The second, or rather the third ‘but’ arises from the fact that the janitors are obliged to clean up the barracks while the work gang is in the bathhouse. The barracks are swept, washed, and everything judged to be unnecessary is mercilessly thrown out. In camp every rag is treasured, and enormous amounts of energy are expended to acquire a spare pair of mittens or extra foot rags. Bulkier things are treasured even more, and food highest of all. All this disappears without a trace and in full accordance with the law while the convicts are in the bathhouse. It’s useless to take things to work with you and from there to the bathhouse; they are immediately noticed by the vigilant and experienced eye of the camp criminal element. Mittens or foot rags can be easily exchanged for a smoke.
It is characteristic of man, be he beggar or Nobel laureate, that he quickly acquires petty things. In any move (having nothing to do with jail) we are amazed at the number of small things we have accumulated and cannot imagine where they all come from. And all these possessions are given away, sold, thrown out – until we achieve with great difficulty the level necessary to close the lid of the suitcase. The same is true of the convict. He is, after all, a working man and needs a needle and material for patches, and an extra bowl perhaps. All this is cast out and then reaccumulated after each bathhouse day, unless it is buried somewhere deep in the snow to be dug up again the next day.
In Dostoevsky’s time the bathhouse provided one basin of hot water (anything over that had to be paid for). That standard has been retained to this very day. It’s always a wooden basin with not very hot water. Prisoners are permitted any amount of those burning pieces of ice that stick to the fingers; they’re kept in barrels. There’s never a second basin to dilute the water, and the hot water is cooled by the pieces of ice. That, however, is all the water a convict receives to wash the hair on his head and his entire body.
A convict must be able to wash himself with any portion of water – from a spoonful to a cistern-full. If he gets only a spoonful, he wets his gummy festering eyes and considers his toilet completed. If he gets a cistern of water, he splashes it on his neighbors, refills his basin every minute, and somehow manages to use up his portion in the allotted time.
All this testifies to quick-wittedness in the resolution of such an everyday question as the bathhouse. But it does not, of course, solve the question of cleanliness. The dream of getting clean in the bathhouse is an impossible dream.
In the bathhouse itself there is constant uproar accompanied by smoke, crowding, and shouting; there’s even a common turn of speech: ‘to shout as in the bathhouse’. There is no extra water, and no one can buy any. But it’s not just water that’s in short supply. There’s not enough heat either. The iron stoves are not always red-hot the way they should be, and most of the time it’s simply cold in the bathhouse. The feeling of coldness is increased by a thousand drafts from under the doors, from cracks. Cracks between the logs are stuffed with moss which quickly dries up and turns to powder, leaving holes to the outside. Every stay in the bathhouse involves the risk of catching cold – a danger that everyone, including the doctors, is aware of. After every bathhouse session the list of people freed from work is lengthened. These are truly ill people, and the doctors know it.
Remember that the wood for the bathhouse is physically carried in on the evening of the previous day on the shoulders of the work gang. Again, this delays returning to the barracks by about two hours and cannot but create an anti-bathhouse mood.
But that’s not all. The worst thing is the obligatory disinfestation chamber.
In camp there is ‘individual’ and ‘common’ underwear; such are the verbal pearls found in official speech. ‘Individual’ underwear is newer and somewhat better and is reserved for trusties, convict foremen, and other privileged persons. No convict has his own underwear. The so-called individual underwear is washed separately and more carefully. It’s also replaced more often. ‘Common’ underwear is underwear for anyone. It’s handed out in the bathhouse right after bathing in exchange for dirty underwear, which is gathered and counted separately beforehand. There’s no opportunity to select anything according to size. Clean underwear is a pure lottery, and I felt a strange and terrible pity at seeing adult men cry over the injustice of receiving worn-out clean underwear in exchange for dirty good underwear. Nothing can take the mind of a human being off the unpleasantnesses that comprise life. Only vaguely do the convicts realize that, after all, this inconvenience will end the next bathhouse day, that their lives are what’s ruined, that there is no reason to worry over some underwear, that they received the old, good underwear by chance. But no, they quarrel and cry. This is, of course, a manifestation of those psychoses that are characteristic of a convict’s every action, of that same ‘dementia’ which one neuropathologist termed a universal illness.
The spiritual ups and downs of a convict’s life have shifted to the point where receiving underwear from a small dark window leading into the depths of the bathhouse is an event that transcends the nerves. Having washed themselves, the men gather at the window far in advance of the actual distribution of underwear. Over and over again they discuss in detail the underwear received last time, the underwear received five years ago at Bamlag. As soon as the board is raised that closes off the small window from within, they rush to it, jostling each other with their slippery, dirty, and stinking bodies.
The underwear is not always dry. Too often it’s handed out wet – either there wasn’t time enough to dry it or they were short of logs. To put on wet or damp underwear is not a pleasant experience for anyone.
Curses rain down upon the indifferent heads of the men working in the bathhouse. Those who have to put on the damp underwear truly begin to feel the cold, but they must wait for the disinfected outer garments to be handed out.
What exactly is the disinfestation chamber? It is a pit covered with a tarpaulin roof and smeared with clay on the inside. The heat is provided by an iron stove, the mouth of which faces out into the entrance hall. Pea coats, quilted jackets, and pants are hung on poles, the door is tightly shut, and the disinfector begins ‘laying on the heat’. There are no thermometers or bags of sulfur to determine the temperature achieved. Success depends on chance or the diligence of the disinfector.
At best only those things that hang close to the stove are well heated. The remainder, blocked from the heat by the closer items, only get damp. Those in the far corner are taken out cold. No lice are killed by this disinfestation chamber. It’s only a formality, and the apparatus has been created for the purpose of tormenting the convict still more.
The doctors understand this very well, but the camp can’t be left without a disinfestation chamber. When the prisoners have spent an additional hour waiting in the large dressing room, totally indistinguishable clothing is dragged out by the armful and thrown on the floor. It is up to each person to locate his clothing. The convict swears and dons padded trousers, jacket, and pea coat – all wet from the steam. Afterward, at night, he will sacrifice his last hours of sleep to attempt to dry his clothing at the barracks stove.
It is not hard to understand why no one likes bathhouse day.
The Green Procurator
Values shift here, in Kolyma, and any one of our concepts – even though its name may be pronounced in the usual way and spelled with the usual letters – may contain some new element or meaning, something for which there is no equivalent on the mainland. Here everything is judged by different standards: customs and habits are unique, and the meaning of every word has changed.