The Devil Couldn't Break Me

by Laura Aslan

  Kupi was rubbing his hands together and smiling. The frustration and anger evident in his contorted face just a few moments before had completely disappeared. He spoke softly in a controlled manner and I was left in no doubt that this was no fairy story.

  “We sell the organs to our Turkish contacts for up to forty thousand US dollars at a time.”

  Kupi let out a squeal of delight.

  “Forty thousand dollars for one organ, can you believe that?”

  He leaned over the front seat and ran a finger across my breasts, then all the way down to my navel.

  “So you see, we don’t need to whore you out because this little body is still worth a pretty packet.”

  Kupi repeated that he was going to rape me in Pristina and then let his men have some fun. Afterwards he’d arrange the deal and by the end of the week I’d be dead. I sat in the back of the car too stunned to move while the rest of the guards teased and ridiculed me, backing up Kupi’s tale with stories of other young girls and Serb soldiers who had gone before me. A cold like I’d never experienced before washed over me. It started in my chest and moved slowly down my body into my stomach and my hips. I remember feeling as if someone was rubbing ice over my thighs as the feeling continued down to my ankles and finally into my toes. I felt numb, as if my blood had frozen solid. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk. I felt dead.

  The two guards either side of me were more aggressive than ever as Kupi sat smirking in the front while they described in great detail what they were going to do to me sexually. Their depravity knew no limits. These animals were the worst of the worst but I was now beyond fear and everything they said went in one ear and out the other. I was beyond caring.

  Kupi was on the phone for the next twenty minutes and made no attempt to conceal or hide what he was discussing. He was brokering my deal, my death deal.

  We drove back through Pejë, took a right turn in the centre of the city and headed out towards the east. After thirty or forty minutes Kupi announced he needed food. He told Rexha to look for a bar or a restaurant. Rexha said they were only ten minutes from a place called Kline.

  “Perfect,” Kupi said, “we’ll have a little drink to celebrate our good fortune.”

  Rexha parked the car by the pavement as soon as we drove into Kline and I was pulled from the back door. The two guards flanked me while Kupi and Rexha walked on ahead in the direction of a small bar. We walked down three small steps to the bar that was just below ground level. When we got inside Kupi was on his phone again. He stood against the bar and the barman placed a small beer in front of him.

  “I really need to go to the toilet too,” I said to the guards.

  They ignored me and instead ushered me over to a table in the far corner. I watched Kupi and Rexha as they smoked and drank for some time. The barman brought a large jug of beer over to our table and a tin of coca cola, which I assumed was for me. As I opened the tin I looked over to the bar and spotted something that made me sit up straight. It was something familiar, a familiar face. He was not much older than me and stood at the opposite end of the bar to where Kupi and Rexha stood. I recognised him but from where? My heart was pounding in my chest as it came to me. I was more than familiar with him; he was from one of the small towns near Veliki Trnovac though I couldn’t recall which one. I had seen him many times in one of the coffee bars back home. What was he doing in Kosovo? A refugee too perhaps? It didn’t matter, it was a chance I told myself, a chance to get a message to him to call the police. I’d tell him and he’d recognise me too, realise there was something quite wrong by the look of fear on my face, the fact I’d lost so much weight since the last time he’d seen me.

  “I really need to pee.”

  One of the guards leaned over the table.

  “Go then, but remember I’m right behind you.”

  I stood up and walked away. The toilet was at the back of the bar and I would have to pass the man I recognized. I tried to take my time praying to myself that he would look in my direction. I stopped just a metre from him as I lingered and made a coughing noise. He looked up and saw me and a smile flicked across his face. He had recognized me. I returned his smile. Please call the police, I’ve been kidnapped I would say. I’d even prepared the exact words and then I’d walk away as soon as I’d said them.

  “Please...”

  I felt the familiar shape of the gun barrel sticking in my back.

  “Move.”

  I stuttered nervously.

  “I was asking where...”

  “Fucking move now.”

  He pushed the gun harder into me and the sharp pain made me take a step forward. The man had to notice the desperation in my eyes, had to have spotted the gun or at least the aggression of the guard. I was so close, so close to getting my words out but each step closer to the toilet was another step further away from the man who could have summoned help. The guard followed me into the toilet and grabbed me by the throat.

  “You stupid fucking bitch, I saw exactly what happened and Kupi did too.”

  “Please no, I didn’t, I wasn’t...”

  He banged my head twice against the tiled wall, opened the door to the cubicle and shoved me in.

  “I’m right here outside so do what you have to do and get out of there double quick.”

  I broke down in tears. I had been so close but hadn’t managed to get my words out. I sat on the toilet sobbing my heart out. The guard was shouting at me to hurry and to keep quiet. I felt a tightening in my stomach and fell quickly to my knees as I felt my throat go into spasms and the taste of bile in my mouth as I vomited what little I had in my stomach into the toilet bowl.

  “What’s going on? Hurry up or I’ll kick the fucking door in. “

  “Please... just give me a minute.”

  I could hear a commotion just outside the door and I could hear Kupi’s voice. I pulled myself together and unlocked the door. The guard lunged at me and grabbed my hair as he pulled me out. I protested my innocence claiming I only wanted to ask the man where the toilet was. As I walked out of the toilet Kupi was waiting for me and slapped me hard across the face.

  “I’ve heard what you did bitch. I’m sick of the trouble you are causing me.”

  I was aware of a voice, the barman was shouting something and I looked around for the familiar face but he had gone. The barman didn’t look too happy. He was asking if everything was okay saying that he wasn’t going to see girls hit in his bar. He stood beside Kupi while the guard stood behind him with two fingers pointing at his temple imitating a trigger action with his thumb. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in me and one in the barman if necessary.

  “Is everything okay?” the barman asked.

  Kupi’s wallet was in his hand and he pulled out a fifty-dollar note, which he pressed into the barman’s palm. It was his answer to everything as he told the barman to take his wife out at the weekend. The barman looked at me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay darling?”

  I looked at Kupi and then at the guard, as time seemed to stand still. I wanted to run into the barman’s arms and break down. I wanted to tell him everything these creatures had done to me, what they were going to do to me but I knew we would both end up dead. Kupi pulled out another fifty dollars and handed it to the man. The barman smiled and walked away.

  Kupi snarled.

  “And now you’ve cost me another hundred bucks.”

  Kupi guided me back to the table and sat alongside me. Rexha and the other guards sat there too as they ordered more beer. I couldn’t quite comprehend the situation. They had taken me to the border with Albania where they’d planned to sell me to an Arab Sheik and then Kupi had disclosed that I would be cut open, my organs removed and sold to the highest bidder and on top of that I’d been so close to executing an escape plan. And now they sat drink
ing beer and smoking as if the events of the past few hours hadn’t even taken place.

  I scoured the bar again, looking to see if my ‘friend’ had perhaps sat elsewhere or even wandered outside for a breath of fresh air. I waited and I waited as the men I sat with grew ever drunker. I ran a scenario through my head that my ‘friend’ had somehow read the hopelessness in my face and contacted the police because he suspected something wasn’t quite right. I watched the door constantly. I tried to make eye contact with the barman thinking I could somehow mouth the word help to him but he never looked in my direction long enough. He seemed to be oblivious to the situation, probably planning a night out with his wife courtesy of Kupi’s little gift.

  It was dark outside now. We’d been in the bar for some hours. Just after nine o’clock Kupi’s mobile rang and as he spoke his face turned to thunder. He glared at me with genuine hatred in his eyes and then he turned to Rexha.

  “We’re leaving now.”

  “But Boss,” he said, “we’ve just ordered more beers, the night is young.”

  Kupi was already on his feet reaching for his bag.

  “Now, we’re going now.”

  The other two guards were under no illusion what Kupi meant by now and one of them had already lifted me up as we started walking towards the door. The barman noticed the mass exodus and shouted to Kupi that he hadn’t paid his bill.

  “Fuck you,” Kupi said, “you’ve had enough money out of me today.”

  The barman looked for a second or two as if he was about to protest, to remonstrate with Kupi and his gang but then thought better of it. Before I had a chance to say anything to him I was out onto the street and being bundled into the car.

  The snarl was back on Kupi’s face as he shouted at me.

  “You have done it this time,” he said. “You are causing me more trouble by the hour.”

  “I don’t know what you mean Azem,” I said as I started to cry.

  What had happened in there? Who was that phone call from and what had they said to make Kupi run so fast? He sat in the front talking to no one in particular cursing and complaining. I wondered had my friend indeed raised the alarm? Were the police on their way to the café and had someone somehow alerted Kupi to the fact? If so it was bad news, it meant Kupi had men on the police payroll too. Just how far had Kupi flung his net? He’d spoke of his time in the K.L.A. and yet he wore no uniform and I looked upon him as nothing more than a criminal. Now I wasn’t so sure. Was his gang more powerful than I assumed?

  I recognised the apartment block in Pristina straight away and my heart sank. I was heading back to that hell hole and the company of Lule and Naim.

  Kupi barked out his instructions and the two guards either side of me hauled me from the car. Kupi climbed out and told Rexha, who was driving, to wait five minutes. The four of us made our way up the stairs.

  Kupi kept muttering something about trouble as he limped on ahead in front and the guards were being particularly aggressive and rough as we approached the familiar sight of the heavy steel door. Kupi fiddled with the key but he eventually opened it then opened the interior wooden door and walked in.

  “Bring the bitch in,” he said.

  He lunged at me and grabbed me by the hair as he smacked me hard across the face.

  “I wish I’d never set eyes on you, you bitch, you’ve been nothing but trouble from day one.”

  I was shaking my head in disbelief. Something had happened I told myself; something had to have happened to make him act this way. One minute he was sitting in a bar drinking and smoking and laughing with his friends and then that one phone call had changed everything.

  Naim appeared. He told Kupi he had been to the toilet and said that Lule had gone shopping.

  Kupi spoke to the guards, telling them to wait downstairs and as they left without questioning him he turned to me.

  “It could have been so different and yet I now realise that you have been nothing but poison.”

  “But Azem, I haven’t done anything, from the day you took me it’s been you who has hurt me. I’ve never done anything to hurt you.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he said, “it’s over do you hear.”

  I was aware of my stomach muscles tightening, the muscles in my throat contracting so much I could hardly speak. I knew something had happened, I sensed my time with Kupi was nearing an end and I feared it was an ending so horrific I didn’t want to contemplate it.

  “What do you mean Azem? What is over, what is going to happen to me?”

  Kupi was on me in an instant as he grabbed my throat and squeezed hard lifting me onto my toes. He pointed to Naim.

  “He’s going to rape you and then he’s going to kill you. That’s what’s going to happen.”

  I felt the breath draining from me as I gagged and struggled for air. My legs had turned to jelly and as Kupi released his grip I fell into a heap on the floor. Kupi kicked me full in the stomach and I squealed and burst into tears.

  “Please Azem no. Please don’t make him do that.”

  Kupi eased himself down onto the floor.

  “He’s going to fuck you stupid you little virgin and then he’s going to kill you. How does that sound to you eh?”

  Kupi taunted me as I begged him to let me live. He told me how the deal with the Sheik had gone wrong and now I was bad news and he wouldn’t even be able to broker a deal for my organs.

  “So you’re getting fucked then killed.”

  He turned to Naim.

  “Give me your gun.”

  “Please Azem,” I begged.

  Kupi seemed to study the gun and then handed it back to the guard.

  You fuck her good and hard, you do anything you want to her and then put a pillow over her head to shoot her.”

  Naim was nodding.

  “That way it will deaden the noise. Lule will help you with the body, wait until the early hours and put it in Lule’s car.”

  I noticed that Naim didn’t look to confident or too happy about the task he had been allocated but he was too scared to object.

  “Where will I take the body Boss?”

  Azem shrugged his shoulders.

  “It doesn’t matter, a bin or a skip. Leave it on the streets if you want and let the rats have their fill but make sure it’s somewhere on the other side of town.”

  I was in pieces on the floor, crying harder than I had ever cried in my life.

  I heard him tell Naim that he would pay with his life if anything went wrong and then Kupi stepped over me and was gone.

  A Chance to Escape

  Naim had that look in his eyes, the same look the guards had in theirs when Kupi had ordered them to rape me, which seemed such a long time ago now.

  “Please Naim, don’t do this to me.”

  Naim shrugged his shoulders.

  “I have no choice Laura, I’m a soldier following orders.”

  “But you...”

  “You’ve no idea what the Boss is like? If I don’t do this Kupi will kill me and he won’t stop there, he’ll torment and torture my family too.”

  I had misjudged Naim, he was the youngest and most inexperienced of the guards and never particularly aggressive towards me and I thought he was different. But I now knew he was more than capable of carrying out Kupi’s instructions to the letter as he moved forward and stroked my hair.

  “It has to be done,” he said.

  I felt the urge to pray. This was the end and I knew it and within a very short period of time I felt as if all hope had drained away. I wanted to die but I didn’t want to die in a violent aggressive way. Naim ran the palm of his hand across my breast.

  “Let me pray Naim.”

  I told him to make it nice for me. I would give myself to him but I didn’t want to be raped, I
didn’t want any violence.

  “Make love to me before you kill me, make it nice for me Naim, don’t abuse or mistreat me. This is my first time and I will give myself to you before you kill me.”

  Naim seemed to be taken by surprise but I persevered and begged him to make it nice. I told him it was the least I deserved and as long as he killed me Kupi would never need to know. Eventually he came around to the idea and I prepared to give myself to him and then to die. Naim went through to the bedroom and came back with a cushion. He looked almost apologetic as he explained that he would kill me as soon as the sexual act had taken place.

  I begged him not to leave me for the rats and he agreed.

  “I must purify myself before I take you,” he said. “I will wash and you must prepare yourself.”

  As Naim disappeared into the bathroom I fell to my knees and prayed. I told Allah I would accept whatever fate he had chosen for me, saying I was prepared to meet my maker. I had my head on the floor as I heard water running in the bathroom. It wouldn’t be long now.

  I still had my head on the floor when it came to me. Just before Naim had gone into the bathroom I had heard the sound of metal or steel being dropped lightly onto a table. What had I heard? I stood up slowly. I had heard keys. That was the sound I’d heard, a key or two on a key ring, no more. I had heard the sound a hundred times as my father had returned from work and laid his car keys on the table beside the front door. My tears somehow miraculously dried up as I dared to hope again. Surely Naim couldn’t have been that stupid?

  I walked over towards the door to the bathroom. There was a small table situated between the bathroom and the front door and as my eyes fell on the shiny surface I detected a glint of something shiny, something metal. It was still rather dingy as I walked towards the table and as my eyes grew accustomed to the surroundings and the light, they focussed on the two keys I had seen numerous guards and Kupi use to open the doors that had imprisoned me for so long. I froze in sheer panic for several seconds not knowing what to do. Surely it couldn’t be this easy? I was trembling and I could feel my teeth chattering even though I wasn’t particularly cold. I heard the water stop, the familiar rattle of the towel being pulled from the wooden towel rail.