13
There is one more aspect to the filter camp that poses a very real danger. Something more dreadful than any torture or beating. It is depression. Grim and gloomy, consuming you from within slowly and steadily like a venomous man-eating worm, the depression is horrific. It surrounds you on all sides like some stinking green swamp sludge, seeping into your being, into your heart and soul, eating you up. It drives you to the edge of the precipice of loneliness, beyond which lies nothing. Just endless icy loneliness. Depression paints in your mind’s eye vivid images from your past – generally your happiest moments – to remind you that you’ll never again experience such times. From now on you’ll experience nothing at all. Neither life nor death. You’ll have no soul, no body. Time will cease to exist; its endlessness and its fast flight are gone. All that exists is you. Like some vegetable life form. And you are completely at their mercy. You are beyond life, beyond death. But along comes depression with an alternative. A horrible alternative. It graciously offers you the chance to break out of the magic circle to which your terrible fate has sentenced you. Depression has come to your rescue; it shows you the path from which you can leap to eternity. Single-handedly, of your own volition. And here begins your tightrope journey across the precipice. Your dance between reason and insanity. Your desperate fight against the annihilator of reason for control of your mind. If you win this fight, you will stay human; even if you die, you’ll die a human. But if you lose, you’ll become nobody, even if you survive, you’ll be nobody. Just another madman, with no life, no existence even – just an endless duration in wretchedness. But depression is offering you an alternative: death. Why not go to meet your death rather than wait for it to come and find you? In any case you are doomed. You have no chance of surviving. But if you go to meet your death… It takes a strong, brave person to do that. And surely you’re not a weakling, are you? This alternative brings with it a whole range of options, the best being to attack the guards. They’ll be only too glad to shoot you down. And at this point the question arises, Who granted you the right to end your life? Did God grant it? No. Did you grant it to yourself? Who are you to do such a thing? You’re nobody. Nothing. Zero. Complete trash, as they like to remind you on a daily basis. Yet you are still a warrior. You are still at war. And this is your battle: a gruelling battle against yourself. Against your own weakness, your own cowardice, your own insignificance. And it is a battle you must win. And you do indeed win. Through long conversations with God. He will understand you – He’s God, after all. You are learning to listen to your soul. You listen carefully to the voice in your blood. With a savage ferocity you rip away the cobweb of memories in which depression has entangled you and blot out all the idyllic images. In their place you paint ugly abstractionist pictures of your past. You look towards a future that you do not have. But what about rage? That impotent rage in your enemies’ eyes is some kind of future, is it not? You have won against them. That must be the reason you could forgive them – you’ve already won against them. Or maybe you’ve just had very good luck… But do you really want to see their eyes glinting with the sweetness of victory rather than with impotent rage? Do you want to hand them victory over your soul? No. But you’re no hero. You’re just like plenty of other men – even among the enemy there are plenty just like you. Yet at the same time you are unique. You have fought your battle alone and you’ve been tremendously lucky. The realization dawns on you that you’ve won the struggle against the annihilator of reason. You’ve made it across the tightrope over the precipice. And the black monster of depression has lost its power over you.
14
Another practice that was common in the filter camp was the recruitment of prisoners as collaborators. This system had been developed to perfection in Soviet times and it continued to work smoothly now. People in the know, who had themselves worked a long time in the system, told me that no prisoner ever left the camp without signing an agreement to collaborate with the authorities. They told me the only time an exception was made was when they were exchanging prisoners for captured Russian soldiers, as they were to do with me and my guide. Yet I can disclose that we too were unable to escape that honour. My companion refused to put his signature to the form. He explained that before his detention in the filter camp he’d participated in the Russian-Chechen negotiations on the prevention of civilian deaths in the villages. The forthcoming prisoner exchange and the fact that he was telling the truth – he really had participated a few times in these negotiations, as was confirmed by their sources – meant they left him alone. But a similar approach was unlikely to work for me, bearing in mind my profession and the intelligence they had on me from their sources. So I needed to come up with something better. I knew that sooner or later they’d be making me a similar offer and I agonized over all the possible answers I might give. Needless to say, I wouldn’t have dreamt of signing one of their forms. Our aims were too incompatible. And so, during one of our ‘talks’, the polite FSB officer said, ‘If we were to release you, do you think you could carry on working as a journalist among the rebels?’
‘Well, yes, of course. That’s what I was doing before I came here.’
‘But wouldn’t they treat you with suspicion?’
‘Why should they? No, it’s out of the question. They’d have no reason to. I’m just a journalist, after all. I’m not interested in their military secrets, I never go asking too many questions. You have to know how to work with the fighters if you want to earn their trust. And I know how to work with them, that’s why we’ve never had any misunderstandings.’
‘That’s good. And do you think you could work at persuading them to end the war? Explain to them just how pointless and futile the resistance is? Show them that Russia isn’t really at war with them, she’s not at war with the Chechen people; she’s at war with a small group of criminals who’ve betrayed both Russia and the Chechen people. Tell them that the Russian Federation guarantees an amnesty for everyone who hands over their weapons, and we’ll even pay them money for their weapons. We do realize that the vast majority of them are just ordinary guys who want to defend their homeland. That’s their right, their duty even, you could say. But are they defending their homeland from the right people? We can offer the constitution, law and order instead of anarchy. We can offer social security, payment of pensions, instead of the enrichment of a small clique of criminals. We’ll guarantee them employment, with salaries paid regularly. Now you, as an educated man, with a professional interest in politics, someone who has clout among the rebels and has won their trust, you could help bring about peace. The sooner we have peace in this place, the more lives we can save.’