6. Testimony about Christ
A few days later our cell was already completely packed. At night, the concrete floor was covered with mattresses. In the morning the mattresses were removed, rolled up. Some sat on their mattress, some on the bunks. We took turns walking around the cell for exercise, two people at a time. It was September, and although the intense heat was gone, the cell was stuffy. Iron louvers on the window prevented air from circulating. On top of that, everyone smoked makhorka. A bluish shag smoke constantly hung in the cell. The smell of smoke mixed with the odor of unwashed human bodies, clothes long unwashed, the scent of carbolic acid, and other nauseating smells. Added to all this was the smell of the toilet. Once a day we were taken out for a walk. After such a cell, the fresh air produced a dizzying effect. The exercise yards were on the prison roof. They were the same kind of cages, only without a ceiling. The ceiling was replaced by grating and barbed wire. When the weather was good, the walk lasted fifteen, twenty minutes, and in bad weather, when it rained or was cold, they kept us out in the air for up to an hour. Approaching the cell after the walk, nobody wants to be the first to go inside; everyone wants just one more minute outside of that stench. You breathe in as much air as you can in the corridor, enter the cell, and think, how can anyone exist in here? But half an hour passes, and you start to resign yourself. After the walks, the prisoners always became more pensive and sullen. Everyone recalled their life on the outside.
“What’s up, brothers, hanging your heads, what are you brooding about?” Boris said one day after the walk. “You can’t do that, you can go crazy. Let’s tell some funny stories about ourselves. You can lie, just make it cheerful.”
“I’ll tell one,” said Viktor—a young, twenty-year-old guy from a remote Far Eastern village. “Actually, I’m a Muscovite,” he began. “I’m running along a path in the park once—I always used to warm up, I did running. I’m running—I see, walking toward me is a mug that’s awfully familiar. I stopped. I look, thinking: ‘Who could that be?’ He also stopped. He looks at me and is chewing a pirozhok. He drops the pirozhok, starts to pick it up, and his jaw falls out—that’s when I remembered. It’s Lenya Brezhnev! ‘Hi, Lenya!’ I say to him. ‘Hi!’ he answers, picking up the pirozhok and chewing it again.”
“He just picked it up off the ground and into his mouth?” someone from the prisoners asked seriously.
“That’s right, he picked it up,” answered Viktor. “He chews, looking at me like that, and says: ‘The economy must be economical.’” The prisoners took turns telling all kinds of tall tales, inventing funny stories, thickly sprinkled with curses. On the outside, of course, it would have been funny to them, but here everyone listened and seriously asked follow-up questions about something. Some laughed, but their laughter was somehow mirthless. I felt sorry for these people.
“Want me to tell you about God?” I asked.
“Well, if it’s interesting, go ahead and tell, but I think there is no God,” someone answered. “If He existed, there wouldn’t be such injustice in the world, and if He does exist, then He’s an evil God.”
“I don’t know if God exists or not, but evil spirits definitely exist—I’ve seen it myself,” said another.
“You say an evil God?” I asked. “Now I’ll tell you the story of Christ, and you see whether He’s an evil God or not.”
I began to tell how He was born and how from the very first days they began to persecute Him, to kill Him. Told how He, having neither money nor a home, walked on foot through towns and villages, taught the people, went hungry, lacked sleep, slept wherever He happened to be, wherever night overtook Him or where He was invited with His disciples. He shunned no one, associated with everyone, preached to all, healed the sick. He did good deeds, and, strange as it may be for you, it was for this that they crucified Him.
Everyone was silent. My story affected them all. No one had read the Bible and knew nothing about God.
“It turns out Christ was the same kind of poor wretch as we are—He suffered a lot,” said Boris. “You tell us about God every evening from now on.”
The next morning after that, the guard opened the food slot and yelled: “Perchatkin, no belongings—on your way out!”
“Well, so we’ve met again,” said the investigator for especially important cases, Lieutenant Colonel Kuzmin, who had interrogated me on the Shcharansky case two years before. “You fooled us for a long time, but now you won’t manage to fool us. We’ll begin the investigation from the most recent event and work our way back.” Kuzmin opened a folder and took out a sheet that I recognized immediately. It was the appeal to the U.S. Congress that I had sent that year, in April. In that appeal, based on Soviet laws, I had argued that there is no freedom of religion in the USSR. Kuzmin read the appeal aloud and said:
“I’m not going to ask you now why you wrote it that way. Here is your signature. You signed as secretary of the Council of Churches. Do you confirm that this is your signature, your appeal, or perhaps someone else wrote it and you only put your signature? In general, tell me everything you know about the preparation of this appeal. Right now, I’m interested in the technical side of the matter.”
I did not rush to answer. I understood that he was weaving a web around me. The greatest danger was not to drag anyone down with me.
“I composed this appeal myself. I typed it myself, sent it to the West myself.”
“Is this your final answer, or will you think more? I’m putting everything into the record.”
“I do not need anyone’s help; I compose, type, and send all documents myself.”
“I understand, you’re protecting your buddies. That’s understandable and maybe commendable, but lying is not good for a Christian. There’s a discrepancy in your statement. We seized this paper from Vitaly Istomin in Moscow, and this,” he pulled out a notebook, “we seized during a search of your friend Sergey Onishchenko, who, by the way, has also been arrested. Well, in this notebook exactly the same appeal is written, only in a draft version. So, there are three of you in this case. Onishchenko wrote it, you put your signature, and Istomin forwarded it. Here, acquaint yourself with the expert examination.”
“I wrote it.”
“Very well. Right now we will call in another expert. In about three hours the results of a second examination will be lying on my desk.”
The guards led me into the cell. I lay down on the bunk, put my hands behind my head, and began to think. So, Onishchenko has also been arrested, and Istomin is probably sitting somewhere here.
Could they have been arrested because of this case? After all, there are no materials on them except this draft and this appeal. I dictated to Sergey, he wrote it down, and Vitaly had a second copy of an already-sent appeal. Most likely, they were arrested to scare them and force them to give some evidence against me. But they are not the kind of people who can be intimidated. And they are giving me a chance to pin this whole matter on them, in order to drag them along with me.
I began to think about what article I could be charged under. I was being charged under two articles: 190, part one—up to three years of deprivation of freedom, and article 70—up to seven years. “If they give me article 70,” I thought, “when I’m released, I’ll be 41, Zina—38.” I started calculating how old each of our children would be.
When I was 6, I was left without a father. I tried to remember what he was like, and recalled only very dimly. “My oldest son is 9,” I thought, “he will remember me, but the younger ones will forget.” I kept thinking, picturing in various versions my reunion with my family after seven years. My thoughts were interrupted by the guard’s voice: “Perchatkin, on your way out, to the investigator!” “In front of you are two examinations by two different experts, and both confirm one and the same thing—this is Onishchenko’s handwriting. So who wrote the appeal? You or Onishchenko? Onishchenko himself admits that he wrote it.”
“This appeal was written by me, my signature is there.
Regarding the draft, I do not wish to speak with you any further.”
“According to the Criminal Procedure Code, a draft does not serve as material for an accusation.”
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