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Saša Milivojev – THE BOY FROM THE YELLOW HOUSE

 Translation from Serbian: Aleksandra Jakšić

OPERATING ROOM OF THE YELLOW HOUSE

      Auf jedem Wege, in jeder Form suche ich immer und ewig dasselbe: die Wahrheit.

      We went out of the prison. Very fresh evening. Strange air. Painful song of night birds could have been heard. We came into the van parked near dense thicket. I was driven by Baldy, our road was absolutelly unknown… Darkness… Nothing could be seen except of occasionaly placed houses and the Moon, hiden among a number of clouds. The village was sleeping. I felt very badly. Nausea. Slackness. Sweat. Baldy was driving very carefully and didn’t say any word all way long. He stoped the car, turned off the engine, opened the window… He was watching the Yellow House untill some people came out of it.

      „Come on, go out!“ – he waited for me next to the door and grabbed my arm. We came closer to those people. They were whispering something while we were going into the house, known to me because I had already heard a lot of terrible and spooky stories about it in the prison.

      We were walking towards the doors,  whose edges hardly allowed sharp rays of light to penetrate. Smell of chlorine was in the air, very strange smell… smell of hospital, smell of drugs… Suddenly, the door opened and intensive light from the operating room made us blind for a moment. I saw the doctors and a man on the table; they were pulling out something from his body by large and thick syringes. I was little and so scared, didn’t know what was happening around me. I guess, they were extracting the bone marrow because it also can be transplated. I didn’t see the victim’s face. I felt sick. I just saw the victim in position of cat, its knees wereput together and the spine was bent. That is why I suspect they collected the bone marrow. That was being done by the experts.

      „We have to wait them to finish“ said Boldy. He didn’t care I was crying. He could have let me go if he had wanted.

      „I am so scared! I am scared. Are they going to kill me? Please, do not kill me! Don’t, please!“- I was begging in tears.

      „Shut up!“ – I fell silent when he put the gun on my temple; all my body was shaking of fear and iciness. My legs were trembeling. My teeth rattled. We were sitting in one corner, waiting them to finish. The doctors were not dressed in those clasic hospital coats. They only had rubber gloves and rubber aprons, tied around the waist, all in hospital light-green color. I remember the pathos on which I’m still begging in tears, surrounded by scattered syringes and empty bottles, as well as gauzes soacked with blood. The table for operation was very large. On a wooden rack, there was an empty bottle of infusion. I remember a small cabinet in which I saw pans, scalpels, small bottles of injections, package of syringes, infusion or waht ever… The walls were quite old, but whitewashed. That place was old but clear. I would say that all accessories were aseptically. I remember the blades’ glow!

      It was not a luxuriously equipped operating room: there were only the most essential things, instruments and apparatus. The victim, who whose bone marrow had been being extracted was butchered, thrown on the trolley and brought forth from the room. They brought a half-dead man I had seen in the prison cell while going through the hall. He was all yellow, in wounds, like a corpse, halucinating something. Anesthesia was given to him. They were in a hurry, put masks on their faces preparing some containers. They hooked up some apparatus to the victim, I believe it was an apparatus for suction of blood. I started to lose my consciousness and to see them in some fog. Two of them were going into the room..Three of them…

      I saw knives, scalpels, hurry and assault! Baldy took cocaine and started to snuff it. They throwed some nylon over us, I heard clinking of ice while I was vomiting in the corner. I spent much time waiting..and shaking..I saw Nosy while packing some organ. I was exhausted, bathing in cold weat..

      Liver and kidney – several hours, no more than a day can be usable if intended for transplantation. That is some period in which organs are able to keep their functions. They packed the organ into the bag with ice, i remember: in that way the organ can longer stay usable and fresh, yes… Usual transport… Performed in plastic buckets wih ice. That organ must not be in direct contact with ice; some foil must be between i.e. there must be some material without any direct contact with ice, but in the same time material which absorbes temperature of ice: material which cools the organ. After being submerged into ice (not literarly because of that foil I mentioned before), the organ is also resistant to shakings. Avoiding all kinds of shaking is very important condition for escaping deterioration of the organ. Hm… I do not know what effection on that make turbulations in the plane, diluted air pressure and other weather parameters in the heights. I really can’t help you here, but information that organs were being flown by plans I got from the security services; latter, I confirmed that information listening other witnesses. Even I got some orders proving an international transport. I think that optimal temperature for saving organs is 4°C. I really do not have any knowledge about medicine except on dermatovenerology. I have no idea on surgery, just talk what I can remember. Horrible pictures are following me. I have a severe trauma. I was watching them cutting the body with the back-saw. When they wrapped the victim in the sheet, and wrapped like that into a thick nylon, Mustache Man opened the door and whistled. Several young men came and brought out a dismembered corpse. I was so scared that I would be the next on the operating table, but I was in scilence and in terrible fear of Baldy who held the gun pointed in my head.

      Some women came and started to clean the table, to scatter it with some chemicals. One doctor was of the middle height, middle ages  and fat. He had bulged belly, redish in his cheeks, with thick black eyebrows and mustache and with terrible eyes. Other one was taller, thinner, bloodless in his face, with huge red nose. They were speaking with Baldy: those were nurse and other medical stuff. I think in that hell of the house, there were fifty of them who were stealing human organs. I remember one black man and one beardy man, mujahedin. Who knows from which countries they all came there. They were running, going in, going out, altering each other..They made some analysis of blood results..Although I then didn’t know what those words mean, I am sure they mentioned some components of blood such as bilirubin, hemoglobin, transaminase etc..They were making some deal. Man with mustaches approached me and with his fingers pulled down the skin bellow my eye. He was watching my white of the eye: „Verdhez”.

      “You have jaundice, you son of the bitch! I will burn you alive if you have infected me!” screamed Baldy pointing the gun towards me.

      “ No, please, nooo..do not kill me, please!”

      He hit me with his fist in the head, broke my nose, pulled my ears! Nosy grabbed his arm and began to defend me: “Take him to hospital. When he is well, bring him back” – I tried to understand their conversation. We lived together and learnt languages from each other. Since the functions of my organs were quite bad because of acute jaundice and hepatitis, they wanted firstly to heal me and after that to take my organs. Than I left that damned house, with gauze on my nose, taking with me incredible fear of death. After 9 years, I was a bit free of fear, so I started to talk about that. But, it still hurts, very, very much.. They say: time is the great healer. It is not true. Time destroys. I am a ruin now, dusty and buried..