Free Biografi by Lloyd Jones Page B

occasions he had brought tourists to the house, something his father discouraged, since the risk was considerable, and there had been arguments, and promises from Nick that he wouldn’t do it again.
    In the carton were Nick’s notebooks. One was entitled ‘English from TV’. Another contained German phrases. With these snatches of language he had lured foreigners to the ‘blind spot’ behind Lenin’s statue.
    Nick quickly befriended them with his intelligence. Foreigners would one day be his way out. He had amassed a huge correspondence. Letters to the Red Cross in half a dozen European countries. Letters from his ‘family’ in Holland, Germany and England. Pinned to his bedroom wall was a large map of the North Yorkshire moors, with a dotted line to indicate the trail hiked by his English friends.
    It was extraordinary what he had collected. The words to pop songs. Western icons faithfully listed—Michael Jackson, Samantha Fox, Phil Collins, Duran Duran, Joe Cocker, Elton John. A street map of London and the Underground map. A red pen traced the blue route from Victoria Station to Islington Station. Nick had everything planned ahead. The moment he arrived in Heathrow he would find his own way.
    His friends had sent his fare money tucked away in a secret compartment of an envelope. In one letter advising Nick of the arrangements, there was this reassurance: ‘Don’t worry, Phil knows about these kinds of things.’ I imagined two or three slightly goofy English lads with daytime computer jobs and sea cadet backgrounds, thrilling to Nick’s cause.
    People had sent him books. Nick had translated ‘The Final Problem’ from The Celebrated Cases of Sherlock Holmes. He had pencilled in translations down the column margins of Robert Burns and Walt Whitman.
    The notebooks, the treasured sections of English newspapers, the letters—all in one sense, at least, belonged to a life already abandoned. In Rome, unless he discovered some vices, there would be no need to lead a life as furtive as this one.

    Before, in the bedroom, Arben told me about Nick’s involvement in last winter’s demonstration. Their cousin Kolec had been one of the organisers and Nick had begged to be included. The plan had been to pull down the statue of Stalin. On the day of the demonstration two thousand brave souls gathered in the piazza. Police with guns took up positions on the rooftop of the Rozala. But, incredibly, they only shot film. They filmed everything, and the next day they began their arrests.
    Nick hid all his books, his English newspapers, and waited for the police to call. Ten of his friends, Kolec included, were rounded up.
    Kolec was interrogated repeatedly. The film taken by the police had caught Nick’s shoulder and the police insisted to Kolec that he could identify the shoulder in the film.
    Kolec held out; finally the police gave up and sent him to Qale-Barit to work as a miner. No sooner had Kolec arrived than he organised a hunger strike. The prison was closed down and the prisoners sent elsewhere, Kolec to Burrell.
    Then in July he was given an early release and granted a visa to travel to Italy.
    Arben has a photograph of Nick and Kolec at a restaurant in Padua. Their glasses are raised. A bottle of wine has been drunk. Nick is in a T-shirt, his face radiant with summer health. A freer spirit is evident here than the pale student patrolling the cold monastery floors in Rome.
    Before Mimi arrived, Arben had asked me not to mention the demonstration, Kolec, or Nick’s involvement. Mimi’s husband is sigourimi. A very dangerous man, said Arben.
    Mimi turned out to be completely unguarded. She laughed a lot. Her eyes brimmed trustingly beneath purple eyeliner…I thought of her sitting on Mr Marku’s handlebars—pedalled across Shkodër to interpret for a foreigner. I thought of Mr Marku patiently waiting with his bike while his niece