During the month after my father’s death, I was tortured by not knowing where he was buried; I was afraid he had disappeared from us forever, without leaving a trace. This fear, coupled with the last wish of my father — to be buried in his native village of Shen Vasil (Saint Basil) in the south — accompanied me as I journeyed from Vlora to Tirana, the capital of Albania. Acting on the advice of an ex-prisoner, Fadil Meço, I was hoping only to find the grave of my father. Under communism it would be impossible to claim his bones until the entire length of his sentence had run out, which in my father’s case would be the year 2003. At that remove, no one could ever be certain whose bones he was getting.

My father’s first grave, Tirana

My father’s first grave, Tirana

Usually the prisoners were buried in cemeteries near the prisons. It was Sunday; Kerimi was a stranger to me. When he took me to the grave, area number 82, front line, number —, I felt I had found my father, reborn. Silently, I was bursting with happiness inside, rejoicing in the fact that even though it was hidden, my father had a grave.

Every two or three months I returned to the capital to see the grave, to light a candle secretly and cut away the weeds. The thought that someone else might be buried there wouldn’t leave me. Kerimi had planted some irises, which never shriveled from the cold or from the strong wind that blew at the foot of Mount Dajti.