Free Fall (40 page)

Back at home, trying to calm down, I turned on the television, but all the news I heard seemed like a joke to me: in some cellar four Azerbaijanis had mixed tap water with a little alcohol and sold it as vodka, for the price of a stabbing during a fight in a nightclub car park; the former attorney general had been filmed doing drugs and having sex with an underage prostitute, later claiming that it was just an evening of fun, his civic right; politicians made lots of promises, then would get into ridiculous arguments that amounted to ‘who's the more disgusting', while on another channel the President spoke like a genuine criminal, openly threatening anyone who got in his way but at the same time so charismatic and reasonable that even I wanted to applaud his speeches . . .

When I saw a news feature about a group of our soldiers who had recently died in a battle in the mountains during a terrorist operation in Chechnya, I unthinkingly grabbed a clock and hurled it at the television, cracking the screen. The piece dedicated to our fallen soldiers had come on after two other stories: one on breeding pigs in southern Russia; the other on some young models who had won international beauty pageants and were ready to take on
the world, thus making an enormous contribution to the cause of Mother Russia.

I sat there in front of the broken television all night, thinking of how, like sheep to the slaughter, we had obediently gone to sacrifice our lives in the name of an ideal that the rest of the country cared nothing about. By the time I got up from the chair it was already morning, and something that an Arab prisoner once told me kept going through my head: ‘Our society doesn't deserve all the effort we're putting into this war.' Only at that moment did I comprehend how right he was, this person, this man whom I had continued to call an enemy.

In the subsequent days I wandered around the city, and I saw some absurd scenes. On the streets, groups of police officers, out of their minds on drugs or alcohol – people who were so ignorant they were incapable of reading the information on the passports of the people they stopped – vented their frustrations by beating up anyone that came within range. Even the conversations on the bus scared me – the night before, on a reality show, one of those tarts who enjoy being thrown in a house with a bunch of other idiots had pulled down her pants on live TV, showing the whole country her privates. Some young women sitting next to me were debating whether this girl waxed or not . . . Nowhere was spared from this lunacy. Even in church, at the door, the first thing they offered you was the chance to donate some money, as if your
relationship with God could be condensed into some sort of restaurant menu, just like at a fast food establishment, the church had become a fast faith establishment: ‘Today only, a menu fit for a saint on his way to Heaven. Try it!' Even love for God had become a privilege . . .

With every molecule in my body I could feel the hypocrisy of peace, a forced peace, taken to the limit of human possibility; a contest whose prize was the right to get bitten by one of those many chimeras. I had better keep to myself.

Living in a house once again,
my
house, I decided that the light coming through the windows bothered me, so I covered them up with blankets.

I needed to hold a weapon in my hands; I felt a physical lack, as though I couldn't breathe properly. I took an AK out of a hiding spot – it had come directly from Chechnya, thanks to some of my driver friends in the army.

At night I couldn't fall asleep. I stuffed myself with pills and alcohol, trying to get at least a few hours' rest, but it was futile. After a month of insomnia, I realised what was wrong with my house: silence. There was too much silence, and I wasn't used to it anymore. So I turned the television up as loud as it could go, and I fell into a sort of trance, a dark, empty space that erased everything, for four or five hours . . . Every time I woke up I had cold sweat on my face and I felt as though I were in imminent
danger, as though I were sitting on a box of explosives about to blow up.

During that period it was very hot and I often went around the house naked, with a Kalashnikov in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other; I wandered the rooms without any particular purpose, just to keep moving. Once in a while I'd sing a song or talk out loud, in an effort not to feel so alone. At night I would gaze out of the window. Turning off the light and aiming my rifle at the nearby houses, I would observe people; frame them in my sight and then shoot, pulling the trigger of my unloaded weapon. This gesture – shooting at real people with a real weapon, even if just in pretence – brought me some serenity and peace, and led me onto the right track. I was able to put my thoughts in order, just as some people relax by doing crossword puzzles.

I had shaved off my beard but grown sideburns, even though seeing my face clean-shaven had a negative effect – a stranger staring back at me from the mirror.

I had a hard time getting reaccustomed to having hot water, being clean – even eating fresh food. Every morning my grandmother came over and prepared the whole day's worth of food for me, and I would give her a hand in the kitchen. We talked a little, but I got tired very easily, and I would get headaches, as if I were doing work that took great concentration. Then my grandmother would say goodbye, and leave me by myself. The rest of my family was very good to me, very understanding, but I didn't feel like seeing anyone.

And this was how I spent my days, shuffling back and
forth in my apartment, in the dark, with the TV turned all the way up, naked as the day I was born, my Kalashnikov on my arm and my face shorn and sad. I thought of the war, imagined what was happening to my team at that moment, and every one of those thoughts triggered a fit of rage against myself – it was as if by accepting my discharge papers I had betrayed my comrades.

One afternoon I went out on the river. I took my boat and pushed off towards the area where the most affluent residents had their second homes. I took up a position in the woods nearby and started aiming at their flowerpots with my rifle. I went on like that for a few days. Before sundown, I would wipe out the flowerpots at the mansions of the wealthy. It made me feel good.

The following week the weather was bad; it was a good opportunity to go back out in the city. I put on a cap with a brim and some sunglasses so I wouldn't be recognised – at the time it bothered me to run into old friends. I would pass by people I knew, but usually they seemed to not even see me. Maybe I had changed too much. Once at the market I saw an old friend of mine; when we were teenagers we thought we were in love. She was right in front of me, and I took a step forward to say hello, but she bolted, pushing me away cruelly, with a look of anger on her face. I was taken aback by the malice I had seen in her eyes.

Walking through my city, I stopped at an old shop with
a wide window display, which reflected everything like a mirror. When I was a little boy, I often passed by that shop, because I liked the way my reflection would follow me as I walked. A thousand times, growing up, I stood there frozen as if under a spell, studying the details of real life reflected in that window; it was nice to observe things in reverse, as though I wasn't really able to perceive their true character when I saw them in their actual dimension. I even went to the shop at night. I would sit down in front of the window and watch the reflection of the stars at the top. They seemed so close it took my breath away.

And now there I was again, at that window. I looked at myself and in just a few seconds I knew that I was going crazy. I don't know how it happened, but suddenly my thoughts became fluid and clear – there was no longer anything stopping them, no obstacles. I observed how I was dressed and I reflected on how I had spent the last few months, as if before, as I was living my life, I hadn't been able to think. I had the impression that someone had stolen time from me, manipulated my life and reduced me to a zombie. An unpleasant sensation, but powerful and liberating, and it pushed me to start over again . . .

At the end of that week I was on the train. I was going to my grandfather Nikolay's home in Siberia. I had a backpack filled with heavy clothes, along with the essential equipment for the woods: a rifle and ammunition.

As the train rattled along, the immense landscapes of Russia flashed by. I imagined the life that awaited me in the forest: my grandfather's house on the lake, the smell
of the wood, the purr of the lazy cat, a pack of dogs who looked like wolves, the dry trees to cut down, their logs stored in the woodshed in preparation for the winter; the days of hunting and walks in the
taiga
, the game prepared by Grandfather, the evening chats in front of the wood stove fire, the sauna full of boiling steam and the sharp scent that burned your lungs inside, like fire . . .

The closer I got to Siberia, the more I felt like I was a part of the land. It was as if it were calling out to welcome me, to help me get past all my troubles, to give me strength. I knew that I was going home, to the place where I belonged and where I would be able to find peace.

It was a reawakening, a moment of connection with the real that makes you want to get out of bed, to do something with your day, to live.

Like jumping out of an airplane in flight, and savouring the free fall before you open the parachute.

_______________

*
A common dish from the Caucasus, similar to kebab – this was a way of referring to traitors.

I found out from some friends in the army that Captain Nosov and Moscow fell in battle – a few months after my discharge – in a mountain area between Chechnya and Dagestan. They had gone on reconnaissance and found themselves surrounded by a large group of terrorists.

The infantry night explorers who went to recover the dead that day said that Nosov's and Moscow's bodies had been mined. Evidently one of the two, before he died, hadn't wanted to give the enemy the chance to commit dishonourable acts on their remains.

I visited their grave, in the military cemetery of the city of M—. According to army tradition, friends who have fallen together are buried together.

Shoe was wounded, but not seriously, a few months after my discharge. Nobody knows how, but he was able to get into the secret service and over time has climbed the ladder in the FSB. Our paths have crossed many times; we have remained good friends.

Zenith decided to stay on contract. I didn't know much about his whereabouts; once in a while I would hear some story from mutual friends in the army who had run into him during a mission. He also went into the counter-terrorist wing of the FSB, the secret service.

Last spring, as I was beginning to write this book, I found out that he was killed during a counter-terrorist
operation in a small town in Dagestan. Nobody could tell me anything about his death, only the place where he was buried.

I lost track of Deer. Some say that after getting discharged he went to live in southern Siberia, where he got married and works in the forest service.

Spoon is still part of the saboteur unit today. He was wounded twice, earned a few medals and, as far as I've been told, provoked the ire of a powerful general after courting his young wife.

A few years ago I came across him by chance while surfing on the internet, on a recorded television show about the war in Chechnya – he recounted the details of one of our missions. It struck me that he was losing his hair; he was almost bald. Then I realised that we were exactly alike.