Free Fall. Nicolai Lilin

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