‘You don’t seem to understand what will happen to you,’ says the colonel. You discover he’s a colonel when an officer sticks his head round the door and addresses him by rank. ‘Have you seen yourself in the mirror? Do you have any idea what you look like? Would you like a mirror?’ You nod. ‘Show him a mirror,’ he says to the praporshchik.
‘Maybe not… He might not be able to take it,’ the praporshchik replies.
‘Actually, I would like to look at myself,’ you say, and they lead you to a mirror. From the mirror someone stares back at you. But it is clearly not a human. And it is certainly not you. There’s a head swollen up to several times its size. Eyes that have no whites at all. Instead there are bloodied orbits with unnaturally narrow pupils peering out from their depths. Hair matted with blood from the numerous wounds and abrasions. The lower lip is almost split in two. Violet rings under the eyes. The lips are caked in blood. No, this freak does indeed have your eyes. Rather, the expression in the eyes is yours. Now you understand the stunned response of the officer who caught sight of you at breakfast as you sat apart from the other prisoners. You realize why he couldn’t tear his eyes from you for several minutes in some sort of speechless stupor. And you understand why the wounded young Chechen they brought in during the night was asking for pardon: ‘For the love of God, forgive me my weakness. I didn’t realize the state you were in while I was groaning. I won’t groan any more, please forgive me!’ he said to you in the morning, as though he were in some way guilty before you. Meanwhile, the officer and the praporshchik wait for you to react. You are silent for several moments.
‘Hmm! If only our girls could see me now, how they’d laugh…’ you say quite sincerely, suddenly imagining yourself like this in your former life. The colonel’s face turns white as chalk, and in a quiet voice he says to the praporshchik, ‘Well, he has a keen sense of humour. He knows how to laugh at himself,’ and he silently leaves.
Your hands are tied back up and you’re blindfolded; then they set to work on you. The colonel was speaking the truth: they haven’t yet put you through the full treatment. They tighten a noose around your neck, drawing it tighter and tighter until your tongue hangs out. Then they release it. They tighten it again… And they repeat this over and over. They lift your bound wrists above your head and suspend you by them. You feel as if your wrists are about to drop off. And you wait like that… At least if they dropped off the pain would subside a bit. You wish they would hurry up and drop off. Meanwhile, you barely notice the blows raining down on you. All your sensation is focused on your wrists. But these are professionals at work. They hold you in this pose fairly briefly. For just as long as is needed. To let you know what it would be like to stay that way a bit longer. They take great pleasure in vividly describing the effects of a similar torture technique which they call ‘the rack’. They pull your hands behind your back and tie them back up again. ‘Want to fly?’ they jest. And again they hang you, but this time by your arms trussed behind your back. They slip nooses over your ankles and pull your legs apart until your hip bone clicks. And then they beat you. They beat you with the utmost skill. And they laugh: ‘Look, you’re a swallow. All you need now is to take to the air. But only if we let you. And one limb at a time.’ This time they hold you a bit longer. Now you are suspended by your arms and legs and they can torture you for longer. But they measure out the time as precisely as jewellers measuring gold. If you can have professionals in such a craft, then these are true professionals.
Today the ‘interrogation’ hasn’t gone on for long – just a few hours. By lunchtime they are bored and you’re taken back to the cellar. But almost at once they bring you out for lunch. And once again the doctor comes for you. He examines your wounds and looks pleased. ‘They’re healing nicely. You don’t drink or smoke, do you? Well, that’s why they’re healing so well. I specially left your ear, the “shoulder straps” and the other wounds untreated. I wanted to watch what your foot would do. It’s a perforating wound, and that’s good, but the bullet ricocheted and shattered the toe bone, so there was a danger of gangrene. But now I can see what a strong constitution you have. The foot will heal, only you need to keep it away from the damp,’ he says as he tends to your wounds. When he has changed the bandage, you get up to leave but he stops you. ‘Sit here for a bit, get some rest. You can’t eat barley, well then, try some salad or tinned meat.’ But you cannot eat those either. So he makes you some strong, very sweet tea. ‘There’s glucose in the sugar, it will keep you from wasting away.’ For the next five days you’ll be unable to eat anything, and throughout this period the doctor will give you sweet tea to drink, a glass a day, saving you from the ravages of hunger. His officer friends come in. And seeing your condition, they try to cheer you up with jokes and demonstrations of hand-to-hand combat moves. You look upon all this with detached tranquillity. If people knew they didn’t have long to live, surely they would be so much more dignified. The doctor doesn’t tell you his name. But you know that he’s Ukrainian, he has a small house on the shore of the Black Sea and he’s got six months left before he retires. For the rest of your life you’ll nurture gratitude in your heart towards this man who did so much for you.
8
You were cruelly mistaken in thinking you had crawled to the top of your mountain. You’d thought this hell could not get any crueller. How wrong you were. Pain can be still more intense. Hell can be still more ferocious. The morning is fresh and sunny. You are led out of the cellar and, blindfolded as usual, you are taken for a ‘talk’. The colonel will be ‘talking’ with you. Today he is livid. Raising his voice almost to a shout, he says, ‘We’ve received intelligence about you from our people. You’re a spy working for Dudayev! And you’ve been leading us by the nose pretending you’re a journalist! If you aren’t an agent, then why the hell did you look at our aerial photos and not show us anything?’ He is referring to the time you asked them to show you first a map, then some aerial photographs, and after looking at them, you failed to show them the rebel base, claiming that you couldn’t make anything out.
‘Our source insists we mustn’t believe a word you say. He says you’re trying to infiltrate our intelligence. You’ve been given the task of being captured so you can infiltrate us? Is that right? Answer, you bastard!’ the colonel shouts. ‘You won’t get out of here alive, I promise! Not a hope in hell! We’ll release your friend, but not you. You won’t see trial! Blindfold him and take him to be shot!’ he orders. They blindfold you and lead you away.
‘Don’t worry, it won’t hurt. One “bang” and you’re dead,’ a soldier mockingly comforts you. You say nothing. What use are words, however brave and grandiloquent? And you don’t even know what words would befit the occasion. They lead you somewhere and place you standing. From behind you hear the clicks of rifles being cocked. But suddenly there’s a command:
‘Wait, stop! We still have some questions for him. Bring him over!’ And once again you are led away.
‘So you’re in luck, arsehole! But it won’t last long. You can go on living just a little bit longer. And then you’ll be winging your way to heaven… Promised you plenty of houris in paradise, have they? But here’s the downer: you’ll be arriving there one body part at a time!’ he says, beating you relentlessly. They bring you to a room and sit you on a chair. An unseen person sitting opposite you begins the interrogation.