Authors: Varlan Shalanov
‘A year,’ Platonov said quietly. His eyes narrowed, and the wrinkles on his forehead became more pronounced. Before me was a different Platonov, older by ten years.
‘But I have to admit it was tough only at first, for two or three months. I was the only one there… who could read or write. I was the storyteller for the criminal element in camp; I used to retell novels of Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. G. Wells. In exchange they fed and clothed me, and I ate well. You probably made use of that single advantage yourself of an education?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I never told “novels” for soup. I don’t even know what that is. I have heard “novelists” though.’
‘Is that a condemnation?’ asked Platonov.
‘Not at all,’ I replied.
‘If I survive,’ said Platonov, using the same ritualistic formula that introduced any thought concerning things more distant than the next day, ‘I’ll write a story about it. I even have a title: “The Snake Charmer”. How do you like it?’
‘It’s good, but first you have to survive. That’s the main thing.’
Andrei Fyodorovich Platonov, a movie scriptwriter in his first life, died about three weeks after this conversation, died the way many die – swung his pick, stumbled, and fell face down on the stone ground. Proper treatment could probably have returned him to life, because he wheezed on for an hour or more. By the time the stretcher-bearers arrived, he was silent and they carried his small body off to the morgue; he was a frail burden of bones and skin.
I loved Platonov because he didn’t lose interest in life beyond the blue seas and tall mountains – the life from which we were separated by so many miles and years. We’d almost ceased believing in the existence of that life, or rather, we believed in it the way schoolboys believe in the existence of America. Platonov possessed some books, God only knows how, and he would avoid the usual conversations – what kind of soup there would be for dinner, would we get bread three times a day or all at once in the morning, would the weather be clear tomorrow.
I loved Platonov, and I will now attempt to write his story – ‘The Snake Charmer’.
The end of the working day was by no means the end of work. After the horn sounded, we had to take our tools to the storeroom, turn them in, get in formation, go through two of the ten daily roll-calls to the accompaniment of the guards swearing at us and the pitiless abuse and shouts of those of our comrades who were still stronger than us. They too were exhausted and were in a rush to return home and grew angry over every delay. Then there would be still another roll-call and we would set out in formation for firewood. It was a five-kilometer walk to the forest, since all the nearby trees had long since been cut and burned. There was a work gang of lumbermen to cut the trees, but the mine laborers had to carry a log each. How heavy logs that even two men couldn’t carry were delivered – no one knew. Trucks were never sent for logs, and all the horses were sick in their stalls. A horse weakens and falls ill much quicker than a human being. It often seems, and it’s probably true, that man was able to raise himself from the animal kingdom because he had more physical endurance than any of the other animals. It’s not correct to say that man has ‘nine lives’ like a cat; instead, one could say of cats that they have nine lives – like a man. A horse can’t endure even a month of the local winter life in a cold stall if it’s worked hard hours in subzero weather. It’s true that the horses of the local Yakut tribesmen don’t do any work, but then they don’t get fed either. Like the winter reindeer, they dig out last year’s dry grass from under the snow. But man lives on. Perhaps he lives by virtue of his hopes? But he doesn’t have any hope. He is saved by a drive for self-preservation, a tenacious clinging to life, a physical tenacity to which his entire consciousness is subordinated. He lives on the same things as a bird or dog, but he clings more strongly to life than they do. His is a greater endurance than that of any animal.
Such were Platonov’s thoughts as he stood at the gates with a log on his shoulder and waited for a new roll-call. They brought and stacked the logs, and people entered the dark log barracks, hurrying, pushing, and swearing.
When his eyes had become accustomed to the dark, Platonov saw that not everyone, by any means, had been at the work site. On the upper berths in the far corner, about seven men were seated in a circle around two others who sat cross-legged in Tartar style playing cards. They’d taken the only light, a kerosene lantern with a smoking wick that quivered as it lengthened the flame and made their shadows sway on the walls.
Platonov sat down on the edge of a bunk. His shoulders and knees ached, and his muscles were trembling. He had been brought to Jankhar just that morning, and it had been his first day at work. There were no vacant spots on the bunks. ‘When they split up,’ he thought, ‘I’ll lie down.’ He dozed off.
When the game on top ended, a black-haired man with a mustache and a long nail on his left little finger leaned over the edge of the bunk. ‘OK, send that “Ivan” over here.’
A shove in his back awakened Platonov.
‘They’re calling you.’
‘Where’s that Ivan?’ a voice shouted from the upper bunks.
‘My name isn’t Ivan,’ said Platonov, squinting.
‘He’s not coming, Fedya!’
‘What do you mean, he’s not coming?’
Platonov was pushed out into the light.
‘You plan to go on living?’ Fedya asked him quietly as he waved his little finger with the dirty nail before Platonov’s eyes.
‘I plan to,’ answered Platonov.
A fist struck him heavily in the face, knocking him to the ground. Platonov stood up, wiping off the blood with his sleeve.
‘That’s no way to answer,’ said Fedya mildly. ‘I can’t believe they taught you to answer that way at college, Ivan.’
Platonov remained silent.
‘Go over there, scum,’ said Fedya, ‘and lie down next to the shit pail. That’ll be your place. And if you make any commotion, we’ll strangle you.’ It was no empty threat. Platonov had already seen two men strangled with a towel when the thieves were settling scores. Platonov lay down on the stinking boards.
‘How boring, guys!’ said Fedya, yawning. ‘Maybe if I just had someone to scratch my heels…’
‘Mashka, hey Mashka, scratch Fedya’s heels.’
Mashka, a pale pretty boy, dived out into the strip of light. He was a young thief, evidently about eighteen years old.
He pulled off Fedya’s worn yellow boots, carefully took off his dirty worn socks, and, smiling, began to scratch Fedya’s heels. Fedya giggled and squirmed from the tickling.
‘Get out of here,’ he suddenly said. ‘You don’t know how to tickle.’
‘But Fedya, I…’
‘Beat it, I said. All he does is scrape you. No tenderness…’
The men sitting around him nodded their heads in sympathy.
‘I had a Jew in Kosoy – he knew how to scratch! Boy, did he know how to scratch! He was an engineer.’
And Fedya grew pensive thinking about the Jewish engineer who scratched heels.
‘Fedya, Fedya, how about this new one? Why don’t you try him out?’
‘His kind doesn’t know how to scratch,’ said Fedya. ‘Wake him up anyway.’ Platonov was brought out into the light.
‘Fix the lamp, Ivan,’ ordered Fedya. ‘Your job will be to put wood on the fire at night and carry out the pail in the morning. The orderly will show you where to dump it…’
Platonov obediently remained silent.
‘In exchange,’ explained Fedya, ‘you’ll get a bowl of soup. I don’t eat the swill anyway. OK, go back to sleep.’
Platonov lay down in his former spot. Almost everyone was asleep, huddled together in groups of two or three because it was warmer that way.
‘It’s so boring my legs are getting longer,’ mourned Fedya. ‘If only someone could tell a novel. When I was in Kosoy…’
‘Fedya, hey Fedya, how about the new one? Why don’t you try him?’
‘That’s an idea.’ Fedya came to life. ‘Wake him up.’
Platonov was awakened.
‘Listen,’ said Fedya almost obsequiously, ‘I shot my mouth off a little.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Platonov through clenched teeth.
‘Listen, can you tell novels?’
Something flashed across Platonov’s face. Of course, he could! The cell-full of men awaiting trial had been entranced by his retelling of
Count Dracula
. But those were human beings there. And here? Should he become a jester in the court of the duke of Milan, a clown who was fed for a good joke and beaten for a bad one? But there was another way of looking at the matter: he would acquaint them with real literature, become an enlightener. Even here at the very bottom of the barrel of life he would awaken their interest in the literary word, fulfill his calling, his duty. Platonov could not bring himself to admit that he would simply be fed, receive an extra bowl of soup – not for carrying out the slop pail but for a different, a more noble labor. But was it so noble? After all it was more like scratching a thief’s dirty heels than enlightenment.
Fedya waited for an answer, an intent smile on his face.
‘I can,’ Platonov stuttered and smiled for the first time on that difficult day. ‘I can.’
‘Oh, sweetie,’ Fedya livened up. ‘Come on, crawl up here. Have some bread. You’ll eat better tomorrow. Here, sit on this blanket. Have a smoke.’
Platonov hadn’t smoked for a week, and he received an enormous pleasure from the butt with its home-grown tobacco.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Andrei,’ said Platonov.
‘Listen, Andrei, make it something long and spicy. Something like
The Count of Montecristo
. But nothing about bars.’
‘Something romantic, maybe?’ suggested Platonov.
‘You mean Jean Valjean? They told me that one at Kosoy.’
‘How about
The Club of Black Jacks
then? Or
The Vampire
?’
‘There you go. Let’s have the
Jacks
. Shut up, you bastards!’ Fedya shouted.
Platonov coughed.
‘In the city of Saint Petersburg, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-three, there occurred a mysterious crime…’
It was almost light when Platonov felt he couldn’t go on any more.
‘That’s the end of the first part,’ he said.
‘That was great!’ Fedya said. ‘Lie down here with us. You won’t have much time for sleep; it’s already dawn. You can get some sleep at work. Get your strength up for evening…’
Platonov fell asleep.
They were being led out to work and a tall country boy who had slept through yesterday’s
Jacks
pushed Platonov viciously through the door.
‘Watch out where you’re going, you pig!’
Immediately someone whispered something in the boy’s ear.
When they were getting into formation, the tall boy came up to Platonov.
‘Please don’t tell Fedya I hit you. I didn’t know you were a novelist, brother.’
‘I won’t tell,’ said Platonov.
The transit prison is known as the ‘minor zone’, and the ‘major zone’ is the Office of Mines, with its endless stockily built barracks, prison streets, triple strands of barbed wire, and guard towers that look like starling roosts in the winter. The minor zone has even more towers, more barbed wire, more locks, and latches, for this is where transit prisoners are kept, and anything can be expected of them.
The architecture of the minor zone is ideal: one enormous square building intended for 500 prisoners and with bunks stacked four high. That means that, if necessary, thousands of convicts can be squeezed in. But it is winter now, and only a few prisoner consignments are being prepared so that the zone seems almost empty inside. The barracks have not yet dried out; a white fog hovers in the room, and ice forms on the insides of the pine-log walls. Over the entrance hangs an enormous, thousand-watt bulb. Owing to the uneven current, the bulb alternates between a dull yellow and a blinding white light.
The zone sleeps during the day. At night the doors open, and people appear under the lamp, holding matches in their hands and calling out names in hoarse voices. Those whose names are called button up their pea jackets, step over the threshold – and disappear for ever. Out there the guards are waiting and the truck motors are coughing. Prisoners are hauled away to mines, collective farms, and road gangs.
I am there too – on a lower bunk near the door. It’s cold down here, but I don’t dare crawl higher, where it’s warmer, since I would only be thrown down. The upper berths are for the strong and, mainly, for hardened criminals. I don’t have the strength anyway to climb the steps which have been nailed to a post. I’m better off down below. If there should be a fight for the lower bunks, I can always crawl under them.
I cannot bite or fight, although I have learned well all the tricks of prison fighting. The limited amount of space – a prison cell, a convict train car, crowded barracks – have dictated the methods of grabbing, biting, breaking. But I just don’t have the strength for such tactics. I can only growl and curse. I struggle for every day, every hour of rest. Every part of my body prompts me to act this way.
I am called up the very first night, but I don’t tighten the rope that serves as my belt, nor do I button my coat.
The door closes behind me, and I enter the space between the inner and outer doors.
The work gang consists of twenty men – the usual quota for one truck. They are standing at the next door, from which billow clouds of thick, white smoke.
The assignment man and the senior guard look over the men and take a head count. There is another man standing off to the right. He is wearing a quilted coat, felt pants, a fur hat with ear-flaps, and fur mittens, which he beats energetically against his body. He’s the one I need. I’ve been hauled around enough to know the ‘law’ perfectly.
The man with the mittens is the ‘representative’ who can accept or reject prisoners.
‘Don’t take me, sir. I’m sick, and I won’t work at the mine. I need to be sent to the hospital.’
The representative hesitates. Back at the mine they told him to select only good workers; they didn’t need any other kind. That is why he has come.