The False Apocalypse

by Lubonja, Fatos; Hodgson, John; Hodgson, John

  WE HAVE NO LIGHTS AND NO PHONE.

  I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO SAY.

  I CAN’T STOP CRYING AND ASKING WHY. WHY THIS SHOULD HAPPEN. I TRY TO GO OUTSIDE TO SEE WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING BUT I ONLY SEE PEOPLE RUNNING, CHILDREN CRYING IN FEAR OF THE SHOOTING. I DON’T SEE ANY POLICE ANYWHERE.

  I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING. IT’S A GHOST TOWN. WE’RE ASKING FOR HELP. WE WANT THE OUTSIDE WORLD TO HELP US. MY FRIENDS TELL ME THEY’RE FLEEING THE COUNTRY AND THEY WANT ME TO GO WITH THEM. BUT HOW CAN I? WHO WILL BE LEFT? I HAVE MY FAMILY. WHERE WILL THEY GO? MY HUSBAND IS TRYING TO BRING TOGETHER THE PEOPLE OF KAVAJA TO FORM A COMMITTEE TO STOP THIS CRAZY SHOOTING. WE’VE JUST HEARD THAT THERE IS A LITTLE VILLAGE CALLED LEKAJ WHERE THERE ARE TONNES OF TNT. IT THIS EXPLODES IT WILL BLOW UP THE VILLAGE AND ALL KAVAJA WITH IT.

  WE MUST SAVE OUR CHILDREN AND ALL OUR PEOPLE. I APPEAL TO ALL FOREIGN STATES TO HELP US SO WE DON’T DIE LIKE ANIMALS. WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE. WE WANT A FUTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN.

  AS A MOTHER, A WOMAN, AND AN ALBANIAN I APPEAL TO ALL MY ALBANIAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TO BE STRONG AND TO PRAY FOR A FREE ALBANIA. MAY GOD BE WITH US. I PROMISE YOU THAT AS LONG AS I AM ONLINE AND HAVE ELECTRICITY I WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED ABOUT EVENTS. THE LATEST NEWS IS THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, THE DEFENCE MINISTER, AND THE PRESIDENT’S CHILDREN HAVE FLED THE COUNTRY TO SAVE THEIR SKINS, LEAVING US HERE.

  ALL THE BEST AND PEACE TO YOU ALL.

  DONIKA

  Epilogue 1

  Tirana, 29th March (ATA) –

  Yesterday an Albanian boat sank thirty miles off Brindisi while attempting to reach the Italian coast. According to information from survivors, military vessel No. 405 left the port of Vlora at three p.m. Near Sazan island it took on board three more people who were fleeing in a small boat. The ship was small, of about 30 tonnes and designed only for harbour use. The ship was full of women and children and there were no weapons. Before it entered international waters, Italian frigate No. 577 appeared and shadowed it for a long time, sailing alongside it and preventing the Albanian vessel from manoeuvring. The Italian frigate informed the ship by megaphone that its crew would be arrested and its passengers returned to Albania. The Albanian vessel responded by hoisting a white flag and pointing to the presence of children. The frigate shadowed the boat until six p.m. and then vanished.

  Shortly afterwards another Italian frigate No. 558 appeared accompanied by a helicopter. The frigate blocked the path of the Albanian vessel, making it difficult for this ship to move in the rough seas. At about seven p.m. the Italian frigate, several times larger than the Albanian boat, after calling to this ship once again, approached from the stern and rammed the Albanian vessel first amidships and then in the bow. The Albanian vessel filled with water and sank at once. An unknown number of lives were lost. Thirty-four survivors have been held in isolation and questioned. In interviews, they denounced the Italians as criminals. The Italian side has not taken into account the testimonies of the Albanians. The explanations given by Admiral Angelo Mariani, chief of the Naval General Staff, entirely contradict the statements of witnesses, both regarding the deterrent manoeuvres performed by the Italian frigates and the ramming of the Albanian ship, which witnesses claim were both deliberate.

  A few days ago several well-known Italian politicians declared that ‘the Albanians should be thrown into the sea.’

  ‘Murderers, murderers.’ The shouts came from faces contorted in agony.

  ‘They rammed us,’ they yelled. A young man of twenty-five, at the end of his endurance, says in an exhausted voice, ‘I lost my wife and son. He was only two months old. I saw him drown before my very eyes.’

  ‘How did you survive?’ we asked him.

  ‘It was so cold and all the men were on deck, to leave room below for the women and children.’

  La Stampa, 30th March 1997.

  Tirana, 30th March (ATA) –

  Italian Defence Minister Beniamino Andreatta has sent a telegram of condolences to his Albanian counterpart.

  ‘I have learned with deep shock the news of the tragic accident at sea in which your fellow-countrymen lost their lives. At this sad time I ask you to accept the deepest sympathies of the Italian Armed Forces. I also express my personal grief and share the sorrow of the families of the victims and the Albanian people. I send to these families my sincere condolences and my best wishes to the injured for a fast recovery.’

  Epilogue 2

  From Fatos Qorri’s Diary

  April 1997

  Today I was in Vlora with some Italian human rights activists. I have known one of them, Bruno, for a long time and he asked me to go with him. I was curious to see what was happening in the city. We set off in two cars that we decided never to let out of each other’s sight, because the roads are extremely unsafe. I didn’t take with me either my wallet or wristwatch, but only put a little money into my trouser pocket. The danger comes from the ‘hoods’, as the masked bandits who ambush cars on the main roads are now called. There are more on the roads to the north, but plenty on the roads of the south too. They come out especially at night. Generally they position a large rock in the middle of the road, to look as if it has rolled down from above. When the driver gets out to move it aside, he finds Kalashnikov barrels pointing at him. If the hoods fancy the car, they make all the passengers get out, rob them, take their car, and leave them standing in the middle of the road. Otherwise they merely rob the passengers.

  We decided to go and return in one day, coming back before nightfall. We saw very little traffic on the roads, and even less the further we went from Tirana.

  We met with no unpleasant incidents.

  Along the entire road we saw destruction and burned buildings, but when we arrived at the Mifol bridge I seemed to absorb through all my senses the atmosphere that prevailed in Vlora. Perhaps my imagination was working too, because a bridge is always a crossing to an imagined other side. Entering the bridge from the Tirana end, I saw the marks of the government’s tanks on the asphalt, and on the other side the Vlora people’s checkpoints. The tanks and the checkpoints had confronted one another for a long time. A part of the bridge’s railings had been torn up. A checkpoint boom still pointed in the air but there was no one to lower or raise it.

  The beauty of the olive groves that start when you cross the Mifol bridge and descend into the town made no impression on me. Neither did the sea, because my eyes were fixed on the burned car bodies along the road. Some of these were still smoking and emitting a horrible stench. I felt I was heading towards a dangerous, smouldering ash heap.

  When we entered the town I phoned on my mobile my old prison friend Kujtim to whom I’d spoken before we left Tirana. Kujtim told me that he was with two or three other ex-prisoners in a café in the city centre. The café was hard to find, in a hut hidden behind an apartment block.

  Our reunion was an emotional one, but we started talking immediately about the news of the day, with no mention of the memories, either nostalgic or bitter, that are the favourite topic when ex-prisoners meet.

  ‘What’s happening? What are people saying here?’ I asked.

  ‘What can we say?’ came the automatic reply.

  Kujtim looked me in the eye.

  He told me that he had been a police officer recruited by Berisha’s government. But he had resigned when he saw that instead of talking to the outraged people, the government was giving orders to use violence. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘when Berisha announced the State of Emergency, we were all ready to fight against the army, with weapons.’

  ‘And now?’ I asked.

  ‘Now we’d call on the devil himself, if he could get us out of this mess.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  He explained that the city was in the hands of bandits who were kidnapping men and raping women. Nobody dared go out in the streets. It was horrible. We had arrived at noon and had seen that the city was virtually empty. Kujtim and his friends too would go home in about h
alf an hour.

  ‘What about the Italian troops and Operation Alba?’

  ‘They’ve taken charge of the harbour to prevent migrants but they don’t come into the city. A few days ago an Albanian and an Italian went to them and knocked on their door because the gangs had threatened them with death if they didn’t pay money. The Italians said they were sorry, but they didn’t have any orders to intervene in public order problems in the city. They were there only to distribute humanitarian aid. Both these men were shot in the end.’

  I asked him about the Salvation Committee. Was it still leading the protest movement? Was it doing anything to take control of the situation?

  ‘There’s no more protest movement,’ they told me, ‘The Committee still meets. You’ll find them in the high school. But they don’t send anyone out onto the streets any more. Zani and his gang control the city now.’

  Who Zani was, I found out a little later. He and his gang were talked about in Tirana too. He had appeared on the scene after the agreement of 9th March and the storming of the arsenals. He had been a migrant worker in Greece and had been imprisoned there for delinquency. Who knows how he reached Vlora, whether he was released from prison or escaped. Berisha’s people say that the Greeks released him on purpose to stir up trouble in the south. The Italian press has portrayed him as a Robin Hood figure, because he distributes money to the poor. He has also met with Italian Army officers.

  ‘Who is he?’ I asked.

  ‘An ordinary criminal. He’s now at war against another gang, Kakami’s. They’ve been fighting every day to control the city and the traffic in women and drugs, but they also kill innocent people. Zani says he’s on the side of your lot in the opposition, and Kakami is with Berisha.’

  I left my friends, who showed me the way to the high school. They told me not to take my Italian friends with me because the Salvation Committee no longer received foreigners. Bruno and his people set off to meet their own contacts in Vlora.

  ***

  The Committee had gathered in the head teacher’s office. Here too was a T-shaped table, like in the days of communism. At the head of the T, I recognized from television Albert Shyti with his bouffant hair and characteristic long sideburns. Next to him on the two arms of the T sat seven or eight other members of the Salvation Committee.

  As soon as the conversation began I understood what they thought of the agreement.

  ‘This government is a two-headed snake,’ said one of them, who had the look of an intellectual.

  ‘And one of those heads is going to bite us,’ Albert Shyti said, completing the other man’s thought.

  The others nodded in agreement.

  Albert Shyti was not concentrating on the conversation. He had in front of him a copy of Koha Jonë, which had resumed publication, and he was reading it with close attention.

  I don’t know for how long I talked to them or what I said, perhaps because of the shock I experienced at the moment when I stood up to go.

  I was about to leave the room when the door flew open at a mighty kick from outside. In front of me stood a tall young man with filthy matted hair, dressed in military kit and boots. He held a gun that looked bigger and longer than a Kalashnikov. An entourage of young men with Kalashnikovs came after him. He didn’t pay me any attention and perhaps didn’t know me. This must be Zani, I said to myself and stood rooted to the spot.

  He headed straight for the person he wanted, Albert Shyti.

  ‘Who’s boss in Vlora, you scumbag?’ he bellowed. He knocked him to the floor with his fist and kicked him.

  None of us made any response. We all felt powerless, terrified by the armed gang. The man who had said that the government was a two-headed snake put his arm around my shoulder and said it was better if I left, and they would settle the business themselves.

  ‘It’s the fault of Koha Jonë,’ I heard him say as I left.

  I left the schoolyard and came out on the main road, past a line of parked armoured vehicles with military camouflage paintwork. I hadn’t seen them when I arrived. A jeep, more impressive than the others, led them with tall antennas on its bonnet. Clearly these were the cars of Zani’s gang, with their boss’s in front.

  The streets of Vlora were totally deserted.

  I met Bruno and the other Italians at the café. Through their contacts they had found a powerfully built young man who told us that he belonged to the Socialist Party. I told him where I’d been and what had happened. He understood the reason immediately. He explained that Koha Jonë had reprinted that day an article published two or three days earlier in Corriere Della Sera, whose correspondent had visited Vlora to report on the deployment of the Italian troops in Operation Alba. He had also interviewed Albert Shyti. The article mentioned what he had said about Zani: ‘He isn’t the boss of Vlora. He’s a bandit and a murderer and the Italian officers who shook hands with him should wash their hands well afterwards.’ This was why Albert Shyti had looked so worried when I found him with Koha Jonë in front of him. He was wondering if Zani had been sent a copy.

  It was now entirely clear to me who was boss in Vlora.

  ‘But how do you put up with him?’ I asked the young man.

  ‘He doesn’t bother us,’ he replied. ‘But don’t worry. They’ll get rid of him when the time comes.’

  The young man led us through the city centre to see the damaged buildings --the city hall, the prefecture, and the SHIK headquarters, their blackened façades saddening and horrific.

  The University where the students had held their hunger strike was not burned but was deserted. We went in to see the strikers’ room. Our guide took us to eat at a restaurant by the sea called the Bologna, where foreigners went because it was safe from bandits. Zani had surrounded it a few days before at a time when it was full of Italians, but had come to an agreement with the proprietor, who no doubt paid to be left in peace.

  When we entered we noticed a table full of Italian servicemen of the Alba mission. One of them had acquired some Albanian.

  ‘Good morning --mirëmëngjesi; goodbye --tungjatjeta; food --ushqim; medicines -- ilaçe,’ he said, rehearsing the lessons he must have received before leaving Brindisi.

  ‘Throw down your weapons --hidhni armët; stop or I shoot --ndalo ose qëllova’ another soldier butted in dramatically and laughed.

  ‘Thank you --faleminderit,’ another interrupted.

  The proprietor of the restaurant, with a gold chain round his fat neck, laughed as they rehearsed the key Albanian vocabulary they had learned.

  We ate fresh fish. We asked where the fish was from and our guide said with a smile that it was probably blown out of the water with dynamite and sold to the owner for five leks.

  We didn’t stay long because we had to leave in order to be home before dark.

  But first we visited the city cemetery. Our guide told us we would see an unusual sight. There were so many new graves. There seemed to be more piles of fresh earth, some covered with flowers and some not, than old graves that had accumulated down the years. There were up to ten burials each day accompanied by keening, flowers, and gunshots.

  So many new graves had been added that the paths between the plots had been narrowed to make room for the number of dead. Most of these paths were now blocked, leaving only the main alleys. Then they used the plots reserved for the political victims of Vlora killed under the dictatorship, whose bones have yet to be found. When these were full they had dug graves where they could and without permission, because the authorities were not working.

  There were cases in which, during the burial, mourners had been killed by stray bullets, or by people out for revenge who had stalked the dead man’s friends. Even in this cemetery, one death led to another. This afternoon we found only one group of mourners leaving after burying one of their family. The sexton who had just finished his work came up to us. For some reason I didn’t look at his face but the soles of his rubber boot with their accumulated layers of mud. He thought that we had come
to ask for a plot. Apparently he made a business out of graves. When he saw that foreigners were with us and weren’t burying anyone, he set aside his serious expression and perked up.

  ‘How many burials today?’ our guide asked.

  ‘Not many, six.’

  He suspected that Bruno was a journalist and, without prompting, began telling us of extraordinary things that had happened there.

  A few days previously, a woman who came regularly to mourn her husband was seized by two bandits and forced to transfer her grief a few graves down the line, to weep for their friend. After she had lamented the deceased with an automatic rifle pointing at her head, the bandits took her with them. The sexton was worried for her sake, but did not dare to interfere. The next day, she appeared again at her husband’s grave, and the sexton asked her what had happened. She said they had liked her performance and so had driven her home and even paid her. Evidently the sexton’s favourite tales were about the bandits who organized funerals. He had tried to persuade two of them that every grave had to be 1.4 metres wide and 2.4 metres long, and that he couldn’t make them any larger. But they had pointed a revolver at his head and forced him to dig the enormous grave they wanted.

  The sexton had more stories to tell but we had to leave. Our guide followed us in his car as far as the Mifol bridge and we parted company there.

  Throughout the homeward journey I could not help thinking about the cemetery. Unconsciously, I had fixed in my mind the memory of the plot set aside for my former fellow-prisoners, whose bones were still missing. Surprisingly, I felt more sorry for the delay in finding these bones and commemorating these victims than for the recent dead. Those piles of fresh earth seemed like usurpers, violating a sacred space. These new deaths had occurred before the old victims had been properly buried. But then I thought that they were only a new twist in the same tragedy, new plots in an old graveyard.