Siberian Education (48 page)

I entered, closed the door and took a few steps towards him, then stopped abruptly.

The Colonel was about fifty years old and very stocky. His head, which was shaven, was marked by two long scars. His green uniform was too small for him; his neck was so wide the collar of his jacket was stretched tight and seemed on the point of tearing. His hands were so fat you could hardly see his fingernails, so deep did they sink into the flesh. One split ear was a sure sign of an experienced wrestler. His face might have been copied from the Soviet military propaganda posters of the Second World War: coarse features, straight thick nose, large resolute eyes. On the left side of his chest, a dozen medals hung in a row.

‘Jesus be with me, this guy's worse than a cop . . .' I was already imagining how our meeting might end. I didn't know where to start; I felt incapable of expressing what I wanted to say in front of someone like him.

Suddenly, interrupting my thoughts, he started the conversation. He was looking at a folder which resembled those in which the police keep classified information about criminals.

‘I'm reading your story, my dear Nikolay, and I like you more and more. You didn't do too well at school – in fact you hardly ever attended – but you belonged to four different sports clubs . . . Excellent! I did a lot of sport myself when I was young. Studying is for eggheads; real men do sport and train to become fighters . . . You did wrestling, swimming, long-distance running and shooting . . . Excellent! You're a well-qualified young man; I think you've got a great future in the army . . . There's only one blemish. Tell me, how did you get two convictions? Did you steal?'

He looked me straight in the eye, and if he could have done he would have looked into my brain.

‘No, I didn't steal anything. I don't steal . . . I hit some guys on two different occasions. I was charged with “attempted murder with serious consequences”.'

‘Never mind, don't worry . . . I used to get into fights when I was young; I quite understand! Men need to carve out their own space in the world, to define themselves, and the best way of doing that is to fight. That's where you find out who's worth something and who's not worth a spit . . .'

He was talking to me as if he were about to give me a prize. I hesitated; I didn't know what to say now, and above all I didn't know how I was going to explain to him that I had no intention of doing military service.

‘Listen, son, I couldn't care less about your past in prison, the criminal prosecutions and all the rest of it; as far as I'm concerned you're a good lad, may Christ bless you, and I'm going to give you a hand because I like you. I've got your whole life in writing here, since your first day at school . . .' He laid the file on the desk and closed it, tying up the two ribbons at the side. ‘I'll give you two choices, something I only do in exceptional cases, for people I think very highly of. I can put you in the border guard, on the frontier with Tajikistan: you'll have a good career, and if you like climbing mountains that's the place for you. Alternatively I can put you in the parachute regiment, a school for professionals: you'll become a sergeant after six months and you'll have a good career there too; and in time you'll be able to join the special forces, despite your past. The army will give you everything: a salary, a home, friends and an occupation suited to your abilities. Well, what do you say? Which do you prefer?'

It was like listening to the monologue of a madman. He was saying things that were complete nonsense to me. The army giving me everything I had already! How could I explain to him that I didn't need an occupation suited to my abilities, or friends, or a salary, or a home . . .

I felt like you do when you get on the wrong train and suddenly realize there's no way of making it go back.

I took a bit of air into my lungs and blurted out my reply:

‘To be honest, sir, I want to go home!'

He changed in a second. His face went red, as if an invisible man was strangling him. His hands closed into fists and his eyes took on a strange tinge, something that might have had a distant resemblance to the sky before a storm.

He picked up my personal file and threw it in my face. I just managed to put my hands up in time to parry the blow. The file hit my hands and came open, and the papers scattered all over the room, on the desk, on the windowsill, on the floor.

I stood as stiff and motionless as a statue. He continued to glare at me with hatred. Then he suddenly started shouting in a terrible voice, which immediately sounded to me like his real voice:

‘You wretch! So you want to wallow in shit? All right, I'll make you wallow in shit! I'll send you where you won't even have time to pull down your trousers, you'll be shitting yourself so much, and every time it happens you'll remember me, you ungrateful little upstart! You want to go home? All right, from today your home will be the brigade of saboteurs! They'll teach you what life's really like!'

He was shouting at me, and I stood there as stiff as a ramrod, not moving, while inside I was completely empty.

It was better getting beaten up by the cops; at least there I knew how it would end, whereas here everything was unknown to me. I felt an enormous anxiety, because I didn't know anything about soldiers, I didn't understand why I should shit myself and above all I couldn't remember who the saboteurs were . . .

‘Out! Get out!' he pointed to the door.

Without a word I turned round and went out of his office.

Outside, a soldier was waiting for me. He saluted.

‘Sergeant Glazunov! Follow me, comrade!' he said in a voice which sounded like the piston of a Kalashnikov when it sends the cartridge into the barrel.

‘A flea-bitten dog is your comrade,' I thought, but said in a humble tone:

‘Excuse me, Sergeant, sir, may I use the toilet?'

He looked at me in a strange way, but didn't say no.

‘Of course. Down to the end of the corridor and turn left!'

I walked down the corridor; he followed me, and when I went into the toilet he stood outside waiting for me.

Inside the toilet I climbed up to the window at the top and since it didn't have any bars I jumped down without any problem. Outside, in the garden behind the office, there was no one around.

‘To hell with this madhouse, I'm going home . . .'

With this and other similar thoughts in my head I started walking towards the exit of the base. There the guard stopped me. He was a young soldier, about the same age as me, very thin and with a slight squint in one eye.

‘Documents!'

‘I haven't got them with me. I came to visit a friend . . .'

The soldier looked at me suspiciously.

‘Show me your permit to leave the base!'

At these words my heart sank into my boots. I decided to act stupid:

‘What do you mean, permit? What are you talking about? Open that door! I want to get out . . .' I walked towards the door, going past the soldier, but he pointed his assault rifle at me, shouting:

‘Stop or I'll shoot!'

‘Ah get out of the way!' I replied, grabbing his gun by the barrel and tearing it out of his hands.

The soldier tried to punch me in the face, but I defended myself with the butt of the gun. Suddenly someone dealt me a hard blow on the head from behind. I felt my legs go limp and my mouth dry. I took two deep breaths, and at the third I passed out.

I woke up a few minutes later. I was lying on the ground, surrounded by soldiers. The sergeant who should have been accompanying me was also there; he looked anxious, and was walking around saying to everyone in a conspiratorial tone:

‘Nothing's happened, everything's okay. Remember, nobody saw anything. I'll take care of him.'

It was clear he was worried he might be punished for his carelessness.

He came over to me and gave me a kick in the ribs.

‘Do that again, you bastard, and I'll personally kill you!'

He gave me a couple more kicks, then held out his hand and helped me to my feet. He took me to a kind of house with barred windows and a steel-clad door. It looked just like a prison.

We went in. There wasn't much light and everything seemed dirty and grey, neglected, abandoned. There was a long narrow corridor, with three steel-clad doors. At the end of the corridor a soldier appeared, a lad of about twenty, quite thin but with a kindly face. He was holding a big bunch of keys of different sizes and kept moving them, making a strange noise, which in that situation almost made me burst into tears of sadness and despair. With one of the keys the young soldier opened a door, and the sergeant ushered me into a very small, narrow room, with a tiny barred window. There was a wooden bunk against the wall.

I looked at the place and I couldn't believe it. Just like that, simply, suddenly, I had ended up in a cell.

The sergeant said in a very authoritarian tone to the soldier, who was clearly some kind of guard:

‘Feed him at suppertime like all the others, but be careful: he's violent . . . Don't take him to the bathroom on your own; wake up your partner and both of you go together. He's dangerous; he attacked the guard at the gate and tried to steal his submachinegun . . .'

The soldier with the keys looked at me in alarm: it was obvious he couldn't wait to lock me up.

The sergeant looked me in the eye and said:

‘Stay here and wait!'

I, too, looked him straight in the eye, making no attempt to conceal my hatred. ‘What the hell am I supposed to wait for? What's all this about?'

‘Wait for the end of the world, you arsehole! If I tell you to wait, wait and don't ask any questions. I'll decide what you have to wait for!'

The sergeant motioned to the soldier to shut the door and went out triumphantly.

Before locking me in, the soldier came towards me and asked me a question:

‘What's your name, boy?'

His voice seemed calm and not aggressive.

‘Nikolay,' I replied quietly.

‘Don't worry, Nikolay, you're safer here than you would be with them . . . Have a good rest, because in a couple of days they'll be taking you to the train that will carry you to Russia, to the brigade you've been assigned to . . . Have they told you where they're sending you yet?'

‘The Colonel said they're putting me in the saboteurs . . .' I replied in an exhausted voice.

He paused, then asked me in alarm:

‘The saboteurs? Holy Christ, what's he got against you? What have you done to deserve this?'

‘I've received a Siberian education,' I replied, as he closed the door.