Lirije

March 2021 — Remote

Albanian:

“Numri i madhë i njerzve. Traktorat hecshin hap hap ose ka dy orë s’hecshin hiq.”

“There were a lot of people. The tractors were either moving very slowly or staying put for two hours or more, some not even moving at all.”

Audio Transcript [ENGLISH]

Then, then, we began running out of food.

There were a lot of people. The tractors were either moving very slowly or staying put for two hours or more, some not even moving at all.

We had nothing to eat.

The caravan was never ending. Never ending.

You could start a fire, boil a chicken for 10 minutes.

In Zhur, I remember, my cousin and I, she removed the head of the chicken with her bare hands.

She killed the chicken with her hands, and we managed to find a pot and let it boil for 10-15 minutes.

There were wood stoves on the side of the street here and there, so that people could take the pot from one stove to the other when the tractors started moving.

People were desperate for food so they took the stoves out on the street. Those who lived closer to the street took them out.

And then you could go inside those houses and take flour and water and salt and pans and oil, and at least make some pancakes on the road.

Below is a creative, non-fiction vignette written by Erjona Gashi about Lirije’s interview.

In Isniq, when Lirije was 22, war changed her life. Rumors about women from Bosnia and Croatia convinced Lirije her beauty was something to hide to keep herself safe. Lirije learned how to age. She wore sorrow on her face, lines appeared into her forehead from worry, and when she looked into the mirror, she no longer saw a girl. She had come to believe that the paramilitary soldiers weren’t inclined to torture older, sadder-looking women but took young women to some abandoned houses in a heartbeat. She knew what happened in those abandoned houses, so she made herself look old to stay out of Serb soldiers’ way.

She recalls how she had to stay in Isniq with other women of her family for seven days. The men ran away to the mountains, while the women gathered what they could: sacks of flour, blankets, a few shirts, and their children. They piled into a tractor. Fifteen women pressed into half its bed and the rest loaded with things they hoped might remind them of home someday. A blue tarp covered the tractor, turning daylight into shadows. They couldn’t see outside, but sound pierced the tarp: gunfire in the distance, the crack of something falling, the too-close noise of explosions.

Then silence. Then stillness. Then fear. The tractor stopped. Lirije’s heart seemed to stop too. She knew what this meant. Everyone did. A checkpoint. She turned to the woman beside her, who held two children tight against her chest. Lirije’s voice came out quiet: “Give me the baby’s cloth.” The woman did. Lirije wrapped it around her head like a scarf, a mother’s scarf. “Give me the baby.” The woman hesitated, but she handed over the younger girl, and Lirije pulled the child into her lap. The baby’s crying echoed in the space under the tarp. Then, other cries: low, whispering sobs from the women, some praying, others murmuring names of their own children. Over it all came the shouts of the Serbs. “Jebeni shiptar!” A stick cracked against the tractor wall. Then another. Lirije kept her head down. She imagined her heartbeat was visible, pulsing through her neck, across her face, through her trembling hands. Could they see it? Could they smell her fear? Could they read it on her skin: “young,” “unmarried,” “take her”?

She didn’t dare breathe.

Lirije said she has forgotten the words she had whispered in that moment. But she remembers the feel of the cloth on her head and the fact that pretending to be a mother might have saved her life.

Listen to the archive here if you’d like to learn more.