Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

by Lea Ypi

If there was one thing that could convince us children of the irrationality of religion, of the ridiculous nature of belief in the existence of God, it was the idea that there could be a life after the one we had. In school we were taught to think about development and decay in evolutionary terms. We studied nature with the eyes of Darwin and history with the eyes of Marx. We distinguished between science and myth, reason and prejudice, healthy doubt and dogmatic superstition. We were taught to believe that the right ideas and aspirations survive as a result of all our collective efforts, but that the lives of individuals must always come to an end, like the lives of insects, birds, and other animals. To think that people deserve a different fate than the rest of nature does was to be a slave of myth and dogma at the expense of science and reason. Science and reason were all that mattered. Only with their help could we find out about nature and the world. And the more we knew, the more we could explain and control that which at first seemed mysterious.

We followed them until they disappeared with their parents, onto a tour bus or into a restaurant we had no permission to enter. Then only questions were left. What do they read? Do they enjoy Alice in Wonderland, Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, or The Adventures of Cipollino? Do they also have to collect chamomile flowers to help factories make medical herbs? Do they challenge each other on who knows more names of Greek gods? On who can remember more sites of ancient Roman battles? Are they inspired by Spartacus? Do they compete in Maths Olympiads? Do they want to conquer space? Do they like baklava? I thought about foreign children with curiosity, occasionally envy, but often also pity. I felt especially sorry for them on Children’s Day, 1 June, when I received presents from my parents and we went to eat ice cream by the beach and to visit the funfair. On that occasion, they also gave me a yearly subscription to several children’s magazines. It was through these magazines that I learned about the fate of other children around the world. The magazine Little Stars was for children from six to eight years old, and on Children’s Day it ran a cartoon called “Our 1 June and Theirs.” On one side there was a fat capitalist wearing a fat top hat buying ice cream for his fat son, and on the floor next to the shop’s entrance two ragged children and a caption: “1 June never comes for us.” On the other side, there were Socialist flags, happy children carrying flowers and presen...

My mother and my father, and their respective families, the Velis and the Ypis, had radically different values and fundamentally clashing attitudes to pretty much everything: how long it was appropriate to go on mending clothes before it was time to buy new ones, whether Sacco and Vanzetti was a superior film to Gone with the Wind, whether children rested better if they cried themselves to sleep, whether it was acceptable to drink milk that was slightly off, how late, if at all, one could turn up for meetings, and how many days one could recycle leftovers before accepting defeat. The Ypis loathed money; the Velis worshipped it; the former celebrated ancient codes of honour; the latter took pride in ignoring them. My father’s side was deeply interested in politics, including the politics of faraway places; my mother’s side cared only if it concerned them directly. It was a great irony that the two families had ended up marrying into each other, because at different times and places they would have probably been sworn enemies. History had turned them into allies. Neither side seemed to enjoy the daily conflict their interaction generated, but both had found strategies to cope with it. They were surprisingly frank about the fact that they did not approve of each other’s moral outlook.

There had been no choice but to marry, they said. It all came down to “biography.”

These events had been enough to convince

In the following days, the first opposition party was founded and my parents revealed the truth, their truth. They said that my country had been an open-air prison for almost half a century. That the universities which had haunted my family were, yes, educational institutions, but of a peculiar kind. That when my family spoke of the graduation of relatives, what they really meant was their recent release from prison. That completing a degree was coded language for completing a sentence. That what had been referred to as the initials of university towns were actually the initials of various prison and deportation sites: B. for Burrel, M. for Maliq, S. for Spaç. That the different subjects of study corresponded to different official charges: to study international relations meant to be charged with treason; literature stood for “agitation and propaganda”; and a degree in economics entailed a more minor crime, such as “hiding gold.” That students who became teachers were former prisoners who converted to being spies, like our cousin Ahmet and his late wife, Sonia. That a harsh professor was an official at whose hands many people had lost their lives, like Haki, with whom my grandfather had shaken hands after serving his sentence. That if someone had achieved excellent results, it meant the stint had been brief and straightforward; but being expelled meant a death sentence; and dropping out voluntarily, like my grandfather’s best friend in Paris, meant committing suicide.

She wanted me to remember her trajectory, and to understand that she was the author of her life: that despite all the obstacles she had encountered on the way, she had remained in control of her fate. She had never ceased to be responsible. Freedom, she said, is being conscious of necessity.

When we arrived in Athens, my grandmother encouraged me to start a diary. I made a list of all the new things I had discovered for the first time, meticulously recording them: the first time I felt air-conditioning on the palms of my hands; the first time I tasted bananas; the first time I saw traffic lights; the first time I wore jeans; the first time I did not need to queue to enter a shop; the first time I encountered border control; the first time I saw queues made of cars instead of humans; the first time I sat down on a toilet instead of squatting; the first time I saw people following dogs on a leash instead of stray dogs following people; the first time I was given actual chewing-gum rather than just the wrapper; the first time I saw buildings made of different shops and shop windows bursting with toys; the first time I saw crosses on graves; the first time I stared at walls covered by adverts rather than anti-imperialist slogans; the first time I admired the Acropolis, but only from the outside because we could not afford the entrance ticket. I also described at length my first encounter with tourist children as a tourist child myself, when I learned with surprise that they did not recognize the names of Athena and Ulysses, and they laughed because I did not recognize the image of an apparently famous mouse called Mickey. Our

She was right, but only in part. In the past, all women had been expected to work. They had been expected to work everywhere. All my friends’ mothers worked. Not one stayed at home. They were up at dawn to clean their houses and prepare their children for school, and then they went on to drive trains, dig for coal, fix electric cables, teach in schools, or nurse in hospitals. Some travelled long hours to reach the offices, farms, or factories in which they were employed. They returned home late and exhausted. They still had to prepare dinner, help the children do their homework, and wash the dishes. They had to cook into the evening, preparing meals for the next day. During the night, they had to nurse their babies or make love to their husbands. Or both. At home, the men rested. They read newspapers and watched television, or they went out to see their friends. Many expected their shirts to be ironed and made sarcastic jokes if their coffee was served a little less than piping hot. If their wives left the house to see their friends too, their husbands had a right to know why. Sometimes they found the reasons given insufficiently compelling, or they disapproved of the purpose of the visits. They issued orders for their wife to remain indoors or to stop meeting this friend or that. They always did it out of love, they said. In their minds, loving women and controlling them were virtually indistinguishable. They had learned this from their fathers, who had learned it from th...

Socialism had succeeded in ripping the veil off women’s heads, but not in the minds of their men. It had managed to tear chains carrying crosses from their wives’ chests, but those chains still shackled their husbands’ brains. There was little to do other than wait for the times to change or, as my mother saw it, to defend yourself.

grew up seeing how people were deferential to her, as if intimidated by her—not just the pupils in her class, the children in our neighbourhood, and us, her own children, but also quite a few adults, including men. I wondered where her power came from, and thought that perhaps she instilled fear in others because she was never scared of anything herself. But when I tried to be like her, and sought to control my fears, even dominate them, I struggled. I realized that she was an impossible model to follow. My mother did not fight and conquer her fears. She never knew fear in the first place.

My grandmother thought he had a natural talent for business, just as much as my mother. In reality, he was terrified of debt. He used to say that debt is like a beast who sleeps in socialism, like everything else, but stays awake in capitalism. We had to kill it, before it killed us. He gave himself no rest until we had repaid all the money we owed. Once he’d eliminated one species of beast, he felt ready to face the next. Hence his enthusiasm for the next heroic mission: saving Plantex. My

added meditation sessions to my daily schedule, but I never learned to meditate without crying. I was haunted by tales of the persecution my family had endured at the hands of Sigurimi agents, a thought which not only didn’t help me fall out of love with their sons but made that love more desperate. “Our

Leushka has become like young Werther,” my father joked, ignorant of the cause of my tears. “Don’t cry,” Nini reproached. “Crying never helped anyone. If I had ever thought about crying, I wouldn’t be here. I would have thrown myself under a train or joined my cousins in the mental asylum. Do something. Read another book. Learn a new language. Find some activity.” I started to volunteer for the Red Cross and got involved in a project at the local orphanage. Every morning, we would take the children to the beach and, along with the carers, look after them while they messed around in the sand or splashed in the sea. “It will help you put your life into perspective,” my grandmother said to encourage me. “You don’t realize how lucky you are. There’s a lot of misery out there.”

During those years, “the rest of Europe” was more than a campaign slogan. It stood for a specific way of life, one which was imitated more often than understood, and absorbed more often than justified. Europe was like a long tunnel with an entrance illuminated by bright lights and flashing signs, and with a dark interior, invisible at first. When the journey started, it didn’t occur to anyone to ask where the tunnel ended, whether the light would fail, and what there was on the other side. It didn’t occur to anyone to bring torches, or to draw maps, or to ask whether anyone ever makes it out of the tunnel, or if there is only one exit or several, and if everybody goes out the same way. Instead, we just marched on and hoped the tunnel would remain bright, assuming we worked hard enough, and waited long enough, just as we used to wait in Socialist queues—without minding the time that passed, without losing hope. “

“That’s Marx’s point,” my father replied. “Philosophy is dead. Philosophers come up with theories, one theory after the other, but they all contradict each other. There’s just no way of telling who is right and who is wrong. You should pick an exact science, something that can be verified or falsified, like chemistry or physics. Or pick a subject that gives you skills you can use to improve people’s lives. Like becoming a doctor or a lawyer—anything, really.”

My grandmother stood up to collect the dinner plates, then turned to my father, as if having second thoughts. “You didn’t study what you wanted at university,” she said calmly. “Why do you want to inflict the same on your daughter? What’s the point of doing to your child something you yourself resented all your life?”

Her tone was in striking contrast to her words. She spoke without enthusiasm, as if she was helping diagnose an illness rather than discussing options for the future. I decided to remain silent.

That night, we made a pact. They promised to let me study philosophy, and I promised to stay away from Marx. My father let me go. I left Albania and crossed the Adriatic. I waved goodbye to my father and my grandmother on the shore and travelled to Italy on a boat that sailed over thousands of drowned bodies, bodies that had once carried souls more hopeful than mine but who met fates less fortunate. I never returned.

My friends’ socialism was clear, bright, and in the future. Mine was messy, bloody, and of the past. And yet, the future they sought,

We both laughed awkwardly, then paused and changed the topic. It left me feeling like someone who is involved in a murder, as if the mere association with the ideas of a system that destroyed so many lives in my family were enough to make me the person responsible for pulling the trigger. Deep down, I knew this was what she thought. I always wanted to clarify, but didn’t know where to start. I thought that it would take a book to answer.

and to muse about my grandmother’s words: “When it’s difficult to see clearly into the future, you have to think about what you can learn from the past.”