn the next day and after some distance from the city the trucks stopped. There were many, many people standing on the road and many others were arriving from the top of the hill from several houses. Many were lame with only one leg braced on crutches or leaning on one another. Some had bandages on their heads and bodies. Some had empty sleeves… The road was filling with people. They went from truck to truck, shouting and crying. We were crying too... Did you know that?” concluded Kirche. “Yes, Kirche! I know that!” replied Numo. “Those people were our people, wounded partisans in the hospital...”

“Then a lame man came down and started yelling and cursing at the people in an attempt to get them off the road,” continued Kirche. “But still the people limped their way there and continued to cry, yell and gather on the road all around us shouting: ‘Goodbye! Have a safe trip!’ and so on. After the trucks had left and went around the bend, I counted twenty five of them. And then after exiting a tunnel, even before we had a chance to wipe our tears and stop sobbing, we heard a woman’s voice screaming: ‘They are coming!!! They are coming!!!’ Then suddenly the entire road was mobbed with people. It was like a wild torrent, a flood of women wearing black yelling, screaming, crying, calling out names, raising a cloud of dust while running, attempting to overtake the trucks. It was madness. All we could hear was ‘e-e-e-e-e-e’ and intermittent sounds of names. It was names, names, names, names, being called out with crying, love, hope, pain, passion and eyes filled with tears. There was no joy in any of the voices. ‘E-e-e-e-e-e!!!’ is all that was heard, rising and falling as the trucks sped by the women, but all my ears could hear was: ‘Kirche-e-e-e-e-e!!!’ Some children inside the trucks started crying and yelling. I heard a boy in the truck ahead of us call out: ‘Mamo!’ Then we heard a reply from one of the women yelling: ‘Mitre! Is that you?’ Then we all started yelling ‘Mamo! Mamo! Mamo!’ We stood up and started yelling, shouting and waving our arms around: ‘Mamo!!! Mamo!!!...’ But all I could see were strangers. My sister grabbed me by my shirt and, while in tears, asked: ‘Kirche, do you see our mother? Do you see her? Call her Kirche, call her…’ I made a funnel with my hands and called out: ‘Mamo! Mamo! Mamo!’ again and again as I watched the women run and jostle their way past one another shoving and pushing. But in the storm of cries I did not hear my mother’s reply. My sister begged me again to do it so I did. Then she grabbed me by my waist and said: ‘Kirche, our mother is not here is she?!’ I climbed onto the roof of the cab and again I made a funnel with my hands and started screaming at the top of my voice: ‘Mamo! Mamo! Mamo!’ Then I stopped and carefully looked into the madly dashing crowd of women that looked like a forest of black, but still I could not see my mother…” Kirche’s voice suddenly broke. He placed his hand in front of his eyes, seeming like he was blocking the light, bowed his head down slowly and began to sniffle. When Pando heard him swallow hard he gently grabbed Kirche’s chin, looked him in the eyes and said: “Raise you head soldier…” Kirche took a long time to recover. While doing so, he dug a ditch in the soil with his foot, knocking the soil to the side and angrily crushing the dried up clumps. He sighed and sniffled a few times and then suddenly raised his head, turned, looked at the top of Prenies, raised his arm, pointed and, through a sob, whispered: “The bend, on the road up there. Do you see it?” “Yes!” replied Pando. “Well, that’s where they separated the people from trucks and... and us from the people... We were driven uphill while the women and elders were left behind on the road... They were all going nuts. The women were waving their black head kerchiefs and the elderly men were waving their hats at us. Some people covered their eyes with their hands so the others would not see their tears. The trucks passed by fast without stopping and continued to travel fast around the sharp turns while many of us were standing, weeping and shouting for our mothers. Unfortunately, those down there could not hear us because our screaming and crying was overpowered by the roar of the truck engines climbing the hill... When we climbed to the top of the hill, I noticed that all the surrounding mountains and hills were covered in snow. There was snow on the road and on the meadow where the trucks stopped. They told us not to talk so we kept quiet. Men in military uniforms kept pacing back and forth. Someone said this was the border.

The uniformed men were carrying Russian and German made weapons. Further over in the woods I saw freshly dug trenches. More and more trucks kept arriving and parking in the meadows. Two officers were talking to each other and showing something with their hands. Then I heard someone say in Macedonian: “Turn around and take the children!” The trucks began to move, turning left then right, backwards and then forward. A cold wind blew from the other side of the hill and snow began to fall. The wind blew snow in our eyes and entered our bodies through the wide shirt sleeves and collars. We all stood in line as each truck approached and stopped. ‘One, two, three...’ and when twenty were counted the officer yelled: ‘Go!’ The last child left to climb onto the Yugoslav truck was my brother Kosta. He yelled, started crying and extended his arms toward me, but before I could reach him, two soldiers raised the lift gate, shut it and the truck left. ‘Wait, wait!’ I yelled out, but no one could hear me. The falling snow obstructed my view and I was separated from my brother fairly quickly. I had no idea where they were taking us. And as such, they transferred us from the Albanian to the Yugoslavian trucks and we immediately left. Snow kept falling like thick blankets, the wind picked up and it became very cold. I held my sister Lenka in my lap and covered half of her with my wide shirt. She kept hanging on to me tight with her head snuggled under my chin, shivering and trembling in the cold. At one point she broke the silence and asked: ‘Kirche, why was our mother not with the other mothers?’ but before I had a chance to reply she asked: ‘Why did they take Kosta away from us? And what are we going to tell mother about Kosta when we see her?’ I had no answers for her so I said nothing but she continued to ask questions until she fell asleep. As the trucks moved downhill I noticed the snowfall had subsided but the wind had become fiercer. The children huddled together for warmth and kept blowing on their fingers and rubbing their hands to keep them from freezing. I noticed we had arrived at the bottom of a hill and were driving horizontally. Soon we passed through a town and immediately we began to follow the lakeside. We were in another town. The truck suddenly turned and took a straight road but then shortly after that it started going uphill, driving over snow. The forest was covered in snow. At the top of the hill two trucks had stopped by the side of the road. The drivers were walking around looking at their vehicles. We slowly passed by them and I saw a pile of children sitting stiff in the corner of one of the broken down trucks. I noticed Kosta was among them. I called out but nothing. He could not hear me and I could not hear him even if he replied. The road was full of dangerous curves and snow was piling high. We too were covered in snow but we did not shake it off. It somehow felt warm, being blanketed by the snow. We passed by another town but we did not stop. We started going uphill again and now we could see the grey clouds above us. Then after descending down the next hill and taking a sharp curve we suddenly stopped. I brushed the snow off my face, raised my head and looked. I saw two men wearing black uniforms, armed with machine guns and side arms, speak to the driver. One looked inside the truck and quickly called the other. The other looked too and I heard him say to the driver: ‘Get out!’ The driver got out. A boy that was crouching near me raised his head and immediately whispered: ‘Kirche, they are policemen and they speak Macedonian!’ ‘Children!’ one of the policemen yelled out. ‘Are you cold?’ ‘Yeah?’ several of them were heard saying in shaky voices. ‘You idiot!’ we heard one of the policemen say and then ‘slap’ the driver. ‘I am asking you, you idiot, why did you have to freeze the children, eh? Couldn’t you at least cover the truck with a tarp? Now you ox, march and cover the truck quickly and drive the children to the Bitola train station!’ The drivers quickly covered the back of the truck with a tarp.

But before it was completely covered I stuck my head out and saw a sign which read ‘Kazani’. We were off again as the truck bounced along a cobblestone road. The boy who was sitting next to me adjusted himself and again whispered: ‘You heard them. Policemen speaking Macedonian! Wow!” Finally we were free from the freezing wind but it was still cold. The snow that fell on us began to freeze... It was dark when we entered the city and drove on the narrow streets. In the distance we could see smoke rising. We took a turn and stopped. The driver opened the lift gate on the back of the truck and said: ‘Children! Get off the truck and go straight into the railcar!’ I could barely stand. My legs were stiff. Men and women came over and carried us to the railcar. It was warm there. I sat by the window and Lenka sat next to me. Two young women dressed in white entered the compartment. They were carrying large pitchers from which they poured hot milk in mugs and stuck them under our noses to warm us. ‘Milk, young man, milk. It’s warm. Take it…’ one of them said to me. I was so tired that I was neither thirsty nor hungry; all I wanted to do was sleep. I looked at the other children and they too looked very sleepy. The young ladies in white finally left. Then I heard a voice say: ‘Did you feed them?’ ‘They didn’t want any milk. They wanted to sleep...’ replied one of the young women in white. I must have fallen asleep because after that all I remember is hearing a voice and when I opened my eyes it was daytime and the sun was shining. I got up and wanted to open the window but it was stuck. I tried the door but it was locked. I went to the other side of the car and looked outside. I saw a sign reading ‘SKOPJE’. They soon switched us to another track and after they had sprinkled us with DDT on the chest, shoulders, pants and everywhere else the train started moving. Where were we going? Nobody told us. We spent the longest time waiting in stations. The train stopped before sunset. We were told to get off and cross to the other side of the tracks. Before long we boarded another train. The sign on the low white building above the door read ‘Vranie’. I remember the names of all the places we had been. We boarded a train with Red Cross markings on the cars. Everyone was given a bed and as such every day and every night we spent traveling was in luxury. Most of the time we spent waiting and watching trains pass us by...” concluded Kirche. “And your brother Kosta?” asked Numo. “I don’t know what happened to him... We traveled a long time. One night, after a long wait at a train station, whose name I did not catch, they transferred us to cars with wooden seats. After the train pulled out of the station, the men and women looking after us asked: ‘Shti romaneshti? Kunti kiama?’ (Do you understand Romanian? What is your name?),” replied Kirche. “So, they took you to Romania?” remarked Pando. “Yes, to Oradea. We stayed there in a hotel for two months. Four to six children slept on one bed. We were not allowed to go outside. The women looking after us, our ‘mothers’ were with us, of course. Only one of the mothers left the children and went to Skopje, where she stayed with some relatives. The other ‘mothers’ said to her: ‘One day, when all this is over, what are you going to say to the mothers and fathers of these children you have abandoned? They trusted you when they put their children in your hands so that they could fight in the front, risking their lives for your freedom…’ That’s what the other women were saying to her but she left anyway. Mother Evgenia took over her children. And there was no day when mother Evgenia did not gather us together. She gathered us all together usually after dinner in the hallway of the hotel, away from the noise and taught us things we needed to learn and remember. She also made sure that we were healthy and free of lice. She often asked each one of us questions: ‘Kole, who are the people in our village who live at Dolnoto Malo?’ And Kole would go off like a gun: ‘Nanovtsi, Damovtsi, Ristovtsi, Shishkovtsi...’ Then mother Evgenia would ask Riste: ‘Riste, who lives in Gornoto Malo?’ and Riste would rhyme off: ‘Pandovtsi, Petrevtsi, Nakovtsi...’ ‘Mare, tell us the names of the fountains in our village’ she would ask and Mare, without pausing would say: ‘Nova cheshma, Labrova cheshma…

Izvorcheto, Kochanka, Pod lipkite…’ ‘Okay, enough Mare. Now it’s Kirche’s turn. Kirche tell us...’ and as such we kept alive in our memories all the places in our village; the fields, vineyards, etc., who from our village joined DAG, the names of the old people, what trees and flowers grow there, etc. After that she would tell us stories about the old times in our village and in Kostur Region. She told us everything she knew and had learned from the old people. After telling us stories like that, which warmed our hearts and made us feel good inside, it was hard separating us from her. Being told such stories just before bedtime made us think of our parents, of the various places in our village

and we couldn’t help but watch the faces of our people in the dark of night and in our dreams. In January they moved us into a large monastery. It was located outside of town. It would appear that they had expelled the monks and nuns and placed us in large rooms with bunk beds, accommodating over twenty children per room. Here we continued to learn, but just Macedonian. Our teacher was a tall man wearing eye glasses. His name was Kosta. He had an old typewriter and spent his nights copying information from an old book containing Macedonian folk songs. Four children had to share one copy of a page. We learned to read from those pages. While we were there they gutted the church belonging to the monastery and turned it into a club. In place of the altar they put a stage with red curtains. First to do plays were the Greek children. We followed. And while they went on stage, making fools of themselves, I stared up at the ceiling. And high up there… there was an entire world; living things which I had never seen before. The teacher told me they were lions, elephants, tigers, camels, etc. The painting was very well drawn with living colours. The sky, the clouds, the empty space, the soldiers, the man carrying the cross on his back, the trees, the rocks, and a variety of plants and flowers were all drawn beautifully. The scene looked nice, very nice, especially when the sun was setting. The sun’s rays illuminated the great scene, bringing life to the colours. The painting was a miracle. It seems it survived the gutting because it was high up on the ceiling out of reach. All other paintings on the walls of the church were destroyed. When it warmed up a little we started going out to visit the large monastery garden and walk in the park. We used to go far down as far as the monastery cemetery. The first day we went out I heard a locomotive whistle. So one day, while the others were playing ball, I snuck through the fence and, by listening for the train whistle, I found the train station. I then realized this must be the track that brought us here. So if I were to follow these rails I would end up in Bitola. We did come from Bitola to Oradea on rail. So, if I followed the trucks I would eventually end up in Bitola. There, in Bitola, I would ask how to get home. And off I went...” concluded Kirche.