The guy was dead, they don’t get deader, damn, and the first thing I thought of was that I got into a shit worse than anything I had before in my life. I raised my head – Nagiyev stood above me white as a sheet. “He’s dead, – I said, – you’ve killed him.” Why I said these absolutely unnecessary and obvious words, I can’t clearly remember. Could be that I already anticipated what would follow and wanted to some degree to protect myself from that pointless statement of facts. Nagiyev looked sobered up. “Calm down, – he suddenly said, and really he looked quite calm if one didn’t take into account the ashen paleness of his face, – we have to figure out what to do.” We sat at the table. There was nothing we could do for Igor now, I had wide experience with stiffs, had there been a tiny, minute piece of hope, I would immediately call an ambulance. But he was dead and no ambulance could have revived him. “Now, – said Nagiyev suddenly with the tone of a man who already decided everything, paused and continued, – you will take this matter on yourself.” I thought I had misheard him. I haven’t even started becoming abashed by his impudence, while he was already explaining to me point after point that it will be better for both of us. Practically he was trying to persuade me. I much too late understood that I was being cajoled and unfortunately began to consider Nagiyev’s words, just with a silly, lost smile saying from time to time: “Are you crazy?”, “Have you gone mad?”, which of course couldn’t be taken into account as a counter – argument against Nagiyev’s reasoning. “First of all, – Nagiyev said, without paying attention to my remarks – first of all, you’re a war veteran, – one, decorations – two, disabled – three, this is manslaughter, I’m a witness (here I choked with indignation, he’s a witness, you see) – four, – Nagiyev continued with perfect calm, – good lawyer is my problem, – he kindly added, – five, considering all these facts the sentence will be minimal, I’m telling you, they won’t give you much, I’ll do everything, and now listen to me very carefully, – he said in some icy, almost threatening voice, and I really began to listen to him very carefully, even forgot about my remarks, – here’s what it is, – he said, – for each year you’re inside I’m giving you seven grand, it’s six hundred a month. Not you, not your mother never even dreamt of that kind of money until you met me, try to earn it working as night watchman on your building site. Now I’ll give you a flat payment of fifteen grand, so that while you’re doing time your mother is well provided for. Apart from that, I will take care of her, and will do everything she needs, you know me. The rest of the dough you’ll get when you’re out.” He made a pause, and then I automatically put into this pause my now favorite phrase: “Have you gone mad?” He quietly looked at me for a few seconds. No, of course he didn’t look like a madman. “And now listen to me even more carefully, – he said in a while, – and try to use your brains.” “Well, – said I.” And he goes, – if you don’t take it on yourself, I am obviously going down, but I promise you: I’ll do everything to take you with me as an accomplice in murder. You know my connections; I think you understand that it won’t be difficult for me to share the sentence with you. I’ll take you with me, you can be as sure about that as about my promise to pay you for doing time for me. And if we both go down, then after the jail you’re nobody, like before. At that moment I had an urge to knock him down, I sprang up with my fist clenched, but he just frowned, turned away from me and said with indifference, – “Fool”. I settled down. We sat quietly for a while. “Well? – said Nagiyev.” “I have to think about it, – I replied.” “Think, – he said, – we have to decide now.” I thought, I even liked how cold – bloodedly I analyzed all pros and cons; the fact that he would take me with him raised no doubts in me, that’s for sure, he could do that easily. And then mom will be left with almost no means to support herself, alone. If I take fifteen grand from him and leave it to mom – that’s better than nothing. I’ll get the rest when I am out, as we agreed, and with that money I will be able to set up my future life, get rid of him once and for all, and live my life without running his errands. It will hardly be worse there than it had been in Afghan, what could there be so terrible that I hadn’t seen at war in Afghan? It seemed that I considered everything. And I said yes I agree. “I agree, – said I, – give me fifteen grand right now.” “Deal? – Nagiyev asked.” “I told you: I agreed, – said I without shaking his hand as if not noticing his.” “Then why you won’t shake hands? – he asked suspiciously.” “Because I am disgusted by this deal, – I replied to him.” “Alright, – Nagiyev said – but I’m warning you: don’t you play any jokes on us. We know where your mother lives, so if you try to stitch me up, I'm warning you now get it out of your head.” “I wouldn’t even think of it, – said I, – as to my mother the less you think about her, the healthier you will be.” “Alright, alright, – he said, – calm down, I just wanted to warn you.” He went to the bedroom and came back with wads of cash. “Fifteen, – he said, – want to count it?” “No, – I replied, – but I want the rest afterwards, when I get out.” “As we agreed, – he said, – you know my word, – for each month six hundred, no matter how much you get. Don’t you worry, I can tell you for sure you won’t get more than a fiver – you’ll see. Well six years tops and half will be reduced under amnesty, you’ll see, pray that I would owe you more than this fifteen grand, lest you have to pay me the difference to balance off the years, – he went on.” His last words were obviously said to make an impression on me, to sort of lull me into a calm. He got so carried away in his joy that he managed to persuade a dummy like me to get involved in such rotten business. Well, it would have been all the same for me, I could never have managed to wriggle out of it had he decided to take me doing time with him. However, it was late night when I took a ride home, hid the money in the kitchen cupboard (who would in his right mind come to rob a flat like ours with mom?), left a note for mom that I was leaving for another city, didn’t want to scare her – she’d find out anyway, they will call her for sure, but what would I write to her, that I had killed a man and money that I received for that I’m leaving for you mom? I wrote that I’d be sending her letters, she shouldn’t worry, and everything is alright. I wrote that the money she would find is mine and consequently hers as well. It’s not stolen and that’s why I’m asking her to spend it on herself while I’m away, which was true actually, I didn’t steal it, will be working for it paying it off in years of my life. So how would you call that if not earned? Then I quietly came to the head of the bed, cautiously kissed mom (at one moment I suddenly wanted to wake her up, wanted her to wake up and I would tell her everything, maybe cried, if I could, putting my head on her knees, but fortunately this crazy idea quickly left my head) and stepped out locking the door with my key and throwing the key inside through the night vent. Our flat was on the ground floor of an old, pre – war house and all neighbours here in the courtyard knew each other very well and liked to say that a close neighbour is better than a remote relative, tried to prove it in everyday life. That is why to some extent I was not worried about mom, I knew that neighbours won’t leave her alone, but whatever their help was that didn’t mean that she did not have to be provided with the means of existence. I was walking along the night street and remember when I was turning into the avenue near the circus to catch a ride, I absolutely unexpectedly and inexplicably for myself suddenly thought that I hadn’t been to the circus for ages, maybe since my childhood years, and I adored the circus. In childhood every visit to the circus, normally with my late father, turned into a great event, and right here and now I suddenly wished that I was going to the circus! Well, alright. I stopped a car and went to Nagiyev’s, getting off as he had asked two blocks away from his apartment. Nagiyev tried to look calm, tried to show that he never doubted my decency and honesty. We had a drink, I drank more, for courage, and closer to the morning I started calling the police… Generally, we thought about everything. Everything, except for one thing. Investigator and some other son of a bitch were beating me up in the interrogations; they did it very skillfully, mainly hitting me on the head and abdomen in order not to leave any marks. They wanted to kick out a confession from me. I understood straight away what the investigator needed. He wanted me to name Nagiyev as an accomplice. He could take a good bribe from Nagiyev. What could he take from me? I’m poor as a church mouse. And so they beat me up, the bastards beat me up professionally, bloody coppers, but I got through it, I didn’t crack and finally they had to pass the case to the court as manslaughter. The court judged the case as an accident with one aggravating circumstance – I had been drunk. The late Igor also was one hell of a fruitcake. He had been wanted by the police all over Soviet Union as a crook and swindler – what people!? Eh! He’s wanted, (just don’t understand how they looked for him) as he’s travelling from city to city dragging a load of suitcases with him. I think this also played a little positive role. Nagiyev must have had second sight; they gave me a short sentence – five years of high security labour camp. My lawyer was good, experienced, Nagiyev held his word. And a lot of what he’d said was taken into account: war veteran, have decorations and so on. At least here my former service helped. So I was sent to the prison camp, Mordovskaya SSR, write to me, eh– hey! This is how I turned up in a prison camp, not having even rested properly after Afghanistan. Yes, I have seen much for my twenty five years of age. I don’t ever want to remember the war, unnerves me, I’m still having Afghan dreams, as if our regiment was preparing for combat, or we drive – a column of BTR troop carriers in the valley, pass the cursed mountains, hidden and scary, where, like polecats, mujaheddins, having fired at the column, immediately hide in the connecting caves, change locations of their anti – aircraft guns, or I see how they having passed through underground passages from a village just shelled by us appear right behind our backs, and now we are surrounded and have to break through this ring of fire… I’d jump with horror, awakened by my own scream… Sometimes it makes you wonder – have I really been through all this hell? Alright… I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t imagine how one can write about war. After many years, maybe, cause even to remember it causes a painful fear… Or am I a coward or I’m getting nervous? Well, alright… I got into the camp. On one of the first days just after work – lights out – I’m in the barrack hut dog – tired. In the beginning I kept away from everyone, well obviously everyone here knew all about me, what sentence and how much time I had to do, but for some I was still a dark horse. And so it seemed they decided to try me out, to see what I was made of. Whether I was a green gull or a criminal. From the bunk by the window in the centre of the barrack hut – the place considered respectable – as I glanced in that direction, an inmate, a strapping fellow of about forty years of age with a horse face, quietly beckoned me.
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