Bekir is arrested on suspicion of stealing church property

Bekir’s arrest begins with a misunderstanding Sergey Sergeyich can personally resolve: the candles found in Aisylu’s home are the ones he brought her, not church property stolen by Bekir. But when he tries to testify, he discovers that the candle accusation sits within a wider campaign of coercion. The detective treats Bekir’s use of his dead father’s car as another offense and reduces his choices to prison or military service, turning Sergeyich’s offer of help into a confrontation with the authorities’ power over the young man’s future.

The Arrest and the Candles

When Sergeyich reaches Aisylu’s house, the Berkut guards have disappeared from her street. The absence of police and flashing lights does not reassure him; he hurries through the open gate and into the house. Aisylu leads him to the living room, where a candle still burns before the draped mirror. It is now a stearin candle, not the sort Sergeyich had brought before, but its presence sets the scene for news of another loss.

Aisylu tells him that Bekir has been arrested. The detective’s stated accusation is that Bekir robbed the church and stole candles. Aisylu contests the charge with the circumstances she knows: the candles had been left at her door during a power outage, and Bekir was away in Qarasuvbazar. Her question of how he could have robbed the church while elsewhere is not a general protest; it is a direct contradiction of the accusation’s basic timeline.

Sergeyich becomes tense before he answers. After a pause, he tells Aisylu that he is sure Bekir did not steal the candles: Sergeyich himself brought them. He explains that his own church back home had been bombed and that he went inside and took the candles. The admission clears Bekir of this particular theft, but it also makes Sergeyich the person who can account for the candles’ presence.

From Testimony to the Police Station

Aisylu responds with relief and asks Sergeyich to tell the authorities that he brought the candles. He agrees, but immediately asks whom he should tell. She directs him to the police station in Bakhchysarai, where Bekir has been taken. That same day, Aisha rides beside Sergeyich in the passenger seat and gives him directions as he drives there.

The intended exchange is straightforward: Sergeyich will identify himself as the source of the candles, and Bekir can be released from an accusation that the evidence and timing contradict. At the station, Sergeyich goes further than offering testimony. He assumes that the explanation will result in Bekir’s release and says that, since he has come by car, he can drive Bekir home. The detective’s baffled reaction marks the gap between Sergeyich’s practical expectation and the official response he encounters.

The Wider Accusation

The detective calls Sergeyich odd for getting involved in other people’s affairs and rejects the idea that the case rests on the candles alone. He describes Bekir as brazen, saying that he has driven someone else’s car for two years without official permission and has mouthed off to the authorities. The accusation therefore expands from the disputed church candles to a separate, prolonged violation concerning a car.

Sergeyich interrupts to explain that the car belongs to Bekir’s father, who was killed. The detective accepts that the car is registered to the father but insists that the father never officially authorized his son to drive it. In the detective’s account, the father’s death does not make the missing permission irrelevant: Bekir has been flouting Russian law for two years. Sergeyich spreads his hands and asks how a dead man could give official permission, exposing the human absurdity he sees in applying the rule to a father who can no longer consent.

The detective appears to read Sergeyich’s thoughts and responds with anger. Through clenched contempt, he presents Bekir with two options: prison or the army. He says the army will teach him to respect authority, or at least to fear it; he leaves the alternative unfinished. The threat makes clear that establishing Sergeyich’s responsibility for the candles will not, on its own, settle Bekir’s situation.

Consequences and Significance

The arrest changes the meaning of Sergeyich’s earlier act of kindness. The candles he brought to Aisylu had offered a small gesture of help, but their unexplained arrival has become the basis for a church-theft accusation. When he identifies them as his own, he expects a factual clarification to lead to Bekir’s release; instead, the detective points to another charge and a choice between punishment and military service.

The scene’s conflict turns on incompatible understandings of responsibility. Sergeyich sees the dead father’s ownership of the car as an obvious reason that Bekir’s use of it cannot amount to defiance of permission; the detective treats the absence of formal authorization as decisive, even after acknowledging that the father has been killed. By asking what he should tell Bekir’s mother, Sergeyich shifts from indignation to fearful uncertainty. He has offered himself as a witness, but the encounter gives him no assurance that his testimony can protect Bekir from the authorities’ other demands.