23. New Investigation
I was put into the “glass cell.” As I later determined, they kept me there for about 20 hours. It seemed to me that I stood in the “glass cell” for an eternity. I lost all sense of time. I felt my legs swelling. At first my feet hurt, and then I stopped feeling them altogether. It seemed to me that my legs had become like cotton.
At last, the door opened. I took a step and almost fell. I couldn’t feel my legs. Dubak pulled up a chair for me. I sat down in exhaustion. Dubak knew what the result of such a time would be. I sat and rubbed my legs.
“Perchatkin — to the investigation!” Only then did I notice the familiar KGB escort. “Hands behind your back! Step to the right, step to the left—I’ll shoot without warning!” Try walking on such legs without stepping right or left.
We approached the car. The old man indeed held a pistol in his hand. And here I am again in the investigator’s office. Lieutenant Colonel Kuzmin is interrogating:
“I have been assigned to conduct a supplementary investigation on your new criminal case. You see, they haven’t closed the old case yet, and they’ve already begun a new one. And now you’re a repeat offender.”
He propped his head with both hands and stared at me for a long time.
“Well, what have you achieved? What do you look like now? Even your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. Why are you tormenting yourself, your family, and us? Do you think I enjoy interrogating you in such a state? You wanted to be a hero? But your own brothers spit on you. To them you’re a politician. And get this straight: you must be guilty. The authorities are always right. We know, to ourselves, that in your own way you are right. But don’t try to be a hero until you’re called. You have to keep your nose to the wind, Boris Georgievich. Learn from your elders. And your elders are, oh, so clever and shrewd. And the unshrewd ones never get out of here. Like Vince, Fedotov. Well, now prove to me what that syphilis bar was, into which they put you? How did they try to infect you? How did they torture you with chemicals? Which glass cell did you just come from? Prove it, bring witnesses, and I’m ready to laugh.”
“I won’t prove anything to you here. I will tell everything in court.”
“Oh, you scared me! But we’ll make the trial closed.”
“If everything you do is legal, why are you afraid of an open trial?”
“So, you refuse to give testimony?”
“I repeat again, I will speak about everything in court.”
Kuzmin shook his head and began to rub his temples with his fingers.
“The sectarians have ruined you; you should be working for us. And that scoundrel Patrushev, I’d personally give him a ‘cabernet’ right now, instead of you. I read his personal file and I know what a ‘wolf’ he is.
But don’t think I’m a monster. I’ve never handled a case like yours. I’ve interrogated saboteurs, smugglers, and currency dealers. With them everything is clear. But with your case, frankly speaking, I’ve taken a sin upon my soul.”
After the interrogation I was put into a regular cell. There were about 50 people in the cell. My surname was already known in all the cells. They gave me a place on the lower bunk. I was barely able to stand from exhaustion. I immediately lay down on the bunk and instantly fell asleep.
I woke up from some noise. I opened my eyes and looked. In the middle of the cell two prisoners stood dressed in skirts made from sheets. On their heads they had crowns made from magazine covers. They had sad eyes, but they were yelling loudly: “Oh, it’s not for nothing that the Russian beauty is famed…” Then four prisoners in undershirts and shorts jumped onto the “stage.” “Swan Lake.” “Dance of the Little Swans,” one of them announced, and they, holding hands and singing the tune themselves, began to dance, thrusting forward their hairy legs covered with tattoos. — “Maybe I’m in a madhouse?” My bunk neighbor saw that I had woken up and was staring in surprise at what was going on. “The roosters are giving a concert,” he laughed.
The “concert” ended just before supper. During supper, a prisoner sat down beside me, gave me an apple, and began to tell: “I was transferred here from the common barracks; there’s also a Baptist sitting there, a young guy. He has relatives abroad. It seems his uncle works at a radio station in America, broadcasting to the Union. His name is Tolik, I don’t remember his last name. The guards are really tormenting him.”
I understood that it was about Tolik Kabinov. And his uncle is Evgeny Bresenden, who at one time served three years and emigrated to America in 1975. From diplomats I knew that he deals with our issue in America. Congressmen and diplomats had told me more than once that we have weak support in America. The only person who seriously cares about us and knocks on all doors is Evgeny Bresenden. And the KGB had been looking for a way to stop Bresenden’s work in support of us, and now, it seems, they had found a way—they took his nephew.
Earlier they had tried to stop Bresenden’s work in another way. A letter, signed by several people posing as Pentecostals seeking to emigrate, was sent from the Soviet Union to public and religious organizations in the USA. The letter claimed that Bresenden was not actually a representative of the Pentecostals, that he had been excommunicated three times, and that no one trusted Bresenden. I at one time wrote a rebuttal on this matter.
Now Tolik is sitting in cell 167. When we are taken out for exercise, we pass by 167. During one of the exercise periods, I seized a moment when I managed to run up to the door of 167. Before they grabbed me, I managed to open the food slot, throw an apple inside, and shout: “Tolik Kabinov — hold on!” I saw him run up to the door. For such insolence, I was punished by standing in the “glass cell.”
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