Savelyev and I decided to eat on our own. Cooking is a prisoner's special kind of pleasure; the incomparable pleasure of preparing food for yourself, with your own hands, and then eating it, even if it was cooked worse than the skillful hands of a cook would have made it - our culinary knowledge was insignificant, our cooking skills were not enough even for a simple soup or porridge. And yet Savelyev and I collected jars, cleaned them, burned them over the fire, soaked something, boiled them, learning from each other.
Ivan Ivanovich and Fedya mixed their products, Fedya carefully turned out his pockets and, having examined every seam, scooped out the grains with a dirty broken nail.
All four of us were perfectly prepared for a journey into the future - be it in the heavenly or in the earthly. We knew what scientifically based nutritional standards were, what a food replacement table was, according to which it turned out that a bucket of water replaces the calorie content of one hundred grams of butter. We have learned humility, we have forgotten how to be surprised. We had no pride, selfishness, selfishness, and jealousy and passion seemed to us Martian concepts, and trifles at that. It was much more important to learn how to button up your pants in the cold in winter - grown men cried, sometimes not being able to do this. We understood that death was no worse than life, and we were not afraid of either one. Great indifference possessed us. We knew that it was in our will to end this life even tomorrow, and sometimes we decided to do this, and every time some little things that make up life got in the way. Then today they will give out a “stall” - a premium kilogram of bread - it was simply stupid to commit suicide on such a day. Then the orderly from the neighboring barracks promised to let me smoke in the evening - to pay off a long-standing debt.
We realized that life, even the worst one, consists of alternating joys and sorrows, successes and failures, and we should not be afraid that there are more failures than successes.
We were disciplined and obedient to our superiors. We understood that truth and lies are sisters, that there are thousands of truths in the world...
We considered ourselves almost saints, thinking that during the camp years we had atoned for all our sins.
We have learned to understand people, anticipate their actions, and unravel them.
We realized - this was the most important thing - that our knowledge of people does not give us anything useful in life. What's the point in the fact that I understand, feel, figure out, predict the actions of another person? After all, I cannot change my behavior towards him, I will not inform on a prisoner like myself, no matter what he does. I will not seek the position of foreman, which gives me the opportunity to stay alive, because the worst thing in the camp is imposing my (or someone else’s) will on another person, a prisoner like me. I will not look for useful contacts or give bribes. And what good is it if I know that Ivanov is a scoundrel, and Petrov is a spy, and Zaslavsky is a false witness?
The inability to use known types of weapons makes us weak compared to some of our neighbors in the camp bunks. We have learned to be content with little and enjoy little.
We also understood an amazing thing: in the eyes of the state and its representatives, a physically strong person is better, better, more moral, more valuable than a weak person, someone who cannot throw twenty cubic meters of soil out of a trench per shift. The first is more moral than the second. He fulfills his “interest”, that is, he fulfills his main duty to the state and society, and therefore is respected by everyone. He is consulted and taken into account, invited to meetings and meetings whose topics are far from the issues of throwing out heavy slippery soil from wet, slimy ditches.
Thanks to his physical advantages, he turns into a moral force in solving numerous daily problems camp life. Moreover, he is a moral force as long as he is a physical force.
The aphorism of Paul I: “In Russia, the one with whom I speak and while I speak with him is noble” - found its unexpectedly new expression in the slaughter of the Far North.
In the first months of his life at the mine, Ivan Ivanovich was a leading worker. Now he could not understand why, now that he was weak, everyone was beating him casually - not painfully, but they were beating him: the orderly, the hairdresser, the work assistant, the headman, the foreman, the guard. In addition to officials, thugs beat him. Ivan Ivanovich was happy that he went on this forest business trip.
Fedya Shchapov, an Altai teenager, became a goner earlier than others because his half-childish body was not yet strong enough. Therefore, Fedya lasted two weeks less than the others, and rather weakened. He was the only son of a widow, and he was tried for illegal slaughter of cattle - the only sheep that Fedya slaughtered. These slaughters were prohibited by law. Fedya received ten years; the mining, hasty, and not at all like village work was hard for him. Fedya admired the free life of the thieves at the mine, but there was something in his nature that prevented him from getting close to the thieves. This healthy peasant beginning, natural love, and not aversion to work, helped him a little. He, the youngest among us, immediately clung to the oldest, the most positive - Ivan Ivanovich.
Savelyev was a student at the Moscow Institute of Communications, my fellow countryman in Butyrka prison. From his cell, he, shocked by everything he had seen, wrote a letter to the leader of the party, like a faithful Komsomol member, confident that such information would not reach the leader. His own business was so trivial (correspondence with his own bride), where evidence of campaigning (clause ten of the fifty-eighth article) were letters from the bride and groom to each other; his “organization” (clause eleven of the same article) consisted of two persons. All this was recorded in the most serious manner on the interrogation forms. Still, they thought that, apart from exile, even on the scale of that time, Savelyev would receive nothing.
Soon after the letter was sent, on one of the “reporting” days in prison, Savelyev was called into the corridor and given him to sign the notice. The Supreme Prosecutor reported that he would personally examine his case. After this, Savelyev was called only once - to present him with the verdict of a special meeting: ten years in the camps.
Savelyev “swimmed” to the camp very quickly. This ominous reprisal was still incomprehensible to him. He and I were not just friends, but simply loved to remember Moscow - its streets, monuments, the Moscow River, covered with a thin layer of oil, shimmering with mother-of-pearl. Neither Leningrad, nor Kyiv, nor Odessa have such fans, connoisseurs, lovers. We were ready to talk about Moscow endlessly.
We put the iron stove we brought into the hut and, although it was summer, we lit it. The warm, dry air had an extraordinary, wonderful aroma. Each of us is accustomed to breathing the sour smell of a worn dress, sweat - it’s also good that tears have no smell.
On the advice of Ivan Ivanovich, we took off our underwear and buried it in the ground overnight, each shirt and underpants separately, leaving a small tip out. It was folk remedy against lice, but at the mine we were powerless to fight them. Indeed, the next morning the lice gathered on the ends of the shirts. The ground, covered with permafrost, still thawed enough here in the summer that it was possible to bury laundry. Of course, this was the land here, in which there was more stone than earth. But even on this rocky, icy soil, dense forests of huge larches with trunks of three girths grew - such was the life force of the trees, the great edifying example that nature showed us.
We burned the lice by holding the shirt to a burning brand from the fire. Alas, this ingenious method did not destroy the nits, and that same day we boiled the laundry in large tin cans for a long time and furiously - this time the disinfection was reliable.
We learned the wonderful properties of the earth later when we caught mice, crows, seagulls, and squirrels. The meat of any animal loses its specific smell if it is first buried in the ground.
We took care to maintain an unquenchable fire - after all, we only had a few matches, which were kept by Ivan Ivanovich. He wrapped the precious matches in a piece of tarpaulin and rags most carefully.
Every evening we put two brands together, and they smoldered until the morning, without going out or burning. If there were three firebrands, they would burn. Savelyev and I knew this law from school, and Ivan Ivanovich and Fedya knew it from childhood, from home. In the morning we fanned the firebrands, a yellow fire flared up, and we piled a thicker log onto the flaring fire...
I divided the cereal into ten parts, but it turned out to be too scary. The operation of feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread was probably easier and simpler than for a prisoner to divide his ten-day ration into thirty portions. Rations and cards were always for ten days. On the mainland there had long been a curfew for all sorts of “five-day”, “ten-day”, “continuous” periods, but here the decimal system held much more firmly. Nobody here considered Sunday a holiday - rest days for prisoners, introduced much later than when we lived on a forest assignment, were three times a month at the discretion of the local authorities, who were given the right to use days that were rainy in the summer or too cold in the winter for prisoners to rest on account weekend.
I mixed the cereal again, unable to handle this new flour. I asked Ivan Ivanovich and Fedya to accept me into the company and handed over my products to the common pot. Savelyev followed my example.
Together, all four of us made a wise decision: to cook twice a day - there was absolutely not enough food for three times.
“We will pick berries and mushrooms,” said Ivan Ivanovich. - Catch mice and birds. And live on bread alone for a day or two in a decade.
“But if we starve for a day or two before receiving food,” said Savelyev, “how can we resist eating too much when the food arrives?”
We decided to eat twice a day no matter what and, as a last resort, dilute it thinner. After all, no one will steal from us here, we got everything completely according to the norm: here we have no drunken cooks, thieving storekeepers, no greedy guards, no thieves snatching the best products - all the endless bosses, gorging, robbing prisoners without any control, without no fear, no conscience.
We received all our fats in the form of a lump of hydrofat, granulated sugar - less than I washed with a tray of golden sand, bread - sticky, viscous bread, on the baking of which the great, inimitable masters of weight gain, who fed and the bakery management, worked. A grain of twenty names that were not at all known to us throughout our entire lives: magar, wheat chaff - all this was too mysterious. And scary.
The fish that, according to the mysterious replacement signs, replaced meat was a rusty herring, which promised to compensate for the increased consumption of our proteins.
Alas, even the norms received in full could not nourish or saturate us. We needed three, four times more - everyone’s body had been starving for a long time. We did not understand this simple thing then. We believed the norms - and the well-known chef's observation that it is easier to cook for twenty people than for four was not known to us. We understood only one thing absolutely clearly: that we would not have enough food. This didn’t frighten us so much as it surprised us. It was necessary to start working, it was necessary to make a clearing through the windfall.
Trees in the North die lying down, like people. Their huge bare roots look like the claws of a gigantic bird of prey clinging to a stone. From these giant claws, thousands of small tentacles, whitish processes covered with brown warm bark, stretched down to the permafrost. Every summer the permafrost retreated a little, and a tentacle—a root—immediately pierced into every inch of thawed earth and was strengthened there with the finest hairs. The larches reached maturity at three hundred years, slowly raising their heavy, powerful bodies on their weak roots, spread out along the rocky ground. A strong storm easily felled trees that were weak on their feet. The larches fell backwards, with their heads in one direction, and died, lying on a soft thick layer of moss - bright green and bright pink.
Only twisted, twisted, low-growing trees, exhausted by turns due to the sun, due to the warmth, stood strong alone, far from each other. They had been in an intense struggle for life for so long that their torn, crumpled wood was no good. The short, gnarled trunk, entwined with terrible growths, like splints of some kind of fracture, was not suitable for construction even in the North, which is undemanding when it comes to materials for constructing buildings. These twisted trees were not even suitable for firewood - their resistance to an ax could exhaust any worker. So they took revenge on the whole world for their life, broken by the North.
End of free trial.
They put Anna Pavlovna's corpse in a koshevka and moved to the village, to the house of the head of the mine. Not everyone went there with Andreev - many rushed quickly to the barracks, to the soup.
The chief did not open the door for a long time, seeing through the glass a crowd of prisoners gathered at the door of his house. Finally, Andreev managed to explain what was going on, and he, along with the bound Shtemenko and two prisoners, entered the house.
We dined that night for a very long time. Andreev was taken somewhere to give evidence. But then he came, gave orders, and we went to work.
Shtemenko was soon sentenced to ten years for murder out of jealousy. The punishment was minimal. He was tried at our own mine and after the verdict he was taken away somewhere. In such cases, former camp commanders are kept somewhere special - no one has ever met them in ordinary camps.
Aunt Polya
Aunt Polya died in hospital from stomach cancer at the age of fifty-two. The autopsy confirmed the attending physician's diagnosis. However, in our hospital the pathological diagnosis rarely diverged from the clinical one - this happens in the best and worst hospitals.
Only people in the office knew Aunt Polya's last name. Even the wife of the boss, whose Aunt Polya had been an “orderly,” that is, a servant, did not remember the real name.
Everyone knows what an orderly or orderly is, but not everyone knows who they can be. The confidant of the inaccessible ruler of thousands of human destinies; witness of his weaknesses, his dark sides. A man who knows the shadow sides of the house. A slave, but also an indispensable participant in the underwater, underground apartment war; participant or at least observer of domestic battles. The unspoken arbiter in quarrels between husband and wife. Managing the household of the boss’s family, increasing his wealth, and not only through economy and honesty. One such orderly traded in tobacco cigarettes for the benefit of the boss, selling them to prisoners for ten cigarette rubles. The camp Chamber of Weights and Measures established that a matchbox contains shag for eight cigarettes, and an eighth of shag consists of eight such matchboxes. These measures of bulk solids apply to 1/8 of the territory Soviet Union- throughout Eastern Siberia.
Our orderly earned six hundred and forty rubles for each pack of shag. But this figure was not, as they say, the limit. It was possible to fill in incomplete boxes - the difference would be almost imperceptible at a glance, and no one would want to quarrel with the boss's orderly. It was possible to twirl thinner cigarettes. The whole twist is the work of the orderly’s hands and conscience. Our orderly bought shag from the boss for five hundred rubles a pack. The hundred and forty ruble difference went into the orderly’s pocket.
Aunt Polya’s owner did not sell shag, and in general Aunt Polya did not have to engage in any shady business with him. Aunt Polya was a great cook, and orderlies, knowledgeable in cooking, were especially highly valued. Aunt Polya could - and indeed did - arrange for one of her fellow Ukrainians to do an easy job or be included on some list for release. Aunt Polya's help to her fellow countrymen was very serious. She did not help others, except with advice.
Aunt Polya had been working for her boss for seven years and thought that she would live comfortably for all of her ten years.
Aunt Polya was a calculating, disinterested person and rightly believed that her indifference to gifts and money could not but please any boss. Her calculations were justified. She was an insider in the boss’s family, and a plan for her release had already been outlined - she was supposed to be listed as a car loader at the mine where the boss’s brother worked, and the mine would petition for her release.
But Aunt Polya fell ill, she was getting worse, and she was taken to the hospital. The chief doctor ordered that Aunt Polya be given a separate room. Ten half-corpses were dragged into the cold corridor to make room for the orderly commander.
The hospital came to life. Every afternoon, Jeeps and trucks arrived; Ladies in sheepskin coats came out of the cabins, military men came out - everyone was trying to see Aunt Polya. And Aunt Polya promised everyone: if she recovered, she would put in a word with the boss.
Every Sunday a ZIS-110 limousine drove through the hospital gates - Aunt Polya was being delivered a parcel, a note from the boss’s wife.
Aunt Polya gave everything to the nurses; she would try a spoon and give it back. She knew her illness.
But Aunt Polya could not recover. And then one day an extraordinary visitor came to the hospital with a note from the boss - Father Peter, as he called himself to the contractor. It turns out that Aunt Polya wanted to confess.
Petka Abramov was an extraordinary visitor. Everyone knew him. He was even in this hospital a few months ago. And now it was Father Peter.
The reverend's visit excited the entire hospital. It turns out that there are priests in our area! And they confess those who wish! In the largest ward of the hospital - ward number two, where between lunch and dinner a gastronomic story was told every day by one of the patients, in any case, not to improve appetite, but because of the need of a hungry person to arouse food emotions - in this ward they talked only about Aunt Polya's confession.
Father Peter was wearing a cap and a pea coat. His cotton trousers are tucked into old tarpaulin boots. The hair was cut short - for a person of clergy, much shorter than the hair of the dudes of the fifties. Father Peter unbuttoned his peacoat and padded jacket - a blue shirt and a large pectoral cross became visible. It was not a simple cross, but a crucifix - only homemade, carved with a skillful hand, but without the necessary tools.
Father Peter confessed to Aunt Polya and left. He stood on the highway for a long time, raising his hands as the trucks approached. Two cars passed without stopping. Then Father Peter took out a ready-made, rolled-up cigarette from his bosom, raised it above his head, and the first car slowed down, the driver hospitably opened the cab door.
Aunt Polya died and was buried in the hospital cemetery. It was a large cemetery under the mountain (instead of “die”, the patients said “get under the hill”) with mass graves “A”, “B”, “C” and “D”, several chord-shaped lines of single graves. Neither the boss, nor his wife, nor Peter’s father was at Aunt Polly’s funeral. The funeral ceremony was ordinary: the contractor tied a wooden tag with a number on Aunt Polya’s left shin. It was a personal file number. According to the instructions, the number should be written in a simple black pencil, and not at all with a chemical one, as on forest topographic markers.
The usual gravediggers and orderlies threw stones at Aunt Polya’s withered body. The contractor fixed a stick in the stones - again with the same personal file number.
Several days passed, and Father Peter appeared at the hospital. He had already been to the cemetery and was now thundering in the office:
The cross must be put up. Cross.
“Nothing else,” answered the contractor.
They argued for a long time. Finally Father Peter announced:
I give you a week's time. If the cross is not put up within this week, I will complain about you to the head of the department. If he doesn’t help, I’ll write to the head of Dalstroi. If he refuses, I will complain about him to the Council of People's Commissars. If the Council of People’s Commissars refuses, I’ll write to the Synod,” Father Peter shouted.
The contractor was an old prisoner and knew the “wonderland” well: he knew that the most unexpected things could happen there. And, after thinking, he decided to report the whole story to the chief physician.
The chief doctor, who was once either a minister or a deputy minister, advised not to argue and to put a cross on Aunt Polya’s grave.
If a priest speaks so confidently, it means there is something here. He knows something. “Everything can be, everything can be,” muttered the former minister.
They put up a cross, the first cross in this cemetery. He could be seen far away. And although he was the only one, the whole place took on a real cemetery look. All the walking sick went to look at this cross. And the board was nailed with an inscription in a mourning frame. An old artist, who had been in the hospital for two years now, was tasked with making the inscription. He, in fact, did not lie down, but was only listed on the bed, and spent all his time on the mass production of three types of copies: " Golden autumn", "Three Heroes" and "The Death of Ivan the Terrible". The artist swore that he could paint these copies with his eyes closed. His customers were all the village and hospital authorities.
But the artist agreed to make a board for Aunt Polya’s cross. He asked what should be written. The contractor rummaged through his lists.
I don’t find anything except initials,” he said. - Timoshenko P.I. Write: Polina Ivanovna. She died on such and such a date.
The artist, who never argued with clients, wrote just that. And exactly a week later Petka Abramov, that is, Father Peter, appeared. He said that Aunt Polya’s name is not Polina, but Praskovya, and not Ivanovna, but Ilyinichna. He reported her date of birth and demanded that it be included in the grave inscription. The inscription was corrected in the presence of Father Peter.
Tie
How can I talk about this damn tie?
This is a special kind of truth, this is the truth of reality. But this is not an essay, but a story. How can I make it a thing of the prose of the future - something like the stories of Saint-Exupery, who opened the air to us.
In the past and present, success requires that a writer be something of a foreigner in the country about which he writes. So that he writes from the point of view of people - their interests, horizons - among whom he grew up and acquired habits, tastes, views. The writer writes in the language of those on whose behalf he speaks. And no more. If a writer knows the material too well, those for whom he writes will not understand the writer. The writer changed, went over to the side of his material.
You don't need to know the material too much. All writers of the past and present are like this, but the prose of the future requires something else. It is not writers who will speak, but professional people with the gift of writing. And they will only talk about what they know and have seen. Authenticity is the strength of the literature of the future.
Or maybe there is no point in reasoning here and the most important thing is to try to remember, to remember in everything Marusya Kryukova, a lame girl who was poisoned by Veronal, accumulated several shiny tiny yellow egg-shaped tablets and swallowed them. She exchanged Veronal for bread, porridge, and a portion of herring from her roommates, to whom Veronal was prescribed. The paramedics knew about the trade in Veronal and forced the patients to swallow the tablet in front of their eyes, but the crust of the pill was hard, and usually the patients managed to put the Veronal behind their cheek or under the tongue and, after the paramedic left, spit it out into their own palm.
Marusya Kryukova did not calculate the dose. She did not die, she simply vomited, and after the assistance provided - gastric lavage - Marusya was discharged for transfer. But all this was much later than the tie story.
Marusya Kryukova came from Japan in the late thirties. The daughter of an emigrant who lived on the outskirts of Kyoto, Marusya and her brother joined the Return to Russia union, contacted the Soviet embassy and in 1939 received a Russian entry visa. In Vladivostok, Marusya was arrested along with her comrades and her brother, taken to Moscow and never met any of her friends again.
During the investigation, Marusya’s leg was broken and, when the bone healed, she was taken to Kolyma to serve a twenty-five-year prison sentence. Marusya was a great needlewoman, a master of embroidery - Marusya’s family in Kyoto lived on these embroideries.
In Kolyma, Marusya’s superiors immediately discovered this skill. She was never paid for embroidery: either they would bring a piece of bread, two pieces of sugar, cigarettes - Marusya, however, did not learn to smoke. And the wonderful hand embroidery, costing several hundred rubles, remained in the hands of the authorities.
Having heard about the abilities of the prisoner Kryukova, the head of the medical unit admitted Marusya to the hospital, and from that time on Marusya embroidered for the doctor.
When a telephone message arrived at the state farm where Marusya worked, in order to send all the craftswomen to the disposal of a passing car..., the head of the camp hid Marusya - his wife had a large order for the craftswoman. But someone immediately wrote a denunciation to the higher authorities, and Marusya had to be sent. Where?
The central Kolyma highway stretches and winds for two thousand kilometers - a highway among hills, gorges, posts, rails, bridges... There are no rails on the Kolyma highway. But everyone repeated and repeats Nekrasov's " railway" - why write poetry when there is a completely suitable text. The road was built entirely from a pick and a shovel, from a wheelbarrow and a drill...
Every four hundred to five hundred kilometers on the highway there is a “directorate house”, an ultra-luxury luxury hotel, which is at the personal disposal of the director of Dalstroy, that is, the governor-general of Kolyma. Only he, during his trips around the region entrusted to him, can spend the night there. Expensive carpets, bronze and mirrors. Original paintings - many names of painters of the first rank, like Shukhaev. Shukhaev was in Kolyma for ten years. In 1957, on Kuznetsky Most there was an exhibition of his works, his book of life. It began with bright landscapes of Belgium and France, a self-portrait in a golden Harlequin camisole. Then the Magadan period: two small oil portraits - a portrait of his wife and a self-portrait in a gloomy dark brown tones, two works in ten years. The portraits show people who have seen terrible things. In addition to these two portraits, there are sketches of theatrical scenery.
After the war, Shukhaev was released. He goes to Tbilisi - to the south, to the south, carrying away hatred of the North. He's broken. He paints the picture "Stalin's Oath in Gori" - a sycophantic one. He's broken. Portraits of drummers, production leaders. "The Lady in a Golden Dress" There is no measure of brilliance in this portrait - it seems that the artist is forcing himself to forget about the stinginess of the northern palette. That's all. You can die.
For the "director's house" the artists also wrote copies:
“Ivan the Terrible kills his son”, Shishkin’s “Morning in the Forest”. These two pictures are classic hacks.
But the most amazing thing was the embroidery. Silk curtains, blinds, and drapes were decorated with hand embroidery. Rugs, capes, towels - any rag became precious after it was in the hands of imprisoned craftswomen.
The director of Dalstroy spent the night in his “houses” - there were several of them along the highway - two or three times a year. The rest of the time, the watchman, the caretaker, the cook and the manager of the “house” were waiting for him, four civilians who received percentage bonuses for work in the Far North waited, prepared, heated the stoves in the winter, and ventilated the “house.”
Masha Kryukova was brought here to embroider curtains, capes and whatever they wanted. There were two more craftswomen equal to Masha in skill and invention. Russia is a country of checks, a country of control. The dream of every good Russian - both prisoners and civilians - is to be assigned something, to check someone. First of all: I am a commander over someone. Secondly: I was given trust. Thirdly: I am less responsible for such work than for direct labor. And fourthly: remember the attack “In the trenches of Stalingrad” by Nekrasov.
A woman, a member of the party, was placed in charge of Masha and her new acquaintances, who daily issued material and threads to the craftswomen. At the end of the working day, she selected the work and checked what had been done. This woman did not work, but went through the staff of the central hospital as a senior operating nurse. She kept watch carefully, confident that just turn away and the piece of heavy blue silk would disappear.
Craftswomen have long been accustomed to such protection. And although it would probably not have been difficult to deceive this woman, they did not steal. All three were convicted under article fifty-eight.
The craftswomen were placed in a camp, in a zone on the gates of which, as in all camp zones of the Union, the unforgettable words were inscribed: “Work is a matter of honor, a matter of glory, a matter of valor and heroism.” And the name of the author of the quote... The quote sounded ironic, surprisingly approaching the meaning and content of the word “labor” in the camp. Labor was anything but a matter of glory. In 1906, the publishing house in which the Socialist Revolutionaries participated published the book " Complete collection speeches of Nicholas II." These were reprints from the "Government Bulletin" at the time of the tsar's coronation and consisted of hearty toasts: "I drink to the health of the Kexholm regiment," "I drink to the health of the fellows of Chernigov."
The healthy toasts were preceded by a preface in jingoistic tones: “These words, like a drop of water, reflect all the wisdom of our great monarch,” etc.
The compilers of the collection were exiled to Siberia.
What happened to the people who raised a quote about labor on the gates of the camp zones throughout the Soviet Union?..
For excellent behavior and successful implementation of the plan, the craftswomen were allowed to watch films during sessions for prisoners.
The screenings for civilians differed slightly in their procedures from the cinema for prisoners.
There was only one movie camera - there were breaks between parts.
Once they showed the film “Simplicity is enough for every wise man.” The first part ended, the light came on, as always, and, as always, went out, and the crackling sound of the movie camera was heard - a yellow beam reached the screen.
Everyone stomped and screamed. The mechanic was clearly mistaken - they showed the first part again. Three hundred people: there were front-line soldiers with orders, honored doctors who had come to the conference - everyone who had bought tickets for this session for civilians shouted and stamped their feet.
The mechanic slowly “cranked” the first part and turned on the light into the hall. Then everyone understood what was going on. The deputy head of the hospital for economic affairs, Dolmatov, appeared at the cinema: he was late for the first part, and the film was shown first.
The second part began and everything went as expected. Kolyma morals were known to everyone: front-line soldiers - less, doctors - more.
When few tickets were sold, the session was common to everyone: the best seats for civilians were the last rows, and the first rows were for prisoners; women to the left, men to the right of the aisle. The passage divided the auditorium crosswise into four parts, and this was very convenient in discussing camp rules.
The lame girl, noticeable even at film shows, ended up in the hospital, in the women's ward. Small chambers had not yet been built; the entire department was housed in one military dormitory - fifty beds, no less. Marusya Kryukova went to a surgeon for treatment.
What does she have?
Osteomyelitis, said surgeon Valentin Nikolaevich.
Will your leg disappear?
Well, why does it disappear...
I went to bandage Kryukova and already told her about her life. A week later, the temperature subsided, and a week later Marusya was discharged.
I will give you a tie - you and Valentin Nikolaevich. These will be good ties.
Okay, okay, Marusya.
A strip of silk among tens of meters, hundreds of meters of fabric, embroidered and decorated over several shifts in the “directorate’s house.”
What about control?
I'll ask our Anna Andreevna.
That, I think, was the name of the overseer.
Anna Andreevna allowed. I embroider, embroider, embroider... I don’t know how to explain it to you. Dolmatov came in and took it away.
How did you select it?
Well, I did embroidery. Valentin Nikolaevich was already ready. And yours - there was not much left. Grey. Door opened. “Do you embroider ties?” I searched the nightstand. He put the tie in his pocket and left.
Now you will be sent.
They won't send me. There is still a lot of work to do. But I really wanted a tie for you...
No big deal, Marusya, I wouldn’t wear it anyway. Should I sell it?
Dolmatov was late for the camp amateur concert, just like in a movie. Overweight and potbellied beyond his age, he walked towards the first empty bench.
Kryukova rose from her seat and waved her arms. I realized that these were signs for me.
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Aunt Polya
Aunt Polya died in hospital from stomach cancer at the age of fifty-two. The autopsy confirmed the attending physician's diagnosis. However, in our hospital the pathological diagnosis rarely differed from the clinical one - this happens in the best and worst hospitals.
Only people in the office knew Aunt Polya's last name. Even the wife of the boss, whose Aunt Polya had been an “orderly,” that is, a servant, did not remember the real name.
Everyone knows what an orderly or orderly is, but not everyone knows who they can be. The confidant of the inaccessible ruler of thousands of human destinies; a witness to his weaknesses, his dark sides. A man who knows the shadow sides of the house. A slave, but also an indispensable participant in the underwater, underground apartment war; participant or at least observer of domestic battles. The unspoken arbiter in quarrels between husband and wife. Managing the household of the boss’s family, increasing his wealth, and not only through economy and honesty. One such orderly traded in tobacco cigarettes for the benefit of the boss, selling them to prisoners for ten cigarette rubles. The camp Chamber of Weights and Measures established that a matchbox contains shag for eight cigarettes, and an eighth of shag consists of eight such matchboxes. These measures of bulk solids are valid on 1/8 of the territory of the Soviet Union - throughout Eastern Siberia.
Our orderly earned six hundred and forty rubles for each pack of shag. But this figure was not, as they say, the limit. It was possible to fill in incomplete boxes - the difference would be almost imperceptible at a glance, and no one would want to quarrel with the boss’s orderly. It was possible to twirl thinner cigarettes. The whole twist is the work of the orderly’s hands and conscience. Our orderly bought shag from the boss for five hundred rubles a pack. The hundred and forty ruble difference went into the orderly’s pocket.
Aunt Polya’s owner did not sell shag, and in general Aunt Polya did not have to engage in any shady business with him. Aunt Polya was a great cook, and orderlies, knowledgeable in cooking, were especially highly valued. Aunt Polya could—and indeed did—undertake one of her fellow Ukrainians for an easy job or be included on some list for release. Aunt Polya's help to her fellow countrymen was very serious. She did not help others, except with advice.
Aunt Polya had been working for her boss for seven years and thought that she would live comfortably for all of her ten years.
Aunt Polya was a calculating, disinterested person and rightly believed that her indifference to gifts and money could not but please any boss. Her calculations were justified. She was an insider in the boss’s family, and a plan for her release had already been outlined - she was supposed to be listed as a car loader at the mine where the boss’s brother worked, and the mine would petition for her release.
But Aunt Polya fell ill, she was getting worse, and she was taken to the hospital. The chief doctor ordered that Aunt Polya be given a separate room. Ten half-corpses were dragged into the cold corridor to make room for the orderly commander.
The hospital came to life. Every day in the afternoon the Jeeps arrived, the trucks arrived; Ladies in sheepskin coats came out of the cabins, military men came out - everyone was trying to see Aunt Polya. And Aunt Polya promised everyone: if she recovered, she would put in a word with the boss.
Every Sunday a ZIS-110 limousine drove through the hospital gates - Aunt Polya was being delivered a parcel, a note from the boss’s wife.
Aunt Polya gave everything to the nurses; she would try a spoon and give it back. She knew her illness.
But Aunt Polya could not recover. And then one day an extraordinary visitor came to the hospital with a note from the boss - Father Peter, as he called himself to the contractor. It turns out that Aunt Polya wanted to confess.
Petka Abramov was an extraordinary visitor. Everyone knew him. He was even in this hospital a few months ago. And now it was Father Peter.
The reverend's visit excited the entire hospital. It turns out that there are priests in our area! And they confess those who wish! In the largest ward of the hospital - ward number two, where between lunch and dinner a gastronomic story was told every day by one of the patients, in any case, not to improve appetite, but because of the need of a hungry person to arouse food emotions - in this ward they talked only about Aunt Polya's confession.
Father Peter was wearing a cap and a pea coat. His cotton trousers are tucked into old tarpaulin boots. The hair was cut short - for a person of clergy, much shorter than the hair of the dudes of the fifties. Father Peter unbuttoned his peacoat and padded jacket - a blue blouse and a large pectoral cross became visible. It was not a simple cross, but a crucifix - only homemade, carved by a skillful hand, but without the necessary tools.
Father Peter confessed to Aunt Polya and left. He stood on the highway for a long time, raising his hands as the trucks approached. Two cars passed without stopping. Then Father Peter took out a ready-made, rolled-up cigarette from his bosom, raised it above his head, and the first car slowed down, the driver hospitably opened the cab door.
Aunt Polya died and was buried in the hospital cemetery. It was a large cemetery under the mountain (instead of “die”, patients said “get under the hill”) with mass graves “A”, “B”, “C” and “D”, several chord-shaped lines of single graves. Neither the boss, nor his wife, nor Peter’s father was at Aunt Polly’s funeral. The funeral ceremony was ordinary: the contractor tied a wooden tag with a number on Aunt Polya’s left shin. It was a personal file number. According to the instructions, the number should be written in a simple black pencil, and not at all with a chemical one, as on forest topographic markers.
The usual gravediggers and orderlies threw stones at Aunt Polya’s withered body. The contractor fixed a stick in the stones - again with the same personal file number.
Several days passed, and Father Peter appeared at the hospital. He had already been to the cemetery and was now thundering in the office:
- We need to put up a cross. Cross.
“What else,” replied the workman.
They argued for a long time. Finally Father Peter announced:
- I give you a week's time. If the cross is not put up within this week, I will complain about you to the head of the department. If he doesn’t help, I’ll write to the head of Dalstroi. If he refuses, I will complain about him to the Council of People's Commissars. If the Council of People’s Commissars refuses, I’ll write to the Synod,” Father Peter shouted.
The contractor was an old prisoner and knew the “wonderland” well: he knew that the most unexpected things could happen there. And, after thinking, he decided to report the whole story to the chief physician.
The chief doctor, who was once either a minister or a deputy minister, advised not to argue and to put a cross on Aunt Polya’s grave.
“If the priest speaks so confidently, it means there is something here.” He knows something. “Everything can be, everything can be,” muttered the former minister.
They put up a cross, the first cross in this cemetery. He could be seen far away. And although he was the only one, the whole place took on a real cemetery look. All the walking sick went to look at this cross. And the board was nailed with an inscription in a mourning frame. An old artist, who had been in the hospital for two years now, was tasked with making the inscription. He, in fact, did not lie down, but was only listed on the bed, and spent all his time on the mass production of three types of copies: “Golden Autumn”, “Three Heroes” and “The Death of Ivan the Terrible”. The artist swore that he could paint these copies with his eyes closed. His customers were all the village and hospital authorities.
But the artist agreed to make a board for Aunt Polya’s cross. He asked what should be written. The contractor rummaged through his lists.
“I don’t find anything except initials,” he said. – Timoshenko P.I. Write: Polina Ivanovna. She died on such and such a date.
The artist, who never argued with clients, wrote just that. And exactly a week later Petka Abramov, that is, Father Peter, appeared. He said that Aunt Polya’s name is not Polina, but Praskovya, and not Ivanovna, but Ilyinichna. He reported her date of birth and demanded that it be included in the grave inscription. The inscription was corrected in the presence of Father Peter.
How can I talk about this damn tie?
This is a special kind of truth, this is the truth of reality. But this is not an essay, but a story. How can I make it a thing of the prose of the future - something like the stories of Saint-Exupery, who opened the air to us.
In the past and present, success requires that a writer be something of a foreigner in the country about which he writes. So that he writes from the point of view of people - their interests, horizons - among whom he grew up and acquired habits, tastes, views. The writer writes in the language of those on whose behalf he speaks. And no more. If a writer knows the material too well, those for whom he writes will not understand the writer. The writer changed, went over to the side of his material.
You don't need to know the material too much. All writers of the past and present are like this, but the prose of the future requires something else. It is not writers who will speak, but professional people with the gift of writing. And they will only talk about what they know and have seen. Authenticity is the strength of the literature of the future.
Or maybe there is no point in reasoning here and the most important thing is to try to remember, to remember in everything Marusya Kryukova, the lame girl who was poisoned by Veronal, accumulated several shiny tiny yellow egg-shaped tablets and swallowed them. She exchanged Veronal for bread, porridge, and a portion of herring from her roommates, to whom Veronal was prescribed. The paramedics knew about the trade in Veronal and forced the patients to swallow the tablet in front of their eyes, but the crust of the pill was hard, and usually the patients managed to put the Veronal behind their cheek or under the tongue and, after the paramedic left, spit it out into their own palm.
Marusya Kryukova did not calculate the dose. She did not die, she simply vomited, and after the assistance provided - gastric lavage - Marusya was discharged for transfer. But all this was much later than the tie story.
Marusya Kryukova came from Japan in the late thirties. The daughter of an emigrant who lived on the outskirts of Kyoto, Marusya and her brother joined the “Return to Russia” union, contacted the Soviet embassy and in 1939 received a Russian entry visa. In Vladivostok, Marusya was arrested along with her comrades and her brother, taken to Moscow and never met any of her friends again.
During the investigation, Marusya’s leg was broken and, when the bone healed, she was taken to Kolyma to serve a twenty-five-year prison sentence. Marusya was a great needlewoman, a master of embroidery - Marusya’s family in Kyoto lived on these embroideries.
In Kolyma, Marusya’s superiors immediately discovered this skill. She was never paid for embroidery: either they would bring a piece of bread, two pieces of sugar, cigarettes - Marusya, however, did not learn to smoke. And the wonderful hand embroidery, costing several hundred rubles, remained in the hands of the authorities.
Having heard about the abilities of the prisoner Kryukova, the head of the medical unit admitted Marusya to the hospital, and from that time on Marusya embroidered for the doctor.
When a telephone message arrived at the state farm where Marusya worked in order to send all the needlewomen by passing truck to the disposal of..., the head of the camp hid Marusya - his wife had a large order for the craftswoman. But someone immediately wrote a denunciation to the higher authorities, and Marusya had to be sent. Where?
The central Kolyma highway stretches and winds for two thousand kilometers - a highway among hills, gorges, posts, rails, bridges... There are no rails on the Kolyma highway. But everyone repeated and repeats here Nekrasov’s “Railway” - why write poetry when there is a completely suitable text. The road was built entirely from pick and shovel, from wheelbarrow and drill...
Every four hundred to five hundred kilometers on the highway there is a “directorate house”, an ultra-luxury luxury hotel, at the personal disposal of the director of Dalstroy, that is, the governor-general of Kolyma. Only he, during his trips around the region entrusted to him, can spend the night there. Expensive carpets, bronze and mirrors. Original paintings - many names of painters of the first rank, like Shukhaev. Shukhaev was in Kolyma for ten years. In 1957, on Kuznetsky Most there was an exhibition of his works, his book of life. It began with bright landscapes of Belgium and France, a self-portrait in a golden Harlequin camisole. Then the Magadan period: two small oil portraits - a portrait of his wife and a self-portrait in a gloomy dark brown tones, two works in ten years. The portraits show people who have seen terrible things. In addition to these two portraits, there are sketches of theatrical scenery.
After the war, Shukhaev was released. He goes to Tbilisi - to the south, to the south, taking away hatred of the North. He's broken. He paints the picture “Stalin’s Oath in Gori” - a sycophantic one. He's broken. Portraits of drummers, production leaders. "The Lady in a Golden Dress" There is no measure of brilliance in this portrait - it seems that the artist is forcing himself to forget about the stinginess of the northern palette. That's all. You can die.
For the “director’s house” the artists also wrote copies:
“Ivan the Terrible kills his son”, Shishkin’s “Morning in the Forest”. These two pictures are classic hacks.
But the most amazing thing was the embroidery. Silk curtains, blinds, and drapes were decorated with hand embroidery. Rugs, capes, towels - any rag became precious after being in the hands of imprisoned craftswomen.
The director of Dalstroy spent the night in his “houses” - there were several of them along the highway - two or three times a year. The rest of the time, the watchman, the caretaker, the cook and the manager of the “house” were waiting for him, four civilians who received percentage bonuses for work in the Far North waited, prepared, heated the stoves in the winter, and ventilated the “house.”
Masha Kryukova was brought here to embroider curtains, capes and whatever they wanted. There were two more craftswomen equal to Masha in skill and invention. Russia is a country of inspections, a country of control. The dream of every good Russian - both prisoners and civilians - is to be assigned something, to check someone. First of all: I am a commander over someone. Secondly: I was given trust. Thirdly: I am less responsible for such work than for direct labor. And fourthly: remember the attack “In the trenches of Stalingrad” by Nekrasov.
A woman, a member of the party, was placed in charge of Masha and her new acquaintances, who daily issued material and threads to the craftswomen. At the end of the working day, she selected the work and checked what had been done. This woman did not work, but went through the staff of the central hospital as a senior operating nurse. She kept watch carefully, confident that just turn away and the piece of heavy blue silk would disappear.
Craftswomen have long been accustomed to such protection. And although it would probably not have been difficult to deceive this woman, they did not steal. All three were convicted under article fifty-eight.
The craftswomen were placed in a camp, in a zone on the gates of which, as in all camp zones of the Union, the unforgettable words were inscribed: “Work is a matter of honor, a matter of glory, a matter of valor and heroism.” And the name of the author of the quote... The quote sounded ironic, surprisingly approaching the meaning and content of the word “labor” in the camp. Labor was anything but a matter of glory. In 1906, the publishing house in which the Social Revolutionaries participated published the book “The Complete Collection of Speeches of Nicholas II.” These were reprints from the “Government Bulletin” at the time of the tsar’s coronation and consisted of healthy toasts: “I drink to the health of the Kexholm regiment,” “I drink to the health of the fellows of Chernigov.”
The healthy toasts were preceded by a preface in jingoistic tones: “These words, like a drop of water, reflect all the wisdom of our great monarch,” etc.
The compilers of the collection were exiled to Siberia.
What happened to the people who raised a quote about labor on the gates of the camp zones throughout the Soviet Union?..
For excellent behavior and successful implementation of the plan, the craftswomen were allowed to watch films during sessions for prisoners.
The screenings for civilians differed slightly in their procedures from the cinema for prisoners.
There was only one movie camera - there were breaks between parts.
Once they showed the film “Simplicity is enough for every wise man.” The first part ended, the light came on, as always, and, as always, went out, and the crackling sound of the movie camera was heard - a yellow beam reached the screen.
Everyone stomped and screamed. The mechanic was clearly mistaken - they showed the first part again. Three hundred people: there were front-line soldiers with orders, honored doctors who had come to the conference - everyone who had bought tickets for this session for civilians shouted and stamped their feet.
The mechanic slowly “cranked” the first part and turned on the light into the hall. Then everyone understood what was going on. The deputy head of the hospital for economic affairs, Dolmatov, appeared at the cinema: he was late for the first part, and the film was shown first.
The second part began and everything went as expected. Kolyma morals were known to everyone: front-line soldiers - less, doctors - more.
When few tickets were sold, the session was common to everyone: the best seats for civilians were the last rows, and the first rows were for prisoners; women to the left, men to the right of the aisle. The passage divided the auditorium crosswise into four parts, and this was very convenient in discussing camp rules.
The lame girl, noticeable even at film shows, ended up in the hospital, in the women's ward. Small chambers had not yet been built; the entire department was housed in one military dormitory - fifty beds, no less. Marusya Kryukova went to a surgeon for treatment.
- What does she have?
“Osteomyelitis,” said surgeon Valentin Nikolaevich.
- Will your leg disappear?
- Well, why does it disappear...
I went to bandage Kryukova and already told her about her life. A week later, the temperature subsided, and a week later Marusya was discharged.
– I’ll give you a tie – you and Valentin Nikolaevich. These will be good ties.
- Okay, okay, Marusya.
A strip of silk among tens of meters, hundreds of meters of fabric, embroidered and decorated over several shifts in the “director’s house.”
- What about control?
– I’ll ask our Anna Andreevna.
That, I think, was the name of the overseer.
- Anna Andreevna allowed. I embroider, embroider, embroider... I don’t know how to explain it to you. Dolmatov came in and took it away.
- How did you select it?
- Well, I was embroidering. Valentin Nikolaevich was already ready. And yours – there wasn’t much left. Grey. Door opened. “Do you embroider ties?” I searched the nightstand. He put the tie in his pocket and left.
- Now you will be sent away.
- They won’t send me. There is still a lot of work to do. But I really wanted a tie for you...
- It’s nothing, Marusya, I wouldn’t wear it anyway. Should I sell it?
Dolmatov was late for the camp amateur concert, just like in a movie. Overweight and potbellied beyond his age, he walked towards the first empty bench.
Kryukova rose from her seat and waved her arms. I realized that these were signs for me.
- Tie, tie!
I managed to see the boss’s tie. Dolmatov's tie was gray, patterned, and of high quality.
- Your tie! - Marusya shouted. – Yours or Valentin Nikolaevich’s!
Dolmatov sat down on his bench, the curtain opened in the old-fashioned way, and the amateur concert began.
Taiga golden
“Small zone” is forwarding. The “Big Zone” is a mining administration camp – endless squat barracks, prison streets, a triple fence of barbed wire, winter-style guard towers that look like birdhouses. In the small zone there is even more barbed wire, even more towers, locks and latches - after all, people in transit live there, from whom you can expect all kinds of trouble.
The architecture of the small area is ideal. This is one square barracks, huge, with four floors of bunks and at least five hundred “legal” places. This means, if necessary, you can accommodate thousands. But now it’s winter, there are few stages, and the zone seems almost empty from the inside. The barrack had not yet had time to dry inside - white steam, ice on the walls. At the entrance there is a huge electric lamp with a thousand candles. The lamp either turns yellow or lights up with a blinding white light - the energy supply is uneven.
During the day the zone sleeps. At night, doors open, people appear under the lamp with lists in their hands and shout out names in hoarse, cold-stricken voices. Those who have been called button up their peacoats, step through the threshold and disappear forever. A convoy is waiting outside the threshold, truck engines are chugging somewhere, prisoners are being taken to mines, to state farms, to road sections...
I’m also lying here, not far from the door on the lower bunk. It’s cold below, but I don’t dare go up, where it’s warmer, because they’ll throw me down: there’s a place for those who are stronger, and above all for thieves. Yes, I can’t even climb up the steps nailed to the post. I'm better downstairs. If there is a dispute for a place on the lower bunks, I will crawl under the bunks, down.
I can neither bite nor fight, although I have mastered the techniques of a prison fight well. The limited space - a prison cell, a prisoner's carriage, cramped barracks - dictated the methods of capture, bite, and fracture. But now I don’t have the strength for this either. I can only growl and swear. I fight for every day, for every hour of rest. Every piece of my body tells me my behavior.
They call me on the very first night, but I don’t gird myself, although I have a rope, I don’t fasten it tightly.
The door closes behind me, and I stand in the vestibule.
A team of twenty people, the usual norm for one car, stands at the next door, from which thick frosty steam is pouring out.
The contractor and the senior guard count and examine the people. And on the right stands another man - in a quilted jacket, in cotton trousers, with earflaps, waving his fur mittens. That's what I need. They drove me around so many times that I knew the law perfectly.
A man with leggings is a representative who accepts people, who is free not to accept.
The contractor shouts my name at the top of his voice - just like he shouted in the huge barracks. I only look at the man with the leggings.
– Don’t take me, citizen chief. I am sick and will not work at the mine. I need to go to the hospital.
The representative hesitates - at the mine, at home, he was told to select only hard workers, the mine does not need others. That's why he came himself.
The representative looks at me. My torn peacoat, a greasy tunic without buttons, revealing a dirty body with combs from lice, scraps of rags with which to bandage my fingers, rope shoes on my feet, rope shoes in sixty-degree frost, bloodshot hungry eyes, excessive bonyness - he knows well what it all means .
The representative takes a red pencil and with a firm hand crosses out my name.
“Go, you bastard,” the zone supervisor tells me.
And the door swings open, and I am again inside the small zone. My place is already taken, but I pull the one who lay down in my place to the side. He growls with displeasure, but soon calms down.
And I fall asleep in a dream similar to oblivion and wake up from the first rustle. I learned to wake up like an animal, like a savage, without half-asleep.
I open my eyes. Hanging from the upper bunks is a foot in a shoe, worn to the limit, but still a shoe, and not a government-issued boot. A dirty thieves boy appears in front of me and speaks somewhere upward in the languid voice of a bugger.
“Tell Valyusha,” he says to someone invisible on the upper bunks, “that the artists have been brought...
– Currency asks: who are they?
– Artists from the cultural brigade. A magician and two singers. One singer is from Harbin.
- Lead them.
I moved to the edge of the bunks. Three people stood under the lamp: two in pea coats, one in a freestyle Muscovite. Everyone's faces showed awe.
“It’s me,” the man in the bekesha answered respectfully.
“Valyusha tells me to sing something.”
- In Russian? French? Italian? English? – the singer asked, craning his neck upward.
– Valyusha said: in Russian.
- And the convoy? Can I keep it quiet?
- Nothing... nothing... Go all out, like in Harbin.
The singer walked away and sang the Toreador's verses. Cold steam flew out with each exhalation.
– Valyusha said: some song.
The pale singer sang:
Make noise, golden, make noise, golden,
My golden taiga,
Oh, wind your way, roads, one and the other,
To our distant lands...
– Valyusha said: good.
The singer sighed with relief. The forehead, wet with excitement, was smoking and seemed like a halo around the singer’s head. The singer wiped away the sweat with his palm, and the halo disappeared.
A torn padded jacket was thrown off from above.
The singer silently took off his Muscovite jacket and put on a padded jacket.
The Harbin singer and his comrades melted into the barracks fog.
I moved deeper, curled up, put my hands in the sleeves of my padded jacket and fell asleep.
And, it seemed, he was immediately awakened by a loud, expressive whisper:
– In 1937 in Ulaanbaatar, I was walking down the street with a friend. Time for lunch. There is a Chinese canteen on the corner. Let's go in. I look at the menu: Chinese dumplings. I am a Siberian, I know Siberian and Ural dumplings. And then suddenly the Chinese. We decided to take a hundred each. The Chinese owner laughs: “There will be a lot,” and his mouth stretches to his ears. “Well, ten?” Laughs: “There will be a lot.” “Well, in pairs!” He shrugged his shoulders, went into the kitchen, and pulled out - each dumpling was the size of a palm, all covered in hot fat. Well, we ate half a dumpling between us and left.
- But here I am...
With an effort of will I force myself not to listen and fall asleep again. I wake up to the smell of smoke. Somewhere above, in the kingdom of thieves, they are smoking. Someone came downstairs with a tobacco cigarette, and the sharp, sweet smell of smoke woke up everyone below.
And again the whisper:
- In our district committee, in Severny, these cigarette butts, my God, my God! Aunt Polya, the cleaning lady, kept swearing and didn’t have time to sweep. And I didn’t even understand then what a tobacco cigarette, a plane tree, a bull was.
I fall asleep again.
Someone is tugging at my leg. This is a job orderer. His bloodshot eyes are angry. He positions me in the yellow light next to the door.
“Well,” he says, “you don’t want to go to the mine.”
- And to the state farm? Damn you, I would go to a warm state farm myself.
- And on the road? Knit brooms. Knit brooms, think about it.
“I know,” I say, “today I knit brooms, and tomorrow I pick up a wheelbarrow.”
-What do you want?
- In hospital! I am sick.
The contractor writes something in a notebook and leaves. Three days later, a paramedic comes to the small area and calls me, puts on a thermometer, examines the boil ulcers on my back, and rubs in some ointment.
“Yes, yes,” said the boss. He didn't remember Gogol, but shock therapy he liked it extremely.
The next morning, Pyotr Ivanovich, while visiting the sick, lingered at Merzlyakov’s bed.
“Well,” he asked, “what is your decision?”
“Write me out,” said Merzlyakov.
<1956>
Lawyers' conspiracy
Shmelev’s brigade shoveled human slag - human waste from the gold mine. There were three paths from the open pit where sand is mined and peat is removed: “under the hill” - to mass unmarked graves, to the hospital and to Shmelev’s brigade, three paths for the goners. This brigade worked in the same place as the others, only they were entrusted with less important tasks. The slogans “Implementation of the plan is the law” and “Bring the plan to the slaughterers” were not just words. They were interpreted as follows: if he did not fulfill the norm, he violated the law, deceived the state and must answer with a prison sentence, or even with his own life.
And they fed the Shmelevites worse, less. But I remembered well the local saying: “In the camp, it’s the big ration that kills, not the small one.” I was not chasing a large ration of the main slaughter crews.
I was transferred to Shmelev recently, about three weeks, and I didn’t know his face - it was the height of winter, the foreman’s head was intricately wrapped in some kind of torn scarf, and in the evening it was dark in the barracks - a gasoline lamp barely illuminated the door. I don’t even remember the foreman’s face. Only a hoarse, cold voice.
We worked on the night shift in December, and every night seemed like torture - fifty degrees is no joke. But still, at night it was better, calmer, there were fewer bosses at the mine face, less swearing and beating.
The brigade was forming up to leave. In the winter they were built in a barracks, and these last minutes before leaving into the icy night for a twelve-hour shift are painful to remember even now. Here, in this indecisive crush at the slightly open doors, from which icy steam creeps, human character is revealed. One, overpowering his trembling, walked straight into the darkness, the other hastily sucked on the butt of a shag cigarette that had come from nowhere, where there was no smell or trace of shag; the third shaded his face from the cold wind; the fourth stood over the stove, holding mittens and gathering heat into them.
The latter were pushed out of the barracks by the orderly. This was done everywhere, in every brigade, with the weakest.
I haven't been pushed out yet in this brigade. There were people here who were weaker than me, and this brought some kind of calm, unexpected joy some kind. Here I was still a man. The orderly’s pushes and fists remained in that “golden” brigade from where I was transferred to Shmelev.
The brigade stood in the barracks at the door, ready to leave. Shmelev came up to me.
“You’ll stay home,” he wheezed.
- They transferred it to the morning, or what? – I said incredulously.
From shift to shift they were always transferred clockwise, so that the working day was not lost, and the prisoner could not get a few extra hours of rest. I knew this mechanic.
- No, Romanov is calling you.
- Romanov? Who is Romanov?
“Look, you bastard, he doesn’t know Romanova,” the orderly intervened.
- Commissioner, understand? He lives just short of the office. You'll arrive at eight o'clock.
- At eight o'clock!
A feeling of great relief came over me. If the commissioner keeps me until twelve, until dinner at night or more, I have the right not to go to work at all today. Immediately my body felt tired. But it was joyful fatigue, my muscles ached.
I untied my belt, unbuttoned my peacoat and sat down near the stove. It immediately became warm, and lice began to stir under my tunic. With my bitten nails I scratched my neck and chest. And dozed off.
“It’s time, it’s time,” the orderly shook me by the shoulder. - Go and bring some smoke, don’t forget.
I knocked on the door of the house where the commissioner lived. The latches, locks, and many latches and locks rattled, and someone invisible shouted from behind the door:
- Who are you?
– Prisoner Andreev is on call.
There was the rattling of latches, the jingling of locks - and everything fell silent.
The cold crept under the peacoat and my feet froze. I began to beat the burka on the burka - we did not wear felt boots, but quilted cotton burkas sewn from old trousers and padded jackets.
The latches rattled again and the double doors opened, letting in light, warmth and music.
I entered. The door from the hallway to the dining room was not closed - there was a radio playing there.
Commissioner Romanov stood in front of me. Or rather, I stood in front of him, and he, short, plump, smelling of perfume, active, spun around me, looking at my figure with his black, quick eyes.
The scent of the prisoner reached his nostrils, and he pulled out a snow-white handkerchief and shook it. Waves of music, warmth, and cologne washed over me. The main thing is warmth. The Dutch oven was hot.
“So we met,” Romanov repeated enthusiastically, moving around me and waving a fragrant handkerchief. - So we met. Well, come on in. - And he opened the door to next room– an office with a desk and two chairs.
- Sit down. You'll never guess why I called you. Light up.
He rummaged through the papers on the table.
- What is your name? Surname?
I said.
- And the year of birth?
- One thousand nine hundred and seven.
– Actually, I’m not a lawyer, but I studied law at Moscow University in the second half of the twenties.
- So, a lawyer. That is great. Now you sit down, I’ll call someone and we’ll go.
Romanov slipped out of the room, and soon the music in the dining room was turned off and a telephone conversation began.
I dozed off sitting on a chair. I even started to have some kind of dream. Romanov then disappeared, then reappeared.
- Listen. Do you have any things in the barracks?
- Everything is with me.
- Well, that’s great, really, great. The car will come now, and you and I will go. Do you know where we'll go? You won't guess! In Khattyn itself, to the administration! Have you been there? Well, I'm kidding, I'm kidding...
- I don't care.
- That's good.
I changed my shoes, stretched my toes with my hands, and turned over the footcloths.
The clock on the wall showed half past twelve. Even if these are all jokes about Khattynakh, it doesn’t matter, I won’t go to work today.
A car hummed nearby, and the headlights slid across the shutters and touched the ceiling of the office.
- Let's go, let's go.
Romanov was wearing a white sheepskin coat, a Yakut malakhai, and painted torsos.
I buttoned up my peacoat, belted it, and held my mittens over the stove.
We went out to the car. A one-and-a-half-ton truck with a folded body.
- What time is it today, Misha? – Romanov asked the driver.
- Sixty, Comrade Commissioner. Night crews were taken off work.
This means that ours, Shmelevskaya, is at home. I'm not that lucky, it turns out.
“Well, Andreev,” said the detective, jumping around me. - You get in the back. Not far to go. And Misha will go faster. Really, Misha?
Misha remained silent. I climbed into the back, curled up into a ball, and wrapped my arms around my legs. Romanov squeezed into the cab, and we drove off.
The road was bad, and it was throwing so much that I didn’t freeze.
I didn’t want to think about anything, but I couldn’t even think in the cold.
About two hours later, lights flashed and the car stopped near a two-story log house. It was dark everywhere, and only one window on the second floor had a light on. Two sentries in sheepskin coats stood near the large porch.
- Well, we’ve arrived, that’s great. Let him stand here. “And Romanov disappeared down the grand staircase.
It was two o'clock in the morning. The fire was extinguished everywhere. Only the light at the duty desk was on.
We didn't have to wait long. Romanov - he had already undressed and was in the NKVD uniform - ran down the stairs and waved his arms.
- Here, here.
Together with the assistant on duty, we moved upstairs and in the corridor of the second floor stopped in front of a door with a plaque “St. NKVD Commissioner Smertin." Such a threatening pseudonym (it’s not a real name) made an impression even on me, who was extremely tired.
“It’s too much for a pseudonym,” I thought, but I had to enter, walk through a huge room with a portrait of Stalin on the entire wall, stop in front of a writing desk of gigantic proportions, look at the pale reddish face of a man who spent his whole life in rooms like these. here are the rooms.
Romanov bowed respectfully at the table.
The dull blue eyes of the senior authorized comrade Smertin focused on me. They stopped for a very short time: he was looking for something on the table, sorting through some papers. Romanov's helpful fingers found what needed to be found.
- Surname? – Smertin asked, peering at the papers. - Name? Surname? Article? Term?
I answered.
A pale face rose from the table.
– Did you write any complaints?
Smertin began to sniffle:
- For bread?
- And for bread, and just like that.
- Fine. Lead him.
I didn’t make a single attempt to find out or ask anything. For what? After all, I’m not in the cold, not in the golden mine of the night. Let them find out what they want.
The assistant on duty came with a note, and I was led through the night village to the very edge, where, under the protection of four guard towers and behind a triple barbed wire fence, there was an isolation ward, a camp prison.
There were large cells in the prison, and there were also solitary confinement. They pushed me into one of these loners. I told about myself, without expecting an answer from my neighbors, without asking them anything. This is how it’s supposed to be so that they don’t think I’m being planted.
The morning has come, another Kolyma winter morning, without light, without sun, at first indistinguishable from the night. They hit the rail and brought a bucket of steaming boiling water. A convoy came for me, and I said goodbye to my comrades. I didn't know anything about them.
I was led to the same house. The house seemed smaller to me than at night. I was no longer allowed before the bright eyes of Smertin.
The attendant told me to sit and wait, and I sat and waited until I heard a familiar voice:
- That's good! That is great! Now you will go! – On foreign territory, Romanov called me “you.”
Thoughts moved lazily in the brain - almost physically perceptible. I had to think about something new, something I wasn’t used to, I don’t know. This is new - not a mine. If we were returning to our Partizan mine, Romanov would say: “We’ll go now.” This means they are taking me to another place. Let it all go to waste!
Romanov almost skipped down the stairs. It seemed as if he was about to sit on the railing and slide down like a boy. In his hands he held almost a whole loaf of bread.
- Here, this is for your journey. And here we go again. “He disappeared upstairs and returned with two herrings. - Order, right? Everything seems... Yes, the most important thing is that I forgot what it means to be a non-smoker.
Romanov went upstairs and reappeared with the newspaper. There was shag sprinkled on the newspaper. “Probably three boxes,” I determined with an experienced eye. There are eight matchboxes of shag in an eight-pack. This is a camp measure of volume.
- This is for your journey. Packed rations, so to speak.
I nodded.
-Have they already called the convoy?
“They called,” said the duty officer.
- Send the elder upstairs.
And Romanov disappeared down the stairs.
Two guards arrived - one older, pockmarked, wearing a Caucasian-style hat, the other young, about twenty, pink-cheeked, wearing a Red Army helmet.
“This one,” said the duty officer, pointing at me.
Both – the young one and the pockmarked one – looked me over very carefully from head to toe.
-Where is the boss? – asked the pockmarked one.
- At the top. And the package is there.
Ryaboy went upstairs and soon returned with Romanov.
They spoke quietly, and the pockmarked man pointed at me.
“Okay,” Romanov finally said, “we’ll give you a note.”
We went outside. Near the porch, in the same place where the Partizan truck stood at night, there was a comfortable “Raven” - a prison bus with lattice windows. I sat down inside. The lattice doors closed, the guards sat down in the vestibule, and the car moved. For some time the “raven” walked along the highway, along the central highway that cuts the entire Kolyma in half, but then it turned somewhere to the side. The road wound between the hills, the engine snored all the time on the climbs; steep cliffs with sparse deciduous forest and frost-covered willow branches. Finally, after making several turns around the hills, the car, walking along the bed of the stream, came out onto a small area. There was a clearing, guard towers, and in the depths, about three hundred meters away, there were slanting towers and a dark mass of barracks surrounded by barbed wire.
The door of a small hut on the road opened and the attendant came out, belted with a revolver.
The car stopped without turning off the engine.
The driver jumped out of the cab and walked past my window.
- See how it was spinning. Truly "Serpentine".
This name was familiar to me, it spoke more to me than the threatening surname Smertin. It was “Serpentine” - the famous investigative prison of Kolyma, where so many people died last year. Their corpses had not yet had time to decompose. However, their corpses will always be incorruptible - the dead of permafrost.
The senior guard went along the path to the prison, and I sat by the window and thought that my time had come, my turn. Thinking about death was as difficult as thinking about anything else. I didn’t draw any pictures of my own execution. I sat and waited.
Winter twilight was already approaching. The door of the "raven" opened, the senior guard threw me felt boots.
- Put on your shoes! Take off your burkas.
I took off my shoes and tried it. No, they don't. Small.
“You won’t get there in burkas,” said the pockmarked man.
Ryaboy threw his felt boots into the corner of the car.
- Go!
The car turned around, and the “raven” rushed away from the Serpentine.
Soon, from the cars flashing past, I realized that we were back on the highway.
The car slowed down - the lights of a large village were burning all around. The bus approached the porch of a brightly lit house, and I entered a bright corridor, very similar to the one where Commissioner Smertin was the owner: behind a wooden barrier near the wall telephone sat an attendant with a pistol at his side. This was the village of Yagodny. On the first day of the trip we traveled only seventeen kilometers. Where will we go next?
The duty officer took me to the back room, which turned out to be a punishment cell with a trestle bed, a bucket of water and a bucket. There was a peephole cut into the door.
I lived there for two days. I even managed to dry and rewind the bandages on my legs - my legs were festering with scorbutic ulcers.
There was a kind of provincial silence in the house of the regional department of the NKVD. From my corner I listened intently. Even during the day, rarely, rarely did someone stomp along the corridor. Rarely did the front door open or the keys turn in the doors. And the duty officer, the permanent duty officer, unshaven, in an old padded jacket, with a revolver over his shoulder - everything looked provincial in comparison with the brilliant Khattynakh, where Comrade Smertin created high politics. The phone rarely rang.
- Yes. Refueling. Yes. I don’t know, comrade chief.
- Okay, I'll tell them.
Who were we talking about here? About my escorts? Once a day, in the evening, the door to my cell opened and the guard on duty brought in a pot of soup and a piece of bread.
I took the pot, ate and licked the bottom until it shined, according to mine habit.
On the third day, the door opened, and a pockmarked fighter, dressed in a sheepskin coat over a sheepskin coat, stepped through the threshold of the punishment cell.
- Well, did you rest? Go.
I was standing on the porch. I thought we would go back on the insulated prison bus, but the “crow” was nowhere to be seen. An ordinary three-ton truck stood at the porch.
- Sit down.
I obediently fell over the side.
The young fighter climbed into the driver's cab. Ryaboy sat down next to me. The car moved, and after a few minutes we found ourselves on the highway.
Where are they taking me? To the north or to the south? To the west or to the east?
There was no need to ask, and the convoy shouldn’t talk.
Are they transferring it to another site? Which one?
The car shook for many hours and suddenly stopped.
We entered the road canteen.
The route is the artery and main nerve of Kolyma. Loads of equipment are constantly moving in both directions - without security, food with a mandatory escort: fugitives attack and rob. And even though the convoy is unreliable from the driver and supply agent, it still provides protection that can prevent theft.
In the canteens there are geologists, scouts of search parties going on vacation with the long ruble they have earned, underground sellers of tobacco and chifir, northern heroes and northern scoundrels. Alcohol is always sold in canteens here. They meet, argue, fight, exchange news and hurry, hurry... The car is left running with the engine not turned off, and they themselves go to bed in the cab for two to three hours to rest and drive again. Prisoners are immediately transported in neat, orderly batches up into the taiga, and in dirty heaps of garbage from above, back from the taiga. There are detective operatives who catch the fugitives. And the fugitives themselves - often in military uniform. Here the authorities are riding in ZIS vehicles - the masters of life and death of all these people. The playwright needs to show the North in the road canteen - this is the best scene.
There I stood, trying to squeeze closer to the stove, a huge barrel stove, red-hot. The guards were not very worried that I would run away - I was too weak, and it was clearly visible. It was clear to everyone that the goner had nowhere to run in the fifty-degree frost.
- Sit down and eat.
The guard bought me a plate of hot soup and gave me bread.
But the pockmarked man did not come alone. With him was an elderly soldier (they weren’t called soldiers in those days) with a rifle and a sheepskin coat. He looked at me, the pockmarked one.
“Well, it’s possible,” he said.
“Let’s go,” the pockmarked man told me.
We moved to another corner of the huge dining room. There, huddled against the wall, was a man in a pea coat, a bum-camp cap, and a black flannel earflap.
“Sit here,” the pockmarked man told me.
I obediently sank to the floor next to that man. He didn't turn his head.
The pockmarked man and the unfamiliar fighter left. My young guard stayed with us.
– They are giving themselves a rest, understand? – a man in a prisoner’s cap suddenly whispered to me. - They have no right to.
“Yes, the soul is out of them,” I said. - Let them do as they want. Does this make you sour?
The man raised his head.
– I’m telling you, they have no right...
-Where are they taking us? – I asked.
“I don’t know where they’re taking you, but I’m going to Magadan.” To be shot.
- To be shot?
- Yes. I'm a condemned man. From the Western Department. From Susuman.
A pockmarked fighter approached along with our new companion.
They began to say something to each other. As soon as there were more convoys, they became harsher and ruder. They no longer bought me soup in the canteen.
We drove for a few more hours, and three more people were brought up to us in the dining room - a stage, a party, was already gathering for a significant one.
Three new ones were of unknown age, like all Kolyma goners; swollen white skin, swelling of the faces spoke of hunger, of scurvy. Their faces were stained with frostbite.
-Where are they taking you?
- To Magadan. To be shot. We are condemned.
We lay in the back of the three-ton truck, hunched over, buried in our knees, in each other’s backs. The three-ton had good springs, the track was an excellent road, there was almost no tossing us around, and we began to freeze.
We screamed and moaned, but the convoy was inexorable. We had to get to Sporny before dark.
The man sentenced to death begged to “overheat” for at least five minutes.
The car flew into Sporny when the lights were already on.
The pockmarked one came.
– You will be placed in a camp isolation ward for the night, and in the morning we will move on.
I was frozen to the bones, numb from the frost, pounding the soles of my cloaks on the snow with all my might. Didn't warm up. The soldiers were all looking for the camp authorities. Finally, an hour later, we were taken to a frozen, unheated camp detention center. Frost covered all the walls, the earthen floor was completely frozen. Someone brought in a bucket of water. The castle thundered. What about firewood? What about the stove?
In the morning they took us out and put us in a car. Hills flashed, oncoming cars wheezed. The car descended from the pass, and we felt so warm that we wanted not to go anywhere, to wait, to walk at least a little on this wonderful land.
The difference was ten degrees, no less. And the wind was somehow warm, almost like spring.
- Convoy! Recover!..
How else can we tell the fighters that we are glad for the warmth, the south wind, and getting rid of the chilling taiga.
- Well, get out!
The guards also enjoyed warming up and smoking. My seeker of justice was already approaching the guard.
- Shall we have a smoke, citizen fighter?
- Let's smoke. Go to the place.
One of the newcomers did not want to get off the car. But, seeing that the mandrel was tightening, he moved to the side and beckoned me with his hand.
- Help me down.
I stretched out my arms and, a powerless goner, suddenly felt the extraordinary lightness of his body, some kind of mortal lightness. I walked away. The man, holding the side of the car with his hands, took a few steps.
- How warm it is. “But the eyes were vague, without any expression.
- Well, let's go, let's go. Thirty degrees.
It was getting warmer every hour.
Our guards had their last lunch in the canteen of the village of Palatka. Ryaboy bought me a kilogram of bread.
- Take these whites. We'll arrive in the evening.
It was snowing lightly when the lights of Magadan appeared far below. It was ten degrees. No wind. The snow was falling almost vertically - small, small snowflakes.
The car stopped near the regional NKVD department. The guards entered the room.
A man came out in civilian clothes, without a hat. In his hands he held a torn envelope.
He shouted someone's name in a familiar, loud voice. The light-bodied man crawled to the side following his sign.
- To jail!
The man in the suit disappeared into the building and immediately appeared.
In his hands was a new package.
- Ivanov!
- Konstantin Ivanovich.
- To jail!
- Ugritsky!
- Sergei Fedorovich!
- To jail!
- Simonov!
- Evgeny Petrovich!
- To jail!
I did not say goodbye to either the convoy or those who were traveling with me to Magadan. This is not accepted.