Island of The World

by Michael D. O'Brien

  Propovjednik (Propo for short) is “preacher”. He is in his thirties, short and bald; there was no hair on top for the guards to shave off. Burly, he has a phlegmatic’s body posture, though only in the absence of guards. His flesh is wasting away, but it is clear that he was once a man of great strength. Ever ready to offer analysis, he is both clever and cautious. He was born and raised in Belgrade—an engineer. He built bridges and dams for Tito before the break with Stalin. Propo can be didactic in the manner of a man with elitist knowledge. Of course, it is impossible to maintain any illusions of superiority here, and arrogance is swiftly dealt with by guard and prisoner alike. His “preaching” is never religious; it is always about political or social matters. They listen when he speaks, but he is not well liked. Crime unknown.

  Prof, the “professor”, is in his late thirties, slightly built, reserved, an intellectual. His eyes and expression seem always turned to some unspoken thought. He is admired by all and liked for reasons that none can explain. It seems to Josip that there is a quiet dignity in this man, who rallies the others’ dislocated qualities of character and manliness. Prof thinks before he speaks. One remembers what he says, and one ponders it. Crime unknown.

  Tata, “Papa”, is gentle without softness, kindly and observant of others’ needs. In his late fifties or early sixties, he is the oldest of the six, yet he possesses some inner reserve of strength. Usually silent, he is the only one who has made a reference to religion. Crime unknown.

  Why do they help him? It cannot be ethnic loyalty. Propo is a Serb. Sova is a Slovene. Svat is a Bosnian, though he will not say if he is Croat, Serb, or Muslim. His facial characteristics could be any of these; it is assumed he is of mixed ethnicity. Prof, Tata, and Budala are Croats, as are the majority in the barracks.

  Some of the nicknames derive from temperament or mannerisms. Others, such as Svat’s, may have to do with stories they have told. For example, a wedding at which Svat drank a liter of slivovica and was still capable of walking home. Where is home? Josip asks. Svat’s face falls into uncharacteristic moroseness. “Tuzla”, he mumbles and will say no more. Budala offers, without being asked, that he himself is from Lukovo, a village on the coast not far from here. He intends to sneak to the eastern part of Goli Otok one morning, he declares, just to wave hello to his grandmother.

  “Enjoy it. It will be your last wave”, says Sova.

  The prisoners speak with each other only when no guards hover nearby, usually in the latrine, but also when they are laboring over the sifting bucket, or when side by side they blow on glowing embers of charcoal under the boiling pot. The guards have high standards. They always stand well upwind of sources of stench, which are various and numerous. Whispering at night in the barracks is less dangerous, but few are willing to waste precious time in conversation that in all likelihood would be depressing complaints or the painful reminiscing of strangers. Besides, everyone desires to plunge into sleep as quickly as he can. Otherwise, short exchanges are risked in murmurs or whispers. What do they talk about? Their lost pasts, resentments and desires, mockery of their captors, plans for escape?

  Josip cannot tell for sure, though he supposes that all prisoners speak about these things.

  Of his own companions, the six, there is such diversity in background that he continues to puzzle over their concern for him. Men seem to die here at frequent intervals. And always, human life is nearly valueless. If you can work, you will survive—rather, you may survive—but only if you are more docile than a donkey. You will be beaten like a donkey too and fed like one as well, though it must be admitted that a real donkey does not eat food passed through someone else’s intestines.

  “Beware of what they do to the mind”, says Propo one day, after he has swabbed the last open wound remaining on Josip’s body. The salty brine still stings. The gash on the shoulder muscle was deep. Propo explains that he stitched the flaps together with needle and thread while Josip was in delirium. It is not infected but still painful, and from time to time it bleeds a little. The rib is healing.

  “How long have I been here?” Josip asks.

  “Thirty-seven days”, says Propo.

  “Can it be that long? I have lost track of time.”

  “That’s what I mean, beware of what they do to the mind. First they take away your freedom, then your strength, then your clarity of thought. Finally, when you accept the lie that you are less than an animal, they will rebuild you.”

  “Not me.”

  “Oh, yes, you. There is nothing in you, nor in any of us, that can resist a lifetime of this.” Propo looks around the compound with disgust, his eyes lingering on three men crouched at the water buckets, concentrating on sifting for their reboiled supper.

  What were these men before capture? Men change under pressure, and it seems that most change for the worse. Only a few are refined in the fire, and all that is best in them comes forth, solidified, yet retaining the fluidity of liquid gold.

  Night. Two prisoners have been permanently removed from the barracks. Prof is now repositioned to the pallet beside Josip’s. Josip is awake, listening to sounds of a roomful of sleeping men. Seated with his back to the wall, his eyes are closed. He can hear Ariadne’s voice, though he cannot grasp what she is saying. Does she reach for him across the void? Is she seeking him in her dreams, or in a prison cell, or from beyond the gates of death? The agony of longing for her is greater than the desolation of not thinking about her. Then the sound of her violin. Mozart? Paganini? He begins to weep silently. Within his breast there is an earthquake of love, grief, pain.

  “You do not sleep”, whispers a voice beside him. It is Prof.

  “I cannot.”

  “You are thinking of your family?”

  He nods, though it cannot be seen by the other.

  “What is your name?”

  “Brbl.”

  A few of the six have taken to calling him Brbljavac, “babbler”, because of his delirious ravings during the first days. “What is your real name?”

  Because one can never speak normally during an earthquake, Josip offers no reply. Yet as the tremors subside, his thoughts turn elsewhere; he realizes that a thread of humanity has been cast in his direction.

  “I am Josip Lasta, from Split”, he whispers at last.

  “I am Vladimir Lucić, from Zagreb.”

  A hand brushes his arm. They shake hands.

  “What was your work before your arrest?” asks Vladimir Lucic.

  “I was a professor of mathematics.”

  “I was a professor of history.”

  “You are as criminal as I am, I am sure.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Why do we use these crude names? Why do we present ourselves to each other as owl, and preacher, and blockhead, and not who we really are?”

  “Do we present our names, or are they presented to us?”

  “Yes, we name each other. But why?”

  “I have thought a lot about this and have come to believe that we do not use our real names because we are infected with the lies that dominate everything here. To the guards we are no more than numbers. Something in us always resists this dehumanization, yet we cooperate in its spirit in order to survive.”

  “Survive? By reducing our humanity to a less personal level?”

  “Because we feel our peril at every moment, we withdraw inside ourselves a step or two. The crude name is like a mask we hold before us or a shield to protect our true selves.”

  “Why would we need to protect ourselves from our fellow prisoners?”

  “Because anyone can break down, betray us, curry favor with the guards in exchange for a bit of relief. You see what they have done to us, Josip? A crude name is a mask of toughness, hardness. We are beyond feeling, we say to each other. We will survive as long as we have no feeling. This is a mistake.”

  Yes, it is a mistake, but an unavoidable one it seems. Josip lies down and goes to sleep.

  Another night: Prof shakes his shoulde
r. “Let us talk, Josip Lasta.”

  “Why should we? We are dead men.”

  “We are not dead men. But we will slip closer to death if we do not use our minds.”

  “What is the mind?”

  “You ask an excellent question. Do you have any thoughts about it?”

  “None.”

  “Speak to me. Tell me what is in your mind.”

  A silence ensues. Finally Josip says, “Why do they do it to us? Why does one man degrade another, beat him to death, or throw him into the sea and for amusement watch the sharks tear him to pieces?”

  “Little by little the guards chose—long ago they chose—step by step they descended into the realm of the beast-men. In their souls, they know their depravity and hate themselves for it.”

  “Hate themselves? No, they enjoy it.”

  “Do they? I think they try to escape it by being masters of it. By using more and more evil, they try to rise and only sink deeper and deeper.”

  “Are they evil, or are they merely ignorant?”

  “At this level it is mostly ignorance, a vicious cycle to avoid despair. In the hierarchies of authority there are degrees of guilt. Above the guards is the prison administration, above it is the department in charge of prisons, above that level are the political courts, then the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, and above that are the leaders. Above them, Josip, one finds only spirit. The higher one looks, the greater the evil. But I am saying this poorly. The hierarchy is a descending one, and those who appear to have the most power are really at the lowest level, because under their feet is hell itself.”

  “Maybe it’s only strata of disordered human psychology. That would account for everything.”

  Vladimir does not immediately reply. “No it would not account for everything”, he says at last.

  “Isn’t it a case of men who feel powerless crushing others lower because they feel it raises them higher?”

  “Yes, that’s their psychology. But there is more in it than you think.”

  A guard throws open the door and casts his flashlight here and there throughout the room. Fortunately, Josip has laid himself flat in time. Nothing moves. The guard goes out and closes the door. No more is said. However, Josip is struck by the realization that Prof has reawakened his mind.

  Since he arrived on the island, Josip has noticed the signals that pass between the six, mainly subliminal. They trust each other. What binds them together? It is not a shared past or a unified outlook on the world. And why have they congregated around him, why have they preserved him? Several prisoners have been deleted from the original number since Josip’s arrival on the island. Three died from maltreatment and hunger, two were shot in the quarries where the prisoners work, others were dragged away by guards and have not returned. Crimes unknown.

  “Why do you help me?” Josip asks Propo one day.

  Propo looks at Josip with a direct gaze. “Because we heard about your courage.”

  “My courage?” Josip mumbles. What is courage? When did he last have any of that?

  “No one has ever survived what you went through. Many die from a single passage through skin-the-rabbit. You survived three. I think even some of the guards were impressed.”

  There is nothing to say in reply.

  “After skin-the-rabbit, when you had your bath, it was Svat and Budala who lifted you and put you into the barrel. They did not want to do it, but they would become skinned rabbits if they refused. They told us about your endurance. They have seen men die under fewer blows.”

  “So, not every prisoner is a skinned rabbit?”

  “Most, not all. They are young and came here within the past few months. Their strength makes them useful. But do not despise these boys, for they hate what they do. Perhaps that is why they help you now. Svat is motivated by admiration for you, Budala by shame.”

  “What motivates you?”

  “Each has his reasons. But I think we do it to keep from sinking lower than the beasts. Animals do not sacrifice without thought of reward. Only men sacrifice in this manner. So, you help us to remain men.”

  “As you help me to remain a man.”

  “It’s how we can repel their lies, each for his own reason, each in his way.”

  “And the guards, what motivates them?”

  “The guards! They are the easiest to understand. They are the bullies we all have met in our lives. They are everywhere in this world but restrained by law in civilized nations. They who once terrorized playgrounds and neighborhoods now may terrorize defenseless men. Those sneering faces with no thoughts inside and only guns and truncheons in their hands—they are the less-than-men.”

  “Yet you are afraid of them, as are we all.”

  “I feel nothing but contempt for them. Do not fear what they do to the body, if you can help it. Fear instead what they do to the mind.”

  “You said that before.”

  “And I say it again.”

  After considering this for a few moments, Josip ventures: “What is your name, Propo?”

  The latter looks away, snorts, then mutters, “Ante”, as if his name were a useless and accidental ornament.

  That night, Svat crawls on hands and knees in the dark to Josip’s pallet and gives him a piece of damp bread. He is about to turn away when Josip seizes his wrist.

  “Let me go”, whispers the boy intensely. “If a guard comes in, I’ll catch hell.”

  “Just one moment. It was you who said courage to me when I went into the barrel.”

  “I am sorry. Don’t hate me. I didn’t want to put you in there. But, you see, if I hadn’t—”

  “It’s all right. I just want to tell you I am grateful for what you said. The word stayed with me as I went down. And maybe that word brought me up again, alive.”

  In the silence of a room full of sleeping men, Josip can hear the other swallow.

  “What is your name?”

  “I’m Svat!”

  “Your real name.”

  The other pauses, pulls his hand away, hesitates.

  “I am Kruno”, he whispers. “Krunošlav Bosnjaković.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen?”

  “Why are you here, Kruno, in Goli Otok?”

  “I am a criminal.”

  “What was your crime?”

  “I threw an egg at a picture of Tito in my school.”

  “A terrible crime.”

  “I should have eaten the egg and kept my mouth shut. They were going to put my mother in jail because of what I did. But they didn’t.”

  “And your father?”

  “The Ustashe killed him when I was a baby.”

  “We should sleep, Kruno”, says Josip, after absorbing this. “Yes. Good night. I will see you tomorrow. Don’t hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  19

  Two guards enter the barracks at dawn and all the prisoners get to their feet and stand at attention. Josip stands with them, a little slower than the others. After a cursory circumspection of the prisoner’s body one guard nods, and the other throws a bundle of clothes at him.

  “You’re well enough to work”, he growls. “Get dressed.”

  His new uniform is a set of shorts made of tougher canvas and a collarless burlap shirt. Also a set of leather boots, hanging together by its hobnails, laced with twine. No socks, no underwear. Everything chafes his still raw flesh.

  The quarries are up in the hills beyond the compound. Every day the prisoners are marched there on dusty paths and down into natural ravines or artificial rock cuts, to slice from the island’s body thin slabs of limestone. Thin, yes, but it takes a healthy man to lift one. Those who have not lived here forever could lift two or three at a time if they so wished, but the risk of dropping them is greater, and if you drop one and it breaks into pieces, you will be broken into pieces by the guards. They observe every movement. They are bored with watching and their boredom breeds mischief, an appetit
e for provocation. If they can goad a prisoner into the merest hint of rebellion, even an improper attitude, they can retaliate. The sight of blood and the feeling of power is what they live for. That, and smoking, and surreptitious sips from bottles secreted inside their uniforms. They too live with risks.

  Their risk is not so great, however, that they refrain from conspiring to demolish a prisoner now and then, as sport. This diversion is a favorite pastime, a bonus payment for their life of ennui. They know that an unceasing supply of fresh prisoners will arrive from the mainland and that such labor is a disposable asset, though it cannot be disposed of too often—there must be good reasons for it, and of course there must be witnesses to justify any punitive action. Not all the guards are like this. There are good ravines where casualties are fewer, and bad ravines where the likelihood of annihilation is greater.

  On Josip’s first workday, his crew is in a good ravine. For twelve hours the prisoners slowly and relentlessly carry limestone slabs up a winding path to a truck parked at the crest. One stone at a time. Josip is permitted to carry the smallest pieces. A break for water every three hours, half an hour for lunch—soup and water—then another three hours before the next water break, and after that a final three hours before they shuffle back down the hills toward the compound.

  All day long the guards—three of them with rifles slung over shoulders—look down without expression into the crawling pit of human ants and walk slowly and sometimes haphazardly around the perimeter. Whenever a truck drives away with a full load, the prisoners can slacken their pace a little (though never are they permitted a complete rest), and the guards sit down, exchange comments with each other, light cigarettes, and make jokes. Every six hours they are replaced. For each set of workers there are two sets of guards. Fortunately, today both sets are not entirely inhuman.

  By nightfall Josip is nearly dehydrated, every muscle in his body is aching, his groin and midriff are rubbed raw by the rough clothing, his hands are blistered, and a hopeless run toward the sea has become an option he is seriously considering. On the homeward journey, Sova and Prof put their shoulders under his arms and help him walk the last hundred meters. Sova declares that it was an excellent day. No accidents, no severe beatings, no deaths. Just the usual cuffs and insults. “Puzzling”, says Prof. “Maybe the thoughts of the guards are elsewhere. I wonder what is happening in the world?” All of this is in whispers. To speak aloud is to invite a blow from a fist, a rifle butt, or even the punishment of the winepress.