Free Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith Page B

mafias used to have real leaders. Antibiotic was a theatrical promoter, and if he liked a show he'd hire the whole hall for himself. He was like family to the Brezhnevs. A character, a racketeer, but his word was good. Remember Otarik?'
        'I remember he was a member of the Writers' Union even though his application had twenty-two grammatical errors,' Arkady said.
         'Well, writing was not his main occupation. Anyway, now they're replaced by these new businessmen like Borya Gubenko. It used to be that a gang war was a gang war. Now I have to watch my back two ways, from hit men and militia.'
        'What happened to Rudy? Was he part of a gang war?'
        'You mean a war between Moscow businessmen and bloodthirsty Chechens? We're always the mad dogs; Russians are always the victims. I'm not addressing you personally, but as a nation you see everything backwards. Could I give you a small example from my life?'
        'Please.'
        'Did you know that there was a Chechen Republic? Our own. If I bore you, stop me. The worst crime of old people is to bore young people.' Even as he said this, Makhmud clutched Arkady's collar again.
         'Go on.'
        'Some Chechens had collaborated with the Germans, so in February 1944 mass meetings were called in every 'village. There were soldiers and brass bands; people thought it was a military celebration and everyone came. You know what those village squares are like - a loudspeaker in each corner playing music and announcements. Well, this announcement was that they had one hour to gather their families and possessions. No reason given. One hour. Imagine the scene. First the pleading, which was useless. The panic of looking for small children, for grandparents, forcing them to dress and dragging them put of the door to save their lives. Deciding what you should take, what you can carry. A bed, a chest of drawers, a goat? The soldiers loaded everyone into lorries. Studebakers. People thought the Americans were behind it and Stalin would save them!'
        In Makhmud's stare, Arkady saw black irises locked like the lens of a camera. 'In twenty-four hours there wasn't a Chechen left in the Chechen Republic. Half a million people gone. The lorries put them on trains, in unheated freight carriages which travelled for week after week after week in the middle of winter. Thousands died. My first wife, my first three boys. Who knows at what siding the guards threw their bodies out? When the survivors were finally allowed to climb down from the carriages they found themselves in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia. Back home, the Chechen Republic was liquidated. Russian names were given to our towns. We were removed from maps, histories, encyclopedias. We disappeared.
        'Twenty, thirty years went by before we managed to return to Grozny, even to Moscow. Like ghosts, we make our way back home to see Russians in our houses, Russian children in our yards. And they look at us and they say, "Animals!" Now you tell me, who has been the animal? They point fingers at us and shout, "Thief!" Tell me, who's the thief? When anyone dies, they find a Chechen and say, "Murderer!" Believe me, I would like to meet the murderer. Do you think I should feel sorry for them now? They deserve everything that's happening to them. They deserve us.' Makhmud's eyes became their most intense, dead coals come alive, and then dimmed. His fingers unclenched and released Arkady's lapel. Fatigue folded into a smile across his face. 'I apologize, I wrinkled your jacket.'
        'It came wrinkled.'
        'Nevertheless, I got carried away.' Makhmud smoothed the jacket. He said, 'I'd like nothing more than to find Kim. Grapes?'
        Beno handed back a wooden bowl overflowing with green grapes. By now, Arkady could see not so much a family resemblance among him, Ali and Makhmud as a likeness of species, like the bill of a hawk. Arkady took a handful. Makhmud opened a short knife with a hooked blade to slice