by Tig Hague
Chan, though, wasn’t down and out yet, and he slowly got to his feet, pushing his back up the wall as Ahmed rained blows down on him. Chan had his fists over his face and his arms covering his chest, like a boxer on the ropes, absorbing the hits, when in a sudden explosion of movement he made his move. Dropping his arms, he pushed off the wall with his right foot and propelled himself at Ahmed, landing on him with such force that the two of them crashed over the table, sending metal mugs flying in all directions. Ahmed bounced off the bench on the other side of the table and landed awkwardly on his back with Chan on top of him. The Chinaman rose above him on his knees, lifting his fist high above his shoulder, but Ahmed quickly twisted to the left and hurled him against the wall.
Like the other two observers, I was paralysed with fear, and we pressed ourselves up against the walls while a crowd formed at the doorway and people started pushing to get a view of the action. The two scrappers scrambled to their feet, gasping for breath, and immediately began to exchange a flurry of punches, forcing each other up and down the room with the savagery of their blows. The sound of fist on face was nauseating, and both were now smeared with blood as they lunged and ducked and looked for the killer opening in each other’s defence. For a few seconds the frenzy abated and the two stood facing each other, swaying from one side to the other, before Ahmed feinted a punch with his left hand, forcing Chan to stick out his right to block it. Ahmed seized his chance, throwing a massive right that crashed into Chan’s jaw and sent him reeling backwards against the far wall. As Chan staggered forward, he could only lift his arms halfway up to his face as Ahmed leapt towards him, jack-knifing his body in mid-air for extra power, and landed a huge head butt on the bridge of the Chinaman’s nose. I heard the bone crack and watched the blood shoot in all directions as Chan crashed back into the wall and lay slumped and stunned on the floor. Ahmed, bloody and wild-eyed, stood over him panting for breath, with a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He spun round and looked me in the eyes, but said nothing. I’d rejected him in favour of Boodoo John, but he’d never stopped looking out for me. He’d told me that he was a better man than he looked. Now he’d shown me. As Chan lay slumped in the corner, groaning, Ahmed strode from the room.
It was a stroke of great good fortune that the atradnik was not in the building when the fight took place, because all three of us would almost certainly have ended up either in solitary confinement or with another six months slapped on to our sentence. At the very least, I would have had to kiss goodbye to any chance of getting my parole at the first time of asking. Ahmed, though, was quick to try to prevent news of the incident reaching the admin building. Within minutes of washing the blood from his face and changing into a clean black T-shirt, he was marching round the atrad, issuing warnings to anyone thinking about grassing us up to the guards or governors. And Ahmed, with his deep diagonal scar and intense glare, had a way of issuing warnings that made even the most devious and hardened inmate think long and hard before ignoring him. No one fucked with Ahmed. The beating he had administered to Chan, one of the meanest, toughest bastards in a Zone full of mean, tough bastards, was clearer and more eloquent than any words he might have used.
‘Do you think Chan might squeal?’ I whispered to Ahmed, as the atrad began to close down for the night and we filed into the dormitories.
‘No chance,’ he replied. ‘He’s too fucking proud. He knows there’s only one way to get even with me – and that’s a rematch.’
35
I stared at the cheap white clock on the wall in Ergin’s office, watching the red second hand jerk its way clumsily around the dial. I was passing the time by seeing how long I could hold my breath. Ergin sat leaning forward, one leg crossed over the other, with his elbow on his knee and his fist on his chin. He was gazing vacantly out of the window, even though there was nothing to see but the grey breeze-block wall dividing the factory from the Zone. The wall was so close that he couldn’t even see the grey sky above it. Mafia practised throwing a cigarette into the air and catching it in his mouth, while Molloi’s head bounced up and down as he dozed in his chair. The only noise in the room was the loud ticking of the plastic clock.
It had been a similar scene in the office for several weeks by then, and the boredom of doing nothing was proving far more crushing than the boredom of doing the same thing over and over again, all day, every day. At least time didn’t appear to stand still when we were working. The boys on the factory floor were busy at their machines, making blue boiler suits for another Zone, but until the next consignment and job order arrived there was nothing for the four of us in the office to do except watch the clock and wait for something to happen. Doing nothing creates a peculiar tension among people, especially in a small room, inside a prison, in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign land. For a few days, following the Chan–Ahmed fight, I sat in dread, waiting for a guard to summon me to the governors’ office to be punished for my role in the fracas.
The atmosphere in the room was not improved by the unspoken but intense rivalry that existed between Ergin and me, which gave an electric charge to our friendship that was difficult to conceal. We both understood that we were adversaries in direct competition for the handful of parole places up for grabs in February, and we avoided the subject as best we could – which was hard, considering that was all either of us had been thinking about for weeks: freedom!
From time to time Ergin politely asked how my application was proceeding, and I asked about his, but our mutual displays of curiosity were no more than a sham of manners. We both knew that if it came to it, each of us would happily trample on the other’s head to be the first through those giant mesh gates and away to our loved ones. Secretly, I hoped his application was quietly going down in flames, and I’d be very surprised if he didn’t feel the same about my own.
Suddenly, Maximovich pushed open the door to Ergin’s office and all four of us automatically stood up and took off our woollen hats. As one, we nodded our heads in respect and said, ‘Good afternoon, nachalnik!’ The master guard had clearly enjoyed his lunch break. His eyes were half-closed, one half of his shirt was hanging out and he had to prop himself up against the door-frame before he was able to speak. I imagined him half an hour earlier, parked up in a remote clearing in the pines, riding up and down on top of some poor woman in the back of his van, trousers round his ankles, his pot belly bouncing in rhythm with the rocking of the vehicle.
‘You… English boy – visitor is here. Go to your clothes,’ he slurred, pointing at Mafia with his riot stick. No one moved. We looked at each other, not knowing whether he meant me or Mafia, or whether he was talking drunken rubbish and there was no visitor.
‘Er, who has a visitor, master guard?’ said Ergin, gently.
Maximovich’s eyelids drooped lower and lower, his chin sunk into his chest and he began to sway back and forth in the door-frame. Then, with one mighty effort, he jerked his head upwards and boomed: ‘Hague Tig! Visitor!’ As he finished, the master guard, all sixteen stone of him, lurched forward and did a kind of pirouette to try and right himself before landing on his back with a thump in the middle of the room. Mafia and Molloi started giggling, but Ergin waved me away. ‘Go on, you go. I’ll look after this fat drunk bastard.’
I strode back through the Zone towards the atrad as fast as I could without running, and without risking a fall on the patches of black ice that were forming on the cleared tarmac. The rich orange sun was beginning its final descent over the tips of the pine trees beyond the barbed-wire wall to the west as I racked my brains as to who might have come to visit me. Lucy, Mum, Dad and Rob had all said that the next time they saw me would be on English soil. Maybe it was Alla or someone else from the Embassy, or dear old Alexi with another food parcel, or a lawyer from Moscow… I changed into my civvy clothes in under a minute and, escorted by the duty atradnik, made my way down the side of the atrads, across Sniper Alley and into the reception area of the accommodation block.
Raisa Petrovna was on duty at the desk and she waved me down the long dark corridor without a word. As soon as I walked into the living room I did a double-take. Standing by the window was a man with a shaved head, a big nose and one arm in plaster, sticking out at an awkward angle from his body.
‘Jesus, what the hell are you doing here?’ I blurted, my mind quickly trying to work out what the hell one of my former colleagues at Garban Icap was doing paying me a visit in Mordovia.
‘Hello, Tig. Long time no see,’ he said, with a strong Essex twang and a broad smile. ‘Did no one tell you I was coming?’
‘Er, no, Steve, they didn’t. No one tells you anything in here if it’s helpful or positive.’
‘I brought you a present. Here, have your original trial documents. The girl in the Embassy asked me to bring them down to you,’ he said, handing me a brown A4 envelope. ‘See, we’re not all wankers! I was just…’
‘Hey, hang on a moment,’ I interrupted, as the alarm bells started to ring. ‘You’ve been sent here by Garban, haven’t you? They’re getting jittery because I’m going to be back in London soon. They’re trying to sweeten me up, aren’t they? In case I badmouth them around the City? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘Woah! Tig, Tig, slow down!’ he said, holding up his good arm. ‘It’s nothing like that, mate. Honestly. Relax, I left Garban months ago. I’m on gardening leave. I came of my own accord. No one except your mum and dad and the Embassy knows I’m here…’
‘Then what the hell are you doing here? In Mordovia! When you could be sunning yourself in the Caribbean? I just don’t get it, Steve. I know we got on well enough at Garban, but we weren’t exactly bosom buddies. It’s all so bloody weird.’
Steve paused and stared down at the floor for a few moments before looking up. He looked sad and sympathetic all at once, his face imploring me to trust him.
‘Tig, I can see why you’re suspicious, but the plain truth is that, like lots of other people who worked with you, I’ve been feeling absolutely gutted about what’s happened to you, mate. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since the day you were arrested – what was it, almost two years ago now? I know it must be weird for you, finding me standing in here, but I had to come. We knew you weren’t a druggie, let alone an international smuggler! Tig “The Jackal” Hague, international drugs baron! I don’t think so somehow. I had to let you know that I, and plenty of others, have been really upset about what’s happened. If I called and said that when you eventually got home, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?’
‘I don’t know what to say, Steve. I’m sorry if I sound paranoid. I’m going slightly nuts in here. I don’t trust anyone any more. This place is a viper’s nest. It plays with your head… I’m really touched that you’ve come all the way out here to see me – and bring the documents.’
I walked across the room and we gave each other a hug and a slap on the back. ‘Thanks, Steve, I appreciate you coming – and bringing these,’ I said, waving the envelope above my head. ‘You have no idea how much this little bundle means to me. These little babies are my passport out of here!’
We both went to sit down, him in the armchair in the corner, me on the smelly old brown sofa. ‘So, no one twisted your arm to come out here, then?’ I said, pointing to his plastered arm.
‘No, this is an heroic football injury, sustained on the battlefield of Spitalfields 5-a-aside astroturf pitch…’
We talked for two hours before it was time for him to leave, cracking jokes and bantering just like we used to do in the pubs of the City after work at Garban. Steve had been driven down by a Russian he had hired, and it had taken them two days to get there in the treacherous, wintry conditions. They wanted to get on their way because the weather was forecast to get even worse.
‘Steve, I owe you one,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘The pints are on me when – if! – I ever get out of this hellhole!’
As he made to head down the corridor, he turned and said: ‘If ever you feel you’re starting to lose heart or go completely crazy, try to remember that there’s loads of people back home, thinking of you and praying for your release. Stay strong, my friend. It won’t be long now…’
‘So everyone’s been telling me for the past couple of years.’
Steve’s flying visit to the Zone was almost shockingly strange. He hadn’t been one of my greatest buddies at Garban, let alone in London, but once he’d gone and the surprise of it had begun to fade away, I felt my mood start to lift. The fact that a former work colleague, who I knew only reasonably well, had gone to such great lengths – and with a broken arm – to travel out to see me in the middle of nowhere and in the depths of winter restored some of the faith in humanity that had been slowly draining out of me over the months like water out of a leaking bucket.
In buoyant mood, a few nights after Steve had left, I decided to make my big move on Zanpolit. Nearly everything was in place: my original trial documents were all in good order and, with the help of Yevgeny the paedophile librarian, I had completed my official application forms and written the covering letters in Russian. The next stage of the plan was to make sure that I was on the list of applicants that Zanpolit would submit to court for the judge to review at the hearing on an as yet unspecified date in February. Zanpolit put the dozens of applicants in some kind of rough order, to make it easier for the judge to rule who was to walk free. To make sure I was high up on that list, I planned to hit Zanpolit with my most generous bribe since I’d arrived in the Zone. He might have shouted at me during our last meeting, but 200 cigarettes and sufficient coffee and chocolate to last his wife until the spring was likely to be enough to put the greasy smile back on his face. Messieurs Nescafé, Marlboro and Lindt open a lot of doors in Mordovia.
I was at the front of the queue in the exercise yard that evening, jumping from foot to foot to keep out the perishing cold and hugging myself to stop the flurries of snow from disappearing down my neck. The guards enjoyed looking out from the warmth of the observation room and seeing us dancing around in discomfort, and often they waited ten or more minutes before buzzing the first of us through. There was only so long you could stand the freezing cold, and often people gave up and retreated to the warmth of the atrad. But Yuri, the old guard who’d hit it off with Dad, was on duty that night, and when he saw it was me with my face pressed up against the mesh gate he immediately buzzed me through. I shuffled awkwardly towards the offices with two rolls of Marlboro, a jar of Gold Blend and three bars of Swiss chocolate stuffed into my baggy trousers and jacket pockets. The one advantage of growing so thin was the greater space it freed up in my clothes for smuggling bribes.
As ever, Zanpolit pretended not to notice as I unloaded the Western luxuries, but to emphasize the scale of my generosity I took out each item very slowly and placed it very deliberately and neatly into his deep drawer. I watched his eyes widen as he stole a glance at my offerings and closed the drawer.
‘So you want to be my friend again, Mr Hague?’
‘I just want you to get me out of here, Zanpolit. I have served my sentence. It is time for me to go.’
After the last hearing in early December a handful of applicants had been refused bail on the very dodgy grounds that the paperwork they’d put together had contained some errors. It was just an excuse to stall their departure by another couple of months, but to make absolutely sure I didn’t fall victim to the same callous ploy I asked Zanpolit to inspect all my documents.
‘Is everything correct?’ I asked in Russian, as clearly as I could without sounding like I was talking to a five-year-old.
Zanpolit ran his bony index finger down each page of my bundle before he looked up and said: ‘They are good. You need just one more: a character reference from the guard in Atrad 1, confirming your good behaviour. I will ask him for it, and next week, on 9 February, I will pass your application on to the judge at the Zubova Paliansky court.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘That’s i
t.’
‘I will be free?’
‘You will be a free man again, Mr Hague.’
‘Is that a promise?’
‘You have my word.’
‘Thank you, Zanpolit, I am grateful to you,’ I smiled back at him, clenching my fist in celebration inside the hat I was holding in front of me.
As I walked out of his office, Boodoo John was waiting outside and we gave each other a semi-hug and a wink as he headed inside. Back in the atrad I waited for him in the kitchen, pacing up and down with a cup of tea, almost bursting with joy. I wanted to celebrate somehow, or call Lucy and tell her the great news. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ I muttered to myself, walking round the table, nodding my head and punching the air. ‘Thank God for that! Finally! Goodbye to Zone 22! Hello, England! Yes! Yes! Yes!’
A couple of minutes later I turned round as the rickety old entrance door to the atrad opened and Boodoo John swept in, quickly closing the door behind him to keep out the freezing wind. I was smiling from ear to ear, but as soon as Boodoo John turned round and I saw his furrowed brow and pursed lips, I wiped the smile from my face. He walked into the kitchen, head down, brushing the snow off his black jacket.
‘How did it go?’ I asked him. ‘What did he say?’
‘Er… it was OK. He said I had as good a chance as anyone, but… that means nothing, does it? I got a bad vibe off him. I don’t think I’m in the running this time…’ He sat down, exhaling loudly, running both hands over his cropped head as he looked down at the table. ‘What about you? Did he drop any hints?’ he added, trying his best to sound positive.