One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (15 page)

They had one of those idiots this evening.

A whole day in that freezing cold! The zeks were already chilled to the marrow and now to stand around another shivering hour, when work was over! Yet it wasn't so much the cold and the fact that they'd lost an evening that infuriated them; the point was, there'd be no time now to do anything of their own in the camp.

"How is it you happen to know like in the British Navy so well?" Shukhov heard someone in the next five asking.

"Well, you see, I spent nearly a month on board a British cruiser. Had my own cabin. I was attached to a convoy as liaison officer. And imagine--after the war the British admiral--only the devil could have put the idea into his head--sent me a gift, a souvenir as 'a token of gratitude,' damn him! I was absolutely hor rifled. And now here we are, all lumped together. It's pretty hard to take, being imprisoned here with Bendera's men. . . ."

Strange! Yes, a strange sight indeed: the naked steppe, the empty building site, the snow gleaming in the moonlight. And the escort guards: they'd gone to their posts, ten paces apart, guns at the ready. And the black herd of prisoners; and among them, in a black coat like all the rest, a man, S 311, who'd never imagined life without gold shoulder straps, who had hobnobbed with a British admiral and now sweated at a barrow with Fetiukov.

You can push a man this way, and you can push a man that way.

Now the escort was ready. This time without any "prayer" the head guard barked at them: "Double time! Get a move on!"

To hell with your "Get a move on!" All the other columns were ahead of them.

What sense was there in hurrying? The prisoners didn't have to be in league with one another to figure the score: You kept us back; now it's our turn. The escort too, after all, was dying for a warm corner.

"Step lively!" shouted the guard. "Step lively, you in front."

To hell with your "Step lively." The zeks marched with measured tread, hanging their heads as at a funeral. Now we've nothing to lose--we'd be the last back anyhow. He wouldn't treat us like human beings; now let him burst himself shouting.

On he went, "Step lively! Step lively!" But he realized it was futile. He couldn't order his men to shoot either. The prisoners were marching in fives, keeping in line, all correct. He had no power to hound them faster. (When they marched out to work in the morning the zeks walked slowly, to spare themselves. A man who's in a hurry won't live to see the end of his stretch--he'll tire and be done for.) So on with regular, deliberate steps. The snow crunched under their boots. Some of them talked in low voices; others walked in silence. Shukhov asked himself whether there was anything he'd left undone in the camp that morning. Ah, the dispensary. Funny, he'd forgotten all about the dispensary while he'd been working.

This must be around the consulting hour. He'd manage it if he skipped his supper.

But now somehow his back wasn't aching. And his temperature wouldn't be high enough.

A waste of thne. He'd pull through without benefit of the doctor. The only cure those docs know is to put you in your grave.

It wasn't the dispensary that appealed to him now; it was the prospect of adding something to his supper. His hopes were all pinned on that long-overdue parcel of Tsezar's.

A sudden change came over the column. It began to sway, to break out of its regular stride. The prisoners heaved forward with a buzz of excitement. And now the last five, which included Shukhov, were no longer treading on the heels of the five in front; they had to run to keep up. A few more paces, and again they were running.

When the rear of the column spilled over a rise Shukhov saw to the right, far away across the steppe, another dark column on the move, marching diagonally across their course. They, too, seemed to be forcing their pace.

It must be from the machine works, that column: there were about three hundred men in it. Mother bunch with bad luck! Must have been held up--Shukhov wondered why. To finish assembling some piece of machinery? They could be kept after work hours for that. But what did it matter to them? They worked all day in the warmth.

Who'd get in first? The men ran, just ran. Even the escort broke into a jog trot: only the head guard remembered to shout, "Don't fall back. Keep up there, you in the rear. Keep up."

Oh, shut your trap. . . . What are you yapping about? As if we wouldn't keep up!

They forgot to talk; they forgot to think; everyone in the column was obsessed by one idea: to get back first.

Things were so lumped together, the sweet and the sour, that the prisoners saw the escort itself, now, as friend rather than foe. Now the enemy was the other column.

Their

spirits

rose,

their anger passed.

"Get a move on, get a move on!" the rear shouted to the front.

Now our column bad reached the street, while the other had passed out of sight behind the blocks of houses. They'd been racing blindly.

It was easier for us now, we were running down the middle of the street. And our escort had less to stumble over at the sides. This was where we ought to gain ground.

There was another reason why we simply had to reach the camp gates first: the guards there were unusually slow in searching the column from the machine works. Ever since zeks had begun cutting one another's throats In the camp the authorities had arrived at one conclusion: that knives were being made at the machine works and smuggled in.

So the zeks who worked there were gone over with special thoroughness on return to the camp. In late autumn, when the earth was already cold, the guards would shout at them:

"Off with your boots, machine-works squad! Hold your boots in your hands."

And would frisk them barefoot

Or, despite the frost, they'd pick men out at random, shouting: "You there, take off your right boot. And you, take off your left!"

A zek would pull off his boot and, hopping on one foot, turn it upside down and shake out the footra& No knife, damn you!

Shukhov had heard--he didn't know whether it was true or not--that back in the summer the zeks from the machine works had brought back two poles for a volleyball net and that there the knives were, there inside them. Ten long knives in each pole. And now knives would turn up occasionally, here and there.

So it was at a jog trot that they passed the new club and the residential block and the wood-processing plant, and reached the turning that led straight on to the gates.

"Hoooooo-ooo," shouted the whole column, in unison.

That was the turning we'd aimed at reaching before the others. The rival column was a hundred and fifty paces behind, on our right.

Now we could take things easy. Everyone was elated. As elated as a rabbit when it finds it can still terrify a fro&

There lay the camp, just as we'd left it in the morning: lights were on in the zone over the thick fence, specially powerful ones in front of the gatehouse. The entire area was flooded with light; it was as bright as day. They had to have it like that when they frisked us.

But we hadn't reached the gates yet.

"Halt!" shouted a guard and, handing his machine gun to a soldier, ran up close to the column (they weren't allowed to do that with their guns). "All those on the right carrying firewood dump it to their right."

He didn't have to guess about the firewood--the zeks were carrying it quite openly. A bundle fell, a second, a third. Some would have liked to conceal a stick or two inside the column, but their neighbors objected: "Throw it down as you're told! Do you want others to lose theirs because of you?"

Who's the zek's main enemy? Another zek. If only they weren't at odds with one another--ah, what a difference that'd make!

"Double time," shouted the head guard.

They advanced toward the gates.

Here five roads converged. An hour earlier all the other columns had met here. If they were paved, these roads, this would be just the place for the main square of a future city; and then processions would meet here, just as columns of zeks did now as they poured in from every direction, with sentries and guards all about.

The guards were already warming themselves indoors. They came out and formed a cordon across the road.

"Unbutton your coats. Unbutton your jackets."

They pulled the zeks' arms apart, the better to hug them and slap their sides. Same as in the morning, more or less.

It isn't so terrible to unbutton your coat now. We're going home.

That's what everyone used to say: "Going home."

We never had time to think of any other home.

While the head of the column was being frisked, Shukhov went over to Tsezar.

"Tsezar Markovich, I'll run straight to the parcels office and keep a place in line for you."

Tsezar turned. The fringe of his dark mustache was tipped with frost.

"Why should you do that, Ivan Denisovich? Perhaps there won't be a parcel."

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter if there isn't. I'll wait ten minutes, anyway. If you don't turn up I'll go to the barracks."

(Shukhov reckoned like this: if Tsezar didn't come, maybe someone else would, then he could sell him his place in line.)

Obviously Tsezar was longing for his parcel.

"All right, Ivan Denisovich, run ahead and keep a place for me. Wait ten minutes, no longer."

And now Shukhov was on the point of being frisked. Today he had nothing to conceal. He would step forward fearlessly. He slowly unbuttoned his coat and undid the rope belt around his wadded jacket, and although he couldn't remember having anything forbidden, eight years in camp had given him the habit of caution: he thrust a hand into his pants pocket to make sure it was empty.

And there lay a small piece of broken hacksaw blade, the tiny length of steel that he'd picked up in his thriftiness at the building site without any intention of bringing it to camp.

He hadn't meant to bring it, but now, what a pity to throw it away! Why, he could make a little knife out of it, very handy for shoe repairing or tailoring!

If he'd intended to bring it with him he'd have thought hard of where to conceal it.

But now the guards were only two rows ahead and the first of these rows was already stepping forward to be searched.

His choice had to be swift as the wind. Should he take cover behind the row in front of him and toss the bit of metal in the snow (it'd be noticed but they wouldn't know who the culprit was) or keep it on him?

For that strip of hacksaw he could get ten days in the cells, if they classed it as a knife.

But a cobbler's knife was money, it was bread.

A pity to throw it away.

He slipped it into his left mitten.

At that moment the next row was ordered to step forward and be searched.

Now the last three men stood in full view--Senka, Shukhov, and the man from the 32nd squad who had gone to look for the Moldavian.

Because they were three and the guards facing them were five, Shukhov could try a ruse. He could choose which of the two guards on the right to present himself to. He decided against a young pink-faced one and plumped for an older man with a gray mustache. The older one, of course, was experienced and could find the blade easily if he wanted to, but because of his age he would be fed up with the job. It must stink in his nose now like burning sulfur.

Meanwhile Shukhov had removed both mittens, the empty one and the one with the hacksaw, and held them in one hand (the empty one in front) together with the untied rope belt. He fully unbuttoned his jacket, lifted high the edges of his coat and jacket (never had he been so servile at the search but now he wanted to show he was innocent--Come on, frisk me!), and at the word of command stepped forward.

The guard slapped Shukhov's sides and back, and the outside of his pants pocket.

Nothing there. He kneaded the edges of coat and jacket. Nothing there either. He was about to pass him through when, for safety's sake, he crushed the mitten that Shukhov held out to him--the empty one.

The guard crushed it in his band, and Shukhov felt as though pincers of iron were crushing everything inside him. One such squeeze on the other mitten and he'd be sunk--the cells on nine ounces of bread a day and hot stew one day in three. He imagined how weak he'd grow, how difficult he'd find it to get back to his present condition, neither fed nor starving.

And an urgent prayer rose in his heart: "Oh Lord, save me! Don't let them send me to the cells."

And while all this raced through his mind, the guard, after finishing with the right-hand mitten, stretched a hand out to deal with the other (he would have squeezed them at the same moment if Shukhov had held them in separate hands). Just then the guard heard his chief, who was in a hurry to get on, shout to the escort: "Come on, bring up the machine-works column."

And instead of examining the other mitten the old guard waved Shukhov on. He was through.

He ran off to catch up with the others. They had already formed fives in a sort of corridor between long beams, like horse stalls in a market, a sort of paddock for prisoners. He ran lightly; hardly feeling the ground. He didn't say a prayer of thanksgiving because he hadn't time, and anyway it would have been out of place.

The escort now drew aside. They were only waiting for their chief. They had gathered for their own use all the firewood the 104th had dumped before being frisked; what the guards had removed during the frisking itself was heaped near the gatehouse.

The moon had risen still higher; the cold grew keener in the pale bright night.

The head guard walked to the sentry house--he had to get a receipt for the four hundred and sixty-three prisoners. He spoke briefly to Priakhov, Volkovoi's deputy.

"K 460," shouted Priakhov.

The Moldavian, who had buried himself deep in the column, drew in his breath and went over to the right of the corridor. He was still hanging his head and his shoulders were hunched.

"Come here," Priakhov ordered, gesturing for him to walk around the column.

The Moldavian did so. He was ordered to stand there, his arms behind his back.