Flight from the USSR

The Verdict

The first unofficial verdict was passed before the trial and executed at night, only after the authorities finally became convinced that Gega would not publicly give the testimony that suited their interests.

For them, the problem of Tina’s pregnancy was more important than Gega’s testimony, since trying a pregnant woman could cause broad public compassion and pity towards the hijackers and the Soviet authorities really could not permit that. The Central Committee also considered that if the baby was born before the trial, it would cause additional problems for the government, so they quickly made the decision and carried it out that very night.

They did not wake up Tina. It did not matter to them whether the pregnant prisoner was awake or not because they had to give her something to make her sleep anyway. When Tina woke up, the people in white gowns paid no attention to her widened eyes, full of fear and question. Very quickly, in cold blood, they gave her a shot in the artery. Tina immediately realized that these people were there for the evil deed she had often worried about. Every time she entertained such thoughts, she would get angry with herself for having such a bad opinion of people.

Yet, they really were not people, they were cold-blooded murderers, whose hearts and minds were not even slightly touched by Tina’s desperate pleading not to kill the little unborn baby. Tina struggled until the end, until the last second, until she lost consciousness. She begged all of them, everyone in her cell that night, not to kill her child. But the drug they gave her was very strong and the murderers even looked at one another several times, surprised at how this young woman could struggle and resist for so long. In the end, Tina closed her eyes, drained of strength, defeated and asleep. She did not feel anything, could not see anything, when the several-month old fetus was cut out from her body.

The only thing that connected Tina with the world were the tears wetting her face. Tina cried. She was in a deep asleep and still cried…

There was probably no happier prisoner on earth than Gega when he was taken for interrogation. He felt like he was going on a date, and the most precious place for him in the whole world was that wall with Tina’s words.

But that day there were no new words for him and he wondered if they stopped taking Tina for interrogations, or if she simply didn’t have enough time to write even a single word. That day, he left only a question: How’s our little one?

Several days later, when Gega was taken to interrogation again there was still nothing from her. Again, Gega thought there could have be many reasons for the lack of reply but he still felt a strange weakness in his knees and sweat at his temples.

Once in the interrogation room, Gega asked for water and began to think about what could possibly have happened. At a loss, he decided to ask the investigator about Tina. He had no hope whatsoever of a truthful reply from the elderly investigator, but he had nothing to lose.

Gega drank some water and tried to act as calm as possible when he asked the investigator in a matter-of-fact tone.

“How is my wife?”

“Your wife is well.”

“Are you also the investigator for my wife?”

“Your wife is interrogated by my colleagues.”

“Then how do you know she’s well?”

“I’m telling you what I know, son.”

“Do you have any children?”

“I have good children.”

“Unlike us? Have you ever written a letter to your sweet-heart?”

“I think I’m the one who asks the questions here.”

“Sooner or later, you’ll have to answer, too.”

“Are you saying that to me?”

“To all of you.”

“Are you threatening us?”

“I probably won’t be able to anymore, but others will demand answers from all of you.”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

“First all of you will have to answer for what you have done. You have destroyed the lives of so many people and you don’t even consider yourselves guilty.”

“I have not killed anyone but I still consider myself guilty.”

“And how is that expressed? You aren’t helping the investigation, you will not name the others.”

“I’ve told you already I’ll say everything that’s necessary if my wife and child are going to be alright. I’ve already testified about the monk too.”

“And I’ve already told you that no one will let a plane hijacker and a terrorist go home, even a pregnant woman.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that. I agreed to give the testimony you wanted because I want my baby to be born, to stay alive, at least, if they’re going to sentence me to death by firing squad.”

“Don’t be afraid, son, they won’t sentence you to be executed. If you confess everything, don’t be afraid of death.”

“I’m not scared of the execution and death.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid for my baby, I am afraid that it will be killed.”

“It isn’t born yet, how can it be killed?”

“Yes, but it will be born, and a baby born in prison needs so much care and attention.”

“If it is born, they’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry about that.”

“If it is born? What do you mean, if it is born?”

“Son, you understand that prison conditions are very bad for a pregnant woman.”

“But you promised. I gave you the testimony. I wrote what you wanted me to.”

“And it’s very nice that you wrote it.”

“But what if I change my testimony at the trial?”

“That doesn’t matter. The main thing is the testimony that you have already given to the investigation. That’s the way it is, according to Soviet laws.”

“How?”

“You should have studied the laws first, son, and then hijacked the plane.”

“But what about my baby?”

“As I said we cannot release a terrorist, even if it’s a pregnant woman.”

“But she can give birth here, in prison, right?” “She can, but…”

“But what?”

“But I’ve told you, and am telling you again, prison isn’t the place for a pregnant women and she may have a miscarriage at any minute. If your wife intended to have a baby, she should have stayed at home.”

The investigator said something else to Gega, but he wasn’t listening anymore. His fist hit the investigator remorselessly, and he fell down with a thud. Gega didn’t give him the chance to get up. He jumped on top of him, trying to strangle him with his bare hands.

“Fuck you! You promised they’d take care of the baby! Fuck you all! Murderers!”

Afterwards, in the cell, when Gega opened his eyes and wiped away the blood, he couldn’t recall how those men who first hit him and then kicked him until he fainted appeared in the interrogation room so quickly.

When he regained consciousness, he could feel the taste of his own blood and tried to spit, but it proved to be quite hard, just like moving. He felt pain everywhere—his whole body was aching. He remembered the investigator’s words:

“Don’t leave any marks on his face, hit him low!”

He also remembered his utter surprise at how active the investigator was, who had been just been croaking and hardly breathing two minutes earlier. However, it was only a fleeting moment. He desperately wanted this horror to end but the it continued until they finally got tired…

After that day, Gega’s interrogations abruptly finished. They no longer needed his testimony until the trial. Gega waited impatiently for the court hearing where he would see Tina. But he was also afraid of the meeting, afraid of facing the truth that Tina was not pregnant anymore. As long as hope still existed, a small sliver of hope, he did not want to face the truth.

He also knew he would see his mother at trial, who he had not seen or heard from since the hijacking. He would try to explain to her that he had not intended to leave her, that he had planned to take his mother with him later, take her away from this terrible country.

He also wanted to see his friends, who were together with him on the plane and who he had not heard anything about each other since their arrests.

He also thought of those friends who were not with him on that plane, but he suspected they had been interrogated as well, and he was right.

Others were also taken to interrogations, but the investigation was most of all interested in Irakli Charkviani, a close friend of Gega who was supposed to know more about the hijacking than the others. The Russian investigator, who had specially arrived from Moscow, initially thought that Gega had not asked Irakli to fly with them because Irakli’s grandfather, Kandid Charkviani, was the former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. However, having interrogated Irakli for the first time, he understood that the reason was completely different.

The strange young man surprised the Russian investigator from the beginning, as he insisted on answering his questions only in Georgian. Irakli was very calm as a baffled Georgian KGB employee translated his answers for the Russian investigator. The Georgian officer was genuinely surprised that Kandid Charkviani’s grandson did not speak Russian, but the Russian investigator understood right away that Irakli knew Russian perfectly well (unlike the translator), as well as other languages.

The Russian investigator also understood that while talking to this strange young Georgian, he was talking to the new generation of Georgians; a generation that would never be obedient, conformist and submissive unlike their parents. Therefore, the Russian investigator was not surprised at Irakli’s clearly anti-Soviet references in answers. Quite the contrary, it made the Russian investigator all the more eager to determine why he didn’t go on the plane.

“Why didn’t they want you to fly with them?”

“Who?”

“Gega at least, he was your closest friend, wasn’t he?”

“Why was? Gega still is my closest friend.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I hope you won’t think much about that.”

“What did you mean?”

“I wanted to say that it isn’t at all clear to me why Gega didn’t tell you anything, especially since he knew you well. Sorry, knows you well.”

“That’s exactly why he didn’t tell me anything, because he knows me all too well. He knew I’d refuse.”

“But why? Are you trying to tell me you like the Soviet Union so much that you wouldn’t betray it?”

“I believe I haven’t expressed any sympathy towards Soviet authorities even once during our conversation, but I’m not a dissident either, and don’t want to be.”

“That’s exactly what I’m interested in. What were the grounds for selecting the hijackers and were you, as Gega’s closest friend, not among them?”

“I already told you, Gega knew I’d refuse.”

“Why? You didn’t want to fly?”

“I’ve always wanted to fly. I want to now as well and I’ll fly. But not on a plane…”

The Russian investigator sat silent as he contemplated Irakli’s answer, but he failed to grasp the young Georgian’s meaning. So the investigator asked him the last question, only to break the awkward silence.

“What if you can’t fly?”

“Then I’ll swim across the sea.”

“What?”

“The sea.”

“How?”

“Singing.”

“Are you joking?”

“I’m not joking.”

“Shall we include that in the interrogation transcript just like that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How exactly?”

“Verbatim.”

“How exactly?”

“I’ll cross the sea swimming…”

After the interrogation, Irakli grew suspicious that Gega and the other hijackers would probably be sentenced to death and he shared his concerns with his friends as they were Gega’s friends as well.

Most people in Tbilisi , and across Georgia, and across Georgia thought the hijackers would be spared death row. Their motivation was logical—the plane hijackers were not murderers, so shooting them would be excessive cruelty on the part of the authorities. Consequently, Irakli’s friends met his theory with doubt. He himself wanted to know more, so he took advantage of his family connections. He found out the identity of the judge who was to decide on the main verdict at the upcoming trial and sought out his son. He met the judge’s son at the university, after lectures, and told him directly what he wanted to know. The judge’s son promised him to find out everything if, of course, he managed to extract it from his father. He was skeptical he would be successful.

That very evening the judge’s son asked his father whether he was going to preside over the plane hijackers’ trial.

“Who told you?” his father aggressively demanded.

“I was told.”

“Who was it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It makes a great deal of difference.”

“Why?”

“It is practically a state secret. No one must know the identity of the judge until the trial itself.”

“Well, your secrets are like our state itself. It’s general knowledge you’re to be appointed the judge of the case.”

“Who told you?”

“What does it matter, they told me at the university, everyone knows it already.”

“The university has always been an anti-Soviet nest.”

“Well, they know it at the nest, already.”

“I don’t think this is something to joke about.”

“I’m not joking with you either, and I seriously want to know what’s going to happen.”

“What do you mean, what is going to happen?”

“What will happen at the trial?”

“I’m not obliged to, and don’t want to answer, especially because no one knows in advance what is going to happen at the trial.”

“I’m not interested in details. I just want to know the verdict.”

“No one knows what the verdict will be beforehand either and no one will be able to answer your question.”

“Can you give me a simple answer to a simple question?”

“How?”

“Tell me: yes or no.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Will they be sentenced to death?”

“I don’t know, but plane hijackers, bandits and terrorists will be sentenced exactly as they deserve.”

“Is that death by firing squad?”

“That’s justice.”

“That means they’ll be executed?”

“I told you, I don’t know…”

The son understood his father wouldn’t tell him anything. He also understood that the verdict for the hijackers would be passed before the trial, if it wasn’t passed already.

In the meantime, the judge, picked up the phone as soon as his son left the room.

“Hello sir, yes, it’s me. When can you put me through? Yes, it is urgent. Yes, I’ll wait.”

The judge hung up the receiver and waited, without moving, for the phone to ring. He kept his eyes on the phone. With his index finger, he wiped a drop of sweat which dripped down his brow.

As soon as the telephone rang, the judge immediately picked up the receiver and sprang to his feet.

“Hello.” He cleared his throat and continued. “I wanted to report to you that the information about my appointment has already leaked… How do I know? They have sent my son to find out about the verdict, asking whether they are going to be executed or not… What did I answer? What you and the Party have always been teaching us—that Soviet laws are humane, but that criminals must answer for their crimes and that the state will punish adequately those who have betrayed their homeland… Hello? Hello?”

The judge stood still for a long time, with the black telephone receiver pressed to his ear, though no one was listening to him anymore. The judge, of course, was replaced…