Siberian Education Page 4

  ‘The only thing a worthy criminal takes from the cops is a beating, and even that he gives back, when the right moment comes.’

  So, thanks to the sudden increase in my authority among my friends, I had begun to do a bit of advertising for the upbringing and education I’d received from Grandfather Kuzya. He was delighted, because this enabled him to influence all of us. And now we boys of the Low River district became known as ‘Siberian Education’ – a name that had been given to the Siberians in exile because of their loyalty to the criminal traditions and their extremely conservative spirit.

  In our town every criminal community, especially if it was made up of young people, distinguished itself from the others by its clothes or how its members wore them. They also used symbols, which immediately identified you as belonging to a specific gang, district or national group. Many communities used to mark out their territory with drawings or slogans, but our elders had always forbidden us to write or draw anything on the walls, because they said it was shameful and ill-mannered. Grandfather Kuzya had once explained to me that our criminal community had no need to affirm its presence in any way: it simply existed, and people knew that, not because they saw graffiti on the walls of their homes, but because they felt our presence, and were sure they could always count on the help and understanding of us criminals. The same went for an individual criminal: even if he were a legendary character, he should behave as the humblest of all.

  In other districts it was completely different. The members of the gangs of Centre wore gold pendants of their own design. For example, members of the gang led by a young criminal nicknamed ‘Pirate’, who had built up a kind of personality cult around himself, distinguished themselves by wearing a pendant bearing the skull and crossbones of a pirates’ flag. Another gang, from the Railway district, made all its members wear black, to emphasize their loyalty to the Black Seed caste. The Ukrainians of the Balka district, on the other hand, dressed in the American style, or more often like African-Americans. They sang songs which seemed meaningless, and they drew strange things all over the place with spray-cans. One of them had once drawn something in the Bank district on the wall of an elder, a former prisoner, and in revenge a young criminal, who was a neighbour of the old man, had shot him.

  I remember commenting on this to Grandfather Kuzya. I said that in my opinion killing was unjust. You could demand compensation for the insult and the nuisance, and then you could always beat the guy up – a good thrashing will usually get a bit of sense into a guy’s head. But Grandfather didn’t agree with me and said I was too humane – too humane and too young. He explained to me that when boys went down a wrong road and wouldn’t listen to their elders, in most cases they harmed themselves and those around them. The Ukrainian boys were putting at risk many youngsters of other districts, who would imitate them, because being ill-mannered was always easier and more attractive than following the road of good manners. Therefore it was necessary to treat them with cruelty and absolute severity, to make everyone understand where the path of disobedience to the traditions could lead. He added:

  ‘Anyway, why do they pretend to be American blacks and not, say, North Koreans or Palestinians? I’ll tell you why: this is filth that comes from the devil, through the television, the cinema, the newspapers and all the trash that a worthy and honest person never touches… America is a cursed, godforsaken country, and everything that emanates from it must be ignored. If these fools play at being Americans, soon they’ll be whooping like monkeys instead of talking…’

  Grandfather Kuzya hated everything American because, like all Siberian criminals, he opposed what represented power in the world. If he heard anyone talk about people who had fled to America, of many Jews who had made a mass exodus from the USSR in the 1980s, he would say in amazement:

  ‘Why on earth does everyone go to America, saying they seek freedom? Our ancestors took refuge in the woods, in Siberia, they didn’t go to America. And besides, why flee from the Soviet regime, only to end up in the American one? It would be like a bird that had escaped from its cage going voluntarily to live in another cage…’

  For these reasons, in Low River it was forbidden to use anything American. The American cars which circulated freely all over town couldn’t enter our district, and items of clothing, domestic appliances and all other objects that were ‘made in the USA’ were banned. For me personally this rule was rather painful, since I was very keen on jeans but I couldn’t wear them. I secretly listened to American music – I liked blues, rock and heavy metal, but I was taking a big risk in keeping the records and cassettes in the house. And when my father carried out an inspection of my hiding places and finally found them, all hell would break loose. He would beat me and make me break all the records with my own hands in front of him and my grandfather, and then every evening for a week I would be made to play Russian tunes on the accordion for an hour and sing Russian folk or criminal songs.

  I wasn’t attracted by American politics, only by the music and by the books of some writers. Once, choosing the right moment, I tried to explain this to Grandfather Kuzya. I hoped that he would be able to intercede and give me permission to listen to the music and read American books without having to hide from my family. He looked at me as if I had betrayed him and said:

  ‘Son, do you know why when there’s an outbreak of the plague people burn everything that belonged to the victims?’

  I shook my head. But I already imagined where this was leading.

  He gave a sad sigh and concluded:

  ‘The contagion, Nikolay, the contagion.’

  And so, since everything American was forbidden, just as it was forbidden to flaunt wealth and power through material things, the people of our district dressed very humbly. We boys were in a terrible state as far as clothing was concerned, but we were proud of it. We wore like trophies our fathers’ or elder brothers’ old shoes, and their unfashionable clothes, which were meant to emphasize Siberian humility and simplicity.

  We could have enjoyed life to the full. We were an ancient and very wealthy community, the houses in our area were huge, the people could have lived ‘in grand style’, as the phrase is in our country and in yours, but instead money was used in a strange way: no clothes, jewels, expensive cars, gambling. There were only two things the Siberians were happy to spend their money on: weapons and Orthodox icons. We all had an enormous quantity of weapons, and also of icons, which were very costly.

  In all other respects we were humble – humble and in uniform. In winter we all wore quilted trousers – black or dark blue, very warm and comfortable. The jackets were of two kinds: either the classic quilted fufayka, which half the population wore in the days of the USSR, because it was the jacket that was given to workers, or the tulup, which had an enormous fur collar that you could pull right up to your eyes to protect yourself against the harshest cold. I wore the fufayka, because it was lighter and allowed me to move fairly freely. The shoes were heavy, and fur-lined, and there were also long woollen socks to ward off frostbite. On your head you’d wear a fur hat: I had a lovely one, made of white ermine – very warm, light and comfortable.

  In summer we wore ordinary flannel trousers, always with a belt, in accordance with the Siberian rule. The belt is connected with the tradition of the hunters, for whom it was much more than a lucky charm: it was a request for help. If a hunter got lost in the woods, or had an accident, he would tie his belt round the neck of his dog and send it home. When the others saw the dog return, they would know he was in trouble. With the trousers we wore a shirt – usually white or grey, with a straight collar and with the buttons on the right – called kosovorotka, ‘crooked collar’. Over the shirt we wore light jackets, grey or black, and very coarse, of military issue. The last item of our summer outfit was the legendary hat of the Siberian criminals, a kind of national symbol, known as ‘eight triangles’. It consists of eight triangular segments of cloth sewn together to form a domed cap with a button on top; it also ha
s a short peak. The colour must always be pale, or even white. In Russia this kind of hat is called a kepka, and there are many varieties. ‘Eight triangles’ is only the Siberian version. The real eight triangles of a bold and cunning criminal must have the peak bent well back, and rounded, not broken, so as to form a ridge in the middle. As a sign of contempt you break your enemy’s peak, bending it till it goes out of shape.

  My eight triangles had been a present from my uncle; it was an old hat and I liked it for that very reason.

  The eight triangles was such an important hat that it generated stories and idioms. In criminal slang the phrase ‘to wear eight triangles’ means to commit a crime or to participate in the organizing of criminal activities. The phrase ‘to keep eight triangles up’ means to be on the alert, to be worried about some danger. ‘To put eight triangles on the back of your head’ means to behave aggressively, to prepare for an attack. ‘To wear eight triangles askew’ means to show calm, relaxed behaviour. ‘To tip eight triangles over your eyes’ means to announce the need to disappear, to hide. ‘To fill eight triangles’ means to take something in abundance.

  Often I really did fill my hat, for example when we boys went to see Aunt Marta, a woman who lived alone on the river bank and was famous for her jams. We used to take her the apples we had stolen from the collective farms on the other side of the river, and help her peel them, so she could make the jam. She would bake the pirozhki, little biscuits she filled with jam. We would all sit in a circle on little stools in the yard in front of her house, with the kitchen door wide open, through which we could always see something boiling on the fire; we would fish the apples out of the bags, peel them with our knives and then throw them into a big pot with water in it. When it was full, we would carry it into the house, using two long planks of wood which we hooked onto the pot like handles. Aunt Marta was very fond of us. She gave us plenty to eat – we would always go home with full stomachs and with pirozhki in our hands. I used to put mine in my hat and eat them as I walked.

  The eight-gored hat is the subject of many proverbs, poems and songs of the criminal tradition. Since I used to spend a lot of time with the old criminals, listening to them sing or recite poems, I knew many of them by heart. One song, my favourite, went like this:

  I remember I wore an eight-gored hat,

  Drank beer and smoked strong tobacco;

  I was in love with my neighbour Nina

  And together we’d go to the restaurant.

  I wore a shaber[3] in my squeaking kromachy,[4]

  Under my shirt a telnyashka,[5]

  A gift from the thieves of Odessa…

  The eight triangles was at the centre of everything: it was constantly being mentioned, and people would bet on it in various situations. Often in conversations between criminals, both children and adults, you would hear the phrase: ‘May my eight-gored hat catch fire on my head if what I say is not true’, or ‘May my hat fly off my head’, or the more gruesome variant, ‘May my hat choke me to death’.

  In our society swearing oaths was forbidden; it was considered a kind of weakness, an insult to yourself, because a person who swears implies that what he is saying is not true. But among us boys, when we talked, oaths would often slip out, and we would swear by our hats. You could never swear by your mother, your parents or relatives in general, by God or by the saints. Nor by your health, or even worse by your soul, for that was considered to be ‘damaging God’s property’. So the only thing left to take it out on was your hat.

  Once my friend Mel swore by his hat that he would ‘stuff his eight triangles up Amur’s arse’ (Amur was a dog that belonged to Uncle Plague, a neighbour of ours) if he didn’t jump clean over the school gate from a standing position.

  Even thinking about it today I’ve no idea how Mel thought he could jump over a gate over four metres high. But what worried me more at the time was how he would carry out the operation if he lost the bet, since Amur was the biggest and nastiest dog in our area. I was petrified by that monster; once I had seen him swim across the river and kill a goat, tearing it apart as if it were made of rags. He was a cross between a German shepherd and the breed which in our homeland, Siberia, is called Alabay, ‘wolfcrusher’. Usually Amur roamed quietly around his owner’s yard, but sometimes he became uncontrollable, especially if he heard the sound of a whistle. He had already been shot on two occasions, after attacking someone, but had survived because, as my father used to say, ‘the more you shoot that dog, the stronger it gets’.

  Well, Mel’s idea seemed to me more than stupid. But once spoken, his word couldn’t be taken back, and it only remained to witness that insane show, in which Mel, through his own pure idiocy, was both stage manager and actor.

  So we headed for the school gate.

  Mel made one attempt; he jumped half a metre, hitting his nose against the gate. Then, sitting on the ground, he drew his conclusions:

  ‘Shit, it’s really high! I’ll never make it…’

  I looked at him and couldn’t believe how he could be so naive. Trying to save the situation, I said it had all been great fun and now we might as well go home. But Mel astounded me with his stupidity, saying that as a question of honour he had to keep his oath.

  I felt like laughing and crying at the same time. But my other two friends, Besa and Gigit, were enthusiastic, and were already imagining all the ways in which Mel could most effectively creep up to the dog and carry out his devilish plan.

  When we reached Plague’s house, Mel climbed up onto the fence and jumped down into the yard. Plague wasn’t at home; he had gone fishing – the net that was usually hung along the fence wasn’t there.

  Amur was lying by the gate with a slightly ironic expression on his horrendously ugly face.

  Mel had brought a rope to tie the dog up, and he also had a tube of Vaseline which some friends had got from Aunt Natalia, the nurse. Mel approached him and Amur didn’t move a muscle – he gazed at him with bored and indifferent eyes, as if he were looking straight through him. With every step Mel gained more courage until, when there were no more than a couple of metres between Mel and Amur, Gigit stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle, making such a piercing sound that it even startled me. A few seconds later I saw Mel fly magically over the fence, pass above my head and land on the pavement, hitting his forehead on the sun-softened asphalt. Immediately afterwards the gate jerked under the weight of Amur, who threw himself into it, with a strange noise that I had never before heard from any living creature. It was a kind of human cry mingled with a desperate and angry chorus of animal voices. As if an elephant, a lion, a wolf, a bear and a horse were competing at who could make the loudest noise. If someone had asked me at that moment what the voice of the devil might sound like, I would have said like Amur.

  The seat of Mel’s pants was torn, and underneath you could see some bloody red weals, left by a blow from Amur’s paw. Mel was terrified and still couldn’t understand what had happened. Gigit and Besa were rolling about with laughter and kept whistling, to increase the fury of the dog, which from the other side of the gate kept spitting froth and uttering the sounds of his animal wrath.

  And so in the end Mel lost his bet, but after the entertaining show he had provided we forgave him.

  At the age of twelve I got into trouble. I was put on trial for ‘threats in a public place’, ‘attempted murder with serious consequences’ and, naturally, ‘resistance to a representative of power in the pursuance of his duties of defending the public order’. It was my first criminal trial, and in view of the circumstances (I was a young boy and the victim was a previous offender a couple of years older than me) the judge decided to be lenient and give me a sentence which in slang is called a ‘cuddle’. No prison and no obligation to follow any re-education programmes, after which most convicts usually become even nastier and angrier. All I had to do was observe a kind of personal curfew: stay at home from eight in the evening till eight in the morning, report to the juvenile offi
ce every week and attend school.

  I would have to live like that for a year and a half, then I would be able to return to normal life. But if in the meantime I committed some crime I would land myself straight on the bunk beds of a juvenile prison, or at least in a re-education camp.

  For a year everything went smoothly, I tried to keep as far as possible away from trouble. Certainly, I often went out at night, because I was sure I wouldn’t be discovered, but the important thing, I told myself, was not to let myself get caught in a place far from home at the wrong time and above all not to be found mixed up in some serious crime.

  But one afternoon Mel and three other friends came round to see me. We got together in the garden, on the bench under the tree, to discuss an incident that had occurred a week earlier with a group of boys from Tiraspol. We had a friend, a boy who had recently moved to our district. His family had been forced to leave St Petersburg because the father had had problems with the police. They were Jews, but in view of the special circumstances, and some business they had done together, the Siberians had guaranteed their protection.

  Our friend was thirteen and was called Lyoza, an old Jewish name. He was a very quiet, weak boy: he had health problems, was almost deaf and wore enormous glasses, so in the Siberian community he was immediately treated with compassion and understanding, like all disabled people. My father, for example, never stopped reminding me to look after him and to get out my knife should anyone attack or insult him. Lyoza was very well-educated, had refined manners and always talked seriously – everything he said seemed convincing. So we had immediately given him an appropriate nickname: ‘the Banker’.

  Lyoza always went around with us. He never carried knives or other weapons and wasn’t even capable of using his fists, but he knew everything, he was a kind of living enyclopaedia, he was always telling us the stories you find in books: how insects live and multiply, how the gills of fish are formed, why birds migrate, and things like that. I remember once he managed to do the impossible – explain to Mel how hermaphrodite worms reproduce. It took him a long time, but in the end he succeeded; Mel wandered around in a daze, as if he’d seen Jesus, God the Father and the Madonna all at once.