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part of the decoy. Because I was so much younger than the other two
boys, people were more sympathetic – and less suspicious. I would go up
to them and pretend to be lost while Dima sneaked up to the back of
their car.
The first three times, it worked perfectly and we found ourselves
eating all sorts of things that we’d never tasted before. Roman and
Grigory were getting used to me now. We’d begun playing cards together
– a game that every Russian knows, called
Durak
or Fool. They’d even
found a mattress for me. It wasn’t a lot softer than the floor and it was
infested with insects, but I still appreciated the gesture.
The fourth time, however, was almost a disaster. And it changed
everything.
It was the usual set-up. We were outside a shop in a quiet street. It was
an area we hadn’t been to before. Our target was a chauffeur, obviously
working for some big businessman who could afford to entertain. His car
was a Daimler and there was enough food in the back to keep us going
for a month. As usual, I went up to the man and, looking as innocent as
possible, tried to engage him in conversation.
“Can you help me? I’m looking for Pushkin Square…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dima scurry up the pavement and
disappear behind the raised door of the boot.
The chauffeur glared at me. “Get lost!”
“I am lost! I need to get to Pushkin Square…”
All I had to do was keep up the conversation for about thirty seconds.
By the end of that time, Dima would have gone and two or three bags
would have gone with him. But suddenly I heard him cry out and I saw,
with complete horror, that a policeman had appeared out of nowhere.
To this day I don’t know where he had come from because we always
checked the immediate area first, but I can only assume that he’d been
expecting us, that the police must have decided to crack down on this
sort of street theft and that he had been lying in wait all along. He was a
huge man with the neck and the shoulders of a professional weightlifter.
Dima was squirming in his jacket but he was like a fish caught in a net.
I saw the chauffeur making a grab for me but I ducked under his arms
and ran round the back of the car. There was nothing I could do for
Dima. The only sensible thing was to run away and leave him and just
be thankful I’d had a lucky escape. But I couldn’t do it. Despite
everything, I was grateful to him. I had been with him for six weeks now
and he had protected me. I couldn’t have survived without him. I owed
him something.
I threw myself at the policeman, who reacted in astonishment. I was
honestly less than half his size and I barely even knocked him off
balance. He didn’t let go of Dima … if anything he tightened his grip,
bellowing at the chauffeur to come and join in. Dima lashed out with a
fist but the policeman didn’t feel it. With his spare hand, he grabbed
hold of my shirt so that we were both held captive and, seeing us
unarmed and helpless, the chauffeur lumbered forward to help.
We would certainly have been taken prisoner and that would have
been the end of my Moscow adventure. Indeed, if I were recognized, it
might be the end of my life. But as I struggled, I saw that one of the
shopping bags had fallen over, spilling out its contents. There was a
plastic bag of red powder on the top. I snatched it up, split it open and
hurled it into the policeman’s face, all in a single movement.
It was chilli powder. The policeman was instantly blinded and howled
in pain, both hands rushing to cover his eyes. Dima was forgotten. In
fact everything was forgotten. The policeman’s head was covered in red
powder. He was spinning round on his feet. I grabbed Dima and the two
of us began to run. At the same moment, a police car appeared at the far
end of the street, speeding towards us, its lights blazing. We ran across
the pavement and down a narrow alleyway between two shops. It was a
cul-de-sac, blocked at the far end by a wall. We didn’t let it stop us, not
for a second. We simply sprinted up the brickwork and over the top,
crashing down onto an assortment of dustbins and cardboard boxes on
the other side. Dima rolled over then got back on his feet. We could hear
the siren behind us and knew that the police were only seconds away.
We kept running – down another alleyway and across a main road with
six lanes of traffic and cars, trucks, motorbikes and buses bearing down
on us from every direction. It’s a miracle we weren’t killed. As it was,
one car swerved out of our way and there was a screech and a crumpling
of metal as a second car crashed into it. We didn’t slow down. We didn’t
look back. We must have run half a mile across Moscow, ducking into
side roads, chasing behind buildings, doing everything we could to keep
out of sight. Eventually we came to a Metro entrance and darted into it,
disappearing underground. There was a train waiting at the platform.
We didn’t care where it was going. We dived in and sank, exhausted,
into two seats.
Neither of us spoke again until we got back to our own station and
climbed back up to our familiar streets. We didn’t go to the flat straight
away. Dima took me to a coffee house and we bought a couple of glasses
of
kvass
, a sweet, watery drink made from bread.
We sat next to the window. We were both still out of breath. I could
hear Dima’s lungs rattling. Climbing the stairs was enough exercise for
him and he had just run a marathon.
“Thank you, soldier,” he said eventually.
“We were unlucky,” I said.
“I was lucky you were there. You could have just left me.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I hate this stupid city,” Dima said. “I never wanted to come here.”
“Why did you?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, then pointed to his broken nose. “My dad
did this to me when I was six years old. He threw me out when I was
seven. I ended up in an orphanage in Yaroslav and that was a horrible
place … horrible. You don’t want to know.” He took out a cigarette and
lit it. “They used to tie the kids down to the beds, the troublemakers.
They left them there until they were covered in their own dirt. And the
noise! The screaming, the crying… It never stopped. I think half of them
were mad.”
“Were you adopted?” I asked.
“Nobody wanted me. Not the way I looked. I ran away. Got out of
Yaroslav and ended up on a train to Moscow … just like you.”
He fell silent.
“There’s something I want you to know,” he said. “That first day we
met, at Kazansky Station.” He took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled
blue smoke. “We took your money. It was Roman, Grig and me. We set
you up.”
“I know,” I said.
He looked at me. “I thought you must have. But now I’m admitting it
… OK?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I went on. “I’d have done the same.”
“I don’t think so, soldier. You’re not the same as us.”
“I like being with you,” I said. “But there’s something I want to ask.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you mind not calling me ‘soldier’?”
He nodded. “Whatever you say, Yasha.”
He patted me on the shoulder. We finished our drinks, stood up and
went home. And it seemed to me that I’d actually done what I’d set out
to do. The two of us were friends.
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