A PERSON

A PERSON

Do you remember? It was a long time ago... Oh in our desolate country… why can’t you remember…? It was that huge old man Risto Dorin. That mountain man with white hair and a hairy chest, with shoes stained with fresh mud, with his head half white covered by his fur hat and the other half, bold, burned by the sun, and his entire face, blue like a blue homespun coat.

He was dead; hanging from a tree for a few days and clusters of ravens landed and flew off him when the rope unwound. Those cursed birds hurried, each trying to drink more from Risto Dorin’s expired eyes… He was hung there as an example to the others… so that the people in the area could understand what could happen to them...

It was early morning when Kapetanios Stathis arrived with his company. He was purported to be a strong men with shapely good bones. He had grown a beard and hung his guns and knives from his belt. People said he never put his knife back after he killed someone with it, without licking the blood dry from it. It was as if by law he had to lick his victim’s blood from it. He always wanted to see what his victim’s blood tasted like. He believed it protected him from loosing his own blood...

That Kapetanios Stathis was a terribly cruel person, whose mission was to end us all... to shake up the people to help him begin that long process, because the people of that region of Greece were very strange, stubborn and even revolted against the laws of the Holy Kingdom.

The Kapetanios came here to serve with his “special units” and to put things in order. He was in a very good psychological mood and knew how to treat these people, who for many years did not understand the general line. They did not understand the sword that swung over their heads and the gallows that dangle from the breath of pain and cries of horror.

Calmly, in the bosom of the night, as was always since immemorial, the villagers were sleeping under the legendary mountain Vicho. But

this morning they woke shaken from the bursts of exploding mortars that exploded in the streets.

Even the dogs did not bark. Something unusual had happened to all living creatures down the valley. It lasted a long time. Then strong and fast, just like bursts of exploding mortars, someone’s hand rang the church bell and a dirty distressed voice cried out:

“Attention, attention! Listen, listen, villagers! Everyone, from cradle to the eldest, must report to the church. Do it now, in five minutes, because if we find you later we will consider you a bandit”.

This call was repeated several times. And so, half asleep, the people quickly shuffled their way down the streets to reach the church before the five minutes expired. Just in time they arrived in front of the church, in front of the walls built with inscribed stones during Samoil’s time. And now those inscribed stones, which the Greek authorities had covered with stucco so that they couldn’t be seen, had the people trapped. Those were images carved with great pain, as the fearless soldiers stood in front of the red hot sword. And how, a one-eyed guide had painfully led the blind in a difficult march to their hometown. And now their descendants kneel outside those same walls facing machine guns, under the whip of time, exposed to the psychological process of that Kapetanios Stathis, who anxiously looked at the clock and was terribly angry because those lame elderly limped along the streets, those mothers who washed their infants on their breasts with tears were crying, and because their dry cough cut the morning silence... The people walked like slaves under the rugged look of the kapetanios being led to their slaughter.

They walked with a grim thought, which at times is so strong that it erodes the human mind; how do you respond in a language you don’t know, when the price for not knowing is paid in blood… every one is hoping: “maybe he will not ask me...”

And he, Kapetanios Stathis, wearing those braids and armed to the teeth was calmly puffing his cigarette, looking like he was watching a defeated army approaching. But what is true is true; he greatly contributed to the order in this region because he fulfilled all the royal laws with utmost conscience, and it was not that easy to deal

with those “Ohranists” from the northern part of the country. But he knew he would be rewarded and promoted to Major, so...

He ordered the formation of the “tunnel of death”. That’s what the villagers called it. The gendarmes stood in two rows, facing each other, and the people passed through the tunnel they made. But often the makeshift tunnel was blocked with falling bodies. Stathis easily knew how to solve that problem. He had his two lines of gendarmes move along in the direction of the people called on to then hit harder.

“Be ruthless; show no mercy, not for the old, not for the weak, not for the wounded… And those veiled women…? you know nothing about them… they are underhanded ‘Amazons’…!” he yelled.

After everyone was beaten he went down to examine his work… his excitement was rising in his chest...

“I want to ask you, ladies, gentlemen!” he addressed them in an ironic tone of voice. “Is there anyone here born of a Greek mother?” He then waited in silence listening to the moaning and groaning.

“Speak! Barbarians…! Bandits…!” he yelled out and pointed his whip at individual people.

“You…! Over there…! What’s your name?” he asked a man.

“Bozhin, Sir, but in your registry, in my birth certificate, I am called Theofilos, Sir!” he replied.

“Skase! Slavomutro!” (“Shut up! Slavic scum!” in Greek) he yelled and ordered the phalanx to take him away and beat him to unconsciousness.

“And you old dove... What’s your name,” he asked an old lady.

“Nevena, my dear grandson…” she replied in Macedonian.

“What?! What?! Were you not given a Greek name?” he yelled at her.

“What is he asking me people? I don’t understand him...” yelled the old woman in Macedonian. But Stathis welcomed her reply with a swift punch in the mouth knocking out more of her sparse teeth. She forgot about her fear when she dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

But this was not the preferred method the phalanx would have used. The phalanx has a perfect method for dealing with situations like this. The phalanx would have tied the person with a rope around the neck and around the legs just under the knees in a circle so that the person’s feet were up while the person was lying on their back on the ground. This had a traumatic and psychological effect on those watching, especially when the person was beaten with sticks under the feet and struck with a rifle all over the body, but particularly on the gut. And what was most important about all this was that the phalanx had done its job… a job well done…

Then he, Kapetanios Stathis, would go from beaten body to beaten body and mercifully ask:

“Now my dear sir, tell me where are the bandits…? Are you helping them? Do you have a gun? Why aren’t you telling me? You can see for yourself how much you are suffering... Don’t you want all this to stop?”

He had a very soft soul when he was in the mood. But when he wasn’t, watch out, may God have mercy on the poor souls he was torturing…

After being beaten some passed out… And what good was it beating a person who did not feel it. But the phalanx knew its job. It would revive the person with a cold bucket of water. This was a folk remedy. Then, after that, they pointed the black revolutionary pipe (rifle barrel) at the person’s temple. Those watching were dying much faster than those being tortured.

That was well and good but my father, Risto Dorin, who could no longer watch, jumped out from the pile of old men and grabbed the rifle barrel. After that the old man stopped struggling and the

phalanx pacified him. All excited, Kapetanios Stathis came over and personally engaged himself in the short speech:

“In the name of the law, in honour of the king, in self-defense, in saving the image and honour of the army, I order you to hang this underhanded bandit by the neck…”

After this the gathering was disbanded, but not until after several “underhanded” bandits who, at any moment could become a danger to the state, were selectively apprehended to be sent to the island Leros. Then the guardians of the law ordered the villagers to prepare lunch for them and bring it under the thick shade of the tree where several villagers were already roasting mountain lambs over a spit. “Nice… Very nice…! Tomorrow we will go to another village. Koreshtata is a larger village. This is now Kapetanios Stathis’s kingdom, he is here now… his capital is set in a beautiful white country house...” one of the gendarmes was heard saying.

But as Kapetanios Stathis collected the “underhanded” bandits, less and less of them remained in his kingdom so he pondered and asked himself “how hard could it be to crush these barbarians who are a burden to the state? To exterminate all these “Ohranians” to the last person…?” Then, one day, rumours were circulating that our people had captured Stathis in one of the villages. When those who captured “burandar Stathis” brought him to their unit commander, they introduced him as follows:

“This is Kapetanios Stathis the one who slaughtered everything. The one who burned our villages… who tortured the very soul of our homeland...”

The unit commander looked at him from top to bottom and, with a sense of pride, asked him:

“Do you have a family Kapetanios Stathis?”

“I have…” answered Stathis patiently.

“Do you want to live, Kapetanios Stathis?” asked the unit commander.

“Yes, Commander, yes, I do...” replied Stathis.

“I know, Kapetanios, that when a man commits evil without thought he will always find an excuse for his crime,” said the unit commander and then ordered his unit:

“Let him go!”

All those who heard this were shocked.

“Let him go, Commander!?” yelled a young man whose house Stathis had burned down.

“Let him go!” shouted the commander, and addressed the young man:

“Young man, a soul cannot be won with weapons, it has to be won with humanity...”

Burandar Stathis was unable to come to grips with what was happening. “How is that possible?” he thought to himself. “Is this man telling me the truth… after all the destruction I have caused?” Stathis looked at his own hands. They looked like they were covered with fresh blood. He shook them to get rid of it. Then he felt like his very soul was stained...

Then, when the partisans left, he was left alone. He looked at the sky. It seemed like all his victims were gathering around him… all the people he had slain with passion. He could not walk… he felt like his legs were paralyzed. It seemed like the large stones in the surrounding landscape had turned into people and they were silently crying after being stabbed with a sharp dagger… This was Stathis’s method of ending their line.

“No, not here where the soil is bare! No, no, those encircling me are not those whom I have slain, but...” he was mumbling in fear.

Then, when he reassured himself that everything was okay, he took a step checking to make sure that he did not step on any blood. He

then remembered how he had toyed with his victims… poking them with his dagger to make sure they were not alive.

There is no one left for him now… He no longer deserved to be called a person.

His thoughts circled through his head rushing to find answers: “Why did he free me? Why does he not require revenge? He is a man, a commander. He is a man just like another man who lost everything because I killed his father, mother, wife and children. Why has he set me free? Who am I…?” He kept walking somehow insecure and again asking himself: “Maybe I should go back to my family that is waiting for me to come back after the war... I should go back to my children. The war here is ending… In what state will the commander find his family? And where will he find it? Where will he find all the people that I drove out of their homes...?

With what kind of passion did I slaughter them? Why did I do that? Why?” Then he remembered shooting at a cradle with a child inside. The child was laughing and waving its hands at him. Then, frightened from the exploding gun, the child ran to its mother. But to save herself from further torment and humiliation she took the child and jumped out of the window. He stood there laughing and aiming his gun at her while she lay on the ground in terrible pain.

“What made me do that? Who am I serving? Whose interests are served to make this nation suffer so much? Yes, a man rarely perpetrates such evil acts on his own... But why am I the only one that is guilty? And whose orders did I follow...?” he thought to himself.

He walked slowly and then suddenly turned and yelled:

“Where the hell would you go, man?!”

He then said: “Keep going! Keep going… And if you can, go ahead; live free in the evil world you created…”

From the distance we all were yelling at him, calling his name. He stood over a cliff and replied:

“People!” he yelled, “Be proud of your birthright... You have earned the right to call yourselves people! You carry humanity in your soul!” and then thought to himself: “How great are these people…? Now one can see how strong they are. They too can kill… but will not… and I?! ... Who needs this kind of freedom...?”

He looked down the valley... It seemed to him like he saw his victims coming to meet him... and then there he was… a huge man approaching… an inexorable growl emerged from his mouth… He looked again and saw houses burning… in flames, people on fire calling him… extending their burning arms to him...

He started running frantically towards the rocks and collapsed... a little later the damn birds were pecking at him...