The Devil Couldn't Break Me

by Laura Aslan

  “You don’t say much,” one of the soldiers snarled.

  I shrugged my shoulders and looked away from him.

  “She’ll talk soon enough,” his colleague said.

  We walked along a long corridor with dirty straw on the ground but although it was obviously made to store animals there was no smell of cattle or sheep and no noise either. At the end of the corridor was a door that they opened and we all went inside. It looked like a small office, a box room with a table and two plastic chairs. There was an ashtray in the middle of the table but nothing else in the room.

  One of the soldiers pointed to the chair on the far side of the table.

  “Sit down and make yourself comfortable,” he said. “Your interrogation will begin soon.”

  A Prisoner Once Again

  A dark haired pot-bellied man walked into the room. He wore the same uniform as the others but was clearly a lot older and higher in rank as the two soldiers promptly came to attention. He acknowledged their respect for his rank, sat down at the table in the chair opposite me and pulled out a packet that he placed on the table. He reached across, took out a cigarette, lit it and eased back in the chair, as he appeared to study me for some time.

  “So,” he said, “you’ve been to Pristina.”

  I ignored him. It appeared to be a statement rather than a question.

  “Why have you come back?”

  I looked at him, wondering how much he knew about what I’d been through. A part of me wanted to ignore him and see what he had to say and yet another part of me said tell the truth again, even though that hadn’t done me any good during my first interrogation at the hands of Kupi and his gang.

  “We know you’ve been to Kosovo, why did you go there?”

  I took a deep breath and spoke.

  “It was my father’s decision, he feared for my safety.”

  “Your safety?”

  “Yes, the whole village had nearly been massacred, people were being shot on the streets of Veliki Trnovac and there were rumours of rape and torture.”

  I told him how my father had insisted I left and I told him that he’d taken me over the mountain and how I’d managed to catch a bus to Pristina. I mentioned my Uncle Demir and the money and he didn’t seem shocked by this revelation. He was either a part of that group or he’d heard about it at least. The man took a drag on his cigarette as he took things in. Did he believe me? It was some minutes before he spoke again.

  “Why Pristina? Why Kosovo?”

  Answer him, I told myself, answer him honestly and you will be back with your parents in a few short hours.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I said. “It was supposed to be a UN safe area.”

  He detected the sarcasm in my voice.

  “Supposed to be?”

  “Yes, my father sent me there because that’s what he believed only it didn’t turn out that way.”

  He gestured with his hands that I should continue and I decided to tell him about my ordeal. I mentioned the name of Azem Kupi and told them of my appalling treatment at the hands of his gang and told them about what Kupi had said about killing me and selling my organs. I watched him closely as I mentioned the organ harvesting and once again there was no reaction, no real look of surprise. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray and deliberately blew the smoke across the table into my face.

  “Who is your boss?”

  “My boss?” I said. “I haven’t got a boss. I was kidnapped by Azem Kupi and accused of being a Serb spy.”

  The fat man burst out laughing.

  “A Serb spy?”

  “Yes, they held me for six weeks but I managed to escape.”

  He shook his head and repeated his question, this time with a more menacing look on his face.

  “Stop fucking around with your lies and tell me who your boss is.”

  I told him I wasn’t lying. I told him they could check my story with the Pristina Police and even quoted him the case number. The two soldiers were grinning now as one turned to the other.

  “The silly bitch thinks we liaise with the Kosovan cops?”

  The fat man repeated the question again.

  “Who is your boss, who are you working for?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t bother to answer him and knew exactly where his questions were heading. It was the same as Kupi’s questioning - asking me the same questions over and over again and ignoring my answers. Surely they realised that the story was plausible and I’d given them a case number that I’m sure they somehow could have checked out.

  “Please, let me go home to my parents, you’re an intelligent man, you can see I’m no spy.”

  He repeated the question again and again. I repeated the same answers. I waited for the first blow which would surely come soon. He asked me about Kupi, asked me to explain everything they had done to me. I dared to think that perhaps I was getting through to him and I enthusiastically took him through the timeline of events. He sat for at least five minutes in silence and then he stood.

  He leaned over me.

  “You’re lying.”

  “No I’m not...”

  He slapped me hard across the face.

  “You’re fucking lying, your story is shit. You are one of their own and they wouldn’t treat you like that.”

  It was a thought that had crossed my mind a hundred times and I could understand exactly why he thought that. It was true, I was an Albanian speaking Muslim and they were too and they had treated me like an animal and he couldn’t accept that.

  I was crying.

  “You’re right, I couldn’t believe it either, they spoke in the same tongue and we worshipped the same god but it made no difference. I swear it’s all true.”

  The fat man upended the table in a fit of rage.

  “It’s not possible,” he screamed as the table the ashtray and his chair crashed onto the floor.

  I was left sitting alone on the plastic seat.

  “You’re fucking lying.”

  He walked around the room for thirty seconds or so lashing out with his feet at the chair and on one occasion punched the wooden door so hard he left a large indentation in one of the panels. He walked over to his two soldiers who by now were standing either side of the door. He whispered something to them and turned to face me.

  “I’ve fucked around with you too long. I can see they’ve trained you well. It’s time to get serious because you’re going to tell me everything I need to know. “

  I was shaking my head, crying even harder and I knew the interrogation was about to get worse. I could tell by the look on the fat man’s face, the way his two henchmen removed their jackets and rolled up their sleeves. If their actions were meant to terrify me then it had the desired effect. The younger of the two soldiers started on me first, grabbing a handful of my hair and forcing my face flat onto the table. His boss asked the same questions he had asked from the outset. I gave the same answers and each time the soldier banged my head off the wooden table.

  After the third or fourth question the side of my face was numb and to be honest the pain didn’t register. I think they sensed that and the boss said something to the other soldier.

  “Are you thirsty?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied, “yes please, could I have some water?”

  I felt so dehydrated, so tired and yet I sensed this was just the beginning. They had no intention of letting me pass out through dehydration. They wanted me to stay conscious. The soldier returned after some minutes. He was carrying a large plastic bottle of water, the condensation on the bottle told me it was ice cold and I licked my lips in anticipation that my thirst was about to be quenched. The soldier walked behind me and then the fat man stood and appeared to stand to one side. The soldier poured the entire ice-cold contents of
the bottle over my head as I gasped in shock struggling to control my breathing.

  They were all laughing. They thought it was a great joke that they had fooled me into thinking I would be drinking the water.

  The fat man spoke to his soldier.

  “Another one quickly.”

  The soldier disappeared through the door again and before long had returned with a refill. The boss pushed his seat up to the table and once again the questions started.

  “You are good, I’ll give you that. You’ve given me the same answers every time.”

  I wiped the water from my eyes and as my body temperature dropped and I started to shiver I spoke through the tears.

  “They are the same answers because I am telling you the truth.”

  “Who are you working for, who is your boss?”

  “I have no boss, I am not working for anybody.”

  They poured at least six bottles of water over me until my whole body tingled. At one point I remember my body burning with pain that didn’t seem to make sense. I longed for a towel, for a change of dry clothes, to sit in front of a hot fire and thaw out. It was the coldest I could ever remember feeling and at that point would have lied through my teeth if I thought I could have given them the answers they wanted to hear. I just wanted to see my parents faces again.

  After the water treatment they continued with more violence, the second soldier taking great pleasure in kicking and punching me around the room while the other two looked on laughing. The sadistic bastards were enjoying every minute. How could they treat a human being, a young girl in that way?

  I was on the point of passing out as I tucked myself in a ball and curled up in the corner of the room trying to protect my head and face from the soldiers boot but still the questions continued. I couldn’t physically speak, I was so cold. I could feel my body closing down and I longed to die.

  I remember praying, wishing that my heart would give out and then it would all be over. I could sleep forever, I would be at peace and I would at last be reunited with my dear cousin and Uncle Demir. The men in uniform would hurt me no more.

  I think I must have passed out for some minutes, as there seemed to be a lull in proceedings. I remember thinking that I hadn’t been kicked for a while and I dared to turn round to see what was happening. The soldiers were standing over by the table and they were removing something from a box.

  “Ahhh... the Muslim whore is with us once again.”

  The boss instructed the two soldiers to strip me and they couldn’t wait to comply with his wishes as they almost fell over themselves to get to me. I offered no resistance, I knew it was futile; their horrible slimy palms invaded every inch of my body. I felt humiliated, degraded, dirty and vulnerable but I was more concerned with what the fat man was doing with the contraption he was holding in his hands. He had walked over to the wall opposite the door and had plugged the device into the electric socket.

  “This is your last chance to tell me the truth,” he said. “Do you know what this is?”

  I couldn’t speak but was conscious of shaking my head. By now the end of the device was glowing red.

  “This building used to be a cattle shed as you can probably tell.”

  He held it up as he fixed his eyes on it.

  “They branded the cattle with one of these. It meant no one could steal their cattle, each brand identified a particular farm.”

  He gestured to the two soldiers who lunged at me and started to drag me over towards him.

  “The cows and the bulls have a thick leathery hide as you know. Sadly human skin is far more delicate and of course our pain receptors are that much more sensitive.”

  I bucked and kicked out at the two soldiers as they dragged me ever closer while the fat man stood in silence. I could see by the look in his eyes that he was enjoying every second as I screamed and pleaded for mercy.

  “I gave you every chance but you held out.”

  “Please...” I begged. “I am telling the truth, I was kidnapped by Kupi, he accused me of spying for Serbia.”

  The end of the branding iron had turned to a reddish white colour and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I sensed that the interrogation was over and that sheer torture was about to begin. As with Kupi, I felt that my abusers knew I was telling the truth but it was almost as if that was secondary, not really so important. An unpleasant thought drifted into my head. If they admitted I was telling the truth then they would need to return me back home. There would be an admission that they had been wrong and of course there wouldn’t be any fun for them. It was a frightening thought as my torturer turned to face me.

  He spat on the end of the iron and his spit fizzed and bubbled up and was gone in a split second.

  “Do you know the difference between pain and acute pain?”

  “Please no, I’m telling the truth, I swear on my parents life.”

  “Normal pain is a response to an injury, a kind of safety system to tell the brain something is wrong.”

  The two soldiers had turned me on my stomach, the heaviest one sat on my back. I couldn’t see my tormentor now, I could only hear him.

  “For example, if you hit your thumb with a hammer it will register pain and therefore the brain will receive a pain signal and it will respond accordingly by telling you not to hit your thumb with the hammer again because if you do you will feel more pain.”

  His voice was louder now and I assumed he had crouched down behind me.

  “Isn’t the human brain so clever.”

  I heard one of the soldiers giggle.

  “But acute pain is very different because acute pain occurs when the injury is more severe and the body is significantly damaged and acute pain lasts until the injury is completely healed.”

  I felt a hand pull at my hair, my head jerked up and I was staring into his eyes, the branding iron a few centimetres from my face so that I could feel the heat from it.

  “The beauty about this contraption is that just a few seconds on the skin can cause several days acute pain and discomfort.”

  He slapped me gently on the face in a patronising way.

  “Don’t worry I won’t burn your face,” he grinned. “Such a pretty little face.”

  He stood and walked behind me and I knew he wasn’t just threatening me. I felt his hand wrap around the shinbone of my right leg. I tried to kick out but his strong hand and the dead weight on my back rendered it useless.

  “I’ll ask you one more time, who is your boss?”

  “Please,” I gasped, barely able to mouth the words, “I’m telling the truth... please believe me.”

  I heard a deep sigh.

  The second soldier reached for my hands and pulled my arms tight as he tensed up and gritted his teeth. He was looking over my shoulder at his boss and I could see by the look on his face that the branding iron was dangerously close.

  “This is your last chance Muslim girl.”

  I barely got the words out between the tears.

  “I’m telling the truth,” I sobbed, “please... I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Liar!”

  He took a deep breath and pushed the red hot branding iron into the flesh of my left calf and it sizzled like a piece of cooking meat in a pan. At first I felt the pressure and then the pain kicked in a split second later. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before and I screamed so loud that someone forced their hand over my mouth. It was hard to describe the searing, burning, white hot feeling, as if my flesh was melting like candle wax but mercifully it didn’t last long. I remember the awful smell of burning and then my world started to spin out of control. I knew I was heading for darkness and I prayed to Allah that my heart had at last given up on me.

  The Start of a New Nightmare

  It was the pain that woke me. The f
at man’s lecture on acute pain had come prophetically true as I slid my hand down towards the burning flesh on my calf. I realised at that point that I had been dressed and I was aware that the material of my jeans was sticking to the raw flesh underneath. I knew I had to pull the denim from the wound and hoped it was still fresh and hadn’t healed too much. Mercifully my clothes were still damp from the soaking I’d had and therefore the material a little pliable. I clenched my teeth and pulled gently. The pain was excruciating as millimetre by millimetre I eased the cloth from the bare wound, as it seemed reluctant to give way. Afterwards I rolled up my trouser leg to my knee to ensure I wouldn’t have to go through the process again.

  I lay back and tried to focus for a moment. I was lying on some sort of blanket, on a hard stone or concrete floor and it was pitch black. Where was I?

  My leg was throbbing so much, pulsing as if it had a heartbeat of its own and there was more pain as I tried to concentrate on the different parts of my body that were now sending signals to my brain and the receptors in my brain were responding and telling me I was in a bad way. I coughed and another pain shot through my lower rib cage then I felt at my swollen lips and my nose that seemed to be twice its normal size.

  I had experienced this feeling once before but this was different because now I was beyond caring. With Kupi and his gang I was always thinking of escape, always determined to beat them and in the end I had succeeded. Every day with Kupi and his gang had been torture related either mentally or physically, sometimes both, but I had tried to remain positive as the weeks passed by. I couldn’t go through that all over again, I knew I would never make it, I didn’t have the strength or the courage. I had used up every bit of resolve within me. I had nothing left, a day or two at the most and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, the Serbian Army or whoever it was who had captured me would break my spirit far sooner that they could ever have imagined.

  I lay in the same position for some time and the tears rolled freely down my cheeks and I even recall being annoyed that my body was reacting in that way. I kept wiping the tears with my sleeve and after a while they’d subside and then I’d recall that only a few short hours ago I’d been reunited with my darling parents and then it had all gone horribly wrong and I’d feel sorry for myself and the tears would start all over again.