Noose – Chapter 9

Noose – Chapter 9

Running in white death.

1.

We were running in all directions. We were fleeing for our lives when we heard cries of hatred. Andonis, Spiros, Sotir, Kolio, Petre, myself and many others were fleeing for the hills of Mount Kleftis. Kolio suddenly groaned. He had been shot on his left hand. Fearing for his life he fell to the ground and started crawling in the snow. We were being pursued by the “Burandari” (enemy soldiers) and by armed civilians from Konitsa. They were running after us like rabid dogs. They were constantly yelling: “Shoot the bastards! Drive them out of our city! Aim well and kill them! God is with us, the city is ours. Kill them! Kill them all!” One of their officers was yelling at us: “We will catch you, you cursed bastards, we will catch you and roast you over a spit… You cursed bastards, may the plague get you all. You have defiled our city, you have robbed us of the happiness of our celebration of the New Year. You antichrists, you have defiled our church, you have upset the dead... you will pay for your crimes! They are rebels, even God is against them and they need to be uprooted... They are dangerous.” I got goose bumps listening to this guy. We moved fast on Mount Kleftis, as we climbed up on one of its hills. Through a clearing we could see a pine grove stretching for a long way in the distance. At the edge of the woods we saw a wounded deer running, being pursued by a pack of wolves which caught up to it and brought it down. We were all distracted by the sight and angry at the rapacious wolves. Walking quickly through the deep snow Leonidas was first to speak: “The wolves are just like us...” he said. In front of us, just as we passed through the clearing, we could see a wide open, almost flat slope at the bottom of the hill. The entire slope was open space all covered in snow with very few trees in between. There was a strong north wind blowing, it was dry, cold and aggressive. We moved fast through the open space, running for our lives. The whiteness of the snow and the open space magnified our worries, making every minute noise sound like a ring tone of mortal fear. And even though Leonidas was occasionally gripped by depression, he was the only person with a clear mind who felt confident that we would make it alive. At one point Leonidas said: “I love this open white space, only in this whiteness can man be free from the thousands of thoughts that plagued his mind in the street battles of the city. Thank God, we fled the horror that found us. We buried the hatred and fear behind us. And may no person dig them up for centuries, not even with God’s help...” We began to descend downhill. The trail suddenly ended but we continued descending. Going through this flat whiteness was like walking through life itself. There were snow drifts and patches of bluish ice everywhere. We hung on desperately for dear life. Beyond the blueish and gray ripples, it seemed like the boundary between heaven and earth had disappeared. Andonis slipped but Kostas was quick to catch him and so began our battle with the cold frozen mountain. We fought hard to get to the trees as soon as possible, but the mountain lay in our path, to be more precise it lay there with indifference; it did not even notice us. Unfortunately the fighter planes did and with their engines thundering and machine guns bursting gunfire, they angrily pursued us, flying over our heads. The airplanes constantly hovered over the white valley. First slowly making a semicircle and then on their return trip, at lightning speed, unleashing a deadly barrage of bombs on us. Then as soon as they had come they disappeared into the blue, looking like predatory birds. The airplanes flew all day, thundering through the mountain and making every explosion echo and resonate; disturbing the tranquility of the countryside, causing panic among us. The day was very cold. It was biting cold to the bone this day in January and we could feel it in our hearts. In front of us we could see Poliksena Kiriakou having difficulty walking.

She was a health care worker in our battalion. By the look on her face she looked very tired and was in a lot of pain. Her chest was uncovered, she had difficulty breathing, her neck was blue from the cold and her hand was covered in ice. But as she continued struggling with every step, she insisted on helping the wounded. We finally reached the long frozen slope of the valley. Unfortunately I stepped into empty space and slid down. I rolled over but continued to slide. Then just as I was recovering I saw Leonidas sliding by me. He was bulkier and sliding a lot faster than I was. He had this horrified look on his face and I prayed to God he did not run into a tree… After that we paid more attention to where we stepped in the snow, making sure the crust was strong enough to support our steps. Leonidas crossed himself and prayed while I removed icicles from his hair and eyebrows. “Come with me,” said Captain Giorgi Kalkov in a mysterious tone of voice. He then pulled me towards a grave dug in the frozen snow behind a small fir tree. “I know you loved each other like brothers, so I want you to bury him,” he said. Beside the grave lay my blood brother Jovan Kotev. His left foot had been wounded by aircraft fire and over the hours he had bled to death. His face was blue and looked rigid and full of pain. I cried as I covered him with lumps of snow. At least this way his eyes would not be pecked by the vultures and other birds of prey and his body would not be torn up by hungry wolves. I turned towards the colonel and said: “As of now I don’t give a damn about the damn revolution.” Captain Kalkov and Major Arianos did not say anything or react to my comment. Only in the most secret part of Arianos’s left eye could I see some indecision as to whether he should slap me on the face or outright kill me like a dog in the frozen snow. I justified myself for going to the other world, but here I was in the presence of Colonel Sofianos who was the kind of person who wanted things to flow naturally and spontaneously and despised all those who looked at human destiny naïvely, especially all of us who, according to him, were really immature children and should not have been involved in this war. The Colonel said: “May he rest in peace and may his glory be eternal!” We then all said the same thing and went towards the hill. By then most of our comrades had penetrated the extent and were arriving at our position. Among them was Colonel Micho Poliologou whose orders were to defend the road and crossing over the Burezani Bridge and to block the road to Mount Kalpaki. The men brought news that one of our battalions was still surrounded by government troops on Mount Kalpaki and many of our fighters were pinned down, frozen and could not escape.

2.

The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains. A huge cloud of blue fog had descended over Konitsa valley and was slowly moving westward. Its edge was looking red in the weak sunlight. Suddenly it became much colder and it seemed that the night would be extremely cold, which was usual for this time in winter. It turned dark quite fast as a raging storm moved in blowing a strong wind and dropping snow on the surrounding hills. We heard someone sigh; it was more like a moan. We heard it again and it was definitely a moan. Then suddenly a pale face appeared in front of us, coming from the clearing in the trees. The eyes on the face looked hollow and there were signs of pain and suffering. It was one of our fighters. “Wolves! We were attacked by wolves,” he said in an exhausted and barely audible voice. “A whole pack of them, over there… Save yourselves! Some of our fighters have been dismembered. They were too weak to defend themselves but some managed to save themselves by fleeing downhill,” he said and trembled from the trauma he had experienced. We gathered together in a circle. But our mighty, hasty and angry Arianos, with eyes like a dog and a heart like a deer, pushed his way into the middle of the circle and stayed there shaking with fear until dawn... Leonidas was quick to point out that: “These animals are struggling to feed themselves, not to wage war. We, on the other hand, our only goal here is to kill people. What a great big scam this is!”

Leonidas thought for a moment and continued. “Mankind’s oldest stories, myths and tales of heroes, are all about death and killing. We in this war were chosen to die because someone imagined it that way. They imagined a form of collective hatred in an all imagined conflict. They knew and were familiar with all the fashions of this war. And these fashions were diseases attacking dignity and justice and causing humiliation and frustration of the ultimate kind. These fashions created an atmosphere of collective self-mutilation. The idea that humans were good by nature was now gone. Every day I listened to Arianos say: ‘We are revolutionaries, supporting pillars of this country, of this nation! Shoot, kill, let us destroy them all, only this way we can rid ourselves of the evil in this world, only this way we can get rid of the criminals.’ I closed my eyes. Something inexplicable still haunted me... That angry whine was what was pushing us into silence. I believe that God knows what we are thinking. ‘God is this how we are going to die?’ I asked myself.” We stood there for a long time but the night seemed endless. Deep in the recesses of my own mind I could hear funeral songs, which in my ears rang like church bells and blew like the trumpets of the Last Judgment. The government soldiers had retreated, taking advantage of the weak light to pursue us, then returned to their camp just at the exit of town. When they reached their camp their commanders reported to General Zafiropoulos, and he in turn spoke to them with great satisfaction: “This is how you run a modern war, with maximum coordination, not ad hok like the way the rebel forces of General Markos are run. And here are the results for everyone to see. That (pointing at the NOOSE) is where fifty-five of his men were crucified and hung. They were “guilty” because, by order of General Markos, they forcibly drove hundreds of innocent people out of our city so that they could take it and turn it into his capital and put General Marcos on the throne, and for that they paid with their lives and died a miserable death. And who were these people? By identifying their bodies, we found out that they were innocent village children... These bandits however should realize that evil cannot simply be chased away, it needs to be torn, to be uprooted…” concluded General Zafiropoulos top commander of the government forces. A priest sitting in the first rows hesitantly interrupted the officer and said: “General, our religion does not allow for such revenge. Your retaliation today would encourage their movement and their leader, General Markos, would become a model for fanatics and fanaticism would be justified. We the people of Konitsa need to observe salvation and to see the return of virtues which are rooted in patriarchy, family and the church. Calling for revenge and declaring war against everyone means opening a new labyrinth of hatred. And in such a situation there is too much at stake and there is no simple explanation. If we do that then even God will give up on us. The only weapon that can defeat evil and hatred is respect for those killed and love for these young people who became prey for Markos’s army.

3.

I was sitting at the end of Pavle Shumenkov’s bed, who, since we were small children, we called Dimo. Perhaps we called him Dimo because the name written on his birth certificate was “Dimos Pavlos”. We were all renamed by the Greeks but we recognized each other by the families to which we belonged. We knew each other as belonging to the Shumenkov, Kosenkov, Rimpapov, Ristanov, Kotev, Kirkov, etc. families but for some reason we called him Dimo. We called him Dimo mostly because that’s what our teacher Kaklamakis who taught us Greek used to call him. Shumenkov, more and more longed for home, I could see that something was not right with him; something was worrying him and giving him nightmares. The doctor passed by us without examining him. “He hates me!” said Dimo. I answered him: “It’s all in your head. Doctors don’t hate anybody. They adhere to the Hippocratic Oath which states, ‘Nature heals and the doctor takes care of the patient’.” We sat facing one another with our knees touching. Dimo sat there silent. I said: “I am ready to believe you if you tell me to believe you but first you must swear to what is most holy to you.” He then said: “You swear that if you tell on me your tongue will dry up and fall off and you will remain permanently mute.” “I swear!” I said. Dimo then spoke and said: “Yesterday during his visiting rounds, while the doctor kept quiet the duty officer called me a ‘hypochondriac’. The doctor then explained to the officer that: ‘Fear is a primary emotion and those who cannot control it… their life may depend on it.’ He then rattled off a bunch of technical words for fear.” Dimo went silent again, but only for a moment. After that he told me more: “The doctor also said that, ‘in every war psychosomatic illnesses are on an increase, especially in young people.’ The officer then looked at me and, with a humbling look on his face and in front of everyone, said to me: “You are a fighter in Markos’s glorious army. Coward! You should be ashamed of finding yourself in the ranks of our army. And you are related to the Macedonians that yielded the greatest military commander -Alexander the Great!” I said to Dimo: “Calm down! Be happy that we just escaped death!” Dimo kept quiet but his face showed that he was hiding something more serious. Perhaps it was too painful for him to speak. It seemed like he was mourning the death of our comrades and perhaps his own death as well. He decided to speak again: “My death will not be a consequence of old age, disease, or exhaustion. I am already dead, killed by deception. I was killed by those who wanted to make Konitsa their capital city, by those who wanted to sacrifice us, the innocent children. You know that of the 320 of us that they sent here to Epirus, only 70 of us survived and most of us are with permanent injuries. The generals, on the other hand, dream of celebrations and heroism. And what do you think would happen to us? Do you think we will be free? They have captured our minds. Do you think we are free? No! They filled our souls with anger and hatred, shoved guns in our hands and sent us off to kill people. And now you are not you and I am not me! If you kill a few people do you think your god will be satisfied? Do you think you will be freed? Your heart will forever remain enslaved and your soul will be dark and filled with anger. Or do you think they will celebrate you?” He paused for a moment and began speaking again: “Who is your God and my God, if you destroy the homes of the people in Konitsa do you think you will be forgiven?... We, Markos’s Partisans, may move freely in the mountains but our hearts have been captured, enslaved... The key to your heart and mine is in the possession of someone who only knows our God. Do you think that Macedonia will think of singing the way we sang for her? I fear our weakness and our Macedonian silence. I fear lawlessness, confusion and chaos. I am afraid of war, the future scares me, I am scared of living without knowing, without a clear future.

I fear that the generals purposely planned and started this civil war. I hate fear, uncertainty, hatred and people losing confidence in life. I fear I will lose my great grandfather’s house. I fear the curses of the people whose homes we destroyed. I am afraid of the lack of awareness of reality and our own responsibility in it. I fear that we do not know the truth about this war and why 320 young Macedonians were sent all the way to Epirus. And just like that; we the innocent should be ready to die so that Konitsa can become the capital of the generals...” He paused. Then he began talking again: “Even now I cannot believe that NOF (National Liberation Front) and AFZH (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front), who carried themselves with international delusions and great hopes for us Macedonians, believe that our salvation can be found in a classless society and that right there is the key to freedom for Macedonia?! And here is your bloody finale, as you witnessed it happening in Konitsa. We Macedonians, however, should once and for all realize that they and our NOF and AFZH people are consciously allied, tied together, and I have no idea how much they truly care about you and about me and about the lives of our friends in this hellhole. Oh, my blood brother this bloody torture chamber will be chronicled in the black book of communism and I am afraid we Macedonians will not be mentioned in it.” He looked at me and said: “We have an invisible leader who has shown us the path to human misery. This is the only answer I can give you to justify what we have done, for the evil we have committed and for what is happening! I fear that evil and destruction are loud and reason is silent. I am afraid that when we return home (if that ever happens) we will not find anything left of our ancestral homes... This Macedonian catastrophy will leave long lasting scars in all of us. You know what our grandmothers and grandfathers used to say: ‘It is a great evil to not do good’.” I was thunderstruck by his way of thinking, but I already knew all that and I, more than anyone, was not willing to divulge it or discuss it. I wanted to comfort him so I said: “You know that a lot of our people are dead and many are without arms, legs and have severe disabilities.” He looked at me and said: “When I think about how it was I am unable to sleep all night. My heart beats fast, my thoughts scare me and I feel like I am dying. I am overcome with nausea, my body starts to shake, I sweat profusely and feel waves of hot and cold all over me; I am afraid I will die. My fear magnifies during the night and I experience panic attacks. I want to escape from this bed but I do not know to where... I don’t want to be with anyone. I cannot think. I have lost trust in everyone. I feel bitterness in my gut and I don’t want any food.” He bowed his head down and secretly said to me: “We are not returning home. We have become homeless children, dust in the winds of war. That hurts in my chest. It hurts me to know that so many of our friends died in Konitsa, it hurts me terribly. They are gone forever… In my heart I feel like a lone wolf running, howling. My grief is eating me from the inside, keeping me awake at night…” He gave me a sign to come closer. I leaned over and he whispered: “I do not believe we will achieve victory. If they bring us into another such street fight again, it will be over for us... It is so sad that all of our friends gave their lives so that the generals can live in style. How many of us must die before we realize that too many have already died! How many ears, hearts and minds must hear, feel and realize the screams of mankind; the SCREAMS of our own youth? And what about those who we left behind lying dead on the streets of the city? Their wish was to spend the New Year at home together with their families. What do you think; we came to this battleground for glory, to make Macedonian history?! The answer my friend is spinning in the wind, spinning away.” I heard his entire confession just as he spoke of it, in a whispering voice.

It has been said that hidden in a whisper is the mumbling of a scary fate, a concealed human tragedy. Towards the end, his thoughts began to grow dim. He raised his shoulders indifferently and kept looking at me. I said: “May God be with you!”

4.

The Nurse Chrisanthi had a face shaped like the moon; she had cute and sympathetic cheeks like a chimpanzee, reddish-brown penetrating eyes and a firm body. She was not a classic beauty but she radiated kindness and affection even when she performed the most complex dressings. Her eyes had an unusual magical look about them. This one morning unfortunately she brought us news that Dimo had hung himself from a tall young pine tree with a noose he had made himself. He was found hanging barefoot, being rocked by the wind... He left a farewell letter which in part read: “It is difficult to think of good and of beautiful things when you are preoccupied, every minute of every day, thinking of how to survive… Today, our view of life was destroyed…” God, I should have gone to see Dimo again. I closed my eyes, opened them again but I had no tears to shed for him. I said out loud: “This is our fate!” Behind me I heard Leonidas’s voice. He said: “Destiny, according to Laiosh Zilahi, is something which acts before it manifests itself in space, before it turns into an event. Various parts of the action need to be in order, to harmonize deep inside, before they convert to a visible event. Naturally, that’s when we say it’s ‘fate’ and by then it is usually too late to influence it. You have been saying for some time now, ‘accustom your soul to small tragedies so that it becomes immune to a big one’. However, nothing can kill the inside of a person more than the tragedy of seeing a loved one dead.” Before leaving, for a moment or two, my consciousness was in shock from the news we had just received. I felt horrible, shaken and sad and refused to accept the dark nature of his death. I had to ask: “Was he dead?” “Oh, my blood brother, I did not have the strength to see for myself, but my soul will forever mourn for him...” she said. I don’t know why, but Dimo’s death hurt me very much. I thought about him for a long time. Many of my friends took their last breath before my eyes, but I have a separate place in my memory for him.

5.

One day while spending time in the hospital rehabilitating, a group of us gathered together to discuss the pros and cons of the gun. All the patients in our department had combat experience and all they talked about were the battles they had fought. The most common question was, “Why were the Germans armed with machine guns and we were not?” We also thoroughly discussed the shortcomings and flaws of certain rifles and machine guns. One of the weaknesses of the guns that we considered was the inaccurate aiming sight. It was outdated and awkwardly placed on top of the gun barrel. We all agreed that the strengths of a gun included its chrome barrel that would not rust and did not require regular lubrication. Having chrome barrels on guns would have solved many problems and avoided the hardships encountered with cleaning the guns. Everyone agreed on those points. Regarding the rifle butt and grip we all agreed that

wood was the best material for that. Unfortunately in later models wood was replaced with metal, at least in the butt part. We all concluded that the designers, when designing rifles, subconsciously expressed more the concepts of the culture to which they belonged than they did the practicalities of its use. Guns made in the United States, for example, by tradition had to perform, show virtuosity and be impressive. The Japanese guns had to be of good quality but they could not remove the impression that they were reworked, although good copies. The German tradition, we agreed, was to build guns that endured, similar to those in Russia, but with many elements of comfort. As the old saying goes “the more complicated the device the more vulnerable it is”. Russia has always looked for functionality in its designs; other things were of less importance. We spent most of our time analyzing the efficiency of the bullet tip and concluded that it was the “guarantee” of success because it rotated in the body it hit and caused the fatal wound. Of all of us Arianos was the most satisfied with our analysis and discussions about the gun. Unfortunately he was unable to speak and could not say a single word because he had been shot by a bullet in his lower jaw. Our discussion, however, made him proud because we, even in our leisure time, discussed the essential problems of war...

6.

We had an unexpected visit in front of the underground barracks by a young man named Vioreli Dzin Dzni Dzif; he was a Vlach. He had been caught just three days after the attack on the city Konitsa and was captured with his pick and other digging tools, which he used while searching for hidden treasure. We all avoided him because he was identified by our political commissars as a suspicious person and a capitalist. I was sure of that when several of our people went somewhere and did not want to be in his company. But Vioreli Dzin Dzni Dzif did not care, or perhaps he did not know that he was followed by Spiros, our political commissar. The suspicions about his activities were based on the fact that Konitsa was a very old city which had many hidden treasures. I am not talking about submerged ships near the shore, which carried gold or very expensive porcelain. I am talking about the myth of the rich Italian general who did not have a successor. That wealth in today’s calculations (1947) would have amounted to several billion pounds. The first case of gold fever appeared about five years previously, during the funeral service of an obsessive miner who was looking for the hidden treasure in a dense pine forest, a place mentioned in the military archives, where the Italian Headquarters in Epirus was located for several years after Greece’s occupation took place during the Second World War. It was alleged that vast quantities of gold were collected and hidden there. According to reliable intelligence sources, when the Italians were leaving in a hurry they buried the treasure 5 metres north and 7 or 17 metres east of the great white pine that was cut on the south side with a large blunt ax and written on it was “Alberto” the warrant officer’s last name. Among the miners, who usually worked at night, at midnight when the moon was directly above, was Vioreli Dzin Dzni Dzif. But now he claims that he still was unable with any certainty to find the white pine... So far thousands of people from Konitsa who had access to the military archives could not find such treasure. But their failure to find it only fuled other people’s desires to look for it, so another oral version of the myth began to circulate. Even the Konitsa authorities got involved and decided that the wealth belonged to the government and should be sent to Athens and added to the state reserves. There were all kinds of stories being spread and no doubt Vioreli Dzin Dzni Dzif was also involved in spreading them. After he was captured he became somewhat confused and as if without thinking he suspiciously asked: “If you really have come here for the gold, I would like to join you. I will show you the map of the Italian camp, which will help you find the gold faster and avoid frustration and waste of time.” That’s when Spiros the political commissar and Arianos burst out laughing. Arianos then said: “We fight for socialism and this man wants us to look for treasure! What a joke? I repeat what a joke!”

7.

And as such the days and months passed us by as new wounded were brought in and news from the war continued to arrive; sometimes good, sometimes bad. Several months later during a cold and rainy spring night I found myself alone with Leonidas in the underground barracks. He said to me: “You see what they’ve done to us? They made us not want to talk about our own pain but want us to go into a deep flawless analysis about the effectiveness of the murderous bullet... Who knows what they will make us yet...” Leonidas was looking like a famous aristocratic personality. When they handed us our food he would look around and then make a grimacing face, showing disgust at the smell of the pot of stew or at the stink of fish, garlic, or cheap tobacco. I noticed that Dimo Shumenkov and Rula would often do the same thing when smelling the food. But Rula only did that before she married General Tsaruhas. About Tsaruhas and Rula, I want to mention that we did not finish our talk in spite of carrying on deep into night. At dawn, just as the clouds parted and the sun came out, Leonidas stuck his head out of the window and said: “Today I will take you for a slow walk to the top of those rocks and I will show you the camp of our elite leaders and generals.”