THEY ARE HERE

2024-09-29 11:01:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

THEY ARE HERE

I always fly from America to Tirana via transit in Europe. I usually land in Frankfurt first and then back home. Or I sit in Rome, Milan, London or Zurich. Yes, I never transit within the USA. It actually happened to me only once, from Atlanta to Boston and then home. It happened that it was an urgent trip. My book had just come off the press and I was overjoyed. He put my ass on the plane and go, go Gimo! As soon as I landed in Boston, I changed planes and when we were rising to the height of 33,000 steps, when the sign "take off your seat belt" came out, I heard the fellow traveler on my right:

-Ugh, bless me, oh god!

-Albanian dog? - I asked him full of gas.

I can't explain why I love Albanians so much away from Albania? But his eyes also lit up with joy. We would travel long and over the ocean. A few hours are a gift when you have a fellow traveler from your own nation. After I told him about myself, he started.

- I had and have a difficult life, - he began. -I'm from Korça, Petrit tells me. As soon as I finished high school, I fell in love with the daughter of a high-ranking official. Those days, the police come to my house in the morning and arrest me. Later I found out that the father of the girl I loved had taken them. In the offices of the Interior Branch, that's what the police stations were called then, they accused me of being a CIA agent. I opened my eyes in surprise. I knew the man's name, for that god. I was waiting for them to show me a photo of this Ciu. It's the American discovery, you can't throw it at us, they supposedly explained to me. I laughed because I took it as a joke, but they were serious until the trial came, after four months, they took out my mother's milk.

They beat me, left me naked for several days in a barrel of cold water, pulled out my nails, broke my legs and hands, pulled them down with pliers and finally the verdict was given; 20 years in prison for treason. I worked in Spaçi galleries. Pyrite extraction. That's how I limply pushed the wagons underground and days above ground. The parents died of grief after a few years. A brother I had was interned. He was older than me, married with two children. They also separated him from his wife. He killed himself inside a barn where he was cleaning cattle troughs.

He was lying down and talking slowly, looking at me with his eyes wide open. As if you wanted me to memorize every word you say to me.

-They are here! - he uttered it as a phrase and brought his mouth close to my ear.

As if he told me a secret.

- What?

-They are here! - he repeated.

I froze. I wasn't getting the message clearly. So I looked before, back. Who were they who were here? Don't be paranoid, I told him.

- So I almost did 15 years in prison. Lucky that the change of the system came because I would do it grain by grain. As soon as I ran out, I stopped at the embassy. They accused me of being a CIA agent, I told them. They laughed, but they knew the whole story. They didn't bother me. They gave me a visa and a lunch and I landed in Boston. I had some cousins ??there so I chose that city. Yes, it is certain that they are here!

He told me again. I got up and looked again at the seats behind, in front and to the sides. He was silent and continued.

- I did a lot of menial work. I was used to the wagons in the gallery and working in the supermarket was easy. I was paid well. I am a head. I didn't get married because the investigators dispossessed me. A few months went well. Then, here they are.

Oh my god, what's with this phrase it's driving me crazy.

- Why do you say, they are here?

- That they are here.

- Which ones?

- They.

I didn't understand anything. Maybe the prison has left the deficit out of my mind, I cut short and closed my eyes as if I was going to sleep for a few hours. On the screen I saw that the plane was entering Europe. Well, it took a few hours. Straight to the printing press, I enjoyed myself and was almost falling asleep. And again:

-They are here! Do you hear?

At that moment, I must have been angry, and it could be read on my sullen face that the fellow traveler continued:

- I'm not saying it for nothing, no. After a few months, I saw Gaqo one day in the supermarket. Who is Gaqo? That interrogator of mine, the one who accused me of being a CIA agent. He got out of a black NISAN. Together with his wife and children. Not his because I later learned that they work in the municipality. They were the grandchildren. I have broken legs, but that day they completely broke. Then I got interested and learned that almost all the police of the city where I was tortured are in America. In front of me and everywhere with mail and wealth. They had even opened a cafe and gathered there like in the past in the offices of criminal affairs. I was bitter, I was sad.

It was not envy, nor jealousy, but inequality. How could my executioners live in the state that boasts of condemning injustices everywhere in the world. I changed jobs. I went to guard some forest sectors, deep in the mountains. I didn't want to meet anyone. But the howling of a dog and a wolf resembled the voice of Gaqo and his friends at night. So one day I decided, I will leave America. I will return to my country. I know that even if they came in front of me, I have nothing to tell them that they are in their own place. But in Boston I can't stand them. It seems like they are mocking me, the suffering and injuries I suffered. Eh, I completed 25 years in prison and...

- Why 25. You told me you were 15 years old?

- But these 10 years in the USA are not adding up, are they? They are more serious than what I suffered in Spaç. They are wilder, more frustrating, more depressing. They killed my hope. So heavy that I seem to be nearing the end. This was my fate. Black, written on black plate.

I believed every word. So this time I told him:

- True. They are here. Almost everyone.

The plane touched the runway. My fellow traveler with glass eyes saw the land he left 10 years ago. She hadn't changed. How to tell him, I'm waiting for you here, son. While they, the killers, ran away. They are over there, far, far away. Now you have me as a family.../ CNA