href="#ulink_1ddbeb4e-c3bc-5be8-a9d4-cd930ea60bf7">* bayonet over here! Who wants to trade for a pair of shoes?’
In this way, in fifteen minutes the infantrymen had picked the dead clean, leaving them barefoot and unarmed. We’d made an agreement with the infantry; since they were only rarely involved in operations like that and they needed shoes, guns and so on more than we did, they were free to take their trophies. They would leave us the rifles, scopes and infrared laser pointers, which the Arabs had in abundance, given that the United States systematically and with great generosity refurnished them with all the necessities.
We took the new Kalashnikovs to reinforce our equipment and put everything else in a pile with a hand grenade underneath, which would render the weapons completely useless. I kept for myself a Finnish-made precision rifle, equipped with an American scope and ten full cartridges.
When we were getting ready to go back to the base, Nosov went over to the guy I had hit in the knee. He was hardly moving. His face had gone white, he was losing a lot of blood and if it went on that way he wouldn’t last much longer.
The captain looked at him with a wry grin and said:
‘You had some fun here in the valley, huh?’ He placed his foot on the wound, right where the white bone was poking out, and pushed down with brute force. The poor wretch shouted hopelessly, it seemed like he was going to explode from pain any moment. Nosov laughed softly, looking him right in the eye.
‘Piece of shit Arab, you made a bad move coming here. They told you a load of crap about the Russians . . . You think that your people killed the infidels, right?’ Nosov didn’t raise his foot from the man’s knee and his entire body was shaking. A dribble of dark spit trickled out of his mouth, as if he had eaten dirt. He didn’t have the strength to scream, he just made a quiet moan, like the cry of a sick dog. The captain pulled his knife out of his jacket, and stroked it as he continued his speech.
‘I know you think you’re going to your nice little Muslim paradise now, but you can’t be so naïve as to think that they’ll let you in without you suffering a little here on earth . . .’
We had all realised that something truly horrendous was about to happen, but we were paralysed.
A young officer in the infantry, who seemed to be the most cruel of their group, stood there like a statue; open-mouthed, as still as if he had seen a ghost.
Nosov exposed the Arab’s chest, ripping off his military jacket. The man stared at him without saying anything, his eyes bulging with terror.
‘Thank goodness I’m here, always willing to help you good people, to oil the gates of the garden of your god. So when you finally open it, it won’t bother you with its squeaking . . .’
Nosov bent over him; he put one knee on his chest, the other on his legs, then stuck the knife in his belly and began to cut.
The Arab howled so loud that his voice gave out soon after; he just let out a sort of prolonged, inhuman whistle, like a machine with metal parts grating against each other.
Our captain continued carving into his chest, accompanying his work with a song, a kind of saboteur anthem:
‘A bayonet in the back, a bullet to the heart,
the wolves will pray for our souls!
The dead aren’t warmed by triumph or glory,
Blood runs in our veins, the blood of the Russian,
today we will satisfy death, God forgive us!’
The louder the Arab wheezed, grimacing with pain, the louder Nosov sang, while he continued carving with patience and calm.
‘Born and raised there, where the others will die,
that’s why fate made us saboteurs!
The Motherland, great Russia, even she is afraid of us,
we are her true sons, for her we’d drown in blood,
but our hearts burn with true love!’
When he was finished, the captain got up slowly, and with a sadistic smile said to the rest of us:
‘We were here, the saboteurs!’
The man’s entire torso was skinless, from his navel to his neck. The Arab had lost consciousness, but you could see he was still breathing softly.
Next to him, on the ground, there was a layer of skin. Nosov had cut it in the shape of a bat, just like the ones we drew on the city walls.
The captain said to the infantrymen:
‘Go ahead and take it if you want, keep it as a souvenir. That way you can tell everyone that at least one time in your pointless lives you knew some real men . . . Remember that being cruel doesn’t mean cutting the noses or ears off the dead to make a necklace or a keychain . . . You don’t rape women or beat children. Try to look your enemy right in the eye when he’s still alive and breathing, that’s enough . . . And if you have the balls to do something else, well go ahead . . .’
We said nothing, mulling over what had just come out of our captain’s mouth. The infantrymen seemed frightened, some had stepped back, pretending they hadn’t seen anything.
The silence that had fallen around that inhuman torture was broken by Shoe. With an almost indifferent and calm expression – as if he were on vacation – he proclaimed:
‘Well, not too bad, Ivanisch, that bat almost looks real!’
A young officer from the infantry pulled his gun out of his holster and went over to the Arab, aiming at his head. Nosov gave him a dirty look.
‘What are you doing, son?’ he asked, calm.
‘Enough, I can’t take it – I’m going to kill him . . .’ The officer was shaken up. His hand trembled as it gripped the weapon.
‘This guy stays as he is,’ Nosov yelled, ‘and in fact I hope he lives till his friends get here . . . They think they’re cruel? They don’t know shit about cruelty! I’ll teach them personally what it means to be cruel!’
Then he went towards the prisoner on whom we’d found the videocamera and the passports. He was all tied up, ready to come with us. Nosov grabbed him by the beard and dragged him over to his freshly skinned companion:
‘Look, and look hard, Arab . . . You don’t know who you’re playing with! Pray to your god that command is interested in you, otherwise I’ll skin you alive and make my guys belts out of your hide!’
After about ten minutes, the helicopters came. We jumped on while the infantrymen stayed behind, waiting for two special infantry units to close off the valley.
We headed back to base, tired and loaded with useless stuff as usual, this time with an Arab prisoner to boot, who, while we were up in the air, suddenly started to cry.
Moscow, feeling sorry for him, gave him some water to drink, and the captain smiled.
‘Give him a drink; I’m sure his throat is all dry . . . What a shitty day, boys, surrounded by a bunch of homos . . .’
When
