There we were, four avenging angels in the little village outside Smolensk. We had given ourselves a name, the ‘Slumrats’. That’s how we saw ourselves. Creatures of the underworld without value, hunted, filled with self-loathing. But we didn’t just conduct trials in that barn, we prayed to gods of our own choosing. Inez had stolen a book from her step-father, a book filled with pictures of big cities in North America and Western Europe. Inez used to steal all the time; she was the one who taught me how, not my dad. When I told you that I was lying. My dad was a worm who couldn’t even have broken a bike lock. But Inez was never afraid. She would break into churches and steal the elaborate frames they use for icons. We would tear pictures out of our books and slip them into these old icon frames, hang them up and then pray to them. We prayed that we would one day get to see these cities. Then — so that no one would find the pictures — we buried them in one corner of the barn underneath the rotting floorboards.
I’m still not sure who gave the Slumrats their order to flee. Maybe it was me; it should have been me since I was the oldest. We were always dreaming of better places because we only saw hopelessness around us. Political borders may have fallen, but the only difference for us was the fact that now we could see what was on the other side. The rich life was out there, waiting for us. But how were we going to get there? How to cross the invisible border that still existed? We hated the feeling of being trapped, we kept executing our enemies and we started taking any kind of drug we could lay our hands on. None of us went to school, none of us worked. Inez taught me how it was done, she let me watch her when she picked people’s pockets or broke into houses. But we never kept the money for long. We bought drugs and clothes and then we had to start all over again. I don’t think I was clear-headed for a single day during that time, I was always high on something.
