WELCOME TO THE KOLHOZ NEW LIFE - Part 02

for that promised victory they left empty barns, barrels, jugs, fields and empty houses. The people were given a piece of paper upon which was written that when victory came, the people’s government would return everything to them to the last grain... And before that? Before that they gave them sickening pain… They gathered their children, both young and old. To the young they gave a one way ticket away from home. To the older they gave a rifle and made them targets at the front. Their houses were emptied and their courtyards silent. The village streets were silent; the musical instruments were silent; the church bells were silent... And every moment was filled with fear, waiting, crying and great burning uncertainty...

The victory didn’t come, but... the great and bloody defeat did which, following the long roads of a crusade, brought them here to this Ukrainian hata.

They sat motionless and nodded, the thoughts in which the claws of longing had them in their grasp.

All the while, Volodimir, the Ukrainian who came secretly from far away only to see if his hata was still standing, was talking, with their thoughts they had taken all the roads back and were already at home... This is where their inconsolable, inexpressible and indescribable, with words, sadness had taken them...

“May God bless you, dear people…” said Volodimir interrupting the silence. “Thank you for the bread, cheese, onions and salt. I haven’t eaten anything sweeter... May God give you long life and much health... My dear people, I will pray for you all my life until God takes me...” Then he crossed himself three times and bowed three times...

On his way out, Volodimir stopped at the door where Mitre and Mara stood next to each other, bowed low, almost to the ground, crossed himself in the Orthodox way three times and said:

“Good people, may God reward you, I am grateful for your hospitality and beg you, along with...” said Volodimir and without finishing what he was going to say, went back to the big room. He

went to the corner and took out a piece of the board. He crossed himself three times and took something out of the dark hole. It was wrapped in a thick dark cloth. He slowly and carefully unwrapped it like it was a diaper on a newborn baby, turned around, and when he returned Mitre and Mara saw that in his trembling hands he was holding a small icon of the Mother of God. Volodimir slowly and gently blew the dust off it, crossed himself, kissed the frozen and smoked-filled icon and, with a silent plea in his tearful eyes, said:

“Please look after my home and Mother of God be with you...”

He left during the night.

In his hata he left his soul and pain, and with him he took the spark of hope and confidence that he would someday return...

Mara sighed and in a sad voice said:

“The poor man... poor us... poor us who are strangers in this place and in this foreign house. We are like chaff blown away by the cold wind...

Mara hung the icon in the same corner.

Mitre finally found a use for the small, open flame oil lamp he had found in the trash scattered in front of the church. He cleaned and polished it well until it looked like it was new, filled it with oil, put a wick in it and placed it in front of the icon. He then tried to light a match with his trembling hands but the matchstick broke. Whispering, Mara said to him:

“Strike the match slowly and gently…” prompting Mitre to say loudly:

“I know how to light a match!” his voice echoing in the large room.

He had success on his second attempt. The match slowly flared up and Mitre, trying not to breathe on it, put its flame against the wick. He rolled the wick handle left and right to give the wick more oil and once the wick was lit, he adjusted the flame just right. The pale

flame fluttered and trembled, powerless against the breeze, shedding its light in the corner in front of the Mother of God.

The warm light was pouring into the room. The shadows of Mitre and Mara grew large behind them against the wall. Watching the flame of the little lamp glow consoled their hearts.

The little light warmly enveloped and nourished Mitre and Mara’s souls. Its shine brought them a small ray of happiness. The two stood in front of the flame silently staring into the sad eyes of the Mother of God. They prayed in silence, and in their prayers they wished that all those who pray before the Mother of God be filled with goodness.

Mara too had her own prayers. Barely audibly, with her mind, heart and soul, she whispered: “Golden Mother of God open and illuminate our way back... Please send us home…”

The lamp was burning into the night until the wick burned out. The shadows were diminishing and melting into darkness full of prayers.

The next morning after breakfast, after Mara got up from the table, she quietly whispered to Mitre:

“Mitre, I just remembered something... That Ukrainian man, you know, yesterday, whispered to me on his way out. He said: ‘Ask Pan, (Pan in Polish means gentleman, Sir), ask him if he can cut the grass in the cemetery’. The poor man, very kindly said: ‘Their souls will breathe easier when the sun shines on their graves…’ Please Mitre, go and buy a scythe and cut the grass... to soothe their souls, Mitre, to let them breathe the warmth of God’s light, to let the sun warm them... Go, go Mitre...”

There was level ground high above their wooden hata. Knee high brush and grass had grown. And there, in the tall grass was a distorted and broken Orthodox cross. A broken tombstone…

Mitre looked around and while looking he said:

“This is a forgotten and abandoned cemetery...

Whose pain lay here? Whose burning pain?

And does the fact that you go there every day and light a candle give you any comfort?

“No... It only exacerbates your pain and sadness... because it is painful and sad to see abandoned and forgotten cemeteries... it is as if you have forgotten those you left behind...” said Mitre.

There were no tombstones and crosses in the Ukrainian cemetery in Liskovate except for the plaque put there by Volodimir.

The nearest place one could find broken tombstones and Orthodox crosses was the brook where they had been dumped by vandals. There was only one tombstone left on the dry grass in the cemetery. There were no markings to show where the graves were. Evil, anger and revenge over time had poured over the graveyard and everything was destroyed. There were winners and losers here. Both left desolation behind. The naked hill was overgrown with bushes and thorns. The wind was swinging the distorted Orthodox cross above the bell tower. It was now used as a perch for the crows. It was a wilderness filled with painful sorrow.

There was dark loneliness all around and above this holy place.

“Mitre, Mitre, wake up. Someone is knocking on the door,” said Mara.

Mitre went, opened the door, but quickly came back and said:

“Get up, Mara, get up. Pavle is begging you to go and see Pavlevitsa...”

“Oh, the sweet woman, her hour has come,” said Mara and quickly got out of bed.

Mara got dressed quickly and, without saying a word, ran to their house. She came back late in the afternoon and happily said:

“It’s a boy... Pavlevitsa is well and Pavle is very happy...”

“God bless their child, may it be well…” said Mitre and crossed himself three times.

In the evening, Mara went to see Pavlevitsa, who had brought a third child into the world. Now she only had pictures of the other two. They were living in a boarding house in Hungary. The two women looked into each others eyes and smiled a joyful smile. Mara, leaning over the newborn, touched his forehead and prayed for him wishing him to grow up healthy and when he did grow up to plant a seed of good hope...

A child was born in Liskovate, a new seed in a foreign land. Will it take root here? Will it mature here? Will it grow and flourish here or will it one day find itself uprooted and sent somewhere else?

On the fortieth day after the baby was born, Pavle and Pavlitsa’s hata was filled with guests who brought them gifts and shared their joy.

Like they did back home, the newcomers often got together in someone’s house. They followed their old traditions, even though they were settled in those wooden houses far away from home. By now they didn’t mind so much because they knew, like themselves, their former German speaking owners had been banished. They sympathized with them and gave them their love because, like themselves, they too had been exiled not only without the right to return but also to never speak of their homes again.

Were there similarities between them?

Was there something connecting them together?

If there was, what was it?!

Not everyone was able to endure life in Krushchenko and Liskovate. Many moved to the cities, learned new skills and got jobs in the factories. They became city folk, factory workers, proletarians, but deep down in their souls they were still villagers and persevered with their old village habits. Their hands never moved away from the hoe and the plow, and they accepted as much of the alien life as they needed to so as not to be rude and unkind to their Polish neighbours. Others, however, were slowly swallowed by the middle and began to celebrate Easter twice. And those who stayed in Kroshchenko and in Liskovate renewed their old home habits and took to the meadows, fields and hills just like they had done before. They quietly sang their own Macedonian songs, shared Macedonian memories, gathered together in reunions that looked like the reunions that they had had back home… but nothing was the same… because they weren’t at home… They would never be allowed to return home to their birthplace. Their thoughts and memories of home were the only things that brought them home, which somewhat eased their sadness and heartaches.

Finally, after years of abandonment, the deserted and looted Ukrainian hata saw shining light, heard resounding human voices and admired the smoke rising above their straw roofs.

The yards, meadows, fields… all came alive. The green valley that had been languishing for years, the deserted hills and fields without owners, all came alive with the labour and sweat of the refugees who didn’t like this alien, hilly and remote land. They didn’t like the green pine forests and the grasses on which the deer grazed. But they did rejoice at the sight of their golden plants swollen with grain swaying in waves under the gentle wind. Unfortunately this too was a sad sight… This too felt alien… it wasn’t theirs.

The refugees couldn’t adapt to this country. They didn’t feel it was theirs. They knew that others loved it very much, and these others sorrowfully mourned for it, dreamed of it, longed for it and hoped some day they could return to it and again love it with the same love. They could again work it with their sweat, plow it with joy and happiness, harvest its fruit and die here. This country rightfully belonged to others who loved it with their hearts and souls, who felt its warmth when they walked upon it, knelt upon it, lay upon it, were born on it and died on it… This is where they had started their life and this is where they ended it... When they knelt, when they slept, when they walked, they saw themselves in it, they kept their past in it, they waited for the new day in it… but those stronger than them gave them no choice…

Did they have a choice?!

The summer was coming to an end. The children brought here from Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and some from Yugoslavia, to be with their parents, began to enroll in the school. Unfortunately they didn’t have a Macedonian teacher in Krushchenko to teach them in the Macedonian language. The party secretary ran into Tome Fartsalovski, nicknamed Fartsalata, on the road, stopped him and said:

“You, Comrade Tome, you have done some teaching before. Is that right?”

“What does one need to know to be a teacher?” asked Tome jokingly. His step, as always, was playful and his eyes, as always, looked foggy. He claimed the vodka he drank was doing this to him.

“All one needs to know is how to read and write a little... sing a little, folk songs, but mostly war songs...” replied the party secretary.

“If that’s all it takes then you won’t find anyone better than me!” declared Tome.

And this is how Tome Fartsalata, the village’s hired hand from Mali Noze and DAG’s assistant to the cook, became a teacher.

Tome sang beautifully and, in addition to singing folk songs, he also sang many revolutionary songs. He taught the children to read and write and sing the more popular partisan songs like “Izrei zora na slobodata”, “Vo borba, vo borba narode Makedonski”, “A bre Makedonche”… - every song that was sung in Vardar Macedonia during the war with the Bulgarians and in Gramos and Vicho by the Macedonian partisans. These songs were sung for as long as no one said that these were Tito’s songs and, by party order, stopped the

children from singing them. These songs were taken from Kosta Ratsin’s songbook which Tome had stolen from the Katlanovo hospital library when he was undergoing treatment after the partisans lost the battle for Voden. Whether out of jealousy or from any other illness, and at that time the greatest illness was to be called a Tito supporter, someone reported Tome to the party committee. The party committee then closed the school down. Tome was dismissed and sent to work in the farms leading horses.

He didn’t complain. He was pleased because his salary was now higher...

Before going to bed, Mitre rubbing his feet, quietly and calmly said to Mara:

“Mara I have a hard time sleeping. My legs are frozen at night. I’m cold. Please, knit a pair of socks for me...”

Mara sat next to him, put her hand on his knee and said:

“Mitre, I don’t have knitting needles or yarn. I would knit you a pair today if I had those things...”

Mitre hugged her gently, kissed her forehead and said:

“Tomorrow is market day in town. I’ll go to the market and buy you what you need.”

“If you can’t find yarn, then buy some wool and I’ll make my own yarn. You’ll have to make me a distaff (a rod that holds the wool). I will have to wash the wool and it should dry in a couple of days. I will then separate it by hand, stretch it, put it on the distaff and then turn it into yarn with a spindle,” boasted Mara with a slight smile.

Mitre returned from shopping late in the afternoon and threw a sack full of white wool at Mara’s feet. Mara dumped the wool onto the floor, took a few lumps and rubbed them in her palms.

“It’s rough and sweaty but good, I’ll dip it in boiling water and then rinse it well in the brook. It’s good but not soft and silky like ours... Our wool, Mitre...” said Mara but her voice broke before she could finish her sentence. She took a deep breath, wiped her tears with her sleeve and said: “Needles, Mitre, did you bring me needles?”

“No! I looked everywhere in the market but I couldn’t find needles. Pavle, our neighbour, who was with me told me that knitting needles can also be made from plain wire, like the one that hangs on the fence. How many needles do you need?” asked Mitre.

“Five short ones for socks. For other things like a scarf or a sweater, just two, but long ones...” said Mara.

The next day Mara lit a fire in the yard and placed her gium (a large vessel used for storing and boiling water) full of water on top of a metal stand over it. She spread the wool out on a blanket in the sun to air. She put more wood in the fire until the flames began to lick the bottom of the gium. The water began to slowly boil. And as the water boiled harder, Mara could feel her heart beating faster. Something was boiling in her head and heart… bubbling and boiling...

Mitre brought the wooden trough he’d found tossed in the rotten grass and leaves, cleaned it, washed it and placed the wool in it. He then slowly and moderately poured boiling water over the wool and Mara mixed it with the wooden paddle, twisting it, lifting it, lowering it and hitting it hard… She did this several times then took handfuls of it and placed it over the fence to drain. Mara stepped aside, while wiping her hands with her apron, and with satisfaction said:

“Now let it drain... it will dry by tomorrow. I will separate it with my fingers and after that we’ll collect it on spools and then spin it...”

The next day Mitre went to the bushes looking for hazel and dogwood shrubs and brought home a dogwood rod on top of which had three branches. He peeled the bark off with his pocket knife, cut off a bit of the outer branches and left the centre branch longer and pierced a slit in it.

“Look, this is your distaff...” said Mitre sounding very pleased, handed it over to Mara and added: “Mara, here’s your distaff, take it.”

“It’s good but it’s long for me, cut off a little. The distaff should be flat in front of my eyes. Cut some off. Cut it here. Enough, no more. Let me start now,” replied Mara.

Mara placed the distaff under her left arm, squeezed it with her elbow and said:

“In good health and with God’s help!” and crossed herself. Then, with her left hand using her thumb and index finger, she pulled a thin lock of wool from the distaff, attached it to the spindle and with the three fingers of her right hand gently twisted the spindle. It didn’t work; the spindle fell on her lap. She spun it again and the spindle again fell on her lap. Her fingers didn’t want to work. She was out of practice. She hadn’t placed a distaff under her arm for a long time. All through the war the distaff and spindle were collecting dust in the dark cellar. In those days there was no spinning or weaving. What was left of the wool was hastily knitted into socks and sweaters and donated to the war effort, which promised the people freedom and for which the villagers spent more of their time in the hills and mountains digging trenches and building bunkers than they did in their fields, gardens and sheepfolds. Her fingers, it seems, had forgotten how to spin. During the bad times distaffs, spindles and looms were tossed in attics and cellars. But despite her inability to get the spindle spinning Mara didn’t despair. She moved to the other side of the room, away from the window through which the hill had already cast its shadow, pressed on the distaff hard with her underarm, moistened her fingers with her lips, pulled on the wool held by the distaff, fastened it to the spindle and with her right hand’s fingers spun the spindle again and again. It worked. She gently pulled on the wool, drawing lock after lock, spinning the spindle and wrapping the yarn around it.

Mara was breathing hard and fast like something strange had happened to her. There was joy in her eyes and the more the thread grew the more cheerful she became. The spinning reminded her of home, in her mind she had returned home, returned to those quiet, late autumn and long winter evenings when she and the neighbouring women got together and, under the light of a kerosene lamp or under the light of a pine stick, spun, knitted and stitched...

and modestly, from heart and soul, they sang those unforgettable songs that were joy and sadness, sorrow and hope. They sang:

“Mori chupi Kosturchanki”, “Tvoite ochi, Leno, mori”, “Ne rusaj, prusaj, pred mene, mori lepa”, “Edna nevesta kalesha”, “Aj da begame, mori, Vase”, “Ogreala mesechina”, Biljbilo mi pee po rosata”, “Kinisala Milka za voda da odi”, “Izniknalo cveke vo momini dvorovi”, “Tri godini sevde”, “ Mori Jano, bela Jano”, “Zora se zori”, “Bog da bie, Tino, mori”, “Razbolela se, Kalina”, “Goro le, goro zelena”, “Katinka bolna legnala”, “Cheresha od koren se korneshe”, “Ne se beli, Mare mori, ne se crvi”, “Pijan gredam od grada”, “Izvor voda izvirashe”, “Stani mome da zaigrash”, “Uchi me majko, karaj me”, “Otvori mi, belo Lenche”..., the girls sang the most “Koj ti gi dade, more, tie crni ochi”.

Every time the women got together in the evenings they sang those songs as well as many other songs. They started working with a song in the evening and ended with a song at night...

At home they cooked dinner with a song and sang until it was bedtime.

While they worked with their hands shaping the yarn the women also talked about their families, their crops, their lives, their problems as well as mourned their departed and for each occasion they seemed to have a song; happy and sad songs. They were dear and unforgettable songs sung from the heart and soul. To Mara it seemed like the entire Ukrainian hata was filled with songs, which flowed out into the yard and garden through the half-opened window. And as the spindle spun, it seemed to merge Mara’s past with her present. She spun and murmured; she spun and silently murmured…

Mara spun and the white thread wrapped itself around the spindle, being collected by the reel on the vertebra, and with it persistently and intrusively, like some grey mist in the distance, the thread of memory unfolded.

With moistened fingers she softly smoothed the thread and gently pulled on the wool. She then firmly but gently twisted the spindle

repeatedly over and over again, and while she was doing that she sang one of those dear and unforgettable songs she used to sing at home...

“Otvori mi, belo Lenche” And while she sang this song she could hear the voices of the other women singing in her soul.

And while she sang this song, “Koj ti gi dade, more, tie crni ochi”, her favourite song, it made her spirit come alive...

Mara spun harder and in her firm spin she found herself dancing in the middle of the village, dancing the dances Nevestinskoto, Bairacheto, Zhenskoto, Pushchenoto… and listening to the thunder of drums, the shrill of the zurlа and clarinets echoing and spreading their music far on the opposite hills...

Surrendered to the spin, Mara remembered the dear old and unforgettable days when children fell asleep, some in their mother’s laps and others in their cradle, as the women spun and sang. They fell asleep under the rustle of the spindle and under the songs sung quietly. The dear ones grew up into mature men and women but never made it to the altar of marriage... They were gathered at night and taken somewhere in the dense forests, in the high and rocky mountains and in the bloody battlefields... The pain for them remained with their mothers at home… The fear, the uncertainty and long wait was left behind for their mothers to bear. And on their lips rested the inevitable and pressing question: “Where are they now? Where did the evil take them?”

The spindle spun under Mara’s three fingers collected not only the white thread, but also all that remained as a reminder, time winding and unwinding, changing, cursed, black, eerie and malicious...

The spindle was spinning and gathering thread... unwinding memories from a time past...

There was white thread winding on Mara’s spindle and sorrow unwinding from her soul... and at that moment when her bitterness was burning the hottest, Mara stopped spinning her spindle and

quietly sighed from the depths of her heart and soul, calmed she sat down and said:

“This is how it was...”

After she finished spinning the wool, Mara tied her distaff and spindle together with thread and placed them in the corner. She collected the yarn in two large balls and the next day began to knit. She didn’t rush. Time was in her hands. The material she knitted grew longer every day and spread over her lap. And as she knitted and knitted her thoughts took her to times past...

Mara knitted calmly, and with every loop she made there was a plea, a pain, a sigh, a curse, a desire, a sorrow...

Mara knitted loops and whispered prayers for the souls of those who died in the ships and whose bodies were tossed overboard into the great waters.

Mara knitted, and with every loop she made there was a prayer. Mara knitted, and with every loop she turned there was a tear of pain. Mara knitted loop after loop and for every loop she knitted she turned something in her memory, something quiet and deep, something virtuous and heartfelt, something sad and depressing… Mara sighed deeply for some things that were happening now and for the many things that had happened a long time ago… for things that would never come back... Deep in pain, Mara sighed for many things... for all the things that were there... at home... and for all the things that were here in Liskovate, in Volodimir’s hata, in the poor Ukrainian man’s house who’d been uprooted from his homeland...

Mara knitted loops, and in every loop there was prayer for salvation from calamity and evil and to be unleashed from the clutches of this endless pain. And with the next loop there was a silent, deep, pious and sad sigh and a deafening cry... Loop to loop, prayer to prayer, pain to pain, desire to desire, sigh to sigh...

Mara knitted, and as the needles made the loop, her thoughts knitted the names of people, good and bad people, good and bad times, songs sung at weddings, at harvest, in the vineyards…

She knitted the days and years she had left behind. Mara looped and every loop was a man, a name, a house, a song, a dance, a hill, a meadow, a vineyard, a prayer for good, for health and for the souls to rest. Mara knitted and on the needles hung the loops and on each loop hung the names of places around the village.

“Down below, at the bottom of the village, there was a fountain, a gushing spring that watered the gardens. And below that were places that the old people many generations ago had named Botkovets, Vetrichav Kosten, Golemata Stena, Goshovo, Damko, Delie, Zhachka, Zherishte, Krlevitsa, Kopadina, Matsanka, Petkovets, Srneniva, Chezmule, Shekaritsa, Shemelika, Studenik, Pochivaloto and many other places. The people from the Greek government then came and wanted to change them. They came from Kostur with notepads and pencils in their hands, heard the old names and wondered what kind of new name they should give them. They heard of the mighty marble rock from which life-giving water sprang and wondered what to call it.

They called it many names but the old people refused to accept them. They refused to erase the old name of the mighty marble rock from which life-giving water sprang, which their ancestors called ‘Mramorcheto’. The Greeks did their best to erase that name but they couldn’t erase it from these people’s hearts, minds and souls. So, eventually the Greeks wrote ‘aνωνυµο’ (anonimoin in Greek means without a name) in their notebooks. That was the name the Greeks gave the Mramorcheto. As for renaming the other places, the Greeks said they would come back for them another day. They came back. And again, they pondered what names to give the meadows, forests, fields, hills, springs, fountains, brooks, puddles, swamps, roads, paths, winds, dogs which barked all day long... Some they renamed, but for many they had no names so in their notebooks they wrote ‘ανωνυµο’. And before these Greeks left the village they commissioned the mayor, teacher and priest to invent new Greek names for the songs, dances, stories, proverbs, riddles, angels, saints, wind, rain… and obliged them to baptize and register all newborns with Greek names and teach them in the Greek language… They wanted all newborns to be divine and wise just like the Greeks...

In those days they invented many names...” Mara whispered to herself.

With every loop she made, Mara whispered a place name and all the place names she knew became loops and hung from her needles. Place names that were passed on from generation to generation... Place names that were remembered by her father, grandfather, great grandfather, great-great grandfather, place names that she now wished to pass on to her grandchildren which she didn’t have...

“Loop to loop - name to name, then and now, always the same and always unchanging branded in the mind, heart and soul... always the same...” whispered Mara.

“I hear you whispering, Mara, what are you whispering about?” asked Mitre.

“About our place names, Mitre... I am naming each loop I knit after a place name from back home... I whisper a name and after that I knit a loop. I am naming the loops after our place names from back home...” replied Mara.

Mara continued to knit... She knit loop after loop after loop and with each loop she arranged on the needles, she arranged a wish, a prayer, a feeling, pleasure, sorrow, pain, regret... Mara was knitting all the voices from the past and all the sorrows from the present in those loops.

Mara knit and in her knitting she knit her own and other people’s sorrows, which had a beginning but no end, no shore to rest on, no bottom to sink to, immense and untamed, inexpressible and inconsolable, overwhelming and devastating; there was no cure or remedy for her and that’s why she was constantly hurting...

Mara pushed the last loop through, trimmed the thread, strung the sock on her knees, caressed them, warmed them with her palm and, sighing out of pain or joy, said:

“Mitre, here are your socks. Wear them in good health. And if you bring me more wool I will knit you a sweater... But please buy me long needles. And the yarn, Mitre, isn’t the same as ours, soft and warm... it isn’t... ours Mitre …” but her voice broke and she didn’t finish what she was saying.

Tears welled up in her eyes and obstructed her vision...

Is there any cure that heals the soul, heart?

Mara was sixty but she looked like she was older. There were visible wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead. She carried a great burden worrying about her pechalbar (migrant worker) husband in America and that wilted her face. On her back also lay all the worries of her children, her son and daughter, the farm, the fields, the livestock, the house. She was unable to do all the work herself so she hired people to help with the harvest and look after the livestock. She hired local village labourers to do some of the work and paid them with crops collected during the harvest. The cheques which Mitre sent her from America she tied in a cloth and stashed in the small secret closet behind the icon of the Mother of God. The cheques gathered there in a pile, as did the years spent without Mitre, without his warmth and embrace. The cheques didn’t speak to her, they didn’t keep her warm and they didn’t caress and hug her. They just lay there dumb and deaf to her pain, to her sorrow and her moments of loneliness. They were oblivious to the lonely nights she spent alone pressed by the weight of her misery. The cheques just lay there alone inside the dark, secret little closet just like Mara did in her room in the dark of many nights.

Mitre came home to Mara a year after General Metaxas came to power. The bank swapped Mara’s cheques for a pile of Greek money. It was a lot of money but Mara managed to squeeze it in the same little secret closet behind the icon. The money was tightly packed and the closet was now full but didn’t fill the gaps created by Mitre’s long, long absence from her life. His return was welcomed with joy and the promise of a new life. But that didn’t last long. Policemen came from the city, arrested him and took him away. In a military court he was convicted on suspicion of attending rallies in America, seeking autonomy for Macedonia. And so Mitre was convicted as an autonomist, dangerous to the state and spent two years in prison doing hard labour, breaking and transporting stones on one of the dry island prison camps in the Aegean Sea. And the

money, smelling of sweat, which he’d earned building a long railroad in America, gathered dust and wasted away in that secret place in the little closet, just as Mitre wasted away on that rocky island from which no one could escape. Mitre returned home on the eve of the war with Italy. The village was swarming with Greek soldiers. The day after his return the Greek government ordered him to volunteer his free labour in building a concrete bunker. He didn’t object. He was told that hundreds of villagers from Kostur and Lerin Regions were deployed to build many bunkers along the Greek-Albanian border. They were told their help would save the country. But it didn’t. The great joy of the Greek army defeating the Italians ended in Albania, outside Korcha. It was rumoured that Greece had been attacked from the north by Germans and Bulgarians. A few days later the Italians arrived in the village. The bunkers were blown up and the villagers were told to surrender all the rifles they had collected from the fleeing Greek soldiers and to stay out of trouble. When the Greek army fled, the Greek soldiers abandoned their arms on the spot where they were stationed. So, there were rifles and ammunition everywhere; in the houses, in the fields, on the roads… And so the Italian soldiers sent the villagers to collect them and bring them back. The rifles the villagers brought back were piled in a small pile in the middle of the village. It was a very small pile considering how many had been left behind but it was enough of a pile to convince the Italians that they had done their job. Everything else the villagers found, including the light and heavy machine guns, the many rifles, the many boxes of ammunition, etc., they hid deep underground in their houses, barns, in the woods, under rocks and so on… They figured that some day they might need them. And indeed they did, especially when the communists started the Greek Civil War. Mitre too hid some guns and ammunition. When the partisans began to secretly collect arms for the new struggle, Mitre dug up his foundation and unearthed the ten rifles, three light machine guns and the two boxes of bullets. He dug and degreased them during the night, loaded them on his horse and went to deliver them where they secretly collected weapons for the new battles and victories. He came home without his horse. They gave him a piece of paper upon which was written the promise that the people’s government would return it to him after it had achieved its victory. And since then Mitre gave them many things and received many pieces of paper with similar affirmations which Mara wrapped in a cloth and stashed

in the dark, secret little closet behind the icon of the Mother of God. They wasted away together with their money… The money that Mara never spent, after the capitulation of the Greek state, became worthless.

One evening the men gathered together at Mitre’s house and had a discussion about what went on in the Kolhoz.

“I heard that Lazo was going to build a house here?” said Mitre.

“That’s what I also heard…” said Mihail and then added: “Even if I had the money I wouldn’t build a house here. I built a house back home but they demolished it, they destroyed it down to its foundations. Now only thorn trees grow in its rubble. I wouldn’t build a house on foreign soil; there’s no room in my soul for a new house. There will be no place for a new house for me because it will always remind me of my pain... I don’t need that kind of pain…”

There was silence. Pavle broke the silence in an attempt to tie the torn thread from yesterday’s meeting. He said:

“We have been left without our leaders… In other word we have been beheaded... The people of Kostur Region have been beheaded before. They were beheaded during the Ilinden Uprising and remained beheaded after that. It’s true. When the uprising broke out Kostur Region was on fire… Its leaders were gone. How? Well, Pando Kliashev spoke about that many years later, as was written by Miletich and published in Sofia in 1925. Miletich wrote that Pando Kliashev said when the Kostur Region villages were burning, he sent about 800 women to Bitola to complain to the European consuls. The women weren’t received by any of the consuls except for the English consul, who photographed them twice but did nothing to help them. This was all the help we received from strangers, said Kliashev. At the same time, on October 17, as Kliashev recalls, himself, Chakalarov, his sister and another 20 people crossed the Greek border near the village Velemish during which time Chakalarov, as Kliashev recalls, was wearing Vlach clothes and traveled in a carriage to Trikala. The Greeks arrested the

young men in the group but released them two weeks later. From there they traveled to Sofia via Varna. In the meantime, Chakalarov and Kliashev passed through Arta - Lesvos - Corfu - Trieste - Fiuma and arrived in Belgrade. Kliashev arrived in Sofia on November 8 followed by Chakalarov on November 10, 1903. And now should anyone ask me why I’m telling this, I’ll say that I’m telling you this so that you will know that while our leaders found a safe haven in Sofia, the people in Kostur Region were left leaderless under the open sky with a Turkish sword hanging over their necks. In other words, our leaders were saved but the people they led were left to the mercy of the enemy. And now our leaders who were arrested in Bureli were sent to Moscow where they found refuge in the Soviet camps. But, from their pictures, they don’t look like Soviet prisoners… but that’s another story. And so Kostur Region, yet again, was left without leaders. And now, in this wasteland, in which we breathed a little life, Zahariadis and his followers want to invent new leaders for us. And we, here, are upset about this and don’t understand why we aren’t allowed to select our own leaders… We need leaders, not idiots appointed by our so-called friends. There are many idiots among us who want to be appointed leaders. After all, it was our appointed leaders who led us to this situation. While they left in 1945 over the mountains and settled in Skopje and Bitola, they left the people of Kostur, Lerin and Voden Regions at the mercy of the new Greek authorities. Living free and safe over the border they quarreled, divided and slandered themselves, and then returned back home over the same mountains to fight again. And when the situation turned extreme, in the midst of the most difficult battles, they split up again. Those in Prespa accepted Zahariadis renaming them Slavo-Macedonians. He promised them a lot but delivered nothing. Then when they went to Skopje and sat in front of Kolishevski they became Macedonians. And those who settled in Skopje and didn’t go back, while drinking bitter coffee in the hotel MACEDONIA, kept sending Zahariadis messages accusing him of lying and telling him how to lead the war... Was it like that or not?”

“You can say that but now, while we are refugees, now that we are on foreign soil, all the time Comrade Zahariadis is thinking about how we can be organized for...” said Pavle but was interrupted by Mara, who stormed into the room through the half-open door cursing angrily:

“May God erase his name... may he go to hell... He, the dishonorable one, he’s the one who ruined us and brought us into this wasteland…!” And then she spit.

“Don’t talk like that, Mara... For us he was the best defender... As you know he came here from Bucharest, and maybe from even farther away, to create a revolutionary organization for us, to save us from Tito and Kolisevski and you attack him like he’s your enemy... Don’t talk like that. The man cares about us; he always asks how we are...” said Pavle.

“You mean if we are still alive or not?” interrupted Mara and then said: “You know what he did to us and to our people and it would be best for all of you if you change your conversation and talk about something more important. Stop talking about Stalin did this and Stalin did that… Nikos did this and Nikos did that… Tito did this and Tito did that… These people pulled the wool over your eyes and left you blind! Was it like that or not?”

“You’re wrong, Mara...” insisted Pavle.

“And so you say I’m wrong and you are right...” said Mara and added: “What about what you said to me about hosting someone here in my house from those who came here for the, what did you call it?”

“Congress...” replied Pavle.

“Yes, that congress... I won’t play host to anyone anymore. I did enough in the last three or four years to entertain, feed, wash, etc., the likes of them and what did it get me? Nothing but pain and grief! And now you want me to do it again so that you can create a new… what did you call it?” asked Mara.

“Organization, Mara, a revolutionary organization, A new revolutionary organization, Mara. Do you understand?” replied Pavle.

“And what will that new one do? Will it start from scratch? With whom and against whom? Do you think too many of us are still alive and more needs to done? So that we can all turn to dust? So that no trace of us will be left?” ranted Mara.

“No, not from the beginning but from where it ended. The fight will continue from where it ended. We will fight against Kolishevki’s gang and those who made a club for the Aegeans there in Skopje and spent day and night slandering our party and our friends...” replied Pavle.

“Enough!” exclaimed Mara. “If I understood you correctly you are going to fight against our own people? Meaning you’d want me to fight against my own relatives living there? Right? You’re trying to convince me to help you create a revolutionary organization so that our people can turn against each other? Brother fighting brother, brother slandering brother, brother killing brother? For whom will you be making this organization? And what did you say it would be called?”

“Ilinden in capital letters, Mara...” said Pavle.

“But isn’t Ilinden theirs too? You will divide Ilinden? Are you also going to divide Delchev from Gruev and from Sandanski, and all the others who fought during the Ilinden Uprising? My poor father will roll in his grave. And not only him but everyone who…” said Mara and her voice broke. She covered her face with her black head kerchief and began to weep...

There was silence in the room. All eyes turned to Mara and watched her wrinkled lips twitch. She broke the silence and said:

“For themselves, but for who else…” said Mara through her head kerchief. “They (Zahariadis) will create a revolutionary organization in order to create an even bigger scam. They will call it Ilinden and we who are still left alive will become its instrument... No, that can’t be allowed to happen. I, Mara, the illiterate and the entire half-literate women, will tell you that they (Zahariadis) are doing this, not for us, but for themselves so that they can cheat us again. They won’t be satisfied until we are all gone. It wasn’t enough what they

did to us so far, now they want to do this too?” said Mara, pulled back her head kerchief and with a curious look asked:

“Are they here already?”

“Yes!” replied Pavle and said: They’ve come from Czechoslovakia 36, Hungary 36, Bulgaria 3, Romania 30 and Poland 80, all former activists and party members. We put many of them in the school where we put iron beds in the classrooms, like these, yours, and, let me say, the more important ones we said we’ll place in the houses. So I figured you can accommodate a couple here. Don’t forget about your honour. It’s warm here, clean and everything is beautiful. They will be pleased,” concluded Pavle.