18. The Investigation Continues

· Fiery Trails - 1

The next morning I was taken away for the interrogation. I was increasingly amazed at the insolence of investigator Istomin. He laid out before me drafts, complaints, protests, and appeals to Soviet authorities. Among these drafts there was an appeal to Brezhnev, also in draft form. The investigator presented all this as slander and anti-Soviet propaganda.

“First of all, these are drafts,” I replied, “— my thoughts are written down here. Is thinking already forbidden for you? Why don’t you announce that officially?”
“Why is thinking forbidden?” Istomin objected, “thinking is not forbidden here. You can think whatever you want. Your thoughts may even diverge from the official ideology, but if you write down your thought, even if only in a draft, and that thought diverges from the official ideology, then it is slander and anti-Soviet propaganda.”
Thus, in Articles 190 and 70, the main factor is dissemination, not writing.
Do you take us for fools? Did you write to remember your thoughts? No, you wrote to disseminate them. There, you wrote a complaint to the prosecutor—you disseminated slander that you are being oppressed. Or, for example, you have another charge. You wrote a letter in defense of Shcharansky, Ginzburg, Orlov, Yakunin. Those letters were slanderous. You call them honest people, but the court has found them criminals. Do you confirm those thoughts written in the drafts? Or perhaps you now acknowledge them as mistaken and repent of them?
So you are suggesting that I repent for having thought incorrectly before, or that I should repent for not staying silent, and these thoughts landed me in prison?
Preferably both, so that it might be a lesson for others.
Do you think that after everything you’ve done to me in prison, you’ve frightened me? No, everything I did was right. I have no intention of renouncing it.
“All right,” said the investigator, turning to his assistant, Lieutenant Svinchuk, “write it all down.”
He began dictating his questions and my approximate answers. This was beyond everything. I was outraged and protested.
Why don’t you write down my answers at once, from my words?
But you don’t sign anything anyway. What difference does it make to you what’s written here? The investigator was simply mocking me. He wanted to show that I was completely in his hands.
When they put me in the KGB car, to my surprise I saw a bottle of wine, apples, and sandwiches with sausage and cheese. We were already almost halfway to the prison when the old guard said:
Well, how about we take a trip to the countryside? We’ll relax a little, and Boris will get some fresh air; he’s probably tired of the cells by now.
I understood this was a provocation from Istomin, and said:
Take me to prison.
Why like that? — the old man asked, continuing, — Let’s rest, talk a bit…
You’ve suddenly become talkative. In all this time, all I’ve heard from you is: “Step right, step left—I shoot without warning!”; and now you want to talk with me in nature. What, will you shoot me for an escape there? Stop this cheap provocation, take me to prison. I’ll get out of the car only in the prison yard, or shoot me here.
The young guard had remained silent all this while, and the old one started cursing and said:
Well, you bastard, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to, — and shouted to the driver, — Take him to that stinking prison, if he likes it so much, and let him rot there.
As we approached the prison, the young guard started joking again:
Well, old man, give Boris the sandwiches.
He’s not entitled to sandwiches, let him eat gruel.

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