One Soldier's War In Chechnya
Page 37
I don’t know his name and it doesn’t matter. He is my brother, they all are, brothers given to me by the war. The whole of Moscow is full of such brothers, there’s at least one in each subway.
He spoke first.
‘Where did you fight then, brother?’
I told him. Then he started to remember stuff, where, when, how. He told me about getting his leg torn off when his carrier got ambushed. A shell hit the armour right by his hip. He didn’t lose consciousness, and he even saw his ripped-off leg jerking, and the boot scraping on the rivets. I didn’t ask him anything, just listened in silence. And he spoke calmly and without any hysterics, just discussing life.
‘I don’t understand this world. These people. Why are they alive? What for? They were given life at birth and didn’t have to prise it away from death - Have a good life, people! But how do they spend it? Do they want to invent a cure for AIDS and build the world’s most beautiful bridge, or make everyone happy? No. They want to rip everyone off, stash away as much money as they can, and that’s it. So many lads died, real boys, and these people here fritter their lives away as ignorantly as a kitten playing with a ball and have no idea why they are alive. Pointless people. A whole world full of pointless people. A lost generation. It’s not we who are the lost generation, it’s them, those who didn’t fight, they are. If their deaths could bring back just one of those boys then I’d kill the lot of them without hesitating. Every single one of them is my personal enemy.’
He lights a new cigarette from the stub of his last and pours a shot of vodka. And then he laughs evilly, and his eyes flash with hatred.
‘Did you ever think the Dubrovka Theatre siege in Moscow was payback? And then collapse of the Transvaal aqua park there too? You can’t go enjoying yourself while two hours’ flight away people are killing each other! Children are still dying there and there’s starvation, and yet these people were willing to pay seven hundred roubles for a theatre ticket -that’s two thousand for the family - just to amuse themselves. You can live for two months in Chechnya on that money. I must be concussed, because I don’t understand this. I just can’t get my head round it! There’s a war going on in their country and they don’t give a damn. So in that case we shouldn’t give a damn about them either. Not one of them should ever die without knowing what war is. I want for them too to cry out at night and cry in their sleep, and without waking to dive under the bed when New Year’s fireworks are exploding in the yard, and whine there from terror like we did. They are as guilty of our deaths as those who killed us, who sent us to this slaughter. Why weren’t they striking in Moscow and blocking the roads when we were being killed in Grozny? Why? Why weren’t they screaming and tearing their hair out when they saw on TV how dogs fed off the flesh of their boys? Why was there no revolution, uprising or civil unrest? How could they send their sons off to this slaughter and then go and have fun, live, drink beer and earn money while they were dying down there? While jets were flattening the mountains and tearing apart children and women, when wounded Chechen kids rotted in cellars, wrapping the stumps of their limbs in rags and infection crept across the wounds? They’re also guilty of these deaths. We are here to get what’s ours, and we are ready to kill.’
His hatred abates as suddenly as it had welled over. His eyes recede once again behind a film of indifference.
‘Half-truths everywhere, half-sincerity, half-friendship. I can’t accept that. Here in civilian life they have only half-truths. And the small measure of truth we had in war was a big lie. So many lads died and I survived. The whole time I used to wonder what for? They were better than I was, but I survived. Surely this is not pure chance? Maybe I lived so that others remember us? I am a reminder,’ he says with another evil-sounding laugh.
I get up silently and leave him cigarettes, matches and vodka. There’s nothing else I can give him apart from money. I walk away without saying anything and he doesn’t even look at me. For him I am also ‘one of them’. Which means whatever I say is a half-truth.
Military Abbreviations
AGS
automatic grenade launcher
PTUR
guided anti-tank missile
OMON
special purpose police unit (paramilitary)
NURS
unguided rocket
BMP
tracked infantry combat vehicle
RPG
Rocket Propelled Grenade
FSB
federal security service (the main successor to the
Soviet KGB)
BTP
armoured personnel carrier
RGD
anti-personnel hand grenade