Stuart Kaminsky - Black Knight in Red Square

“Misha Vernoska, Boris Panyushkin, Alexi Arenko, Sergi Sarnoff,” said the judge in a weedy voice that bespoke too many cigarettes, “do you understand the charges against you?”

The four young men who had tried to kill Sasha Tkach and had very nearly killed several women, looked at one another, particularly at Sarnoff, to decide their collective answer. They had been cleaned up, properly dressed, and talked to by a member of the procurator’s office who was not obliged to defend them, simply to tell them what the situation was and what they should be prepared for.

“Come, come,” said the judge, tapping a yellow pencil against the desk top. “What is so hard to understand? You are accused of rape, theft, and attempted murder.”

“Comrade Judge,” said Sarnoff, glancing over at Tkach, who sat on a wooden chair nearby waiting to testify. “We understand.”

“And,” the judge went on, “do you admit guilt as charged?”

Sarnoff looked at the other defendants and glanced over at Marina Restovya, the third victim, who still showed signs of the beating they had given her. It seemed incredible to Tkach that the four thugs had not anticipated that question.

“We did some of those things,” Sarnoff said, sullenly looking down so that his dark hair fell forward over his eyes. He threw his head back and looked at the judge. “But not all of those things.”

“Will you tell us which you did and which you did not do?” the judge asked with a sigh that indicated that he did not intend to believe anything the young man said.

“We didn’t try to kill anybody,” Sarnoff said defiantly, glancing at Tkach. Sasha tried to engage the young man’s dark eyes, but Sarnoff turned away.

“Admirable,” the judge said sarcastically and let out a hacking cough. “So all you did was beat and rape women who were no longer young.”

“Yes, Comrade Judge,” Sarnoff said, enjoying his moment in center stage. “That’s all.”

“Then you robbed them,” the judge added, looking down at the long yellow sheet in front of him and checking something with the pencil.

“Yes,” agreed Sarnoff, “but we were not always responsible.”

“The women forced you to do it?”

“No, but they didn’t-”

“Stop,” said the judge, raising his pencil. “Just tell us what you think of what you have done.”

“We are sorry it happened,” Sarnoff said with what he must have taken to be smile of contrition.

“You are all sorry,” the judge said.

“Yes,” the others answered together.

“Have any of you ever been arrested before?” the judge asked.

“Not that we can remember,” Sarnoff answered for them.

“A forgettable thing, being arrested,” the judge agreed. “Could happen to anyone. Why should you remember it? Let’s see, Vernoska, age twenty-five, arrested for illegal profiteering, fighting in the metro. Do you remember now, Vernoska? It comes back to you?”

The young man who had confronted Tkach in the elevator and who now had a wide strip of tape over his nose, which Tkach had broken, looked up and spoke.

“I remember,” he said quietly.

“Good,” said the judge. “Arenko-theft, vandalism. Panyushkin, what is this, no arrests?”

“The police once took my knife in a store,” said the youngest member of the group.

“Sorry,” said the judge, making a note of this. “We wish you to have all the credit you deserve. And now, Sarnoff, your lack of memory is hard to understand in view of the frequency of your dealings with the police. Illegal sale of goods, making indecent suggestions to a little girl. Yes, I can see how you would forget such things. Let us have the witnesses.”

Three of the women testified, followed by Tkach, who was greeted by applause from the small gathering of relatives of the victims when he described Rostnikov’s decimation of the gang.

“We object,” cried Sarnoff, looking back at a young woman who sat near the door and was giving him a sour look.

“You object to having been humiliated?” said the judge.

“It didn’t happen that way,” insisted Sarnoff.

“I’ll decide which way it happened,” said the judge.

Normally, the detective who has made the arrest does not appear at the trial, and the judge simply reads a statement written by the detective. The detective’s deposition is normally a repetition of the charges with any comments about the defendant’s background or character that the police wish to make. In this case, however, Tkach was actually a party to one of the charges, that of attempted murder, and so was called on to testify though there had been little doubt from the moment of arrest what the conclusion would be.

“So,” the judge said, after Tkach had finished his testimony, “does anyone have any questions, anything to say? Is everything clear? No? Good, the defendants can have the last word.”

“Comrade Judge,” said Sarnoff, launching into a speech he had obviously rehearsed, “we have done a terrible thing. We are not worthy of Soviet citizenship, but we have learned from your wisdom, and we now see that what we did was wrong. We wish to accept our punishment and as soon as possible return to useful jobs to demonstrate our commitment to the state and the future.” Sarnoff paused and got prodded from behind gently by the one called Arenko.

“Oh, yes,” Sarnoff added. “We beg the court to be merciful.”

“That’s all?” the judge said. “Good. I’ll be back with the verdict in a little while.”

An armed police officer stepped forward as the judge rose and moved to the little dark closet that served as his chambers. While the judge wrote out his verdict and decision and smoked four black cigarettes, the defendants conferred, argued, and ignored as best they could their relatives and their victims.

Tkach sat down next to Marina Restovya who, now that the swelling in her face had gone down a bit, looked even more like an older version of his Maya.

“Will they be executed?” she whispered to Tkach.

“Not for a crime such as this,” he answered, “but I’m confident the punishment will be severe.” The death sentence, Tkach knew, was generally reserved for murder and political heresy.

The judge returned in about twenty minutes, sat down, and motioned for silence. By now the already stuffy room was stifling with twenty sweating bodies and poor ventilation.

“In the name of the Russian Federated Socialist Republic,” began the judge wearily, “it is found that the defendants committed the acts charged in the indictment, crimes specified in the criminal code. In determining punishment, the court has taken into consideration the past record of arrests of three of the defendants, the clear hypocrisy of their contrition, and the disgusting nature of their acts. The sentence is ten years of corrective labor with deprivation of freedom in a penal institution to be decided upon by the state.”

It was about what Tkach had expected. Everyone in the courtroom knew that ten years meant ten years, that this meant Siberia, that in ten years the men would age thirty years, and that at least one and possibly more of them would not survive. Tkach looked at Marina Restovya, who nodded solemnly in approval of the verdict. A woman of about fifty began to weep softly and was comforted by a gritty man her own age in worker’s clothes.

“Is the sentence clear to you defendants?”

“It is clear,” said Sarnoff, his voice breaking.

“Good,” said the judge rising.

The defendants were ushered out by the armed police officers and a few minutes of shuffling cleared the courtroom except for the judge, Tkach, and the court secretary.

The judge lit a cigarette and coughed.

“If I could,” said the judge to Tkach, “I’d have them executed as an example.”