Front Matter

Kalina

A Novel

By Petre Nakovski (Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

Kalina A Novel

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December 29, 2015

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Introduction

The Greek Civil War and events subsequent to it have provided inexhaustible inspiration for Petre Nakovski, author of the following published novels “A bed for the wretched”, “A stone too is soil”, “The great decline”, “The great lie” and “On the road of time”.

The novel Kalina takes the reader back to the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) and explores the tragic experiences of a young, seventeen year-old village girl who, along with hundreds of other Macedonian and Greek young women, was forcibly mobilized into the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG), fought in the Greek Civil War and eventually faced a long prison sentence.

By writing this novel the author is not attempting to present a historical assessment of events, because those events are derived directly from the experiences of the main character in the novel, telling her own story and never drifting beyond what she has experienced. Kalina tells her story the way she saw things, the way she felt things, especially in the bunkers and trenches where she spent a lot of her time. She talks about the charges in battle during the night, the long and exhausting marches, the hunger and thirst she felt, the seventy days and nights she spent in the battlefields of Gramos, the suicide missions she participated in, in Voden, Lerin and Negush, the treatment she received for her wounds in the hospitals in Korcha and Katlanovo, the struggles she experienced in Vicho and finally the disappointing disastrous military defeat... After that she talks about her experiences as a prisoner being locked up in hot and cold dungeons, in outdoor prisons under the hot and cold skies and in the Greek island prison camps in the Aegean Sea.

At the end of the Greek Civil War and during DAG’s disastrous defeat, Kalina found herself off the coast of the Great Prespa Lake. Her battalion was cut off and failed to pass beyond the two lakes and continued its trek to Albania. It had no choice but to fight for its survival. It took its position by the lake and its fighters hid in the reeds and willows near the water while fighting a desperate pitch battle against a superior opponent. Salvation came in the dark of night when the battalion withdrew and took position along the Yugoslav-Greek border. Its commander appealed to the senior JNA

(Yugoslav National Army) officers at the border and they in turn gave him an opportunity to explain his situation. He told them he wanted permission to transfer his partisans to Albania through Yugoslav (Macedonian) territory. After long and arduous talks the JNA officers agreed but under the condition that the partisans surrender their weapons. The battalion commander could not agree with that because such an act would be treasonous. Not given the opportunity to cross through Yugoslavia, the battalion was then divided into three squads. This way they each would have a better chance of crossing into Albania. The trek began during the night under a difficult night march in silence. The idea was that they would cross through enemy lines undetected. Unfortunately some of the units ran into a minefield. Kalina was wounded. She became a major obstacle for the mobility of her unit and she was left behind on the road. The next day the enemy found her, put her on a truck and sent her to a military field hospital. There she received some medical treatment but her wounds were too severe so she was transferred to a military hospital in Solun where she found her friend, whom she had left wounded to drown in the lake. After that when she was well, she was surrendered to the Greek police and was imprisoned. She spent five years of her life being constantly physically and mentally abused, just like most of the women prisoners in the Greek island prison camps in the Aegean Sea.

With her military experience, being a prisoner in the camps, the experiences of her friends fighting in the trenchs, marching at night, being hungry, with the enormity of the war, her cell and camps, Kalina paints a picture of the environment in which she existed; a cruel place reeking of inhumanity. But in all that she paints a beautiful picture of growth, of delightful youthful individual and collective friendship, always crowned with faith and confidence, dedication, willingness to help in any situation. She speaks of heroism in the young fighters, also hinting at their fluctuations, mistrust, psychological digressions and internal and external conflicts. All her experiences are tragic and painful, almost unbelievable, but also inspiring by the faith she projects in herself, her unbounded desire to survive; to survive despite all the suffering and not to lose hope. She constantly and incessantly believes that inevitably, with invisible help, she will come out of this labyrinth of evil alive.

When Greek society began to slowly recover from the scourge of the civil war and from the repression carried out by the Greek state, it protested violently against such mistreatment of people, leading to the dissolution of the women’s prison camps.

After spending years in prison Kalina was finally free, but not exactly. She was followed by her police file everywhere she went and twice a week she had to report to a police station and do the dirtiest things unimaginable, just to be able to survive.

Her memories of the military, the prisons, and the concentration camps,are one long thread of beads, woven together in a continuous mosaic of a life tormented and wasted. However, Kalina was happy and willing, with sincerity and authenticity, to tell her story in the first person, to reveal the path that took her through the hellish Greek civil war over her three-year course and the five tormenting years of her stay in the Greek prisons and concentration camps.

It would have been easy for her to die during the war by a bullet, grenade, bomb… and she would have died only once… maybe only once. But in prisons and in the concentrations camps she was made to die every day and every night. And every day and every night she weathered as she struggled convulsively with death… but she survived. This was her personal victory.

Her military experience made her strong and allowed her to withstand her suffering as she spread her wings over her tormentors and never hid her name from them. She refused to recognize all the accusations in her file, which had sent her to the prisons and concentration camps and would never sign the pre-prepared staged confession.

When she was freed she returned to the village where she was born but found it ravaged and torn apart by the war and the mass exodus. Wherever she went she was followed by her police file. Twice a week she had to report to a police station and do things she would never want to do, but she had to… in order to survive. Various American, Canadian and Australian agencies opened offices in Kostur and Lerin in 1958, offering work and a paid one-way ticket

abroad, but Kalina would not leave. She wanted to stay home, in her family’s home, where she was born.

Kalina endured plenty but managed to spread her wings and weather the storms. But did she ever find freedom and peace during the remainder of her life? No she did not! She was forever a captive of the evil that took her; she never separated herself from her thoughts, even over long periods of time. But at the same she never allowed herself to fall into darkness and oblivion from which there is no escape. She managed to hold herself in the light without forgetting and by preserving her memories through the written word. She wrote things down, not to remind herself of her sad and painful experiences or of the fear that she might forget them, but to preserve them, save them as part of our survival?

Kalina did all that through a long monologue...

KALINA - a novel protecting and preserving dignity and honour.

The same could be said about Peter Nakovski’s most recent work.

Chapter - 1

How do I start? From where do I begin? Let it be this way...

In those days, when they first took me to the bunkers in Gramos, along with the many others they gathered, I was soft, to say the least, like well-kneaded clay. With this kind of clay one could fashion pitchers, plates, cups, pots, pans... which in time wouldl become firm, like iron, like raw iron. And like raw iron, when it is heated under burning coals, pounded over an anvil by the firm hand of a blacksmith’s strike, it can take a shape, the kind of shape that is needed.

This is how it was with me and with many of the other young men and women taken from the villages. Harvested at night, like pig iron, we were taken and placed on the anvils in the mountains, forests, cold bunkers and trenches, bleached by the wind and the rain, forged by cold and hunger, we became steel. I say we became what they needed us to become, partisans and later fighters of the Democratic Army of Greece. In character, in looks, in spirit, in faith and in trust we were what they thought we should be… molded on the anvil under the blows of a hammer. And under that hammer, on that anvil, we lost our fear and became what they needed us to be... partisans.

Partisans! Partisans wearing old military uniforms and coats that were worn by various armies… We were shouldered with rifles and machine guns that belonged to other wars, various wars; wars from different times fought by different countries. There, in the thick shade of the oak and beech trees, we exercised in the art of defense and killing...

The exercises did not last long. We, however, continued to practice live, in the field against a real enemy that fought back. We attacked our opponent only at night, usually after midnight. From the moment of darkness to the moment of attack, we marched. We changed only at night.

We were most confident in the dark of night. We only steped out of our bunkers when the silver bird floating in the sky, the airplane which kept an eye on us the entire day, disappeared after sunset.

Our stepping out was called a march.

Our march always began in the dark of night and always ended before darkness disappeared. It was never just one march and only one night. And it was not only a short or a long march that lasted so many hours. I never did count the marches or the hours. Not all nights were equal in length and equally dark. One night varied from another just like one day varies from another. And the marches too were different. Each march was always long. We started the march when darkness covered the ground. With a song. Always with a spirited song.

The first steps of our march always began with a song filling our hearts with cheer but depriving us of our conversations and our thoughts. The song encouraged us, cheered us on and welded us together. The song was strong in the beginning with the first steps, but our voices began to weaken as we marched further along the trodden path, still persisting until we completely tired. By then our voices sounded less like a shout and more like a whimper. After that there was silence, only the rustle of our old military boots and sandals could be heard in the dead of night. Most of us had shoddy old shoes or boots which we wore barefoot. Some walked completely barefoot and some wore moccasins. We may have been a barefoot army but we wore military uniforms, all kinds of old military uniforms belonging to all kinds of armies. We carried guns of various times belonging to various armies… armies which always began a march with a song. Fatigue slowly withered our song. No one spoke, silence and the sound of trotting feet, hour after hour trotting in dust, mud, water, over leaves, in grass, snow… step by step… each step becoming heavier than the last… each step being shakier than the last, each step being shorter than the last…

Walking in silence we listened to our own steps, each becoming more difficult than the last, this is what was ordered of us and this is what was demanded of us. They needed us to be at such and such an hour, in the dark of night, at such and such a place… a town…a

village… a hill… a place whose name was written on a piece of paper and delivered to us by a courier. Our orders were written on a folded piece of paper. And it did not matter if we were tired, hungry, thirsty, or sick… there was nothing about that in the order. It was not up to us to decide… Those up above decided what was in store for us, what was needed of us to do. Not what we thought… not what we desired… but what was written on that folded piece of paper… those were our orders which we needed to carry out. We were free of the burden of knowing where we were going and how long it was going to take us to get there… all we knew was that we had to get there… where that was we did not know… and so we endured… slowly but certainly being overcome with fatigue… sweat flowing down our foreheads and shoulders... Step by step we dragged on, one following another, one tripping over another, one pushing another, moving forward on our endless march. Looking up we saw a rifle and a backpack full of bullets and hand grenades belonging to the person ahead of us… they were bent forward, moving along taking heavy steps, each step becoming harder than the last… being weighed down by the baggage on their shoulders. It was the same behind us. We were a column of living shadows pushing along. Our heads weighed us down but they felt empty because we were not allowed to think, not even when we marched. Someone else carried that burden for us… Ours was to do as it was written on the folded piece of paper which the courier delivered… Those few words written down decided what road we should take, what time we should arrive and at what place we needed to be…

That which was written on the folded piece of paper could not be debated. We could not ask why… we had to carry out what was required of us without asking why. We did what we were told… We walked, we did not talk, we did not think, we did not complain. We felt tired, our feet, joints, knees, shoulders and backs were sore, salty bitter sweat filled our eyes and ran down our faces and lips… but we did not complain. Our throats were baked dry and our canteens were empty, we were thirsty but we did not complain. We moved our rifles and machine guns from one shoulder to the other in hopes of alleviating our pain… but the relief was only momentary. The weight of our gear became increasingly heavier, making us stoop forward, applying painful pressure on our spines, but we did not complain. We continued our march passing hills, slopes, ditches,

muddy water and muddy paths and we quietly and viciously spat, cursed and sighed at the sight of new hills, new slopes and another muddy path… every step brought us closer to our unknown destination… written down on a folded piece of paper and delivered by a courier. Then suddenly, in the dark of night, our commander yelled “stop!” There was a ten minute rest! Our fatigued bodies immediately and gladly obeyed and went to sleep. Our bones, muscles and souls were relieved… and so were the blisters on our feet.

We loved the clouds and hated the full moon during our marches. We felt safest in complete darkness. We became one with everything around us, the forests, the trees, the hills, the mountains, the sky, the rocks, the ditches… we were all one in the dark. When we were ordered to line up in the dark we became alive and one with everything around us. When we were ordered to move forward we moved one behind another, touching the shoulder of the person in front of us, trusting that they would not lead us into a void. We marched and covered a lot of space and the more space we covered the harder our march became. It was like that until dawn. At first light we looked for each other, we took attendance… and when we assured ourselves that we were all there, we breathed easier…

Dawn usually found us curled up next to one another in a forest under some big old oak tree. By day, we always wanted to be covered by thick shade. The long marches in darkness would make us dream without nightmares. Daytime was announced by the buzz of the silver bird circling above us, looking for us, lurking up high like a vulture looking for carrion, like a circling hawk looking for prey, circling and circling then leaving, but only for a moment, then coming back, always on the lookout, especially under the thickly shaded trees. The day ends with the sharing of the last piece of stale bread and a small tin can of meat, divided into four pieces.

“All to attention, backpacks and arms on your shoulders… Move forward!” the commander would then order.

Where to? Where are we going?

Only the commander and the courier knew and they are guarded by the black guard...

And so we melted into the dark of night, as we continued to move forward becoming even less visible in the fog. We often tripped and stumbled always looking for something to grab onto, to lean on, but other than our own two feet, more often than not, there was nothing to grab… nothing that would restore our balance and make us rest easier. There was nothing to lean on, to even get a moment’s rest, to catch our breath, to spit the bitter taste from our mouths or to wipe the salty sweat from our bodies… “Do not stop! Do not stand! Do not fall asleep! Walk! Continue to walk!” Were whispers quietly passed on while we moved, step by step, kneading the mud under our feet.

We carried our rifles and machine guns on our shoulders and our back packs full of bullets, hand grenades and everything bad, on our backs.

We carried death on our backs and made sure it did not fall off, did not get damaged, did not get dirty and that it was light on our shoulders...

Our night marches were a great silence. Often all night, in lightening and thunder, in rain and snow... hungry and thirsty... we continued our nightly marches. Merged in darkness, we felt like we were lost in a black void, like we were a small part in the dark wasteland that surrounded us. And with tiny, very little hope, like the flame of a tiny candle, we stood erect and aware that we were moving forward, and that we would reach that specific place where our tired bodies could rest.

We swallowed the entire night until dawn but this was not the purpose of our march. Our purpose was to reach a destination, the place where we needed to be. But in our effort, sometimes our chain of travel was interrupted. Someone would stop to catch their breath, someone would stumble and fall… someone would be lost in the dark… That’s when we waited… that’s when we felt lost and when doubts began to gnaw at our souls. Some of us turned back, back on the path, traveling in silence, voiceless, without making any noise…

looking… searching along the trodden path. The lost, the marauders, the ones who made us wait… we looked upon them with suspicion.

Our march ended before daybreak and we ended up at some unknown location in the countryside where we were housed in the homes of some local village.

During one of these marches, tired and dirty, I stopped in front of a gate beside which stood a woman all dressed in black. She stared at me with a sad look on her face. She moved slightly and made room for me to enter and, without saying a word, she took me to a carefully prepared room.

It seemed to me that she was waiting for someone… She wanted to ask me something. I looked into her eyes… she said nothing. Her stare was deep, inquisitive, sad and strange… Her lips began to shake...

She helped me take off my dirty clothes and motioned for me to take off my shoes so that I could wash my smelly feet. I moved closer to the fireplace to warm myself. She offered me food which I greedily gulped down, quickly nibbling on the bread and sipping on the hot bean soup she had prepared. The woman sat next to me.

She tightened her black head kerchief under her chin and crossed her arms and knees. Lacking courage and with a deeply hidden fear in her tired eyes she stared at me quietly without saying a single word. She looked sad. A strange gasp tore through her chest and spilled out into the dark room. It was a reflection of her pain and thoughts of someone.

Spilled from her trembling lips, quietly, barely audibly, came out the names of her sons. She sighed and said:

“Those are my only sons... The older one was taken by the government army, the other one, the younger one, was taken by the… They called upon the older one to serve as a soldier last year. He went and since then I have heard nothing from him. The younger one was taken this year, this summer at night. They knocked on the door and took him. I have heard nothing from him either. Now I

don’t know where they are and how they are doing. Are they alive, are they healthy? I don’t know! I ask both armies every time they pass through here if they know anything about my sons. Now I feel I must ask you, do you know anything about my younger boy who is with your army.”

The anticipation in her eyes grew with every passing second and her eyes began to pool with tears of pain which spilled over her cheeks. She became rigid with anticipation...

She kept looking at me and waited...

What could I tell her? What words could I use, what promises could I make to comfort her mind and ease her soul?

I was dead tired that day but I could not sleep. I was tormented by the sight of this poor woman constantly simmering with burning questions about her youngest son who was in our army...

In the morning when I left her house, she walked me out to the front gate and stopped there. She stood motionless on the threshold.

In the evening I joined my line and left. As usual we marched out with a song and lost our shadows in the dark.

Even in the dark of night I could not shake the thought of that poor mother who, every day, stands at that gate waiting for her sons, asking soldiers and partisans about her sons fighting in different armies… on opposing sides?

I took steps and with each step I took, I saw that mother before my eyes… standing there on the doorstep… waiting… waiting... Standing at the threshold of the open gate and waiting...

She waited as we took step after step and disappeared in the shade. I continued with my own steps and with every step I took I talked to myself and every word I said was a plea, a prayer. I prayed that the two sons of this good mother never find themselves on opposite hills, in opposite trenches, or become targets of each other.

My prayer to the Almighty was a great request, a prayer for the sons who fought in both armies to return home alive and well and for me to return to my good mother alive and happy, smiling...

I turned my head to the side and in the murky darkness I saw the poor woman, the mother still standing in the doorway, waiting...

Waiting, sad, waiting for the armies to go by and tell her how and where her sons were… her children who were fighting in two opposing armies...

How long would she stand on the doorstep and wait for the armies to pass so that she could ask about her sons who were fighting in the two armies that are locked in a deadly vicious war fighting one another?

She waits...

Please God, help her, help her and fulfill her wish...

Let it be that way…

And for me, I pray to you, I beg of you to let her have her wish...

And for my mother… please mother wait... give her the strength to wait for me...

After the march that night we attacked our opponent in the dark. We went on the attack in the dark and we returned from the attack in the dark.

And in that darkness some, from our line, did not return...

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My first autumn as a partisan in Gramos was rainy, humid, hazy and cold. I experienced hunger and was particularly cold especially during clear and bright mornings. Early autumn was beautiful, dressed in all colours, basking in the last warmth of the sun, waking in immense sadness and squeezing out tears. The golden leaves were

falling and the trees looked naked. The colours of the forests were spilling out. Everything around was wonderful, a colourful carpet. Late autumn was hazy, rainy, wet, cold, creepy and smelled of rotting leaves and moldy grass and ferns. I was always hungry... my thoughts of returning home weighed on me.

Home, all my thoughts were of home, if only I could go home… only for a little while...

My first winter as a partisan in Gramos was very cold. But I was blessed to have witnessed the immense whiteness adorning the peaks of the surrounding mountains and hills during the nights when the silvery full moon shone on them from above. It was a huge whiteness. The snow that lay on the branches and on the ground was covered with frost and glistened during the day in the radiant sun. The cold was harsh. The trickling spring water could be heard rustling under the hard crust of ice. Grey smoke rose over the bunkers, the hot coals in the fireplaces slowly melted the snow above the beams and bathed those inside with large drops of water.

We did not come out of our hiding places during the day because of fear, that the silver bird, the airplane circling in the sky high above us, would see us. In times such as those we preferred to have cloudy skies above the fog on the ground. Only then we felt safe and free. We bathed in snow and plucked the lice off our bodies as we waited for our porridge, mixed with corn flour, to arrive. We ate mostly porridge.

My first spring as a partisan in Gramos was in 1948. The entire region was covered with large green meadows, blossoming and fragrant flowers and songs... the brooks and streams were filled with water dripping from the melting snow. There was less marching to battle because the battles were brought to us. Our enemy was attacking us while we were digging trenches and building bunkers. Every hill and peak was tied together with trenches and bunkers; all covered with logs, tree branches, stones and earth. We waited for the enemy there...

My first summer as a partisan in Gramos was hot and bloody...

And then they started...

Their attack on Gramos... Our defense of Gramos...

In the morning of June 14, 1948, our positions were beaten down with rockets and bombs dropped from the airplanes. After they finished flying, the artillery and cannons delivered their death and destruction. After that storm, their infantry attacked us.

They fought fiercely and we fought back with equal ferocity, defending the hills and rocks we stood on. We stubbornly held onto the burning hills and crushed rocks to save ourselves.

In all the days that followed, the same routine was exercised… First the airplanes pummeled our positions with rockets and bombs, then the artillery and cannons thundered and beat us with shells and mortars and then, when they were done, their infantry attacked us. And we, we stood our ground in our trenches and bunkers and endured. They could not break us or our defenses...

And then, one day...

Flames fell from the sky. Barrels fell out of the aircraft and spilled their fire on us. Red flames falling from above beat down on us. They were noisy and carried a foul stench as they scattered, spreading all over the ground burning everything they touched. Like a big burning carpet, the flames jumped, rose, swirled and churned, covering everything in their path. And as the wind picked them up, they intensified and moved in layers and waves burning everything they touched, jumping from tree to tree from stone to stone burning the ground, the grass, the bushes, the leaves… burning green stems like candles… burning everything they touched.

The rocks, the soil and the green beech trees too were burning, just like the young men and women who happened to be in their path.

Their shrieks and screams of horror were also burning.

Everything was burning...

My friend Olga was burned that day. The next day we found her cramped between two blackened rocks. She was looking for salvation in those rocks. Her knees were bare bones. Her burned flesh was separated from her bones. The left side of her face was naked to the bone and the entire row of healthy white teeth glistened. Not a single hair was left on her head. Her skull was naked and black.

She was baked by the fire that fell from the sky.

What kind of bomb, what kind of weapon was this that burned soil, rocks and living souls? The smoke stunk; it burned our throats and poisoned the air...

The hill was burning and on this burning hill our young men and women were burning, burning alive, roasting alive, running, shouting, screaming, praying ... screaming horribly as they were engulfed in flames. Pain was burning along with the ground, the stones, the trees, the bunkers...

What kind of bombs were these?

The screaming and yelling was loud and frightening… spine chilling. We ran towards the screaming… We were hit with a strong smell of roasting flesh. People’s naked and charred bodies lay imprinted behind blackened rocks, on the ground and in the burned grass. Their faces, their foreheads… were burned black… their heads bare… their skulls burned with two holes in their foreheads. There were no eyes, no eyebrows and no lips… only two rows of blackened teeth and, in between them, the not completely burned tip of their tongues…

We collected the burned bodies during the night, in the moonlight, and buried them all together in one grave.

We buried cooked flesh and blackened naked bones. We buried them with fear in our eyes and wondered - what kind of bombs, what kind of weapons were these?

What kind of weapon, that made no roaring sound, could burn soil and stone, trees and people?

The scream was the last sign that this was a person – a young man, a young woman… who before that had stood before us and smiled.

The next day we collected all that remained in bags, took them under the beech trees, dug a wide pit and there we buried the remnants of our comrades in arms.

The same terrible fear I had was present in everyone’s eyes and everyone was whispering the same terrible question:

“What kind of bomb that did not roar would burn to ashes, fry and cook soil, stone and people? What kind of bombs were they? Who brought them here and from where?”

The next day the same great slaughter was repeated. Whistling, fire, death, piles of soil displaced, stones smashed and crushed, thick beech trees burnt down, smoke covering the sun. With our heads clenched in our hands we sobbed in silence, again wondering:

“What kinds of bombs were these bombs that burned our trenches, bunkers and our people?” We could not extinguish the flames with water, we could only shrink them until they reignited, spreading, intensifying, increasing, breaking out into smaller flames and moving uncontrollably. Flames that were carried by the wind then deposited on plants, trees, rocks, stones, grass and on our people! It was a storm of flames and fire... It scorched the earth and covered the sky with smoke, under which we stood cowering in fear and pain…

What kind of bombs were they...

The earth was not earth and the sky was not sky...

The earth and sky were tied together by the fire...

What kind of bombs were these bombs that did not thunder, that did not hum, but just poured out fire and spread flames with the power to scorch the earth and burn the rocks… stones, trees and us… the people?

But all of us did not burn!

And then, when we were at our worst and seemed that there was no way out, we envied those who were gone because we were sure that things would become even more difficult.

Those poor lucky…!

And we, the ones still living on this scorched earth, were hiding in the trenches and bunkers and among the rocks and stones...

We left behind forty-five crushed days and nights...

* * *

They were pounding us day and night.

Where did they find so many bombs, so many cannons and the countless mortars they dropped on us? Where did they find them?

This is what I often asked myself and wondered. The thunder during the night seemed to me to be stronger, louder and more ominous than that of the day, slicing the sky above us and tearing it apart. There were explosions going on all night. It was calmer in the mornings. Heaven and earth lay calmer but it was an ominous calm. The land reeked of gunpowder and the sky was filled with clouds of smoke. We were unable to shake the soil, dust and sand off our bodies and spit the bitter lumps from our mouths before their infantry charged us. Men, standing upright, ammunition tight against their bodies, in perfect step, they moved closer and closer. After reaching about a hundred metres, a loud voice echoed - forward! They then bent forward and charged... We greeted them with bursts of machine gun fire and hand grenades. They lay down in front of us, fifty, thirty and sometimes twenty metres away. That was how far they could reach before we cut them down with our hand

grenades. One after another we threw hand grenades and we cut them down. There was only silence on their part and bursts of machine gun fire and hand grenade explosions on ours. That’s the way it was!

I was really surprised when I saw heavy smoke covering them. Where had all that smoke come from? What kind of fire was burning to create such thick smoke between us and them? Was it some sort of cloud or perhaps dense fog? Later it was explained to me that it was a smokescreen. This is how they retreated from us, from in front of our trenches, invisible behind the thick smoke, and carried with them their dead and wounded.

This is how they charged us during their attacks and this is how we defended ourselves spending day and night guarding those damn hills and rocks...

Why?!

* * *

At night they approached the mountains very slowly, moving like the fog that fills the ravines. It starts from the bottom. Then it fills the deep brooks that divide opposite hills. It then silently climbs up, slowly covering the rocks, the bush and entire forests, erasing all colours, swallowing the trenches and bunkers and extinguishing all light from our faces. Just a little longer and then the last beam, on top of the hill behind us, would be extinguished. After that there would be no movement and no sign of life. And we and they on the opposite hill – would be swallowed by darkness and everything that was around us, below us and above us would be a big trap, silent, and every moment ready to awaken the hill with a big bang of loud thunder… which would take our breath away. That is why both we and they held each other on target, lying there like stones on our stomachs and holding our breath.

* * *

The trenches, the bunkers and the ditches tied us all together. There we were all the same, we may have differed only in the length and

depth of our sighs, but our desires were more or less the same. First we all wanted to be fed, dressed warmly, to have slept enough, to have been freed of lice and to always have been present in the marching line. Some may have had other wishes but this was my wish. Oh, I had one more wish. My wish was to not be afraid before an attack and not to cry when the food line for the cauldron was shorter. It was one of my greatest wishes to see everyone in the food line...

I felt good when I was in the middle of a warm bunker smelling the aroma of leaves, ferns, sweat and unwashed clothes, where thick smoke was glued to the beams above and where a fire was burning. I felt good when we were all covered in swarms of thoughts lying there in silence, staring into the flames and dreaming… thinking and wishing… my thoughts interwoven with my wishes...

We all, but each separately, had our own rosaries strung with dreams, desires, hopes...

A whole fabric of thoughts...

A fabric of thoughts that quickly tore apart when black spots appeared in the sky, getting larger and larger as they came closer and closer. When they flew low they pummeled us with machine gun fire and then dropped their bombs on the right side of the hill... one after another. All we could see was soil flying up in the air followed by a thunderous deafening explosion that gave us pain in our ears.

* * *

The grass that grew near my trench was covered in dust. The dewdrops that were present on it every morning and strung like pearls trembling in the first rays of the morning sun had disappeared. I always loved the green grass, the tips and stalks were my favourite. I was happy when I watched them sway in the soft and gentle breeze, looking playful, bending back and forth but not breaking… I often gently touched them, collecting dew on my fingers and watching it sparkle like pearls in the early morning sun.

It made me feel calm, peaceful, hopeful to wash my face and eyes with it.

The partisans, the grass and everything else that existed around us was beaten more and more with each coming day.

I began to dislike the clear days and cloudless blue skies. I began to dislike the dawn, the bright white light that covered the mountain peaks at daybreak. As nice as they were, they no longer brought me joy but only anxiety and fear, mayhem and death. I preferred the night, the darker the night the better. I also started to dislike the full moon. I began to like the night, the dark black and silent night.

The day wounded, maimed, killed and carried a lot of pain, which could only be eased in the dark of night… but only slightly. Only then did we have a bit of quiet. The days always stirred without serenity over the trenches and bunkers...

The black spots regularly appeared from the flatlands. Moving, growing in the sky; the closer they came towards us the uglier they became. They fired upon us with their machine guns in low flights and then dropped their bombs on the hills, covering us with thunder and heaps of soil.

This is how we knew that we still existed and were defending the hills.

Those days and the days that followed I did not like. I began to dislike clear days and the cloudless blue sky. I do not like the dawn or the mountains at dawn. As much as they were nice, they did not give me joy… only anxiety, fear, mayhem and death. I preferred the night, the thick darkness of night. I even started to dislike the full moon. I only liked the night, the dark blackness of night and the silence it carried.

And as I said before, the day wounded, maimed, killed and carried a lot of pain for people, which could only be eased in the dark of night… It was quiet during the night… but not always. The days were full of madness over the trenches and bunkers...

This is how it was in those days and the days that followed…

* * *

The commander had us line up in the evening and told us that tomorrow or the day after we would be visited by some French people and that we should dress properly… in our best clothes.

He ordered: “Everyone should be clean and properly dressed so that the French can see that we are an army.” Half the night we carried water from the shallow stream to wash our bodies and to remove the lice from our heads. We then patched up our well-worn and already patched uniforms that had belonged to foreign armies.

The next morning we lined up and nervously welcomed the French. A tall man, who we later found out was a poet, greeted us. I don’t remember his name but people said that he was a great French writer who came to see us and give us encouragement. The French poet was so brave that he picked up the funnel made of folded cardboard slightly, raised his head above the trench and, with a loud voice, addressed the government troops, in French of course. None of us understood what he said but we realized that he was on our side. The political commissar later told us that the poet spoke to the soldiers about peace, about brotherhood with us and now that such people were on our side, we should be even bolder and confident in our victory. That’s what our commissar said.

When the French poet finished his loud address he walked along the front of the line. He said something to a person dressed in civilian clothes. The civilian wrote it down, smiled and raised his left fist up in the air, probably as a sign of confidence that we would win. While the French poet was assuring us of all those things, the cauldron with stew arrived. Thick slices of potatoes with meat.

This was the biggest and best meal we had had in weeks and we ate it together with the French poet and all those who came with him. The photographer, with a silly smirk on his face, kept taking pictures. Later we sent off our guests with great applause. Thinking about the thick potato stew with meat, I said to myself that we should have guests like the French poet more often...

Encouraged by the French poet, that night we left for a counterattack.

* * *

The opponent positioned his cannons and opened fire. I did not have enough time to run and hide behind a rock. I felt a stabbing pain in my shoulder and lost control of my legs. I felt weak at the knees and lost my breath. I lay there flat. Someone tossed me a smelly blanket that stunk of everything my soul could not tolerate; blood, gunpowder and rot... I placed the blanket under me. They grabbed it by the ends and carried me, jolting me to the right and the left as they ran. They were running out of step. The more they swung the greater pain I felt. It felt like a thick sliver, a spike, an ice pick, was stuck in my back. I passed out. I lost my sight and voice. When I came too I felt the sharp pain and I moaned, whimpered and wailed. They stopped running. They put me down on the ground. I tried to turn. I had no strength. I wanted to see the faces of those who were carrying me. I knew they were not men and not young women. The men and young women stayed behind, on the hill, to defend it. I knew that… and I knew that the people carrying me were wearing black, had swollen feet and hardened hands… they had hunched shoulders and arms swollen from carrying mutilated bodies – living flesh… They were compassionate but firm, made that way by my pain and the pain of those who they carried yesterday and the day before that and so on...

Outside of my pain, my vision became blurred and I was unable to see them, their faces… but I knew what they were. They took me and loaded me on a horse and along with many other horses, hoof behind hoof, took me down the hill. The horses stopped and a couple of hands took me off. Another set of hands took me and placed me on a table. A woman in white with scissors came and cut my shirt and blouse exactly where I was feeling the spike poking me. Something poured out… the liquid that burnt me. A man in white came and examined me, he said something but I did not understand what he said. He put a damp cloth on my face and I fell asleep...

I woke up in a great big room. I realized I was lying in a bed. I tasted bitterness in my mouth, had a dried throat and felt nauseated. I felt like my throat was full of something. I started coughing and spat out a bitter yellow liquid. I felt light-headed and began to take deep breaths. I realized that I was lying down flat on my chest. I turned my head to the right and then to the left. I opened my eyes. I saw a large, bright room full of bodies belonging to mutilated young men and women. Women in white were handing out baskets of bread and cheese. One of them cleaned up the mess I made when I spat the yellow liquid out. The bitterness still burned in my mouth. I took a deep breath but I could not smell the wet earth, the gunpowder and the smoke. I no longer felt the stab of the spike in my shoulders. I only felt dull pain and burning. I could breath easier. I said to myself, I’m alive... I am alive... I will live... and began to cry...