Siberian Education (47 page)

I peered into the water, and suddenly I saw a shadow rise from the bottom, so I started to lift the torch by slowly pulling the string. Mel, behind me, raised the mallet, ready to strike.

I had no doubts: it was clearly a catfish and it was coming up very quickly. I just had to recover the torch in time.

When I had nearly pulled it right up and only a small part of it remained in the water, Mel brought down the mallet with such violence I heard it whistle through the air, as if a bullet had passed close to my ears.

‘Christ!' I shouted, and just managed to take my hands off the torch before Mel's mallet struck it with brutal force. The torch smashed and the light went out instantly. In the darkness I heard a faint sigh from Mel:

‘Shit! What a stupid fish, I thought it was coming up faster . . .'

He was still standing over me, mallet in hand. I got to my feet, picked up an oar and without a word hit him on the back.

‘Why?' he asked me, alarmed, retreating towards the bow of the boat.

‘For Christ's sake, Mel, you're a fool! What the hell did you hit the torch for?'

I heard the voices of Gagarin, Gigit and Besa on the bank.

‘What's happening? Have you two gone crazy?' asked Gagarin.

‘Ah, there's nothing happening! It's just that the fish is so big they can't get it onto the boat,' said Gigit sarcastically, knowing perfectly well that that bonehead Mel must have ruined the fishing as usual.

‘Hey, Kolima!' shouted Besa. ‘You can go ahead and kill him, don't worry. None of us saw a thing. We'll say he went swimming on his own and was drowned.'

I was angry, but at the same time the situation made me laugh.

‘Switch on that motor. Let's get back to the bank,' I said to Mel gruffly.

‘Don't you want to have another go?' he asked me, sounding rather crestfallen.

I looked at him. His face in the darkness seemed to belong to a demon. I said to him with a smile:

‘Another go? And what torch are we going to do it with?'

On the bank everyone laughed.

When we reached the bank, Besa, who was always joking, looked into the boat and confirmed:

‘Just as I thought, brothers! These two have eaten all the fish themselves! And they were so desperate not to share it with us they've eaten it raw!'

And they all roared with laughter. Mel laughed too.

I alone was a bit sad. I had a feeling something new was about to happen in my life; I sensed an air of change around me.

We had a fantastic party. The others had caught some big wels catfish; we cleaned and prepared them for cooking in the earth. Everyone seemed a bit withdrawn, though, as if they were aware that we were about to go through a significant period of change. We talked about things of the past; each boy told stories about his childhood, and the others laughed or sat in silence, respecting the atmosphere that was created by the narrative.

We sat around the fire all night, until dawn, watching the sparks and the pieces of ash that had turned to dust rise up into the air, mingling with the faint gleams of the morning which was bringing a new day.

I too laughed and told a few stories, but I was filled with a new emotion, a kind of sad nostalgia. I felt that I was standing in front of a great void towards which I had to take the first step, and this was my last chance to look back and fix in my memory all the beautiful and important things I was about to leave behind me.

After drinking wine and eating and talking until dawn, I went away to sleep in the woods. I took a blanket from my boat, wrapped it around me and walked towards the bushes, where there was a freshness in the air that brought relief. My friends were scattered around; some were asleep in front of the nearly dead embers. Mel was lying in the middle of the track that led to the pool where we had left the boat: it was a very muddy path, but he was sound asleep, with his arms round an oar. Besa was wandering around with an empty bottle, asking the boys if anyone knew where the supplies were. Nobody answered him – not because they didn't know where the things were, but because they were all in a total stupor.

As I walked along, wrapped up in my blanket, I felt a sense of disgust; I remember that although I was drunk and couldn't even walk straight, I thought with absolute lucidity that we were a bunch of pathetic drunkards who were only capable of getting into trouble and making a mess of our lives.

As soon as I lay down on the ground, I fell asleep. By the time I woke up it was already evening and darkness was beginning to fall. My friends were calling my name. I opened my eyes and lay there, not moving; I felt even more strongly than the night before that something was really about to happen in my life. I didn't want to get up; I wanted to stay in the bushes.

When we got home I took a sauna. I lit the stove and burned some wood, then I prepared the dry oak branches and put them in the warm water so I could use them later for the massage. I mixed some pine extract with some lime essence and put it by the stove, to infuse the air that I would breathe. I made myself two litres of a tisane of dog rose, lime, mint and cherry blossom. I spent the day relaxing in the sauna, lying naked on the wooden benches which slowly cooked me. Now and then, as I lay surrounded by that aromatized steam, I drank the very hot tisane in big gulps, without noticing how much it scalded my throat.

That night I slept flat out, as if I had fallen into a void. The next day I woke up and went out of the house. I opened the mail box to see if anything was there and found a small piece of white paper with a red line across it from one corner to the other. It said that the military office of the Russian Federation asked me to present myself for verification, bringing my personal documents. It added that this instruction was being sent for the third and last time, and that if I didn't present myself within three days I would receive a criminal conviction for ‘refusal to pay my debt to the nation in the form of military service'.

I thought the note was a trifle, a mere formality. I went back indoors, fetched my documents and, without even changing my clothes, set off in my flip-flops towards the address indicated, a place on the other side of town, where there was an old Russian military base.

At the entrance I showed the note to the guards and they opened the door, without a word.

‘Where do I have to go?' I asked one of them.

‘Go straight on. It's all the same anyway . . .' a soldier replied, without enthusiasm and with obvious irritation.

‘Bloody idiot,' I thought, and I headed for a large office where there was a notice saying: ‘Military service and new arrivals section.'

The office was dark; I could hardly see a thing. At the back there was a little window in the wall, out of which there came a dismal, faint, yellow light.

There was the sound of someone tapping on a typewriter. I approached and saw a young woman, in military uniform, sitting at a small desk, typing with one hand and clutching a mug of tea in the other. She took little sips and kept blowing into the mug to cool it.

I leaned on the counter and craned my neck: I saw that on her knees, under the desk, the woman had an open newspaper. There was an article about Russian pop stars, with a photo of a singer wearing a crown decorated with peacock feathers. I felt even sadder.

‘Hello. Excuse me, ma'am, I've received this,' I said, holding out the note.

The woman turned towards me and for a second looked at me as if she couldn't understand where she was and what was happening. It was clear that I had interrupted a train of thoughts and personal dreams. With a quick movement she picked up the newspaper that lay at her knees and put it upside down behind the typewriter, so that I couldn't see it. Then she put down her mug of tea and, without getting up or saying anything, and with an indifferent expression on her face, she took the white sheet of paper with the red line from my hands. She glanced at it for a moment and then asked, in a voice that sounded to me as if it belonged to a ghost:

‘Documents?'

‘Which documents, mine?' I asked awkwardly, taking my passport and all the other things out of my trouser pocket.

She eyed me rather scornfully and said through clenched teeth:

‘Well, certainly not mine.'

She took my documents and put them in a safe. Then she took a form from a shelf and started filling it in. She asked me my first name, surname, date and place of birth, and home address. Then she went on to more personal information. After asking me for my parents' details, she said:

‘Have you ever been arrested? Have you had any problems with the law?'

‘I've never had any problems with the law, but the law seems to have problems with me now and them . . . I've been arrested dozens of times, I can't remember how many. And I've done two stretches in juvenile prison.'

At this her expression changed. She tore up the form she had been filling in and took another, larger one, with a line running from one corner to the other, like that on the postal note.

We started afresh; once again, all my personal details, including, this time, those of my convictions: the article numbers, and the dates. Then my health: diseases, vaccinations; she even asked me if I consumed alcohol or drugs, if I smoked cigarettes. And so it went on for an hour . . . I couldn't remember the exact dates of my convictions, so I made them up on the spur of the moment, trying at least to get the right time of year, and if possible the right month.

When we had finished I tried to explain to her that it must have been a mistake, that I couldn't do military service, that I had asked for and been granted a postponement of six months, promising that in the meantime I would finish a course of study and then go to university. If everything went according to plan, I added, I was going to open a school of physical education for children, there in Bender.

She listened to me – but without looking me in the eye, which worried me. Then she gave me a sheet of paper: it said that from that moment onwards I was the property of the Russian government and my life was protected by the law.

I couldn't understand what all this meant in practical terms.

‘It means that if you try to escape, self-harm or commit suicide, you'll be prosecuted for damaging government property,' she informed me coldly.

I suddenly felt trapped. Everything around me began to seem much more ominous and sinister than before.

‘Listen,' I snapped, ‘I couldn't give a shit about your law. I'm a criminal, period. If I have to go to jail I'll go, but I'll never pick up the weapons of your fucking government . . .'

I was furious, and when I started to talk like that I immediately felt strong, even stronger than that absurd situation. I was sure, absolutely sure, that I would succeed in changing this machine that was supposed to regulate my life.

‘Where are the fucking generals, or whatever you call your authorities? I want to see one and talk to him, since I can't make you understand!' I raised my voice, and she looked at me with the same indifferent expression as before.

‘If you want to speak to the Colonel, he's here, but I don't think it'll get you anywhere . . . In fact, I advise you to keep calm. Don't make things worse for yourself . . .'

It was good advice, if I think about it now. She was telling me something important, I'm sure of it; she was trying to show me a better way, but at the time I was blinded.

I felt sick. How can this be, I said to myself. Only this morning I was free, I had my plans for the day, for my future, for the rest of my life, and now, because of a piece of paper, I was losing my freedom. I wanted to shout and argue with someone, show them how angry I was. I needed it. I interrupted her, shouting in her face:

‘Jesus, Blessed Lord on the cross! If I want to speak to someone, I speak to him, and that's that! Where is this fucking commandant, general, or whatever he's called?'

She got up from her chair and asked me to calm down and wait for ten minutes, on the bench. I looked around but couldn't see any bench. ‘Oh for Christ's sake, what is this place? Everyone's crazy here,' I thought, as I waited in the dark.

Suddenly a door opened and a soldier, a middle-aged man, called me by my first name:

‘Come with me, Nikolay. The Colonel's expecting you!'

I jumped up like a spring and ran towards him, eager to get out of that dingy little office as quickly as possible.

We went out onto a small square surrounded by buildings all painted white, with propaganda drawings and posters with pictures of the exercises the soldiers had to do to learn how to march in a group. We crossed the square and entered a room full of light, with large windows and lots of flowers in pots. Among the flowers was a bench, and beside the bench a large ashtray.

‘Wait here. The Colonel will call you from this door. You can smoke if you like . . .'

The soldier was kind; he talked to me in a very friendly tone. I had calmed down and felt more confident; it seemed that my situation was at last going to be cleared up and my voice heard.

‘Thank you, sir, but I don't smoke. Thank you very much for your kindness.'

I tried to be as polite as possible myself, to create a good impression.

The soldier took his leave and left me alone. I sat there on the bench, listening to the sounds made by the soldiers, who had gone out onto the square for their drill. I watched from a window.

‘Left, left, one, two, three!' came the desperate shouts of the instructor, a young man in an immaculate military uniform, marching with a platoon of men who didn't seem very keen on drilling.

‘Nikolay! You can come in, son!' a very rough male voice called me. Despite its kind, almost gentle tone, there was something false about it, an unpleasant tune in the background.

I approached the door, knocked and asked for permission to enter.

‘Come in, son, come in!' said a big strong man sitting behind an enormous desk, his voice still amiable and kindly.