But even with self-made pots in hand, water rations were inconsistent. Not counting the ladle portion of hot water we were given for dinner, the most we ever received in a day was a potful. To make matters worse, only sporadically were we sent to the baths with a bucket for ten of us to share. Using our same twenty-four-ounce pots, we dipped from the bucket and washed ourselves. No soap was provided.
All of these barbaric norms still haunted me, as I remained standing in front of the commander’s small barracks. With most of the concrete removed from my boots and face now, I stepped onto the deck and entered.
“I can see that you Americans are always on time,” he said from behind his desk, a lit cigar in hand. “Please sit.”
“Yes, Commander Koskinen.”
“I do not know how much longer I’ll be here,” he said. “I may be going to the mines to construct new camps. They’ve found many new mines. Maybe you can come. With your boy! It is warm inside the mines.”
“As you wish, Commander Koskinen,” I said, gladly breathing in the sweet-smelling cigar smoke.
“Do you know about explosives?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. But you would be building still. Only, it might serve you well someday in the camps, knowing about explosives.” He paused before continuing. “There has been no record to be found regarding your sentence reduction. But I have ordered a new one for you based on superior work. I filed the document and it will be sent to the proper authorities. It’s for your boy, too.”
“Thank you.”
I felt a warmth run through my body, a good feeling I hadn’t felt in a year. I continued breathing in the smoke, actually getting a chemical effect from it, as I hadn’t breathed in tobacco smoke to this degree for such a long time.
“Do you have any free relatives here in the Soviet Union?” he said, flicking some ash into a tin cup. “If you do, ask them to send some money so you can buy tobacco once in a while from the commissary like the other zeks do, at least the ones whose families have money.”
“I do not smoke,” I said, “but I have written a letter to a close comrade. I wrote it last week.”
“You wrote ‘Prisoner Prescott Sweet’ and ‘Sevvostlag Magadan Camp’ as your name and address, as required, yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Is he an American?”
“Yes.”
“Is he here in the Soviet Union?”
“No, he was earlier. He’s now in Argentina.”
“Then NKVD confiscated the letter. No letters from prisoners are allowed to leave the Soviet Union right now. As soon as they saw the Sevvostlag in the upper left corner and the Argentina address below, they tore it up. Only letters from free civilians can go outside Soviet borders, this after NKVD has read them. Maybe your comrade is a spy, you see?”
I casually nodded, realizing that Bobby hadn’t received my letter telling him we’d been arrested. I’d written it earnestly, half believing it would only be a matter of time now before we were released. It had given me the impetus to work hard and remain in decent spirits.
“Was this comrade in Moscow when you were arrested?”
“No.”
“When did you last correspond with him?”
“I sent him a letter in August, which he likely received in September. So, maybe four months.”
“How often do you correspond?” he said, setting his cigar in the ashtray.
“At least a letter every five months.”
“Do you cable each other?”
“We hadn’t since he’d left. But it would be something he would do only if it was urgent.”
“Sounds like it is about time for him to hear from you to keep him from being concerned. But it seems that won’t happen. What do you believe your Moscow friends and neighbors are thinking about your absence now?”
“My wife and I were traveling to Stalingrad and Leningrad a lot. She was… is ... a noted painter here. So the neighbors likely think we are away doing showings.”
“Neighbors are too afraid to say a word to anyone anyway when they know of an arrest. They are only worried about themselves. You could be gone for ten years and they’d never say a thing. NKVD has everyone afraid of his or her own shadow. Besides, what your neighbors don’t know is that NKVD has already emptied your apartment during the night. Your belongings are being stored somewhere and your place has been rented to someone else. By the way, many artists, like your wife, and writers have been arrested. And their comrades won’t report it. Believe me. Too terrified that they’ll be put on a list also. What does this comrade you speak of do?”
“He’s a diplomat.”
“Ah. Not good. He will be one to go poking around. Very much not good.”
He stood and walked around the desk until he was at a cabinet next to the door behind me. Returning with a bottle and two tin cups, he sat again. The label on the bottle read ubróvka, a brand of vodka I recognized, as Bobby enjoyed it.
“Does this comrade think you’re still in Moscow?” he said, pouring two drinks and handing me one.
“Thank you, Commander. Yes, he does.”
He held up his cup and I followed suit, both of us downing the tasty stuff. It would be the first time since Moscow that I’d perhaps have my emotions numbed a bit, a more than welcome possibility.
“Hear me,” he said. “Your comrade needs to keep believing that you live there, as far as NKVD is concerned. Or, even better, I will give you some strong advice that might keep you alive longer, Comrade Sweet. It will keep this comrade from pestering Moscow NKVD about you.”
“Okay.”
“I am doing this only because I feel that if I help at least one decent zek in this world stay alive, especially a black one who makes me think of my sister’s husband, maybe my Trotsky will look upon me someday with pride. I am doing this for Trotsky. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Write another letter to this comrade and tell him you have moved with your family to Leningrad. Tell him you are all happy and fine. Tell him, however, that your wife and children are still traveling a lot with her paintings, and that you’ve been hired to do a quite lucrative engineering job at the port here at Nagaev Bay for at least six months. There is actually construction being done down there as we speak. I say this all to keep you alive. Makes sense, yes?”
“Yes.”
“The bags of zek mail here at the Magadan post office are kept separate from the free hires’ mail. And it is all shipped to Moscow postal before it goes anywhere else. I will drop your letter in the free hires’ bags when I take my mail over to the post office.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Moscow postal might then forward it to NKVD, but once they read it and realize you’re from Leningrad, and that you’re only temporarily working at Nagaev Bay, they will let it go out. There are only a handful of officials in this entire country who know of you. No random NKVD policeman or postal worker is going to recognize your name whatsoever. They deal with millions, you see. But, of course, you’ll never receive your comrade’s return letters, as you must use a fictitious Leningrad address. I will give you a good one. I used to live there.”
“Well,” I said, “he probably won’t write back until July, especially if he believes I’m busy here at Nagaev Bay. But still, once his letter eventually comes, it will be returned to him. Not good. I mean, maybe he won’t write back until August, but then again, maybe sooner, if he thinks Loretta might forward it to me.”