From my new book

***
Moscow 2007
Next time I came to Moscow I called Andrei and he asked if he could take me to dinner the same night. The puzzle of a man that he still was to me I knew by this point that he could never plan too far ahead. A day ahead even.
He picked me up around 9pm on his black BMW, in a grey suit and no tie. What bothered me was the Stechkin gun in a holster hanging off his belt. When he came out of the car to greet me I kept thinking ‘My god, people can see he has a gun’.
Over dinner at a fancy Moscow restaurant we talked about London and some other insignificancies, when he got a call.
‘Still at work?’ I asked, but he was already in a middle of a conversation, which I couldn’t hear a word of, even though I was sitting right next to him.
‘We have to go’, Andrei said putting the phone in his pocket. ‘Shall I take you home…or do you want to wait’.
‘I’ll wait’, I said, simply not wanting to let it end like this.

I sat on a top floor of some restaurant, not far from Lubyanka, having one coffee after another and a little wine, to numb the stupidity I felt. For three hours.
‘I’m outside’, I finally heard his voice on my phone.
A gang of stray dogs walked me to his car.

‘Can we now please go to your place?’ insistence in my voice more than a question. Damn, he will think I am a whore, went though my head. Or a spy.
He paused for a moment and started driving, in silence.
The elevator in the apartment block we arrived at was akin a swear word dictionary. When the elevator doors opened, leaving the gentleman manners aside, Andrei walked out before me. I was soon to get used to this since he always walked in and out of places first, few steps before me.
The apartment consisted of a room, a kitchen and a toilet.
A pile of training shoes in the hallway, a large bed and a TV in the bedroom/living room area was all there was. Empty fridge and a book on a toilet floor.

‘I have to fly out in three hours’ he said flatly.
An hour later he was packing, throwing things into a green sack. He pulled out a knife, of very light metal.
I took into my hands and before he swiftly grabbed it from my hands it left a thin red mark in the middle of my palm.
‘This was a gift from the Delta guys while I was out there. It’s made out of the meteor metal’.
We left his place around 1am.
‘Shall I take a cab’, I asked.
‘No. It’s on the way.’
The military airbase I learned later was only a few miles east from where I was staying.

***
Tambov prison. 2008.
Andrei was put in the cell with the former officers. The law forbids to put former officers in the cell with the suspected criminals. The mobile phones are sneaked in by the prison wards for an x amount of cash. The same wards would then raid the cells a few days later so that they can get poor relatives to pay up again. This, as well as other similar tricks, substituted their miniscule salaries. The food is miserable and towards late spring it became unbearably hot. But, at least we are able to communicate.