The Devil Couldn't Break Me (10 page)

“Where are we?” I asked. “Why are you taking me in there?”

Kupi smiled and pushed me in.

“This is my apartment, didn't I tell you everything would be fine. Now you are Azem's little whore.”

Any thought of rescue or being taken to a Police Station disappeared instantly as he smacked my bottom and laughed. His men joined in the little joke. The apartment inside was as dilapidated as the outside of the building. We walked along a narrow dingy corridor where the greyish yellow wallpaper peeled from the damp walls. It was cold and I noticed a kitchen to my right and a dirty bathroom to my left. We passed both rooms and at the end of the corridor it opened up into a small lounge with a sofa and two armchairs. A small TV sat in the corner playing to itself.

Kupi shouted a name

“Lule!”

Within seconds another door opened up to the lounge and a woman walked through. She smiled as she noticed Kupi and sidled up to him giving him a kiss on the cheek. He showed no response, no emotion and instead told her that he had someone for her to look after. She walked up to me and looked me up and down. I disliked her from that second. She was slim, about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old with hard, evil features, slightly shorter than me with dark straight hair. She wore a little make up but it could not disguise her rat like face. There were no soft delicate curves, everything had a sharp edge, her cheekbones, her nose and even her chin and as she took my face in her hand and examined me like an animal I knew finally that I had been kidnapped and there was no escape. She smiled at Kupi and gave him another kiss. She said something to him but I missed it, such was my revulsion for her.

She turned to me and pointed to the room where she had come from.

“You will sleep in there tonight.”

“But I don't want to sleep here I want to go home, I've done nothing wrong.”

Lule gave a little smirk, ignored me, and Kupi spoke to her again, saying he would be back in the morning. Kupi left soon after along with two of his men leaving one guard armed with a machine gun. He appeared to be making himself a bed up on the sofa and Lule ordered me into the bedroom. Reluctantly I walked slowly into the room. It had a double bed with a grubby duvet and a small, white plastic bedside cabinet and nothing else. I studied the barred window that looked onto a busy street and thought about escape and yet we were so high up. Even the window was padlocked, I couldn't even shout for help. I burst into tears at the hopelessness of the situation trying to make sense of everything that had happened and wished I could have turned back the clock. I remembered Brian's last words.
Don't be going outside
. Why hadn't I listened to him for once?

Lule came into the room a little later and appeared to be ready for bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I was stupid.

“I'm going to bed,” she said. “It's a one bedroom apartment you stupid bitch and we're sharing this bed.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Or you can take your chance on the sofa with Azem's guard, Naim.”

“Who are you?” I asked. “What are you doing here? Are you Azem's wife?”

“Questions, questions,” Lule replied shaking her head. “No, I'm not Azem's wife. I guess you could call me his mistress. He looks after me, feeds and clothes me and fucks me whenever he feels the need.”

I had never heard a woman speak this way before, I was totally disgusted and I think Lule sensed it which encouraged her even more as she appeared to enjoy shocking me.

“Ahhh... the pretty little virgin, soon to be Azem's other whore and then he'll have two.” She looked at me inquisitively.

“You really are a virgin.”

I nodded.

“Well, well, isn't Azem the lucky one.”

The Den of Iniquity

Lule and I slept together in the double bed that first night. Such was my distaste for her I turned my back on her. Within a few minutes she was fast asleep and snoring like an old dog. I envied her sleeping so soundly and prayed that I would drift off too, but sleep wouldn't come. I wondered if Lule was a prisoner too, I hadn't asked her but I had noticed that when they had locked the apartment when Azem and his mob had left, it had been the guard they'd thrown the keys too and not Lule. Had I misjudged her? Was she in the same predicament I was? I didn't like the look of her but was there some justification in her attitude and hostility if she too had been locked up against her will for weeks or even months on end?

I replayed the events of the day in my head and Brian's words came to me again and again. I remember looking at my watch as midnight came and went and the time dragged by as I watched the small pointer creep past one and then two and three in the morning as the city fell silent. I couldn't quite believe I'd left my mobile phone in the apartment as I went for a magazine. It was very small and fitted quite easily into my pocket and perhaps there might have been an opportunity to call for help if Kupi and his gang had missed it. They certainly hadn't searched me and who knows, when they'd left me alone there might have been an opportunity to call Brian and told him exactly what had happened. I'd even read somewhere that by leaving a mobile phone switched on the location could be pinpointed quite accurately. It was all incidental now as I pictured my phone sitting on a shelf by the front door of the apartment. I had looked at it and remembered thinking -
will I take it with me? Pointless
, I thought.
I'm only going for a magazine.

There had been another power cut and there was no electricity in the apartment and at 4.10 a.m. I got an uncontrollable urge to pee. I was so frightened and didn't want to move. The thought of having to walk into the lounge and bypass Kupi's guard on route to the bathroom filled me with dread. These men had almost raped me and talked about it as if it was an almost regular occurrence and I ran the scenario through my head and pictured him waking as I disturbed him. I had a vision of the guard trapping me on the way back from the bathroom, pulling me down onto the sofa and overpowering me.

I paced the floor of the room for at least an hour until my bladder cried out
no more
. It was no good, I had to go and I opened the bedroom door as quietly as I could. To my relief the lounge reverberated with more snoring from the sleeping guard. Although it was pitch black my eyes were well accustomed to the dark and thankfully I managed to negotiate the sparse furnishings and tip toed silently past the sofa and made it to the bathroom without rousing him.

After I'd finished I instinctively reached behind me and nearly made the mistake of flushing the toilet. It was an old toilet and no doubt noisy and it could have been disastrous. My hand hovered on the toilet handle as I said a silent prayer of thanks to the almighty for stopping me when he did. So instead I left it unflushed and crept quietly back through the lounge, into the bedroom and slid back into bed. I managed to fall asleep after that but for no longer than an hour at the most and then I was awake again and the nightmare was back.

My watch told me it was just after twenty minutes past six. I lay wide-awake as I watched the daylight gradually light up the small dingy room. It was an awful place. One table with makeup on and nothing more than a box room in need of an major overhaul. Some of the wall paper near the ceiling was hanging off and the once white paintwork was stained a dull nicotine yellow. It smelled of damp and cigarettes and body odour and there was an occasional but distinct waft of ammonia.

I told myself I should be shattered and I longed to fall asleep if only for an hour or two but the adrenalin coursing through my body would not allow it. I had been snatched from a street, beaten and abused and nearly raped and forced to spend a night in a building that was alien to me, sleeping with someone I loathed. I was cold and I felt dirty and as much as I wanted to sleep I knew it would not happen.

It was 8.30 am when Lule woke up. She looked around the room and focussed on her new bedmate as the events of the previous evening registered once again.

“Ahhh,” she said, “why if it isn't our little virgin. Mother Teresa.”

Lule sat upright and twisted her legs over the bed as she sat for several seconds before standing. She reached for a packet on the cabinet, pulled out a cigarette, lit up and blew several plumes of smoke high into the air. She walked over to the window and looked down into the street below. It was a dull grey day and little droplets of rain fell against the windowpane that had a crack in the bottom right hand corner.

“Another beautiful day in paradise,” she said with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders.

As she walked towards the bedroom door she turned and faced me.

“I think it's best if you stay in here Mother Teresa. You don't want to tempt that guard out there with your cute little untouched ass,” she laughed out loud. “I'll bring you something to eat.”

Lule returned about twenty minutes later. She brought me some bread with a small sachet of honey and some water.

“No electricity so no coffee and the bread is a couple of days old so it's a little hard. I'm sorry,” she said, as she shrugged her shoulders in a way that said that's the best you're going to get.

I stayed in the room for the rest of the morning too petrified to move. I'd seen exactly what Naim was capable of as he was fully prepared to rape me before Kupi called him off. Lule was probably right; it was best to stay where I was, at least for the time being.

That first day was a blur as I nearly wore a hole in the bedroom carpet pacing back and forward. I stared out of the window a hundred times looking and imagining a way I could get out of there and escape. But it was impossible and I knew it. The window was padlocked and barred and even if by a miracle I could have overcome those obstacles I was several storeys up and as far as I could see there was no fire escape in which to get down to ground level. I thought of a way to break the window and shout for help. That was a possibility. The window pane was already broken and the leg of the bedside cabinet could certainly complete the task. And yet would I even be heard above the noise of the traffic? It was quieter first thing in the morning but then again it was quieter because there was nobody around so would my screams and cries for help fall on deaf ears. I talked myself out of it. The guard, the vicious, brutal, bear of a man was less than ten metres away, it would take him no more than a few seconds to reach me and then what?

I thought back to yesterday when I'd looked into the kitchen. That window was barred too and I believe it looked onto a brick wall. I cast my mind back to the night before when I had to go to the bathroom. I think the bathroom was windowless. It was dark and yet my eyes took everything in and I couldn't remember a window, not even a small one. I grew despondent as I realised that the kidnappers had obviously thought of these things. The front door was a classic example of how security conscious they were. The front entrance was the only real possibility of getting out of there and they had fitted an additional reinforced steel door that looked as if it had come from a high security prison block. No, I would bide my time and wait for my chance of some other way to get out of there.

As the day progressed the thought of escape was never far away. I then began to think that they would eventually let me go because they would do a little investigating, check out my story and realise that I had been telling the truth. I convinced myself that although they had at first been very abusive and brutal, their attitudes would change once they knew I was telling the truth. That's why Kupi hadn't turned up today, he'd be out with his men, they would be talking to Brian and Peter and they'd confirm everything I'd said and they'd return soon and apologise and I'd be back by nightfall. They knew where Brian and Peter lived so it wouldn't be difficult to talk to them and needless to say Brian and Peter would realise that I had been taken and would answer any questions that would secure my imminent release.

The door opened and Lule breezed through with some cups of coffee.

“Drink this while you can,” she said. “The electricity is back on so take something hot.”

“Where is Azem?” I asked.

She placed the cups on the bedside cabinet.

“How the fuck should I know?”

“But he comes here most days?”

She shook her head.

“No, not really. He arranges a few meetings with his associates here and when he wants satisfied he comes to screw me but apart from that he's his own man. He has business to attend to and his wife and family, so I'm afraid my little virgin girl that he'll be back here when he's good and ready and not before.”

She pointed to the coffee cup.

“So drink up and relax.”

“Why are you so abusive to me?” I asked. “Why do you speak to me like this? I'm not your enemy. I'm a refugee, no more than that. I am not a spy or a whore, I‘m a village girl from Veliki Trnovac and I haven't harmed you or anyone else and yet still you mock me.”

I think I took Lule by surprise as she frowned and stuttered. I still hadn't figured out exactly what she was or who she was but I made a mental note that I would dig deep and find out exactly the type of girl she was.

Kupi didn't turn up that first evening either and I remember boredom was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome. There was a small television in the lounge and after some hours I plucked up a little courage and ventured out there. Naim sat on the sofa and Lule in another armchair as they concentrated on some pathetic game show and tried to answer the questions but although I so wanted to sit down and join them I kept looking at Naim and his perverted little grin as he looked me up and down and I couldn't bear to be in the same room as him. As I turned and walked away from him I somehow believed he had scored a small victory against me and I hated myself for allowing that to happen.

I lay on the bed studying the patterns of paint on the ceiling. There was nothing else much to do as I listened to the enthusiastic audience of the game show through the open bedroom door as they shouted encouragement to the contestants and I listened to Lule and Naim as they continued their private individual contest to see who could answer the most questions. I spent a lot of time praying. Although I didn't consider myself particularly religious, it's strange who you will turn to when the situation looks bleak. I talked to God and hoped that the sky wasn't empty.

Kupi turned up after three days. Later that evening I would find out exactly the type of girl Lule was and complimented myself on my good judge of character.

It was the noise of the keys and the barrels of the locks being turned that first startled me. I was sitting in the bedroom as usual when I heard the commotion and I heard Naim jump from his seat and his rapid footsteps on the threadbare carpet. Lule burst into the bedroom looking for some lipstick and a make-up bag.

“Quick,” she shouted. “It's the Boss, he's here.”

I lay on the bed trying to look calm and relaxed but all the while trembling inwardly because judging by the reactions of Lule and Naim I realised Azem Kupi was not so much respected but feared. Who was this man? As I studied Lule I recalled how calm she had been over the last few days and yet here she was running around like a headless chicken, almost panic-stricken.

I stayed on the bed for some minutes as I heard the voices from the lounge. There seemed to be a few different men there, voices I couldn't recognise. Lule came through to the bedroom.

“Come, help me make some coffee.”

I followed her into the lounge and took a sharp intake of breath as I saw Kupi again. He sat at a table with another two men I hadn't seen before and he smiled as I made eye contact with him. Two of his henchmen who had been prepared to rape me were also there, standing in the corner trying their best to look mean which they achieved quite easily. I followed on quickly behind Lule as we walked into the kitchen.

“Who are they?” I asked quietly. “What do they want, what are they doing here?”

Lule filled the kettle with water and ignored me.

“Get me half a dozen cups from the shelf and the coffee is over there.”

I did as she asked.

“But why are they-”

“Hurry,” she snapped at me, “Azem doesn't like to be kept waiting and stop asking so many fucking questions. You'll be better off if you just keep your mouth shut.”

When the coffee was ready we carried the cups through to the lounge and placed them on the table. Kupi was clearly in some sort of meeting and for the most part ignored me and Lule. I walked back into the bedroom but kept the door open so that I could hear bits of the conversation. It all seemed to revolve around money and Kupi and the other two men appeared to be haggling over the price of something. The figures were quite high and always in US Dollars. I heard thirty thousand and as much as forty thousand and then they talked about commissions and percentages and even expenses.

I eventually got bored as the negotiations seemed to be going round in circles. I got up and stared out of the window again wondering how close I was to Brian and Peter. I didn't know Pristina that well and wished I had taken more notice of my surroundings when we had ventured out. It was a huge city, nearly half a million residents I was led to believe and I began to feel depressed at the sheer scale of the place. I hated it and longed to be back with my parents in Veliki Trnovac. As the tears started to well up in my eyes again I wondered what would be going through the heads of Brian and Peter at that very moment. Would they be looking for me or would they be on their normal tour of duty? What would I be doing in their situation? I liked to think that our intimate moment meant more to Brian than I suspected and he'd be pulling out all the stops to look for me. Surely someone on that street the day I was kidnapped had taken notice of the car and the number plate and surely that car could be traced back to Kupi?