The Anonymous Novel

by Alessandro Barbero

  Nazar had some post to deliver to the prisoner in his bag.

  Dyakonov received some every day, and all of it passed through the hands of the investigating judge. But the hope of obtaining some useful information from that correspondence had disappeared long ago. It mainly consisted of letters from relations saying how sorry they were to hear of his compulsory absence and expressing their hopes for an imminent release. The previous week, some girl had written to him, signing herself Chaykushka: “Hi Babe, I am missing you so much. You know Sunday was my birthday, and I felt so alone without you. If we weren’t in this situation, we would have celebrated at home and after the kebabs, I would have done my magnificent striptease… Bye, and a huge snog.” Well, who would have thought it? He certainly had enough names this Artur Yakovlevich: first the Accountant and now Babe! Of course Dyakonov lost no time in writing back to his Chaykushka the snogger. Nazar also read the replies, before dispatching them by ordinary post.

  “Dear Chayka, I would have preferred caviar and champagne… I can assure you that they would not have made me sleepy. We’ll make up for it when I get back.” Well, here you are, our dear Russian low life, the guardian of tradition: caviar and champagne, really! Nazar didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry when confronted with this terrifying incarnation of the new Russian with his gel and sunglasses, and champagne into the bargain. Of course, we leave kebabs to the poor devils, and they can go and eat them wrapped in newspaper while standing up and breathing in exhaust gases close to the shack that sells them on the seafront. We deserve something better, and when the bottle’s empty, bring on the striptease…

  At the prison, Nazar went up to see the governor: Marina Chemodanova, who was a fighter pilot during the Great Patriotic War in the famous 586th Wing which was crewed entirely by women. This governor, as the judge remembered her, was a big imposing woman with a severe expression. It was difficult to recognise in her the young woman who smiled out of the photograph that hung on the wall, with her hair swept back in the fashion of the forties, her epaulettes of a captain in the Guard and a series of medals on her blouse… The enamelled badge of a Hero of the Soviet Union, however, was something she always wore on her suit, and no one at her office on the first floor of the prison had ever seen her without it. But now, always supposing she is still alive, she’ll have sold it along with all her other medals.

  They are still worth something in the market stalls, but they no longer guarantee any privileges – with that little bit extra on the pension you’ll be lucky to buy a kilo of potatoes! At the time we’re talking about, the former air force captain had not yet retired, although she was about to; another year at the most and they would have replaced her. And it was time that she went, thought Nazar, as he shook her hand.

  She had been looking much older recently, and she had her tribulations in that profession: in comparison, flying Yak-9s at the risk of being killed by some German was almost less demanding… Nazar was surprised to see that a television was droning away in a corner of the office: it seemed that the governor was not working but following a programme on the TV.

  Certainly, the judge knew a lot of people who for some time had been rushing to switch on the television as soon as they got home, without even taking their coats off first, such was their fear of missing some current affairs programme. The television mania was quite understandable in times like those, when life itself appeared to have taken on a more unremitting pace and everyone was convinced that the stakes were enormous, epoch-making! But Nazar had never seen anyone take their television into work. At that moment, they were transmitting a news and current affairs bulletin on yet another of Gorbachev’s trips abroad. It seemed that on this occasion he had gone to New York to discuss Star Wars with Ronald Reagan. But on television they weren’t discussing the political negotiations; no, the programme was concerned with something much more important: Raisa Gorbacheva who was plundering the shops on Fifth Avenue at a canter, but with whose money we do not know… While she signalled to the judge to sit down, Chemodanova could not take her eyes away from the screen. Her mouth was twisted in a grimace of icy disapproval. Every time there was a close-up of Gorbacheva’s pinstripe suit or the deferential smiles of Estée Lauder’s shop assistants, she gritted her teath even harder. Pigs, bastards; just look at what they’ve reduced this country to, and they couldn’t care a damn; they go drinking abroad surrounded by lackeys. Ah, one of these days they will find out, and it will be no use crying!

  We’ll put a fire under their arses, and much sooner than they think. And not just the baldy one, that… Mikhail Shiteyevich… No, that tart his wife will get the same treatment: then we’ll find out what she can do with her Christian Dior and Coco Chanel… Her head shaved and shovelling snow in Siberia, with wooden clogs on her feet; you and all the others like you, that’s what we need here!

  “Excuse me if I’m disturbing you, Marina Yakovlevna, I have come to interrogate Dyakonov,” said Nazar, having patiently waited to no effect for Chemodanova to put her reflections to one side.

  “Dyakonov?” the governor replied in a stunned voice and finally taking her eyes off the television screen. “But he’s not here; surely you know that? They transferred him to Yegoryevsk.»

  “Excuse me, why Yegoryevsk?” asked Nazar, frowning.

  “But of course, they transferred him,” she repeated. “Did you not know?”

  “No I did not! And what was the reason?”

  “Well, to guarantee his personal safety,” the governor was now quite amazed.

  “On whose orders? And how could you have executed that order?”

  “Listen, comrade investigating judge, I could not have done anything about it; the order came directly from the Petrovka, and for immediate implementation!” replied Chemodanova, getting heated. (In case we have forgotten to mention it, the Petrovka is the jargon used by professionals for the head office of the Moscow police, which is, as it happens, in Petrovka Street at number 38, just a few steps away from the Bolshoy and to get there you take the trolleybus number 3… What? You’re not interested in these addresses? That’s fairly understandable, but you never know when such information might come in handy…) “But this is against the law! A prisoner cannot be moved without the authorisation of the Prosecutor’s Office!”

  The governor looked up defiantly. “What can I say? The order came in and it had to be implemented, and I can assure you that there was no question of it not being implemented. If you don’t like it, go and complain to the Petrovka. There were even instructions concerning the urgency, as I have told you. It appears that the prisoner’s safety could not be guaranteed. You know the kind of people we have in here, and they communicate with the outside just as they like. And if they get an order to go ahead, they don’t think twice about butchering someone, even if they have to do it with a rusty nail…”

  The resignation with which the governor admitted that prisoners in her establishment could kill each other just as they pleased was disarming. There was little point in arguing with her. No, thought Nazar, better to set off immediately for Yegoryevsk, and let’s hope that some other mix-up hasn’t occurred in the meantime. As for her, let’s leave her to torture herself over the adventures of Raisa Gorbacheva, who had now got round to the food department in Bloomingdale’s: there, the shop assistants dressed in jacket and tie were offering her a choice of three hundred types of cheese…

  Driving to Yegoryevsk, which can only be called the arsehole of the world, was hardly a pleasant experience, particularly as it was on the other side of Moscow and, during a day like that, the sleet piled up on the windscreen and the tyres skidded on the icy tarmac. By the time a traffic policeman, half frozen in his glass kiosk, pointed out the way to the prison, the morning was almost over and Nazar would have quite liked a bite to eat, but his concerns over that unexpected transfer ordered by God knows whom, prevented him from stopping until he had got his hands on Dyakonov. There was the chance that while you were happily ladling soup into your
mouth in a self-service or, if you were lucky, a restaurant with heating and no draughts, these guys were taking him from under your nose and throwing him in another prison at the opposite end of Moscow! On arriving at the prison, Nazar almost had a stand-up argument with a prison guard who had difficulty in deciphering his Prosecutor’s identity card and left him standing a long time in the sleet before eventually allowing him to enter the fortified walls. However, the guard, who a few minutes earlier had been hanging about the ill-lit entrance hall in a foul temper and cursing that investigating judge for his impatience and bad manners, was even more surprised to see that same judge galloping back down the stairs and rushing back out of the place he had so desperately wanted to get into. No, they hadn’t sent the Accountant across the city, and they hadn’t transferred him on the quiet to some prison in the provinces, but worse, much worse, as Nazar had just discovered to his considerable dismay, Dyakonov Artur Yakovlevich was most certainly in Yegoryevsk, but not in prison; he was in fact at the nearby district court where some unknown judge was assessing – believe it or not – an application for immediate release submitted by his lawyers…

  When Nazar entered the courthouse puffing and panting, the defendants awaiting trial were seated on wooden benches in the anteroom. Three men sitting in a row were all handcuffed; they had the faces of alcoholics, wild eyes and hair as prickly and unruly as stinging nettles. One of them was attempting to light a cigarette but the handcuffs were preventing him. Nevertheless he persevered with a kind of boneheaded tenacity; a policeman seated in the corner was observing him with indifference, but without it occurring to him that he could help. Dyakonov was seated on his own, and they hadn’t put any handcuffs ON HIM. The Accountant had his legs crossed to display his leather boots. He didn’t have his tie, but on the other hand he was wearing a black silk shirt under his jacket, just as he had been on the day of his arrest. You could have taken him for, I don’t know, a Western journalist over here to scrutinise our prodigious legal system in action. He was chewing American gum and sitting coolly and silently, as if he happened to be there by some mistake. Nazar could see him through the glass door, which he then pushed, and he entered the room. The three drunks and the even the policeman turned to look at him, but Dyakonov did not. In fact he did not move a muscle, except the ones he needed for the rumination of his chewing-gum.

  “I’m looking for Judge Taruntayev,” Nazar announced.

  “He’s in court,” the policeman snorted, nodding his head towards the door behind him, through which you could see the spartan courtroom. Dyakonov had jumped at the sound of that familiar voice, but had immediately regained his composure. The bastard had still not turned towards the door. Nazar stared at him with hostility, passed by and went into the courtroom. The judge was in fact there and he was questioning a defendant, who had the appearance of yet another drunk. There were few members of the public: a woman and a boy in the first row, clearly the defendant’s relations, and two or three vague human shapes seated in the back row.

  “When are they hearing the case of Dyakonov Artur Yakovlevich?” Nazar asked a policeman.

  “It’s the next one,” he replied after having pulled out a list from his pocket.

  Nazar sat down at the end of a row. He did not have to wait long; once the drunk had been disposed of, he was taken away by two policemen while the woman began to cry and the boy tried to lead her away. The judge ordered the next defendant to be brought in. Dyakonov came into the courtroom followed at a respectful distance by the policeman, he sat down and he immediately crossed his legs. A lawyer came in through another entrance, went up to the judge, showed him a piece of paper and whispered something in his ear.

  “Dyakonov Artur Yakovlevich, application for release on the grounds of unjust incarceration,” the judge dictated to the clerk. “Well, the application drawn up by your lawyer is all in order, do you have anything to add?”

  Dyakonov shook his head, and at the same time, the two or three people who had been seated at the back of the courtroom stood up and went to sit very obtrusively in the front row. Nazar, who had hardly noticed them beforehand, now looked at them more closely: yes, well-built young men and once again chewers of American gum! Wasn’t one a famous wrestler from the Krasnaya Presnya sauna? If not him, then a member of the same team…

  “The application is upheld,” ruled the judge. “Therefore…”

  “Judge, a word please,” Nazar interrupted him and stood up to show his prosecutor’s identity card. This time Dyakonov turned towards him, but his eyes did not betray any feeling. The judge Taruntayev, on the other hand, looked at Nazar with irritation; he was a middle-aged man with a moustache of white and black hairs which extended into unkempt wisps of hair almost down to his chin, and this gave him an unpleasantly brutish appearance: almost wolf-like…

  “I am Lappa of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office. You are passing judgement on one of our indicted criminals.”

  The other shook his head, “I am not passing judgement on anyone. There is an application for a provisional release from prison submitted by a prisoner who comes under the jurisdiction of this court, and that is all.”

  “But who gave the order to transfer him to Yegoryevsk?”

  “This is something I do not know and which does not concern me here. I am observing the law,” Taruntayev said coldly. “Hey, down there! No one can speak to the defendants!” he shouted at one of the policemen; in the meantime the unsavoury characters in the front row had stood up and were calmly approaching the seated Dyakonov.

  “You cannot let this defendant out!” exclaimed Nazar, now beside himself.

  “Listen to me carefully, comrade… What is your name?

  Lappa?” retorted Taruntayev in a shrill voice. “Now listen, the applications submitted by prisoners detained in the prisons of the Yegoryevsky District come under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Yegoryevsky District Court, i.e. under my jurisdiction, have you understood? And I am telling you that the application is perfectly in order, but his detention has not been. It is not clear on what basis this man has been arrested! I will therefore ‘let him out’, as you like to put it, with immediate effect! And your outrageous challenge has no basis in law, so save it for another day!”

  While the judge was speaking, Nazar did not take his eye off Dyakonov, and he noticed that without ceasing the regular motion of his jaws, he nodded to one of the policemen to indicate one of the three who had come up towards him. The policeman respectfully stood aside, the man went up to the Accountant and kissed him on the cheeks, before speaking at length into his ear.

  “You will have to answer for this,” Nazar said to Taruntayev, forcing himself to adopt a threatening tone.

  “We’ll see where this will all end!” he added as he moved towards the door in search of a phone. He had only just turned his back when he heard the judge whispering to Dyakonov’s lawyer, who had been standing next to Taruntayev throughout the altercation. Nazar did not catch the judge’s words, but the lawyer did not bother to lower his voice in his reply; in fact Nazar was sure that he did this on purpose.

  “Oh, don’t you worry!” came his sardonic voice. “You know what they say: the dogs bark and the caravan goes by.”

  And wouldn’t you know it! There wasn’t even a telephone there for him to call Stepankov at the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, and when Nazar, still beside himself, went back into the courtroom, the hearing was already over. The judge was trying another drunk, another woman was crying and tearing her hair, and all the others had disappeared: the lawyer, the wrestlers and the Accountant…

  When Nazar got back home in the evening without having eaten a crumb all day, he found Asya stock-still in front of the television. In normal circumstances, she would have immediately realised that something was wrong and would have started to fire questions at him, while ladling out some soup to warm his stomach. But all she did this time was tell him to keep quiet. Nazar was offended: she, too, can’t tear herself away from the delights
of Manhattan! But on looking at the distraught faces on the screen, he understood that the centre of attention was no longer Raisa Gorbacheva or indeed her husband, or their friend Ronnie Reagan; no, it was about something entirely different. Asya murmured that at midday Armenia had been struck by an earthquake that had flattened three or four cities no one had ever heard of:

  Leninakan, Kirovakan and Spitak, and they’re talking about a death toll of ten thousand, she concluded in a sibilant whisper. No, Nazar objected, ten thousand – that’s impossible! There must be some mistake! But then he understood that it certainly was possible, as the screen showed image after image that belonged to the end of the world: apartment blocks that had crumpled on to each other, one neighbourhood after another, endlessly. Well of course, under all that there could easily be ten thousand people, and perhaps a few more… In the television studios in Yerevan, they are interviewing an Armenian geologist, a woman advanced in years with white hair: Isn’t it incredible, asks the journalist, that the prefabricated buildings collapsed in that manner? And she replies with tears in her eyes: Don’t we all know how we build here in Russia? Yes, it’s incredible that they collapsed, but tell me, how could they have stayed up? They weren’t even made of reinforced concrete, but were simply large slabs of concrete placed one on top of the other and held together with a steel hook and a shovelful of cement! Whoever built them apparently did not know this is a seismic area: there is just one Union, am I right? Well then, whatever is suited to Leningrad must work down here as well… No, there is nothing incredible about all this; it is absolutely normal! The geologist no longer just had tears in her eyes, but was openly weeping while the news programme continued to film her… “Lord, what a tragedy,” muttered Asya and Nazar hugged her tightly; and he didn’t have the courage to tell her that he too was devastated, but for an entirely different reason.