After the official introduction comes a bridge-sentence, which doesn’t convey any concrete message with respect to the meaning of the letter. It is written in obedience to an ancient tradition – in any form of communication, the important information must never be given immediately, but only after a short, ‘transparent’ passage which deals not with criminal affairs but with ordinary, mundane, obvious things. This section is used to express the state of mind of the person who is making the request, because any open display of emotion is not tolerated between criminals – even in the most difficult situations you must maintain your self-control, and keep, as they say, a cool head. In this case I wrote a sentence which conveyed a hint of religious hope, which is never a bad thing in letters, or indeed in any kind of communication between criminals.
After this you come to the point.
I say that in my cell, which is called a house, there has arrived – descended – a criminal, who has taken up residence, that is, has been accepted by the other criminals, honest people. Which means that the new arrival has a letter, safe-conduct or tattoo, the signature of an Authority.
I call the new arrival an honest vagabond, to indicate that he is an unambitious, humble person who knows how to behave.
Orphan is a word which in slang can have many meanings: in this case I was alluding to the fact that he had been forced to leave his previous prison. It was important to stress this in the letter, because criminals do not respect those who ask to be transferred – they call them ‘mad horses’, and say ‘as soon as anything happens, these guys jump at the door like mad horses’.
After this I wrote that the new arrival holds with the grace of the Lord, which simply means that he has a tattoo. Among criminals it is not usual to say ‘I have a tattoo’, you say ‘I hold with the grace of the Lord’, and then you specify which tattoo in particular you have; if you are referring to all the tattoos together you call them ‘the honest seeds’, ‘the tears of the Lord’, or ‘His seals’. In this case The Mother, because that was the specific tattoo that the criminal had on his back.
The Mother sings your miraculous hand is a compliment to Fog. If a tattoo has been executed well, it sings the hand of the tattooist.
Then comes another, more significant compliment: Fog’s hand is guided by God Himself. This is not to be taken in a literal sense – God in this case means the criminal law. The tattoo, that is, has been executed according to the rules of the criminal tradition, in a very professional manner.
The letter culminated in the words, The Mother is illuminated. This means that the tattoo, though unfinished, works perfectly. ‘To illuminate’ means to put hidden information into the tattoo itself, so I was saying that this element of the work was complete and there was no need to add or change anything; it was sufficient to put the finishing touches to it, to strengthen a line here and there, fill it out with nuances of colour, etc.
The phrase not much is lacking to the completion of her splendour is an indirect request for permission to continue the work.
Then come the traditional greetings and good wishes, and lastly the signature. In the Siberian tradition the surname is never used, only the first name and nickname, because belonging to a family is considered to be a private matter.
When I had finished the letter I was very pleased – it felt like a turning point in my life. I gave the letter to the people who organized the circulation of mail in our cell. They were obliged to stay at the window all the time and wait for a signal. The letters passed along strings from one window to another – if they were addressed to someone in that cell, they were delivered to the addressee, otherwise they continued to move on from cell to cell, and if necessary from prison to prison. The prison mail was far more reliable and speedy than the normal mail, which indeed nobody used. In the space of two weeks the letters would reach any prison in the region, and to travel right across the country it would take less than a month. The prison to which I was sending my letter was a long way away, so it would take time.
I waited anxiously for the reply. After two months and a few days, a boy broke away from the team of ‘postmen’, holding in his hand a small letter written on a leaf from a lined exercise book:
‘Kolima, it’s for you, from Afanasy Fog.’
I took the letter from his hands and opened it excitedly. Written on it, in a very rough, cramped hand, were the words:
Greetings, dear brother Nikolay Kolima, and long years in the glory of Our Lord!
I, Afanasy Fog, thanks to Jesus Christ a humble kolshik, will remember in my prayers you and all the honest vagabonds who live in this blessed Land.
In the glory of the Lord one breathes well, enjoying peace and His love.
The news of Brother Z… gives me immense joy, may the Lord bless him and send him long years, strength and health.
The Mother, who with the help of the Saviour Jesus Christ is illuminated, with his same help will be continued.
An embrace of brotherhood and affection to you; may Christ be with you and your family, and may He and all the Saints protect your blessed hand.
I read it and re-read it again and again, as if searching for something else that might appear between the lines.
I was very proud that Fog had replied to me with such respect and love, as if we were friends and had known each other all our lives.
Many in the cell knew who Fog was, and as word got around my authority increased.
It took me four months to finish Fog’s tattoo. One day my work happened to be seen by an old tattooist of the Black Seed caste called Uncle Kesya, who occasionally came out of the special security block to be given the medication he needed at the infirmary. Using his Authority, Uncle Kesya sent me a parcel, containing a packet of tea, cigarettes, sugar and a jar of honey. In the accompanying letter he paid me a lot of compliments and said he was pleased to see a job executed by a young man who hadn’t abandoned the needles and the traditional techniques for the electric devices, which he called ‘gobs of the devil’.
After that, many inmates, intrigued and moved by the respect the old man had shown me, started asking me to tattoo them according to the old Siberian principles – even people who were remote from our tradition and who belonged to different castes. It was delightful to see how men whom I had previously thought profoundly different from me, and with whom I would never have imagined I could have any relationship, except a business one, became very friendly. They wanted to know about Siberian history and the system of tattoos, and this created a bridge between us, a connection founded solely on curiosity about another culture, without any sordid interest connected with criminal affairs.
During those days I told them a lot of the stories that I had heard as a child from my grandfather and from other old men. Many of my cellmates were simple men, who had been sent to prison for ordinary crimes – men with no underlying criminal philosophy. One of them, a strapping young man called Shura, was serving a five-year sentence for killing someone in obscure circumstances. He didn’t like talking about it, but it was clear that jealousy had something to do with it – it was a story of love and betrayal.