by Ben Stewart
Frank is ashen-faced. ‘Jesus, seriously?’
‘Yeah.’
Kieron slides down the wall. He grips his shins and buries his face into his knees, then looks up at Frank and Po-Paul and says, ‘Guys, we have to make sure we’re in cells together. We can cope with anything then. We can protect each other.’
And Po-Paul says, ‘I’ve read books on this. You’ve got to go into your cell and if there’s a weaker person than you, you have to just beat the crap out of him.’
Kieron shakes his head. Po-Paul’s got a dark sense of humour, and right now it’s not helping.
One by one the activists are taken from holding cells and led to the courtroom to be told they’re going to prison. Alex gulps back tears and rubs her eyes. She’s staring at the judge, barely able to take it in. The man has a fat neck, he’s wearing tinted glasses and is draped in a black gown with silver buttons below the chin. He’s sitting at a raised dais, leaning back in the middle of five high-backed leather chairs.9 The judge doesn’t once look at Alex, instead he stares down at his desk or occasionally looks at the officer from the Investigative Committee, who tells the court Alex could interfere with evidence unless she’s jailed. A translator is standing next to the cage, whispering the words to her in English, but Alex is barely listening. All she can think of is her family back home in Devon. She knows how hard this will hit her mother, and she just wishes she could speak to her and explain why she was on that ship.
Next, Camila is brought to court and jailed, then Phil and Kieron. By now the hearings are overrunning. Under Russian law if a defendant isn’t processed within two days of their arrest, they have to be released. The crew were officially arrested at the port on Tuesday evening, and now the authorities are in danger of missing the forty-eight-hour deadline.
Frank is taken from the holding cell and led down a corridor, and as he passes one of the cells he hears a voice shout out, ‘You’ve got some fucking questions to answer, Frank. It’s your fault we’re getting sent down.’ He twists his head but the guard prods him and he keeps on walking, and a minute later he’s being locked in a cage in the courtroom. An officer from the Investigative Committee, dressed in a brilliant blue uniform with gold stars on his shoulders, stands up and reads out the case against the defendant. He says there was a violent attack on the oil platform. The authorities had no way of knowing if the activists were terrorists. Then the prosecutor stands up and nods gravely.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘from the evidence, we can see that this is a very serious accusation. Very serious indeed. And it’s clear – I have to say, it’s very clear indeed – that the evidence is overwhelming.’
Then Frank’s lawyer stands up, tapping his watch and speaking quickly in Russian. Frank doesn’t understand what’s going on, but then the lawyer comes back to the cage and explains. Time has run out, he says. The deadline has passed. It’s too late for the judge to send Frank to jail now, but rather than releasing him the judge has beaten the clock by ruling that the hearing should be postponed. Frank will be returned to the naval base then brought back to court in three days.
After him come Dima, Sini and five others. They all have their cases postponed. They’ll be taken back to their cells at the police stations.
‘What about the others?’ Sini asks the lawyer.
‘They are going to jail tonight.’
Alex Harris is handcuffed in her holding cell then led down a staircase and outside to a waiting avtozak. She’s pushed into a little wardrobe cell. She can barely move. She shouts out to see if there’s anyone else around. Some of the guys shout back, they’re in the van with her. It pulls away and as it turns a corner her face is pressed against the cold metal wall.
They drive for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, before the van comes to an abrupt stop. The engine falls silent. She can hear dogs barking, doors slamming, voices shouting in Russian. She stares at her shoes and draws a deep breath. A powerful current of fear is running through her body, making her heels bounce and her lungs tighten. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispers to herself. ‘It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.’
And then the door opens and she’s led out of the van, followed by the others. They look around and see a dark sky, spotlights sweeping over the ground, high walls surrounding them on three sides, rolls of razor wire.
They’re in the reception area of a converted mental asylum. It’s the region’s main isolation prison. Murmansk SIZO-1.
Alex is led through a courtyard. In the darkness she can make out the shapes of people at the windows. Russian prisoners. She doesn’t know if they’re crazy but it sounds like they’re crazy because they’re screaming into the night. She turns to Camila. ‘Well, this is home,’ she says and laughs nervously, but sheer panic is coursing through her body.
Just behind them are Kieron and Phil. The activists are in a three-sided courtyard with four floors, fifteen windows across each wall. The bars on the windows aren’t straight and the windows aren’t quite square, and there are ropes hanging down the brickwork, connecting them horizontally and vertically. The ground is littered with sheets of beaten corrugated tin that have fallen from the roof. There are tall weeds growing through gaps in the pavement. The guards prod them forward. A spotlight is following them, casting shadows on the ground in front.
Camila looks back and sees the expression on Kieron’s face. ‘Hey,’ she says, ‘it’s going to be okay. We’ll survive this.’ Kieron tries to smile back at her, but he’s not thinking it’s going to be okay. Kieron’s thinking this is a nightmare, this is hell on earth, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to survive this place. The air is filled with shouting and screaming, but he doesn’t know what the prisoners are saying. The cries are guttural, something close to animalistic, and they’re coming from the windows, from the throats of women and men. The activists hear the word ‘Greenpeace’ shouted a few times, which means the Russians know they’re coming. And Kieron’s asking himself what they’re saying before they scream that word. Like maybe it’s, ‘Let’s fucking kill the people from …’
They’re marched past a basketball court, down the inside of a fence topped with razor wire and through a doorway. They’re inside now. A guard grips one of Alex’s wrists and flicks a handcuff over it then spins her around, yanks an arm behind her back and cuffs the other wrist. She’s marched down a corridor as far as the last door, where the handcuffs are removed and she’s pushed inside a tiny room. A woman is standing opposite her. She’s huge, there’s only just space in here for the two of them. The ceiling is pink and the walls are covered with mirrors.
‘Knickers down.’
Alex stares back at her. The woman is wearing a crisp blue uniform, hair pulled back into a tight bun below a peaked cap, cheeks pooled into a huge neck, no jaw to speak of, a mouth so small and tight it looks like the valve on a beachball.
‘Knickers down!’
‘Seriously?’
‘Knickers.’
‘What?’
‘Down!’
Alex closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and pulls down her jeans then her knickers. Slowly, tentatively, Alex squats, steadying herself by holding her hands against the walls. Her palms squeak as they slip on the mirrored glass. Awkwardly, with laboured breaths, the guard lowers her broad form until she’s on her knees. She’s right next to Alex now, bringing her face down, lower and lower, her breaths getting louder until she can look up and inside her.
‘Okay, knickers on.’
Alex is taken to the room next door and handed a mug, a bowl, a spoon, a tiny rolled-up mattress and a sheet. She’s led back down the same corridor, around a corner and up a staircase. The guard stops her outside a solid metal door, slides a key into the lock, turns it and pushes. And Alex is presented with a room that’s two metres by five metres with steel bunk beds that are fixed to the wall. It’s green, very green, nothing else in there except a sink and a toilet. She steps forward. The door slams behind her.
Two minutes later Camila
is stood outside a cell door on the same corridor, shivering, clutching her bedding. The guard opens the door, and Camila is expecting Alex to be in there. But the cell is empty. All she has is her blanket, her cup, her spoon and her jacket. The door closes. She’s alone. She makes the bed, sits down on it and stares at the wall. She’s not scared. She’s furious. The investigators, the guards, the judge. It’s all bullshit. She scrunches up the blanket in her fists and kicks the floor.
On the corridor above her, Phil Ball is being strip-searched. He pulls out the insoles of his boots to show the guard there’s nothing in there. That way the guy won’t look more closely, he thinks. He has to surrender his shoelaces then he’s led down the corridor with Po-Paul and Kieron. The guard stops him outside one door, Kieron outside the next one along, then Po-Paul outside the door after that. They’re looking at each other with an expression that says, oh shit, so we’re not being held together. Then the guards pull open the doors and a cloud of cigarette smoke rolls into the hallway. Kieron is pushed into the cloud and the door bangs shut behind him. Through the haze of smoke he can see two pairs of eyes staring at him. There’s a young guy sitting on a bed and a man standing in the middle of the cell.
Kieron is twenty-nine years old, a former journalist at The Times newspaper in London. He’s tall, broad-shouldered and wears black rectangular glasses. He didn’t join the ship to protest against Arctic oil drilling, though he’s sympathetic to the campaign. Instead, he wanted to make a film about people willing to risk jail for a cause. But now he finds himself in prison.
Silence.
Kieron draws a breath but the smoke catches the back of his throat and he coughs. The man takes a step forward, Kieron takes a step back. The guy is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a white vest, his arms are thick and hard, he has close-cropped hair, a flat nose, a heavy gold chain nestling in dense chest hair. He says something in Russian, Kieron raises his shoulders, a shrug that says he doesn’t understand.
‘You no Russian?’
Kieron hugs the mattress to his chest. ‘No.’
‘What is your name?’
‘I’m … I’m Kieron.’
‘Kay-roon?’
‘Kieron. Keer-an.’
‘I am Ivan.’
‘Ivan.’
‘Yes, Ivan. Where you from?’
‘London.’
‘London.’ The guy nods. ‘Cool, cool.’
Kieron shuffles backwards.
‘Why you here?’
‘I’m a journalist. I was on a ship. You know Greenpeace? I was on …’
And in one movement the man’s face lights up, he spins around and lurches towards the window before shouting into the night, but the only word Kieron recognises is ‘Greenpeace’.
What the hell is he doing? Christ, thinks Kieron, he’s boasting to his friends that he’s got a foreign cellmate, that’s what he’s doing. Oh Jesus. He’s telling them he’s got one of the foreigners, he’s telling them what he’s going to do to me.
There are ropes hanging from the window, manic shouting from the other cells, banging from the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Meanwhile the other guy, the one who hasn’t spoken, is just sitting there on his bed, staring at Kieron with intense focused interest.
Ivan spins away from the window. Kieron steps back, presses his back against the inside of the door. This is it, he thinks. It’s happening now. He’s coming now, he’s lifting a fist, okay here he comes, oh Jesus he’s massive, he’s … he’s holding out a hand. Right. Okay. He wants to shake my hand.
Kieron hugs his bedding with one arm and extends a hand. The Russian pumps it hard.
‘What is your crime?’
‘Piracy. That’s what they say.’
‘Pirate. Yes, very cool. How old?’
‘How old am I? Why do you … I’m twenty-nine.’
‘London, yes?’
‘Yeah, London.’
Charge, name, age, location. The Russian wants to know it all, then he pulls an exercise book from the shelf and writes it all down before returning to the window and shouting it all out into the night. And Kieron’s thinking, is this guy FSB? I mean, if he is then it’s pretty blatant.
In the cell next door, Phil Ball is looking at a skeletal figure in a dirty, crumpled shell suit. Three weeks ago Phil was enjoying the late English summer at his home in the Oxfordshire countryside. He was the last recruit to the crew after a late dropout. He’s forty-two years old and has three young children. Now he’s standing before a man with a shaved scalp and eyes sunk in deep, dark sockets. The door goes bang behind him, and instantly the man wants to know Phil’s full name, date of birth, his home town and which article of the criminal code he’s charged with. And Phil’s thinking, you’re a prisoner, what the hell has it got to do with you?
But then the guy crosses the cell and returns with a list of names and cell numbers, and some of the activists are already on there.
Next door, Ivan takes Kieron’s bedding from him, throws a sheet over a bunk and tucks in the corners. He crouches down in the corner, pours water, opens tins, shovels powder then turns around to proffer a cup of tea and a biscuit. Finally the other guy is ready to introduce himself. He stands up, holds out a hand and says his name is Stepan. He’s just a kid, shy, possibly not dangerous but Kieron’s taking nothing on sight here. He’s in full fight or flight mode, alert to every bang and thump, his wide eyes taking in the details of the cell – the peeling walls painted gooseberry green, the rusting bunks, a tiny barred window, a cubicle of rotting wood around the toilet, bags of food on a shelf on the wall, and ropes running out through the bars. The cell stinks of stale cigarette smoke and wet laundry. There’s a loud bang on the wall. Stepan turns away and tugs on one of the ropes, like he’s fishing and he’s hooked a catch. Ivan darts over and pulls a sock through the window, plunges his hand into it and extracts a small piece of rolled-up paper. He unfolds it, looks down, reads it then offers the scrap to Kieron.
‘For you.’
‘For me?’
‘Uh huh.’
Kieron plucks it from his fingers and holds it up. It’s a written note, the size of a packet of cigarettes.
Hey man, I just heard about this thing called the road. It’s like an email system but on ropes. Stay strong, we’ll get through this. Po-Paul.
Next door, Phil is being handed a pen and a square of paper, and with wide eyes and a form of sign language involving rotating arms and energised pointing, the Russian guy explains that Phil can write to his friends. A minute later in cell 308 there’s a bang on the wall. Stepan pulls in the rope again and extracts another piece of paper from the sock. He unfolds it and hands it to Kieron.
I’m not quite sure how this system works but I thought I’d try it out. Send me a message back if you get this. Phil.
Kieron asks Ivan for a piece of paper and a pen, and scribbles a message.
‘What you say?’ asks Ivan.
‘Just a note to my friend. Some self-help bullshit, basically.’
Phil, we can get through this, we’ve got to stay tough, we’ve got to be strong for each other. Kieron.
Ivan rolls it up, drops it into the sock and bangs on the wall. The sock flies out of the window and a minute later Phil reads the note. He folds it, drops it into his pocket and glances up at his cellmate. The man says his name is Leonid. His lower gum is lined with a sparse row of teeth that look like broken fence posts. With more pointing and gesticulations Leonid explains how the rope system works, how all of the windows are connected throughout the night. It’s a grid consisting of horizontal and vertical ropes across the outside walls.
‘Prison internet,’ he says.
On a corridor on the same floor, the Russian campaigner Roman Dolgov is holding a mattress, a blanket, a bowl and a spoon. The guard leans forward and pushes the door. Roman takes in the bright green walls, two bunk beds and a small barred window, then a head snaps up and a kid screams at him from a bunk. ‘What are you doing? Get the fuck out of here!’
Roman flinches. The guard shouts, ‘I haven’t got a choice, okay. We’re full up.’
‘But you know I don’t have anybody in here with me. This is a woollen cell, you know that!’
‘I don’t fucking care, he’s coming in with you. It’s one in the morning, I haven’t got anything else. Deal with it, arsehole.’
Roman hugs his mattress and shuffles forward. He’s a large man with a thick mane of swept-back hair and a long luxuriant beard. His voice is soft, his demeanour gentle. The door slams behind him. The kid slumps down on his bunk in a sulk.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Roman.
The kid scowls and stares at the wall. ‘This is a woollen cell.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means I should be alone.’
‘I’d leave if I could.’
‘You should be in a people’s cell.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know the difference.’
The kid spins around and sits up. He’s in his late teens, a bony face, wispy stubble on his chin, big blue eyes. ‘There are people’s cells, okay. Normal cells for normal prisoners. Thieves like you. And then there are woollen cells, cells like this. This is a woollen cell.’
Slowly, carefully, Roman steps forward and lowers himself onto the edge of the bed opposite.
‘And what does that mean, to be in a woollen cell?’
‘What does it mean? It means I’m way down the hierarchy. Waaaaay down, brother. But don’t go thinking I’m obizhenny. I may be a piece of shit in this place, but I’m not that low.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Obizhenny.’ It means ‘morally injured’. ‘You know, like poofs and perverts. This is a woollen cell, but I’m not obizhenny. When you’re woollen you’re on your own, that’s the deal. But now you’re in here and that means you’re woollen too.’
‘Is that bad?’
The kid throws his head back and laughs. ‘Believe me, brother. You really don’t want to be here. You’ll have big problems later, when you get to the labour camp.’
