“They’re gonna give me the boot,” Volikov said. “The dogs are literally out of their heads. I put Alma out on a chain post. A zek walks along the fence – she wags her tail. Then a soldier comes along – she throws herself on him. Gone completely wild. She doesn’t even know me. I have to feed her, the wretch, through a special embrasure.”
“If I were in her place,” Fidel said, “I’d chew on Captain Tokar’s throat. After all, she doesn’t have to worry about a court-martial.”
“If you want, I’ll show you the puppies,” Volikov said, pulling up his pants.
We had to stoop down to go into a special little closet. There, on her side, lay the rusty-coloured bitch Maw-Maw. She raised her head anxiously. Beside her, nestling into her belly, the puppies wriggled.
“Don’t you touch,” Volikov said to Fidel.
He began picking up the puppies and handing them to us. They had pink bellies, and their delicate paws trembled.
Fidel held one of them up to his face. The puppy licked him. Fidel laughed and turned red.
Maw-Maw watched us uneasily and swished her tail.
For a few seconds everyone stood silent. Then Fidel lifted his hands like the jazz singer Celentano on the Supraphon record jacket. Then he showered curses on the seven puppies, the bitch Maw-Maw, the company command, Captain Tokar personally, the local climate, the instruction of the surveillance staff, and the forthcoming traditional cross-country skiing race.
“Time to get a bottle,” Volikov said, as if he had seen the appropriate sign.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m on duty tonight.”
“Some crap is brewing in Barracks Six, did you hear?”
“What, exactly?”
“I don’t know. The security officer apprised me.”
“You should go to Yavshitz,” Fidel said. “A heart attack, tell him… I’m coughing… I have terrible stomach cramps…”
“I went. He threw me out.”
“Yavshitz has gone completely wild,” Volikov said, patting Maw-Maw, “absolutely. I went there once. Swallowing, I say, hurts. And he up and says to me, ‘You should swallow less, Lance Corporal!’ Implying, the pig, that I drink. He probably guzzles schnapps himself there all alone.”
“Not likely,” I said. “The old man’s in excellent shape. He’s never been seen drunk.”
“He partakes, he partakes,” Fidel put in. “Doctors have oceans of pure alcohol. Why not take a swig of it?”
“That’s basically true,” I said.
“I heard that he was one of the doctors who did in Maxim Gorky back when he was an enemy of the people. Then in 1960 they pardoned him. They leha… rehali… rehalibitated him. But the doctor got insulted: ‘Where were you looking while I was doing my stretch?’ So he stayed in the north.”
“If you listen to them,” Volikov said angrily, “every one of them is doing time for nothing. I don’t generally care for spies. The same goes for enemies of the people.”
“You’ve seen some?” I asked.
“I came across a Jew, the head of a bathhouse, who was in here for molesting minors.”
“What kind of enemy of the people is that?”
“What do you call him, a friend?”
Volikov went off to relieve himself. After a minute, he returned and said, “Alma’s gone completely wild. Barks at me as if she didn’t know me. Once I couldn’t stand it and also started howling. Scared the hell out of her.”
“In her place,” Fidel said, “I’d tear open everyone’s throats, the wardens’ and the zeks’.”
“Ours too? For what?” Volikov asked.
“For everything,” Fidel answered.
We were silent. We could hear the puppies squealing in the closet.
“Fine,” Volikov said, “we might as well.” He took a bottle of vermouth with a green label out from under the mattress. “Here, I hid it even from myself. And found it right away.”
The vermouth was sealed with wax. Fidel didn’t feel like bothering with it and broke off the neck on the edge of the burner.
We drank out of the same mug. Volikov found some Bulgarian cigarettes.
“Oho,” Fidel said, “this is what it means to live far away from the boss. You’ve got it all, schnapps and smokes. And I heard that one instructor at Veslyana even managed to get the clap.”
Outside the window, Sergeant Meleshko was marching his platoon to the latrine. The command followed: “Relieve yourselves!”
They all stayed outside, spreading out around the planked stalls. After a minute, the snow was covered with spirals. Immediately an improvised distance contest began. As far as we could make out, the winner was Yakimovich from Gomel.
White smoke rose over the garrison roof. The over-laundered flag hung limply. The plank walls seemed especially motionless, the way a boat jetty beside a swiftly moving mountain river can be motionless, or a request-stop station at which an express train brakes slightly and then rushes on.
Orderlies in padded jackets were cleaning snow near the porch with broad plywood shovels. The wooden handles of the shovels shone in the sun. A green truck, the back of it covered with canvas, stopped by the door of the army kitchen.
“Bob, how do you feel about the zeks?” Fidel asked, drinking down the last of the vermouth.
“It depends,” I said.
“And I,” Volikov said, “just about come when I look at them.”
“And I,” Fidel said, “I’m all mixed up.”
“All right,” I said. “Time for me to go on duty.”
I stopped by the barracks, put on a sheepskin jacket, and went to find Lieutenant Khuriyev. He was supposed to give me instructions.
“Go,” Khuriyev said. “Be careful!”
The camp gates were thrown wide open. Con-mobiles were driving up from the logging sector. Prisoners sat on the floor in the bed of the truck. The soldiers were spread out behind the barriers by the checkpoint cabin. When the truck pulled to a stop, they quickly stepped down to the side, holding their sub-machine guns in a horizontal position. After this, the zeks jumped down and walked towards the gates.
“First column – march!” Tvauri commanded. In his right hand he was holding a small canvas bag with identification cards. A prisoner’s last name, distinguishing marks and length of term were given on each of them.
“Second column – march!”
The prisoners walked on, their quilted jackets open, not paying attention to the growling dogs.
The trucks turned around and lit up the gates with their headlights.
When the brigades had passed, I opened the doors of the checkpoint cabin. The controller, Belota, was sitting at the desk, wearing an unbuttoned fatigue shirt. He released the latch pin. I was now behind the bars in the narrow transit corridor.
“Got anything to smoke?” Belota asked.
I threw a few limp cigarettes into the sliding tray for documents. The latch returned to its former position. The controller admitted me into the zone.
In the north, it generally gets dark early. And in the zone especially.
I walked along the walls of the barracks, reached the gates, under which the narrow-gauge rails dimly shone, then stopped at the Command Patrol Station, where some re-enlistees were playing cards.
I greeted them – nobody said anything back. Only Ignatyev from Leningrad yelled out in excitement, “Bob, today I’m hanging in!”
The creased cards fell soundlessly on the table, which was shiny from elbows.
I finished my cigarette, put the butt in an empty can. Then, throwing open the door, I convinced myself that it had truly grown dark. I had to go.
Barracks Six was located to the right of the main avenue, under a watchtower. This was where the security reports said the zeks were planning something.
I could easily have not gone into the barracks. And yet I went. I wanted to get it all over with before the absolute silence set in.
Shadows were hiding in the corners of Barracks Six. A dim bulb lit the crudely made table and the bunks.
I looked over the barracks. Everything here was familiar to me: life with its covers torn off, a simple and monotonous sense of things, a latrine bucket by the entrance, pictures from a magazine pinned up on the sooty beams. None of this frightened me, only made me feel pity and revulsion.