Free Fall. Nicolai Lilin

all realised that something truly horrendous was about to happen, but we were paralysed.

      A young officer in the infantry, who seemed to be the most cruel of their group, stood there like a statue; open-mouthed, as still as if he had seen a ghost.

      Nosov exposed the Arab’s chest, ripping off his military jacket. The man stared at him without saying anything, his eyes bulging with terror.

      ‘Thank goodness I’m here, always willing to help you good people, to oil the gates of the garden of your god. So when you finally open it, it won’t bother you with its squeaking . . .’

      Nosov bent over him; he put one knee on his chest, the other on his legs, then stuck the knife in his belly and began to cut.

      The Arab howled so loud that his voice gave out soon after; he just let out a sort of prolonged, inhuman whistle, like a machine with metal parts grating against each other.

      Our captain continued carving into his chest, accompanying his work with a song, a kind of saboteur anthem:

      ‘A bayonet in the back, a bullet to the heart,

      the wolves will pray for our souls!

      The dead aren’t warmed by triumph or glory,

      Blood runs in our veins, the blood of the Russian,

      today we will satisfy death, God forgive us!’

      The louder the Arab wheezed, grimacing with pain, the louder Nosov sang, while he continued carving with patience and calm.

      ‘Born and raised there, where the others will die,

      that’s why fate made us saboteurs!

      The Motherland, great Russia, even she is afraid of us,

      we are her true sons, for her we’d drown in blood,

      but our hearts burn with true love!’

      When he was finished, the captain got up slowly, and with a sadistic smile said to the rest of us:

      ‘We were here, the saboteurs!’

      The man’s entire torso was skinless, from his navel to his neck. The Arab had lost consciousness, but you could see he was still breathing softly.

      Next to him, on the ground, there was a layer of skin. Nosov had cut it in the shape of a bat, just like the ones we drew on the city walls.

      The captain said to the infantrymen:

      ‘Go ahead and take it if you want, keep it as a souvenir. That way you can tell everyone that at least one time in your pointless lives you knew some real men . . . Remember that being cruel doesn’t mean cutting the noses or ears off the dead to make a necklace or a keychain . . . You don’t rape women or beat children. Try to look your enemy right in the eye when he’s still alive and breathing, that’s enough . . . And if you have the balls to do something else, well go ahead . . .’

      We said nothing, mulling over what had just come out of our captain’s mouth. The infantrymen seemed frightened, some had stepped back, pretending they hadn’t seen anything.

      The silence that had fallen around that inhuman torture was broken by Shoe. With an almost indifferent and calm expression – as if he were on vacation – he proclaimed:

      ‘Well, not too bad, Ivanisch, that bat almost looks real!’

      A young officer from the infantry pulled his gun out of his holster and went over to the Arab, aiming at his head. Nosov gave him a dirty look.

      ‘What are you doing, son?’ he asked, calm.

      ‘Enough, I can’t take it – I’m going to kill him . . .’ The officer was shaken up. His hand trembled as it gripped the weapon.

      ‘This guy stays as he is,’ Nosov yelled, ‘and in fact I hope he lives till his friends get here . . . They think they’re cruel? They don’t know shit about cruelty! I’ll teach them personally what it means to be cruel!’

      Then he went towards the prisoner on whom we’d found the videocamera and the passports. He was all tied up, ready to come with us. Nosov grabbed him by the beard and dragged him over to his freshly skinned companion:

      ‘Look, and look hard, Arab . . . You don’t know who you’re playing with! Pray to your god that command is interested in you, otherwise I’ll skin you alive and make my guys belts out of your hide!’

      After about ten minutes, the helicopters came. We jumped on while the infantrymen stayed behind, waiting for two special infantry units to close off the valley.

      We headed back to base, tired and loaded with useless stuff as usual, this time with an Arab prisoner to boot, who, while we were up in the air, suddenly started to cry.

      Moscow, feeling sorry for him, gave him some water to drink, and the captain smiled.

      ‘Give him a drink; I’m sure his throat is all dry . . . What a shitty day, boys, surrounded by a bunch of homos . . .’

      When we got to base, there was already a delegation waiting to pick up the prisoner.

      Captain Nosov spoke to the colonel while his men loaded the Arab onto another helicopter. The colonel called Nosov ‘son’, and the captain called him ‘old man’; you could tell that they were buddies.

      The colonel said:

      ‘The infantrymen complained, saying that you made a bloodbath, you tortured a prisoner . . .’ He wasn’t at all angry; he spoke with a mixture of complicity and irritation.

      Nosov, as always, was playful and in good spirits:

      ‘You know how they are, old man, those guys shit themselves as soon as they get wind of an Arab . . . They need to be shown that we’re the dangerous ones – they should be afraid of themselves, not those ignorant, incompetent, drugged-out religious fanatics . . .’ Whenever he spoke, Nosov had a mysterious power; his words carried a strange certainty. The colonel thought for a moment, and then, smiling, clapped a hand on his shoulder:

      ‘Son, you’d certainly know better than anyone else. But remember, if anything ever happens, I’m always here . . .’

      As the helicopter ascended, the colonel smiled from the window and waved. Then he made a sign on his chest, as if he were drawing our bat with his finger. Still smiling, he clenched his fist, as if to say ‘Keep it up!’ We all broke out in big grins and waved back at him, as if he were our own grandfather who had come to visit us.

      I thought a lot about what happened that day. Sometimes I regretted not having killed that poor man I’d shot in the knee. But later, after some time had passed, I came to understand the insane logic that guided our captain’s actions, and I realised that, yes, it was true that he made some extreme decisions, but he did it so that we could keep fighting the war the way we did.

      We owed our reputation to Nosov’s great skill in handling complex situations well in the face of the realities of war.

      And if his choices didn’t always conform to human morality, it was only because they reflected the horror and the difficulty we endured every day in the war, trying to stay alive, strong and sound.

      _______________

* This was what we called military supplies – ammunition, weapons, clothing – that came from a foreign country.

      FIRE ON US

      . . . for this offensive special commitment is required of the soldiers and officers in the assault units and of all the active units on the front lines. Given the high priority of this operation, the nature of the task does not call for the capture, arrest or transport of terrorists or any other member of an illegal armed group. All human units who pose a threat or cause difficulty in carrying out orders during direct combat must be physically eliminated; whatever weapons or ammunition