On the Road of Time – Chapter 20

On the Road of Time – Chapter 20

The storm has passed. We have a few that survived. On the roll call of friendship many do not... S. Esenin

V. left yesterday. D. was sent away today. We said this for those with whom we were together in the formations, in the long night marches in the rain and snow, in the trenches and bunkers, in the wet and cold underground hangers and in the battlefields. We said this for those with whom we were together for many years, with whom we swallowed the bitterness of defeat and with whom we found ourselves on foreign shores. We did not say they had departed, we did not say they had died; we simply said they had left… So if we said that they had left then there was always a chance, hope, that they would one day return… I listened intently to a speech given by our friend from the Veterans Council. It was a very nice speech full of praise and big words. And while he was talking I couldn’t help myself but think that when a man dies and disappears from this world should we always say nice words about him? How many times did we gossip about him, swear at him, inform on him and make his life miserable while he was alive? Are there no sinners amongst us and amongst those who left us? Why in the five minutes of waiting for him to be buried, to be put underground, to be covered by soil can’t we say something other than that he was a good person? Then when the funeral is over and after we return to our homes we begin to unfold our memories only to find out that he was not all good and that he also had a bad side to him. What prevails? There was no goodness in N. because all his life N. was an informer. He was an informer in the battlefields, in the countries abroad and back here again. He was an informer spying on people, he was good at it and he enjoyed it. And what government can survive without informers? The informers are the pillars of the establishment. I would say that I knew G. very well. We were sent to Gramos together and were deployed in the same platoon. He was given a German machine gun and they loaded me with a rifle; an English rifle. We charged, ran, hid, took up new positions and ate together with the same spoon from the same portions and covered ourselves with the same blanket. Yes, we did many things together. For God’s sake, does a man need to die for his close ones to uncover and reveal his character and the emptiness that remains? A few days ago I was back at the cemetery. The funeral passed quietly, without much talking, without crying and almost in silence. Although cursed, this person was one of us. We kind of tossed a handful of soil on the coffin in a hurry and we left even before the coffin was lowered into the ground. He did not come to the last meeting of the municipal board, even though he was always among the first to be there. On his way to the club he felt a pressing pain on the left side of his chest. He bent over looking for something to lean on but as he slowly bent down he slumped over and fell onto the frozen pavement. Passers by took him inside the closest door and put an urgent call in for an ambulance. Death was instant. He was gone. We sent him away with the blessing of many big words. No word was said about his sins, not a single word. So he went underground clean. Clean as a crystal. And before what did we not say? And everything we said was bad! Now we often meet at the square in front of the chapel. Look how things have turned out. A long time ago it was the village church bell that announced the death of a person. It did not matter whether the person was a relative, a friend, or an acquaintance. Now the telephone rings and you get the bad news through the receiver. Or you open the newspaper and you see a picture of a relative, a friend... And I tell you we often gather together at the chapel square and every time we gather, there are less and less of us. At one time we were healthy looking, standing erect and proud. Now we are bent over, we have grey hair, we are bald, shaking and leaning on a crutch. We greet each other and then we go off to our own groups. It now has become a custom for us to gather together here at the chapel and go off in groups.

And on the road to our last resting place, there too, we stand in groups. But no... those are not groups. Those are the remnants of the lines of companies, battalions, brigades. Our conversations too are always about how we spent our time in Gramos, in Vicho, how we fought battles and went on marches. How we were wounded and how we lost our friends. Our conversations were about how we passed our time on the road to Tashkent and from there to here. We often talked about how we had spent time in the hospitals in Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Germany. We also talked about where there were good places to have our dentures adjusted, the time we spent in sanatoriums and infirmaries in those countries, how we worked there and what we did to earn our living... This is how we unwound the spool of our destiny from youth to old age. Then you heard someone raise their voice and talk about another person ‘leaving’ their company, their battalion, their brigade. In those days, up there in the mountains we did not speak the words ‘killed’ or ‘was killed’, we said he or she ‘fell heroically’... If we said they ‘fell’ then there was always the hope that they would ‘stand up’ again... Yes... In those days we defied death with our vast and boundless faith in victory. We truly believed that we were winning and could not even imagine that we might be beaten, even though we were losing battle after battle with great losses. We were young and confident. Were we coaxed into believing? For sure! Soldiering was an exercise in how to kill and on how not to be killed. We grew up practicing the art. Each burial in the mountains began and ended with a call to victory and the person being buried was not perceived as being dead but as missing from the line, from the trench, from the bunker, from the hanger, from the food line standing in front of the cauldron. And now standing in front of the chapel waiting for them to carry the coffin, we are reminded of those stormy times. Now every funeral, I would say every time a friend goes, he or she summons us here to send them away but the ‘sending’ is not just ‘sending’ it is a reminder and an awakening of many memories and considerations. In those memories there are many dark and gloomy spots. The days and nights seemed to get darker, gloomier and more painful. Anxiously we gathered together in front of the chapel and we stood in groups of 102, 103, 105, 107, 18 and 14 Brigade and all the other units. The darkness appears more often now like a shadow of light that lasts. It cannot be seen but it is here and it can be felt. And again you will hear ‘here, another one of us from 102, or 103 or 105 or 107 or 18 or 14 Brigade has left us.’ Slowly they are all going. The telephone rings again and the receiver whispers to you, ‘P. has left us.’ And you reply, ‘I will see you at the chapel.’ One by one we go and less and less of us grandfathers to Marian, Angelina, Maria, Zhaklina and Johnny remain here. And those who have left have taken with them the names of their grandfathers and grandmothers. Zhaklina, Maria and Marina, Valentina and Marian and Johnny and Victor will cry a little... Now there are less grandchildren named Kire, Krste, Traianka, Petranka, Traiche, Velika, Sevda, Florinka, Tsveta, Dushanka... We come back frowning. If the weather is nice and it is not raining and it is not winter, we sit on benches in front of buildings and talk. And in our discussions we return to our youth, which we left in the Greek Civil War and in those distant countries. We bring back the youth of an entire crippled generation robbed of its hopes and aspirations and as we speak we feel bitterness in our throats with every word that comes out. All around us our grandchildren run and play, some fight, some cry and others laugh. Then after a few days or so another spot on the bench becomes empty. The telephones become active again and the next day we are summoned to the chapel. Here again those of us who are still left from 102, 103, 105, 107, 18, 14 Brigade...

will approach someone and say, ‘One more went from our company.’ And then will ask, ‘How is so and so?’ Every time we go to the chapel we count each other and every meeting is the last meeting for someone. This will be the last time we see them. This seems to be very similar to our returning from combat when we were counted and accounted for. This many dead, this many wounded and this many remaining in the line. And as it was then so it is now, there are less and less in the line with every count. Slowly, silently, quietly, we become fewer and fewer, as we are leaving to go with our friends... After the coffin was loaded in the hearse we silently followed behind. Along the way to the final resting place the squeaking of the brakes became louder. Some had to stop to catch their breath while others held hands to give those who were tired some support. And while this was going on, new conversations were started; conversations about our youth and about our stormy past. Clap, clap, clap, clap, Pavle’s prosthesis was heard clapping. Clap, clap, clap, clap, Lina’s prosthesis was heard clapping and squeaking. And while this was going on we revisited our past through our memories which howled and set off storms in our heads and fire in our chests. Things went dark before our eyes. This was a day of mourning and there was no good light to cheer us, we were dragged into the gloom. Bent, twisted, sickly, we marched along behind our friend from 102, 103, 105, 107, 18, 14 Brigade.... He, on the other hand, lay there straight but somewhat shrunken. None of us at that moment thought that tomorrow or perhaps the day after we too would be sent this way and maybe this quiet walk behind the hearse covered with flowers would be our last march of many marches. Quietly, slowly, carefully we limped along; seeming like each person was in formation taking part in one of those long night marches in the rain, snow and blizzard. That is where our thoughts were... in the long marches over the mountains that led to nowhere. Now we are not in formation but we take steps like we were… And quietly someone will ask, ‘Do you remember?’ ‘I remember,’ will echo another quiet whisper... And as such we take steps knowing that nothing has been forgotten... Like a flash the days are strung and we return to our memories of the battlefields and of the foreign shores, we return to our existence there and here, in our yesterday and today and we are reminded of the question, ‘Whose picture will appear in tomorrow’s newspapers and whose name will we hear on the receiver of the telephone?...’ Did you say my voice is shaking? It is shaking not because it is weak, quiet and barely audible but because it is strong, mature and smarter. My voice must be and should be more understanding. Do I go to the cemetery? Yes, I do go. And while I am there I think of and remember Kopanche, Haro, Buhetsi, Orleto, Polenata, Lisets, Baro, Iamata, Chuka, Charno and every other place where the graves of our fallen are indistinguishable from one another. Now after all these years, who will be able to find those places? If you want to find them you will need to go to those mountains. Our fallen were buried in shallow graves covered with a little earth and mostly branches. They were buried without lighting a candle, without a cross on the grave and without their name engraved in stone. But their names are remembered and will live on in the memories and in the pain of their relatives. Their names have been written down in the notebooks which now rest on the archive shelves collecting dust every day. Everyone there is the same. And here, in this cemetery they are different. Each marble slab whiter than white, blacker than black, thicker than thick, brighter than bright that has a wreath larger than large and bouquets of flowers more beautiful than beautiful, is distinguishable from the other plain concrete slabs. But the soil and the worms are the same... I go there only sometimes because my health is not that good.

Not as often as I want to because of the time, the years ... but when I do go to the cemetery I buy candles and inexpensive flowers, with part of my pension, and I sit beside the graves of my friends from the detachment and we have conversations. We talk about today and about yesterday but mostly about yesterday. I ask them, ‘Do you remember the terrible snow storm we had to endure? Do you remember having to stand in a long row, one behind another, stepping on the snow under a shining full moon? Do you remember the time when we heard a loud rumble above us and a pile of snow the size of a cloud descended down on us?’ We ran as fast as we could and when we came back into our formation six of us were missing. We left them buried under the snow and we continued our march. We marched all night... I interrupted our conversation, then I kept silent for a while and in the silence I got my answer. Then I asked what is there? Well, there is a bit of everything; pain, strength, joy, happiness and sadness... And again I went back to asking the same kind of questions, ‘Do you remember?’ Yes, we need to remember, we need to remember because in our memories we are those people who we used to be... If we don’t remember it means we never were... please write that down, that we were as we were... just don’t write that we were faint-hearted because we were never faint-hearted. Write down that we were very loyal and very deceived, but always persistent and strong... That’s what you should write down… We conversed about our youth and in those conversations we found a couple of our people who had lost their lives for nothing. They paid with their lives for their flirting, laughing and winking at each other because it was prohibited for a boy to want a girl and for the girl to like the boy back. They were tried in a church, a trial that lasted all night and in early dawn the next day the two were taken outside of the village and shot to death. They were murdered because of their love, because they were in love. They murdered the love so that our morale would be stronger! And is there anything stronger than love? Do you remember, I said to them, when we passed by the place where they were shot? Do you remember how some of us stopped, collected flowers and put them at the place of their death? For whom were those flowers, for the dead people or for their love? Silently and secretly we defended our love from a bullet. Do you remember, I asked, how the lady from the public house in Kostur was killed? Those from there sent her here to our unit to inform on our boys, to say that they liked her, wanted her and made suggestions to that effect. Our people from command summoned some of us to night trials and sentenced us to death because of her. But the lady could not endure the hunger and cold being out there with our unit so one day she split and hit the road. We grabbed her while she was escaping and after that she confessed to everything. I personally had to unload an entire clip of cartridges before the bitch was dead. The next day you had to shoot a young man convicted of stealing a chunk of bread. Don’t deny it, I said to him, you did what you had to do, those were the orders. We were ordered not to express love and not to steal because we were the people’s army, born out of the people. That’s what they told us. And as a people’s army we were prohibited from taking bread from the peasants and as such we endured much hunger. Do you remember, I said, the spring of 1848, when the grass was green and the trees were budding, how we ate grass and buds? I waited for an answer but all I got was silence... That’s how it was. I tell you, I rarely go to the cemetery now because of the pain in my legs and hips. But in spite of my pain I still go there visiting my friends and spending time talking to them, asking them about the past and telling them about the present. After that I tell them that yesterday we brought so and so here. So and so are in the hospital. So and so rarely get out of bed and that everyone else is okay, at least for now.

Do we get together? Yes we get together for our grandchildren’s birthdays and after the men bring the presents, they leave and go to cafés where they talk politics until the next morning. They talk about their experiences in the mountains, constantly looking for the culprits who made them lose their arm, leg, gave them large scars, devastated their villages, destroyed their houses and crippled and killed their friends. They talked about their beliefs, the false promises they were made and the slippery slopes they were put on… Then they came back frowning and angry, swearing and cursing, praising and making accusations about who was worthy and who was worthless. I told them about many things, things that they already knew, but some couldn’t seem to see these things or hear what I was telling them. And as such all the commanders left. Those from our side (Macedonians) with lower ranks are still here and those of higher ranks, who had never been wounded in battle, left for home and went back to Greece. They established themselves well there; the state against which they fought did not prosecute them. It accepted them as soldiers and recognized their ranks by only a single rank lower, even though they were not educated in military affairs. Some even published books about their experiences in the Greek Civil War. In those books they spat at each another and slandered one another claiming everyone was wrong except for them and if the others had done the same as they did, victory would have been ours. When they commanded us, if anyone had said that they were idiots and worthless, I would have shot them between the eyes. We trusted them. We trusted the Party and we trusted our leader (Zahariadis) the most. The Party abandoned us. The Chief said that we did not exist. Parliament voted declaring that in order for us to return to our homes we could not be who we were. And what could we be? We could only be what they wanted us to be. Our leader hung himself in Siberia and his dead body was returned to Athens. Before that, someone appointed by Todor Zhivkov signed an agreement to move us Macedonians to Bulgaria. Some went to Bulgaria but were quickly disappointed. They sent us letters explaining the situation. If we went to Bulgaria we would be dispersed throughout Bulgaria. We would be asked to sign a statement declaring that we were Bulgarian. Those who would not sign such statements would find it difficult to get an apartment and a job that suited their profession and education. We told them not to go, to wait until the situation was sorted out and we then would move to the Republic of Macedonia. We were sure we would find difficulties there too but there no one was going to make us not be Macedonians. After every war people return home. Our war ended sixty years ago and we still we have not returned. Every people, even those exiled and kicked out of their homeland, are eventually allowed to return home. Home is where they crave to be, where they long to be, where they belong. But not our people, year after year they gathered, counted their numbers, waited, hoped and wished, healed their wounds, nursed their pains, looked at old photographs, thought, dreamed and talked about home but that was all they could do. The only choice left for them was to start life all over and build on the cracks of the old foundations... Only we the Macedonians did not go home after that war... they took our homes, they took our fields and meadows, they took our vineyards and our gardens... and they gave them to the foreign settlers and colonists… Those were crazy, foolish and unreasonable times. Those were times when some people profited from the pain of others. Those were times when some people made soft beds for themselves from the difficulties, horrors, devastation and breakdown of others. Those were times when some people made great gains from the uprooting of others… That’s how it was and that’s how it should be remembered… It was our time, our pain, our suffering, our belief, our defeat ...

Yes, ours, difficult, terrible defeat that destroyed us, that crushed us, that eradicated us, that exiled us... Who can and how can this mindlessness be judged? What can save you from this blind recklessness, from a bowed head before others, which led its own nation to its eradication? As for the defeat, however difficult, we need to talk about it and remember everything... At least for the sake of remembering... Did the telephone just ring? Yes. The person on the other side said that J. from 105 Brigade had left us. I told him I would be in front of the chapel at 12 noon tomorrow.

On the Road of Time – Afterward

On our return to Macedonia we unavoidably took the road that led us through Perenias and in our notes we made mention that the present Prenies is not the same Prenies from sixty years ago; a place of pain and tears, a place of daily existence, a place of anticipation and hopelessness... The new Prenies, or Perenias as the locals call it, has grown into a small, modern, living and bustling city. It has a way station for hundreds of trucks, buses and passenger cars, a place where passengers can stop and rest, even for a short break... Today’s Prenies is not the old mouldy Italian military barracks, warehouses and horse stables. Today’s Prenies is a modern town with a meshwork of paved streets, new residential buildings, newly built private houses, running water and sewers, restaurants and cafés, taverns, banks, a post office, a clinic, a pharmacy and a railway station. Prenies is no longer on appendix attached to the surrounding periphery, it is a wide open gate, a well-lit conduit for trucks, buses and passenger cars to pass through, day and night. It is an open artery that leads to the rest of the world. The life that is now lived in Albania, day and night flows through Prenies in both directions from Kapeshtitsa, Bilista, Korcha, Pogradets, Elbasan, Durres, Tirana and Sukt. No one runs out to meet the trucks and no one waits at the side of the road any more. There is no crying, no wailing, no cursing and no swearing. The barracks are gone and all that remains of the old place are the warehouses and stables all empty, gaping and worn down by the passing of time. Beside them there are new houses and new people. The streets are filled with children and laughter... Young men spend their time in cafés or wait for the day when they can go to work abroad. Among them are also those who have just returned from abroad and are here for a visit and to dream new dreams of how they are going to spend their earnings from abroad. At the exit on the way towards Elbasan there is a chromium factory. It is silent now, it has been closed down. So the chromium in the surrounding mountains will have to wait. Life through Prenies flows non-stop like a river and no one here, in this new life, coming and going on the same road, knows about the terrible fate that befell our people. No one seems to know about the anguish and the pain, the cries and the tears, the suffering and the horrors and the hopelessness our people (Macedonians) experienced here. And what should we call this road? Should we call it the road of pain, tears, suffering and hopelessness? The road of no return? We cannot forget our tears and human suffering from the time when we travelled along this road, from when we passed by the dark of darkness. Our travel on the dark side, on the road of no return, was very difficult and full of tears, tears of suffering

and of lost hope… So what is there left for us and for the future generations? My only wish is to leave you with the message that what happened on those roads must never be forgotten, must never be erased from our memories...

July 1st, 2008 - February 22nd, 2010