The Devil Couldn't Break Me (9 page)

The kidnappers were congratulating themselves on a job well done and hurling abuse at me from all directions, even the driver joined in the tirade of verbal cruelty.

I lay still and silent as the van picked up speed and I remembered Brian's warning over the many weeks. He knew something I didn't and had warned me time and time again. How could I have been so stupid?

Although the journey seemed to take a lifetime it couldn't have been more than ten minutes before the van skidded to a halt. I still hadn't managed to utter a single word and lay in the back of the van whimpering and sniffling. I heard my kidnappers open the door and they jumped out. Two hands reached in and dragged me across the metal floor by the hair.

“Come with me you fucking whore and don't give me any trouble or I'll cut your pretty face to fucking ribbons.”

I'd never met these men. I'd never wronged them or upset them in any way. I remember being frightened and yet sincerely believing there had been an awful case of mistaken identity and soon everything would be rectified and I'd be taken back to Brian and Peter very quickly. I just needed to stay calm and wait for an opportunity where I could point out the mistake.

I still had the hood on as they pulled me through the opening of the van, my head banging on something as I yelled out in pain.

“Shut the fuck up.”

I was dragged across some rough stony ground, they didn't give me a chance to stand and one of my shoes came off and I felt the sharp stones dig into my toes. I cried out for them to slow down, told them I would walk but they took no notice as they almost ran to wherever it was they were taking me. We went through a series of doors and I remember being dragged along a corridor. Another door then opened and I was thrown into a room where I lay petrified in silence for several minutes. I whimpered like a badly scolded puppy, not daring to move and wondered how long it would be before they discovered the error of their ways.

I became aware of another door opening and footsteps and then a different voice and another period of silence.

“Take her hood off,” someone said in Albanian.

I was sitting on concrete beside a large dark red rug. I remember thinking it was like the colour of an apple gone bad. My knees were cold and stinging and I edged forward so that they rested on the edge of the rug. I could smell acrid cigarette smoke and foul body odour.

“Good,” someone said, “make yourself comfortable.”

I looked up slowly. There were two men in front of me standing either side of a table. They were tall and skinny and I noticed that none of them wore uniform, which unnerved me a little. I don't know why, especially after the night on the mountain with Uncle Demir when everyone wore a uniform but somehow I wanted to see a uniform, a soldier, a policeman, it didn't matter. But I didn't see any. There was another man standing in the corner leaning on a wooden chair. He wore a leather jacket and jeans with elegant, well-polished black shoes. I took a sharp intake of breath as a trickle of perspiration ran down the back of my neck.

Another man sat at the table fiddling with a pen. He was by far the most menacing of anyone in the room and the others stayed silent while he stood and slowly walked towards me. I will never forget his face, it will come with me on my deathbed, I just know it and before he even spoke I knew he was one of the most evil creatures on God's planet.

He limped towards me, his dark greasy hair lay lank over one side of his face and his day old stubble gave him a filthy look as he approached me smiling, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

He grinned as he spoke slowly in barely a whisper.

“We know what you've been doing.”

He bent over me.

“Are you a whore?”

I shook my head.

“A fucking Serbian bitch whore?”

“No... I... I...”

I tried to form a constructive sentence but the words wouldn't come. The man's words resonated evil in every syllable, he terrified me from the outset and it was as if my throat closed before I could produce a single word.

“You've been fucking those Americans haven't you?”

“No... please.”

“Fucking and sucking them for weeks. We've been watching you, you fucking Serb bitch.”

At last I found my tongue and managed to blurt out a few words.

“I'm not Serbian, I was born in Macedonia, I speak Albanian like you, my mother teaches the Albanian language and I-”

I didn't get another word out as the man stepped forward and punched me hard in the face. I had never been punched before in my life. It was like a bomb going off in my head as the blow physically lifted me from my knees as I catapulted backwards smashing my head against a chair. I lay in a daze. The pain didn't register, just the shock and the numbness of it all. I started crying again as the men goaded my attacker who they called Azem to attack me again.

And he did. Azem lifted me up by the hair and punched me several times around the head as I cried out for mercy and tried to tell him there had been a terrible mistake. He beat me and kicked me for several minutes until he was out of breath and small droplets of sweat dripped from the end of his nose. I begged him to tell me what he wanted. I pleaded with him to ask me anything, anything at all and I would tell him the truth and surely my answers would convince him that I wasn't a Serbian spy.

Azem returned to the table as I lifted myself back onto my knees crying and begging him for mercy. I looked down and noticed that my clothes were stained with blood and a small crimson pool had begun to congeal in the centre of the rug. My lips were swollen and my cheeks were stinging where he had slapped me. Azem showed me no mercy. He allowed me to beg and whimper like a dog for five minutes while he sat in silence and then resumed where he had left off. My interrogation and the hands of Azem Kupi (I found out his full name later) lasted for more than an hour and it was a pattern of abuse he had clearly used before. He beat and kicked and punched and slapped and stamped on me for two to three minutes and then he would stop. He'd talk softly to me and ask me questions about the Americans and my activities as a spy. I'd relax and assume he'd take notice of what I was saying and I'd tell him anything he asked about the Americans, I said they were my friends and they'd rescued me when I came to Pristina and gave me a roof over my head and looked after me. I told him the truth. I told him I was not a spy but a simple village girl from Veliki Trnovac.

“Veliki Trnovac,” he said.

“Yes.”

“In Serbia?”

“Yes.”

Azem nodded.

“Serbian bitch. A Serbian fucking spy.”

“No, I, I was born in-”

Before I could say another word he was in my face shouting and screaming abuse and calling me the vilest names anyone could imagine. For the next fifteen minutes or so there was no physical violence just a prolonged assault of verbal mistreatment during which I sobbed and begged him to believe me. In many ways it was worse than the beatings, which of course came soon after. There was a short respite and then he'd start with the gentle questions again, the same questions he'd already asked over and over again and I'd give exactly the same answers convincing myself if I told him enough times then surely he'd eventually believe me.

Azem Kupi wasn't a fit man and towards the end of that first hour the interrogation and his efforts when he had beat me had clearly taken their toll. He was breathing hard and sweating profusely as he sat leaning against the table. And yet he was still smiling. He looked around at his men who somehow seemed to sense what was coming next. The man in the leather jacket stared at me with a strange look on his face.

Azem looked at him and grinned.

“Okay,” he said, “rape the whore.”

“No,” I screamed, “no please-”

“Rape the fucking whore.”

The men were on me like a pack of wild dogs. This was clearly something they had been waiting for and I wondered how many other poor girls had suffered at their hands. They ripped my jacket off and pinned me to the floor as I tried to kick them away. It was a hopeless cause as one of them sat on my stomach squeezing my breasts as another unbuckled the belt to my jeans. Kupi was shouting instructions of encouragement.

“Take your time boys, I want this spectacle to last a while.”

I tried to scream out but one of the men had his fingers in my mouth.

I could see Kupi laughing.

“See how she likes the Kosovan cock as opposed to a Yankee one. Make sure she's fucked good and hard.”

I remember a moment of sadness as I realised these were more or less my fellow countrymen, the history of Kosovo was intertwined with that of its neighbouring regions. Kosovo and Albania had been brothers for centuries and my tormenters spoke the same language as I did and by the sound of their names, worshipped the same god as me. There was no doubt these men were Albanian speaking Muslims and they were treating me like an animal, a piece of meat. I recalled my Uncle Demir telling me once to beware of your own dog, because he was the one who was more likely to bite you. One of them ripped at the buttons on my shirt exposing my breasts. Their inhuman treatment was in marked contrast to that of the Americans, a country on the other side of the world, the foreigners, as they were known. They had shown me nothing but respect, love and kindness.

Kupi was in his element screaming and laughing as they ripped my jeans off and I could feel their hands groping at my breasts and their cold slimy fingers sliding into my panties.

The man with his fingers still in my mouth had inched closer to my face and I could smell the stench of his foul breath as he spoke.

“You fucking Serb whore, I'm going to fuck you like you've never been fucked before.”

I don't know what came over me but I bit down hard with all my might. As the pain registered he screamed out, ripping his bloody fingers from my mouth and I managed to scream out.

“I'm no fucking whore I tell you, I'm a virgin.”

I don't know what happened but suddenly the assault seemed to stall. Even Kupi looked shocked.

“What did you say?”

“I can't be a whore,” I repeated, “I'm a virgin.”

Kupi stood.

“Well, well. A little virgin.”

“I'm not a whore, I've been trying to tell you that for the last hour.”

Kupi walked over.

“Repeat that again.”

“I'm nobody's whore.”

He knelt down.

“Yes you are.”

“No I'm not.”

Kupi edged closer. His teeth were stained yellow and brown and his body odour mingled with the smell of blood and his breath and the sweat of the other men and I did all I could to prevent myself vomiting there and then.

“You are somebody's whore,” he said leering at me, “now you're Azem's little whore.”

***

The fact I'd disclosed I was a virgin seemed to change everything. The attitude of the other men and Azem Kupi had changed. Perhaps now they believed me I thought. They clearly didn't like the Americans for some reason but now they knew I hadn't been sleeping with them had perhaps mellowed them. Kupi ordered his men to leave me and they threw me the clothes they had torn from me. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and dressed quickly.

Within ten minutes we were on the move and Kupi took me by the arm as he led me out of the building. He was carrying the black hood but at no point did he attempt to put it on me. As he led me towards a large jeep I looked back to see where they had been holding me. It looked like an old military establishment, run down, dirty and in need of a lick of paint. It stood in its own grounds and as I looked to my left I could see the city of Pristina about half a kilometre away and a little closer, what looked like a hospital and a school. Despite the ordeal I'd gone through I began to feel a little more relaxed. Since my disclosure about being a virgin there had been no more abuse, physical, mental or indeed sexual.

As we walked towards the car Kupi spoke to me normally. He didn't shout or scream nor did he insult me.

“Get in the car. Everything will be fine.”

I sat in the back with two of his men either side of me and Kupi sat in the front with the driver as we moved off. We drove in the direction of Pristina which reassured me even more. I convinced myself these men were plain clothes policemen and now they had established I was just another refugee seeking shelter they would take me to a police station and telephone Brian and Peter to come and get me and it would all be over. I asked Kupi where we were going. He stared at me hard but said nothing and I thought it best to keep quiet as the buildings of Pristina loomed up in front of us.

We pulled up outside what looked like another rundown apartment block.

“What's this?” I questioned. “This isn't a Police Station.”

One of the men laughed.

“No, and we certainly aren't policemen.”

Kupi told him to shut up. He looked at me.

“Didn't I tell you everything would be fine?”

Because they still hadn't put a hood back on me I still wasn't too concerned. We all walked towards the building. Kupi walked in front and the other men flanked me. I thought about running but I knew I had no chance. They took me up about four flights of stairs, as it was clear the lift wasn't working with several wires hanging out of the push button control panel. It was a horrible place. I thought Brian and Peter's apartment block was a bit run down but this was on a different scale and the stairs smelled of stale urine. I recoiled in horror as we stopped in front of a large steel door with a barred iron grill.

“No please,” I said, “you can't put me in there, I'm claustrophobic and-”

“Relax,” Kupi said, “it's not a cell it's an apartment. That door is for security purposes.”

He produced a bunch of keys and threw them to one of his men who proceeded to unlock the heavy door. It opened towards the outside and swung to the left. He pushed it flush with the outside wall and then removed the bunch of keys searching for another. Within half a metre of the steel door was another one, a wooden one, more in keeping with a standard apartment door. This door pushed in over and the man opened it and walked in.