Reunited with Friends

I was trying to piece a timeline together and wondered how long I had been in the police station. I think I’d escaped at about midnight and it was now 4 a.m. The policeman had heard enough, taken enough statements and said I was finished for the time being, it was more than enough for one night he said and it was time to go. I had insisted that I would only travel back in a UN vehicle, I would not get in a Kosovan police car no matter how much I trusted the old policeman who had sat with me since I had arrived. The policeman was patient and sympathetic and said he understood, said he had called on the original two Italian soldiers who had rescued me. They would accompany me back along with a translator.

I remember staring at the clock for some time and eventually a policewoman announced that a car was outside waiting to take me to Brian and Peter. I recollect being upset that they had been woken at such an unsociable hour. The Italian soldiers greeted me with a handshake and I climbed into the back of a large jeep with the policeman and a translator. The translator leaned forward and directed the Italian driver through the deserted streets of Pristina until I started to recognise the buildings leading up to the apartment in the street where I had been originally captured. I started to panic a little as I began experiencing flashbacks but tried to compose myself and reassure myself that I would soon be safe.

As the jeep came to a stop at the very spot I had been kidnapped I broke down again. Everything came flooding back as if it was yesterday. The policeman put his strong arms around me and I buried myself into his heavy coat as the tears flowed again. I was shivering, I was so cold and tired too and yet it was a strange tired feeling because I felt that if I succumbed to sleep I might never wake up again. My whole system was at breaking point and somehow I realised it. But I knew I needed to summon my last residues of energy just to make it to my feet.

The policeman shook me.

“Is that your friend?”

He said pointing to the doorway.

Peter stood in his pyjamas peering into the jeep.

“Yes,” I said, “that’s Peter.”

It was raining but Peter came over to the jeep and I had an urge to run to him. The translator was the first out of the jeep and she began to explain in English exactly what had happened. Peter looked as if he wasn’t listening to her. He just kept staring at me with a look of devastation written across his face.

I wondered where Brian was, why hadn’t he come to meet me too?

“I’ll take care of her,” Peter said as he reached into the vehicle and took my hand.

I climbed out and he held me in his arms as he wept like a baby. Despite the heavy rain that was now falling we stood rooted to the spot for some minutes. The translator was still filling Peter in on everything that had happened to me and I heard Kupi’s name several times. I looked over Peter’s shoulder and noticed the old policeman looking on. He looked happy and seemed to approve of Peter and figured that I was in safe hands. We walked into the building locked together. Peter wouldn’t let me go as he held me close to him. He opened the apartment door with one hand that seemed to take for ever as he struggled with the keys in the locks. I wanted to tell him it would be easier with two hands but I knew he wouldn’t let me go.

He took me straight into the kitchen where the small sofa I had slept on was still in the same place. He sat me down and we tried to have some sort of a conversation but as soon as I managed to blurt out half a dozen words I’d break down again and again. I couldn’t stop crying, I felt so ashamed. Brian and Peter had warned me of the dangers in leaving the apartment, they’d told me a hundred times and yet I genuinely hadn’t known just what lay outside the four walls otherwise I’d never have ventured out. Peter was trying to calm me down and all I could do was to keep apologising. I kept looking over towards the kitchen door expecting Brian to appear at any moment but it never happened. Perhaps Peter was on his own now, perhaps Brian had a girl in his room and thought it wasn’t right to make an appearance at this time?

“You need a shower or a bath,” Peter said, “you’re cold and wet.”

I nodded and I stood and Peter guided me towards the bathroom. There was a bath in there and Peter started to fill it. I recall the steam rising up from the water as it gradually filled while he was saying something about the power cuts being few and far between at the moment. Peter started to undress me. I didn’t have the energy and sat there like a child being undressed for bath night by her mother. Peter stripped me down to my bra and panties and bizarrely left them on me as he lifted me into the warm water.

Peter washed me all over. He washed my hands and massaged my back with hot soapy water and then he washed and rinsed my hair. He washed me until the water was turning cold and then he filled it with more hot water but eventually, as my skin started to crease and wrinkle, he lifted me out and towelled me dry. He brought me a pair of his pyjamas and left me to change. He then came back with a pair of his slippers, three sizes too big, in the shape of ducks. They were yellow in colour and he slipped them onto my feet. We both laughed and then once again he took me in his arms and hugged me tight. We slid onto the bathroom floor and I sat in his lap. I fell asleep in Peter’s arms. I fell into a deep, deep sleep and I slept better than I had slept in months.

When I awoke I was on the sofa in the lounge. It was daylight, perhaps mid-morning and I was still in Peter’s arms. I could hear someone in the bathroom.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Peter frowned.

“Brian, who did you think it was?”

I remember being disappointed that it was Brian. Why hadn’t he come to see me? I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly 10.30 am. I had been there for hours and it was as if Brian was ignoring me.

Peter looked nervous, as if he had something to say. I asked him what was bothering him.

“It’s that clear?” he said.

“Yes.”

“The thing is you can’t stay here Laura, we have to work. Things have changed. You can’t spend one more night here. It’s not safe for you and it’s not safe for us.”

As Peter’s words sank in Brian walked from the bathroom. He looked at me, gave a half smile and started to shake his head. At one point I thought he was going to walk away but he didn’t. He walked over slowly and I stood to greet him. He took me in his arms for a split second and gave me a token hug. He was so cold towards me and as we broke apart he turned around and walked back into his bedroom. I felt so hurt... rejected... disappointed and I remember feeling sorry for myself. I remember thinking that after everything I had been through I didn’t deserve this from my friends.

Peter repeated that they had to go to work and now that it was known that I had been brought back to the apartment it was impossible to stay there on my own. I wasn’t stupid, I knew that, and yet I couldn’t help feeling that Brian and Peter couldn’t wait to get rid of me. He told me I couldn’t stay in Pristina because they would be looking for me. He looked genuinely upset, saying that if it were possible he’d stay with me for 24 hours a day and take care of me but it wasn’t.

I was annoyed with myself. I hadn’t been thinking when the people at the police station had asked me where I wanted to go. What a stupid suggestion asking to come back here. No, I needed to get out of Pristina and I needed to get out of there quickly. I sensed Kupi and his gang were already making in-roads as to my whereabouts and that they would already be hunting furiously for me. I had to be silenced, I had to be silenced like all the rest, this was what Peter was saying only he didn’t quite have the bluntness to put it like that. I was on a death list. I had to be eliminated. According to the older policeman I was the only living soul who could put Kupi and his gang behind bars for the rest of their lives. I needed to get out of Pristina quickly, across the border at least.

It was agreed that Peter and Brian would get me on a bus in the direction of Veliki Trnovac. By all accounts the buses were running quite normally.

I wanted to say goodbye to the apartment and I wandered from room to room in a daze, like a zombie. I stayed some time in the kitchen looking at my little bed where I had felt so safe and yet somehow knew I would never see it again. I felt sad, like a little girl lost, as if I were saying goodbye to a dying relative. I walked into Brian’s room and picked up a CD cover.

Carlos Santana, Maria - Maria. I recalled how Brian had played the track almost constantly. The lyrics of one particular verse seemed to hang in the air as I hummed the tune and although Brian wasn’t there, the aroma of his aftershave, Joop, seemed to permeate the room

You know you’re my lover

When the wind blows

I can feel you through the weather

And even when we are apart

It still feels like we’re together.

I wanted to cry, I wanted to hit out at someone or something, I wanted to smash the CD cover into pieces. I picked it up and held it above my head. That song meant so much to me or at least I thought it did. I was so close to throwing it onto the floor and putting the heel of my shoe through the plastic box. In the end I thought better of it and placed it back into its original position. I walked into Peter’s room and the kitchen and then into the bathroom and even though I knew it was all rather childish I said goodbye to everything.

It was time to go. Peter gave me a small American flag and a picture of himself sitting on a motorcycle. He said it would remind me of him. He looked at his watch and said his shift would be starting in two hours so we had to get a move on.

Brian stood in the doorway as I walked towards the door.

“I think it’s best if I stay here,” he said.

He turned to Peter, almost blanking me.

“I’ll wait for you here, don’t be too long.”

I was embarrassed. I couldn’t think what I had done to upset this man so much. He stepped forward and gave me a hug. There was no feeling in it, so different to the last time he had held me in his arms.

As we drove to the bus station Peter emphasised the danger I was in and the need for me to get across the border as quick as possible. My old mobile was still in the apartment and Peter had kept it fully charged. I had tried to contact my parents all day but for some reason it wouldn’t connect. I tried to think positively and tried to imagine the meeting with my parents later that day. Forget about Pristina and Kupi I told myself, forget about the Kosovan police and Brian and Peter too. Life would be back to normal in Veliki Trnovac. I reassured myself that there had been no power cuts and that the buses were operating smoothly. Things had changed, things had changed for the better and in a few hours I would be back home and reunited with my beautiful parents and I’d start my life over again. They’d cry tears of joy and happiness and my mother would throw a big party and every single member of the family would be invited. There’d be a feast with all the finest fish and meat and no doubt a big plate of Sarma, her favourite dish, the cabbage marinated in mincemeat and spices. I could almost smell it.

Peter had made me sit in the back of his car and told me to keep my head down. We pulled into the bus station and he asked me to wait in the back while he checked out the buses. I crouched down in the back so that my head was below the window level of the door.

Peter returned with good news. He said he had checked out a bus heading near to Veliki Trnovac. He’d paid the bus driver who would look after me, he said that the bus was almost full with families on their way to meet their relatives in Serbia. Peter said that he had a nice feeling about the bus and that there were no soldiers on board, no policemen and no groups of men.

He pointed at it.

“It leaves in fifteen minutes, I’ll stay here until it drives away.”

So we said our goodbyes in the back of the car. Peter exuded a warmth that Brian lacked, his tears falling freely and he didn’t seem ashamed or bothered. We sat there for an age and eventually as the bus engine fired up he ushered me out of the car. I climbed on the bus and took my seat. As it pulled away from the bus station the images of my parents faces filled my head and gradually a smile appeared across my face as the memories of the last few months dissolved away.

My nightmare was eventually over.