Forty Days at Kamas (19 page)

"We get a few Mormon prisoners by accident from time to time," Doug Chambers noted. "But as soon as we check their dossiers, we send them back north. There are special camps set up for them and the Muslims in the Northwest Territories."

"Which takes us back to what we were saying about the Department's mission," Cronin continued. "These Mormons, and for that matter, all the other religious zealots and militiamen in this country, have stubbornly rejected the Unionist goal of a one–class society and have put themselves in direct defiance of the Party. The people who denied relief to the California refugees are the same ones who refused to send their sons and daughters for voluntary national service. They lorded their wealth and privileges over everyone but blocked the path for others to get ahead. These people have deliberately chosen to sit on the sidelines of nation building and snipe at us rather than join the team.

"As far as I am concerned, these people have had their day. History has passed them by and soon they will sink into oblivion. And when they’re gone, we won’t have a need for corrective labor camps anymore. The camps will be closed and before long no one will know that they ever existed. I’ll tell you, that's the day I'm dreaming of."

Martha dropped the silver serving platter onto the sideboard with a clatter.

"Dinner is served," she said, and abruptly left the room.

C
HAPTER
17

"You'll get used to it, and if you don't, you'll die."
—Soviet camp saying

TUESDAY, MARCH 26

I woke up so thirsty that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my lips were cracked and peeling. My throat was too parched to swallow.

The cell was as dark and quiet as a mineshaft. I no longer knew whether it was day or night or how long I had been there and I feared I had slept through my daily feeding. When I waded across the cell to the door, the receptacle where the guards left my bread and water was locked.

I returned to the bench and lay on my side, my cheek pressed against its rough surface. I resolved to sort out my thoughts and to find some way to occupy my mind until my body was ready to sleep again. But thoughts kept darting about, passing back and forth through my head like actors crossing a stage. I tried to slow them down but they wouldn't respond.

Despite the cold and discomfort of the cell, my starved and overworked body still could not seem to get enough sleep. The constant shivering brought a new kind of exhaustion that made every muscle ache. I knew I couldn't afford to miss my daily rations and tried to stay alert for the sound of the receptacle's hinged flap swinging open. But I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness and lost the ability to distinguish minutes from hours.

Sleep was my only refuge. It kept the incessant thirst and hunger away and stopped the lice from tormenting me. It dispersed the palpable clouds of fear that hovered around my head. It let me forget that at Kamas I was no longer Paul Wagner in the eyes of my government, but Prisoner W–0885, convicted under Title 18, Section 2384, for seditious conspiracy against the Unionist State of America, sentenced to five years of corrective labor and expected to die long before my release date.

After a while, the flashing images in my sensory–deprived brain became a source of entertainment. People, places, and events reappeared that I had not considered for years. Some brought momentary joy, some guilt or sorrow, but most were nothing more than images without emotional value. Many times I had to drop a foot into the water or reach for the wall to verify whether a particular vision was real or imaginary.

One vision that returned more times than I could count was that of a nine–foot by a twelve–foot interview room of the kind that interrogators used at Susquehanna. Gray cinder block walls, a gray tiled floor, and a high whitewashed ceiling formed its outline. An overhanging globe lamp and a pair of rusting steel chairs, both bolted to the floor on opposite sides of a steel table, were its only furnishings.

In the vision, I sat in the chair closest to the door in my filthy orange coveralls, flimsy rubber sandals on my feet, listening to the acne–scarred interrogator with the chipped front tooth and dirty slicked–back hair tell me once again that this was my last chance to sign a voluntary confession.

"It's no use, Wagner," he told me. "Your partners have already told us about your plans to assassinate the Party leadership in Pittsburgh. We know everything: how you selected your targets, how you tracked their movements, what weapons you planned to use, and how you planned to make your escape.

"Are you saying your co–conspirators are all liars? Your old friends, neighbors, and co–workers? Why on earth would they accuse you if you weren't guilty? Do you deny meeting with the persons who named you in their sworn statements? Do you deny that you owned the high–powered rifle and the large–caliber pistol that we found in your basement? You know it's a felony for civilians to keep firearms, don't you? You could be sentenced to ten years on those charges alone.

"Why not cooperate and give yourself the chance to lighten your sentence? Have pity on your family and spare them the burden of a lengthy trial. Believe me, Wagner, this is your last chance. You can start writing out your confession here at this table right now or I can send you back downstairs to Memory Recovery and let them pull it out of you bit by bit. What's it going to be?"

I felt every muscle fiber in my body tense into a knot while my throat constricted so tightly that I couldn't utter a word.

"No! Never!" I wanted to scream. But was that really what I intended to say? Wasn't it, 'No! Please no more isolation!' Hadn't I made up my mind to resist? Or had I changed it? I felt confused and needed more time to think but the interrogator awaited my answer.

I lost consciousness and regained it in a white tiled room with a grated drain in the center, strapped to a bare wooden table. By craning my neck, I could see a short, stocky figure with a shaved head facing the far wall, adjusting an instrument panel. He wore a black State Security uniform. It was Sam Renaud and his eyes smoldered with hatred.

"You don't fool me for a minute, Wagner," he sneered. "What a hypocrite! You make yourself out to be some kind of martyr, an innocent husband and father dragged off the street by government goons for no reason at all. What horseshit! You're as guilty as any of us. You'd have killed those Party big shots in Pittsburgh if we hadn't caught you first. You’re not at all the solid citizen you make yourself out to be. You hate our guts as much as we hate yours! You'd love to kill me right now, wouldn't you? Well, think again, Wagner, the joke is on you."

I struggled against the straps and somehow managed to pull a foot loose and reach for the floor. Then I felt the shock of the frigid water around my ankle and the scene melted away. I was lying once again on the slippery wooden bench in the isolator cell. But my breathing was labored and my limbs tensed, as if I had actually strained against the canvas straps of Renaud's torture table.

I felt something warm and soft against my cheek and looked up to see a young woman squatting in the cell beside me as if to comfort me. For some reason I couldn't understand, there was a dim glow in the cell that offered enough light for me to see her and the rest of the cell quite clearly. The woman was about twenty–five years old and had a sweet round face with a flawless white complexion. Her hair was tied behind her head with a torn strip of cloth, camp–style, and she wore a fresh pair of orange camp coveralls.

I tried to speak to her but no words formed on my lips. Slowly she shook her head and smiled, as if words were unnecessary. When she peered into my eyes, I felt a flush of warmth pass from my head down through my trunk and into my extremities. At that moment I recognized the woman as Lillian, the work scheduler killed on my first day in camp, but it didn't matter to me anymore whether she was alive or dead. I just wanted her to stay and comfort me.

I don't know how long I lay there gazing into her liquid eyes before I lost my concentration and her image faded away. Then the usual torrent of random thoughts and emotions returned and I felt as if I were floating along a fast–moving stream with a flotilla of images moving alongside, some faster and some slower, but always drifting out of view to be replaced by other images.

As I watched the pattern repeat itself with flashes of my pre–arrest life, I heard familiar voices and looked around me. The voices became louder and clearer until I recognized those of a woman and a young girl.

"Paul, we're so happy to reach you! We want you to know that we're fine and you don't need to worry about us. Just relax and let yourself get stronger. We want you to get well just as fast as you can."

The voices belonged to my wife and to my younger daughter, Louisa. I strained to catch sight of them at the outer edge of my vision. Before long I saw them emerge from behind a swirl of cloud or mist. They were holding hands and each wore the knee–length down parka that I had bought her shortly before my arrest. Each also wore a fleece hat and scarf and carried a small backpack and gave the impression of being dressed for a long journey. I reached out to embrace them but they were already out of reach. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by the joy of knowing that my wife and daughter were safe and that my confession had not been wasted. They had made it to London, after all.

An instant later their images faded and slipped back into the darkness while the stream of motley scenes continued. Before long I caught sight of a bright light in the distance and, as I concentrated my attention, it drew nearer and then shone directly into my eyes. I had a sensation of looking through a keyhole into a well–lit room. And as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that it was an L–shaped bedroom with beige wall–to–wall carpeting, a double bed with a white chenille bedspread and pink flannel sheets, art posters on the walls, and a young girl's clothing strewn carelessly across the floor.

At a white wooden desk sat a girl of eleven or twelve with long chestnut hair, writing out a homework assignment in a spiral notebook. Even without seeing her face, I knew it was my older daughter, Claire. I called out her name. She stopped writing and raised her head for a moment as if she had heard a distant voice, then went back to writing.

For a long time afterward I tried to hold the picture in my mind, but eventually it faded away and the stream of random images returned. I was so elated to have experienced such a lifelike vision of Claire that I didn't think to question why she appeared separately from her mother and sister.

From time to time when my thoughts cleared, I tried to look more closely at the visions I had of Renaud, Lillian, my wife, and daughters in an effort to uncover any hidden messages or meanings that might be there. But concentration was difficult and for a long time afterward I drifted in and out of sleep.

The next thing I remember was the clank of the cell's steel doors opening and a blinding white light pouring in. Two guards in khaki coveralls and knee–length rubber boots entered the cell and grasped me under the shoulders. Once we were in the hallway, they wrapped my semi–naked body in a thin white terry robe and led me down the corridor to an interview room. Immediately upon entering I felt the room's luxurious warmth. After spending days at a temperature somewhere in the 40s or 50s, it seemed as if my dream of the warm Hawaiian beach had come true. I wanted to stay there forever.

Across a rough oak table sat a lean and hard–muscled man of about forty with long graying sideburns, a trimmed mustache, and a wart on his left cheek. He wore khaki coveralls without any insignia of rank or unit, but I recognized the man at once as Jack Whiting. On the table before him were a plastic tray with a thermos pitcher, two coffee cups, and a pair of matching bowls filled with sugar and powdered creamer. Whiting poured coffee into one of the mugs, stirred in some sugar and creamer and took a long sip.

"Like some? Go ahead. It won't hurt you," he said.

My mouth was too dry to speak. I nodded and Whiting poured me a cup.

"Cream and sugar?"

He didn't even wait for my nod before ladling in two heaping teaspoons each of sugar and creamer. He handed over the cup and I drank greedily, totally unconcerned with whether the coffee might be hot enough to burn my mouth. I could feel the warmth of the coffee flow into my stomach and spread slowly all over my shivering body.

"It's a bit warm in here," Whiting said lazily. "Should I turn it down?"

"It's fine," I said, having wet my mouth and throat enough to speak.

"If you don't mind, I'll get right to the point," Whiting continued. "We know you had it in for Renaud. We haven't found any witnesses yet but we know you're the one who whacked him. Now, Renaud was one of our best warders and I hate to lose good men. Normally, when this kind of thing happens, we put the troublemaker in a maximum–security prison until he sees the error of his ways. Then we send him up north where the cold tends to keep even the most hard–edged bastards out of trouble, if you follow me.

"Now, in your case, since this is your first offense and there may have been some extenuating circumstances, I might be prepared to make an exception. But you see, we're kind of short on help these days, so what we'd like from you is to volunteer to take Renaud's place–one for one. Not as a warder, of course. Politicals don't qualify, I'm afraid. But we could definitely use your help as a source of information. Nothing special, just everyday happenings around the camp. We'd meet privately once a week and I'd ask you some questions and you'd try to find out the answers for me. Would you like some more coffee?"

I nodded.

"I didn't hear you," he said.

"Yes," I answered.

He emptied the thermos into my cup, then added sugar and creamer and set the cup down before me. I drank some and again felt its radiating warmth.