Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin Read Free Book Online Page B

a muscle – he gazed at him with bored and indifferent eyes, as if he were looking straight through him. With every step Mel gained more courage until, when there were no more than a couple of metres between Mel and Amur, Gigit stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle, making such a piercing sound that it even startled me. A few seconds later I saw Mel fly magically over the fence, pass above my head and land on the pavement, hitting his forehead on the sun-softened asphalt. Immediately afterwards the gate jerked under the weight of Amur, who threw himself into it, with a strange noise that I had never before heard from any living creature. It was a kind of human cry mingled with a desperate and angry chorus of animal voices. As if an elephant, a lion, a wolf, a bear and a horse were competing at who could make the loudest noise. If someone had asked me at that moment what the voice of the devil might sound like, I would have said like Amur.
    The seat of Mel’s pants was torn, and underneath you could see some bloody red weals, left by a blow from Amur’s paw. Mel was terrified and still couldn’t understand what had happened. Gigit and Besa were rolling about with laughter and kept whistling, to increase the fury of the dog, which from the other side of the gate kept spitting froth and uttering the sounds of his animal wrath.
    And so in the end Mel lost his bet, but after the entertaining show he had provided we forgave him.
    At the age of twelve I got into trouble. I was put on trial for ‘threats in a public place’, ‘attempted murder with serious consequences’ and, naturally, ‘resistance to a representative of power in the pursuance of his duties of defending the public order’. It was my first criminal trial, and in view of the circumstances (I was a young boy and the victim was a previous offender a couple of years older than me) the judge decided to be lenient and give me a sentence which in slang is called a ‘cuddle’. No prison and no obligation to follow any re-education programmes, after which most convicts usually become even nastier and angrier. All I had to do was observe a kind of personal curfew: stay at home from eight in the evening till eight in the morning, report to the juvenile office every week and attend school.
    I would have to live like that for a year and a half, then I would be able to return to normal life. But if in the meantime I committed some crime I would land myself straight on the bunk beds of a juvenile prison, or at least in a re-education camp.
    For a year everything went smoothly, I tried to keep as far as possible away from trouble. Certainly, I often went out at night, because I was sure I wouldn’t be discovered, but the important thing, I told myself, was not to let myself get caught in a place far from home at the wrong time and above all not to be found mixed up in some serious crime.
    But one afternoon Mel and three other friends came round to see me. We got together in the garden, on the bench under the tree, to discuss an incident that had occurred a week earlier with a group of boys from Tiraspol. We had a friend, a boy who had recently moved to our district. His family had been forced to leave St Petersburg because the father had had problems with the police. They were Jews, but in view of the special circumstances, and some business they had done together, the Siberians had guaranteed their protection.
    Our friend was thirteen and was called Lyoza, an old Jewish name. He was a very quiet, weak boy: he had health problems, was almost deaf and wore enormous glasses, so in the Siberian community he was immediately treated with compassion and understanding, like all disabled people. My father, for example, never stopped reminding me to look after him and to get out my knife should anyone attack or insult him. Lyoza was very well-educated, had refined manners and always talked seriously – everything he said