A Bed for the Wretched – Chapter 8

A Bed for the Wretched – Chapter 8

The doctors behaved well towards me. They even tried to protect me from those among the staff who had orders to tie me and beat me. One day while I was walking in the yard I happened to run into an Albanian colonel. When he saw me limping, with crutches in my hands, he came over and greeted me. I stood up straight and looked at him... he looked familiar... I knew this man. The Albanian colonel was a fellow Macedonian. I told him who I was and that I knew him. We met in 1940. How? That’s a different story. He was a fellow Macedonian, you know, from the Macedonian people living in the Albanian occupied part of Macedonia. You know, from the part of Macedonia that was given to Albania in 1912 to make Albania larger. Anyway, I told him everything. I also told him that I had my own opinions about things and that there was no justice for people like me here... He patted me on the shoulder and took me to the person in charge. They spoke in Albanian. The colonel raised his voice, but about what, I don’t know. Anyway, when we walked away he said in Macedonian: “Take your rags and get on the truck.” I said: “I have nothing!” and he said: “Then move!” He brought me back to Suk. Unfortunately there were a handful of sons of bitches there with big ears and big mouths who would sell their own mothers. Well, Pando, that’s how I became a freak show. And last night one of these unfortunate people said to me: “Comrade, watch your back…” And I do watch my back. Do you know why that idiot leaning on the jeep was talking for so long today? You probably don’t know! I’ll tell you, but you will have to forget. The idiot lost his hand gun. This is why he was talking for a long time... “And what was said this morning in that long conversation? While explaining something and motioning with the hands...” asked Pando. “Ah, that! Yes! I asked those in the jeep something. You are asking me about that, right?” replied Numo unsure of what Pando was asking about. “Yes! What else would I be asking you about, Numo?” replied Pando sarcastically. I asked them to take me down there. I need to go here and there. They made a mistake with diagnosing my illness. I said to them take me down there and leave me somewhere in a bunker. Give me a pitcher of water, some bread, two or three boxes of cartridges and a machine gun. Am I asking for too much? That should be nothing for a cripple like me, right Pando? Huh? Prenies is not for me and neither is the company it keeps... I know what Prenies is like. And they know that too. You are dying but you can’t die, you are insane but you can’t go insane. You can only hang yourself. And who needs that? All I ask from them is to put me in a bunker

and give me a machine gun, a pitcher of water and some bread. Am I asking for too much, Pando? What do you say? Pando, fiddling with his cigarette made of herbs, looked at me with his blue eyes, spit to the side and said: “What do I say? Nothing... We uprooted ourselves from our homeland for nothing… And no one cares or wants to know about the uprooted ones and where their roots are from… Our stone, Numo, has been rolled where no grass grows… There, I said it, I, crazy Pando; the gravedigger, as they call me...” Numo sighed, shrugged his shoulders, spat and said: “I have a very bad bitter taste in my mouth…” “Well, Numo, what do you expect when your entire life is filled with bitterness,” replied Pando. “Maybe it is, Pando, maybe it is... But know this, that if one day I disappear from under this roof then you will know that I am somewhere in Vicho. I am not accustomed to not getting what I want. I will limp my way there with my wooden leg if I have to... I don’t have the strength to watch the women run to the road here in Prenies every sunrise and every sunset when the trucks pass by... It scares me when I see a woman in black running behind a truck with her hands raised up in the air; it scares me when I think of the conditions we created to make this woman behave this way. Okay we men did what we had to do and went where we had to go, but the women, why the women, what did they ever do to deserve this? I did some stupid things in my time too... I was one of those who convinced many young women to join the partisans, I was one of those mobilizing them, so tell me why do I now feel sorry for them? Should I feel sorry for them? No I shouldn’t, Pando, I did what I had to... What man endured more than these women? Well, I ask you because you are older than me and you’ve seen more of the world... I too have seen plenty, in Vicho, in Gramos and here, in Albania, in the hospitals ... What did I see? Well, a lot more than what I told you. I will tell you again: It is sad to watch young women walking with crutches. I will ask you again: What kind of a wedding will they have if they ever have a wedding at all? And if they have one, how will they dance the bridal dance with no legs or with one leg, and how will they fan the handkerchief with no arms? How will they? Well I, Numo the cripple, whose tongue they wanted to pull out because of the kinds of questions I was asking, I ask you because you’re older and you’ve seen more than me, but you have not seen Gramos, you have not seen Vicho and you did not see the crippled young men and women and have never wondered how they will dance the bridal dance at their wedding...” Pando shrugged his shoulders and said: “Nothing can be said here in Prenies. This is a place for grieving, complaining, running behind the

trucks twice a day, crying and if anyone does say something of worth, no one today has the capacity to understand its implications...” “Let me ask you something else,” said Numo. “Did you ever see how they disposed of legs, arms, eyes and other body parts that they cut off people? Did they carry them in waste baskets or garbage carts after they were cut off? No? It is best you don’t know. The nurse at the hospital in Elbasan told me that my leg was taken away in a garbage cart. This means that part of me lies in some garbage dump here in Albania. I don’t want the rest of me left here; I want to go back, down beyond the mountains. My mind does not feel right here in Prenies and my soul feels crushed. And do you know what Prenies looks like? It looks like a festering wound. Like a festering wound... What do you say to that, Pando?” “What can I say..? No one’s pain has left and no one’s wounds have healed from just talking… I got used to the quiet, to the silence and to dealing with my own pain... I dig the graves in silence, I bury the dead in silence and I watch those clean and well-fed in the jeeps in silence. Not because I am afraid of them, but to spite them… I don’t look at them or turn towards them when they pass by me with their shiny new boots crackling or when they gather everyone around them shouting slogans of victory, slogans which they themselves probably don’t believe...”