Read The Devil Couldn't Break Me Online

Authors: Laura Aslan

Tags: #Yugoslavia War, #Women in Conflict, #KLA, #Kosovo War, #Serbia, #Croatia, #Albania, #Rape camps, #Former Yugoslavia, #Laura Aslan, #Torture, #abuse of women in conflict, #Angelina Jolie, #William Hague

The Devil Couldn't Break Me (17 page)

BOOK: The Devil Couldn't Break Me
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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.

BOOK: The Devil Couldn't Break Me
4.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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