The Road of Bones by Anne Fine Page B

gather. There’d be solemn robes, drum-rolls and declarations.’
    â€˜Tell us, Professor,’ someone said scornfully. ‘How would that make things better?’
    The gaunt man bridled. ‘It showed that, back in those much despised days of the Czar, a man’s life at least
mattered.
’
    There was a thoughtful silence. Finally someone I couldn’t see said idly, ‘Twenty-five years . . . Now it’s as routine as getting a ticket for the bath-house.’
    â€˜Better than Tygor’s sentence,’ someone reminded him.
    I couldn’t help it. I was curious.
    â€˜So what is that?’
    Everyone glanced at a man with a badly torn lip as if to offer him the chance to tell his own story. He simply shrugged, so one of the others answered in atone of mock solemnity: ‘Tygor’s been sentenced to the “Supreme Measure”.’
    He’d picked the wrong way of saying it. Tygor’s indifference snapped. ‘Leave out their mealy-mouthed fudging! Do me the honour of calling my sentence by its real name.’
    Shocked to be staring into the face of a man with no future, I failed to guard my tongue. ‘What?’ I said. ‘
Death
?’
    â€˜A smart boy!’ someone sneered. ‘And I see from the scabs on his face that he’s already learned that the word “persuasion” means being kicked around the cell till blood spurts out of your ears.’
    There was another burst of laughter. And suddenly my spirits rose. I looked at these men – sweating and filthy, some of them wearing rags, and half of them old enough to be my own father – and I felt comfort. It was as if a trapdoor had been flung open above my head. Before, I’d only seen a few slim shafts of truth filtering down between boards. Now, suddenly, plain-speaking flooded in like noonday light. What did it matter that I was sitting by a stinking bucket if, every time one of these men opened his mouth, I learned so much about the world around me? Another man would be thrown in. Another, like Tygor, pulled out. And each would have his story – even if those still inthe cell turned out to be the only ones to learn its end.
    Tygor never came back. When, three days later, word was tapped through the walls about his fate, one of the men said idly: ‘To think our only epitaph will be the letter.’
    I raised my head from chasing lice. ‘What letter?’
    He grinned. ‘The one to the family. “This prisoner has lost the right to send or receive correspondence.”’
    I felt a jolt of shock. ‘That means you’re dead?’
    â€˜What else?’
    The solemn man the rest of them had taken to calling the ‘True Believer’ spoke up as usual. ‘It is the duty of those in power to put a stop to disaffection. That way, things will go better for the state.’
    There’d been the usual wave of scorn. ‘What, is Father Trofim listening behind the wall?’
    â€˜Save your prattle for your next party meeting.’
    â€˜Your own arrest was a mistake, of course! As soon as they realize what a loyal citizen you are, they’ll send you back to your family.’
    â€˜Might even offer an apology. Why, Our Great Leader may go so far as to invite you for tea!’
    True Believer scowled. The huge man at my side, whose wounds still wept from his last battering, tugged at my sleeve and nodded across the cell. ‘Believe me,boy. That fool there’s not the only monument to the power of Habits of Thought. You tell some men one great fat lie when they’re still young, and they’ll believe it all their lives. Nothing will shake them.’
    He raised his voice at True Believer. ‘Not even the evidence of their own eyes! Not even being dragged through a three-minute hearing instead of a proper trial, then dumped in this cage!’
    I thought, with True Believer pretending not to hear, he’d let the matter drop.