On the Road of Time – Chapter 12

On the Road of Time – Chapter 12

We left Korcha in the morning. I drove on a muddy road now under construction. Perhaps this year or maybe next year we will be able to drive from Korcha to Pogradets on a wider, flat and more modern road. About ten kilometers down the road we turned back to look for the road to Zvezda (Zvezde) and Poian; the first two large villages where, a long time ago, civilians fleeing from Prespa, DAG (Democratic Army of Greece) fighters from the 14th Brigade and other DAG Units spent the night. This was the first place where they had a bit of a rest, enough to get their strength and find each other... They hardly slept that night. They were more concerned with finding each other and tracking down their animals, which were scattered all over the yards and fields. But in spite of their long searches they could not find their animals, it seemed like someone had already done that but no one knew who and where the animals were taken… The next day they were told to move on but no one told them where to go. Obediently and without argument they left their carts and all the possessions that they had carried with them this far, including their oxen, sheep and goats, and picked up only what they could carry on their own backs and, with bitter feelings for being turned into refugees, they went on their way. Black clouds could be seen forming over the Korcha valley with fierce lightning cutting through the sky, brewing a wild, angry storm over them. I drove over the same road, or what seemed like a road, and for a short time we were diverted at Podgorie, where we inquired if anyone remembered a large crowd of refugees passing by here a long time ago. No one seemed to remember, not even the old people sitting under the shade of a mulberry tree playing Iuch. Did they truly not remember or did they not want to speak to strangers? No, they and all those from the surrounding villages did not want to talk about those days. They did not want to admit to having rounded up the stray animals belonging to the refugees from Prespa and to taking everything that they could lay their hands on and craftily making it disappear. They did not want to admit that they had sold the property of others for gold and that their animals were quickly moved to the yards and stables of new owners. And what did these crafty people say to the people of Prespa when they questioned them as to the whereabouts of their property? They said don’t worry, your property is in safe hands and it will be returned to you after the enemy’s neck has been broken at Gramos and when you go back to your homes. Were the people of Prespa convinced of that? I don’t think so but what choice did they have? Without being given any assurances or any other explanations they were ordered to hit the road on foot, all while being beaten down all night by the rain, before arriving at the meadows in Pogradets where trucks and people with open notebooks were waiting for them. Here their names were recorded and they were asked to line up on the side of the road in the line that bore the name of their village. “Here,” they called to the people, “is where you from German should line up, there you from Pply, over there you from Medovo, on the side…” and after that they led the people to the trucks and one by one they loaded them on board… The trucks then drove off on the same road that we were currently traveling. We arrived in Pogradets in the afternoon. Pogradets was a living town. Macedonian could be heard being spoken everywhere on the street, in the shops and in the cafés. There were new houses, new streets and hotels everywhere but we could not find a place to rest after driving for almost the entire day. Someone suggested we spend the night in a hotel located at the end of the road leading to Elbasan, on the lakeshore of Lake Ohrid. We decided to take this person’s advice and took the bumpy road leading to the Lake Ohrid lakeshore. Pogradets was a bustling town with its streets overflowing with old Mercedes and a variety of other cars.

Crowds of people were moving around like it was market day. At almost every kilometre on the road there were aquariums set up, full of fish, from which young men, at the sight of an approaching car, pulled out a trout or an eel attempting to entice the travellers to buy it. About ten kilometers from Pogradets, in a locality called Poiske, immediately next to the lakeshore we saw a huge billboard. Written on it were the words, “Welcome Lyhnidas kompleksi turistik”. That meant that we had found the hotel that was recommended to us. The large neon sign flashing the hotel’s name looked inviting. There was a small parking lot fenced all around with an iron fence, in front of which was an iron gate. The yard was clean and surrounded with a variety of blossoming flowers. To the left and to the right were beautiful wooden bungalows and between them was the way to the hotel. A tall man, calling himself Nako Bregu, greeted us in front of the hotel entrance. He said he was the owner of the entire complex and was glad to receive guests from Macedonia. He spoke Macedonian well. At the hotel they rented us an apartment overlooking the mountain, under which was the second and main four storey tourist complex of this hotel, on whose roof was a glowing sign with the words “LYHNIDAS”. Situated in a beautiful ambiance, this tourist complex, the work of architect Zoran Raftovski from Struga, had 29 double bedrooms, 15 apartments, an outdoor pool, a restaurant that served both local and European cuisines, a conference hall with a buffet and the most modern electronic equipment for holding meetings, seminars and workshops. It is here that specialists from UN organizations and other international associations from Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Italy held debates in

the fall and winter. We were amazed at the comfort, latest equipment and excellent service this hotel provided. Cost per day? Out of season 30 euros, in season 40 euros with breakfast. In the morning after breakfast we returned to Pogradets. I had a burning desire to once again visit the villages and places through which the population from Prespa and Koreshtata and the Partisans of DAG retreated on August 16th and 17th in 1949. We asked the people in the surrounding villages if they remembered the refugees who, many years ago, had passed through their villages and travelled along their roads, fields and meadows? We found an eighty year old man in the village Podgorie who said he did remember the refugees from sixty years ago but when we asked him who these people were and where they had come from he did not have much say, or knew and did not want to talk to strangers? We returned to Nako’s hotel and after spending the night there we left for Prenies in the morning. The road to the Kiafasan border crossing was difficult, coiling through the treeless hills overgrown with tall grass. The biggest impression left on us, at first glance, were the rows of concrete bunkers, to the left and to the right, which seemed as if they were going to open fire through the dark gun holes at any moment. It felt as if they held you in their sights from all sides. On the opposite side of the first curve in the road, beyond the wide crossroads in the middle of the hill among the growing shrubs, there was a whole row of bunkers. It seemed like the dark eyes of the gun holes kept an eye on us, targeting our foreheads and would at any moment open fire. Those who constructed the bunkers surely chose these locations so that they could bring their opponent down with a single shot to the forehead. The very thought of this caused you chills and cold sweat. The new authorities did not remove the bunkers. Perhaps they left them there to surprise the tourist and the traveller, or they left them there as a reminder of a different time during which those who led the country held power with these numerous concrete bunkers, confirming just how committed they were to the spirit of defending their country? For now the bunkers were not bothering anyone, but unwittingly they attracted the eye of the traveller and evoked many questions. At the great bend in the road there was a big sign. To the left it pointed to the road that led to Pogradets and Korcha, to the right it pointed to the road that led to Elbasan and Tirana and further down, before the bend in the road leading to the Kafasan border crossing, there was a great big blue sign with large Latin letters with the writing “MACEDONIA”. Past that there was one more smaller sign with the same writing but the letters on this sign were smudged with black paint, indicating that someone had a problem with the name. After a short stay in the car park, and after enjoying the beautiful panorama of Lake Ohrid, we turned left and took the road to Elbasan. We drove slowly keeping to the third lane in the wide strip of asphalt as we descended the winding steep hill, keeping a safe distance behind the large trucks which moved at turtle speeds, hugging the road in front of us. Others, on the other side of the road, travelled uphill at even slower speeds, carefully hugging the sharp turns. Finally the wide road levelled out into a gentle decline as we descended into the green valley surrounded by a ring of mountains and there, on a blue traffic sign, we saw the letters “Perrenias”. We parked on the side of the road, turned off the engine and left the car. From what I had been told, I knew who was here and what their lives were like. As we got closer my knees began to tremble with excitement and slowly, as if trying to walk through a dark shadow, painful memories began to appear before my eyes. These were the memories I had inherited from my parents and from the many others who had spent a very difficult time in Perrenias right after the purge from their birthplace.

Located at the end of the valley was Perrenias, probably easier to pronounce and remember it as “Prenies”, which, when looking from above, resembled a huge cauldron. Sixty years earlier, our people were settled in the barracks, horse stables and stores of an abandoned Italian military base. But I remember Prenies from having passed through it. It was late November 1948, more precisely November 28th, a day I will never forget, a day which will remain forever in my tortured and bitter memory. I was only eleven years old then but what I saw and experienced stuck in my memory forever. But from what my mother Fimka had told me, she along with thousands of others, suffered painful and difficult times here that lasted sixteen months. I carried that memory with me for a long time, determined not to forget it and to safeguard it by writing it down. About the end of that November day when we passed through Prenies, years later, my mother Fimka told me the following: “It was early morning and from down where the ovens were, a sound, not a sound but a scream was heard – “They are coming!” And we knew that it was trucks. But this time they were not carrying recuperating fighters, they were carrying our children. We ran out of the barracks, rushing, stepping over one another to get to the trucks, to our children, as soon as possible. We ran beside the trucks falling down into the ditches and calling out for them to stop, but they would not stop. We ran faster and followed the trucks calling the names of our children but still nothing. A whole crowd of people gathered... I fell down but the others kept running, some jumped over me others stepped on me and yet others tripped and fell beside me, then got up again and ran on all fours trying to catch up to the trucks. I was in pain unable to get up and lay by the roadside. I felt stabbing pains all over my body but I kept yelling calling my children by name. When the trauma subsided a bit I got up but only managed to kneel and with my arms lifted up towards the heavens I began to yell and yell louder, crying out the names of my children. Then from over there, from the trucks I heard shouts and cries... ‘Mom!!! Mom!!! Mom!!!’ the children, with their arms held out, were calling out to the people running after the trucks… These were not screams of joy but shouts of pain, of sorrow and anguish, they were loud, desperate, heart wrenching and inconsolable cries and howls, cast upon us, spreading all over, driving us wild and tearing our hearts out... And those damn trucks kept passing us without stopping, taking with them our appeals, our loud, sad groans and our prayers... They did not stop but kept going and going until they disappeared in the distance of the winding curvy uphill road leading to the top of the mountain… There were so many trucks that the dust they picked up and dropped behind them had no chance to settle. Up, over on Kafasan a new cloud appeared and another behind it and another behind that seeming like they were bound by a chain, running down along the great winding curves… We knew these trucks were loaded with wounded but we stood at the side of the road, waiting for a chance, hoping that someone may have heard something about our dearest children. But again the trucks came and went without stopping, noisily passing by, drowning our cries and screams with their loud roar and with the cries and moans of the wounded that they carried. And every day after that, some going this way others going the other way, the trucks kept coming and going, bringing more pain... Every day we stood motionless on the side of the road, crying, staring at the mountain with our faces and eyes covered with black head kerchiefs... and so we waited and cried every day... Then ... Then, as we did every day, we gathered together in the barracks and in the horse stables and again and again we told and retold our painful stories and in our most mournful whimpers we prayed for relief from our anguish... So, every day, no day passed when there was no crying in Prenies...

I did not see my children that day but it seemed to me that I had heard their voices. Perhaps they saw me? … I had fallen at the side of the road and had been stepped on but I did hear children shouting ‘Mama - Mama -Mama!!!...’ How many mothers had fallen down by the side of the road that day and did not see their children? And as such I did not see mine… the only time I saw my children, crying and extending their arms to me, begging me to hug them, was in my dreams, that is, when I did manage to get some asleep… Then I suddenly awoke and, shaken, I wondered where they were and would anyone be there to wipe their tears, to speak comforting words to them, to hug them and pat them on the head and gently kiss them on their cheeks?... My chest hurt inside from the heavy sighs, the prayers and curses that I hurled but still I did not know who to curse the most. Who was at fault?... That night a woman went crazy... The same night, next door, two infants died in the barracks. They were wrapped in worn out Italian blankets and buried after midnight. They said they died a terrible death... I do not know how to describe the pain we felt over those deaths... That day we did not line up to get food from the cauldron. We sat huddled together on straw mats and imagined ourselves running behind the trucks, following them as they climbed their way uphill, high up the mountain beneath the clouds... There, up high, was where we believed our children had been taken, behind those foggy hills. That was where our cries and tears were directed but the pain always remained with us... That’s how it was… that day in late November. The next day the weather turned cold and it snowed.” Thirty or so years later the Skopje Publishing House, “Kultura”, published my first novel entitled “Postela za Chemerite” (A bed for Sorrows) in which I dedicated my first pages in memory of those times. This is what I wrote: “On the hard soil and stone ground, on the side of the road, there are long gray rotting barracks, built with bricks and covered with rye straw. On the left there are old ovens. On the uphill there are common toilets. Under the hill there is a cemetery and under it there are barracks lined up in a long line with narrow, tiny windows through which, because of the iron bars, the sky is reflected in squares. In the middle there is a dusty open space. Slightly to the side is a low house, built of carved white flint. This is Prenies. The road was narrow and packed with thick flint gravel. The ditches were wide, deep and overgrown with weeds and thorn bushes. On the days when it rained, red silt and muddy water flowed down from the hill. It was very cold during the night when the sky was clear and very hot during the day. The stones were washed clean by the rain and baked and cracked by the burning sun. When the wind blew, which came in waves from the mountains, red clouds of dust hung over the barracks. Of all the places our people could have gone to save themselves, they had to come here, to this godforsaken place. Bitter, ruined, restrained – very old men, widows of six wars, exhausted sick women, loners, nursing mothers and among them, sick men and men enslaved by their own fear. A cloud of dust gathered over Prenies twice a day. Once early in the morning and again in late evening when a column of trucks passed by. If the dust rose from down below where the ovens were, the trucks would be carrying recuperating fighters from the hospitals in Elbasan, Tirana, Durres and Suk. With them they would also be carrying food and ammunition for those on the battlefields of Vicho and Gramos. The trucks would transport the food and ammunition to the border and from there it would be carried to the mountains on the shoulders and backs of people, donkeys, horses and mules. When the valley was filled with grey fog, the trucks would reach the place where the ovens were with their lights on. And when the grey light given off by the first rays of the morning sun began to shimmer on the tops of the surrounding mountains, the trucks would begin their snaking downhill descent from above the hill, making their way down to Prenies.

Descending down the cobblestone road they would carry wounded; bleeding, moaning and cursing... Twice a day the words ‘they are coming’ would be heard over Prenies and every day, morning and evening, the people would pour out of the barracks and horse stables moaning, groaning, disturbed and disheartened and run to the road. And the closer the column of trucks got, the greater was the hustle and the surge pouring out of the barracks and horse stables and running towards the road. People treading over the beaten ground, running from all sides and calling, calling, pushing and falling. And in the loud cries nothing was heard, not a name and not a surname, only ‘oh-oh-oh-a-a-a-!,’ weeping, crying, praying, cursing and swearing. Everyone was calling and searching for their closest, their most beloved, their dearest... Everyone was looking for their closest: they ran towards those old Czech and Italian trucks which did not want to stop, pushing each other, hitting one another. Those who fell lay there like ninepins, trampled by the rush… they did this day after day, twice a day. Every evening a pile of women and old men ran behind the trucks all the way down to the ovens, to the first guardhouse, to the first bunker behind which the road to Elbasan extended. They stopped there… and left behind, lying on straw mats in the barracks, were crying infants, grunting, groaning and moaning, uncertain of their life and existence. Every day they ran behind the column of trucks snaking its way up hill… at the crossroads, bayonets mounted on rifles shone under the first rays of the morning sun. The surge stopped there and the trucks quickly disappeared around the last corner. The old people waved at the column and then crossed themselves. They blessed those returning from the hospitals and heading for the battlefields... Some, with tears in their eyes, would mumble: ‘May their scars remain healthy…’ In silence, with black head kerchiefs in their hands, they bid farewell to those headed for battle. After that, slowly they made their way back down but would not immediately return to their straw mats in their barracks and horse stables. Sorrowfully they would search the road, the ditches, the tall grass, the shrubs, looking for letters that the trucks may have dropped. And then, in the barracks and horse stables, from dusk to dawn and from dawn to dusk there would be constant weeping and wailing. Shadows would be seen moving from barracks to barracks. Relatives gathering together to mourn and weep for those who had lost their lives in the battlefields of Gramos and Vicho, Epirus and Thessaly and for those who were badly wounded and died in hospitals in foreign lands... And when their cries and tears had dulled their pain, they would whimper in the dark, muttering words, as if those they spoke to were still alive... On the hard soil, on the road on which, with the birth and death of the day, black turmoil poured, grass did not grow; everything was stamped down. For the sorrowful, beaten and tormented, living in the barracks and horse stables, lying on straw mats, there was only one-hundred centimeters of space available for each person. Above them there were long, half rotten, beams and underneath them were cobblestones on which, who knows for how many centuries, horse urine had been absorbed. The healthy wished the sick a quick and painless death - to save themselves from their own agony and to save the healthy from being tormented. Even though the place was well guarded between the two checkpoints where the trucks passed, and in addition to people being frightened and intimidated, there were always the few who secretly slipped out and climbed the summit. And from there they would look at the large bodies of water and the mountains and grey mountain peaks all around them and then whisper to each other with fingers pointing: ‘Look, over there, that’s my house.’ Every day here in Prenies, with burning desire, they waited to hear the words: ‘People, come out, we are going home!’ This is how they always spoke: ‘People give, people bring, people be patient, people persist.’ Every day they waited for the day when a voice would call out: ‘People, we are returning to our homes.’ They always had their belongings ready, waiting to be tossed over their shoulder, waiting for the long trek home.”

“That’s how it was,” said my mother Fimka, wiping a tear, running down her face with the edge of her black head kerchief… She threw a sad glance in front of her and after a long silent pause, with a heavy sigh and motioning with her hand, said: “There, along the road, after the trucks left, every day we searched in the shrubs and grass looking for letters, one woman found a letter. She quickly hid it in her chest, the only place they would not look when they searched us. We got someone to read the letter during the night by moonlight. The letter said the children from so and so villages were located in ‘Duresi’ (Durres). That’s all it said. Not who wrote it and not who dropped it. That’s all it said, nothing more. It did not even say what ‘Duresi’ was, was it a city, a country, was it a village?... Only ‘Duresi’. So we began to ask what was this ‘Duresi’ but we did it in a secret way and we only asked those we trusted. No one knew. What do you expect from people that had never travelled? In Prenies we were stuck in a chicken coop, getting out during the day and returning at night. That’s all we knew. One night we sent an old man to Shkumbin. That’s an Albanian village outside of Prenies. We begged him to go and ask an Albanian what ‘Duresi’ was and where it was located. The old man went and returned at dawn. He said ‘Duresi’ was a provincial town, a big provincial town near the sea. Oh my God, we began to yell, shake our arms in the air and pull our hairs out crying. If our children were near the sea, surely they would drown. Three or four women got together and asked the old man to go back to the Albanian village and ask how far it was to ‘Duresi’ and how to get there. After much begging the old man did go and when he came back he said: ‘Duresi is a provincial town located about ten days travel from here by foot.’ It was not too far we thought. After all we traveled for an entire month on foot and fully loaded with our belongings, what’s ten days compared to that, especially for a man? We decided to send a man, but whom? We found ourselves in a big dilemma about who to ask. It had to be someone who wanted to see his own children. In the end we decided to ask Traiko. He had strong legs and knew a few Albanian words, so he would be able to find his way if he got lost on the way. All week we collected small pieces of bread, breaking pieces off the bread they gave us in the food line. Piece by piece we filled a sack full of bread and dried marmalade. We got the trusted old man to whisper instructions into Traiko’s ear on how to get there. ‘First you must pass by Librazhd and stay along the side of the road, if you find a truck, you can go by truck and when you arrive near a large city called Elbasan, take the upper, I mean lower road. If you take the upper road you will be heading to Tirana, if you take the lower road, along level ground, you will arrive in Duresi and there you can ask where they have many children.’ This is what they told the old man and this is what he told Traiko. Traiko left during the night. Many days and nights had passed since he left and there was no sign of Traiko; no one knew where he was. His wife became very upset yelling, screaming and cursing, wondering how she was going to live and survive without him. ‘Traiko my dear, oh Traiko why did you leave me alone, what am I going to do without you, being without you is like being blind,’ she screamed out loud and cried and cursed. We all began to think of the worst. Something terrible must have happened to him. You never know. This is a foreign country, many things are unfamiliar, travel would be difficult for a man who has never travelled… When six weeks passed, we decided we should send Ilio. Ilio was familiar with travel, before the Great War Ilio used to go to pechalba (migrant work) in Thessaly. He had worked on the farms in Thessaly during the spring and summer ploughing, sowing and harvesting crops and after that he used to travel to Thrace to make coal.

Ilio went to Duresi and two weeks later he returned. He told us that he found Duresi and the place where the children were and that several times during the night he secretly met with Evgenia, the oldest woman responsible for the children. She told him that all the children were alive and well, that they were all clothed, clean and well-fed. She told him to give her regards to all the mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers and to wish them all well and to tell them not to worry. She also sent regards to all from all there. After many months of waiting and wondering, this was great news for all. It brought much happiness to the mothers. People were going in and out of Ilio’s barracks every day. Every mother wanted to ask details about her own child or children. Traiko’s wife too stopped her yelling, crying and cursing. Ilio whispered in her ear that Traiko was alive and well and that he was hiding in Duresi and secretly visiting the children and that when times changed and things improved, he promised he would return… That’s how it was… One day the visits and conversations ended. Some high ranking officials came to Prenies and called all the men to a meeting. They spoke to them about the great battles and how our side was always winning but to shorten the war and bring victory faster they needed their help. The officials spoke for two or three days about these great battles and took turns visiting the barracks. There they found crippled and maimed people, some holding their hip, some holding their back, some walking with a cane, some bracing themselves against the wall, some coughing badly, some lying on straw mats, some dashing for the toilets... When the officials saw the condition of those men, they decided that battles could not be fought with these kinds of men and victory could not be achieved. They found only five men capable of delivering victory, Ilio was one of them who the officials took with them when they left. Almost four months later, during a cold, snowy winter day, Ilio returned. They sent him to Prenies back to his wife because he was no longer needed. His right sleeve was hanging empty… That day our trucks did not come twice as they did many times before. I call them ‘our trucks’ because they carried our young men and women from and to the battlefields. They brought our wounded and maimed young fighters to the hospitals and when they recovered, the trucks took them back, back to the battlefields. Sometimes the trucks brought one or two officials, clean and shaven, boots shining and cheeks glowing red. They came to Prenies to let the men know that victory was near and for victory to be even nearer they needed to give, they needed them to give it their all, but all these men had to give was their lives and the rags they wore on their backs. Our sheep and goats were grazing up in the mountains, being looked after by very old Macedonian men hired by the Party. Our larger animals were strays, left alone out in the fields and meadows and no one knew their number, how many were sick, how many had died and how many were still alive. Being deserted their numbers surely had declined. People were saying that some had died from sickness and others had been killed by wolves. But the truth was something different all together… One of the women, one time, went to an Albanian village and there she saw her two oxen harnessed under a yoke. The sheep and goats, they too found themselves in the yards of Albanian villagers. Resourceful people sold the animals to the Albanian villagers and all the while they were telling us that they took them to the Party and were returned to the front for our fighters to have something to eat. There were people who secretly left the complex to collect tea in the mountains and recognized their own goats and sheep grazing among the Albanian livestock. We had no problem if our livestock ended up in the cauldrons of the Partisans. It was wrong however for it to be in the yards of the Albanian villagers.

And as such we lost everything we had taken from our homes, everything we had managed to bring with us all the way to Prenies. Surely gold coins were slipped into someone’s hand… And this picture, this view of running behind the trucks, the crying, the pain, the yelling are all experiences buried in my memory and now, being reminded of them, they are coming back like a wave, like a swarm, they spring to life, they burn… they are strung like pearls; word beside word, cry beside cry, moan beside moan, tear beside tear, sigh beside sigh, all bound together by a chain, pressing, squeezing, scratching and hurting... That memory weighs on me, it squeezes me, it chokes me and makes my soul ache...” We turned right from the main road and parked the car under the shade of a willow tree, and, with tears in our eyes, went for a tour. Both the left and right side of the street were laid with a blanket of fresh asphalt. There was a whole line of long buildings standing in a row finished with a grey-white façade. Up above there were square windows covered with iron bars and below were large crooked doors. These looked more like stores than stables. Among them were also small houses. In front and underneath each large colourful tent were discarded plastic coca cola and a variety of colourful juice bottles. There were also stacks of empty packages from smuggled sweets and candy. We decided to go up the street. Children ran in front and all around us curiously inquiring as to who we were. We seemed strange to them because they had never seen us before. We stopped at a place that resembled a café. There were two tables and about ten plastic chairs. A young lady in her early twenties was waving a broken mulberry tree branch left and right chasing annoying flies. From her movements and from her smile we gathered that she was inviting us to the café. She did not speak any other languages besides Albanian so we stood there mute. But gesturing did help a little. Then a young man in his twenties came to assist. He said he gathered that we were from Skopje because of our car license plates. He told us that he spoke a bit of Macedonian but was fluent in Greek and Italian. He had learned these languages while working in those countries. “Are you looking for someone?” he asked. “Yes we are but we prefer to find someone older,” I replied “Right now I will bring you someone,” he said and a few minutes later he came back with an old man. “Are you from here, from Prenies?” I asked the old man after we greeted each other. “Currently I live here in Prenies, but originally I am from a neighbouring village behind these mountains,” said the old man while gesturing east with his head. “When did you move to Prenies?” I asked. “When Enver Hoxha collected us and brought us here to build the factory and the rail line to Pogradets,” answered the old man. “And where do you live?” I asked. “Over there, in the last houses, behind the mosque. That’s where they relocated us,” answered the old man. “What about these houses?” I asked while pointing at the stores or horse stables whatever they may be. “In those days the army was located there. There were a lot of troops here then. They were guarding the border and us,” replied the old man. “What about before that?” I asked. “Before that we were at home in our village. I told you they brought us here to build the factory and rail line and to dig chromium…” answered the old man. “Do you recall if there was a cemetery located near here?” I asked. “Yes I do. There were two cemeteries here. Up there, at the corner, where they are digging now, above the road there was a cemetery where they buried Italians. The other was where they buried Albanians but on the other side,” answered the old man. “Before they brought you here, were there any other people here?” I asked. “People? No, there were no ordinary people, only a lot of soldiers…” answered the old man. As we continued our conversation another man joined us. He looked like an older man from the wrinkles on his face.

“Pliak, how many years did God give you?” asked our translator. They all laughed out loud at the question. “What God are you talking about? Hoxha uprooted us and Him from our minds and hearts. When someone mentions God, we go silent and look around. We hope no one from the security services is around. It’s a habit. Then, in those days, they even pushed our children to spy on us. That’s what they were teaching them,” concluded the other old man. “And today?” I asked. “Today? You can say whatever you want and no one will scold you or say anything bad to you, or look at you strangely. That’s democracy… And you and the lady, are you looking for something?” asked the other old man. “Yes we are. We are looking for a cemetery,” I replied. “What? Did someone close to you die on the road?” asked the first old man. “Yes, many died on the road and on other roads here in Prenies and we want to know where they were buried,” I said. “And when was that?” asked the old man. “It was during 1948 and 1949,” I answered. “That was a long time ago. I don’t know if you could find anyone here at Perrenias that knows such things. And who were the dead?” asked the old man. “They were our people, Macedonians…” I answered. “And what were they, your Macedonians, doing here?” asked the old man. “The war brought them here,” I answered. “The war, but which war?” asked the old man. “The war in Greece…” I answered. “Oh, a long time ago when I was back in my village I heard that there was a war there and I remember that after that we had to give some of our wheat, rye and corn. But I never heard of your people being here in Perrenias. No one living in Perrenias today is a native. We are all immigrants. Maybe in the villages up the mountain there may be people who might know. But that was a long time ago. People have died, people have aged and their memories have been diluted. Go up the mountain, maybe there you will find someone who remembers. But not with this kind of car, the road is no good for this kind of car. It’s best to go on foot,” advised the old man. The old man finished drinking his coffee, greeted us with both hands and sluggishly walked away up the lane. Then suddenly he paused for a moment, turned around and gave us a hand signal to approach him. “Ask the people from these houses. When they were digging foundations for their houses they said that they found bones. Ask them. Maybe the cemetery is under their houses,” suggested the old man. “Yes,” said the woman, “here we found many bones from people. It looks like the place was a cemetery…” Further up a bent over old man approached us and asked: “Are you the people asking about the cemetery? Yes there was a cemetery. Over there…” said the bent over old man while pointing with his cane. We took the bent over old man along with our interpreter to our car and drove to where the cemetery used to be. “Right here, the cemetery was at this place,” said the bent over old man. The place did not look like it ever was a cemetery. We saw a wide three lane road marked with white lines. Above the turn was a hill. “It seems to me that the cemetery was dug up with the excavation for widening the road… the cemetery was not ours (Albanian), it was Italian. Over there where the road widens that too was part of the Italian cemetery. Soldiers were buried there. Last year people came from Italy and took two truck loads of bones in boxes. And over there, on the other side of the hill there was a cemetery, and to whom it belonged I don’t know,” said the bent over old man. “And is there anyone very old here in the Perrenias...” I asked. “You will not find anyone older than me. Don’t waste your time. It was the way it was but now it has passed. The times are different now. As you can see people are building houses, widening their yards, opening cafés and trying to make a life for themselves, they don’t care about any old cemeteries. They dig and build wherever they can find space. The people have become greedy…” concluded the bent over old man.

I thanked the bent over old man for his help and, without mentioning God, I wished him many more years, one-hundred-and-one years, and then placed a box of cigarettes and a bag of coffee in his hand. He placed the cigarettes in his chest pocket and took a whiff of the bag, then smiled meekly and said: “There is no need. Now we have all kinds of things, as much as you want. People bring things from everywhere… But if it is given from the heart then I accept it with all my heart.” Our interpreter then translated: “Pliak, the man thanks you and says that you told him many things…” “Well, you, I told him… I told him what I know,” he said in a disappointed tone of voice and walked away sluggishly. And as such they took us from place to place to where once there were cemeteries and everywhere they took us the places were empty.