The Devil Couldn't Break Me

by Laura Aslan

  I realised I was shivering and decided it was time to move on as I repacked my bag and took a final look at where I was heading. Agi had been right, the main road to Kosovo was clear enough to see but he had also emphasised how very dangerous it was and as I started walking downhill I made a mental note of the route. Keep to the right of the road. Agi had said. Make sure you are well inside the Kosovo border before you break your cover.

  His words rang in my ears and I did as he had instructed but it was tough going. Once I reached the bottom of the hill the path petered out and I was walking through dense forest and bracken, taking my bearings from the noise of the traffic over to my left. I didn’t want to get too close to the road but figured as long as I could hear traffic noise then I wouldn’t stray too far. From the bottom of the mountain Agi had said it was no more than four kilometres into Kosovo, but he said I should walk at least six or seven before making my way to the road. So I walked on for at least three hours, stopping now and again for a drink of water and even managing to build up a hunger and eat my breakfast sandwich. My bag felt really heavy at that point and I laughed, as I looked at all the food my parents had packed. It was enough to feed a small army.

  Despite the cold I was sweating hard and the path I had chosen appeared to gain a little altitude. I had an idea that it might be good to gain a little height as it might give me a chance to view the road again. It was tough going especially the long uphill climbs but I remembered my father telling me that every uphill has a downhill and I pressed on. On one steep, downhill stretch I missed my footing on a loose rock and pitched forward violently. I was aware of the ground rushing up towards my face but had the presence of mind to twist away from it and I landed on my back, my rucksack absorbing most of the impact. I lay for a second and realised I had gashed my ankle on a tree root. My father had had the presence of mind to pack me a small first aid kit and after patching myself up and drinking a little water I was on the move again.

  I came to a clearing in the forest and noticed a path off to the left that appeared to climb even further. I followed it and sure enough, after about two hundred metres the forest opened up in front of me giving me a clear view to the main road no more than half a kilometre away. I caught my breath for a second. I couldn’t quite believe the sheer volume of traffic heading into Kosovo. Cars, trucks and even motorbikes, bumper to bumper, slowly edging their way towards the border. The border checkpoint was obvious, a real build-up of almost stationary vehicles, the sound of tooting horns and the bright blue helmets of the NATO peacekeepers clearly visible. I confess I felt a little pleased with myself as I turned around and started walking again. Agi’s instructions were good and I had followed them to the letter. I was in Kosovo now and I felt safe. I’d somehow get a ride to Pristina and everything would be all right.

  I walked directly to the road and came out no more than two kilometres inside the Kosovo border. The traffic was very slow and almost immediately I noticed a bus crawling slowly towards me. He had no choice but to stop as I jumped in front of him. He opened the door with a smile on his face and spoke in perfect Albanian.

  “You’ll get yourself killed you silly girl.”

  I also spoke to him in Albanian.

  “I’m sorry but I need to get to Pristina.”

  I fumbled in my bag for the money my father had packed and pulled out a 300 dinar note.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have any change.”

  The bus driver told me not to worry about money.

  “We have NATO here now, we are free men so money is of no consequence to me at the minute.”

  He was grinning and told me to take a seat, he seemed so kind and he immediately put me at ease. He explained that he was heading for Gnjilane, which was thirty minutes away and from there I could take a bus direct to Pristina. I took a seat by the window and tried to blend in with the rest of the crowd on the bus.

  As we neared Gnjilane, the traffic built up even more reducing the pace of the bus to no more than that of a snail. Every car, every truck appeared to be flying the Albanian flag from a window or an aerial and I couldn’t quite understand that significance. We were in Kosovo, why not a Kosovan flag or why a flag at all.

  As we pulled into Gnjilane the bus driver called me forward. He told me to be very careful and not to trust anyone. I remember being very frightened as I climbed from the bus and almost immediately I became aware that, although it was quite busy, there were very few women around and almost no girls of my age to be seen. Gnjilane was very rough, I didn’t like the look of the men at all and the buildings appeared run down and neglected. Some of them were in ruins and bore the marks of bullet and mortar fire.

  I started walking. It wasn’t long before I spotted the NATO soldiers again which calmed my anxiety a little. They were American troops this time, bright blue helmets or baseball caps and tiny stars and stripes flags flying from the aerials of their trucks and the very sight of the explosion of colour in an otherwise dreary grey backdrop fascinated me. I had been a long-time admirer of anything American, particularly their movies that I had watched as a young girl. Rightly or wrongly I had always looked up to America, loved the way they spoke and adored their style, their colourful fashions and carefree attitude. Uncle Demir had always said he was going to take Amir and I to New York and it was something I had dreamt about for as long as I could remember. A jeep passed me with four young American soldiers on board. They were smiling and laughing and their teeth were shiny white and pretty... they were like movie stars.

  Eventually I found the bus to Pristina. There was a very long queue and once again I handed the bus driver my high denomination dinar note. He wasn’t as happy as the first bus driver, telling me off and saying I should have changed it at one of the local bars or shops. He was speaking Albanian too so I answered him in the same tongue and said that we were free now and that the United Nations were here and they had saved us and who cared about money anyway. It seemed to work as he reluctantly allowed me on board albeit with a grumble and a shrug of his shoulders.

  After an hour we came across a huge military checkpoint. There were soldiers everywhere and the atmosphere on the bus could be cut with a knife as I heard someone say that we were pulling into a Serbian populated town called Gracanica where there had been a lot of trouble. This time the traffic was heading in the other direction and it was convoys of Serbs fleeing for their lives as Kosovans and Albanians took out their frustration and bitterness on the town of Gracanica and the Serb men women and children who lived there. This was no different to what I was doing, fleeing from the town where I had grown up. It was utter madness, the futility of it all, how blind can man be?

  I peered into the back of a large car as it passed by the bus window. There were five small children squeezed onto the back seat, the youngest about a year old and the oldest, a girl, probably no more than a eleven years old. Like me they looked lost, puzzled and were looking for answers to why their parents were running for their lives. My heart went out to the little ones.

  It took over an hour to get through the checkpoint at Gracanica after two UN soldiers had meticulously checked the identification and documents of the bus driver. Twenty minutes after that, the bus driver announced that we were driving into Pristina bus station.

  I was aware that I was thirsty, so very thirsty, as I climbed from the bus. I had finished my last bottle of water just outside Gnjilane and that had been some hours ago. It was cold now too, and dark and I pulled my scarf tightly around my neck as I buttoned up my coat. I felt frightened and vulnerable as I looked around for somewhere to go. I didn’t know what to expect but thought there might be some sort of information desk at the bus station or at least an employee to ask directions to the Red Cross people. There was nothing. I looked across the road and spotted a bar on the main pedestrianised street and thought at least I could get a drink of water in there. It was next to a large hotel and a police
station. Someone would help me in there, I was sure of it.

  As I opened the door I was hit by a wall of noise, not the peaceful tranquil scene I imagined as families took a quiet coffee on the way home for the evening. It was full of UN soldiers and policeman drinking beer that the bar tender was pulling from a shiny silver pump perched on top of the counter. I had never seen anything like it before. The beer in Veliki Trnovac all came from glass bottles or tins and was only ever seen at a wedding or celebration. This was another world. I had never seen so much beer and it was obviously good because everyone looked as if they were having a wonderful time. It was as if the war outside had stopped at the doorway to the bar. I became aware that many people were staring at me as I walked in but nevertheless the barman greeted me with a big smile. I asked for a water and he poured it from the tap saying there was no charge. He began talking to me and asking where I was from, where I was going. I felt exposed and for some reason didn’t have the confidence or courage to share my predicament with him. I looked at the UN soldiers and the policemen and for the first time since before the incident on the hill actually felt quite safe.

  I emptied the glass of water and asked for another trying to pluck up the courage to walk over to a table of policemen and ask where the Red Cross Camps were. The barman was asking me more questions and clearly flirting with me. That was the last thing I needed, it was late and I needed to act fast if I was going to get shelter otherwise I’d end up sleeping in a bus station or worse, a shop doorway. In the end I lost my nerve and wandered outside and propped myself up against the window feeling sorry for myself. Several minutes passed and I flopped to the floor. It was so cold on my backside but I didn’t care. I would sit there until someone came to help me because I couldn’t bring myself to walk back into the bar.

  Ten minutes passed and two UN Police Officers came out and started speaking to me. They spoke in movie accents and although I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, their voices were somehow soothing to me, especially the younger blond soldier who I felt an instant attraction too. Soon after a Pristina policeman joined them and he was also speaking English but he sounded so much more aggressive than the Americans, a real contrast in the tones of their voices. One of the policemen returned into the café and came out with someone else who started talking Albanian and he explained he was an official translator for the Americans. He asked me what I was doing and I said I wanted to know where the Red Cross Shelters were. The policeman spoke to me in Albanian and asked where I was from. When I told him he said that he couldn’t help me because the Red Cross Camps were for displaced Kosovans and Albanians only and there was no way they could accommodate anyone from Serbia. I couldn’t quite believe it as the policeman walked back into the café. I watched through the window as the barman poured him a beer and he returned to a table with his colleagues laughing and joking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if he hadn’t even met me.

  Now it was the translator who sounded annoyed. He kept talking to the Americans and their voices grew louder and louder, their actions more animated.

  He turned to me.

  “You must go, these streets are dangerous.”

  I was puzzled.

  “But I don’t have anywhere to go,” I said, “I don’t understand, I am in Pristina and the Americans are here. Aren’t we supposed to be safe?”

  The translator frowned.

  “If only it were that simple.”

  He was arguing with the Americans. I caught odd words. I’d picked up a little English from school and of course the sub titled or dubbed movies. I heard the word dangerous many times and I began to get frightened. The translator was pointing at me and then to the far end of the street and the Americans soldiers were saying No! No! At one point the translator appeared to walk away but then quickly returned.

  “You can’t stay here all night,” he said, “you’ll have to leave.”

  It seemed a hopeless situation and I started to cry. The translator shook me by the shoulder.

  “The Americans have said you can stay with them.”

  “What?” I said.

  He repeated his statement.

  “The Americans have a flat near here and they have said you can stay there tonight.”

  “No,” I said, “that’s not possible, it would not be right.”

  The translator let out a deep sigh and shook his head.

  “Do you want shelter or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you haven’t got a choice you stupid girl. There are no hotels open and the Red Cross don’t want you.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “I have to get going so tell me what you are planning to do.”

  He was right... I had no choice. It seemed like a crazy thing to do and yet as I stared at the two American soldiers long enough to be considered rude, I couldn’t help but trust them. I nodded.

  “Good,” said the translator, “I might be able to go home to my family now.”

  The older of the soldiers reached for my bag and the other one turned to the translator who in turn spoke to me. “They said they will take care of you.”

  I nodded my head, dried my eyes and followed them across the street to their car.

  God Bless America

  I sat in the back of the car, cold and nervous and yet I wasn’t frightened. I somehow sensed that the two soldiers were the good guys and yet at the same time I couldn’t help but mouth a silent prayer to The Almighty that my judgement would not let me down.

  As soon as the car door closed paranoia set in. We were in the middle of a war and people were disappearing every day. It would not be beyond the impossible for these two men to take me wherever they wanted, do whatever they wanted with me, kill me and create another statistic of a missing girl in a conflict that was spiralling out of control. I thought back to the mountainside on that night. On that particular night my whole village very nearly became a statistic... a big one. It would be so easy for them and I tried my hardest not to burst into tears. As pulled my coat tightly around my neck and snuggled into the thick collar, the seeds of doubt began to creep in and take root. My thoughts drifted back to my parents and I wondered how they were. Did they know something I didn’t? Was that why they had sent me away?

  I leaned against the cool window as the jeep pulled away and one by one the streetlights passed me by, blurred by the sheen of tears that filled my eyes. We were in the vehicle for no more than ten minutes during which I managed to convince myself that these men had freed Kosovo and driven the Serb Army back to the borders so they had to be the good guys. Just like in the movies and I had to trust them and the alternative, a doorway in a strange city seemed a whole lot worse and did not bear thinking about.

  The car pulled into a gap on the side of a road and the older of the soldiers pointed to a six or seven storey apartment that I assumed was where they lived. It wasn’t what I expected. The street was narrow and very busy even at this time of night and would be described as poor Eastern European, certainly not the country environment I had been used to in Veliki Trnovac. I recall that we had to walk carefully through about two centimetres of mud. I looked around and the whole street was covered in mud that puzzled me. We were in the middle of a concrete jungle. Where had the mud come from?

  A one metre wide path led from the road to the entrance of the building that was dimly lit and a dirty pinkish colour. I looked at the Americans who gently herded me towards the door smiling and yet looking a little embarrassed at the dilapidated building where they lived. I somehow thought they might have been housed in some sort of plush barracks or a neat military complex, but no, it was an apartment on the ground floor in a depressed and tired street in a suburb of Pristina.

  Ever the gentleman, the oldest of the Americans rushed forward to open the door to the block and as I took a final look up at the grott
y building he took my bag and beckoned me forward. We walked through the door. Straight ahead were the stairs leading to the upper floors and to the left was a solitary door, which the blond soldier pointed to and took a step forward.

  Although I had never set foot in a soldier’s apartment it was probably how I would have imagined a place inhabited by two single men. It was a bloody mess! My God, my mother would have had a heart attack if she had seen where I would be spending my first night. We walked down a small narrow corridor and one of them stepped forward and opened the door to the lounge. I did my very best not to look too shocked and I thanked my lucky stars that it was dark as the look of amazement was clearly written all over my face. The sofa was piled high with dirty clothes, mainly camouflaged uniforms, but also under garments, socks, t-shirts and several pairs of US army issue boots.

  These two soldiers clearly liked a beer or two because the small coffee table was littered with empty cans. I looked into one of the corners and several unopened cases of beer sat alongside more dirty washing. They seemed not to notice as the man with the shaved head walked into the kitchen and returned with three cans of beer. He grinned a cheeky grin as he handed his colleague a can and offered one to me. I shook my head and he looked a little disappointed. As they drank their first can quite quickly they talked to each other and gave me an occasional glance. The two of them walked back into the kitchen and then quickly returned. They were pointing to the kitchen and making signs with their two hands cradled to their heads which I took to mean that this was to be my bedroom for the night. It made sense, I’m sure a kitten would have struggled to lie down on that sofa.