Siberian Education (44 page)

When the guy reached Gagarin and started shouting right in his face, Gagarin's left hand shot out and grabbed him by the neck – which was long and thin, like a turkey's – while his right hand slowly extracted his Tokarev from his pocket.

With one hand round the neck of this guy – who was trying to punch him but couldn't reach him and looked like a insect impaled on a needle – and the other holding his gun, Gagarin didn't take his eyes off Pavel. Then he raised his right hand and held it in that position for a moment: the fool started squealing like a wounded animal, trying to turn his face as far away as possible from the probable trajectory of Gagarin's right hand. But in vain. Suddenly that hand started hitting him in the face with the gun with terrible force and speed. The blows rained down.

The guy's face became one big wound. He passed out and his legs fell limp, but Gagarin still held him up by the neck and kept hitting him over and over again in the same place. Then, as suddenly as he had started, he stopped hitting him and dropped him on the floor like a sack. Ten seconds later he started kicking him. It was a massacre.

When Gagarin had finished, he went over to the table where Pavel was sitting, with a face like thunder. At this point, I realized that we all had our guns in our hands.

Gagarin hooked a seat towards himself with his foot, sat down on it, and without giving the people of Centre time to get over their confusion at his mauling of the thug, started insulting Pavel. He used very offensive words. He spoke to him as you speak to a person whose fate is sealed.

It was very risky, but if the terror tactics worked, if we succeeded in creating a division among Pavel's people, we would be all right. No self-respecting criminal will support a Guardian who because of his own mistakes is on the brink of ruin, so we were deliberately separating him from his people.

The decision Gagarin had taken was an extreme one, and it was a good thing he hadn't told us about it in advance, because we would certainly have opposed it. But now that he'd started we were going to have to give him our full support, or we'd be in a real mess.

The essence of what Gagarin was saying to Pavel was simple: he was rebuking him for incompetence, but above all he was insulting him, to humiliate him in the eyes of his companions.

His approach was working: the expression on Pavel's face had changed, he had gone very pale and his posture had altered too: he had been sitting with his shoulders erect and his chest puffed out, but now his shoulders had fallen, his chest had caved in and his whole body seemed shrunken. Only his eyes continued to glare with the same anger and contempt as before.

Gagarin told him he had been rude to us from the outset simply because we weren't adults, ignoring the fact that we had come as representatives of our district and of the entire Siberian community, and ignoring the fact that our mission was trying to resolve a situation which all the communities worthy to be called criminal considered extremely serious.

He said he had told our elders what had happened that morning – that Pavel had refused to talk to us and had sent us two of his assistants, who had proved untrustworthy, since they had made an appointment with us which they had failed to keep. This called into question his very Authority, because it was clear that either he was a Guardian who had no control over affairs in his district, or – even worse – he was trying to conceal important information from us.

‘The only thing we're interested in is in carrying out our mission,' said Gagarin to everyone present. ‘It's not our responsibility to deal with everything else. The Authorities have been informed and will take their decisions: that's the important thing.'

While Gagarin was speaking Pavel glared at him scornfully, then suddenly he exploded in a fit of rage. He threw a dirty handkerchief at him, hitting him full in the face, then stood up and repeated the act he had performed on our previous visit: he ripped open his shirt, displaying his chest covered with old tattoos and with golden chains that hung down to his navel, and shouting a torrent of words in criminal slang the gist of which, leaving aside the profanities and insults, was:

‘Since when have little boys been allowed to argue with adult criminals?'

Then he kept repeating the same phrase over and over again:

‘Do you want to shoot an Authority? Well, shoot me, then!'

Gagarin stood motionless; I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

I noticed that Pavel's people were planning something; one had left the table and gone towards the kitchen. Meanwhile Pavel came over to us and went along the line, shouting in each of our faces, asking if we still wanted to kill him.

Mel and the others kept still and silent; it was very clear that they didn't want to make a false move and were waiting for an order or a signal from Gagarin, who sat motionless at the table, with his back turned.

When Pavel came to me and I smelled his breath, reeking of wine and onions, coming out of his disgusting mouth together with the same words as before, I pulled Grandfather Kuzya's Nagant out of my pocket. Putting it against the brute's fat cheek and pressing so hard that the end of the barrel sunk into the skin of his face, which was distorted with surprise, I said:

‘Grandfather Kuzya loaded this for me, do you understand? He said I could kill anyone who stops me catching the person who raped our sister. Even an Authority, if necessary.'

He stood rooted to the spot and glared at me with eyes full of anger, but also of sadness. Gagarin got up from the table and announced to all present that we were going to leave the district and that we would take Pavel with us, to make sure no one took a shot at us as we left.

A man stood up. His face was disfigured by a long scar which started from his forehead, ran across his right eye and nose and ended on his neck. Very calmly he said to us:

‘No one will hurt you; we had already agreed on that before you came. We were intending to report Pavel to the Authorities.'

Little by little it emerged from his explanation that Pavel, with the help of some people who had already been locked up in a safe place, had planned a series of murders and other violent acts to provoke a war among the various communities. His aim was to gain control of the trafficking of alcohol, which was in the hands of a group of old criminals from various districts.

While the man with the scar was talking Pavel had turned pale, and with my pistol stuck into his cheek I could feel through the steel how much he was trembling. It was the end for him, and he knew it.

The man introduced himself as ‘Paunch'. I had never heard of him. From his way of talking and standing, with his back bent and his head leaning forward, I realized that he had recently come out of prison. He confirmed this shortly afterwards: he had been released less than a month earlier, he said; and he added that when he was inside many had complained about the way Pavel supported the prison. He only sent aid to people he had chosen himself, he had never visited anyone and he had actually encouraged some internal wars, which had proved devastating. So on instructions from some elderly criminals Paunch had infiltrated Pavel's gang to check up on it and report back.

In other words we were talking to a
voydot
, a criminal executor and investigator who answered only to the old Authorities, and whose task it was to uncover injustices committed by the young Authorities and the Guardians.

It was the first time in my life I'd seen a person on such an assignment; usually they kept their identity secret, though of course Paunch might not have been his real name.

Paunch went on with his story: he said Pavel had hired a group of young Ukrainians to stir up trouble. During the past month they had killed two people, and no one had been able to trace them because everything had been organized to make it seem like an attack carried out by another district – a declaration of war. These were the same methods the police had used years before.

I couldn't believe my ears; the situation seemed surreal.

‘What about Ksyusha? Why did they rape her?' I asked.

‘Just for fun. Because they were out of their minds. There was no other reason,' replied Paunch. ‘But it roused your community, so Pavel tried to keep them hidden, but they went on causing trouble all over the place.'

Everyone had seen them; they'd left traces everywhere. Gagarin and the others had clashed with them, and after the shoot-out they had tried to get out of town, taking the road through Balka. Stepan too had reported their presence in that district; they had taken cigarettes and beers from his kiosk without paying and beaten up Nixon, but he had managed to hurt one of them with his iron bar – which was quite a surprise for a disabled man. But a group of Armenians had been waiting for them at the entrance into Caucasus. They had tried to drive their four-by-four through an orchard, and had knocked down one Armenian, but then they had crashed into a little river that ran between Caucasus and Balka.

All this had happened in the space of two hours, and now these thugs were in the hands of the Armenians, who Paunch said were waiting for us.

Paunch said we would have to go there together, because he needed them to confirm in the presence of three witnesses that they had been paid by Pavel: only then could he take him before the old Authorities for judgement.

‘You keep Pavel until you're sure what he's told you is true,' he concluded.

One of us, therefore, would have to give up his place to Pavel and go in another car with Paunch. Without giving the others time to make up their minds, I volunteered.

We went in a car driven by a boy from Centre.

‘Are you really so keen to kill those people?' Paunch asked me when we had set off.

I thought this over for a moment before replying:

‘I'm not a murderer; I get no pleasure out of killing. I just want justice to be done.'

Paunch didn't reply; he just nodded and turned towards the window. He remained like that, still and silent, until we reached Caucasus. He seemed struck by what I had said, but I wasn't sure whether he agreed or not.

When we arrived in Caucasus we drove to the house of an old Armenian called Frunzich. I knew him; he was a good friend of my grandfather's; he had been one of the organizers of the armed revolt of the prisoners in the Siberian gulags in 1953. He'd had a very sad life, but had never lost his cheerful disposition: even a short conversation with him left you feeling full of energy.

Frunzich was waiting for us in a car outside the front door of his house, with three other Armenians – young guys; one was only a teenager. When he saw us coming he switched on the ignition and drove off in front of us, to lead the way.

He took us to an old military warehouse on the outskirts of the district, where fields and patches of woodland began. It had been built by the Germans in the Second World War and had a number of basements which were often used by various criminals for dirty business, when it was necessary to shed a bit of blood.

In the yard there were about twenty Armenians, men and boys, all armed with rifles or Kalashnikovs. They were standing around a very battered four-by-four; its windscreen was smashed and a door on the right-hand side was missing. Inside the four-by-four sat five men. They looked terrified, and for some reason were stark naked.

Their clothes were piled up in front of the car near two bodies. One had a still bleeding wound in its neck, the other a hole in its head, from which the blood had stopped flowing.

I got out of the car after Paunch and went over to stand beside my friends, who were looking with interest at the faces of those five still alive animals.

‘They're all ours. But first it's Paunch's turn,' said Gagarin.

Before I had time to wonder how Paunch was going to make them talk I saw Pavel collapse on the ground, felled by a very hard kick.

Lying there on the ground Pavel cut a pitiful figure. He reminded me of a fat little boy who had once lived in our district: this kid was clumsy in his movements, not so much because of his weight but because of the weakness of his character. He was convinced that he was practically disabled and was always falling over, sometimes deliberately, so he could attract the attention of others and cry and moan about his physical state. A few years later this pathetic great lump discovered that nature had endowed him with an artillery piece as long and powerful as the Dragunov precision rifle, and he abandoned his childish weaknesses. Especially with girls, whom he changed as frequently as a gentleman who is fastidious about personal hygiene changes his socks.

I always used to laugh when I thought about that boy, but now the association aroused a strange feeling of anger in me. Yes, I was angry. I had suddenly realized that although we were only one step away from completing our mission I felt no particular emotion, nothing. My only feelings were anger and weariness, two almost primitive, very animal sensations. I felt no higher human emotions at all.

There was Pavel, curled up on the ground, being beaten by the others. I looked at him and reflected that there was nothing certain and definite in life; this piece of human garbage, which now looked like a piece of meat being pounded into a steak, had only a short time before been full of its own importance and held real power in its hands.

When they had finished beating him up they loaded him into the boot of the car, as the rule requires because, since he was now tainted, he could no longer share the same space with honest criminals.

I don't think those five thugs sitting naked in the off-roader knew what was about to happen to them. I don't know what was going through their heads, but I looked at them and they seemed unconscious, as if they were under the effect of some drug.

I was sorry. I had thought so much of that moment. I had imagined the fear in their eyes, the words with which they would beg us to spare their lives, ‘We don't want to die, have mercy . . .', and the words I would say in reply, constructing an elaborate speech that would make them realize the enormity of the crime they had committed and ensure that they spent their last moments in pure terror, feeling something resembling what Ksyusha had felt. But I only saw indifferent faces, which seemed to be urging us to get on with what we had come to do. Perhaps it was only my impression, because my friends seemed happy enough. They approached the four-by-four with satisfied smiles and pulled out their guns demonstratively. They loaded them so slowly you could hear the bullets slip out of the magazines and enter the barrels, clicking into place.