‘Wow, what a story! Worms don’t have a family! They have no father and mother! They do everything on their own!’ Getting my friend Mel to understand anything, even the tiniest thing, was proof of great human and intellectual qualities.
Mel and my other three friends, Besa, Gigit and Grave, told me that Lyoza had gone on his own to Tiraspol, to the second-hand market, to exchange some stamps, because he was a keen collector. During the return journey, on the coach, he had been attacked by a bunch of thugs who had hit him and stolen his stamp album. I was furious, so we arranged to meet the other kids of our district to make an expedition to Tiraspol.
Tiraspol is the capital of Transnistria; it is about twenty kilometres away, on the opposite side of the river. It is a much larger town than ours, and very different. The people of Tiraspol kept out of crime; there were a lot of munitions factories, military barracks and various offices, so the inhabitants were all workers or soldiers. We had a very bad relationship with the kids of that town; we called them ‘mama’s boys’, ‘billy goats’ and ‘ball-less wonders’. In Tiraspol the criminal rules of honesty and respect among people did not apply, and the youngsters behaved like real animals. So none of us was surprised at what had happened to Lyoza.
We went to Lyoza’s house to see how he was and to ask him if he would come with us to help us identify the assailants. We explained to his father that we were going to Tiraspol to carry out an act of justice, to punish those who had attacked his son. His father gave him permission to go with us and wished us all good luck; he was very pleased that Lyoza had friends like us, because he profoundly respected the Siberian philosophy of loyalty to the group.
Lyoza said nothing; he fetched his jacket and came out with us. Together we returned to my house, where we planned everything.
At about eight in the evening thirty-odd friends gathered outside. My mother at once understood that we were planning some mischief.
‘Perhaps it would be better if you kept calm. Can’t you stay at home?’
What could I say in reply?
‘Don’t worry, mama, we’re just going for a quick trip, then we’ll come back…’
Poor Mama, she never dared to oppose my decisions, but suffered in silence.
We set out for a park on the outskirts, where all the thugs of the town gathered in the evening. It was called ‘the Polygon’. There the kids used to ride around on scooters, barbecue meat and consume huge quantities of alcohol and drugs until late at night.
So as not to attract attention we arrived in town on the regular coach, and then, splitting up into groups of five, set off on foot towards the park.
My friend Mel showed me a five-shooter revolver, an old, small-bore weapon, which I called affectionately ‘the prehistoric’.
‘I’ll let them see her this evening,’ he said with a broad grin, and it was clear that he couldn’t wait to do something nasty.
‘Holy Christ, Mel, we’re not going to war! Hide that crap, I don’t even want to see it…’ I really didn’t like the idea of drawing our guns. Partly because according to our education a firearm is used only in extreme cases, but mainly because if word gets around that you grab your pistol at the first opportunity, people start criticizing you. Ever since I was small I learned from my uncle that your gun is like your wallet: you only take it out to use it, all the rest is stupid.
But Mel tried to convince me that his behaviour made sense.
‘But it’s dangerous to go there without one; goodness knows how many guns they’re carrying, they’re prepared…’
‘Yeah, I can just imagine how prepared they are, all high as kites, and with holes in their veins… By the Passion of Christ, Mel, they’re all drunks or junkies, they shit themselves when they see their own shadows, aren’t you ashamed to pull our your gun in front of them?’
‘Oh all right, I won’t use it, but I’ll keep it ready, and if the situation gets out of hand…’
I looked at him as if he were mentally ill; it was impossible to explain anything to him. ‘Mel, I swear to you, the only person who can make the situation get out of hand this evening is you, with your fucking pistol! If I see you use it, don’t bother to try speaking to me ever again,’ I snapped.
‘All right, Kolima, don’t be angry, I won’t use it, if you don’t want me to. But remember, everyone is free to do what he wants…’ My friend was trying to teach me our law.
‘Oh, sure, everyone’s free to do what he wants when he’s on his own, but when he’s with the others he has to toe the line, so stop arguing…’ I was always keen to have the last word, with Mel – that was my only hope of getting it into his head.
When we reached the park, the group assembled. The only ‘principals’ – that is, those who were responsible for the kids – were me and Yuri, known as ‘Gagarin’, who was three years older than me. We had to decide how to go about identifying Lyoza’s assailants with precision, and how to get them to come out into the open.
‘Let’s take a couple of them – any two, at random – and threaten to kill them if the attackers don’t show themselves!’ proposed Besa, who in matters of strategy behaved like a tank, flattening everything in his path.
‘And you know what would happen? In three seconds they’d all run away and we’d be left with two spaced-out idiots who had nothing to do with it…’
I had a plan to propose, but I wanted to do it delicately, because to my way of thinking, its success depended entirely on Lyoza.
‘Listen, guys, I’ve got an idea that will definitely work, but it needs one person’s courage. Yours, Lyoza. It needs you to show your balls.’ I looked at him. He seemed exactly what he was: a kid who had nothing to do with our gang. With his perfectly buttoned jacket, his thick lenses that made him look like a monster and his hair cut in the manner of the actors of the 1950s, he looked completely out of place. Lyoza came closer to me, so as better to hear what I was about to say. ‘You’ve got to go there on your own: that way those bastards will see you and show themselves. We’ll surround the area and stand behind the trees, ready to act… As soon as you recognize them, shout, whistle, and we’ll jump on them in a flash. The rest is already in the hands of the Lord…’
‘Not bad, Kolima. Good plan, if Lyoza agrees,’ said Gagarin, looking at Lyoza to see how he would react.
Lyoza adjusted his glasses on his nose, and in a resolute voice he said:
‘Sure I agree. Only afterwards, when the fighting starts, I don’t know what to do; I don’t think I’ll be able to hit anyone, I’ve never done it in my whole life…’
I was impressed by the dignity with which the boy told the truth about himself. He wasn’t afraid at all, he was just explaining the facts, and my respect for him grew.
‘When we jump out from the trees you hide behind them; Besa will keep close to you in case anyone tries to get at you.’ Gagarin made a gesture to Besa, pointing two fingers at his eyes and then at Lyoza. ‘Not one hair must fall from his head!’
We headed for the centre of the park. We kept in the dark and avoided the main avenue. We reached the trees behind which there was an asphalted space with benches arranged in a circle, under the dirty yellow light from three lamp posts. The Polygon.
There was the sound of music; we could see the kids sitting on the benches, on the ground, on their scooters. There were about fifty of them, including some girls. The atmosphere was very relaxed.
We split up into six groups and surrounded the area. At the right moment I nudged Lyoza with my shoulder:
‘Go on, little brother, let’s show them nobody messes around with the boys of Low River…’
He nodded and set off towards the enemy camp.
As soon as Lyoza came out into the open, there was a flurry of movement among those present. Some got up from the benches and peered at him curiously, others laughed, pointing at him. One girl screamed like a mad thing, laughing and sobbing at the same time. She was obviously drunk. Her voice immediately disgusted me. She sounded like an a
dult alcoholic, her voice ruined by smoking, very coarse and unfeminine:
‘Look, Whisker! There’s that fairy from the coach! He’s returned to get his stamps!’
The girl couldn’t pronounce her ‘r’s properly, so her speech sounded faintly comical.
We all listened attentively, ready to spring into action as soon as we identified the guy she’d spoken to. He didn’t keep us waiting long. From a nearby bench, crammed with girls, a boy who had been strumming a guitar got up and, putting down the instrument, walked towards Lyoza with a light, theatrical step, throwing his arms apart as you might to welcome an old friend.
‘Well, look who’s here! You little bastard! Have you decided to commit suicide this evening?…’ He didn’t manage to say any more, because out of the darkness appeared the figure of Gigit, who leaped on him like a tiger and knocked him to the ground, giving him a rapid succession of violent kicks in the face. I too jumped out from the trees; in a second we were all on the square and surrounded our enemies.
Panic spread among them – some rushed first one way and then the other, trying to escape, but as soon as they came up against one of us they retreated. Then a group of more determined guys broke away from the rest and the fight really began.
I saw a lot of knives flash, and I too took out my pike. Gigit came close to me, and shoulder to shoulder we advanced, striking out in all directions and dodging the few attacks that came towards us.
A lot of them, seizing their chance, started running away. The girl who had screamed was so drunk she’d fallen down as she ran, and one of her friends trampled on her head – I heard her cry out and then saw the blood on her hair.
In the end we were left against about twenty of them and, as they say in our language, we ‘gave them a good combing’: none of them was left standing, they were all on the ground, many had cuts on their faces or their legs, some had their knee ligaments sliced through.
Mel marked the end of the fight with a flourish. Shouting like an enraged monster and making strange contortions with his hideous face, he picked up a scooter which was resting peacefully on its stand, raised it to the level of his chest and after running five or six metres threw it on top of a group of enemies, who were lying on the ground massaging their wounds.
The scooter landed with a crash, hitting one boy on the head, and others on various parts of their bodies. The ones who had been struck started screaming with pain all together, in chorus. For some reason Mel got even more angry because of those screams, and started hitting them with inexplicable violence. Finally he climbed on the scooter and cruelly jumped up and down on it (and on them). Those poor devils screamed desperately and begged him to stop.
‘Hey, arseholes! We’re from Low River! You beat up our brother, and you haven’t finished paying for it yet!’ Gagarin communicated his solemn message to all those who were lying on the ground. ‘We’ve just taken personal satisfaction, by beating you up and cutting you. But you still have to satisfy the criminal law, which you’ve shamefully violated! By next week five of you pansy bastards will report to our district with five thousand dollars, to be paid to our community for the trouble you’ve caused. If you don’t do it, we’ll repeat this massacre every week, until we’ve killed all of you, one by one, like mangy dogs! Goodbye and good night!’
We felt like unbeatable champions; we were so pleased with how things had gone that we set off for home singing our Siberian songs at the tops of our voices.
We crossed the park, breathing in the night air, and it seemed to us as if there would never be a happier moment than this in our whole lives.
When we came out of the park we found a dozen police cars in front of us: the cops were lined up behind the cars, with their guns trained on us. A searchlight flicked on, blinding us all, and a voice shouted:
‘Weapons out of your pockets! If anyone tries anything stupid we’ll fill him full of holes! Don’t be fools, you’re not at home now!’
We obeyed and all threw our weapons on the ground. In a few seconds a heap of knives, knuckledusters and pistols had formed.
They put us into the cars, hitting us with the butts of their rifles, and drove us all to the police station. I thought of my pike, that beloved knife that was so important to me, and which I would certainly never see again. That was the only thing I could think about. The idea that I might go to prison, because of my situation, didn’t even cross my mind.
They kept us in the police station for two days. They beat us up and kept us in a cramped room without food or water. Now and then someone would be taken out of the room and brought back bruised and battered.
None of us gave our real names; the home addresses were false too. The only thing we didn’t lie about was the fact that we belonged to the Siberian community. Under our law juveniles can communicate with the police – we exploited this possibility to trick them, and make their job more difficult.
Mel wouldn’t calm down and tried to attack the police, who hit him very hard, striking him on the head with their pistol butts, giving him a nasty wound.
Finally they set us all free, saying that next time they would kill us. Hungry, exhausted and battered we set off for home.
Only then, as I dragged myself like a dying man through the streets of my district, did I suddenly realize that I’d been very lucky. If the police had identified me I would have had to spend at least five years on the wooden bunks of some juvenile prison.
It was a miracle, I said to myself, a real miracle, to be free after an experience like that. And yet I kept thinking about my pike: as if a black hole had formed inside me, like a member of my family had died.
I approached home staring at the tips of my shoes, eyes on the ground – under the ground if it had been possible, because I was ashamed; I felt as if the whole world was judging me because I hadn’t been able to keep my pike.
When I arrived, I was like a ghost, transparent and lifeless. My Uncle Vitaly came out onto the veranda and said, smiling:
‘Hey! Have they reopened Auschwitz? How come nobody told me about it?’
‘Leave me alone, Uncle, I’m aching all over… I just want to sleep…’
‘Well, young man, unfortunately it’s not possible to give punches without taking them… It’s the rule of life…’
For two days I did nothing but sleep and, occasionally, eat. I was covered with bruises, and every time I turned over on my side in bed I gritted my teeth. Now and then my father or my uncle would look in at the door of my bedroom and make fun of me:
‘Really makes you feel good, doesn’t it, a sound beating? Will you never learn?’ I didn’t reply, I just sighed heavily, and they laughed.
On the third day the desire to return to normal life made me get up early. It was about six o’clock and everyone was still asleep, except Grandfather Boris, who was preparing to do his exercises. I felt a discomfort, a feeling very different from pain, but one which stiffens your body, so that every movement you make comes with effort; you’re slow, like an old man who’s afraid of losing his balance.
I washed, and examined my face in the bathroom mirror. The bruise wasn’t as bad as I had expected, in fact it was barely visible. On my right hand, however, there were two very obvious black bruises, one unmistakably in the shape of a boot heel. While they were beating me up one cop must have crushed my hand: they often did this as a preventative measure, to give you irregular fractures which usually healed badly, so you would never be able to close your fist tightly or hold a weapon. Luckily they were only bruises – I had no fractures or torn ligaments. I had another big bruise between my legs, just below my male pride – it looked as though something black was stuck to my body, it looked very nasty, and above all it hurt when I emptied my bladder.
‘Well, it could have been worse…’ I concluded, and went to have breakfast. The warm milk with honey and a fresh egg put me back in the world.
I decided to go and check my boat on the river and mess about with the nets, and maybe go round the district
to ask how my friends were doing.
Coming out of the house, I found my grandfather doing his exercises in the yard. Grandfather Boris was a rock – he didn’t smoke and had no other vices, he was a total health fanatic. He did wrestling, judo and sambo, and transmitted these passions to all the rest of the family. When he was exercising he usually didn’t stop for a second; so we only greeted each other with a look. I gestured to him, indicating that I was going out. He smiled at me and that was all.
I went down the street that led to the river. As I passed I saw on the corner, near Mel’s front door, his massive figure. He was naked, except for his underpants, and was talking to a boy from our district, a friend of ours nicknamed ‘the Polack’. He was showing him all his bruises and telling him what had happened, making a lot of gestures and punching imaginary enemies in the empty air.
I approached. He had a sewn-up wound on his head, a dozen stitches. His horrible face was lit up by a smile and eighty per cent of his body was various shades of blue, green and black. But despite his physical condition he was in a very good mood. The first thing he said to me was:
‘Holy Christ, your poor mother! Look what a state you’re in!’
I couldn’t help laughing. Nor could the Polack: he bent double with laughter, tears were coming out of his eyes.
‘You clown! Have you seen yourself in the mirror? And you say I’m in a bad way! Go and get dressed, come on, let’s go down to the river…’ I gave him a gentle shove with my shoulder and he let out a yell.
‘Can’t you be a bit more gentle with me? I took enough blows for all of you the other evening!’ he said with vanity.
Siberian Education Page 5