Siberian Education (43 page)

So Plum went to live with them in the huts. One of them healed his broken fingers by putting sticks of soft wood along them and carefully binding them on. From that day onwards the criminals looked after him and brought him up. They called him ‘Plum' because of the colour of his face, which was always blue because he was always cold.

At the age of sixteen Plum became the ‘executor' of the gang that had found him and taken him in. A war had broken out among the criminals in the camp, between those who supported the old Authorities – who included Plum's friends – and those who proclaimed themselves to be new Authorities, proposing new rules. The latter were in the majority; they came from the lowest social classes and belonged to the generation of war orphans; they represented a criminal reality which had never been seen before, there or anywhere else in Russia, where characteristics such as ignorance, ferocity and the absence of moral laws were respected. One night Plum and his friends entered the huts of the
shigany
– the young, unscrupulous criminals – and stabbed them to death as they slept. Before the victims even realized what was happening half the hut had been killed.

Plum killed enormous numbers of people; I may be mistaken, but I suspect that is why he survived. Perhaps he managed to stay sane, despite the terrible trauma of his childhood, by giving vent to his anger in this way. Plum endured many prisons and also lived a long time as a free man, always acting as a criminal executor. He married a good woman and had three sons and two daughters. On his right hand, where they had broken his fingers, he had a tattoo of a skull with a policeman's hat. On its forehead was written: ‘
Az
vozdam'
, which in the old Russian language means ‘I will avenge myself'.

I don't know if he did avenge himself, but he was constantly killing policemen. He had a huge collection of badges of the police officers and members of the security forces he had killed during his career. He kept them on a large dresser in the red corner of his house, under the icons, where there was also a photograph of his family with a candle always burning in front of it.

I saw the collection with my own eyes. It was staggering. Dozens of badges of all periods, from the Fifties to the mid-Eighties – some blood-stained, others with bullet-holes in them. They were all there: policemen from the forces of towns all over Russia, members of special units formed to combat organized crime, KGB agents, prison guards, agents of the Public Prosecutor's office.

Plum said there were more than twelve thousand of them, but that he hadn't been able to recover the badges in every case. He remembered everything about each man with total precision: how and when he'd killed him. As I gazed at them, he kept repeating to me:

‘Take a good look at them, son, these murderers' faces . . . Human tears never fall on the ground: the Lord catches them first.'

He said he had told his daughters to send those badges after his death to the Ministry of the Interior in Moscow, accompanied by a letter which he had been writing and rewriting all his life.

He showed me the letter. It wasn't so much a letter as an entire notebook in which he explained almost everything: the story of his life, the reasons for his anger, his view of the world. At the end he revealed the places where he had hidden the bodies of some policemen, and wrote that he was performing a generous act, because this would make it possible for the dead to have their graves, and even though many years had passed their families would know where to go and mourn them, whereas he had not been given the chance to weep on the graves of his father, his mother and his sister.

One section of that notebook contained his poems, which were very simple, naive, even coarse, in a sense, if you didn't consider the story that lay behind them. I remember one addressed to his little sister Lesya, perhaps the longest of all. He called her ‘innocent angel of Our sweet Lord', and said that she smiled as ‘the sky smiles after the rain', that her hair ‘shone like the sun' and had the colour of ‘a field of wheat that asks to be harvested'. He told her in simple and affectionate words, with no attempt at rhyme, how much he loved her; and he asked her to forgive him for not being able to hold out when the policemen were breaking his fingers, because he was ‘small, only a child who was afraid of pain, like all children'. He told her that their mother's action, in dashing her head against the wall, had been ‘the generous gesture of an affectionate mother who is driven to desperation; I know that you understand her and that now the two of you are together in Heaven with Our Lord'.

You could tell from the poem how simple and in many respects primitive, and yet how beautiful and generous Plum's soul was.

Now that he was old and his wife was dead, Plum was lonely. He always sought the company of the others in the bar, telling them stories about his life and showing them the life-size portrait of his family that he kept there.

I enjoyed talking to him; he was always ready to share his wisdom and teach me something.

It was thanks to him that I had learned to fire a pistol properly; my father, my uncle and my grandfather had taught me before, but I was too weak, and my hands were small and delicate, so when I fired I couldn't control the weapon very well – I gripped it too tightly. He took me down to the river, where you could shoot freely into the water without having to worry about hurting anyone, and said to me:

‘Relax your hand, lad.'

We used the Tokarev 7.62, a quite large and powerful but well-balanced gun which didn't have much kick in the hand. Later he also taught me to shoot with the two-handed Macedonian method, so called because the ancient Macedonians fought with a sword in each hand.

So I often went to see him. Apart from anything else, one of his granddaughters was a good friend of mine, and made the best apple cakes in the whole town.

When we reached Plum's bar our friends hadn't arrived yet. He was at his table, as usual; he was having tea with cake and reading a book of poems. As soon as he saw me he put it down, came to meet me and gave me a hug:

‘How are you, son? Have you caught him yet?'

He knew everything already, and I was relieved about that: at least I wouldn't have to retell that story, which I found very painful to put into words.

I told him we were still looking for the culprit, and he immediately offered me help, money and weapons.

I replied that we had already collected more than enough money, and probably more than enough guns. But, as they say in Siberia, ‘so as not to offend the deaf old tiger, you must make a bit of noise when you walk', so I added:

‘However, if you spread the word round among your customers and keep your ears open, it might be useful. And some of your granddaughter's cake with a cup of tea would be a great comfort.'

Soon afterwards we were all sitting round a table eating cake and drinking tea with lemon, which was just what we needed after Uncle Fedya's chifir. And that cake – as soon as you bit it, it melted in your mouth.

We discussed the advice that Uncle Fedya had given us. We all agreed with his words, and we realized that if we'd gone to see him earlier we would have saved ourselves a lot of time.

In the meantime the others arrived: they seemed tired – exhausted, in fact; Grave seemed even deader than usual, and when I looked at him I noticed that he had a faint bruise under his left eye. They were clearly excited.

‘What's happened?' I asked.

Gagarin told us that while they were doing the rounds of the bars they had walked straight into the louts Mino had told us about. There were seven of them, in a black four-by-four with a Ukrainian numberplate. ‘We asked them if we could speak to them,' he said, ‘but instead of replying they started shooting at us. And one them hit Grave in the face with a Japanese thing.'

‘With a what?' asked Besa.

‘A kind of combat stick. You know, those things you see in martial arts films, the ones they whirl around really fast in their hands . . . When they drove off we tried to stop them – we fired at their car – but it was no good . . .'

‘I hit one of them in the head, though, I could swear it,' added Gigit.

‘The Wheel arrived with the car, but it was too late – the four-by-four had already gone,' said Gagarin. ‘So I stopped at a phone box and called home to ask our elders to have road-blocks set up in all districts, to stop the car before it leaves town.'

As I looked at Grave's sad face, battered by a weapon straight out of a Japanese–American action film, and listened to that tale of gun fights and car chases, for a moment I thought we were all going mad. Then suddenly I felt an urge to do something, to move, to act. But, as my late uncle used to say, ‘the mother cat doesn't give birth when she wants to, but when her time comes'.

I told Gagarin what Uncle Fedya had said.

‘When I was talking to those two I did have my suspicions,' he said. ‘They seemed to be hiding something. They wanted to get rid of us; they needed to gain time so they could do something . . . But what?'

We decided to go to the meeting-place anyway, under the old bridge.

‘But to be on the safe side, Gagarin,' I said, ‘maybe it's better if we don't all go. A group of three would be best, don't you think? And better go on foot, so we can split up if there's any trouble . . .'

Gagarin agreed:

‘Okay, but one of those three has to be me.'

‘Better not,' said Mel. ‘You were appointed by the elders; you're the leader of the mission. If anything happens to you the situation will only get worse.'

After a brief discussion we decided that Mel, Besa and I would go, and the others would wait nearby, ready to spring into action if necessary.

While we were in the car we made a plan: I would walk to the middle of the meeting place, under the old bridge, and watch the area in front and to the left, Mel would walk on the right and look to that side (after all, he only had a right eye), and Besa would bring up the rear and bend down occasionally to do up his shoelaces, to check the situation behind us.

We parked in a narrow street near the bridge; the others stayed in the car to wait for us. We spread out as we had agreed and walked slowly down towards the bridge, pretending to be just out for a stroll.

We had deliberately arrived ten minutes late, to keep the guys who were waiting for us guessing.

But when we reached the bridge there was no one there. We walked around the area, then went back to the cars.

Now we really would have to go and see the Guardian of Centre and say the things Uncle Fedya had recommended we say. It was obvious that his two assistants had done something really stupid, and that that was why they had played this trick on us.

We were flying towards Centre like a squadron of bombers. Furious and grim-faced, we already imagined the trouble there would be in town when our mission was completed. Mel and I even discussed the destiny of the Guardian, as if it were in our hands.

‘They'll kill him for sure,' said Mel. ‘He can't go unpunished after this demonstration of weakness. Being tricked by your assistants is worse than being a rat yourself.'

‘I reckon they'll only lower him,' I said. ‘They'll make him move to Bam, where he'll rot until the day some bastard kills him for his golden chain.'

It's not very normal for two teenagers to speculate about the future of an experienced Authorities.

In the criminal world it's preferable to avoid getting into this kind of situation; even if everything around you is wrong and you're sure you're right, before turning your decisions into actions it's as well to ‘cross yourself thirty times', as my grandfather used to say.

To be sitting on the crest of the highest wave in the sea is very nice, but how long can such a wave last? And what happens when that brute you're riding smashes you like a tiny parasite?

I always ask myself questions like that when I feel the need to jump on a large and violent wave.

Some criminals, when they sense that the ground is crumbling beneath their feet, forget all the splendid, equitable laws of nature, and then the lead starts to fly and you can't be sure of anything.

I warned the others that we were going into an area controlled by a man who didn't have the slightest respect for us, since according to his rules under-age teenagers counted for nothing. But what might happen if those same teenagers caused him to lose his power? He wouldn't just let us go home in peace after humiliating him. He might declare an all-out war, turning us from hunters into quarry. We might seem – and even be – as tough as we liked, but if the ten of us had to fight a whole district whose Guardian had gone crazy and hated us, we'd be slaughtered like pigs on New Year's Day.

When we reached Centre, we found an enormous number of cars parked outside the bar we had visited at the start of our tour. So they were all there, perhaps waiting for us, perhaps discussing the situation. I sensed from the way the wind was blowing, from the breeze in our faces, that we were already riding the wave.

I looked at Gagarin as I climbed out of the car. I was worried about his state of mind, since he was going to have to talk on our behalf, and it was on his word, and the way he said it, that our future depended.

He seemed relaxed, and his sly smile told me he had a plan.

We didn't say anything to each other, so as not to seem indecisive in front of the others, who were now looking at us as we entered the bar.

All the people of Centre were sitting round a table eating and drinking, with Pavel the Guardian in the middle. He had a furious expression on his face, and was violently attacking a pork chop, spraying fat all over the place. Next to him was the troublemaker who had insulted us on our previous visit. As soon as he saw us he got up and started shouting wildly: ‘What the hell do you want?', and throwing various insults at us.

We stood still, and the thug came towards us; now and then he turned back towards the table to see his master's face, to assess whether he approved of his behaviour. Pavel seemed indifferent; he went on eating, as if we didn't exist.