Kolyma Tales (23 page)

‘If you like, I’ll operate on you – remove that cyst from your finger.’

‘All right.’

‘Just don’t ask me to release you from work. You know yourself it’s not really convenient for me to do that.’

‘But how can I work with my finger all cut up?’

‘You’ll manage.’

I agreed, and Lunin did a good job of removing the cyst and gave it to me as a ‘keepsake’. Many years later my wife and I were to meet, and in the first minute of our meeting she squeezed my fingers, feeling in amazement for that cyst.

I realized that Sergei Mixailovich was simply very young, that he needed an educated person to talk to, that his views of the camps and his idea of fate were no different from those of any civilian supervisor, that he was even capable of admiring the camp thugs, and that the brunt of the storm of ’38 had passed over him.

I treasured every day, every hour of rest; exhausted from life in the gold-mines, my muscles demanded a respite. I treasured every piece of bread, every bowl of soup; my stomach demanded food, and my will was not strong enough to keep my eyes from wandering over the shelves in search of bread. But I forced myself to remember Moscow’s Chinatown (which has no Chinese) and the Nikitsky gates where the writer Andrei Sobol shot himself and where Stern shot at the German ambassador’s car. It is that part of Moscow’s street history which will never be written down.

‘Yes, Moscow, Moscow. Tell me, how many women have you had?’

It was senseless for a half-starved man to keep up this conversation, but the young surgeon listened only to himself and wasn’t offended by my silence.

‘Sergei Mixailovich, our fates are a crime – the greatest crime of the age.’

‘I’m not sure of that,’ Sergei Mixailovich said with an expression of displeasure. ‘It’s just the kikes muddying the water.’

I shrugged my shoulders.

Soon Sergei Mixailovich got his transfer to Arkagala, and I thought – without any sadness or feeling of injustice – that one more person had left my life for ever and that parting was, in reality, an easy thing. But matters worked out differently.

The supervisor of the sector where we worked, harnessed to an Egyptian yoke like slaves, was Pavel Ivanovich Kiselyov. A middle-aged engineer, he was not a Party member. He beat his prisoners daily. Whenever the supervisor set foot in the sector, there were beatings, blows, and shouting.

Was it because he had no fear of being punished? Was there a blood-lust lurking in the depths of his soul? Or perhaps a desire to distinguish himself in the eyes of the senior supervisors? Power is a terrible thing.

Zelfugarov, a counterfeiter from my work gang, lay in the snow, spitting out his broken teeth.

‘All my relatives were shot for counterfeiting, but I was a minor, so I got off with only fifteen years’ hard labor. My father offered the prosecutor half a million rubles – real ones, in cash – but he wouldn’t go for it.’

There were four of us working the shift, harnessed to the horse collar and walking around the post. We stopped near Zelfugarov. There was Korneev, a Siberian peasant; Lyonya Semyonov, a thief; the engineer Vronsky; and myself. Semyonov said:

‘It’s only in camp that you learn to work with machinery. Try your hand at any kind of work – what do you care if you break a crane or a winch?’ This point of view was popular even among many of the young surgeons in Kolyma.

Vronsky and Korneev were my acquaintances. We were not friends, but we had known each other since we had been together at Black Lake – an assignment where I returned to life. Without getting up, Zelfugarov turned his bloodied face with its swollen, dirty lips to us.

‘I can’t get up, guys. He hit me under the ribs.’

‘Go tell the paramedic.’

‘I’m afraid to, that will only make things worse. He’ll tell the supervisor.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘There’s no end to this. We have only one way out. As soon as the coal production chief or some other bigwig comes, someone must step forward and hit Kiselyov right on the snout. People will talk about it all over Kolyma, and they’ll have to transfer Kiselyov. Whoever hits him will have his sentence lengthened. How many years will they give for Kiselyov?’

We returned to our work, leaned into the horse collar, went back to the barracks, had supper, and prepared to go to sleep. The ‘office’ sent for me.

Kiselyov was sitting in the office, staring at the floor. He was no coward and didn’t fear threats.

‘So that’s it?’ he said cheerfully. ‘All Kolyma will talk about it? I could have you put on trial – for an attempt on my life. Get out of here, you bastard.’

The only one who could have turned me in was Vronsky, but how? We were together the entire time.

After that, life at the work site became easier for me. Kiselyov didn’t even approach our collar and came to work with a small-caliber rifle. He didn’t descend into the test pit either.

Someone entered the barracks.

‘The doctor wants to see you.’

The ‘doctor’ who replaced Lunin was a certain Kolesnikov, a tall young student who had also been arrested and thus had never finished his course of study.

When I arrived, I found Lunin sitting at the table in his overcoat.

‘Get your things ready. We’re leaving for Arkagala. Kolesnikov, make up a transfer sheet.’

Kolesnikov folded a piece of paper several times and tore off a tiny fragment that was hardly larger than a postage stamp. On it he wrote in microscopic handwriting: ‘Transferred to medical section, Arkagala.’

Lunin took the paper and ran off.

‘I’ll have Kiselyov issue a travel permit.’

He was upset when he returned.

‘He won’t let you go. He says you threatened to hit him in the face, and he absolutely refuses to agree.’

I told Lunin the story.

‘It’s your own fault,’ he said. ‘What do you care about Zelfugarov and all these… They weren’t beating you.’

‘I was beaten before.’

‘Well, I’m off. The truck is leaving. We’ll think of something.’ And Lunin got into the cab.

A few days passed, and Lunin appeared again.

‘I’m here to see Kiselyov. About you.’

He returned in a half-hour.

‘Everything’s in order. He agreed.’

‘How?’

‘I have a method for taming the heart of the rebellious.’ And Sergei Mixailovich acted out the conversation with Kiselyov:

‘What brings you back to these parts, Sergei Mixailovich? Sit down and have a smoke.’

‘Sorry, I don’t have the time, Pavel Ivanovich. These petitions accusing you of beatings have been forwarded to me. But before signing them, I decided to ask you if they were accurate.’

‘It’s a lie, Sergei Mixailovich. My enemies will say anything…’

‘That’s what I thought. I won’t sign them. What difference would it make, Pavel Ivanovich? What’s done is done, and there’s no replacing teeth that have been knocked out.’

‘That’s right, Sergei Mixailovich. Why don’t you come home with me? My wife has made some brandy. I was saving it to celebrate the New Year, but on such an occasion…’

‘I’m sorry, Pavel Ivanovich, I just can’t. But I do want to ask one favor in return. Let me take Andreev to Arkagala.’

‘That’s one thing I’ll never do. Andreev is, how should I put it…?’

‘Your personal enemy?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Well, he’s my personal friend. I thought you would be more receptive to my request. Take a look at these petitions.’

Kiselyov fell silent.

‘OK, he can go.’

‘Make up the transfer papers.’

‘Have him come for them himself.’

I stepped across the threshold of the ‘office’. Kiselyov was staring at the floor.

‘You’re going to Arkagala. Here are your transfer papers.’

Lunin had already left, but Kolesnikov was waiting for me.

‘You can leave this evening – about nine o’clock. Right now we have a case of acute appendicitis.’ He handed me a slip of paper.

I never saw either Kiselyov or Kolesnikov again. Kiselyov was soon transferred to Elgen, where he was accidentally killed a few months after arriving. A thief broke into his house at night. Hearing steps, Kiselyov grabbed the double-barreled shotgun from the wall, cocked it, and attacked the thief. The thief tried to get out the window, and Kiselyov struck him in the back with the butt of the shotgun. The gun went off, and Kiselyov took both barrels right in the stomach.

Every convict in every coal-mining area of Kolyma was delighted. The newspaper with the announcement of Kiselyov’s funeral passed from hand to hand. In the mines the wrinkled scrap of paper was held up to the battery light. People read it, rejoiced, and shouted: ‘Hurrah! Kiselyov died! So there is a God!’

It was from this Kiselyov that Sergei Mixailovich had saved me.

Convicts from Arkagala worked the mine. For every hundred men working underground, there were a thousand working in support groups.

Hunger had reached Arkagala. And, of course, it reached the political prisoner barracks first.

Sergei Mixailovich was angry.

‘I’m not the sun that can warm everybody. I got you a job as an orderly in the chemical laboratory, so you have to figure out for yourself how to live – camp-style, you understand?’ Sergei Mixailovich patted me on the shoulder. ‘Dmitry worked here before you. He sold all the glycerine – both barrels. He got twenty rubles for a half-liter bottle. Said it was honey. Ha ha ha. These convicts will drink anything.’

‘That’s not my way.’

‘Just what is your way?’

The orderly’s job wasn’t reliable. There were strict orders regarding me, and I was quickly transferred to the mine. The desire to eat grew stronger.

Sergei Mixailovich rushed about the camp. Our doctor had one passion: he was immensely attracted by camp officials of all types. Friendship or even a shade of friendship with any camp official was a source of unbelievable pride for him. He attempted to demonstrate his intimacy with the camp authorities in any way possible and was capable of bragging for hours about this intimacy.

I went to see him in his office. Hungry but afraid to ask for a piece of bread, I sat and listened to his endless bragging.

‘As for the camp authorities, they have real power. For there is no power but of God. Ha ha ha! All you have to do is please them, and everything is fine.’

‘I’d like to punch each and every one of them in the face.’

‘That’s just your trouble. Listen, let’s make an agreement. You can come to see me; I know it’s boring in the regular barracks.’

‘Boring?’

‘Sure. You can drop by, have a smoke. No one will give you a smoke in the barracks. I know what things are like over there – you light up, and a hundred eyes are watching you. Just don’t ask me to release you from work. I can’t do that. That is, I can, but it’s awkward. I won’t interfere in that respect. As for food, I depend on my orderly for that. I don’t stand in line myself for bread. So if you need bread, ask my orderly, Nikolai. How is it that after all your years in the camps you can’t lay your hands on some bread? You know what Olga Petrovna, the chief’s wife, told me today? They’re inviting me for dinner. There’ll be booze too.’

‘I have to go, Sergei Mixailovich.’

Hungry and terrible days ensued. Once, no longer able to struggle with hunger, I went to the first-aid station.

Sergei Mixailovich was sitting on a stool, clipping the dead nails from the frostbitten fingers of a dirty, hunched man. The nails fell with a click, one after the other, into an empty basin. Sergei Mixailovich noticed me.

‘I collected half a basin of these yesterday.’

A woman’s face looked out from behind the curtain. We rarely saw women, let alone this close and in the same room. She looked beautiful to me. I bowed and said hallo.

‘Hallo,’ she said in a low, wonderful voice. ‘Sergei, is this your friend, the one you told me about?’

‘No,’ Sergei Mixailovich said, tossing his snips into the basin and walking over to the sink to wash his hands.

‘Nikolai,’ he said to his orderly, who had just come in, ‘take this basin away and bring some bread for him.’ He nodded in my direction.

I waited until the bread was brought and left for the barracks. As for the woman, whose tender and beautiful face I remember to this day, I never saw her again. She was Edith Abramovna, civilian, Party member, a nurse from the Olchan Mine. She had fallen in love with Sergei Mixailovich, taken up with him, got him transferred to Olchan, and obtained for him an early release while the war was still going on. She traveled to Magadan to present Sergei Mixailovich’s case to Nikishov, the head of Far Northern Construction. She was expelled from the Party for being involved with a prisoner; it was the usual method for putting a stop to such affairs. She got Lunin’s case transferred to Moscow, had his sentence canceled, and even managed to get permission for him to take his medical examinations at Moscow University, from which he graduated and had all his civil rights reinstated. And she married him formally.

And when this descendant of a Decembrist received his medical degree, he abandoned Edith Abramovna and demanded a divorce.

‘She’s got a pack of relatives, like all those kikes! I don’t need that.’

He left Edith Abramovna, but he didn’t manage to leave Far Northern Construction. After graduation, he had to return to the Far North for at least three years. As a licensed doctor, Lunin used his connections with camp authorities to land an unexpectedly important appointment – chief of surgery at the Central Prison Hospital on the Left Bank of the Kolyma River in the village of Debin. It was 1948, and by that time I was senior orderly of the surgical ward.

I met Lunin on the stairway. He had a habit of blushing when he was embarrassed. His face became very red when he saw me, but he treated me to a cigarette, congratulated me on my successes and my ‘career’, and told me about Edith Abramovna.

Lunin’s appointment was like a thunderbolt. Rubantsev had been in charge of surgery. A front-line surgeon and a major in the medical service, he was an experienced, no-nonsense type who had moved here after the war – and not just for three days. Some didn’t like Rubantsev. He didn’t get along with the camp authorities, couldn’t stand toadying and lying, and had terrible relations with Scherbakov, chief of sanitation in Kolyma.