Actually, in retrospect, I suspect letting me keep my hair was intended less as a privilege than because it suited Soviet propaganda purposes. When, later, pictures were taken of me, which I was actually urged to send to my family, I looked healthier and far better-treated than would have been the case had I been scalped.
Masters of propaganda, the Russians carefully considered such things.
The afternoon passed slowly, and was spent in napping, reading, or studying. Supper, the worst meal of the day, was invariably potatoes or cabbage. After supper we took our second and last trip to the toilet. The evening was spent in much the same manner as mornings and afternoons.
One night we decided to test how far our “privileged state” extended. Using cardboard from a package, we made a shade for the night light, to keep it from shining directly in our eyes. Our privileged state didn’t extend that far. Yelling “Nyet!” the guard rushed in and made us take it down.
Usually I would not fall asleep until after the changing of the guard, at midnight. Often much later. This was the very worst time for me. It seemed that the moment I was ready to go to sleep my mind would be filled with thoughts I couldn’t suppress. During the day our conversation served to hold the most depressing of these in abeyance. In the still of the night they would sometimes rebound with nightmare intensity.
Nearly all concerned Barbara. Hopes, worries, and fears, and when I’d face up to it, thoughts about her, about me, about our marriage.
Through sheer willpower I’d nearly always succeed in suppressing such thoughts. But never for very long. I needed to trust my wife, but there was no reason to suppose that just because I was locked in a prison cell her pattern would change.
When sleep did come, it was often troubled.
This was my routine.
Fortunately, for our sanity, there were variations.
About once a week we were given a small cube of meat, usually thumbnail size. This was our sole meat ration, and we looked forward to it with a longing out of all proportion to what we actually received. We were starved for fats. There was margarine available from the prison commissary, but it didn’t satisfy the body’s craving.
Also about once a week the doctor or nurse came around to see how we were feeling, asking if we needed pills for constipation or aspirin for headaches. Oddly enough, the nurses were known as “Sisters,” a lingering vestige of more religious days.
Zigurd told me a story relating to these visits. A former cellmate, a young boy arrested for painting posters satirizing Soviet leaders, had developed a crush on one of the nurses. There was no indication that his feelings were reciprocated, but he talked of nothing else, counting the days, hours, minutes, until her next visit. One day, while Zigurd was napping, he tore apart his tin plate and swallowed the pieces, knowing the doctors would have to operate to remove them and that he would remain in the hospital, within sight of her, while recuperating.
Sensing my skepticism, Zigurd assured me the story was true. When the guard took the boy out, Zigurd said he could hear the tin pieces rattling in his stomach as he walked.
It wasn’t long before I accepted such stories as fact, the incredible all too soon becoming, if not acceptable, understandable. Many prisoners committed suicide. Others went mad. One, whether insane or merely feigning it to be transferred to a mental hospital, painted the walls of his cell with his excreta. Believing that he was faking his insanity, the prison officials left him in his own filth.
During his time at Vladimir, Zigurd had had several cellmates. Often he told me stories about them. Also, from shortly after his arrival, he had kept a journal. Sometimes he read me passages. Through him I was able to put together a comprehensive picture of prison life in Russia. And, I suspect, one much more honest than my captors wished me to have.
About once a month all prisoners were visited by a representative of the KGB, at first a major, later a colonel, who asked us if we needed anything, had any complaints or questions. Major Yakovlov was the political commissar for Vladimir, and it was apparent from his questions that “the people in Moscow” were anxious that their well-publicized American convict have as good an impression of Russia as possible, under the circumstances.
Why? Again it seemed to be evidence that I might be released shortly.
We requested books. There was a prison library, but none of its volumes were in English. There were English books available from Moscow University library, and Major Yakovlov arranged for them to send some. It took about a week to ten days before the first ones arrived.
Our greatest need was work. Zigurd asked the Little Major if there was anything we could do. All that was then available was a device for making fishnet-type shopping bags. Having made them previously, Zigurd showed me how. It was a complicated procedure, involving tying tight knots in cotton string, then pulling them together with a wooden shuttle. The cheap string filled the air with lint and dust. When after several days we began coughing up the lint, we started worrying about the effect on our lungs. Fortunately, by this time other work was available. The guard brought in paper, a pattern, glue, and a sharp knife, and we set to work making envelopes. Because paper was in short supply, we’d ration it, making only a certain number at a time in order to have work left for the following day. Aside from the few we used ourselves, I never learned what happened to the envelopes we made. Perhaps they helped fulfill some Five Year Plan.
At first the guard took the knife away each night. Later, apparently more sure of us, he allowed us to keep it in the cell.
With the envelope-making we could keep busy about an hour each morning and afternoon.
Still, time hung heavy. Zigurd did his best to lighten it. One day, reading a copy of O. Henry’s Short Stories, one of the paperbacks I’d brought from Moscow, he came across the word “snoozer” and asked what it meant. I told him. That afternoon when I woke up from my nap there was a hand-lettered sign on my chest: “Biggest Snoozer South of the Arctic Circle.”
I still thank God he had a sense of humor.
During his long imprisonment Zigurd had developed good study habits. I hadn’t. Often, out of boredom, or just to escape having to memorize the Russian words, I’d look out the window. The guard didn’t seem to mind when we peeked through the crack, but if we attempted to stand on the bed and look out the top, he’d either bang on the door or come in. One afternoon while looking out I had a surprise. A group of women was escorted through the gate. For some reason I had never imagined there were female prisoners here. Wearing black shawls, dresses that reached nearly to the ground, and felt boots, they were nearly all very old. Most, Zigurd told me, had been imprisoned as “religious fanatics.” In a godless country, that category, I supposed, was a most comprehensive one. A they went through the gate, many of the women would cross themselves. I wondered if they were former nuns.
There was no difference between days of the week, with one exception. On Sundays the work camp was closed and the prisoners didn’t march by. Yet we anticipated several other occasions far more than any holiday.