Small gray sparrows hop around on the icy roof and peck at the thin crust of ice with their hard beaks. They are thirsty, and the stream behind the street is frozen, so they quench their thirst with ice. Or maybe they are hungry and looking for food?
There are some dry bread crusts left on the small window. The student takes one, breaks it into pieces, and throws the crumbs onto the roof. The sparrows hop around on the icy tiles like gray nuts and greedily begin to peck.
“They’re hungry, the poor things,” says the student and breaks another crust.
If you look up through the window, you will see only a patch of blue sky. It is so deep on this sunny winter day that your gaze sinks into it like a bottomless abyss and you see nothing. In the distant blue of the open space, the massive buildings of the city loom. From the cell, only the top floors and roofs are visible. The streets are not visible, only the noise of trams and cars reaches us like a fading echo. The space in front of our window is blocked by the neighboring building, which completes the triangle of the prison and forms a narrow courtyard, like a deep well. We are on the fifth floor…
It is cold. The ice crusts on the roof glisten in the winter sun like broken glass. The student stands by the window and watches the gray sparrows hopping nimbly with their thin legs. They are restless, raising their little heads every hour and looking around. It seems that their lives are also uncertain… Suddenly, a black ball whizzes over them.
They disappear like arrows to the bottom of the deep courtyard. A black raven lands on the roof and looks around triumphantly. It puffs out its chest majestically and begins to peck at the crumbs left behind by the little birds. It is pleased with its own appearance, and especially with the terror with which the little sparrows scattered at its appearance.
The student smiles sarcastically and says:
“It looks like a policeman on a deserted street after a scattered demonstration…”
He waves his hand and the ugly bird disappears in an instant.
The sparrows come out of their hiding place one by one, hop back onto the roof and turn around timidly. But the enemy is gone and they hurry to peck at the crumbs.
At that moment, the door creaks sharply and opens. First, a shiny combat knife and the barrel of a rifle appear, then the head of a guard. There is something raven-like about his black face, his small black eyes, and his crooked nose. He looks at us silently and intently. Each of us wonders, “Has he come for me?”
“Come out!” he points to the student and steps back into the corridor.
The student waves his hand at the little sparrows, smoothes the long strands of his blond hair hanging over his forehead, and walks away. He pauses at the door for a moment, nods his head in farewell, and whispers with a forced smile:
“It’s not my first time…”
Two of us remain in the cell: me and the criminal.
He is a handsome young man with a delicate white face, tortured, with thin wrinkles around his mouth. His eyes, black as olives, look sad and pensive.
“They’ll probably release him,” he winks at the door, which the guard slams shut behind the student.
I remain silent.
“This morning I almost escaped,” the criminal continues with a bitter smile. “They made me throw the ashes from the boiler into the sewer. I took the wheelbarrow there myself—the guard stayed in the yard. Something stirred in me—the streets of the city are tempting, damn it… But I waved my hand and came back.
“Why didn’t you run away?” I ask.
“Where could I hide? They’ll catch me again tomorrow…”
He sits down on his coat by the wall, wraps his arms around his knees, and thinks with his head bowed. Then he suddenly twitches, listens, and asks anxiously:
“Do you hear anything?”
“No.”
“I thought I heard someone shout.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“You’re completely deaf, I see… Did you go deaf in Russia?”
“No, here.”
“Don’t they beat people there?”
“Where there?”
“Where you come from,” he said, waving his hand vaguely.
“No. If you beat someone, you’re going to jail.”
“How can you not fight back?” the criminal asks in surprise. “For example, they beat me seven times until I confessed to seven thefts. If they had beaten me one more time, I would have confessed to the eighth. But the police got tired and let me go. Besides, with seven thefts, the eighth is irrelevant. That’s how we are here… No one admits their guilt without a fight.
“If there is evidence,” I say, “the guilty party can be convicted without a confession. That’s what the law says…”
“Forget the law,” the criminal frowned. “Better tell me how they gather evidence there, if they don’t beat people up?”
“Through investigation.”
“And here, they use a stick.” He smiled bitterly, then thought for a moment and said more to himself than to me: “How can it be without a fight? Just unbelievable…”
The door burst open and the student fell to the floor like a corpse. The guard’s white teeth flashed, as did the knife on his rifle, which for a moment caught the rays of sunlight streaming through the window. The guard stood in the doorway, frowning and angry, looking fierce at us and slowly closing the door. The key clicked sharply in the lock. His hobnailed boots clattered hollowly in the corridor.
“Water!” the student moans quietly.
We hand him the jug, but he can’t take it. His hands lie lifelessly on the floor. A thin trickle of blood runs from his nose…
“This is how our police gather evidence,” whispers the detective with a sigh.
The next day at noon, the student got up and, leaning his hands against the wall, stood up by the barred window. As soon as they saw him, the little sparrows cheerfully hopped around on the roof. He threw them some crumbs, then sat down again and said:
“It’s time for us to eat too, fellas.”
“Was that you screaming yesterday?” asked the criminal.
“No.”
“We could hear screams from here. Someone was crying…”
“I never cry,” replied the student.
“You seem to be used to it,” the criminal said with a smile. Now the wrinkles around his mouth were clearly visible.
“Oh, yes,” the student confirmed. “It’s not my first time. A few months ago, they arrested me again at a student protest. They beat me up pretty badly, but I didn’t say a word. ‘Cry!’ the police officers shouted, and they beat me. I still didn’t say a word. Then one of them sat on my head, and the other two took turns beating me. ‘Cry!’ they shouted, but I didn’t even have the strength to groan…”
The bread is hard as a rock, and we don’t let go of the jug, as if it were a cup of wine. After every dry bite, we take a sip of water. The criminal eats silently. He seems resigned to his fate, but he is not calm at all. His thoughtful eyes are sad.
“Let’s say I stole something there, in the Big Country. What will they do to me?” he asks.
“They will sentence you to corrective labor.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you will work during the day and sleep in prison at night.”
“Can’t I sleep in prison during the day?”
“No, you can’t. In prisons there are schools for re-education. And labor is the best educator of man.”
“And when I’ve served my sentence?”
“You’ll get out of prison and work like everyone else.”
“But here, when I get out of prison, I’ll have to go back to my old trade, picking people’s pockets on the trams. I have to steal to eat.”
“Why don’t you earn your living by honest labor?”
“Honest work?” wonders the criminal. “Where is honest work here? Unemployment is a terrible thing! And besides, who will give a job to an ex-convict? Everyone runs away from us like the plague. I’ve been in prison three times so far, and I don’t know how many more times I’ll be there. The last time, my sentence expired in the middle of winter.”
The jailer came and told me to gather my belongings. I asked them to let me stay in prison until winter was over, but they refused. But I resisted and went all the way to the director. “Get out of here!” he said. “The sooner, the better for you.”
“It’s not better at all,” I objected. “Let me stay here for at least another month, until the snow melts.”
“I can’t,” he said. “The law doesn’t allow it.”
“All right,” I said, “see you soon!” And indeed, after a week, I was back in prison. At least that’s easy.
The sun is setting. The sky turns red, then purple. The student throws crumbs to the sparrows. I go up to him and ask:
“Did they beat you badly?”
“You can see for yourself…”
“What do they want from you?”
“To reveal the organizers of the student protest. ‘Point them out to us,’ they say, ‘and we’ll release you immediately. ‘ ‘I’m not a traitor,’ I reply. They started beating me. I just groan silently, and they get angry and hit me even harder. But I know what to do. I relax my body, and the rubber whip sinks into my flesh and bounces off like a ball. Try it and you’ll see that it hurts less,” he laughs. “It’s all a matter of habit. Once you get used to it, you don’t feel the blows.”
“Do you think they would have released you if you had betrayed your comrades?”
“Do you think I’m naive? If I point out two of them, I’ll be the third. Better to be alone, with a clear conscience.”
The student falls silent. The criminal, leaning against the wall, is silent too.
It’s getting dark, and the sparrows are still hopping on the icy roof. But suddenly the black ball flies over them again and they disappear noisily into the dark abyss of the courtyard.
“Damn raven!” the student says angrily.
“Hey, you!” someone behind us shouts.
I turn around—the black guard is standing by the door, pointing his finger at me…
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About
Plamen V. is an award-winning freelance writer/poet with published works online and in a dozen US and UK literary magazines. They been writing since they were ten, and has won numerous writing contests and received awards from different parts of the world.
A creative person with big dreams that loves to help people. They have Certificates on Creative Writing from the UK writing centre, from the Open University in Scotland, Oxford Study Centre , Eduta.com/Novel Writing course/ and from Harvard University.
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