So we were just waiting for Bulgarian and his gang of bumboys (as we called them, because of their propensity for homosexual rape) to show their ugly faces and stir up some trouble, which we would then use as a pretext for mincing them up like raw meat. But those bastards exceeded all our expectations.
One day our family was gathered around the ‘oak’ (that’s what they call the table bricked into the floor which is found in every cell). According to an agreement, the families, or ‘brigades’ (as the groups of those who modelled themselves on Black Seed were known) were allowed to gather around the oak for a certain length of time. In every cell it was different, but usually you stood at the oak to eat, at mealtimes. The stronger ones stood around the table first; they would eat, chat and then leave the table free for others who were weaker than them but stronger than those who came after them. Most of the inmates didn’t even stand at the table, but would eat on their bunks, otherwise they wouldn’t have had time to eat their meal. Eating at the oak was a kind of privilege; it emphasized the power of the group you belonged to. In our cell we were the first to eat at the oak, together with the Armenians and the Belarusians. In all there wasn’t room for more than forty people at the table, but we managed to squeeze sixty of us in. We did this to show the others that our alliance in the cell was superior to everyone else. The Little Thieves who were in the same cell as us couldn’t stomach this, because they felt they were in second place but couldn’t do anything about it; what’s more, the Little Thieves in the other cells were always ribbing them about it. But to attack us would have been like committing suicide, so one day they found an excuse for not eating at the oak any more: they started to say that the table was tainted, that someone had washed it with the floor cloth and that therefore, according to their rules, they couldn’t even touch it with a finger now. It was a lie, a story they’d thought up so as not to lose their dignity entirely.
So that day we were having our lunch; the Armenians had brought to the oak a piece of cheese which one of them had just received in his parcel from home. After cutting it up into little cubes we were all eating it with relish: it was a taste that came from freedom, a delicious flavour, which reminded us of home, of the life we were all waiting to live again.
Suddenly we heard a shout; I was facing the door, so I didn’t really grasp what was going on, but a group of my Siberian brothers near the bunks got up, announcing angrily:
‘Honest people! While we’re eating what the Lord has sent us to keep us alive, those bastards are uncorking someone!’
To ‘uncork’ meant to rape. What was happening was a very serious matter. Serious in itself, certainly, but there was more to it than that: although we were often forced to turn a blind eye to the homosexual acts of the Little Thieves, this time it was quite impossible. Having sexual relations while, in the same space, in the cell – which in the criminal language is called ‘home’ – people are eating, or reading the Bible, or praying, is a flagrant violation of the criminal law.
We got up and ran towards the Little Thieves’ black corner. They were holding down one of the usual poor wretches on a bunk, and, wrapping a towel round his neck – so tightly his face had gone all red, and he was croaking for air – they were screaming at him that if he didn’t keep still and take it up the arse while he was alive, he would do it when he was dead.
Filat White grabbed one of them by the neck – Filat was a very strong boy but one without heart, as they say in Italian, or with an evil heart, as they say in Siberia (and it’s not exactly the same thing): in short, he had no pity for his enemies – and started pounding him with his fists, and his fists were like cannon balls. After a few seconds the guy lost consciousness and his face turned into a raw steak. Both of Filat’s hands were covered in blood.
From the Little Thieves’ bunks there came a torrent of abuse and threats of revenge, with which they are usually very liberal.
Filat went up to the one who had been about to rape the boy and still had his underpants down. Everyone was half-naked and dripping with sweat in that hellish heat; we Siberians were in our underpants too, but ready to tear those bastards to pieces.
Filat grabbed the rapist by the arm and started hammering him against the corner of the bunk. The guy starting yelling:
‘I’m Bulgarian! You’ve laid hands on me! All of you here are my witnesses! This guy’s a dead man, he’s a dead man! Tell my brother! He’ll kill his whole family!’
He squealed like a drunken country cop’s rusty whistle. Nobody took his words seriously.
Filat stopped banging him against the bunk and released his grip, and the boy staggered and fell on the floor. Then he pulled himself together, got to his feet and said:
‘Your name, you bastard, tell me your name, and this very evening my brother will rip your mother’s guts out…’ At the word ‘mother’ Filat unleashed an incredibly hard punch. I heard a strange noise, as if someone, somewhere, a long way off, had split a plank of wood. But it wasn’t wood: it was Bulgarian’s nose, and now he lay flat on the ground, senseless.
Filat looked at him for a moment, then gave him a kick in the face, then another, and another, and yet another. Each time, Bulgarian’s head jumped so far off his shoulders that it seemed not to be attached to his spine; it was as if his skull and the rest of his skeleton were separate: his neck seemed no more than a thin thread, made of rubber.
Filat said to them alclass="underline"
‘Isn’t wanking enough for you any more? Don’t you want to wait to get out so you can make love to girls? Do you prefer arses? Have you all turned into bumboys?’
At his last word a ripple of surprise ran along the bunks: to insult a whole group of people is very wrong; according to the criminal law it’s an error. But Filat had been clever: he had expressed his insult in the form of a question, and according to our law, in such situations, especially if the name of your mother has been insulted, a slight hint of an insult to a whole group is quite acceptable.
Without another word, Filat put one foot on Bulgarian’s genitals, which were sadly shrunken on his inert body, and started crushing them with all his strength. Then he leaped on Bulgarian like a madman, and hurling a fearful yell into the air jumped up and down on his stomach until we all heard a terrible crack. I didn’t know much about anatomy, but this much was clear to me – he’d broken his pelvis.
The Little Thieves sat there speechless, terrified. Filat said to all of them:
‘Now I’ll give you one minute to soap your skis. After that, if any of you remains in this house he’ll get the same medicine as…’
Before he had even finished the sentence, the Little Thieves had jumped down from their bunks and rushed to the doors, shouting and pummelling on the iron:
‘Guards! Help! They’re killing us! Transfer! Immediately! We request a transfer!’
A few moments later the doors opened and the guards of the disciplinary squad came in, armed with truncheons. They carried away the two injured boys, dragging them along like sacks of rubbish, leaving a long trail of blood behind them. Then they started ejecting the Little Thieves.