The Devil Couldn't Break Me

by Laura Aslan

  And so we sat down for the evening and we talked in two languages while I did my best to use the few English words I’d picked up at school and from the movies I’d seen. Surprisingly we got by. They had picked up a few Albanian words and we established each other’s names quite quickly. They were called Brian and Peter and although they struggled at first with the pronunciation of Laura, eventually they perfected it and after an hour I was conscious that I had smiled for the first time. Peter was the bald one with the cheeky smile, cheeky but nice and I warmed to him almost immediately. My judge of character had not let me down, now I was sure of it and as the seconds and the minutes and indeed hours ticked by I felt more and more comfortable in the grotty little apartment. Brian was altogether different, slightly younger than Peter and with more hair. He was quite handsome, a strong, confident man with deep blue eyes and I found myself staring at him more than I should have. I liked him immediately and by the end of the evening we were all good friends and I was completely at ease and knew I had made the right decision to stay the night with the two soldiers from America.

  After a while Brian and Peter indicated that we would be eating. I confess I had hardly eaten all day and my hunger had miraculously found itself again. Peter disappeared into the kitchen while Brian drank more beer and I sipped on my water. A little while later Brian reappeared with three plates of hot sliced, square meat and warm bread and butter. It was delicious and I managed to express the fact. They both started laughing and Brian produced an empty tin that read US Army Rations. It was cheap, mass-produced, processed meat meant for soldiers in the field but to me it tasted like a meal from a five star hotel.

  Afterwards we had US Army ration biscuits for desert and then Brian made some coffee. To this day I will never forget my first dinner with the Americans, I can taste every morsel even now. Brian and Peter drank more beer after the coffee and Brian’s eyes began to close as he drifted to sleep on the floor. Peter took control and brought me some blankets and pillows that he placed on the kitchen floor. He looked apologetic but I did my best to explain that it was fine and more than I could ever have hoped for just a few hours ago. He closed the kitchen door and I searched in my bag for my pyjamas. I washed and cleaned my teeth at the kitchen sink in-between a mountain of dirty dishes, changed and slipped between the blankets as I lay my head on the pillow. I couldn’t believe my luck. This was surely better than some freezing cold tent in the middle of a Red Cross Camp.

  I slept well but woke in the early hours of the morning, stepping back in time and reliving the events of the day and the night before. At times I couldn’t quite believe that I had agreed to accompany two strange men back to their apartment to spend the night and yet I knew I had no choice. At five in the morning I got up. I felt strangely invigorated and refreshed and set about the mountain of dishes as quietly as I could. There were so many it took me about thirty minutes. I packed my blankets and my pillow neatly into the corner, found some cleaning solution under the sink and set about an almost impossible task to put the kitchen back into working order.

  It was around 8am when Brian walked through with a look of surprise on his face. I’d made a good job if I say so myself and I shrugged my shoulders as if to say it was the least I could do. I was still working on a greased up bench top as Brian tried to tell me to stop. I wasn’t sure what he meant to say. Was he telling me I was wasting my time or simply telling me to take a break for some breakfast? There were eggs in the fridge and sliced bread so I cooked my friends some scrambled eggs and made toast and coffee. They sat at a kitchen table they had probably never seen for a long time and looked more than content. When they had finished, and with the aid of some paper and a pen they indicated that they needed to leave for work but said they would be back soon with the translator, the man we had seen the night before. Brian looked sad. I sensed I would probably have to leave with the translator and he knew it too. Perhaps he had found me alternative accommodation, a tent on a Red Cross Settlement or somewhere the police had arranged.

  Before they left they sat me down and said under no circumstances was I to leave the building. It was a strange thing to say as I had no intention of leaving, I felt safe and secure and I had nowhere to go but they were adamant and I remember thinking how serious they both looked. Did they know something I didn’t?

  And then they were gone. It was quiet and I felt lonely again so I did the only thing I could think of to take my mind off my imminent departure into uncertainty - I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. I washed dirty uniforms and pressed clean ones and I polished boots and tables and ornaments and I vacuumed the entire place with a frenzy that almost burnt out the motor. I washed rugs and hung them out to dry on the balcony and I even cleaned the toilets.

  Just after eleven in the morning they arrived back with the translator, I found out he was called Visar. He looked even more miserable than he had the night before and as I suspected, he told me I couldn’t stay with the Americans for another night. While he talked to me I noticed that Brian and Peter were walking around the apartment shaking their heads. They were laughing. Brian picked up his clean pressed uniform and was showing it to Peter, grinning.

  “It is time to leave now Laura,” Visor said.

  “Where am I going?”

  The translator was more than a little evasive and clearly unsure where they were going to put me. I felt strangely at home in my small apartment in a side street in the middle of Pristina even though I had been there less than twelve hours. It was clean and tidy and there was food in the fridge and I almost smiled as I told myself I even had my own two personal bodyguards.

  “So where am I going?”

  Visor shrugged his shoulders.

  “We will take you to the police station and-”

  Brian interrupted, I caught a few words and he was clearly questioning him.

  “No,” Visor said, “that is out of the question, it would be improper.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Visor sighed.

  “He said you should stay here but I won’t allow it. It’s not right. You’re a young girl and they are grown men and if this got out there would be a scandal.”

  They were arguing even harder and the two Americans had raised their voices and were clearly intimidating the translator who was flinging his arms around in frustrated animation.

  He turned to me.

  “I won’t allow it. The Americans can’t just decide to grant board and lodgings to any girl they like the look of.”

  It was clear what he was insinuating but he couldn’t have been further from the truth. These men were not like that. Even after such a short time in their company I trusted them with my life. At one point the Americans even stood between us as if preventing him getting to me.

  Eventually Visor turned to me.

  “I can’t stop you from staying here but I warn you, you are making a serious error of judgement.”

  I looked at Brian and Peter.

  “I’ll stay.”

  Visor translated my words to Brian and Peter and they broke out into broad beaming smiles as they hugged me spontaneously. Soon after Visor left and I made Brian and Peter some lunch with the groceries they had brought in. We sat around the table grunting out single syllable English words and an odd Albanian phrase and I laughed inwardly at the crazy situation I had found myself in.

  During the next few weeks my English improved considerably, learning basic words such as good, help, okay, thank you, son, daughter, friends and one word that cropped up rather too often - dangerous. I made a real effort to study the language and when Brian and Peter were out on duty, after I had cleaned and tidied, I made a point of tuning in to the English speaking television and radio stations and practiced stringing sentences together. I also helped Brian and Peter extend their basic Albanian vocabulary and within a month we were holding decent conversations.


  During that first month I didn’t ventured out of the house. This was because of strict instructions from Brian and Peter. They said it was a lawless Pristina I had ventured into, despite the UN peace keeping troops and they told me in no uncertain terms was I to go out without them. This was quite frustrating because I still hadn’t been able to buy a mobile phone. I would text my mother from Brian’s cell phone and had a couple of messages back from her but it was a UN issue phone and for some reason the reception wasn’t good enough to hold a conversation.

  I can recall the day with clarity that they took me to a US army base. It was a bright, sunny day and both Brian and Peter had a day off. We enjoyed an enormous dinner and on the way back we called into a shop where I purchased a cheap mobile phone and a pay as you go SIM card with twenty dollars credit on it. I remember sensing how nervous Brian and Peter seemed as they stood guard, almost like sentries outside the shop, while I waited to be served. I thought nothing of it at the time but those memories would come back and disturb my sleep for many years. If only I had sensed how dangerous the streets of Pristina really were.

  It was the longest I had ever gone without hearing my dear mothers words and I broke into tears at the sound of her soft, calming voice. She cried too. She passed me to my father and between the tears I managed to tell him everything was fine and that I was safe and being well looked after. I told him how lucky I had been in finding my American saviours and he was relieved to hear that I wasn’t in the middle of a field in a tent in the harsh cKupite of a Kosovan winter. I asked the question I had longed to ask for many weeks - can I come home? Nani simply said soon. She explained that the situation was improving and that the borders were now open but things weren’t quite back to normal.

  “We will come to see you soon,” she said. “You must text the address and we will get there somehow.”

  I shed more tears as I said my goodbyes all too soon. It was strange, it was as if I had ran out of conversation despite not speaking to them for so long but I hung on Nani’s final words that we would meet up soon.

  During the coming weeks the tension appeared to ease a little and I ventured out with Brain and Peter quite a lot, but always in the car. We returned to the Army base several times and even went to dinner with some of their friends. As each new excursion passed without incident I convinced myself I’d be returning home soon and everything would be as I remembered as a small girl. There would be no war and no Serb soldiers and Veliki Trnovac would still be the beautiful place near the mountains that I loved so much.

  Two weeks after that first phone call with my parents my phone rang very early one morning and my mother announced that her and my father were on a bus that had left Veliki Trnovac two hours earlier heading for Pristina. I was so excited and couldn’t wait to tell Brian and Peter. Nani had said the journey would only take an hour more at the most and I begged Brian and Peter to somehow get the day off work so we could all eat together. I was so grateful, and yes, proud of my American friends and I so wanted my parents to meet them. I owed them so much, they couldn’t begin to understand how much I loved them, they were like brothers to me. They telephoned their base and somehow managed to convince their commanding officer that they couldn’t make it in that day. There was a slight problem in that I couldn’t explain to my parents where it was we actually lived but Peter telephoned Visor who in turn called my mother and guided her to a road where we could all meet up safely. It was such an emotional meeting as we hugged and cried together. Eventually we managed to prise ourselves apart and I introduced the two American soldiers to my beautiful parents. We climbed in the UN Jeep and drove the short distance to our apartment in Pristina.

  Nani had cooked her favourite dish, Sarma, a cabbage marinated in mincemeat and spices and wasted no time in making herself at home in the kitchen. She put the huge dish in the oven and turned it up high that crisped the top of the cabbage and mince just perfectly and she served it as Brian and Peter brought out some wine and of course a few beers. I acted as a very poor, but I suppose adequate translator. It was an altogether perfect day, the war could have been a million kilometres away and my father constantly thanked Brian and Peter for looking after me, almost to the point of embarrassment. As we were almost finished I handed Agi a photograph of the soldiers and said he could keep it. Agi looked at it for a few seconds and then cried as he slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  There were more tears at the dinner table that day when Nani announced that my cousin, Agim, had been shot and killed at an army checkpoint. I had been very close to him, almost like brother and sister and I cried for some time while Brian and Peter tried to console me. Agi said he had been killed in his car - shot dead at close distance by automatic gunfire and he also said that many people had simply disappeared.

  Agim was a businessman and it all seemed so senseless, he wasn’t a threat to anyone. Agi said the soldiers who had killed him wore white sneakers... training shoes. I frowned.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I said.

  Agi shrugged his shoulders. Brian nodded as if he knew exactly what Agi was inferring.

  “What?” I asked.

  Brian said that it wasn’t just politicians and soldiers who had orchestrated and kept the conflicts running. Serbia and Kosovo and the rest of the autonomous regions were being overrun by lawless gangs hell bent on making money from the many wars that had broken out, claiming they were behind a cause.

  “It has been the same since the word war was first coined,” Peter said. “During the second world war most Nazis were more interested in growing rich than anything Hitler, Goebbels or Himmler proposed. There was more gold and art treasures stolen, stored or filtered through places like the Vatican and Switzerland than at any stage in history.”

  Agi was nodding his head as I translated exactly what Peter was saying.

  “He’s right,” Agi said, “it’s been said that it’s the rich that wage war while the poor die.”

  I translated again.

  Brian nodded.

  “So true. Every war in history is undertaken for the acquisition of wealth. There are no exceptions.”

  I sat back in my seat exasperated and it hit me hard. This was why my father had sent me away, this was why Uncle Demir had given over his life savings and this was why Brian and Peter had almost kept me prisoner for the last two months. They feared for my safety. The men who had taken us to the mountain and had been ready to kill us were in it for the money, nothing more. The soldiers in the white sneakers... it somehow started to become clear.

  As I helped Nani clear the dishes and she produced a bag of sweet pastries I asked her when it would be safe to come home.

  “Listen to your father,” she said. “Listen to your American friends. You can come home when it is safe to do so and not before.”

  Brian was standing in the doorway. It was almost as if he had understood every word my mother had just said.

  “And promise me you’ll never leave this place without me.”

  I looked up and smiled as a pleasant shiver ran the length of my spine.

  “I promise. I promise.”

  Taken

  I was in the bathroom getting showered and then dried when I overheard a conversation between Brian and Peter. They never normally talked about the politics inside the four walls of the apartment and in general I never asked. It was almost as if they had pulled down an invisible shield to protect me from the evils just outside the front door. But this morning I opened the door slightly and listened.

  Brian was saying that by now the K.L.A. were thousands strong. They had detention camps in Albania in the towns of Durres, Vlore and Kukes. He said he’d heard stories that some of these detention centres were more sinister than they looked from the outside. The Kukes detention facility was a key supply point for the KLA during the conflict and the UN had been asked to investigate rumours tha
t as many as fifty people had been tortured and murdered while they were detained by the KLA in Durres.

  Peter mentioned one of the commanders; a man by the name of Azem Kupi who it was said mistreated and tortured prisoners there. He said he had more information from an escapee that Kupi had also abducted Kosovan Serbs in northern Albania and sent them to concentration camp called Daphne in Drenica, where he allegedly participated in the executions and torture of the non-Albanian population, removing their organs and selling them on the black market.

  I took a sharp intake of breath. I remembered ‘Arsal the Exaggerator’ had mentioned something about people’s organs being removed too. I laughed to myself. Surely Arsal’s tall tales could not have reached this far?

  Brian had been busy in the kitchen by the time I had dressed. He was standing over by the cooker and served some eggs and beans onto three plates. He’d made a pot of coffee and made me sit at the table while he served me my breakfast.

  I had had a soft spot for Brian from the moment I set eyes on him and living in such close proximity to him for many weeks it was inevitable that my feelings would develop even further. Brian was a single man and during the whole time I stayed in the apartment there was not one single mention of a girlfriend back home in the States or indeed a girl here in Pristina. Neither Peter or Brian ever brought any girls round to the apartment and I knew that to be strange in itself as there was plenty talk about the local prostitutes and their American colleagues in the military camp and what they got up to in their spare time.

  The chemistry developed between us, it was truly magical and whereas Peter was undoubtedly my hero, our relationship was always like brother and sister or even father and daughter like. I was very tearful in those first few weeks, having never been away from my home or my family before and Peter would reach out for me and hold me for hours, wiping away the tears that ran down my face. I felt so comfortable in Peter’s arms but there was never any question of it going any further. With Brian it was different and I purposely avoided any intimacy with him as I suspected where that might lead. Nevertheless, there were lots of occasions where we would be thrown close to each other, like sitting together on the sofa watching TV or within touching distance of each other in the tiny kitchen, washing a few dishes or tidying up and as the weeks turned into months the sparks undoubtedly began to ignite. At times it was almost as if a surge of electricity passed between us.