We found her among the tables, serving her regular customers – old criminals who lived on their own and went to eat in her restaurant every day. They had spent so long in prison that they had got used to the collective criminal life, and consequently they tried to be together all the time, though you would hardly have thought it, because they looked as if they couldn’t stand each others’ company. The expressions on their faces seemed to indicate great unhappiness, but in fact those were simply their normal expressions. I think they missed prison, in a way, and even missed the hardship in which they had grown accustomed to living. They continued to live the life of prisoners, despite having been free for years. Many of them couldn’t get used to the rules of the civil world, to freedom. Almost all of them preferred to live in one-room flats where they’d had the walls of the bathroom and the kitchenette knocked down to create a single space that reminded them of their cell. I knew some old men who even put barbed wire and bars across their windows, because otherwise they felt uneasy and couldn’t get to sleep. Others slept on wooden bunks like those of the prisons and always left the tap running, as it had in their cells. Their whole life became a perfect imitation of the one they had lived when they were incarcerated.
Aunt Katya allowed all those criminals to re-create a kind of make-believe prison in her restaurant, because they were her regular customers, but also because she loved every one of them and, as she herself used to say:
‘I wouldn’t presume to re-educate elderly people.’
So entering Aunt Katya’s restaurant was like entering a prison cell. All the men sat with their heads bowed, as if something were preventing them from looking up. This is an unmistakable mark of the ex-convict: he’ll always keep his head down, because in prison you spend most of the time lying on bunks and you have to be careful not to bang your head on the bunk above. Even people who have only spent a few years in jail don’t find it easy to break this habit when they come out.
The old men usually played cards at Aunt Katya’s, but not with normal playing cards: they used kolotushki, hand-painted cards made in prison.
They all dressed the same, in grey, and all wore the fufayka, the standard heavy jacket, which is thick and warm.
As in their cells, they smoked by passing a cigarette from one to another, even though they could afford to smoke one each. Out of that smoke, which filled the whole restaurant, their ravaged faces loomed, wearing an expression that was an eternal question, as if they’d been struck by some strange fact which they couldn’t make head nor tail of: wide eyes that looked at you and in the space of three seconds gave you a complete X-ray, and knew who you were even better than you did yourself.
Among themselves they talked only in slang and in fenya, the old Siberian criminal language, but they spoke quietly and little; they communicated more in gestures, mostly secret ones.
They called Aunt Katya ‘mama’, to emphasize the importance of her role and of her authority.
They followed many of the prison rules of behaviour; for example, they never went to the toilet while someone was eating or drinking, even though the toilet wasn’t in the same room but on the other side of the yard. Nor did they ever discuss politics, religion, or differences between nationalities.
There was strict hierarchy among them: the highest Authorities sat near the windows and enjoyed the best places; the others sat nearer to the doors. The ‘garbage’ – people considered to be beneath contempt – and those who had been ‘lowered’, or demoted to the lowest ranks of society, were not admitted: outside prison there is not the same compulsion to share the same space as there is inside. There were only two or three ‘sixths’[8] – a kind of slave, people who performed tasks deemed unworthy of a criminaclass="underline" they were allowed to touch money with their hands, so they paid for everyone’s meals, taking the money from a common kitty. Whenever anyone ran out of cigarettes, the ‘sixth’ had to hurry off to get him some more: a service for which he was paid but also treated with slight contempt – not offensive, but indicative, to remind him of his place on the hierarchical scale. It was strange to see these old men being treated like little boys; they were always on the alert, constantly looking to see whether anyone in the room needed them. When they brought the cigarettes they would bow, with a humble expression on their faces, wait for the highest Authority to open the packet and offer them a few for the service, and then, thanking him, return to their place, walking backwards, like crayfish, so as not to turn their back on the person with whom they had been dealing.
So when you entered Aunt Katya’s restaurant you had to follow prison rules, and behave as you would when you entered a real cell. It may seem ridiculous, but for those people, for those elderly ex-convicts, it was a sign of respect, a way of showing them that you had come with good intentions and were astute.
When you enter a cell you have to know how to greet people in an appropriate manner. You can’t just say ‘Hello’ or ‘Good morning’: if you do, the criminals will immediately understand that you know nothing of their culture, and if you’re lucky they’ll dismiss you as ‘someone who’s just passing through’, who is irrelevant to them; they won’t communicate with you, they’ll act as if you don’t exist. You must greet them like this: open the door, take just one step and then stop – woe betide you if you take another step. Then say ‘Peace to your (or our) house’ or ‘Peace and health to honest vagabonds’ (this is a safe variant, worthy of a true criminal), or ‘Good health to the honest company’, ‘It’s the hour of your joys’: in short, there are many forms of greeting used in the criminal world. After saying the appropriate phrase, it’s essential not to move, but to wait for the reply. Usually the criminals don’t reply immediately; they let a few moments pass, to assess your reaction. If you’re clever you’ll keep calm, gaze at a point in front of you and never look anyone in the face. The highest Authority, or one of his men, will eventually answer you, again with a set phrase: ‘Welcome with honesty’ or ‘May the Lord guide you’, or ‘Enter with your soul’.
According to the rules, before doing anything else you must personally greet the highest Authority. In my case, on this occasion I knew him. He was sitting near one of the windows on the other side of Aunt Katya’s restaurant. He always sat there, with his companions.
All the people present belonged to the caste of the Men, who in the criminal hierarchy are also called Grey Seed. They are hardened criminals, alcoholics, simple people, thieves and murderers, who for personal reasons had never wanted to join the caste of Black Seed, whose members formed a kind of ‘aristocracy’ among the criminals.
In the criminal world Black Seed was a young but powerful caste, which had succeeded in exploiting the philosophy of personal sacrifice. Its members appeared to be pure and perfect men, who devoted their lives to the welfare of people in prison. They worshipped prison: they referred to it affectionately as ‘home’, ‘church’ or ‘mother’, and were happy to spend time there, even their whole lives. Whereas all the other castes, including that of the Siberian Urkas, despised prison and put up with detention as you might a misfortune.
Thanks to the enormous number of scum and lowlifes that had joined its ranks, Black Seed had become the largest caste in the Russian criminal world: but for every wise and good person that you could find among them, you would meet another twenty uncouth and sadistic ones, who showed off and threw their weight around in every possible situation.
8
This term is used for the lowest-ranking members of some criminal castes: the number is that of the lowest-value playing cards in a pack.