Dima has visitors. Two men in sharp suits, not the cheap acrylic type worn by the investigators at the local FSB headquarters in town.
They’re standing in the middle of his cell, examining the contents of his shelves and the bags of food piled up in the corner, at the peeling green paint and the small barred window. Dima is watching them from his bunk. He doesn’t know who they are, but he’s been in jail long enough to know they’re trouble. Thirty seconds ago they opened the door and walked in unannounced. No greetings and no orders. Instead they merely closed the cell door and each took a step forward then put their hands on their hips.
Both guys are in their mid to late thirties. One is spindly thin. He has greasy hair that’s parted in the middle and sticks to his forehead, small red shaving spots speckle his neck, two deep crevices cut their way from his nostrils to his jaw, above which stand two bony cheeks that collapse into his mouth. Surrounding his thin lips are a few wispy whiskers – a failed attempt at a goatee beard, perhaps? He looks a little like a giant emaciated gerbil. The other guy is carrying some weight, sandpaper stubble, a thick helmet of brown hair that’s cut along a savagely straight fringe.
The men ignore the Russian prisoners and walk over to Dima’s bed. Gerbil kicks the leg of the bunk. It makes a metallic rattle.
‘Dimitri Litvinov?’
Dima sits up. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Come with us, please.’
Dima rubs his greying beard and eyes the men suspiciously. Then he swings his legs over and jumps down.
He’s taken from his cell to a small room containing a desk, three chairs and a huge portrait of Putin. One of the men locks the door, Dima is told to take a seat. The men sit opposite him. Dima’s heart is beating fast now. They’re quite obviously senior FSB officers, probably up from St Petersburg. Today has already seen a march in Moscow demanding the release of political prisoners. Twenty thousand attended – a huge number for a protest in Russia, where demonstrators can be plucked off the street and thrown in jail by a political police force empowered to act with impunity in defence of the President’s agenda. One of the columns on the march was dedicated to imprisoned environmentalists, with the focus on the Arctic 30. There was a fleeting, dismissive reference to the protest on the TV news. Is this what the men want to talk about?
Gerbil crosses his legs, explores the inside of his mouth with his tongue, lifts an eyebrow in a way that says, Well, here we are then.
‘How are you guys doing?’ says Dima nervously.
Gerbil nods slowly. ‘Good, Dimitri, good. How are you?’
‘I’ve been better.’
‘Yeeees, I can imagine.’ The man leans forward, sniffs, meshes his fingers together to form a two-handed fist. ‘Listen, now the piracy charge has been dropped we thought it was time we started talking. You and us.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s getting serious now, Dimitri. We’re in the end game. The hooligan charge is going to stick, you’re looking at seven years, you know that. So we’d really like to hear from you, this time without any protocol’ – he means Article 51 of the constitution, the right to silence – ‘and it would be really good if you gave us some answers. To the questions, I mean. You know, about what happened out there.’ He waves a hand in the air. ‘We know most of it anyway, but just to get it confirmed. It’s your only chance of skirting that rap.’
‘Okaaay.’ Dima draws a deep breath. ‘And who are you, exactly?’
The man clears his throat. ‘Well…’ He smiles. ‘We’re the competent authorities.’
‘The competent authorities?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And what is your field of competence, exactly?’
His bottom lip protrudes for a moment as he shrugs. ‘This.’
‘And… what is this?’
‘Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘We’re the competent authorities.’
‘You already said that.’
‘Dimitri, please, come now, stop messing around, stop playing these…’ his face creases, he touches his nose ‘… these childish games. Let’s just get the questions answered, okay? Better for everyone.’
‘I’m perfectly willing to answer any questions from the investigators.’
‘Ah, good.’
‘With my lawyer present of course.’
‘Aaaaah, the lawyers.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Come come, don’t you understand what these lawyers are after? They want to keep you in prison for as long as possible, you know that, Dimitri. Paid by the hour. Making a lot of money.’ Gerbil taps the edge of the table with a finger. ‘How much do you make, Dimitri? At Greenpeace?’
‘It’s not about the money.’
‘Sure.’ He nods with faux sincerity. ‘Sure it’s not.’
‘Really.’
‘Well I’ll tell you, they make a lot more money than you do, those lawyers you’ve hired. A lot more. They really don’t want to get you guys out, not while they’re raking it in. Nooooo. So look, let’s forget about the lawyers for a moment and let’s talk about you, about what’s in your interests. We can make your stay here much more comfortable, a lot more comfortable than it is now. And all you have to do is answer our questions.’ He looks away. ‘It’s just for background anyway.’
‘My stay in prison is perfectly comfortable already, thank you.’
‘Well, you know, it could be much worse. Think about that, Dimitri.’
Gerbil pushes the chair back and stands up. His colleague does the same.
‘That’s it?’ Dima asks.
‘For now.’
The other cop unlocks the door. Gerbil tugs Dima’s arm and leads him out. Putin looks down, silent, inscrutable.
TWENTY-ONE
Dima is lying on his bunk, smoking a cigarette, running over what happened back there. Is he being singled out for special treatment? Is he going down for years while everyone else gets released? Nobody else is getting this shit, or if they are then they’re not talking about it on the road. For hours Dima’s been reconstructing the conversation with the competent authorities, but he can’t work out what it means, and now he’s exhausted.
He sucks on the butt of his cigarette, crushes it against the inside of a tin can and lights up another.
Dima Litvinov never thought he’d become a real smoker, but honestly, there’s no point not smoking in here. Vitaly and Alexei both smoke strong Russian cigarettes all day long and a thick fog hangs in the cell whenever somebody is awake. Sometimes Dima can barely see the opposite wall. Just by being in here he inhales as much smoke as he’d ever get from actually smoking himself. So sometime around the second week he decided he might as well get some pleasure from it. He took up cigarettes.
They come free on the doroga, all you do is send a note out and the kotlovaya will arrange for a packet to be sent your way. And once he started, he realised there was no point in giving up. He could have quit but he’d still suffer the same harm to his health, and without getting any of the pleasure. Cigarettes give a rhythm to the day. They break the boredom. The only way it would be worthwhile quitting smoking in this cell is if he could get the other two to quit as well, but there’s no chance of them giving up because the rest of the cell is always smoking.