Last year, I went to see about arranging to receive a police pension, as now policemen are eligible after only 20 years," he says. "I went to the city department for police affairs, and the man in charge was an old commander of mine from the force, a good, solid, respectable communist. He had taught me a lot when I was an officer.
"But when I went into his office, I saw that the portrait of Lenin that should have been hanging on the wall wasn't there anymore. He had taken it down. I said to him, 'And where is your portrait of Vladimir Ilyich?' He said, 'Let's don't talk about that, let's talk about the issue at hand.' And so I said to him, 'Then we have nothing to talk about at all.' And walked out. I won't go back to ask him for anything."
"But really," he says, breaking into a boyish grin, "Why should money be
important at all? If people can say about me, 'He's an honest, upstanding
man,' then that's all I care about. Respect will always be more important than
money." And he takes off his coat and hangs it carefully back in the closet,
then locks the door.