Frunzich was waiting for us in a car outside the front door of his house, with three other Armenians – young guys; one was only a teenager. When he saw us coming he switched on the ignition and drove off in front of us, to lead the way.
He took us to an old military warehouse on the outskirts of the district, where fields and patches of woodland began. It had been built by the Germans in the Second World War and had a number of basements which were often used by various criminals for dirty business, when it was necessary to shed a bit of blood.
In the yard there were about twenty Armenians, men and boys, all armed with rifles or Kalashnikovs. They were standing around a very battered four-by-four; its windscreen was smashed and a door on the right-hand side was missing. Inside the four-by-four sat five men. They looked terrified, and for some reason were stark naked.
Their clothes were piled up in front of the car near two bodies. One had a still bleeding wound in its neck, the other a hole in its head, from which the blood had stopped flowing.
I got out of the car after Paunch and went over to stand beside my friends, who were looking with interest at the faces of those five still alive animals.
‘They’re all ours. But first it’s Paunch’s turn,’ said Gagarin.
Before I had time to wonder how Paunch was going to make them talk I saw Pavel collapse on the ground, felled by a very hard kick.
Lying there on the ground Pavel cut a pitiful figure. He reminded me of a fat little boy who had once lived in our district: this kid was clumsy in his movements, not so much because of his weight but because of the weakness of his character. He was convinced that he was practically disabled and was always falling over, sometimes deliberately, so he could attract the attention of others and cry and moan about his physical state. A few years later this pathetic great lump discovered that nature had endowed him with an artillery piece as long and powerful as the Dragunov precision rifle, and he abandoned his childish weaknesses. Especially with girls, whom he changed as frequently as a gentleman who is fastidious about personal hygiene changes his socks.
I always used to laugh when I thought about that boy, but now the association aroused a strange feeling of anger in me. Yes, I was angry. I had suddenly realized that although we were only one step away from completing our mission I felt no particular emotion, nothing. My only feelings were anger and weariness, two almost primitive, very animal sensations. I felt no higher human emotions at all.
There was Pavel, curled up on the ground, being beaten by the others. I looked at him and reflected that there was nothing certain and definite in life; this piece of human garbage, which now looked like a piece of meat being pounded into a steak, had only a short time before been full of its own importance and held real power in its hands.
When they had finished beating him up they loaded him into the boot of the car, as the rule requires because, since he was now tainted, he could no longer share the same space with honest criminals.
I don’t think those five thugs sitting naked in the off-roader knew what was about to happen to them. I don’t know what was going through their heads, but I looked at them and they seemed unconscious, as if they were under the effect of some drug.
I was sorry. I had thought so much of that moment. I had imagined the fear in their eyes, the words with which they would beg us to spare their lives, ‘We don’t want to die, have mercy…’, and the words I would say in reply, constructing an elaborate speech that would make them realize the enormity of the crime they had committed and ensure that they spent their last moments in pure terror, feeling something resembling what Ksyusha had felt. But I only saw indifferent faces, which seemed to be urging us to get on with what we had come to do. Perhaps it was only my impression, because my friends seemed happy enough. They approached the four-by-four with satisfied smiles and pulled out their guns demonstratively. They loaded them so slowly you could hear the bullets slip out of the magazines and enter the barrels, clicking into place.
I looked at Meclass="underline" he was walking behind Gagarin. He had two pistols in his hand and his ugly face was twisted into a cruel scowl.
I grasped Grandfather Kuzya’s Nagant and cocked it with my thumb. The drum turned and stopped with a loud click. I felt the trigger rise under my index finger: it was ready, taut.
In the other hand I had the Stechkin. Using the reloading technique I had been taught by Grandfather Plum I gripped it, released the safety catch with my index finger, pushed the rear sight against the edge of my belt and heard the mechanism move, pushing the fixed part forward and loading the bullet into the barrel.
As I concentrated on the four-by-four, trying to decide which bastard to shoot first, Gagarin, without any concluding speech or warning, opened fire with both his guns. Immediately – almost simultaneously – the others fired, and I realized that I was firing too.
Grave fired with his eyes closed, and very fast. He emptied the magazines of his Makarovs before anyone else and stood there motionless, still holding the two pistols raised in the direction of the car, watching how those five guys were taking all our anger as it hit them in the form of lead.
Gagarin, by contrast, fired relaxedly, calmly, letting his bullets find their own route, without aiming carefully.
Mel fired, as he always did, chaotically, trying to reproduce the effect of a burst of machinegun fire with his pistol and sending lead in all directions. As a result no one ever dared to stand in front of him during a gunfight, except Gagarin, because he had a natural trust in Mel which was like a sixth sense.
Cat fired with such dedication and concentration he didn’t realize his tongue was sticking out; he was trying his best, putting everything into it.
Gigit fired well, with absolute precision, without hurrying; he would take aim carefully, fire two or three shots, pause, then calmly take aim again.
Besa fired like the gunfighters of the Wild West, holding his guns at hip level and shooting with the regularity of a clock; he didn’t hit very much but he looked impressive.
I fired without thinking too much about it, adopting my usual Macedonian technique. I didn’t take aim, I fired at where I knew the guys were, and watched their dying convulsions.
Suddenly one of them opened a door and started running desperately towards the warehouse, then dashed down a corrugated iron tunnel, a narrow passage through which the daylight filtered, a kind of lighted street in the darkness. He ran with such energy that we stopped, rooted to the spot.
Mel fired a few shots after him but didn’t hit him. Then Gagarin went over to an Armenian boy, a teenager, who was holding a Kalashnikov in his hands, and asked him if he could borrow his rifle ‘for a second’. The boy, clearly shocked by what he had seen, passed him his Kalashnikov, and I noticed his hand was shaking.
Gagarin put the rifle to his shoulder and fired a long burst in the direction of the fugitive. The guy had already covered some thirty metres when the bullets hit him. Then Gagarin set off towards him, walking as if he were out for a stroll in the park. When he got close he fired another burst at the body lying on its back on the ground, which gave another twitch and then lay still.
Gagarin grabbed him by one foot and dragged him over to the car, putting him next to the other two bodies which had been there since the beginning of the massacre.
In the car there were four corpses disfigured by wounds. The four-by-four was riddled with holes and the air was slowly hissing out of one tyre. There was blood everywhere: splashes, pools spreading out on the ground to a radius of five metres, drips that fell from the car onto the floor, mingling with the petrol and becoming rivulets which ran towards us, under our feet.
There was total silence; none of those present said anything; everyone stood motionless, looking at what was left of those men.