Kolyma Tales (16 page)

The hospital bigwigs, dressed in white gowns, surrounded the operating table at the dressing station where the obedient, stooped-over Merzlakov was brought. The attendants reached for the cotton strips normally used to tie patients to the operating table.

‘No, no,’ shouted Peter Ivanovich. ‘That’s totally unnecessary.’

Merzlakov’s face turned upward, and the surgeon placed the anesthetic mask over it, holding a bottle of ether in his other hand.

‘Let’s begin, Seryozha!’

The ether began to drip.

‘Deeper, breathe deeper, Merzlakov. Count out loud.’

‘Twenty-six, twenty-seven,’ Merzlakov counted in a lazy voice, and, suddenly breaking off his count, started to mutter something fragmented, incomprehensible, and sprinkled with obscenities.

Peter Ivanovich held in his hand the left hand of Merzlakov. In a few minutes the hand fell limp. Peter Ivanovich dropped it, and the hand fell softly on to the edge of the table, as if dead. Peter Ivanovich slowly and triumphantly straightened out the body of Merzlakov. Everyone gasped with amazement.

‘Now tie him down,’ said Peter Ivanovich to the attendants.

Merzlakov opened his eyes and saw the hairy fist of the hospital director.

‘You slime,’ he hissed. ‘Now you’ll get a new trial.’

‘Good going, Peter Ivanovich, good going!’ the chairman of the commission kept repeating, all the while slapping the neuropathologist on the shoulder. ‘And to think that just yesterday I was going to let him go!’

‘Untie him,’ Peter Ivanovich commanded. ‘Get down from that table.’

Still not completely aware of his surroundings, Merzlakov felt a throbbing in his temples and the sickeningly sweet taste of ether in his mouth. He still didn’t understand if he was asleep or awake, but perhaps he had frequently had such dreams in the past.

‘To hell with all of you!’ he shouted unexpectedly and bent over as before. Broad-shouldered, bony, almost touching the floor with his long, meaty fingers, Merzlakov really looked like a gorilla as he left the dressing station. The orderlies reported to Peter Ivanovich that patient Merzlakov was lying on his bed in his usual pose. The doctor ordered him to be brought to his office.

‘You’ve been exposed, Merzlakov,’ the neuropathologist said. ‘But I put in a good word for you to the head of the hospital. You won’t be retried or sent to a penal mine. You’ll just have to check out of the hospital and return to your previous mine – to your old job. You’re a real hero, brother. Made us look like idiots for a whole year.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the gorilla said without raising his eyes from the floor.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know? We just straightened you out!’

‘Nobody straightened me out.’

‘OK, friend,’ the neuropathologist said. ‘Have it your own way. I wanted to help you out. Just wait. In a week you’ll be begging to check out.’

‘Who knows what’ll happen in a week,’ Merzlakov said quietly. How could he explain to the doctor that an extra week, an extra day, even an extra hour spent somewhere other than the mine was his concept of happiness. If the doctor couldn’t understand that himself, how could he explain it to him? Merzlakov stared silently at the floor.

Merzlakov was led away; Peter Ivanovich went to talk to the head of the hospital.

‘We can handle this tomorrow, and not next week,’ the head of the hospital said upon hearing Peter Ivanovich’s suggestion.

‘No, I promised him a week,’ Peter Ivanovich said. ‘The hospital won’t collapse.’

‘OK,’ the head of the hospital said. ‘We can handle it next week. But be sure to send for me when you do. Will you tie him down?’

‘We can’t,’ the neuropathologist said. ‘He could dislocate an arm or a leg. He’ll have to be held down.’ Merzlakov’s case history in his hand, the neuropathologist wrote ‘shock therapy’ in the treatment column and inserted the date.

Shock therapy consisted of an injection of camphor oil directly into the patient’s bloodstream. The dose was several times that used in hypodermic injections for seriously ill coronary patients. It produced a sudden seizure similar to seizures of violent insanity or epilepsy. The effect of the camphor was a radical heightening of muscle activity and motor ability. Muscle strain was increased incredibly, and the strength of the unconscious patient was ten times that of normal.

Several days passed, and Merzlakov had no intention of voluntarily straightening out. The morning of the date scheduled in the case history arrived, and Merzlakov was brought to Peter Ivanovich. In the north any sort of amusement is treasured, and the doctor’s office was packed. Eight husky orderlies were lined up along the wall. In the middle of the office was a couch.

‘We’ll do it right here,’ Peter Ivanovich said, getting up from behind the desk. ‘No sense going to surgical ward. By the way, where is Sergei Fyodorovich?’

‘He can’t come,’ Anna Ivanovna, the physician on duty, said. ‘He said he was busy.’

‘Busy, busy,’ Peter Ivanovich repeated. ‘He ought to be here to see how I do his job for him.’

The surgeon’s assistant rolled up Merzlakov’s sleeve and smeared iodine on Merzlakov’s arm. Holding the syringe in his right hand, the assistant inserted the needle into a vein next to the elbow. Dark blood spurted from the needle into the syringe. With a soft movement of the thumb the assistant depressed the plunger, and the yellow solution began to enter the vein.

‘Pump it in all at once,’ Peter Ivanovich said, ‘and stand back right away. You,’ he said to the orderlies, ‘hold him down.’

Merzlakov’s enormous body shuddered and began to thrash about even as the orderlies took hold of him. He wheezed, struggled, kicked, but the orderlies held him firmly and he slowly began to calm down.

‘A tiger, you could hold a tiger that way,’ Peter Ivanovich shouted in near ecstasy. ‘That’s the way they catch tigers in the Zabaikal region.’ He turned to the head of the hospital. ‘Do you remember the end of Gogol’s novel,
Taras Bulba
? “Thirty men held his arms and legs.” This gorilla is bigger than Bulba, and just eight men can handle him.’

‘Right,’ the head of the hospital said. He didn’t remember the Gogol passage, but he definitely enjoyed seeing the shock therapy.

While making rounds the next morning Peter Ivanovich stopped at Merzlakov’s bed.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s your decision?’

‘I’m ready to check out,’ Merzlakov answered.

Into Shmelyov’s work gang were raked the human rejects; they were the by-products of the gold-mine. There were only three paths out of the mine: nameless mass graves, the hospital, or Shmelyov’s gang. This brigade worked in the same area as the others, but its assignments were less crucial. Here slogans were not just words. ‘The Quota Is Law’ was understood to mean that if you didn’t fill your quota, you had broken the law, deceived the state, and would answer with an additional sentence and even your life. Shmelyov’s gang was fed worse, less than the others. But I understood well the local saying, ‘In camp a large ration kills, not a small one.’ I wasn’t about to pursue the large ration of the leading work gang.

I had only recently been transferred to Shmelyov, about three weeks earlier, and I still didn’t know his face. It was the middle of winter and our leader’s face was wrapped in a complicated fashion with a ragged scarf. In the evening it was dark in the barracks, and the kerosene lantern barely illuminated the door. I don’t even remember our gang leader’s face – only his voice that was hoarse as if he had caught cold.

We worked the night shift in December, and each night was a torment. Sixty degrees below zero was no joke. But nevertheless it was better at night, more calm. There were fewer supervisors in the mine, less swearing and fewer beatings.

The work gang was getting into formation to march to work. In the winter we lined up in the barracks, and it is torturous even now to recall those last minutes before going into the icy night for a twelve-hour shift. Here, in this indecisive shoving before the half-opened doors with their cold drafts, each man’s character was revealed. One man would suppress his shivering and stride directly out into the darkness while another would suck away at the butt of a home-made cigar. Where the cigar came from was a mystery in a place that lacked any trace of even home-grown tobacco. A third figure would guard his face from the cold wind, while a fourth held his mittens above the stove to accumulate some warmth in them.

The last few men were shoved out of the barracks by the orderly. That was the way the weakest were treated everywhere, in every work gang.

In this work gang I hadn’t yet reached the shoving stage. There were people here who were weaker than me, and this provided a certain consolation, an unexpected joy. Here, for the time being, I was still a person. I had left behind the shoves and fists of the orderly in the ‘gold’ gang from which I had been transferred to Shmelyov.

The gang stood inside the barracks door, ready to leave, when Shmelyov approached me.

‘You’ll stay home,’ he wheezed.

‘Have I been transferred to the morning shift?’ I asked suspiciously. Transfers from one shift to another were always made to catch the clock’s hour hand so that the working day was not lost and the prisoner could not receive a few extra hours of rest. I was aware of the method.

‘No, Romanov called for you.’

‘Romanov, who’s Romanov?’

‘This louse doesn’t know who Romanov is,’ the orderly broke in.

‘He’s in charge. Clear? He lives just this side of the office. You’re to report at eight o’clock.’

‘Eight o’clock?’

An enormous wave of relief swept over me. If Romanov were to keep me till twelve, when our shift had its dinner, I had the right not to go to work that day. I felt an aching in my muscles and my body was overcome with exhaustion. But it was a joyous exhaustion.

I untied the rope around my waist, unbuttoned my pea jacket, and sat down next to the stove. As its warmth flowed over me the lice under my shirt began to stir. With bit-off fingernails I scratched my neck and chest. And I drowsed off.

‘It’s time.’ The orderly was shaking me by the shoulder. ‘And bring back a smoke. Don’t forget.’

When I knocked at Romanov’s door, there was a clanking of locks and bolts, a lot of locks and bolts, and some unseen person shouted from behind the door:

‘Who is it?’

‘Prisoner Andreev, as ordered.’

Bolts rattled, locks chimed, and all fell silent.

The cold crept under my pea jacket, and my feet lost their warmth. I began to beat one boot against the other. They weren’t the usual felt boots but quilted ones, sewn from old pants and quilted jackets.

Again bolts rattled and the double door opened, allowing light, heat, and music to escape.

I stepped in. The door of the entrance hall was not shut and a radio was playing.

Romanov himself stood before me, or rather I stood before him. Short, fat, perfumed, and quick on his feet, he danced around me, examining my figure with his quick black eyes.

The smell of a convict struck his nostrils, and he drew a snow-white handkerchief from his pocket. Waves of music, warmth, and cologne washed over me. Most important was the warmth. The dutch stove was red hot.

‘So we meet,’ Romanov kept repeating ecstatically, moving around me and waving his perfumed handkerchief. ‘So we meet.’

‘Go on in.’ He opened the door to the next room. It contained a desk and two chairs.

‘Sit down. You’ll never guess why I sent for you. Have a smoke.’

He began sifting through some papers on the desk.

‘What’s your first name?’

I told him.

‘Date of birth?’

‘1907.’

‘A lawyer?’

‘Actually, I’m not a lawyer, but I studied at Moscow Uni…’

‘A lawyer, then. Fine. Just sit tight. I’ll make a few calls and the two of us will get on the road.’

Romanov slipped out of the room, and soon the music in the dining-room was shut off. A telephone conversation ensued.

Sitting on the chair I began to drowse and even to dream. Romanov kept disappearing and reappearing.

‘Listen, did you leave any things at the barracks?’

‘I have everything with me.’

‘That’s great, really great. The truck will be here any minute and we can get on the road. You know where we’re going? To Khatynakh itself, to headquarters! Ever been there? It’s OK, I’m joking, just joking…’

‘I don’t care.’

‘That’s good.’

I took off my boots, rubbed my toes, and turned my foot rags.

The clock on the wall said eleven-thirty. Even if it was a joke – about Khatynakh – it didn’t make any difference: I wouldn’t have to go to work today. The truck roared up, the beams of its headlights sliding along the shutters and touching the office ceiling.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

Romanov had donned a white sheepskin coat, a Yakut fur hat, and colorful boots. I buttoned my pea jacket, retied the rope around my waist, and held my mittens above the stove for a moment. We walked out to the truck. It was a one-and-a-half-ton truck with an open bed.

‘How much today, Misha?’ Romanov asked the driver.

‘Seventy degrees below zero, comrade chief. They sent the night shift back to the barracks.’

That meant they sent our work gang, Shmelyov’s, home as well. I hadn’t been so lucky after all.

‘All right, Andreev,’ said Romanov, dancing around me. ‘Have a seat in back. It’s not far. And Misha will drive fast. Right, Misha?’

Misha said nothing. I crawled up on to the truck bed and clasped my knees with my arms. Romanov squeezed into the cab, and we set off.

It was a bad road, and I was tossed around so much that I didn’t freeze. In about two hours lights appeared, and we drove up to a two-story log house. It was dark everywhere, and only in one window of the second floor was there a light burning. Two sentries in long leather coats stood next to the large porch.

‘OK, we’ve arrived. That’s great. Have him stand here for the time being.’ And Romanov disappeared up the large stairway.

It was two a.m. The lights were extinguished everywhere. Only the desk lamp of the officer on duty burned.