‘The number of times I’ve tried to explain. You wouldn’t understand it, anyway,’ I said wearily.
‘I will understand. Try to explain it to me.’
And here I broke down and began speaking with enormous emotion about my desire ‘to see everything with my own eyes and write a book about it’. The whole time he looked me intently in the eye. The other officer jumped to his feet and said, ‘We’re not interested in your fantasies. Just tell us the truth!’ delivering a blow to my head. But the officer who asked the question stopped him from planting a second one.
‘What do you want to hear from me? This is the only truth I know,’ I told him.
‘I believe you. You’re a man burning with belief. My name’s Nikolay,’ he introduced himself, ‘and I promise you: in this filter camp no one will lay a finger on you again. If you don’t object, I’d like to have more contact with you. I’m interested in your views of the situation. It won’t be an interrogation. We’ll simply discuss things.’
At this point we were alone in the room, but that didn’t change anything. I realized that these discussions would simply mean a new form of interrogation, but I didn’t have much choice, in fact I had none at all. If we didn’t have ‘discussions’, then we’d probably be having ‘interrogations’, and I was truly sick of them, so I said, ‘I’d find it very interesting to discuss things. It could help me with my book.’
We were both well-mannered enough to keep a discrete silence about the fact that I stood little chance of writing any book, and he walked me back to the cell.
Nikolay kept his word: from that moment on nobody in the filter camp touched me. There was another officer, though – the one that hit me during the interrogation – who for some reason developed a ferocious hatred of me and did whatever he could to make my life even more miserable. But he concentrated his efforts on psychological torment. And, who knows, perhaps he was just playing the part of ‘bad cop’. Nikolay, though, was the complete reverse: he always showed a sense of delicacy, and in our subsequent talks he never acted shabbily, nor did he try to catch me out with words or ask me trick questions. And our talks were interesting. It turned out he’d studied for a teaching degree and had a decent knowledge of world literature. Of course, I was aware of the technique of bonding with your subject by observing his habits, hobbies and interests. And so I was careful not to lower my guard. But in this case Nikolay did not have to change himself to fit in with his subject: he really was well-educated and knew about various trends in world literature. Mostly we talked about literature, but we would also discuss politics, both world and domestic. Of course, he would attempt to defend Moscow’s policies and find justifications for the war in Chechnya; I would then counter with an argument no less compelling. At times our discussions made a scene worthy of some crazy artist. The filthy, beaten, stubbly prisoner, thin as a skeleton, and the clean-shaven pink-cheeked officer in his neat uniform sitting on old chairs at a rickety table in a room with scruffy walls, discussing world literature and politics animatedly, emotionally even, as if reaching a consensus between them might solve all the world’s problems.
There was one other person who came for ‘talks’. He wore a military uniform without rank insignia and he was notable for his exceptional politeness. His habitual and rather charming smile might have been thought sincere if it weren’t for a sobering chill in the pit of my stomach, a telltale warning signal from my intuition. This time I wasn’t about to ignore such a signaclass="underline" I had paid far too dearly for ignoring it just the once. So while outwardly trying to appear calm and even rather friendly, I carefully watched my words. He also talked more generally about the Chechen war, about journalism and freedom of speech, but he did not have that fire which allowed Nikolay to argue heatedly in defence of his own views, while sometimes grudgingly conceding the points I made. Well, of course, he too would agree with me, only he’d agree with almost everything I said. And it was his readiness to agree with everything, his über-politeness, his knowledge of the topics in our discussions – except, of course, for the military and political – that felt learnt by rote, and this forced me to stay in constant danger mode. Eventually he revealed himself as an officer of the recently renamed FSB – until April 1995 known as the FSK, the Federal Counter-intelligence Service – and so my grounds for alarm were borne out.
A few days after my arrival, a noteworthy event occurred. The Red Cross visited the camp. They interviewed all the detainees privately and took letters for loved ones from those who wished to write them. They asked about the conditions in the camp – the torture, the food and so on; then they proposed that we each write a letter which they guaranteed to deliver to any address. They visited our cell first. After briefly outlining what they could do, they suggested we talk to them and write a letter to a loved one. They were particularly keen to encourage me; they must have been disturbed by my appearance. I turned them down, as I believed there was no way I’d ever get out of there alive, so why bother with letters. A letter would only bring more heartache to a loved one. A guy from our cell agreed to talk and they went off with him. Once they’d talked to the inmates of all the cells, the Red Cross workers returned to our cell and addressed me again.
‘Young man, perhaps you’ll decide to talk to us?’
‘I have nothing to say to you,’ I answered.
‘Then maybe you’d like to write someone a letter?’
‘I don’t have anyone to write to… There’s no point.’
‘Oh, go on, write a letter for them,’ the guard interrupted. ‘What’s the problem in scribbling a few lines? They won’t leave you in peace…’
‘All right,’ I complied. ‘Where do we go?’
We went to an empty cell with a table and two chairs. A Red Cross worker who introduced himself as George gave me some paper and a pen and asked me to start writing. At this point the door swung open and my friend the polite FSB officer entered, accompanied by the guard. Not a trace of his politeness remained.
‘You can only talk with this detainee in our presence,’ he said.
‘But we have an arrangement that we can talk to all the prisoners in private!’ George objected. ‘Up till now this arrangement has always been observed. What’s the problem?’
‘The arrangement does not apply to this person. Either speak to him in our presence or we take him away,’ the officer snapped.
George began answering indignantly but I broke in: ‘George, please, calm down. There’s nothing I’d say in private that I wouldn’t say in front of them. It’s all OK…’
It didn’t even enter my head to complain about the detention conditions. In the first place, nobody’s life had ever been made any easier by lodging complaints, and secondly, once I’d complained, they would leave, whereas I had to stay. Besides, in my situation, where each day of life felt more like an aberration than a logical consequence, it would have been absurd to complain about some ‘conditions of custody’ or other. After all, there was nothing holding me to this world, I’d settled my account with it. So my dialogue with George was rather odd.
‘Do you think you’re being held under acceptable conditions?’ he asked, once he’d taken the letter for my relatives.