“It is odd how I keep hoping a miracle will happen and someday someone will walk in and say that I am going home. I don’t believe in miracles, but I am always hoping and waiting for something to happen. I try to interpret each little variation of the routine as having some special meaning. This is all silly, but one never loses hope. It is very good in a way. If I knew definitely that I would have to spend the entire ten years here, I think I would do something drastic. But as it is, I keep thinking that maybe next month or the one after that, etc., will be the one I am waiting for. As long as I do not lose hope, everything will be all right. I haven’t lost hope yet.”
Again I asked her to be sure to send me a copy of Kennedy’s inaugural address.
Barbara hadn’t started numbering her letters, so there was no way I could tell whether some were being lost or if she simply hadn’t written between September 23 and November 26.
December 13: “Bath today. No glue, so cannot make envelopes. Millet for breakfast, millet soup and potatoes for dinner, a type of potato salad for supper. Wrote letter to wife. Have no idea what she is doing or where she is living. Sent it care of her mother in Milledgeville.”
December 14: “Received seven letters today!”
There was one from Barbara, another from her mother, with whom she was living I now learned, the rest from my sisters and parents. My mother’s letters always moved me because they evoked home: “Daddy went up to the high knob to try to get a deer this morning.” Her own health wasn’t very good, but I wasn’t to worry. She closed, “I can’t enjoy coffee, not knowing if you have a cup or not.”
The health of both my parents concerned me. On his return from Russia, my father had discovered that he had diabetes. Yet he was still “pestering ” the people in Washington, especially the State Department, trying to get them to initiate some action in my case.
Barbara’s letter bothered me also. I knew she was under a tremendous strain, that all of this must seem like a horrible nightmare to her, yet reading her letter I had the feeling that she was bored and just writing to fill the pages, not really thinking about what she was saying. For example, she asked about my job in the mail room, which meant she hadn’t read my letter about the envelope making very carefully. And she asked if they observed Thanksgiving in the Soviet Union. But, I told myself, everything that happens in prison assumes an importance and magnitude all out of proportion to reality.
December 15: “Fed pigeons during walk. Am partial to a white pigeon and try to feed him more than the others. He is too shy and lets the other pigeons take his food. No glue, so no envelopes made today. Potatoes for supper.”
The embassy had included a jar of peanut butter in my last package. Together with the jelly, obtained from the prison commissary, Zigurd got his first peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. From his initial look, I decided this must be an acquired taste.
On December 18 the KGB colonel and an interpreter arrived with the print of a classic Russian film, Soldashka, and Zigurd and I were given a private showing. Beautifully made, the film depicted an ancient conquest of Russia by barbarians and their eventual defeat.
But even here they couldn’t resist propagandizing. The message was tacked on to the end, to the effect that: “Come to Russia as a friend, you will be welcomed. Come as an enemy, you will be met with a sword.”
Or a rocket.
Actually the movie itself impressed me less than their going to the trouble to bring it all the way from Moscow for a private screening. All this concern with giving me the best impression of Russia had to be for some reason. And the only possible reason I could see was that they intended to release me soon. I tried not to draw too much hope from the incident, but despite my resolve, I did.
Zigurd agreed. It was a very good omen.
December 19: “Has been a long day. Two visits by Major Dimitri. He is going on leave tomorrow. Our contact will be Major Yakovlov. A good man. Will soon finish Anna Karenina. Someone pulled the tail feathers out of one of the pigeons. He flies like a duck now.” Another common trick was to tie a pigeon’s legs together, which gave him a sort of Charlie Chaplin walk. In a way, I could understand why such things were done—they were antidotes to boredom—yet such senseless cruelty greatly disturbed me.
Often, through the hole in our cell window, I’d study the prisoners as they went through the gate. Before long I began to type them. The political prisoners were usually quiet, studious. Going from one place to another, they often carried a book along. It was as if they realized they had a certain amount of time to serve and were determined to use it to best advantage. They seemed to avoid causing trouble.
It was different with the work-camp prisoners, many of whom were rowdy, constantly breaking rules, getting into arguments with each other or with the guards.
It was an interesting generalization, except for one thing. There were several rowdies in our building also. They would yell out the windows. Or try to catch the pigeons. Or throw things from their windows.
Zigurd explained the seeming discrepancy. Fights were common in the work camp. One prisoner might steal another’s bread, while someone else got knifed for it. Occasionally, to escape vendetta, a prisoner would try to obtain a transfer. There were two ways to do this: hurt himself so badly he would have to be hospitalized; or become a political prisoner. The latter was fairly easily accomplished. He need only mock Khrushchev or write anti-Soviet slogans on the wall. Taken before a judge and resentenced as a political prisoner, he would be reassigned to building number 2. This meant time added on to his sentence and the loss of some privileges, but it was preferable to being stabbed.
Occasionally Zigurd and I would get into arguments, albeit friendly ones. During one of our bull sessions I mentioned that it was an established fact that north of the equator whirlpools move in a clockwise direction, while south of the equator they move counterclockwise.
He doubted this, and said so.
Finally, after some thought, we came up with a scheme to prove or disprove at least half the theory. The next time we went to the toilet we would stop up the washbasin with a sheet of paper and fill it full of water. Then, very carefully, we’d pull the paper out and watch which way the water went. Since we were obviously north of the equator, the motion should be clockwise.
The trouble was, when we pulled out the paper it made waves, confusing everything. We had tried this a half-dozen times, getting water all over ourselves and the floor, when the guard looked in. He was not at all sure what we were up to, but whatever it was, we were to stop.
On the subject of whirlpools, Zigurd remained a skeptic.
December 21: “Dad’s birthday. Had potatoes for supper, as usual. But with meat!”
The meat, roast pork, had arrived in a package from Zigurd’s parents. To preserve it, Zigurd’s mother had packed the meat in lard in which she had previously cooked onions. This gave it a strong onion taste. By smearing the lard on bread we made some of the most delicious sandwiches I had ever tasted.
My diary entries now contained no mention of my Russian lessons. For good reason. I was trying to forget them. For me, prison was not conducive to studying. Working on the carpet gave me an excuse to skip memorizing the long lists of words Zigurd supplied. After missing one day it became easier to miss the next, until it gradually slipped out of the routine. Also, since the prospect of release seemed to be even brighter—the significance of the special movie had now become almost a certainty—it seemed useless to persist in learning the language.