The English Prisoner

by Tig Hague

  Back in his little office with its window overlooking the yard to the front, Ahmed sat me down and, over a cup of sweet black tea, ran through some of the basic rules of life in the atrad. ‘No lying or sitting on your bed until bedtime at ten o’clock; smoking only in the exercise yard, whatever the weather… Your shoes must be clean at all times… Make your bed after breakfast… Sundays we shower and wash our clothes… Respect other people’s property. Prisoners never steal from each other. We try and live as a family, as a team. We help each other… If you have any trouble with another prisoner, come and see me… And, by the way, steer clear of Papi, he’s trouble. If you hang out with him, the cops will notice and associate you with him. You’ll get a bad reputation. Trust me.’

  Through the window I could see the other prisoners hurrying back from the factory, heads down against the falling snow and hugging their arms to their chests. Nodding his head at the figures passing through the gate into the yard, Ahmed gave me a running commentary on my new room-mates. ‘That one’s OK… that one’s a paedophile… he’s in for murder… that one’s a reborn Christian… avoid him, he’s mad and violent… he’s a good guy… don’t trust that one… he’s just come out of solitary and has lost his mind a little…’ When the last man came through the gate, his face barely visible as he cowered against the snow, Ahmed paused and said slowly: ‘And that one, that fucker, is Chan. Be very, very careful with him. He’s a loner, a very bad man. Double murderer. Always fighting. Very violent. Avoid him.’

  I nodded, remembering the warnings about Chan from Baska and Greecia.

  On Ahmed’s suggestion I went to meet the people sharing my dormitory, stepping around half a dozen Muslims on their knees in prayer as I made my way along the corridor. I walked towards my bunk, nodding and smiling sheepishly, and one by one the Africans came over and shook my hand and welcomed me in English. Not one Asian and only a handful of Middle Eastern guys even acknowledged me. It was a relief to see the friendly faces of Julian, Boodoo John and Eke Jude in the room. Many of the Africans were devout Christians and they greeted me with a religious comment along the lines: ‘May God be your guide in here… Repent your sins and God will protect you from danger… May the Lord deliver you from evil…’

  A huge man called Adek was one of the last to introduce himself to me, and it was then that I understood why the Africans had given me such a warm reception. ‘Our brother Philip has told us all about you. You did wonderful Christian things for Philip in Moscow and he is eternally grateful to you. He is in Atrad 3 and you will not see him so much, so we gave him our word, on God’s holy name, that we will look after you to the best of our abilities in here.’

  ‘It was really nothing, but thank you,’ I replied, inwardly delighted that some minor acts of kindness had bought me so much respect, as well as a promise of protection.

  I returned to Ahmed’s office, where the atradnik, the guard in charge of our quarters, was standing talking to Ahmed. I quickly pulled off my hat, nodded and said: ‘Good evening, atradnik.’

  ‘Regime wants to see you in his office,’ said Ahmed. ‘I’ll come with you and help translate.’ It was clear from his grovelling demeanour as we walked into Regime’s office, next door to the quarantine room, that a show of pathetic humility was in order. Like Ahmed, I took off my hat, held my hands down in front of me and looked at my shoes.

  ‘Welcome to Mordovia,’ said a voice in Russian, Ahmed translating. I looked up to see a middle-aged man of average build with a round face, piercing, severe blue eyes and the droopy, black moustache that British men used to sport in the 1970s. On his large brown desk there were several piles of documents, a lamp, an ashtray and a large old-fashioned red telephone with the rotary dial. It was just like the phone Mum and Dad used to have when I was a kid, and my eye kept being drawn to it.

  ‘My name is Vladimir Kuznetzov, but you will call me Regime.’

  He rose from his seat behind his desk and walked over to the window, where he looked out at the falling snow and the atrads beyond, lit up by the camp floodlights. He held his hands behind his back and rocked gently back and forth on his heels, saying nothing for over a minute. Still facing the window, he broke the silence: ‘Follow the Zone rules in here, Englishman, and you and I will get along fine. Break or bend them and you will not have a happy time in here.

  ‘Every time you hear the Zone buzzer you will assemble in front of the atrads within three minutes. There is a ten-metre no-go area within the Zone perimeter fence – step into that and a sniper will shoot you…’ He swung round to look at my reaction before turning back to the window and continuing: ‘Ahmed will tell you that we don’t have any secrets from each other in Zone 22, so if any of the other prisoners upset you, you come and talk to me, man to man. We are here to help you with your rehabilitation as a good citizen.’

  Regime spun sharply on his heel and returned to his seat, putting his feet up on the long wooden desk next to the old red telephone.

  ‘You will start work tomorrow, and now we must decide what job you are best suited to. What did you do in England before you committed your crime?’

  ‘I worked as a broker in a bank, nachalnik.’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that unfortunately we don’t have an investment bank in the Zone for you to run, Hague Tig,’ he replied, the faintest flicker of a sarcastic smile appearing on his face. ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘Well, my dad’s a builder and I’ve learnt some basic construction skills from him.’

  ‘Englishman, there has been one building erected here in fifty years, and I don’t think we’d be able to find enough work to keep you busy for your time in here. Does your mother sew?’

  ‘Well, yes, she can put buttons on shirts and repair tears in clothes.’

  ‘Excellent, then you will start work in the sewing factory tomorrow morning…’ And he waved us away with his hand as Ahmed was in the middle of translating.

  ‘Spasiba, nachalnik!’ Ahmed and I muttered as we headed for the door.

  ‘One more thing!’ snapped Regime, and we turned round. ‘Now you stay out of trouble, Englishman, and I’m sure you will leave here a better man than when you arrived. We don’t want him to leave like the last Englishman, do we, Ahmed?’

  Silence hung in there for a few moments. I looked at Regime, who looked at Ahmed.

  Ahmed said: ‘He died in solitary confinement and left the Zone in a body bag on the back of the horse cart.’

  19

  The sound of the first long blast on the camp siren heralded the start of the day in Zone 22, and there was a collective groan across the dormitory as all fifty of us swung out of our bunks and quickly began to dress ready for morning exercises. Most of us had slept with our woolly hats and jackets on, but we needed at least two extra layers for the outside. At the second blast of the hooter we hurried half asleep down the corridor, as if running away from a fire, to the entrance by the door, which quickly became a scrum of pushing bodies as we all scrambled to put on our boots and shoes. By the third and last call, five minutes after the first, the final few were scurrying through the gate of the pen on to the concourse to join the rest of us, stamping our feet and jumping in the air in an effort to keep out the numbing cold. It was still pitch black outside and it would be another two hours before the first grey streaks of dawn began to appear in the sky.

  Two guards wheeled out a big speaker and one of them put on a cassette tape that crackled like an old gramophone before the formal, old-fashioned voice of a Russian male began to talk us through our drills. It began with star jumps: ‘Rass, dva! Rass, dva!…’ (‘One, two! One, two!’) said the cheery voice from the ancient speaker. I was at the far end of our group, nearest the main gates, and I looked to my right to copy what the others around me were doing. I saw roughly 350 men in black uniforms flopping about in the snow like scarecrows in a gale. A few guards walked around the group, inspecting the quality of the exercises. We touched our toes – or tried to; we reached for the sky;
we leant to the left and we leant to the right; and it was so cold that I started stretching faster and faster just to keep warm. The worst drill was squat thrusts, because that meant getting down in the snow and ice. We weren’t allowed to wear gloves, so by the time I got back on my feet my hands were so cold they felt like they belonged to someone else. Judging by the crackle of the tape and the age of the speaker, the recording was almost certainly a remnant of the Soviet era, and as I squatted and thrust I tried to imagine the many millions of Russians, over the decades in gulags across Mordovia and the Soviet Union, stretching and jumping and thrusting under orders from that very same, annoyingly merry, voice.

  We all did the bare minimum to get by and not draw attention to ourselves, but we weren’t an impressive sight. In fact, we must have looked like a comedy piss-take of a Jane Fonda video, with lots of skinny, tired, malnourished, grim-faced, wheezing lads flopping about like bored ragdolls. After fifteen minutes we shuffled a few steps closer together for preverka before returning to our atrads to get ready for the day – washing, brushing teeth and shining shoes. Not everyone was washing and brushing their teeth by any means – maybe a third of the atrad – but as there were only three sinks in the small toilet area it was still a bit of a scuffle. While we waited our turn, other men pushed past us to squat over the open toilet holes right next to the sinks. Their upper bodies remained visible above the low screens, and I had to look away as I brushed my teeth because just three feet from me a man was straining and farting and splattering the floor.

  When I walked out of the toilet area and back to the dormitory, the corridor was a hive of surreal activity. A dozen Muslims – Afghans, Uzbeks, Turks and North Africans – were kneeling down in prayer, surrounded by as many others frantically polishing their shoes and boots, spitting and buffing them as though their lives depended on it. It was imperative for prisoners to keep their shoes meticulously clean, but not so easy for the majority, particularly in the slush of winter, who couldn’t afford polish and had to make do with water and spit.

  Breakfast was served in three fifteen-minute sittings between 6:45 and 7:30. As we filed out of the atrad at seven o’clock towards the canteen by the kitchen, the sick prisoners of Atrad 2 were coming the other way, having already had their breakfast. In the dark it was difficult to tell the difference between the two groups of shuffling black figures, hacking and wheezing into the frozen morning air, and gobbing thick mouthfuls of phlegm into the overnight snow.

  ‘Let’s hope they washed the bowls well this morning,’ whispered a short white man with cropped brown hair walking next to me. ‘Fuck only knows what germs those fuckers are carrying.’ His English was perfect, and he winked a bright blue eye when I turned round to acknowledge his comment with a smile. ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Hague. I’m Benny Baskin.’

  The end of the queue for food trailed out of the dining area to the pavement outside and we stood there in silence, with our hands tucked under our armpits, shuffling slowly forward. Inside, the queue continued over a red line that had been painted on the floorboards a yard away from the wall. The serving-hatch was in the far corner from the door and once a prisoner had received his food he sat down on one of the benches at one of the three long metal tables arranged in the middle of the room. No one said a word. Two guards stood against the wall, bleary-eyed and grouchy. I collected my bowl, which was still damp from being rinsed, and held it through the hatch for Mehmet, the Turkish rapist and murderer, to drop a ladle of porridge into it. I took a piece of black soda bread and picked up a cup of sweet black tea. I turned round and immediately jerked to a stop, making my tea slop on to the floor. One of the guards was standing right in front of me. He was one of the younger ones, tall and rangy, and he was looking down his nose at me with disgust as he blocked my way. He moved his foot away to draw attention to the spilt tea that had narrowly missed his lace-up combat boot and continued to eyeball me as I edged around him and slid on to the nearest bench. His look said: ‘That’s your final warning, pal.’

  Breakfast, like all meals, was to be eaten in silence, sitting on the benches that were fixed to the long metal tables under the gaze of the guards, but within ten minutes we were filing back out as the men of Atrad 3 were making their way in. I joined a handful of others under the smoking shelter for a cigarette, and when I pulled out my packet of Rothmans, three of them, two Vietnamese and a Turkish-looking character, immediately put out their hands. I held out my packet and all three of them lunged for it, each quickly pulling one out. Only one of the Vietnamese guys nodded his gratitude; the other two just pocketed the cigarettes and carried on smoking their cheap Russian ones. We stood drawing on our smokes, huddled against the biting wind that had picked up since preverka, kicking up the snow and creating mini-tornadoes of white around the camp. Five feet away in the lee of the building, Chan was down in the snow pumping out press-ups at incredible speed. He had done over a hundred when he leapt to his feet and grabbed the homemade weights bar – a metal pole with two old car tyres roped at each end – and started lifting it up and down over his head, his face grimacing with pain and effort.

  At ten to eight, after we had made our beds, the work buzzer sounded and except for the night-shift workers who were traipsing back to the atrads, and the two dozen or so who had jobs inside the Zone, the rest of us filed up to the main gates and waited to be buzzed through into the factory compound. The men from all three atrads stood in separate blocks facing the gates as the guard read out the names from cards made from dozens of ripped-up cigarette packets. One by one, we were buzzed through a small side gate into the factory area, forming a black snake of bodies that slid across the snow and into the main building on the right.

  My name was among the last to be called out, and I hurried through the gates, trying to keep pace with the African guy in front so as to watch where he went and copy what he did. The factory was a long dilapidated structure that looked more like an abandoned cowshed than an industrial unit. A foot of snow lay on the corrugated roof and icicles hung from the gutters along its entire length. The walls were a dirty white, and there were bare patches where the paint had peeled away and long brown streaks from water leaking from the gutters. A row of windows ran along the top of the wall, but half of them were broken and had been filled in with pieces of cardboard and cloth.

  I followed the African guy through a heavy metal door, at the end of the factory closest to the gates, and into a dismal entrance hall where a low-wattage bulb swung gently from the ceiling. A Western-looking prisoner, roughly my age, with glasses, freckles and wiry ginger hair, was standing in a doorway off to the right and he beckoned me into his office. The room was no more than fifteen feet by fifteen and it was dominated by a large square wooden table in the middle. A window on the far wall looked out at the concrete perimeter that ran around the factory area. One of the four panes was missing and had been filled with a square of cardboard that bulged in the wind. In the corner, a Vietnamese boy, no more than eighteen years old, was crouched over an old Singer-style sewing machine, his eyes straining in the dim light as he ran a piece of cloth under the needle. A second Vietnamese man, maybe five years older, was leaning against the wall by the window, with his hands in his pockets, like a teenager in a sulk.

  ‘I’m Ergin,’ said the man with red hair, offering me his hand. ‘Before you asking, I’m Turkish, not Irish. I am factory manager and I show you it today and explain how it is working. This is Mafia,’ he added, pointing to the older guy, who nodded back at me, trying to raise a smile. ‘And that is Molloi, which is the Russian word for boy.’ The teenager at the machine turned round and beamed a friendly smile, bowing his head in greeting before turning back to his work.

  ‘Now, Hague Tig, listen to me because today you starting your work. Number one, it is important you must work well, or the system stops and we all get into the trouble. It’s not difficult, but much pressure to go fast. The machines are old and bad and the factory like in England 200 years before. And you are
pay one rouble a month [3 pence]. There are much injuries for the hands and arms. It is hard work and it is the same all the days. The factory is open all the day and all the night. We make the clothes, the hats, the tank nets, the anything they say to us. In winter it is frozen; in the summer, it is the mosquitoes and you are wet with sweating. Some prisoners are going crazy and they put on train for the hospital treatment in Zone 19. If they come back, they are even more crazy. My advising to you, Mr Hague, is work hard and there is no trouble. Maybe, also you try be proud of your working. I am strict with you, but I can be your friend too.’

  Ergin opened the door from the entrance area on to the factory floor, revealing a scene lifted straight out of a Charles Dickens story. Stretching down to the end of the room were two columns of roughly twenty-five work stations piled high with material, separated by a long metal table, stacked along its entire length with further piles of textiles. The prisoners, with their backs to us, were already busy at work, making black jackets. ‘All the Zones in Mordovia and in other regions make the uniforms for each other,’ said Ergin, leaning towards me to make himself heard above the rat-a-tat-tat and hum of the machines. Some of the Africans were humming or singing to themselves as they sewed, rocking their heads from side to side. I looked in nervous amazement at the speed with which the workers took the main body of the jacket, sewed on an arm or a pocket, then passed the jacket forward and immediately started another. The room was almost as cold as outdoors, and the patched-up windows rattled in the wind as the steamy breath of the workers floated away above their heads. A prisoner with a large basket ferried the finished articles out through a door, while others paced the room distributing more jackets, arms, pockets and other items to the men at the machines.