Dead if You Don’t

70

Sunday 13 August

10.00–11.00

‘You little shit!’

His father’s steel claw clamped his left shoulder and his good hand the right one, jerking him out of bed and sending him crashing to the carpeted floor of his bedroom.

Aleksander looked up in terror. He had never seen his father so angry.

He was shaken, then shaken again so hard, he felt dizzy. Then shaken again.

‘You little piece of scum.’

‘Dad — I—’

He stared into his father’s cold glass eye. Then into his good eye that was equally cold.

His father shook him again. ‘You little shit!’

‘Dad—’

He smelled rancid cigar smoke on his father’s breath. And his dense cologne.

‘You fucking little shit.’

The boy trembled.

‘Just what are you trying to do to our family? You’ve brought the police on us. Are you happy about that?’

‘Dad, please.’

‘Please? Please? Please what?’

Aleksander began crying.

‘You want to sob? You don’t have balls? I have son who has no balls? Shall I cut them off so you’ll know what it really feels like to have no balls?’

‘Dad!’

Dervishi pushed his hand down between his son’s legs, found his testicles and crushed them hard in his hand.

Aleksander screamed, his stomach constricting in pain. He vomited, then lay on the ground, hands over his balls and sobbing.

Dervishi stood up, brushing vomit from his tracksuit in disdain. ‘I was proud of you once. Not any more. You useless piece of shit. Who helped you?’

His son stared up at his father in terror. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘No?’

‘Dad, they’ll kill me.’

He gave his son a bemused smile. ‘Really? They will kill you?’

Aleksander nodded, frantically.

‘And I’ll kill you if you don’t, OK? Believe me, you don’t want me to kill you, you really don’t.’

‘Dad, please.’

‘Jorgji!’ Mirlinda called from downstairs.

‘Don’t move,’ he said to his son. ‘Not one inch.’ He stepped away, opened the bedroom door and shouted back, ‘Yes, what?’

‘There are police officers outside who want to speak to Aleksander.’

‘Tell them they have to wait. He’s not speaking to them without a lawyer.’

Mirlinda shouted back, anxiously, ‘Jorgji, if I don’t open the door they will break it down.’

‘Let them in,’ he shouted back. Then, looking at his son in fury, ‘I don’t care what you’ve done, you say nothing, OK, nothing until we have a lawyer here. OK?’

Cowering, the boy nodded.

His father kicked him, hard, in his backside.