Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot

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GERA WANTED TO PEE. Again. In the eleven hours we had spent in the car the day before, she had alternated every five minutes between asking if we were there yet and demanding to be allowed to pee. She did not sleep a wink, even though we arrived at one in the morning. Now, barely eight hours later, we were back in my car, on our way to the penal colony, and Gera wanted to pee.

“Gera, you cannot pee every five minutes!” said Petya to his four-year-old daughter. “You cannot appraise a work of art from the point of view of effectiveness.” Now he was speaking into a lapel mic that belonged to the German television crew following us in another car. Before we left the hotel in Zubova Polyana where we had spent the night, I had to pull the car away from the back porch so the Germans could film the lanky Petya running to the car with huge plaid Chinese-made rectangular bags we were taking to the colony for Nadya, Petya’s wife and Gera’s mother. “This is the sixth time I’ve been filmed loading bags into a car for Nadya.” He laughed as he got into the passenger seat. He always seemed to enjoy the publicity connected with his wife’s imprisonment, and only now, more than a year after I first met him, was I starting to appreciate how hard, tedious, and unceasing was the work he did on her behalf.

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