Kolyma Tales (12 page)

Such were Platonov’s thoughts as he stood at the gates with a log on his shoulder and waited for a new roll-call. They brought and stacked the logs, and people entered the dark log barracks, hurrying, pushing, and swearing.

When his eyes had become accustomed to the dark, Platonov saw that not everyone, by any means, had been at the work site. On the upper berths in the far corner, about seven men were seated in a circle around two others who sat cross-legged in Tartar style playing cards. They’d taken the only light, a kerosene lantern with a smoking wick that quivered as it lengthened the flame and made their shadows sway on the walls.

Platonov sat down on the edge of a bunk. His shoulders and knees ached, and his muscles were trembling. He had been brought to Jankhar just that morning, and it had been his first day at work. There were no vacant spots on the bunks. ‘When they split up,’ he thought, ‘I’ll lie down.’ He dozed off.

When the game on top ended, a black-haired man with a mustache and a long nail on his left little finger leaned over the edge of the bunk. ‘OK, send that “Ivan” over here.’

A shove in his back awakened Platonov.

‘They’re calling you.’

‘Where’s that Ivan?’ a voice shouted from the upper bunks.

‘My name isn’t Ivan,’ said Platonov, squinting.

‘He’s not coming, Fedya!’

‘What do you mean, he’s not coming?’

Platonov was pushed out into the light.

‘You plan to go on living?’ Fedya asked him quietly as he waved his little finger with the dirty nail before Platonov’s eyes.

‘I plan to,’ answered Platonov.

A fist struck him heavily in the face, knocking him to the ground. Platonov stood up, wiping off the blood with his sleeve.

‘That’s no way to answer,’ said Fedya mildly. ‘I can’t believe they taught you to answer that way at college, Ivan.’

Platonov remained silent.

‘Go over there, scum,’ said Fedya, ‘and lie down next to the shit pail. That’ll be your place. And if you make any commotion, we’ll strangle you.’ It was no empty threat. Platonov had already seen two men strangled with a towel when the thieves were settling scores. Platonov lay down on the stinking boards.

‘How boring, guys!’ said Fedya, yawning. ‘Maybe if I just had someone to scratch my heels…’

‘Mashka, hey Mashka, scratch Fedya’s heels.’

Mashka, a pale pretty boy, dived out into the strip of light. He was a young thief, evidently about eighteen years old.

He pulled off Fedya’s worn yellow boots, carefully took off his dirty worn socks, and, smiling, began to scratch Fedya’s heels. Fedya giggled and squirmed from the tickling.

‘Get out of here,’ he suddenly said. ‘You don’t know how to tickle.’

‘But Fedya, I…’

‘Beat it, I said. All he does is scrape you. No tenderness…’

The men sitting around him nodded their heads in sympathy.

‘I had a Jew in Kosoy – he knew how to scratch! Boy, did he know how to scratch! He was an engineer.’

And Fedya grew pensive thinking about the Jewish engineer who scratched heels.

‘Fedya, Fedya, how about this new one? Why don’t you try him out?’

‘His kind doesn’t know how to scratch,’ said Fedya. ‘Wake him up anyway.’ Platonov was brought out into the light.

‘Fix the lamp, Ivan,’ ordered Fedya. ‘Your job will be to put wood on the fire at night and carry out the pail in the morning. The orderly will show you where to dump it…’

Platonov obediently remained silent.

‘In exchange,’ explained Fedya, ‘you’ll get a bowl of soup. I don’t eat the swill anyway. OK, go back to sleep.’

Platonov lay down in his former spot. Almost everyone was asleep, huddled together in groups of two or three because it was warmer that way.

‘It’s so boring my legs are getting longer,’ mourned Fedya. ‘If only someone could tell a novel. When I was in Kosoy…’

‘Fedya, hey Fedya, how about the new one? Why don’t you try him?’

‘That’s an idea.’ Fedya came to life. ‘Wake him up.’

Platonov was awakened.

‘Listen,’ said Fedya almost obsequiously, ‘I shot my mouth off a little.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Platonov through clenched teeth.

‘Listen, can you tell novels?’

Something flashed across Platonov’s face. Of course, he could! The cell-f of men awaiting trial had been entranced by his retelling of
Count Dracula
. But those were human beings there. And here? Should he become a jester in the court of the duke of Milan, a clown who was fed for a good joke and beaten for a bad one? But there was another way of looking at the matter: he would acquaint them with real literature, become an enlightener. Even here at the very bottom of the barrel of life he would awaken their interest in the literary word, fulfill his calling, his duty. Platonov could not bring himself to admit that he would simply be fed, receive an extra bowl of soup – not for carrying out the slop pail but for a different, a more noble labor. But was it so noble? After all it was more like scratching a thief’s dirty heels than enlightenment.

Fedya waited for an answer, an intent smile on his face.

‘I can,’ Platonov stuttered and smiled for the first time on that difficult day. ‘I can.’

‘Oh, sweetie,’ Fedya livened up. ‘Come on, crawl up here. Have some bread. You’ll eat better tomorrow. Here, sit on this blanket. Have a smoke.’

Platonov hadn’t smoked for a week, and he received an enormous pleasure from the butt with its home-grown tobacco.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Andrei,’ said Platonov.

‘Listen, Andrei, make it something long and spicy. Something like
The Count of Montecristo
. But nothing about bars.’

‘Something romantic, maybe?’ suggested Platonov.

‘You mean Jean Valjean? They told me that one at Kosoy.’

‘How about
The Club of Black Jacks
then? Or
The Vampire
?’

‘There you go. Let’s have the
Jacks
. Shut up, you bastards!’ Fedya shouted.

Platonov coughed.

‘In the city of Saint Petersburg, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-three, there occurred a mysterious crime…’

It was almost light when Platonov felt he couldn’t go on any more.

‘That’s the end of the first part,’ he said.

‘That was great!’ Fedya said. ‘Lie down here with us. You won’t have much time for sleep; it’s already dawn. You can get some sleep at work. Get your strength up for evening…’

Platonov fell asleep.

They were being led out to work and a tall country boy who had slept through yesterday’s
Jacks
pushed Platonov viciously through the door.

‘Watch out where you’re going, you pig!’

Immediately someone whispered something in the boy’s ear.

When they were getting into formation, the tall boy came up to Platonov.

‘Please don’t tell Fedya I hit you. I didn’t know you were a novelist, brother.’

‘I won’t tell,’ said Platonov.

The transit prison is known as the ‘minor zone’, and the ‘major zone’ is the Office of Mines, with its endless stockily built barracks, prison streets, triple strands of barbed wire, and guard towers that look like starling roosts in the winter. The minor zone has even more towers, more barbed wire, more locks, and latches, for this is where transit prisoners are kept, and anything can be expected of them.

The architecture of the minor zone is ideal: one enormous square building intended for 500 prisoners and with bunks stacked four high. That means that, if necessary, thousands of convicts can be squeezed in. But it is winter now, and only a few prisoner consignments are being prepared so that the zone seems almost empty inside. The barracks have not yet dried out; a white fog hovers in the room, and ice forms on the insides of the pine-log walls. Over the entrance hangs an enormous, thousand-watt bulb. Owing to the uneven current, the bulb alternates between a dull yellow and a blinding white light.

The zone sleeps during the day. At night the doors open, and people appear under the lamp, holding matches in their hands and calling out names in hoarse voices. Those whose names are called button up their pea jackets, step over the threshold – and disappear for ever. Out there the guards are waiting and the truck motors are coughing. Prisoners are hauled away to mines, collective farms, and road gangs.

I am there too – on a lower bunk near the door. It’s cold down here, but I don’t dare crawl higher, where it’s warmer, since I would only be thrown down. The upper berths are for the strong and, mainly, for hardened criminals. I don’t have the strength anyway to climb the steps which have been nailed to a post. I’m better off down below. If there should be a fight for the lower bunks, I can always crawl under them.

I cannot bite or fight, although I have learned well all the tricks of prison fighting. The limited amount of space – a prison cell, a convict train car, crowded barracks – have dictated the methods of grabbing, biting, breaking. But I just don’t have the strength for such tactics. I can only growl and curse. I struggle for every day, every hour of rest. Every part of my body prompts me to act this way.

I am called up the very first night, but I don’t tighten the rope that serves as my belt, nor do I button my coat.

The door closes behind me, and I enter the space between the inner and outer doors.

The work gang consists of twenty men – the usual quota for one truck. They are standing at the next door, from which billow clouds of thick, white smoke.

The assignment man and the senior guard look over the men and take a head count. There is another man standing off to the right. He is wearing a quilted coat, felt pants, a fur hat with ear-flaps, and fur mittens, which he beats energetically against his body. He’s the one I need. I’ve been hauled around enough to know the ‘law’ perfectly.

The man with the mittens is the ‘representative’ who can accept or reject prisoners.

‘Don’t take me, sir. I’m sick, and I won’t work at the mine. I need to be sent to the hospital.’

The representative hesitates. Back at the mine they told him to select only good workers; they didn’t need any other kind. That is why he has come.

The representative looks me over – my torn pea jacket, a filthy buttonless military shirt which reveals a dirty body scratched bloody from louse bites, rags around my fingers, other rags tied with string around my feet (in an area where the temperature drops to seventy-five degrees below zero), inflamed hungry eyes, and an incredibly emaciated condition. He has seen this sort of thing before, and he knows what it means. He takes a red pencil and crosses out my name with a firm hand.

‘Go on back, you son of a bitch,’ the assignment man says to me.

The door swings open, and I am again inside the minor zone. My place on the bunk has been taken, but I drag out the intruder. He growls from habit but soon calms down.

I fall asleep as if knocked unconscious but awake at the first rustle. I have learned to wake up like a wild man or a beast – without any intermediate drowsy stage.

When I open my eyes, I see a slippered foot hanging from the upper bunk. The slipper is totally worn out, but it is nevertheless a slipper, and not a regulation-issue shoe. A dirty boy, who has been consorting with the professional criminals in camp, appears before me and addresses someone above me in the effeminate voice cultivated by many of the homosexuals:

‘Tell Valyusha,’ he says to some unseen person on the upper berth, ‘that they brought in some performers…’

After a pause, a hoarse voice responds from above:

‘Valyusha wants to know who they are.’

‘They’re performers from the Cultural Division. A magician and two singers. One of the singers is from Harbin.’

The slipper stirs and disappears. The voice from above says:

‘Bring them here.’

From the edge of my bunk I see three men standing under the lamp – two in pea jackets and one in a fur-lined jacket. The faces of all three express reverence.

‘Which one is from Harbin?’ the voice asks.

‘I am,’ the man in the fur-lined jacket answers.

‘Valyusha says you should sing something.’

‘In Russian? French? Italian? English?’ the singer asks, stretching his neck.

‘Valyusha says it should be in Russian.’

‘What about the guards? Is it all right if I sing quietly?’

‘Don’t worry about them… Do it right – just like in Harbin.’

The singer steps back a few paces and sings ‘The Toreador’ couplets. His breath frosts each time he exhales.

The singing is followed by a deep growl, and the voice from above commands:

‘Valyusha says to sing a song.’

The singer grows pale and tries again:

‘Valyusha says that was good,’ the voice utters from above.

The singer sighs in relief. Wet from nervousness, his steaming forehead looks as if it were surrounded by a halo. The singer wipes his brow with his palm, and the halo disappears.

‘Now take off your jacket,’ the voice says. ‘Here’s a replacement.’ A padded coat is tossed down from above.

The singer silently takes off his jacket and puts on the padded coat.

‘You can go now,’ the voice says from above. ‘Valyusha wants to sleep.’

The Harbin singer and his companions disappear in the barracks’ fog.

I move back from the edge of the bunk, curl up, and fall asleep with my hands pushed up in the sleeves of my padded coat. In what seems like no more than a moment, however, I am awakened by a loud, emotional whispering:

‘My friend and I were walking down a street in Ulan-Bator. It was time to eat, and there was a Chinese cafeteria on the corner. We went in and saw they had Chinese meat pies on the menu. I’m from Siberia, and I know our Siberian meat pies – the kind they make in the Urals. But these were Chinese. We decided to order a hundred. The Chinese manager burst out laughing; said that would be a lot and grinned from ear to ear. Well, how about ten? He kept laughing; said that would be a lot. So we ordered two. He shrugged his shoulders, went off to the kitchen, and brought them out. Each one was the size of your hand and had hot grease poured all over it. The two of us ate half of one and left.’