The Devil Couldn't Break Me

by Laura Aslan

  “You have a visitor,” he repeated, “do you want to see him or not?”

  I sat trembling. He could have, he would have sent the mice in by now I told myself. And his friend, his colleague, he was nowhere to be seen and I couldn’t hear anyone laughing. I pitched myself forward and placed my hands on the floor in front of me.

  “I have a visitor?”

  “Yes.”

  “No mice or rats?”

  “No. A visitor for real.”

  I edged forward towards the door on my hands and knees. I wanted to stand and I gritted my teeth and pushed with all my might, begging the muscles in my calves and thighs to respond but they let me down. The guard was talking to me and he was different and I couldn’t understand. I wanted to stand but I couldn’t and I think the guard sensed my frustration and he stepped forward to help me. He had never helped me for six months and suddenly I knew, I sensed that something was happening and that perhaps there was a real visitor after all. I dared to hope and it was almost alien to me because hope was something that had deserted me many months ago. He hooked both hands under my arms and heaved me up, not that it would have taken too much effort. I didn’t know at the time but I weighed around six stone, about forty kilos.

  I managed to hang on to the frame of the cell door as I tried to regulate my breathing. I was so dizzy and the lights of the main room started to spin. I was on the verge of collapse, totally drained and my eyelids were so very heavy. I wiped at the crusty matter on my eyelids. I still wanted to sleep but for the first time in months I also wanted to fight it. He propped me against the wall and poured some water from a bottle into my mouth. I drank it voraciously.

  “Okay, you have a visitor so try to compose yourself.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  I knew now that there were no rats or mice. He lifted me bodily and physically turned me towards the right which was unusual because the only direction I’d ever walked or ran was towards the left, to the toilet and to the corridor that led to the showers.

  “Where are we going this isn’t the way?”

  “To see your visitor.”

  I held on to him as we walked towards a corridor that led from the far side of the room, the opposite end to the toilet. He was dragging me along the corridor. As much as I tried to summon my strength it seemed a hopeless cause and yet with each step I took I seemed to get stronger and my eyes focussed on where we were going. I felt my lungs begin to burn, but burn in a nice way as a pleasant heat seemed to course through my veins. My heart was beating, pumping with vigour, pumping like it had never pumped for months. There was a door at the far end of the corridor that was slightly ajar and I heard voices piercing the quietness of the corridor, voices that obviously came from that room.

  And then I heard a voice that was familiar to me.

  It will only be for one night I promise.

  “Surely to God no,” I whispered under my breath, “it can’t be, he’s dead, he is surely dead.”

  It’s a deal.

  The guard pushed the door open with his foot as he brought me in.

  “Here she is.”

  The door swung open in a weird almost supernatural slow motion and there he was sitting at the same table I’d sat at six months ago. It was the room I had been interrogated in, the room where they had branded me. He raised himself to his feet and his face fell as a look of horror crept across his face.

  “My god,” he said.

  “Agi,” I blurted out, “what took you so long?”

  My father looked as shocked as I did and after six months of not seeing him, not knowing if he was alive or dead, that was the first thing I said to him.

  “What took you so long?” I repeated. “Do you know what they have done to me, how long they have kept me?”

  My father turned to the guards.

  “What the hell have you done to her, I swear to god I don’t recognise my own daughter.”

  Strangely enough the two guards looked a little embarrassed as my father walked around the table and at one point I thought he was about to attack them. But he didn’t, instead he held me. It felt so good to be in his arms again and although I had a thousand questions for him I simply buried my head in his chest and cried for some time. My Agi, my beautiful sweet smelling Agi.

  All too soon the moment had passed. I was aware of raised voices and I felt as if I was floating above the action of the room as they discussed something about a deal and my father berated them for the condition I was in. All I could smell was Agi and it was as if we were almost glued together and I never wanted to be apart from him again.

  “Just for one night old man, you understand?”

  “Yes, for one night.”

  “So we have a deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have the money with you?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where is Nani?” I asked.

  My father looked at me and switched from the Serbian language to Albanian.

  “Stop asking so many questions,” he said.

  “Hey old man!” the fat guard said. “Speak Serbian so that we can all understand. What did you say to her?”

  Dad stroked at my hair and I was aware that huge lumps were coming away in his hands. “I told her that her mother is not good.”

  “Where is Nani?” I asked again. “She’s dead isn’t she?”

  Dad took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around me. He always wore a suit jacket no matter the weather.

  Despite the warmth of the day I was trembling uncontrollably as chemical reactions I could do nothing about exploded deep within me.

  Agi spoke in Albanian again.

  “Your mother is fine Laura.”

  “You promise Agi?”

  “I promise locki.”

  That word... locki, my father’s darling. My locki, my beautiful perfect locki. You know I love you with all my heart he had once said with such passion and sincerity. It had been so long since I had heard that word and it sounded so good.

  “Speak Serbian! I won’t tell you again,” the fat man screamed. “One more word of Albanian shit and the deal is off.”

  A deal? What deal? My father moved back to the table and reached into a rucksack. He pulled out a clear plastic bag and I could see it was full of Dinar, more money than I had ever seen in my life.

  “Just one night,” the guard said.

  “Yes,” my father said, “just to be with her mother.”

  I stood motionless and speechless as his words sank in. My father was paying them to release me for one night. And yet I didn’t care because I would see my mother again and the tiny elements of hope in me began to surface and I dared to think that perhaps my father had contacted the police and lawyers and perhaps they could get me released another night and then perhaps two or three and who knows where that would eventually lead to. Yes, I had hope. I had fallen to the bottom, to the pits of the earth but I could feel myself rising again. The two guards looked on, almost salivating as my father counted out tens of thousands of dinar.

  Eventually he finished.

  “As agreed.”

  The guards nodded and scooped the money from the table placing it into a small cardboard box. They smiled, almost apologetically.

  My father stood again and turned to me. He spoke in Albanian, almost as a final act of defiance knowing that the deal was sealed and these greedy bastards were in no mood to call the deal off.

  “Come locki,” he said, “We’re going home.”

  Rescued at Last

  I leaned into my father as he led me along the corridor. His guard had dropped now. He was away from the soldiers and the brave face had gone and he was crying like a baby as he realised the sort of condition his daughter was in. He kept asking me what the monsters had done to
me. I kept telling him I was fine and that I wanted to see Nani.

  “She’s alive?” I kept asking.

  “Yes.”

  “You promise?”

  I don’t know how many times I asked that question, at least a dozen times before we got to the end of the corridor but I asked the question because every time my father answered he smiled and gradually I began to believe him. When dad smiled I wanted to smile too. It had been that way since childhood but in that dreadfully long corridor I couldn’t manage one tiny smile. It was as if my face had forgotten what a smile was and it was the most frustrating feeling in the world not being able to smile back at my father.

  At the end of the corridor was the door they’d first brought me through. It was ajar and Agi pushed it open with his foot as we stepped outside. I cried out in pain as a million nerve endings exploded in my brain.

  “What is it locki?”

  I’d fallen to my knees covering my eyes with my hands. The heat from the sun was glorious as it seemed to scorch my skin and soak into my bones. It was a beautiful moment and yet as soon as it had appeared in my peripheral vision it had blinded me and wracked me with pain.

  “What is it Laura?”

  My poor father, I’m sure he must have thought I’d been shot the way I fell to the ground clutching my head. I explained that I hadn’t seen the sun for six months and he couldn’t quite believe it, cursing and swearing, calling them animals and threatening to take his revenge.

  He knelt down beside me and little by little I was gradually able to half open my eyes squinting at the scenery around me. It hurt so much but I wanted to see what outside looked like again. I guessed it was midday as the sun was high in the sky, almost directly overhead.

  There was an explosion of colour as I looked over towards a mountain and studied the shape of the trees and bushes. It was like being able to see for the first time and it took some time for my brain to register any other colours apart from grey and black. For an instant I was back in my cell and there was only black. Outside the cell it was painted battle ship grey. That had been my entire colour spectrum for six months. Now I could see the green of the trees and the grass and bright reds and oranges of colourful bushes, the yellows of tiny clumps of flowers and of course the beautiful piercing blue of the sky. I still couldn’t look directly at the sun but I could feel it, see the powerful golden glow from the corner of my eye.

  Agi lifted me up and supported me and I looked into his beautiful chestnut coloured eyes. They reminded me of the colour of a thoroughbred racehorse glistening with mild perspiration and I stood for some time staring intently at him taking it all in and then as if by magic a smile pulled across my face.

  And Agi smiled too.

  “Come, we must go,” he said.

  We walked over to where the car was parked and he was obviously keen to get away as he opened the back door and told me to get in. We drove for some time and I lay in the back. I think I slept most of the way home and didn’t really have any idea how long we had been driving. I was half in a dream by the time we pulled up at the house. I still lay on the back seat but my eyes were open and I could hear my mother’s voice.

  “Where is she?”

  Was I dreaming?

  “She’s dead, Nani is dead,” I whispered.

  My father was looking in the car window.

  “She’s not dead locki. I promised you. Your Nani is here.”

  “Where is she?”

  I had died, I was surely in heaven and I was happy because I could hear my mother’s and my father’s voices and I was with them both and that was all that mattered.

  Father opened the car door.

  “Come and see your mother locki, she is here.”

  I crawled from the car somehow summoning up an inner strength and at last I could stand unaided. I held onto the car door but eventually let go as I picked out the shape of my dear mother standing in the garden twenty metres away. I shuffled towards her like an arthritic old woman.

  Nani collapsed crying in a heap before I reached her.

  “My god what have they done to you?”

  “I’m fine Nani, really I am.”

  I looked up at her and smiled.

  “I remembered what you once said Nani, What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

  I knelt down on the dusty ground beside her.

  “So here I am Nani and I’m not dead.”

  We held onto each other as if our life depended on it. Father coaxed us to our feet and the three of us stood cuddling and hugging, Nani stroking at my hair and talking to me gently, telling me everything would be fine. Her voice was like a melody to me, the sweetest voice in the world for sure.

  “I’m sorry Nani. I’m sorry for smelling so bad.”

  It came to me that I hadn’t been showered for several days.

  “I stink Nani. I’m sorry.”

  My mother was wiping away my tears with her fingers as she laughed and said that whatever daughters smelled like it was never unpleasant. She said I was her creation, her flesh and blood and then she led me into the house. It was exactly the same as I remembered it and I was surprised how warm it felt. I asked my mother what month it was and she said it was the end of July. The sun had baked into the stone for a couple of months now and it felt so comfortable. She led me through the lounge and towards the stairs. She said she was taking me to the bathroom and would wash me. Agi followed behind.

  We stood in the bathroom as she started to fill the bath. When she began to undress me Agi made some excuse and went to leave the room. I asked him not to go, what did I care if my father saw me naked after everything I’d been through? But Agi was Agi and he just wouldn’t do it and he left. My mother stripped me and helped me into the hot water.

  She took an age to bathe me, soaping me all over and then rinsing the bubbles off with the showerhead. She repeated the exercise at least four or five times kissing me all over and telling me how much she’d missed me and that I would always be the most important person in the world to her, no matter what happened.

  At last she lifted me out and towelled me dry with a big soft fluffy towel. And as I stood motionless like a three year old child she dressed me in clean clothes. My clean clothes, even though they were now two or three sizes too big. And still I shivered and I didn’t know why because I had the sun on my bones and the water in the bath and the shower had been hot, almost too hot and my parents were with me and I couldn’t understand it.

  “I’m cold Nani.”

  “It’s normal locki, you’re tired and you’re hungry, that’s why you tremble. Your Nani will make it all right.”

  She left the bathroom and came back a couple of minutes later. She wrapped a big blanket around me and led me back downstairs. She made me lie on the sofa and sat down there with me smiling. She reached for the remote control to the TV and switched it on. She was flicking through the channels clearly looking for something specific. And then she found it. A Tom and Jerry cartoon and she stoked my hair as she said.

  “Your favourite. Everything’s alright now.”

  It had been many years since I had watched Tom and Jerry but she was right, it was my favourite and for several blissful minutes I forgot about everything I had been through as the little mouse tormented the cat and every now and again poor Tom got his come-uppance from the big bull dog. Tom and Jerry, if only life was that simple.

  Mum was inspecting my bruises and muttering to herself, cursing under her breath and when she saw the scar on my calf muscle she started to cry again.

  “Please don’t cry Nani,” I said, “it’s nothing. I have only a few hours with you so please don’t cry, we haven’t time for that sort of thing.”

  She cradled my head in her arms and told me to sleep for a while, told me that when I woke there would be a feast w
aiting for me like I’d never seen before. With the beautiful bouquet of my dear Nani all around I fell asleep almost immediately.

  I dreamt, but I dreamt I was back in the cell. It had prayed on my mind the deal that I’d heard the guards discuss with my father. It was just for one night they’d said and my father had agreed. It’s a deal, he’d said but I didn’t want to go back there again. The two guards were chasing me along the corridor and the corridor went on forever. It was never ending and I ran and ran and yet they couldn’t catch me no matter how hard they tried. I ran to the point where I collapsed through exhaustion. It seemed so vivid, so real.

  When I awoke I was still half asleep and didn’t know where I was. It felt different and instinctively I stretched my legs. Something was strange, there was no contact with any wall. For six months I had slept twisted, unable to stretch out fully. My head was resting against something soft. Where was I? I opened my eyes wide and looked into my mother’s tear stained eyes. She sat in the same position she had been sitting in when I fell asleep and she continued to stroke my hair.

  “I’m home?” I asked puzzled.

  “You’re home ciki.” she replied.

  It was beginning to turn dark outside, the sun was slowly disappearing and I was angry with myself because I knew I only had one night with my parents and I had surely wasted many hours.

  “How long have I slept?” I asked.

  My mother ignored the question and asked if I was hungry.

  “Yes. I am starving.”

  “Is she up?” my father called from the kitchen.

  She eased herself from the chair at the same time calling for my father who replaced her on the sofa as she made her way to the kitchen. It was Agi’s turn to hold and caress me as mother busied herself in the kitchen.

  My father was laughing as he spoke.

  “You’ve no idea how much food she has prepared in there.”

  I could smell it. The delicious aroma drifting in from the kitchen took me back in time, to my childhood, to a time where the world was at peace, where we didn’t have a care in the world. I dozed on and off on my father’s knee until mother announced the first dish was ready. She walked towards me with three small bowls on a tray as the steam rose towards the ceiling.