Free Fall (2 page)

I jumped up like a spring and ran over, eager to get out of that disgusting little room as quickly as possible.

We went out into a small courtyard surrounded by buildings all painted white, with propagandist drawings and posters illustrating the exercises that the soldiers had to do to learn to march. We crossed the courtyard and entered a room filled with light, with big windows and lots of flowerpots. In the middle of the flowers there was a bench, and next to 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 spoke to me in a very friendly tone. I'd calmed down and I felt more secure; it seemed that my situation would be cleared up and that someone would finally listen to me.

‘Thanks, sir, but I don't smoke. Thank you for your kindness.' I was trying to be as nice as possible myself, to make a good impression.

The soldier bade me goodbye and left me alone. I sat
there on the bench, listening to the soldiers who had come onto the courtyard for drills. I looked out the window.

‘Left, left, one, two, three!' the drill sergeant shouted desperately. He was a young man in an immaculate military uniform, marching along with a platoon of men who didn't seem to have any desire to march.

‘Nicolay, you can come in, my boy!' called out a firm male voice. Despite its kind, almost sweet tone, the voice had something off about it, a false note you could hear underneath.

I went up to the door and knocked, asking permission to enter.

‘Come in, son, come in!' he said, his voice still kindly and brimming with friendliness. He was a big, strong man sitting at an enormous desk.

I went in, closed the door, and took a few steps towards him, then suddenly I halted.

The colonel was about fifty and was very stocky. His head, which was shaven, was marked by two long scars. His green uniform was snug; his neck was so wide that his jacket collar was completely taut, as if it were about to tear open. His hands were so large that you could barely see his nails, they were so deeply set. A split ear suggested he was an experienced wrestler. His face might have been copied from the Soviet military propaganda posters of the Second World War: unrefined features, a straight wide nose, big resolute eyes. On the left side of his chest a dozen medals hung in a row.

Jesus help me, this one's worse than a cop . . . I could
already imagine how our meeting was going to end. I didn't know where to start; it was like there was no way I would be able to express myself in front of somebody like him.

Suddenly, interrupting my thoughts, he spoke. He was looking through a file similar to the ones in which police keep confidential information on criminals.

‘I've been reading your story, my dear Nicolay, and you're starting to grow on me. You didn't do very well in school, in fact you didn't do much at all, but you did play four different sports . . . That's good. I played a lot of sports when I was young too. Studying is for the weak; real men do sports, prepare themselves for combat . . . You did wrestling, swimming, long-distance running and target shooting . . . Good, you're well prepared; I think you have a good future ahead of you . . . There's just one flaw: Tell me, why do you have two convictions? Did you steal something?' He looked me straight in the eyes and if he could have done he would have looked right into my mind.

‘No, I didn't steal anything; I don't steal from people . . . I beat up a few guys, twice. They charged me with “attempted murder with serious bodily harm” . . .'

‘That's nothing, don't worry . . . I got into fights when I was young too; I understand completely. Men need to make their space in the world, to define themselves. Fighting is the best way – that's how you find out who's worth something and who's not even worth spit . . .'

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

‘Listen, son, I couldn't care less about your jail time, your criminal convictions and all the rest of it; I think you're a good kid, God bless you, and I want to help you out because I like you. I have your whole life written here, from your first day of school . . .' He set the file on the desk and closed it, tying the two ribbons on the side. ‘I'll give you two choices, something I do only in exceptional cases, for people I really care about. I can put you in the Border Guard and send you to the Tajikistan border – you'll have a good career, and if you like mountain climbing, it's perfect. Or, I can put you with the paratroopers, a school for professionals – after six months you'll become a sergeant and you'll go far there too. Eventually you could even get into special forces, in spite of your background. The army will give you everything: a paycheque, a home, friends and an occupation at your level. So what do you say? Where do you want to go?'

It was like listening to the ravings of a madman. He was saying things that made no sense at all. The army giving me all the things that I already had! How could I explain to him that I didn't need an occupation at my level, or friends, or a salary, or a house . . .

It was like when you get on the wrong train and suddenly realise there's no way to make it turn back. I took a breath and blurted out my response:

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

He changed instantly. His face turned red, as if a pair
of invisible hands were strangling him. His hands balled into fists and his eyes took on a strange glint, like the sky before a storm.

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

I stood as still as a statue. He kept glaring at me, full of hatred. Then he suddenly began shouting in a terrible voice, which I could immediately tell was his real one:

‘You thankless bastard! You want to rot in shit? Then you can rot in shit! I'll send you to a place where you won't even have time to pull your trousers down you'll be shitting in them so much, and every time you do, think of me, you ungrateful bastard! You want to go home? Then from now on your home will be the saboteur base! They'll teach you what life is really like!'

He was screaming at me, and I stood there, completely drained.

‘Out! Out of here!' He pointed at the door.

Without a word I turned on my heel and left the office. Outside the door a soldier was waiting, and he saluted me.

‘Sergeant Glasunov! Follow me, comrade!' he said, with a voice that sounded like a Kalashnikov when it sends a cartridge into the barrel.

Your comrade is a mangy dog, I thought, but said humbly:

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

He gave me a strange look, but didn't refuse.

‘Certainly. Down the hall and to the right!'

I walked down the corridor; he followed, and when I entered the bathroom he stayed and waited for me outside.

I was able to reach a small, high window, and since it had no bars I jumped down without any problem. Out in the yard behind the office, there was no one around.

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

With this and similar thoughts in my head I headed for the exit of the base. There, the guard stopped me. The soldier was young, maybe my age, very thin and a little cross-eyed.

‘Papers!'

‘I don't have them on me, I came here to visit a friend . . .'

The soldier gave me a suspicious look.

‘Show your permit to leave the base!'

At that my heart sank into my boots. I decided to play stupid:

‘What permit? What are you talking about? Open the gate, I have to get out . . .' I moved towards the gate, going past the soldier, and he pointed his machine gun at me, shouting:

‘Stop or I'll shoot!'

‘Get out of the way!' I replied, grabbing the gun by the barrel and ripping it out of his hands.

The soldier tried to punch me in the face, but I blocked him with the butt of the rifle. Suddenly someone hit me on the head from behind, hard. I felt my legs wobble and
my mouth went dry. I took two deep breaths, and at the third I passed out.

I came round a few minutes later. I was lying on the ground, surrounded by soldiers. The sergeant who was supposed to be watching me was there too, looking worried and telling everyone in a conspiratorial tone:

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

It was clear that he was afraid of being punished for his carelessness.

He came over and kicked me in the ribs.

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

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

We went inside. There wasn't much light and everything seemed dirty and grey, neglected, abandoned. There was a small, narrow hallway, with three steel-clad doors. At the end of the hall a soldier appeared, who looked about twenty and a little thin, but with a kind face. He was holding a big set of keys of various sizes and kept shaking them, making a strange noise that under the circumstances almost made me cry out of sadness and desperation. With one of his keys the young soldier opened a door, and the sergeant ushered me into a very small, narrow room, with a little barred window. There was a wooden bunk attached to the wall.

I looked around and I couldn't believe it. Just like that, I'd ended up in a cell.

The sergeant looked me in the eye and said:

‘Stay here and wait!'

I looked right back at him, without concealing my hatred.

‘What the fuck am I waiting for? What's the meaning of all this?'

‘For the end of the world, you piece of shit! If I tell you to wait, you wait and don't ask questions. I'm the one who decides what you have to wait for!'

With that, the sergeant gestured to the soldier to close the door and marched off triumphantly.

Before locking me up, the soldier came closer and asked me:

‘What's your name, kid?'

His voice seemed calm and not mean.

‘Nicolay,' I replied softly.

‘Don't worry, Nicolay, you're safer in here than with them . . . Rest up; in a few days they'll take you to the train that will take you to Russia, to your future unit . . . Have they told you where you're going yet?'

‘The colonel said he's assigning me to the saboteurs . . .' I replied in an exhausted voice.

There was a pause, and then he asked excitedly:

‘The saboteurs? Holy Christ, what happened? What did you do to deserve that?'

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

*

I was locked in that cell for three days.

There were lots of other people in the temporary prison, and every now and then I could hear them. Some would groan; many were silent; one was always begging for food. They passed us our rations, horrible stuff, in vacuum-packed bags. You couldn't tell what was in them; the biscuits were all crumbs, probably smashed by something heavy. As the guard later confessed, the people ‘waiting for the train' like me got the packs that had been damaged in transit.

‘But this food is disgusting, my friend, give me something better, just once. I don't know – a piece of fruit?' I was always asking the guard for extras, and once in a while he'd get me an apple, a peach, a couple of prunes.

‘Don't be picky, kid. You have to get used to eating whatever's around . . . Those dogs, in the place you're going, they definitely won't be waiting for you with piping hot dinners! You'll see, the day will come when you'll remember these biscuits as being the best thing in the world . . .' He wasn't being mean, although it was obvious that he was a little scared of me.

Every so often he'd open the little window and chat with me for a while. He asked me where I was from, about my family, and why my parents hadn't paid the recruitment office to get me exempted from service. I was honest with him; I told him about my life and about my neighbourhood, Low River, and before long a sort of trust had been established between us.

I took care of my business in the latrine in the corner by the window. I was already familiar with the smell – it
was the same as jail – but here I had no cellmates who smoked who could give me a match to burn some paper.

I asked the guard if he could give me anything and through the window he tossed me a bag of white powder, a bathroom disinfectant. I used it, but within half an hour the chemical odour became so strong it hurt to breathe – it was as if they'd thrown me into a vat of ammonia. I nearly passed out and I cursed with every breath.

On the evening of the third day, the guard told me that our train had arrived and would take us away that night.

I had decided to try to escape during transit.

I thought that if they put me in a jeep, I could jump out as it left the base.

At about midnight I heard a great racket, a car engine, and some voices. They started to open the cell doors one by one, calling out our names. Soon they opened the door to my cell, and in the corridor I saw a young officer staring at me. From the little stars on his epaulettes I could tell that he was a lieutenant. He called my name, his voice calm. When I replied, ‘Yes, that's me!' he responded in a tired but amicable tone:

‘From now on, boy, it's better if you learn to reply like a real soldier. When you hear your name called, you should only say “Yes, Sir!” You understand?' He looked at me with humility; it almost seemed as if he were asking me to do him a favour. Since I was thinking of escape, I decided to play along. I stood up nice and straight, like I thought soldiers were supposed to stand in front of a superior, and with a voice full of energy I said: