Forty Days at Kamas (33 page)

"Investigations are underway and Washington is reviewing your proposals," Chambers assured him. "These things take time."

I looked at the lineup of commissioners and saw folded arms, bored expressions, and eyes rolled upward.

A moment later a woman's voice spoke out. It was Libby Bertrand.

"I represent the women's camp and I'll tell you right now that we don't buy your stalling for one minute. For starters, the rules segregating female and male prisoners must end. We demand–"

Colonel Tracy cut her off.

"Just a moment," he snapped. "Prisoners do not demand. They request. This is still a labor camp, whether you like it or not."

"Why, you, miserable little black–shirted–" Bertrand fumed.

Again Colonel Majors played referee.

"No, Libby, the Colonel is right. We don’t govern here. Rephrase, please."

Bertrand regarded Majors and Tracy with cold fury but continued.

"We
request
that male and female prisoners no longer be segregated in separate divisions and that women be permitted to work alongside men in all job categories. Is that clear enough?"

"Clearly absurd," Tracy shot back. "Do you think we can rewrite departmental regulations just like that? Don't hold your breath."

General Boscov rapped his knuckles on the table. The hardened expressions on both sides held out little hope for reaching a consensus on anything.

"All right, all right," Majors ordered. "Enough of this bickering. Unless someone objects," he announced over the voices of several others in the room, "I propose that we suspend any further discussion of our dema…"–here Majors corrected himself–"requests until we've had time to boil them down to a single comprehensive list. For that, I expect we'll need to hold further meetings at the barracks level and perhaps a camp–wide town meeting. We’ll need time."

"Time for your defense teams to complete their fortifications?" Tracy asked sarcastically. "We weren't born yesterday."

"If you'd like us to speed things up, Colonel," Majors answered, "I’d be happy to move our town meeting up to tomorrow night for you. You may even attend if you’d like."

"Actually, we’d like that very much," Doug Chambers responded quickly.

That was something I had not expected at all.

"But tomorrow's not good for us," he added. "How about Wednesday?"

"Done," Majors agreed, apparently surprised at the Deputy Warden's willingness to appear before two thousand or more hostile prisoners.

"Wednesday at seven in the Division 3 mess. Now that we've settled that, I suggest we reconvene this meeting one week from today. We now stand adjourned. Major Reineke, would you mind escorting our guests to the gate?"

"But what about the inspection tour your man Perkins offered us?" Tracy broke in. "You're not going back on your own promises, now, are you?"

Again Reineke objected.

"Colonel Majors, it would be lunacy to let these men inspect our fortifications. Perkins has no authority to make an offer like that…"

But it was clear from the look on the colonel’s face that he sided with Perkins.

"Give them their damned tour," Majors growled.

"No," Reineke answered defiantly. "With all due respect, Colonel, I request a vote of the full commission."

The tension between Reineke and Majors became palpable.

"All right, have it your way, Major Reineke. All those in favor of giving General Boscov his inspection tour, raise your hands."

Six hands went up, representing Majors, Perkins, Quayle, Schuster, and the two women.

"All opposed?"

Four hands went up, representing Reineke, Murphy, Knopfler, and me.

"The ayes have it," Majors announced with a triumphant smile. Then he appointed the four of us who opposed the inspection to lead it.

We started immediately, maintaining a brisk pace and making few stops. For the most part, we stayed on the north–south road leading through the center of camp and kept away from fortifications and barricades.

We usually sensed when our visitors came across something they found useful. General Boscov was the first to notice from the sound of machines in one of the workshops and from the overhead lights in a food warehouse that the camp still had a source of electric power. I heard him ask Doug Chambers about it when he thought no one was paying attention. Chambers pledged to cut us off from the power grid at once.

But not all the visitors' observations left them the wiser. Several times Boscov and Tracy made snide comments about female prisoners serving as sentries with male partners. Both men failed to grasp how effective the mixed–gender teams had been at unifying the men's and women's camps around a common goal. Similarly, the State Security men seemed baffled whenever they saw thieves cooperating with politicals and not shirking their share of the work. The officers appeared incapable of acknowledging that their brainstorm of pitting thieves against politicals might have backfired.

On my way to the barracks I was surprised to find Pete Murphy racing to catch up with me. For weeks Murphy had seemed distant and ill at ease. Now he seemed intent on striking up a conversation.

"Glenn told me that you sometimes get dreams about the future," he volunteered after making small talk for a minute or two.

"I hate to disappoint you, Pete," I replied, "but I don't know any more about the future than anyone else around here."

"Oh, I'm not looking for predictions," he said apologetically. "It's just that I've been having dreams, too, and I don't know quite what to make of them."

"Is it the same dream again and again or is each one different?"

"They’re mostly different," Murphy explained. "But there's one dream in particular that I can't seem to shake."

"Want to tell me about it?"

We continued walking as he spoke.

"What was strange about it," Murphy began, "was that I heard a voice very clearly but I couldn't see who was talking. The voice told me that I could ask it any question in the entire world and it would give me the answer. No exceptions. Anything."

"What did you ask?"

"What do you think?" he said. "I said I wanted to know when I'd be done with the camps. Not just when my sentence was up, but when I'd actually be free."

"Did it give you an answer?"

Murphy slowed his pace and came close enough to speak softly into my ear.

"Yes. It said very clearly, 'The eighteenth of June.'"

"When did you have the dream?" I asked.

"On the thirtieth of March."

"Well, are you excited about getting out?" I asked, half in jest.

"I don't know," Murphy said without humor. "I still don't know if I can believe it or not. After all, it's just a dream. But at the same time, I'm kind of anxious about how I might take it if we get to June 18 and it looks like nothing is going to happen. My hopes are so set high, I don't know how I'd handle the letdown."

"Frankly, Pete, I think the real miracle would be that we’re not all mucking for gold in the Yukon by the middle of June. Would you do me a favor? Remind me the day before. Meanwhile, I'll keep my eyes open. Who knows, maybe it will be a lucky day for both of us."

C
HAPTER
31

"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power–he's free again."
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
The First Circle

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29

DAY 11

On Wednesday evening, I found myself waiting at the gate once again for visitors from the Department of State Security. Glenn Reineke, Pete Murphy, Colonel Majors, George Perkins, and I watched in silence as a pair of black government sedans pulled up outside the gate to Division 3. Across the no–man's–land we saw a pair of plainclothes bodyguards hop out of each car and look around before opening doors for their high–ranking passengers. Doug Chambers and General Jake Boscov emerged from the first car while Kenneth Cronin and an older man with tousled gray hair emerged from the second. Colonel Majors called across the buffer zone to invite them in.

Once they had entered the inner perimeter, General Boscov introduced the new man as Howard Barger of the Justice Department. The usual polite greetings were exchanged before we headed toward the Division 3 mess hall. When we arrived, some 2,000 prisoners were packed together on benches and against the walls waiting to hear what our captors were prepared to offer.

An awkward moment occurred before we entered, when Colonel Majors took Director Cronin aside and told the rest of us to precede them onto the speakers' platform. Reineke looked at Murphy and me with alarm. It wasn't lost on us that Majors's purpose in taking Cronin aside might be to float a settlement proposal or to urge special treatment for himself.

Boscov, Chambers, and Barger stood to the side of the dais while they waited for Cronin and Majors to catch up.

Colonel Majors mounted the dais, tapped the microphone twice to test it, and then spoke in a loud clear voice:

"Silence! All rise!"

He then invited the visitors to take their places on the platform while he sat off to the side where he could act as moderator. After introducing each guest he addressed the prisoners.

"A little more than a week ago, many of you met here with two of the officials who stand here before you tonight. I was in the camp jail at the time, but I've been told that the meeting was not very happy one. Since then, fortunately, our circumstances have improved."

Laughter broke out at the rear of the hall.

"Tonight, I understand that our visitors are prepared to speak about what they expect from us and what we can expect from them. As before, once they have had an opportunity to speak, the floor will be open for questions."

Majors turned to Cronin.

"Director Cronin, it's all yours."

Kenneth Cronin gazed upon his audience with perfect serenity. He appeared to be fully aware that most prisoners ranked him at the top of their enemies list. Yet this nondescript little man did not hesitate to sit before them, unarmed, without a bodyguard, for what the President–for–Life had been fond of calling 'a full and frank exchange of views.' Certainly, Kenneth Cronin was made of very special stuff and he seemed to know it.

"The purpose of the corrective labor system," Cronin began, "is not revenge or punishment or even deterrence. Camps like Kamas were created for rehabilitation and correction, to help prisoners prepare for their return to Unionist society. Putting a citizen in a corrective labor camp is a measure of social defense: it removes the dangerous element from society while it works to correct the thoughts and behaviors that created the danger in the first place.

"As Director of Corrective Labor, what I expect from you is hard work, responsible behavior, and a proper respect for the Party and the State. I expect you to show that respect by your willingness to learn and your readiness to contribute to society, starting here in the camp.

"From what I have seen in my visits here, what is most lacking at Kamas is an understanding that the highest good is what's good for society, not what's good for you or me as individuals. Once a person accepts this principle and begins serving society rather than himself, he is on the road toward rehabilitation. But the harder he persists in a pattern of selfish behavior, the greater the need for strictness of the kind most commonly associated with camps much further to the north.

"What I can offer you today is a path back toward rehabilitation into Unionist society by way of your immediate and unconditional return to work. If you accept, I can also offer you my personal assurance that I will follow through on each and every promise made to you–whether by me, by the Warden, or the officers on his staff. I plan to meet with your elected representatives tomorrow morning to work out the details. These include a prompt review of cases; a thorough investigation of all accusations of official wrongdoing; improved working and living conditions; enhanced nutrition; and the opportunity to earn additional privileges through useful labor.

"There you have it. That's my offer to you. To accept it, you need only return to work. Now, do any of you have questions?"

A rumbling rose from the audience. Though the prisoners had shown Cronin the courtesy of listening to him without interruption, many were restive.

A heckler bellowed from the back.

"I have a question. What kind of idiots do you think we are, anyway?"

Cronin ignored him.

Chuck Quayle rose. Colonel Majors gestured for him to speak.

"Some of my men have petitioned to have their cases reviewed but nothing ever seems to happen," Quayle said. "Yesterday you told the Commission that our case reviews will get fast–track treatment. Could you or Mr. Barger tell us when that's going to start and how we'll know when it does?"

Howard Barger leaned forward to pick up the microphone.

"I have scheduled a meeting tomorrow morning with your case review clerks, judges Richardson and O'Rourke, to discuss how we can carry out an expedited review like the one Director Cronin mentioned. Afterward I would like to hold a separate meeting for everyone who has filed or is interested in filing a petition for review. Whatever may have happened in the past with this, we're going to cut through the red tape and act promptly on every petition we get."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," a woman exclaimed from the far side of the room. "How many times do you think you can fool us with that one?"

"Next question," Majors shouted over hoots and whistles.

Kevin Gaffney stood up next and was recognized to speak.

"How are we supposed to believe a word you say as long as we see the same trigger–happy guards every day looking down their gun barrels at us? What's to investigate? Every one of them is a hardened killer. If you people had the slightest intention to punish any of them, it could have been done years ago. So don't bother us anymore with your phony promises to investigate. It'll never happen."