CHAPTER THREE – Silence with a feeling of guilt…

CHAPTER THREE – Silence with a feeling of guilt…

Rumena came closer to him. Dobrin mumbled something and asked:

“Should I stop talking?”

“There is no reason for you to stop talking,” she said. “I want to know what’s inside you, inside your consciousness… and I want to figure out what made you want to fight, to have such beliefs, and not just some abstract images and political slogans which you can turn left or right according to circumstances…” said Rumena with a serious look on her face.

“My mother loved me with all her devotion and that inspired me and gave me more impetus. She gave me her humility and inner peace and the will to never lose hope,” replied Dobrin.

“But that does not tell me why you became a communist and why communists congregate in an area in which caution and suspicion are your wisdom in life...” said Rumena inquisitively and adjusted herself on the bed that creaked due to loose springs.

“Let me ask you something, why do you women desire to be the centre of attention and that’s like a condition for your frame of mind…” replied Dobrin while smiling.

There was silence, a momentary pause. Rumena looked at Dobrin with a sad look on her face and said:

“Well, my biggest concern, which still bothers me, is that I lack self-confidence. And now it happens in moments of depression.

Through the years of emigration I have been feeling inadequate, like I could not succeed in anything that I didn’t work hard at. Perhaps this is because my friends rebuke me with their views and I am seen as a woman and an enemy of the Party. I was miserable while you were in Siberia. In Poland I hung around the workers’ restaurants unhappy. Perhaps that’s why I am so aggressive. I spent a lot of time being unhappy especially in my young age when my soul was forming. And whatever goes in their soul a person carries with them

all their life,” concluded Rumena, leaned on the iron bed frame and went silent.

Dobrin felt guilty for her bad luck. The strong sense of guilt troubled him and he subconsciously felt like he needed to say something in order to neutralize his internal unrest. But it was Rumena who spoke first:

“A person without ‘religion’ will fail! My dear Dobrin…” she said and continued.

“But the politicians, they know very well how to easily plant religions, even man-made religions; Hitler planted National Socialism, Mussolini Fascism, Stalin Bolshevism...”

“I have said too much already… But let me remind you that everyone who has climbed to the top of the pyramid has stood there alone...” Rumena concluded.

“I have never thought of it that way…” replied Dobrin with a serious tone of voice and continued:

“And what should I do now?” he asked curiously.

“Continue to tell me about yourself, I want to know more about your past. I have put all my hopes and trust in you,” replied Rumena.

“Politics is ultimately an art of living…” said Dobrin. “It’s an old truth that people can’t exist without imagination, without religion, without an ideology… which professes a better tomorrow not only for humanity, but also for the entire universe...

I remember a man named Vasiliu. He was a leader of the Lerin scouts. One day he approached me and shoved several scouting books at me.

‘Read them,’ he said. The books were filled with practical and useful articles. I decided to become a scout. However, very quickly my fellow scouts convinced me that the scouts belonged to a ‘bourgeois’ organization, so I left and for a long time after that I

thought about the company and friendships I would have had if I had stayed. One day a man named Theoharidis asked me if I wanted to join the OKNE, a communist organization for the youth of Greece. I didn’t want to so I said: ‘I don’t want to leave my parents and my school just to deal with revolutionary work…” He smiled and said nothing. Then in April 1933 I was the fifth person to join OKNE.

I used to hang around the Organization. I spent my time thinking about things plus my time passed without me being bored. After I finished school, director Theodoros Kotronis asked me if I wanted to lay a wreath at the tomb of Pavlos Melas in the village of Statica, where he was killed, as a representative of the Lerin gymnasium.

Kotronis insisted that we must respect our ‘liberators’ and said: ‘It is true that you stepped into private life, however, you are still our disciple. You will think of a few meaningful words to say when you lay the wreath. I am sure you will represent our school commendably…”

I thought of my grandfather Ilia and what happened to him and wanted to decline the offer to lay the wreath. Plus I did not have enough confidence in myself to step up in front of a crowd. This was perhaps because I spent so much time in my younger years feeling miserable… because I lost my grandfather Ilia.

I do not know exactly why. But I was a little thrown when my mother said to me: ‘Go, sign yourself up for the entry exams at the gymnasium… we will somehow manage to pay for your education…’

My parents must have known that, as the child of ‘Xenophones’ (foreign language speakers), I probably only had a symbolic chance of being registered but would have to pay fully for the registration and the quarterly exams. But they took a chance anyway.

Strange as it was, Theodoros Kotronis showed care for me. Day after day I felt more inspired.

Classical rules were affirmed throughout my entire schooling days -conditions and objectives on how to act. Now I have no doubt how our people became ‘Torbeshi’ under Ottoman rule … with all that mental anguish… and how they disappeared in Anatolia...”

“In other words, Kotronis knew very well that without faith it was impossible to please anyone, not even God…” - interrupted Rumena while smiling at Dobrin.

Dobrin looked at her with a sad look on his face. Rumena continued: “Calm down, calm down Dobrin! Still, the most crucial and frightening thing was not casual faith but superstition, because even an honest man can be a victim of superstition. Oh, my Dobrin, that’s how a person could become a small person… even when a person is great he can still be small...”

By now Dobrin was completely confused. He stopped talking about his experiences because he felt like there was a trap set in front of him. Perhaps temptation was not always a sin… it was a sin only sometimes...

It was one of Dobrin’s friends who said to him: “This is all nonsense… you must always look ahead… that’s what life requires of you...”

Dobrin continued: “The next morning I found myself at the meeting place. It was filled with representatives from the military, police, judicial, public authorities, municipality, trade unions, players and other clubs. There was an entire column of cars. It was a great meeting. Many priests, prelates, officers and other serious gentlemen with white collars, from Lerin and Kostur, also attended the meeting. It was like that every year. It was a day during which the living honoured the dead.

After the priests completed the religious ceremony, a man with a high-pitched voice read a short essay about Pavlos Melas during which he called Melas a ‘liberator’ of Macedonia. Then other people passed by, said a few words and placed wreaths on Melas’s monument. I too placed a wreath and stepped all over my

grandfather Ilia’s dignity… and still, to this day, I don’t know why I did that.

At one point a man, wearing a Greek Andartes (illegal armed bandit) uniform, approached the monument and, while laying the wreath, spoke Macedonian in front of the police and other Greek officials. He said:

‘Pavle! Pavle! Do you remember when you and I went to my aunt Iovanitsa’s place and she gave us warm bread and freshly made cheese? Oh, Pavle, Pavle!’ said the man sighing deeply and ending with the words: ‘Aide eonia i mni…!’ (Let it be your everlasting glory.) After that the man walked proudly back to his place of honour. Some of the women put their hands over their mouths, while others looked puzzled. Some of the Greek officials found it necessary to express condemnation; it was seen on their faces. Most showed understanding and smiled.

He was one of Melas’s fellow co-fighters. Melas was leader of the Greek Andartes in Macedonia. I approached the man and, in a whispering voice, asked: ‘Where are you from?’

‘From Chernovishta... I am a companion of Kote from Rula,’ he replied.

At that moment I felt like my own hands were dipped in blood and I almost asked him:

‘Did you cut off Lazo Pop Traikov’s head together?’ but I didn’t.

I looked at the man wearing an Andart uniform and chills ran down my spine. His pale eyes reminded me of my grandfather Ilia. I said to myself, ‘this man is betraying his own people and he is not even aware of it…’

Could the man not see that he looked like a caricature? What kind of a Greek was he? And I, look at me, I offended my grandfather by placing a wreath on a so-called Greek hero, the very man who killed our revolutionary leaders. He killed the very men who fought for our rights and for our freedom!

I thought to myself: ‘Perhaps it is conditions and objectives that determine how a man should act, against his will and conscience...’

At that very moment the trees shook from a great roar of thunder and rain began to pour. The cemetery emptied quickly under the heavy rain and the flowers and wreaths floated in the muddy water.

‘God must want to punish the traitors gathered around a foreigner’s grave...’ muttered an old man looking at us like we were a herd of bewildered beasts,” concluded Dobrin.