In the morning it can be pretty cold at times. There is no glass in the window, and the bunk is situated in such a way that the air flows through me; there's a draft from the window to the door. My throat is a bit sore; trying to save it with hot black tea, lemon, juice. I had better let my sleeping tonsilitis lie; in my case it means a temperature of above 400C (1040F), and in prison conditions, especially in a solitary cell it would be rather complex. In the morning the chief looked in to check everything, wearing a full uniform: "What, how, when?" - "OK, the problem is there's no glass in the window, and the sentence is due on the eighth" - "I've Put it down: a pane to be fixed." Well, we'll see.
We've been through these "put-it-downs". The most important thing is not to decline. I had already told the DPNSI (assistant-commander of the remand prison) about those panes two weeks before.
Today is dispatch day (every 4th, 14th and 24th day of the month). Some will be sent away: they got their terms and were assigned a destination - it's their turn to be dispatched to a colony, to their permanent residence. Some will be brought here... some have been detained someplace, throughout an investigation or for a trial. Life goes on...
Shhh! The cover of my peephole rattled - keeping a watch of me those jailers, sods!, behaving in an overly formal manner. I have special relationships with them - they're kind of not here, and I'm sort of "punching out." And they - there you go; sometimes when I hear the rattle of the peephole, I ask them to switch the light on -they turn it on without a word. The local sort of freaking spiritualism, however, the response serves as a fulfillment of uncomplicated wishes.
Holy cow, prisoners from the housekeeping section just came, to frame the glass; they took the measurements. I didn't expect that ... Well, measurements are not a pane yet after all, but that's a good start that gives rise to some hope. Library is not a word that's often used in prison; I tried to return the books I'd read; I wrote requests. It didn't work out. The librarian is either on holiday or on sick leave; it follows he's always absent. The question is whether the library exists at all. I give the books back to the guards, then they somehow travel around the jail; every now and then someone says they've been reading "my" book (when they hand the book over, they write the prisoner's last name on the third page).
Sometimes you get word from outside the prison. I heard some people resented that there was so much fuss surrounding me, and not so much regarding Sapargali. In my view, such opinions are nothing but morbid. First of all, anyone can make a fuss, including those who are resentful of the small amount of fuss. Except that I somehow failed to see them present in the courtroom even once. For those couch advocates of the truth, who have made that advocacy a sense of their lives, to beat the air is nothing like carrying bags: it takes just a bit of brains, a trifle more fancy, and they take no risk and don't have to do a spot of work.
Secondly, of Aminov, the third one of us, there's been no mention at all. That's easy to explain. Aminov admitted to everything, pleaded guilty, asked for leniency - what can you say. Serik Sapargali, somehow, admitted to something, denied other things, much like Atabayev and Mamay. But that's what the arrangement was about: it was enough for them to simply mention the word "regret" and they are back home. And without such an arrangement such a position muddles everything (especially for your lawyer); so what's the hassle about under such circumstances where nothing can be understood? There'll be people saying that he's innocent, and supposing he's admitted to something, who can tell now what he's guilty of and what he's not?
And even if you ask the court for leniency, that's more like pleading guilty than refusing to plead guilty. Why make a noise? Ask the court for leniency for Sapargali? That's not a noise, that's moaning. I can understand it all, both in the case of Jacques and of Serik Sapargali, but each instance, each decision gives rise to a response and to an evaluation. And those who ask for leniency should understand that they wish to obtain something in exchange for something they are bound to lose. There's no other way.
Time will pass, something will be explained, something forgotten, but everything that there was is here to stay this way or another. For instance, there is some determined residue of Bolat Atabayev's and Zhanbolat Mamay's fuzzy position. Before jail it was one thing, in jail - another, and after jail: yet a third thing. That's manoeuvering, that's not a position. Once they were together, but then their love faded away... One of them lost his documents, the other one was taken sick, and in the courtroom there was no one to explain it clearly and in detail... One of them drank Bavarian beer during trial, the other one presented his newspaper - nothing personal, just the facts.
Meanwhile, 70 per cent of statements of "witnesses" were supposed to say: stand it till the end, the whole palaver of daredevils and about your readiness to … is definitely unnecessary, the lines of notorious forms of address formed 95 per cent of what I was accused of. Also, there was nothing in excess, except that there were none of my personally uttered words and actions subject to (Article) 164 and 170 in the materials; obviously the others don't have them either, however, you can face whatever there was on your own in the courtroom - that would look more dignified than a distant outcry and ignoring your own promises you made after being freed. That's what I mean, it's kind of nothing like that, but a residue of dirt is bound to remain which won't come off over time.
