One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (13 page)

Tiurin leaned up against him and said quite softly, though distinctly enough for everyone to hear: "Your time for giving terms has passed, you bastard. If you say one word, you blood-sucker, it'll be your last day on earth. Remember that."

Tiurin shook, shook uncontrollably.

Hatchet-faced Pavlo looked Der straight in the eyes. A look as sharp as a razor.

"Now, men, take it easy." Der turned pale and edged away from the ramp.

Without another word Tiurin straightened his hat, picked up his trowel, and walked back to his wall.

Pavlo, very slowly, went down the ramp with his spade.

Slo-o-owly.

Der was as scared to stay as to leave. He took shelter behind Kilgas and stood there.

Kilgas went on laying blocks, the way they count out pills at a drugstore--like a doctor, measuring everything so carefully--his back to Der, as if he didn't even know he was there.

Der stole up to Tiurin. Where was all his arrogance?

"But what shall I tell the superintendent, Tiurin?".

Tiurin went on working. He said, without turning his head: "You will tell him it was like that when we arnved. We came and that's how it was."

Der waited a little longer. They weren't going to bump him off now, he saw. He took a few steps and puthis hands in his pockets.

"Hey, S 854," he muttered. "Why are you using such a thin layer of mortar?"

He had to get back at someone. He couldn't find fault with Shukhov for his joints or for the straightness of his line, so he decided he was laying the mortar too thin.

"Permit me to point out," Shukhov lisped derisively, "that if the mortar is laid on thick in weather like this, the place will be like a sieve in the spring."

"You're a mason. Listen to what a foreman has to tell you," Der said with a frown, puffing out his cheeks.

Well, here and there it might be a bit on the thin side. He could have used a little more--but only, after all, if he'd been laying the blocks in decent conditions, not in winter.

The man ought to have a heart. You've got to show some results. But what was the good of trying to explain? He didn't want to understand.

Der went quietly down the ramp.

"You get me that lift repaired," Tiurin sang out after him. "What do you think we are--pack horses? Carrying blocks up to the second story by hand."

"They'll pay you for taking them up," Der called back from the ramp, quite humbly.

"At the wheelbarrow rate? Child's play, pushing up a wheelbarrow. We've got to be paid for carrying them up by hand."

"Don't think I'm against it. But the bookkeepers won't agree to the higher rate."

"The bookkeepers! I've got a whole squad sweating to keep those four masons at work. How much do you think we'll earn?" Tiurm shouted, pressing on without a break.

"Mort-ar," be called down.

"Mort-ar," echoed Shukhov. They'd leveled off the whole of the third row. On the fourth they'd really get going. Time to stretch the string for the next row, but he could manage this way too.

Der went off across the open ground, looking haggard. To warm up in the office.

Something must have been eating him. But he should have thought a bit before taking on a wolf like Tiurin. He should keep pleasant with squad leaders like that; then he'd have nothing to worry about. The camp authorities didn't insist on his doing any real hard work, he received top-level rations, he lived in a separate cabin--what else did he want?

Giving himself airs, trying to be smart

The men coming up with the mortar said the mechanic and superintendent had left The motor was past repair.

Very well, haul 'em up by hand.

For as long as Shukhov had worked with machinery the machines had either broken down or been smashed by the zeks. He'd seen them wreck a log conveyer by shoving a beam under the chain and leaning hard on it, to give themselves a breather; they were stacking log by log with never a moment to stretch their backs.

"Damn the whole fucking lot of you!" shouted Tiurin, warming up.

"Pavlo's asking how you're fixed for mortar," someone called from below.

"Mix some more."

"We've got half a box mixed."

"Mix

another."

What a pace they set! They were driving along the fifth row now. They'd had to bend over double when they were working on the first row, but now the wall had risen shoulder-high. And why shouldn't they race on? There were no windows or doors to allow for--just a couple of adjoining blank walls and plenty of blocks. Shukhov should have stretched a string higher but there was no time for it.

"The eighty-second have gone off to hand in their tools," Gopchik reported.

Tiurin looked at him witheringly. "Mind your own business, squirt. Bring some blocks."

Shukhov looked about. Yes, the sun was beginning to set. It had a grayish appearance as it sank in a red haze. And they'd got into the swing---couldn't be better.

They'd started on the fifth row now. Ought to finish it today. Level it off.

The mortar carriers were snorting like winded horses. Buinovsky. was quite gray in the face. He might not be forty but he wasn't far off it.

The cold was growing keener. Busy as were Shukhov's hands, the frost nipped his fingers through the shabby mittens. And it was piercing his left boot too. He stamped his foot. Thud, thud.

By now he needn't stoop to the wall, but he still had to bend his aching back for each block and each scoop of mortar.

"Hey, boys!" he pestered the men handling the blocks. "You'd better put them on the wall for me. Heave 'em up here."

The captain would gladly have obliged but lacked the strength. He wasn't used to the work. But Alyosha said: "All right, Ivan Denisovich. Show me where to put them."

You could count on Alyosha. Did whatever was asked of him. If everybody in the world was like that, Shukhov would have done likewise. If a man asks for help why not help him? Those Baptists had something there.

The rail changed. The signal went dinning all over the site and reached the power station. They'd been caught with some unused mortar. Ugh, just when they'd got into the swing of it!

"Mortar! Mortar!" Tiurin shouted.

A new boxful had only just been mixed. They had to go on laying; there was no other way. If they left anything in the box, next morning they could throw the whole lot of it to hell--the mortar would have petrified; it wouldn't yield to a pickax.

"Don't let me down, brothers," Shukhov shouted.

Kilgas was fuming. He didn't like speed-ups. But he pressed on all the same.

What else could he do?

Pavlo ran up with a barrow, a trowel in his belt, and began laying himself. Five trowels on the job now.

Now look out for where the rows meet. Shukhov visualized what shape of block was needed there, and shoving a hammer into Alyosha's hand egged him on: "Knock a bit off this one."

Haste makes waste. Now that all of them were racing one another Shukhov bided his time, keeping an eye on the wall. He pushed Senka to the left and took over the laying himself toward the main corner on the right it would be a disaster if the walls overlapped or if the corner wasn't level cost him half a day's work tomorrow.

"Stop!" He shoved Pavlo away from a block and leveled it himself. And from his place in the corner he noticed that Senka's section was sagging. He hurried over to Senka and leveled it out with two blocks.

The captain brought up a load of mortar, enough for a good horse.

"Another two barrows full," he said.

The captain was tottering. But he went on sweating away. Shukhov had had a horse like that once. He'd thought a lot of that horse but then they'd driven it to death.

They'd worked the hide off -it.

The top rim of the sun dipped below the horizon. Now, without Gopchik having to tell them,. they saw that the squads had not only turned in their tools but were pouring up to the gates. No one came out into the open immediately after the signal--only a fool would go and freeze out there. They sat in the warmth. But the moment came, by agreement between the squad leaders, when all the squads poured out together. Without this agreement, the zeks, a stubborn lot, would have sat each other out in the warmth till midnight.

Tiurin himself realized that he'd cut things too fine. The man in charge of the tool store must be cursing him out.

"Hey," be shouted, "use enough of that shit! Carriers! Go and scrape the big box.

Throw what's left into that hole there and scatter some snow on it to keep it hidden. You, Pavlo, take a couple of men, collect the tools, and hand them in. I'll send Gopchik after you with the three trowels. We'll use up the last two loads of mortar before we knock off."

Everyone dashed to his job. They took Shukhov's hammer from him and wound up his string. The mortar carriers and the- block lifters hurried down into the machine room. They'd nothing more to do up there. Three masons remained on top--Kilgas, Senka, and Shukhov. Tiurin walked around to see how much wall they'd built. He was pleased. "Not bad, eh? In half a day. Without any fucking lift."

Shukhov noticed there was a little mortar left in Kilgas's hod. He didn't want to waste it, but was worried that the squad leader might be reprimanded if the trowels were handed in late.

"Listen, men," he said, "give your trowels to Gopchik. Mine's not on the list. So I won't have to hand it in. I'll keep going."

Tiurin said with a laugh: "How can we ever let you out? We just can't do without you."

Shukhov laughed too, and went on working.

Kilgas took the trowels. Senka went on handing blocks to Shukhov. They poured Kilgas's mortar into Shukhov's hod.

Gopchik ran across to the tool store, to overtake Pavlo. The rest were just as anxious to bein time, and hurried over to the gates, without Tiurin. A squad leader is a power, but the escort is a greater power still. They list latecomers, and that means the guardhouse for you.

There was a terrible crowd near the gates now. Everyone had collected there. It looked as if the escort had come out and started counting.

(They counted the prisoners twice on the way out: once before they unbolted the gates, to make sure they were safe in opening them, and again when the gates had been opened and the prisoners were passing through. And if they thought they'd miscounted, they recounted outside the gates)

"To hell with the mortar," said Tiurin, with a gesture of impatience. "Sling it over the wall."

"Don't wait, leader. Go ahead, you're needed there. (Shukhov usually addressed Tiurin, more respectfully, as Andrei Prokoflevich, but now, after working like that, he felt equal to the squad leader. He didn't put it to himself, "Look, I'm your equal," he just knew it.) And as Tiurin strode down the ramp he called after him, jokingly: "Why do these bastards make the work day so short? We were just getting into our stride when they call it off."

Shukhov was left alone now with Senka. You couldn't say much to him. Besides, you didn't have to tell him things: he was the wisest of them all; he understood without need of words.

Slap on the mortar. Down with the block. Press it home. See it's straight Mortar.

Block. Mortar. Block....

Wasn't it enough that Tiurin had told them himself not to bother about the mortar?

Just throw it over the wall and fuck off. But Shukhov wasn't made that way-- eight years in a camp couldn't change his nature. He worried about anything he could make use of, about every scrap of work he could do--nothing must be wasted without good reason.

Mortar. Block. Mortar. Block. . . .

"Finish, fuck you," shouted Senka. "Let's get out of here."

He picked up a barrow and ran down the ramp.

But Shukhov--and if the guards had put the dogs on him it would have made no difference--ran to the back and looked about. Not bad. Then he ran and gave the wall a good look over, to the left, to the right His eye was as accurate as a carpenter's level.

Straight and even. His hands were as young as ever.

He dashed down the ramp.

Senka was already out of the machine shop and running down the slope.

"Come on, come on," he shouted over his shoulder.

"Run ahead. I'll catch up," Shukhov gestured.

But he went into the machine shop. He couldn't simply throw his trowel down. He might not be there the next day. They might send the squad off to the Socialist Way of Life settlement. It could be six months before he returned to the power station. But did that mean he was to throw down his trowel? If he'd swiped it he had to hang on to it.

Both the stoves had been doused. It was dark, frightening. Frightening not because it was dark but because everyone had left, because he alone might be missing at the count by the gates, and the guards would beat him.

Yet his eyes darted here, darted there, and, spotting a big stone in the corner, he pulled it aside, slipped his trowel under it, and hid it. So that's that.

Now to catch up with Senka. Senka had stopped after running a hundred paces or so. Senka would never leave anyone in a jam. Pay for it? Then together.

They ran neck and neck, the tall and the short. Senka was a head taller than Shukhov, and a big head it was too.

There are loafers who race one another of their own free will around a stadium.

Those devils should be running after a full day's work, with aching back and wet mittens and worn-out valenki--and in the cold too.

They panted like mad dogs. All you could hear was their hoatse breathing.

Well, Tiurin was at the gates. He'd explain.

They were running straight into the crowd. It scared you.

Hundreds of throats booing you at once, and cursing you up and down. Wouldn't
you
be scared if you had five hundred men blowing their tops at you?

But what about the guards? That was the chief thing.

No. No trouble with them. Tiurin was there, in the last row. He must have explained. Taken the blame on his own shoulders.

But the men yelled, the men swore. And what swearing! Even Senka couldn't help hearing and, drawing a deep breath, gave back as good as he got He'd kept quiet all his life--but now, how he bellowed! Raised his fists too, ready to pick a fight right away. The men fell silent. Someone laughed.