One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (14 page)

"Hey, one hundred and fourth," came a shout. "Your deaf guy's a fake. We just tested him."

Everyone laughed. The guards too.

"Form

fives."

They didn't open the gates. They didn't trust themselves. They pushed the crowd back from the gates (everyone stuck to the gates like idiots--as if they'd get out quicker that way!).

"Form fives. First. Second. Third . . ."

Each five, as it was called, took a few paces forward.

While Shukhov was recovering his breath he looked up. The moon had risen and was frowning, crimson faced. Yesterday at this hour it had stood much higher.

Pleased that everything had gone so smoothly, Shukboy nudged the captain in the ribs and said: "Listen, captain, where does this science of yours say the old moon goes afterward?"

"Where does it go? What do you mean? What stupidity! It's simply not visible."

Shukhov shook his head and laughed. "Well, if it's not visible, how d'you know it's there?"

"So, according to you," said the captain, unable to believe his ears, "it's another moon every month."

"What's strange about that? People are born every day. Why not a moon every four weeks?"

"Phaugh!" said the captain and spat. "I've never met a sailor as stupid as you in my life. So where do you think the old moon goes?"

"That's what I'm asking you. Where does it go?" Shukhov showed his teeth in a smile.

"Well, tell me. Where does it go?"

Shukhov sighed and said with a slight lisp: "In our village, folk say God crumbles up the old moon into stars."

"What savages!" The captain laughed. "I've never heard that one. Then you believe in God, Shukhov?"

"Why not?" asked Shukhov, surprised. "Hear Him thunder and try not to believe in Him."

"But why does God do it?"

'Do

what?"

"Crumble the moon into stars. Why?"

"Well, can't you understand?" said Shukhov. "The stars fall down now and then.

The gaps have to be filled."

"Turn around, you slob," a guard shouted. "Get in line."

The count had almost reached them. The twelfth five of the fifth hundred had moved ahead, leaving only Buinôvsky and Shukhov at the back.

The escort was worried. There was a discussion over the counting boards.

Somebody missing. Again somebody missing. Why the hell can't they learn to count?

They'd counted 462. Ought to be 463.

Once more they pushed everybody back from the gates (the zeks had crowded forward again).

"Form fives. First. Second. . . ."

What made this recounting so infuriating was that the time wasted on it was the zeks' own, not the authorities'. They would still have to cross the steppe, get to the camp, and line up there to be searched. The columns would come in from all sides on the double, trying to be first at the frisking and into the camp. The column that was back first was top dog in the camp that evening--the mess hall was theirs, they were first in line to get their packages, first at the private kitchen, first at the C.E.D. to pick up letters or hand in their own to be censored, first at the dispensary, the barber's, the baths--first everywhere.

And the escort too is in a hurry to get the zeks in and be off for the night. A soldier's life isn't much fun either--a lot of work, little time.

And now the count had come out wrong.

As the last few fives were called forward Shukhov began to hope that there were going to be three in the last row after all. No, damn it, two again.

The tellers went to the head guard with their tally boards. There was a consultation. The head guard shouted: "Squad leader of the hundred and fourth."

Tiurin took half a pace forward. "Here."

"Did you leave anyone behind in the power station? Think."

"No."

"Think again. I'll knock your head off. . . ."

"No, I'm quite sure."

But he stole a glance at Pavlo. Could anyone have dropped off to sleep in the machine shop?

"Form squads," the head guard shouted.

They had formed the groups of five just as they happened to be standing. Now they began to shift about. Voices boomed out: "Seventy-fifth over here," "This way, thirteenth," "Thirty-second here."

The 104th, being all in the rear, formed there too. They were empty-handed to a man, Shukhov noticed; like idiots, they'd worked on so late they'd collected no firewood.

Only two of them were carrying small bundles.

This game was played every evening: before the job was over the workers would gather chips, sticks, and broken laths, and tie them together with bits of string or ragged tapes to carry back with them. The first raid on their bundles would take place near the gates to the work site. If either the superintendent or one of the foremen was standing there, he'd order the prisoners to throw down their firewood (millions of rubles had gone up in smoke, yet there they were thinking they'd make up the losses with kindling). But a zek calculated his own way: if everyone brought even a few sticks back with him the barracks would be warmer. Barrack orderlies were issued ten pounds of coal dust a stove and little heat could be squeezed out of that. So the men would break up sticks or saw them short and slip them under their coats.

The escort never made the zeks drop their firewood at the gates to the work site.

For one thing, it would have been an offense to the uniform; and secondly they had their hands on machine guns, ready to shoot. But just before entering the zone several ranks in the column were ordered to throw their stuff down. The escort, however, robbed mercifully--they had to leave something for the guards, and for the zeks themselves, who otherwise wouldn't bring any with them.

So every zek brought some firewood along with him every evening. You never knew when you might get it through or when they'd grab it.

While Shukhov was scouring the ground in search of a few chips, Tiurin had finished counting the squad.

"One hundred and fourth all present," he reported to the head guard.

Just then Tsezar rejoined his own squad from the group of office workers. His pipe was glowing as he puffed away at it; his dark mustache was tipped with frost

"Well, captain, how'd it go?" he asked.

A man who's warm can't understand a man who's freezing. "How'd it go?" What a damn fool question!

"If you really want to know," said the captain, his shoulders sagging, "worked so hard I can hardly straighten my back."

You might give me something to smoke was what he meant.

Tsezar gave him something to smoke. The captain was the only man in the squad he stuck to. He could unburden his heart to him--to no one else.

"There's a man missing from the thirty-second. From the thirty-second,"

everybody began to mutter.

The deputy squad leader of the 32nd scurried off with another young fellow to search the repair shops. And in the crowd people kept asking: Who? How? Where? Soon it reached Shukhov's ears that it was the dark little Moldavian who was missing. The Moldavian? Not the one who, it was said, had been a Rumanian spy, a real spy?

You could find up to five spies in each squad. But they were fakes, prison-made spies. They passed as spies in their dossiers, but really they were simply ex-POW's.

Shukhov himself was one of these "spies."

But the Moldavian was genuine.

The head of the escort ran his eye down the list and grew black in the face. After all, if the spy were to escape what would happen to the head of the escort?

In the crowd everybody, including Shukhov, flew into a rage. Were they going through all this for that shit, that slimy little snake, that stinking worm? The sky was already quite dark; what light there was came from the moon. You could see the stars--this meant the frost was gathering strength for the night--and that runty bastard was missing. What, haven't you had your bellyful of work, you miserable idiot? Isn't the official spell of eleven hours, dawn to dusk, long enough for you? Just you wait, the prosecutor will add something.

Odd that anyone could work so hard as to ignore the signal to knock off.

He completely forgot that he'd been working like that himself only an hour ago--that he'd been annoyed with the others for assembling at the gate too early. Now be was chilled to the bone and his fury mounted with everyone else's; were they to be kept waiting another half hour by that Moldavian? If the guards banded him over to the zeks they'd tear him apart, like wolves with a lamb.

Yes, the cold was coming into its own now. No one stood quiet. They either stamped their feet where they stood or walked two or three paces back and forth.

People were discussing whether the Moldavian could have escaped. Well, if he'd fled during the day that was one thing, but if he'd hidden and was simply waiting for the sentries to go off the watchtowers he hadn't a chance. Unless he'd left a trail through the wire the sentries wouldn't be allowed back in camp for at least three days. They'd have to go on manning the towers for a week, if necessary. That was in the regulations, as the oldtimers knew. In short, if someone escaped, the guards had had it; they were hounded, without sleep or food. Sometimes they were roused to such fury that the runaway wouldn't get back alive.

Tsezar was arguing with the captain: "For instance, when be hung his pince-nez on the ship's rigging. D'you remember?"

"Hm, yes," the captain said as he smoked.

"Or the baby carriage on the steps. Bumping down and down."

"Yes. . . . But the scenes on board are somewhat artificial."

"Well, you see, we've been spoiled by modern camera technique."

"And the maggots in the meat, they crawl about like angleworms. Surely they weren't that size?"

"What do you expect of the movies? You can't show them smaller."

"Well, if they'd bring that meat here to camp instead of the fish they feed us and dumped it straight into the kettle, we'd be only too. .

The prisoners howled.

Three small figures were bursting out of the repair shop. So they'd found the Moldavian.

"Boooo!" went the crowd at the gates. And they yelled, as the group drew nearer:

"Bastard! Shit? Idiot! Cow's twat! Lousy son-of-a-bitch!"

And Shukhov joined in: "Rat!"

It's no joke to rob five hundred men of over half an hour.

Ducking his head, the Moldavian ran like a mouse.

"Halt!" a guard shouted. And, noting down "K 460," said: "Where were you?"

He strode over to the man and turned the butt of his rifle at him.

In the crowd people were still hurling curses: "Ass! Louse! Pig!"

But others, seeing the guard make ready to swing his rifle, held their tongues.

The Moldavian could hardly keep on his feet. He backed away from the guard.

The deputy squad leader of the 32nd advanced.

"The damn fool crawled up to do some plastering. Trying to hide from me!

Warmed up there and fell asleep."

And he hit the man hard in the face and on the neck, pushing him farther from the guard.

The Moldavian reeled back, and as be did so a Hungarian, one of his own squad, leaped up at him and kicked him hard from behind.

That wasn't like spying. Any fool can spy. A spy has a clean, exciting life. But try and spend ten years in a hard-labor camp!

The guard lowered his rifle.

The head of the escort shouted: "Back from the gates. Form fives."

Another recount, the dogs. Why should they count us now that everything's clear?

The prisoners began to boo. All their anger switched from the Moldavian to the escort.

They booed and didn't move.

"W-wha-a-at?" shouted the head of the escort. "Want to sit down on the snow?

All right, I'll have you down in a minute I'll keep you here till dawn."

He was quite capable of doing it, too. He'd had them on the snow many a time.

"Down on your faces!" And, to the escort: "Release safety-catches!" The zeks knew all about that. They drew back from the gates.

"Back, back!" yelled the escort.

"What's the sense of shoving up to the gates anyhow, you crappers?" men barked from the rear at the men in front as they were shoved back.

"Form fives. First. Second. Third . . ."

Now the moon was shining full. It cast its light all around and the crimson tint had gone. It had climbed a quarter of the way up the sky. The evening was lost. That damned Moldavian. Those damned guards. This damned life.

As the prisoners in front were counted they turned and stood on tiptoe to see whether there were two men or three in the back row. It was a matter of life or death to them now.

Shukhov had the feeling that there were going to be four. He was numb with fear.

One extra. Another recount. But it turned out that Fetiukov, after cadging a butt from the captain, had been wandering around and had failed to get into his five in time. So now he'd turned up in the back row as if he were an extra.

A guard struck Fetiukov angrily on the back of the neck.

Serve him right.

So they counted three in the back row. The count had come out right, thank God.

"Back from the gates," shouted a guard at the top of his voice. But this time the zeks didn't mutter--they'd noticed soldiers coming out of the gatehouse and forming a cordon on the other side of the gates.

So they were going to be let out.

None of the foremen was in sight, nor the superintendent, so the prisoners kept their firewood.

The gates swung open. And now the head of the escort, accompanied by a checker, came and stood on the other side, near some wooden railings.

"First. Second. Third . . ."

If the numbers tallied again the sentries would be removed from the watchtowers.

But what a distance they had to tramp along the edge of the site to reach the towers at the far end of it! Only when the last prisoner had been led off the site and the numbers had been found to agree would they telephone all the towers and relieve the sentries. If the head of the escort had his wits about him he'd put the column on the move right away, for he knew the zeks had nowhere to run to and the sentries would overtake the column. But some of the guards were so foolish, they feared they didn't have enough troops to handle the zeks; so they waited.