BEHIND CELL BARS

A True Story

I didn't know how the chair ended up in my hands. He got up and ran, hunched over, crossed the wooden veranda of the bar, climbed the three stairs, and disappeared behind the door of his house, which was right across from the small neighborhood bar...

“What did you do?” I heard the worried voice of Pavllo, the owner of the bar, behind my back.

“I don't know...!” I vented, chewing my words. “That crooked look irritated me... those curses under his breath. ‘Palo allvano’... palo... palo...! Enough is enough, even if you were made of stone...!” Pavllo put his hand on my shoulder.

“He could cause trouble for you,” he said in a low, friendly voice. “That boy has a lot of hate in his soul... God forgive him,” he added, and filled my glass with retsina.

“No, no...” I said in a muffled voice, not knowing what to do with my trembling hands.

“This one's on me,” Pavllo smiled, and walked away with his heavy body...

I left with troubled thoughts; out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of his partner in the window opposite. I had encountered the gaze of those hungry eyes before, tangled in the tails of her colorless hair. I turned my back, but she managed to wag her thin finger at me in a threatening gesture. The hard bed creaked mournfully... my whole being tried to get into that guy's head, to find the cause of that hatred, but I soon grew tired and fell asleep.

I heard, as if through a haze, some loud knocks on the door. I didn't move; for a moment I silently followed the hurried beating of my pulse.

“Open the door, astinomia,” a sharp voice said. I remembered that I had no lights. I took a few blind steps, tripping over the plastic water jug. The shadows of three men in dark clothes blocked out the night sky.

“You're coming with us,” said one of the men of the law, and I remembered the thin finger that had wagged threateningly against the glass... As we took the turn near Pavllo's bar, the police car's lights fell for a moment on the window of the house opposite; pressed against the glass as if glued there, I made out that guy, pleased as a pig, with his middle finger raised, while she simply blew me a “goodbye” kiss...

The cell was cramped and overcrowded, all of them Albanians, caught without papers. From the deep corridors came a muffled sound of footsteps and curses. The familiar jargon “palo allvano” lingered in my ears. The remaining hours of the night were endless. In the morning, the guard called my name, his pale face looking as if it had been smeared with a yellow-green mixture... The shadows of the corridor swayed and blurred, tangled with my footsteps.

“Where are you taking me?”

“The duty officer wants you,” the guard replied dryly, without moving his thin lips.

The office was tastefully furnished, but I could feel its gloom and coldness even in my breathing. And yet, the man sitting opposite me had a calm demeanor.

“Sit down,” he said, without taking his eyes off the register, where he was reading something, nodding slightly. “Right,” he added, and raised his eyes to greet me with a slight nod of his head. “We have a report here for an attempted murder with a knife, against a Greek citizen...”

“Excuse me, but...!”

“I know...” he interrupted me, and I noticed with surprise an almost friendly smile on his face, which told me something. Suddenly, that broad face with thick eyebrows and a thoughtful gaze began to take shape in my memory.

“Excuse me, but if I'm not mistaken, we've met somewhere...!”

“In a village in Mani,” he smiled, without taking his eyes off me. “Exactly at the lunch hosted by my German friend Filip, whose friend you also were.”

“I remember...!” I said, lost in thought.

“It made an impression on me back then,” he continued, “when you said you were writing a novel about Pyrrhus of Epirus and spoke with passion about the divine Pelasgians.” He stood up slowly, and a somber shadow fell over his face; he shook his head slightly, and opened his arms with a forced smile. “Well, you are free, you can go...”

I stood up, but I didn't move from my spot.

“I can't leave without clearing something up,” I told him, and prepared to explain that I hadn't attacked any Greek citizen with a knife, that what had happened...

“I know, I know what happened,” he interrupted me, patting my shoulders amicably. “In difficult times, the waters get muddy, but as time passes, things change...”

I couldn't feel my footsteps, weighed down by the burden of my thoughts. Withered leaves fell slowly onto the asphalt, wet from large drops of rain. The same question kept hitting me: “What about those left in the cell, how would things turn out for them? Maybe they've already started boarding those blue buses with small, dark windows, which often made the journey north...”

I heard the sound of a car stopping right at my feet; the window rolled down, and I heard the familiar voice. The car door opened, and he invited me to get in.

“I want to show you something,” he told me when I took a seat in the front. I saw that the car was heading out of the city, and I listened to the sound of the windshield wiper striking the soft raindrops. We drove for a long time, almost without exchanging a single word, until a village appeared on the edge of a hill covered in olive groves.

“This is my parents' village,” he said in a muffled voice, without looking me in the eye. “It's so old that no one remembers its beginnings. I come here whenever I get the chance.”

I thought he was going to take me to his parents' house, but he stopped the car at the village cemetery.

“They live here now,” he said in a moved voice. And he pushed open the gate of an iron door. We walked in silence through the green paths where the shadow of the cypresses fell. “This is their home,” he said with a trembling voice in front of a marble grave, where the front plaque bore the photograph of an elderly couple. Perhaps he feels the need to share his longing for his parents with me, I thought, but suddenly I froze in front of an inscription in the Albanian language. I read it in one breath: “The unforgettable memory of my beloved parents...” I raised my head and saw his eyes tearing up.

“They spoke Albanian until they drew their last breath... It was their prayer that I write their grave memorial in the Albanian language... and I couldn't possibly not do it,” he added in a muffled voice.