SEARCHING FOR OUR MISSING ROOTS

SEARCHING FOR OUR MISSING ROOTS

We buried Aunt Pandoitsa on a day like today.

The only people present were the gravediggers, Uncle Pando and myself. A cold wind was blowing. I was chilled down to my bones. It was a bad wind blowing hard as if wanting to pick us all up, living and dead, and toss us in some desolate place. This is what one of the gravediggers said. The man looked like a giant, very strong, but his voice was a bit weak, like it had been taken away. He did most of the things at my aunt’s funeral.

They began to lower the coffin into the grave rather early and in haste. Uncle Pando jumped up and opened the coffin lid and kissed my aunt on the hands, forehead and lips and said, “May the earth be light on you… you were a faithful partner…” and closed the lid. We all rushed to grab a handful of soil and threw it over the coffin. The gravediggers did the rest; noisily tossing soil on top of the casket until the grave was covered and all the excavated soil had disappeared. It the end the man, the giant man, took the cross and struck it hard into the ground. It was so hard everyone thought he had struck the coffin.

After that we all shook and rubbed our hands silently, seeming as if we were doing some secret work and repeated the old man’s words: “May the earth be light on you…”

No one did what our customs require us to do for a funeral except for old Uncle Pando who pulled out a bottle and said: “Let us drink to her soul...” We all took a sip of his rakia and swallowed it hard. The giant man took a big mouthful and, as he handed the bottle back to the old man, he said: “It felt good to have a drink old man, especially in this cold wind…” Uncle Pando drank the rest of the rakia when we returned to the house.

Now when I look at the picture of my aunt I cry. I feel bad for sending her off in such a simple way. Before she died she used to laugh out loud when someone looked at her with pity and with a gentle gaze. She loved people very much. She enjoyed their pride. It seemed like their presence made her happy. But that was not how

my aunt had been in the past, in her youth. Long ago she did not want to see anyone but towards the end of her life her joy had returned. She became more and more proud as she aged. But Uncle Pando, lured by primordial feelings at a young age, widened his unfulfilled desires and rarely turned towards my aunt.

Perhaps she loved him too much. He was a favourite among the people, he knew how to explain what freedom, slavery and humiliation was… He read the newspapers to them and reminded them of our past. He gave them examples of what it was to be free minded and how it was to be absent of it.

Most people believed him, some were afraid that such knowledge would cause them harm… They would pay a heavy price if the bandit mercenaries of Stathis Hondrokoukis somehow found out.

In those days my aunt supported him but was also worried about him, warning him of the consequences… but he was brave...

There was no changing his mind. She knew that and understood him as “a man who served the people...” Perhaps with that thought in mind, my aunt now wanted her life to end proudly. When she was dying she asked Uncle Pando not to have a priest at her funeral… to be buried without a priest... My aunt believed in God but she loved her husband even more… she loved him all her life and remained a believer in him, even now… she did not want a priest so that the people would not see him as a hypocrite after his years of agitation against religion and everything that blinds people, including unnecessary rituals.

We are alone in this commemoration, just me and Uncle Pando. He drinks and hums while I recollect the bloody dawn when, along with the strong wind, armed thugs with long ugly beards emerged from the dark and invaded our home. They had done this many times but this time they were looking for Uncle Pando.

They beat my aunt, going at her like a pack of wolves on a carcass as the strong wind whirled around them. They took her away and we thought they would kill her. We were all expecting to hear a shot but a little later our breath stopped when we saw huge flames flying out

of my aunt’s house. We were startled. Then we saw my aunt completely naked running to extinguish the fire. And they, the bearded ones, just sat there like guests at a wedding, rubbing their chins and eating lunch from their freshly opened meat cans. We were there watching as my aunt cried out: “Help, people, brothers… help!!” She yelled as hard as she could: “PEOPLE…!!!”

My grandmother Velika was the first to run to her but one of the bearded goons struck her on the head with the butt of his rifle and she fell to the ground… slowly dying in front of us.

When my aunt realized she could not put out the flames her tears dried up and, with unprecedented rage, she began to toss things out of her way. She tried very hard to reach the large door but was unable; the flames and smoke overwhelmed her.

Distraught she ran around the house shouting: “Iana…! Gotse…! My children…! Pando…!” She did this until she heard the wall crack and instantly created a huge dust cloud in front of her. After that she refused to speak… she remained mute until her death… she only laughed out loud.

She felt very anxious when a strong wind blew. She stared at the whirlwind and at the dust demons looking powerless. Sometimes she ran through the ruins pulling out beams of wood that had survived the fire.

My aunt made strings out of her clothes and tied them tightly. She did this day and night when it was windy.

In the beginning she hated the night. The fire made her cry. She was delighted by the water and constantly watered the debris in the yard. In time she increasingly became distant from all of us and only took food from my sister. My sister repeatedly spoke to her and repeatedly kept asking her: “My dear Aunt, who burned Iana, Gotse and killed grandmother… Dear Aunt where are they now? Where are they? Where are they… dear Aunt?”

My aunt would then take my sister in her arms and hug her against her soiled chest. My sister would then cry loudly.

She only took ripe plums from me. I would fill my deep and wide pockets and offer her a handful. She ate them with pleasure and then looked at me as if asking for more. She always wanted more than two handfuls.

She kept food in old, broken earthenware jugs which she picked up from the garbage and which are now regularly visited by roving mice. She smashed all cans that had labels on them with incredible rage. She put them on top of a stone and crushed them with another stone. After that she would take the depersonalized can and run down the valley and toss it in the thornbushes.

She would return tired, having no strength and then sleep on the ground.

One time soldiers, many soldiers, came to our village to occupy the hills above our house because it was an important strategic position. The villagers, being habitually mistreated, thought it was an invasion and feared they all would be burned in their homes like mice. Surprisingly my aunt was not afraid and lashed out at the soldiers and began to throw stones at them.

She threw everything at them including curses and insults. She kept yelling:

“Go ahead, shoot me… Nothing can penetrate my chest... It’s strong… I want to die for all the people that are afraid… I am part of them and I protect them… this here belongs to them…” Then pointing at the ruins she added: “Pando, my husband, taught me how to die for the people… for these people… for you… shoot me… why carry guns if you are not going to use them… piss on your guns. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha… piss on your manhood…”

Many of the soldiers pointed their guns at her but when their commander saw her he said: “No… leave her alone… Leave her… let her remember her children… It is difficult to kill those who want to die for their people... You want to kill someone? Kill those cowards over there…” he said and while pointing at us he added:

“She and those like her are examples in the world of things done during a war. Let her be…” The commander then turned to her and said: “You are brave, woman!”

After that the commander gathered his soldiers and left for the hill. Victorious, my aunt returned to her yard. She sat on a stone and tamely stared at me and my sister. Then she began to look for lice, crushing them between her thumbnails. Standing beyond us were our neighbours seemingly feeling guilty. We heard one of them say: “I will be damned… here we are being humane… feeling sorry for her, while brave Pandoitsa was ready to die for us… for our honour...”

But my aunt kept to herself and did not pay attention to them and what they were saying. When she caught a large louse in her hair she smiled, crushed it and continued looking. Later she went over to her earthenware jugs and rearranged the food she had kept in them; moving it from one jug to another. But most of all she loved to water the flowers growing in the debris. This is how my aunt lived, until one day we were all forcibly evicted from our own residence.

Now I am looking at my Uncle Pando finishing the remainder of his rakia.

He looked at me and I looked back at him… there was pain in his eyes. And as if something in him broke, he said: “I should not have sent her away in silence...”

* * *

After we buried Aunt Pandoitsa all that remained from our family was my Uncle Pando and me. He doesn’t care about anyone anymore. He wears old and torn clothes that people give him. Old torn clothes, that for some reason people don’t want to throw out, they give them to him… perhaps they feel sorry for him.

Everyone gave him food. He was a peaceful man. All the local people had a soft spot for him. They all had questions for him; some even wanted to know about his roots. Most were saying no one knew his origin. Some even asked him embarrassing things… The

only ones who asked him embarrassing things were children and widows...

Every day Uncle Pando was among the people. He left to go somewhere, seemingly looking for someone close to him. Bareheaded in the rain and cold, off he went looking, sometimes taking a curious peek at a rotund woman dragging her naughty children with her. He would stop, take out the yellowed photograph from his deep pocket, touch it to his bare skin and look at it. He would look at the woman then at the photograph, then at the woman again. The photograph was of him and Aunt Paindoitsa with the children in her lap.

Uncle Pando had all sorts of things in that deep pocket of his. He had collected everything that was left from the fire and that was dearest to him, everything that warmed his soul. He shoved everything into that pocket. But now when he looks at the photograph he closes his eyes seeming as if he is unable to shed a tear. No one seems to notice. Of course people are curious and some naturally want to know everything about him and especially what he has to say about our future. We want to know more, we are curious about our destiny; about which he seemed to know a great deal. When we hear him talk our feelings ripen as if they found a spiritual watering hole. In those moments we forget our pain and grief and want to bury everything that makes us unhappy. We want to live happily, to smile away our worries and feed our curiosity. The more we learn the more we want to learn… a great desire… we want to make fun of the old vintage models… we want to be reborn with new desires and to have lively debates amongst us…

It became unbearable for me when Uncle Pando began to constantly ask me about my grandmother Velika and what happened to her. I told him a hundred times but he kept asking me the same thing again and again and again.

I used to say: “I already told you, dear Uncle Pando…!” We buried her following all our customs that we knew about and had learned from the old people.

Then again he would ask: “Did you have a priest…?” and then I would angrily say: “And so what if we did... the funeral lasted over two days. We stayed with her at night and kept the candles burning all night long. My mother constantly poured oil and cursed the bandits who burned Iana and Gotse.”

I used to tell my aunt about this and she constantly cried. I would tell her how they chased us at night to drive us away from our grandmother, who Hondrokoukis’s bandits brutally killed, but we stayed with her body all night, calling for my Uncle Pando.

Uncle Pando too loved to hear all those details but I often angrily would say to him: “Why are you asking so much! You know that my grandmother was an ordinary grandmother. She wasn’t some famous woman…!” I was doing that, hoping that he would stop asking me. But often he would say: “You, my dear nephew… don’t get so angry… Your grandmother was my mother...”

Lately Uncle Pando has forgetten my grandmother Velika and has also lost the photograph of him, my aunt and the children. Now he looks at no one and asks nothing. I watch him roaming around mumbling to himself and distancing himself from everyone. It seems like his memory has been blown away by the wind. And people are right to say that he does not know his own roots...

He is now roaming around and creating new memories. He is deaf, banal and unfit to bear thinking of my aunt, my grandmother Velika, Iana or Gotse. He is running away from us… And I, when I think of my father I cry and because of that I will never be happy…

I just received news that my Uuncle Pando passed away. I don’t know how it happened. But I am sure that he died. For many years I knew that he would die because he had lost so much more than any of us, which left him vulnerable… he became a recluse.

I wanted very much to listen to him when he spoke to people about his know-how, telling them things about everything. But then I felt guilty, but I don’t know if I was the only person from his entire family who felt guilty for not knowing more about Uncle Pando.

But when he did have his memory and was able to speak he would simply start like this:

“They caught me and your grandfather Risto far away from the village.

It would have taken you an hour if you went there on foot. It was the ninth of May, 1946. The place was called Kramolo. We were plowing there. Then around noon bearded men, armed to the teeth, looking like defrocked priests suddenly appeared out on nowhere. They jumped on us like wasps. While they were hitting us they were asking about my brothers. They were asking even more about my father Mano. ‘Where are they? Hand over them…!’ They first tied your grandfather and then me. From there they took us to Kostur. They beat us to near death and then shoved us in a dark cellar. Later they brought us to a court and the first question they asked was: ‘In what kind of organization are you members, Risto and you Pando? And who are your organizers?’

‘We, the people alone… by ourselves…’ said your grandfather, and I said: ‘We will fight…! What do you think…?! We will live like slaves…?’

The court sentenced us to twenty years hard labour and sent us to the prison in Giura Island. We had no idea they had trashed our house and turned it into a wasteland.”

When he paused a bit, seeming like he had finished telling everything, I asked:

“How was it there?”

“There? Hmm…” he replied and waved his hand.

“We the prisoners called it ‘the island of death…, Dachau’ on the Mediterranean Sea. Giura, my nephew, is something totally independent. Something entirely new... The island was the concentration camp of modern barbarism. It was a demonic island… seemingly cursed by nature itself. Every day they gave us salted fish to eat. The thirst melted a man’s body. It was so hot, the stones

cracked from the heat. They gave us water only in a certain place. When we went to drink they beat us with sticks. There were clouds of dust all the time, all throughout the island. We were constantly shoveling and swinging a pick... Whistles were heard blowing, beastly shouting, cursing, swearing, explosions, sticks banging, sticks breaking from hitting one body after another... Anyone who did not manage to drink water had to live with his burgeoning thirst. The water was bad, salty, bitter, disgusting. One time a man went mad from lack of water. His eyes looked like they were on fire and sticking out of their sockets. His tongue trembled between his lips. But at that very moment they struck him with a stick and did not give him any water at all. He died an hour later. His name was Iovan; he was from one of the Lerin Region villages. There was not a drop of water in Giura. The island was desolate… there was no water and not any life living on that stone. No life… just thousands of skeletons.

It has a rocky peak without access. One time, as punishment, they took me by helicopter to the top of the rock and left me there on a pile of rubble. I was there for seven days; all alone hungry and thirsty. For the first time I was afraid of the human form. I was left next to a dead body. Unable to withstand the dryness and heat, the man who was brought there before me had died. I lay there on top of the rubble and he hung over the edge of a sharp rock. His tongue dry and sticking out, his eyes swollen and arms hanging. The birds of prey had pecked at him and he was covered in blood.

I was there seven days. That was the harshest penalty I ever endured. Those who survived and returned alive were called ‘immortals’. After that another one was sent to take my place. I endured well the first day but I felt anxious. Some inner strength made me proud. I was only afraid of the vultures. They flew around and watched me with their sharp eyes, waiting for me to die...

But I kept letting them know that I was still alive. I picked up stones and hurled them at the birds. The worst time was mid-day… in the hottest sun… I lay there with a blurred consciousness… semi-conscious... I was also afraid of the poisonous snakes which often proudly slithered through the rubble.

One day fear overwhelmed me and I surrendered to it like a coward... I wanted to gain my strength, climb to the highest peak and plunge myself over the cliff… I knew that Sourlas and Hondrokoukis hated the kind of courage I had. I also knew that they were back there watching me with their binoculars. They would have loved to see me slowly approach the precipice and gradually sink and fade away in front of their eyes. But I was not going to give them that pleasure because they were people with a cracked conscience... The very moment I reached the edge of the cliff, my desire to rob them of that pleasure won over my desire to jump… especially after I heard them laughing uncontrollably in the distance. My desire to get revenge on them, to rob them of their pleasure, made me stop and stand still. By stopping I cut their laughter short... I then leaned forward on the cliff edge to see what happened… and again they began laughing. I was unsteady on my feet and did not want to look in their direction leaning over the edge… I could lose my balance and fall… Standing there I felt like something grabbed my leg… I sat down… I stayed there for a long time. Their laughter stopped.

Sitting down motionless they thought I had died, my soul had left my body. I thought I had died too but I must have just passed out because later, at sunset, I opened my eyes. Everything seemed different now; the stones seemed to be tighter together. I felt every stone I could reach. They were all loose. I could hear them creaking as I twisted them. They rubbed against one another and made creaking sounds. I then grabbed one that looked like a buried ball joint. I tried to uproot it but I couldn’t. I became fond of this one and held it with both hands. I lay there and hugged it with confidence that when I gained my strength it would help me stand up. It would support me when I leaned on it to get up. I returned back to the pile of rubble where I came from. I stayed there until the seventh day. Here too I felt death crawling beside me, trying to slither fear into my thoughts, trying to prevent me from having healthy thoughts… I thought that the vultures had attacked me but I was not sure… I could not prove it. Had I been attacked?

Your grandfather endured a lot too. But could no longer endure when they showed him a photograph of your father Mano who

looked like he had been beheaded and his head was held up by a pike, while being paraded all through the city Kostur.

One afternoon Hondrokoukis, standing in front of your grandfather’s tent, said to him:

‘Do you recognize him?’ Your grandfather became very upset and reached out to grab the photograph but Sourlas hit him hard on the head with a stick and killed him. They refused to let me bury him. They said to me:

‘He is going officially.’ In other words they would take him where they took the dead… behind the rocks… and drop his body into the abyss.

I wish I didn’t remember all this… But then everyday I think of them and wish that one day I will see them again...” concluded my Uncle Pando as he stared at me sympathetically in silence.

He then began to tell me more. He said:

“We slept in large tents. The tent became my favourite place where everyone was one of our people (Macedonian).

The canvas was thin but was our border and inside it were our people (Macedonians). The thin canvas protected us from the wind, the rain and the onlookers… We inside were born of thirty mothers. I was among the oldest there and everyone around me behaved with respect. My place was the corner. Next to me was Petre from Mala Prespa. Petre was good at catching flies. He had a hatred for them and was skilful at catching them with his rough hands. He was happy to open his hand and say: ‘Look… a big fly…” and giggle with the words: “Everything that is weaker than me… gets it like this… Hondrokoukis and Sourlas... are enough for me…”

When he needed to delouse himself he undressed… completely naked.

He would catch the lice and put them in a beverage bottle he had found. The bottle had lice in it from a long time ago, a long

forgotten time, but each time he added a new one he would curiously watch it and see how it behaved over the dead lice and see if the hungry lice would attack and eat it.

He equated the lice with the people... ‘No one could be prosecuted for this kind of murder in the rocks and in this camp…’ Petre used to say. He did not want to kill the lice himself directly… and was embarrassed about it. He used to say that he did not want to get his hands dirty like Kapetanios Hondrokoukis who enjoyed watching blood flow.

These creatures here have more rights under us than we have under Hondrokoukis and Sourlas… These lice are personally mine...” Petre used to say… Petre the lice killer... By doing this Petre assured himself that he could take revenge on those who meant him harm... He could exact revenge on them by sentencing them to death.” concluded Uncle Pando.

Time after time my Uncle Pando used to tell me all kinds of stories from his life experience… He knew how to be articulate... Today my travels took me to this park where I heard laughter and voices. Someone said: “Pando is gone….” followed by laughter and then the person said: “Ha, ha, ha, ha, who knows where he went…”

I sat on a bench under the shade of a lush scented lime tree. Only a few of the sun’s rays penetrated through its dense leaves. I sat there and thought of my Uncle Pando, my aunt, my father and of all those I knew in our family who had died. I thought of my father’s head… where it might be… where his bones might be… I sat there searching for our missing roots...