At the far end of the buried passage, devoid of natural light, and behind a door numbered '38', Moses Albyov now lay. He rested on a mattress of straw held together by rough farm sackcloth that rustled with each shift of his weight. A slightly- built figure, he had a pinched and concerned face, and dark, straight hair that had been thrown haphazardly in all directions and that needed the attentions of comb or brush. They had taken his shoes and his belt, and his hands held the waist of his trousers – not that he was about to rise and move, but simply through some vague fantasy of protection. His glasses, too, had gone – left on the pavement where they had spilled from his face at the moment they had taken him, probably broken in the short scuffle, certainly abandoned. Without them his sight was reduced, blending the hard lines of the cell walls, causing them to be softer, less cruel. Not that there was much for him to focus on. A door to the front, steel- faced and scratched where others had attempted to achieve a pathetic immortality by carving their names and the date; fearful perhaps of entering and leaving the cell in total anonymity. Only a spy hole, small, circular and reflecting the light of the room, interrupted the smooth surface of the door. No natural light was permitted to enter the cell: illumination was from a low-powered bulb recessed into the ceiling and covered by what Moses presumed was toughened glass embedded with wire mesh. The floor was of roughened cement, as though the workers had wished to be rid of their. job and had hurried their work, leaving it pitted and lined like a ploughed field when the winter frosts have come. Nothing to call furniture, no table, no chair, no cupboard, no shelves. Only the mattress and a bucket that he had moved away to the furthest point from him because of its smell, the odour of vomit and urine and faeces. In the corner, behind the door: it was not far, perhaps seven feet-not far enough to divorce its presence from him, not far enough to shut out the taste that swelled in his mouth.