The Devil Couldn't Break Me

by Laura Aslan

  One day I had a crazy idea to try one of their uniforms on. As you can imagine they were too big for me but it all seemed a great laugh at the time. Both Peter and Brian were in their respective bedrooms, working on their computers and I had the notion to march into their rooms saluting, giving them a little laugh. They’d had a particularly long, hard day and I wanted to cheer them up. I had almost finished when I noticed Brian standing in the doorway and I was most embarrassed. I had been caught before I’d been able to perform my act.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, “I’ll take it off.”

  “Jo Jo Jo une te ndihmoj.” he said which means No no no I’ll help you.

  He walked over and reached for the belt around my waist and as he tightened it and rearranged the jacket I couldn’t stop looking at his face. The smell of his aftershave mixed with his natural body odour was intoxicating to me and it was almost as if someone had flicked a switch inside me. I couldn’t take my eyes from him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He noticed me staring.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve never felt this way about a man before.”

  As soon as the words tumbled out of my mouth I wanted to take them back but I couldn’t and the way I looked at him left him under no illusion that I had felt an enormous attraction to him. It was an awkward moment. He raised his blue magnetic eyes and smiled his beautiful perfect smile and said Shume mir, which means very good. It didn’t even make sense. He placed his fingertip on my lips as if telling me not to say anything else. By that point I was emotional and feeling weak at the knees and it took all my willpower and strength to turn around and walk away. I was falling hopelessly in love with Brian as much as I wanted to fight it. He reminded me of my first love back in Veliki Trnovac, a beautiful boy called Orhan. These were the same feelings I had experienced back then... even at nine years of age!

  “I’ll show Peter.”

  That was all I could think to say as I walked in the direction of his room, my heart pounding out of my chest.

  As soon as Peter saw the oversize uniform hanging from my skinny frame he thought it was a great laugh and started taking pictures as I saluted him. He placed the blue beret on my head and even painted a little moustache on me as he tried to teach me the military way of standing at ease, and then to attention. That awkward moment with Brian had passed and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  After a little time I went to take off the uniform. Brian stepped forward to help with the fiddly belt as Peter wandered back to his bedroom. I remember leaning against Brian while he unbuckled the belt in the hope he would hug me and is if by magic he did and I melted into his arms as he held me so tight, sighing quietly. After a few minutes we parted and as he looked into my eyes he put his hands on my face and kissed both cheeks allowing his lips to linger and drift across my skin. I was so lost in that tender moment and desperately wanted to kiss him. So I returned his kisses on his cheek, but dangerously close to his lips in the hope I would get a positive response. Brian closed his eyes and searched for my lips with his. He kissed me so tenderly, his lips so soft and I was frozen in heaven as our kissing became more passionate and he hugged me tighter and tighter as we fought for breath. I wanted the moment to last forever especially as his lips moved to my neck but then as quickly as it had started he stopped, taking my hands in his and kissing both of them in turn. Then he simply walked away.

  It was inevitable that we would kiss again and we did at every given opportunity when we found ourselves alone. On one occasion we managed to sleep together in his room though we both made a vow that nothing sexual could or would happen. I lay semi naked next to Brian and we caressed each other and then fell asleep as he held me in his arms all night.

  A few days later Peter and Brian sat me down and said I would have to go. I was in shock and more than confused. I wanted to tell Brian that I never wanted to leave him but of course I couldn’t because Peter was there and I assumed he knew nothing of our intimate embrace. Peter appeared very rational and explained that the UN had found out about our arrangement which was very much against the rules. Brian sat on the corner of the sofa quietly nodding but said nothing.

  The atmosphere over the coming days was very strained and I longed for Brian to take me in his arms and tell me he’d worked something out so that we could be together but he never did. I couldn’t understand it, Brian was a single man and although there was a bit of an age gap we were very much alike in personality and our outlook on life. I put two and two together and assumed he didn’t have the same feelings for me as I had for him.

  To make matters worse, when I phoned Nani and asked her if I could come home she said categorically no. Things still hadn’t returned to normal and under no circumstances was I to attempt a return. I cried myself to sleep in the kitchen that night and woke up early the next morning with the headache from hell. Two days prior, in Brian’s arms I had been the happiest girl in the world and now I felt I was about to lose him forever. There were dozens of questions flying around my head, not least, where would I stay, when could I return home but the worst question banging around my head like a big bass drum was would I ever see Brian again. The thought terrified me.

  I cooked Brian and Peter scrambled eggs for breakfast then I drank coffee but ate nothing. The thought of food made me feel sick. We had breakfast in silence but a couple of times I asked Brian and Peter where I would go. They didn’t know, they said they would contact the translator and he would sort something out. I looked out of the window and the rain and sleet hammered against the glass windowpane which depressed me even further. It was still winter, albeit towards the end of the season and I knew that conditions in the UN refugee camps, in those canvass tents, were hell on earth. No heating, damp and miserable with a cold water shower block and one or two toilets for a hundred people or more. As my mind played tricks with me and I thought of the very worst scenario I burst into tears.

  Peter tried to comfort me.

  “Hey Laura, don’t be silly we won’t throw you out into the street. We’ll make sure you are safe and if you don’t like where they put you, you can always come back.”

  I looked at Brian expecting a nod or a smile, but he sat there in silence. I noticed his omelette hadn’t been touched. I wanted to reach out and touch him, I wanted to say ‘te dua shume,’ be mine forever and I felt my heart breaking apart.

  Soon after they changed into their uniforms and got ready to leave. Just before they did there was yet another power cut and I lit a few candles. It was becoming an almost daily occurrence and although it was daylight it was still a dark gloomy morning.

  As Brian walked towards the front door he turned to face me.

  “Don’t be going outside,” he said. “Wait until we get back, we’ll work something out.”

  I moved towards him and gave him a hug. He didn’t respond at all. I wanted him to smile, I wanted him to take me in his arms and hold me, I wanted him to kiss me. Instead he pushed me away and reached for his blue beret on a hook by the door and disappeared into the gloom of the corridor. How could he have been so cold? As the door closed I burst into tears again.

  By midday the electricity still wasn’t on. I couldn’t wash, I couldn’t vacuum, I couldn’t even watch any television or turn the radio on. Eventually I decided I had to get out of there. I was bored rigid and sad and depressed and confused and craved some fresh air and a change of scenery. There was a newspaper kiosk less than five metres from the building. I’d buy a magazine. What was the worst that could happen in five metres? I’d buy a magazine and be upstairs back in the apartment within a few minutes.

  I took my coat from the stand by the doorway and opened the door. I was nervous. For three months I had not left the apartment unaccompanied and as I walked into the lift I noticed in the mirror that I was breathing quite hard. I told myself not to be so stupid. This was a UN safe area, I was buy
ing a newspaper from a kiosk less than ten seconds from our front entrance, not making my way to the other side of the city.

  “Don’t be so silly,” I mumbled to myself as I walked through the interior doors and walked towards the door that led to the main street.

  The street was quite busy which put me at ease a little, people were going about their normal business and I noticed the small newspaper kiosk almost immediately as I buttoned up my coat against the biting wind and took a step forward. I fumbled for the loose change in my pocket and skirted a parked car which for some reason had stopped on the pavement. I thought it unusual and yet we were living in the middle of a troubled city and parking fines were the last things on anyone’s mind.

  The kiosk was quiet, the vendor and just one other person. A black van drove towards the kiosk and stopped on the pavement to the left side of me blocking my way. This was ridiculous I thought. Why is everyone parking on the pavement? I looked down the street. There were plenty of parking spaces; the driver didn’t need to stop there. Suddenly the van lurched forward and came careering towards me and I jumped back as I thought it was about to hit me.

  “What the-”

  In an instant it screeched to a halt and the side door was flung open violently as two men leaped onto the pavement and ran towards me. One of them was holding something, something black and as he grabbed me he forced a hood over my head. I screamed for help as time seemed to stand still. I could hear the noise of the traffic and the hustle and bustle of a normal city street and I heard a scream that quickly died away and I heard one of the men swearing at me in Albanian with a Kosovan dialect. What was going on? Surely they had made a mistake? Suddenly I was off my feet and had no control of where I was going. I was up in the air... flying, and I winced as my upper body connected with the hard floor of the bottom of the van and sheer terror coursed through my veins as I heard the door slam shut and the driver laughing as he pushed the vehicle into gear and sped away.

  “We’ve got her. We’ve got the fucking bitch.”

  They were laughing, the driver, the two kidnappers and another voice from the rear of the van. I felt a blow to the side of my head.

  “Fucking spy whore.”

  I was trembling, shivering with fear trying to get my breath and longed for words that would not form in my mouth. It was as if I had turned into a mute. I wanted to beg for my life, protest my innocence, tell these men they had made a mistake and they had the wrong person but my mouth was as dry as a bone and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  The kidnappers were congratulating themselves on a job well done and hurling abuse at me from all directions, even the driver joined in the tirade of verbal cruelty.

  I lay still and silent as the van picked up speed and I remembered Brian’s warning over the many weeks. He knew something I didn’t and had warned me time and time again. How could I have been so stupid?

  Although the journey seemed to take a lifetime it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before the van skidded to a halt. I still hadn’t managed to utter a single word and lay in the back of the van whimpering and sniffling. I heard my kidnappers open the door and they jumped out. Two hands reached in and dragged me across the metal floor by the hair.

  “Come with me you fucking whore and don’t give me any trouble or I’ll cut your pretty face to fucking ribbons.”

  I’d never met these men. I’d never wronged them or upset them in any way. I remember being frightened and yet sincerely believing there had been an awful case of mistaken identity and soon everything would be rectified and I’d be taken back to Brian and Peter very quickly. I just needed to stay calm and wait for an opportunity where I could point out the mistake.

  I still had the hood on as they pulled me through the opening of the van, my head banging on something as I yelled out in pain.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  I was dragged across some rough stony ground, they didn’t give me a chance to stand and one of my shoes came off and I felt the sharp stones dig into my toes. I cried out for them to slow down, told them I would walk but they took no notice as they almost ran to wherever it was they were taking me. We went through a series of doors and I remember being dragged along a corridor. Another door then opened and I was thrown into a room where I lay petrified in silence for several minutes. I whimpered like a badly scolded puppy, not daring to move and wondered how long it would be before they discovered the error of their ways.

  I became aware of another door opening and footsteps and then a different voice and another period of silence.

  “Take her hood off,” someone said in Albanian.

  I was sitting on concrete beside a large dark red rug. I remember thinking it was like the colour of an apple gone bad. My knees were cold and stinging and I edged forward so that they rested on the edge of the rug. I could smell acrid cigarette smoke and foul body odour.

  “Good,” someone said, “make yourself comfortable.”

  I looked up slowly. There were two men in front of me standing either side of a table. They were tall and skinny and I noticed that none of them wore uniform, which unnerved me a little. I don’t know why, especially after the night on the mountain with Uncle Demir when everyone wore a uniform but somehow I wanted to see a uniform, a soldier, a policeman, it didn’t matter. But I didn’t see any. There was another man standing in the corner leaning on a wooden chair. He wore a leather jacket and jeans with elegant, well-polished black shoes. I took a sharp intake of breath as a trickle of perspiration ran down the back of my neck.

  Another man sat at the table fiddling with a pen. He was by far the most menacing of anyone in the room and the others stayed silent while he stood and slowly walked towards me. I will never forget his face, it will come with me on my deathbed, I just know it and before he even spoke I knew he was one of the most evil creatures on God’s planet.

  He limped towards me, his dark greasy hair lay lank over one side of his face and his day old stubble gave him a filthy look as he approached me smiling, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

  He grinned as he spoke slowly in barely a whisper.

  “We know what you’ve been doing.”

  He bent over me.

  “Are you a whore?”

  I shook my head.

  “A fucking Serbian bitch whore?”

  “No... I... I...”

  I tried to form a constructive sentence but the words wouldn’t come. The man’s words resonated evil in every syllable, he terrified me from the outset and it was as if my throat closed before I could produce a single word.

  “You’ve been fucking those Americans haven’t you?”

  “No... please.”

  “Fucking and sucking them for weeks. We’ve been watching you, you fucking Serb bitch.”

  At last I found my tongue and managed to blurt out a few words.

  “I’m not Serbian, I was born in Macedonia, I speak Albanian like you, my mother teaches the Albanian language and I-”

  I didn’t get another word out as the man stepped forward and punched me hard in the face. I had never been punched before in my life. It was like a bomb going off in my head as the blow physically lifted me from my knees as I catapulted backwards smashing my head against a chair. I lay in a daze. The pain didn’t register, just the shock and the numbness of it all. I started crying again as the men goaded my attacker who they called Azem to attack me again.

  And he did. Azem lifted me up by the hair and punched me several times around the head as I cried out for mercy and tried to tell him there had been a terrible mistake. He beat me and kicked me for several minutes until he was out of breath and small droplets of sweat dripped from the end of his nose. I begged him to tell me what he wanted. I pleaded with him to ask me anything, anything at all and I would tell him the truth and surely my answers would convince him that
I wasn’t a Serbian spy.

  Azem returned to the table as I lifted myself back onto my knees crying and begging him for mercy. I looked down and noticed that my clothes were stained with blood and a small crimson pool had begun to congeal in the centre of the rug. My lips were swollen and my cheeks were stinging where he had slapped me. Azem showed me no mercy. He allowed me to beg and whimper like a dog for five minutes while he sat in silence and then resumed where he had left off. My interrogation and the hands of Azem Kupi (I found out his full name later) lasted for more than an hour and it was a pattern of abuse he had clearly used before. He beat and kicked and punched and slapped and stamped on me for two to three minutes and then he would stop. He’d talk softly to me and ask me questions about the Americans and my activities as a spy. I’d relax and assume he’d take notice of what I was saying and I’d tell him anything he asked about the Americans, I said they were my friends and they’d rescued me when I came to Pristina and gave me a roof over my head and looked after me. I told him the truth. I told him I was not a spy but a simple village girl from Veliki Trnovac.

  “Veliki Trnovac,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “In Serbia?”

  “Yes.”

  Azem nodded.

  “Serbian bitch. A Serbian fucking spy.”