A person changes unrecognizably under the pressure of his environment, and in a prison camp especially so.
People in prominent leadership positions dissolve without a trace among the camp riff-raff. Lecturers from the Knowledge Society* fill the ranks of stoolies. Physical education instructors become incorrigible drug addicts. Embezzlers of government property write poetry. Heavyweight boxers become transformed into camp “Marys” and walk around wearing lipstick.
In critical conditions, people change. They change for the good and for the bad. From better to worse, and the other way round.
Since the time of Aristotle, the human brain has not changed. What is more, human consciousness has not changed.
And this means there is no progress. There is only movement, unsteady at its foundation. All this brings to mind the idea of the transmigration of souls, except that I would say transmigration not in time but space, the space of changing conditions of life.
As the song goes, “Once Yakir was a hero, then he became an enemy of the people…”*
Furthermore, a prison camp is a pretty accurate representation of a country in miniature, the Soviet state in particular. Within a camp, you have a dictatorship of the proletariat (which is to say, the camp administration), the people (prisoners), the police (guards). Within it, you can find the Party apparatus, culture, industry in operation. It has everything that makes up a state.
For a long time now, Soviet power has not been a form of government open to change. Soviet power is the way of life of our people.
The very same thing happens in camp. In this sense, the camp-guard system is a typical Soviet institution.
As you can see, this has grown into a whole treatise. Maybe I’ve been writing all this for nothing? Perhaps, if it’s not contained in the stories, then the rest is useless?
I’m sending you the part that comes next. If you have a moment, let me know what you think.
Everything here is the same with us. In the supermarket, my mother reverts to speaking Georgian out of helplessness. My daughter despises me for not being able to drive a car.
Morgulis* just called, wanted me to tell him what Lermontov’s initials were.
Lena sends her regards.
OUR COMPANY WAS STATIONED between two large cemeteries. One was Russian, the other Jewish. The origin of the Jewish cemetery was a riddle, inasmuch as there were no living Jews in the Komi Republic.
Sometimes during the day the sounds of a funeral march came from the Jewish cemetery. Sometimes poorly dressed people with children walked towards the gates. But most often the place was deserted and damp.
The cemetery served as a subject for jokes and gave rise to gloomy associations. The soldiers preferred drinking on the Russian graves.
I begin with the cemetery because I am telling a love story.
Nurse Raisa was the only girl in our army compound. She was attractive to many, as any girl in her situation would be. Of the hundred men in our compound, ninety-six languished with lust. The rest were in the hospital in Koyna.
Despite the best intentions, it was hard to call Raisa pretty. She had thick ankles, tiny discoloured teeth and damp skin.
But she was kind and affable, and she was certainly better than the sullen girls from the peat-processing plant. Those girls would shuffle along the fence in the morning, ignoring our soldierly jokes. Besides that, their eyes always seemed to be turned inwards.
One summer, a new instructor appeared in the barracks – Pakhapil. He found a fellow countryman, Khanniste, gave him a good drink of Chartreuse, and said, “So, and are there any young ladies here?”
“Quite a few,” Khanniste assured him, paring his nails with the bayonet of his sub-machine gun.
“How’s that?” the instructor asked.
“Solokha, Raya and eight Marys…”
“Suurepäraselt!”* Gustav exclaimed. “You can really live here!”
Solokha was the name of the horse we used for carrying in provisions. Marys were what camp homosexuals were called. Raya was Raisa the nurse.
It was cool in the infirmary even in summer. White gauze curtains swayed in the windows. An odour of medicine always hung in the air, unpleasant for anyone sick.
The instructor was absolutely healthy, but he was often seen by those who walked past the infirmary windows. The soldiers liked to peek through the window in the hope of seeing Raya changing her clothes. When they saw the back of Pakhapil’s neck, they cursed hard.
Pakhapil would touch the cold tweezers and talk about Estonia. More exactly, about Tallinn, about the toy city, about the Mundi Bar. He talked about Tallinn pigeons who very reluctantly moved aside for cars.
Sometimes Pakhapil would add, “A true Estonian ought to live in Canada.”
Then one time his face became downcast and even drawn. He said, “Quiet!” and threw Raya down on a bunk.
It smelt like a hospital in the infirmary, and that simplified many things. Pakhapil lay on a bunk upholstered in cold vinyl. He felt cold and pulled up his pants.
The instructor thought about his girlfriend Hilda. He saw Hilda walking past the City Hall.
Beside him lay the nurse, as flat as a plank in a fence. Pakhapil said, “You’ve broken my heart.”
At night he came back again. When he knocked, everything went too quiet behind the door. Then Gustav broke the latch.
On the bunk sat Lance Corporal Petrov, disgracefully unbuttoned. The instructor did not see Raya right away.
“At ease, Instructor,” Fidel said, yanking up his pants. “At ease, I say.”
“Kurat!”* Gustav exclaimed. “Bastard!”
“Holy Mother!” Raya said, and then added, “There’s no need for bad language.”
“Ah, you non-Russian,” Fidel said.
“Bitch!” the instructor said to Raya.
“And what if I felt sorry for both of you?” Raya said. “What then?”
“May you all croak!” the instructor said.
In the corridor an orderly began singing loudly:
“Forty yards of crêpe de Chine,
Powder, eye shadow, eau de Cologne…”
“Your wife could come here,” Raya said. “She’s such an interesting lady. I saw a snapshot.”
“Now’s the time to break your jaw,” the instructor shouted.
Fidel wore sideburns. On his bare shoulder was a tattoo of a naked woman with the words: “Milady, I will be with you tomorrow!”
“Just limp it out of here,” Fidel said.
Pakhapil knew how to fight. He could reach Fidel from any position. He had been taught boxing by Voldemar Hansovich Ney himself.
Fidel took a scalpel out of an enamel tray. His eyes whitened.
“He comes here,” Raya said, exasperated, “and stands there like an interloper. You should behave a little more modestly. Your nation is worse than the Jews. At least Jews don’t drink.”
“About-face!” Fidel said.
“You could have waited till tomorrow,” Raya said.
Pakhapil gave a laugh and left to finish watching a television programme.
“She doesn’t live far,” Raya said. “Why can’t she visit? Who does she think she is, a general’s wife?”
“In one word – Germans,” Fidel said, and he shook his head.
March 19, 1982. New York
Dear I.M.,
Our telephone conversation was short and hurried. And I didn’t say everything I wanted to. So let’s return to pen and paper.
Not long ago, I read a book called Azef.* It’s a biography, the story of Azef’s dizzying double game as both a revolutionary and a tsarist agent provocateur.
As a revolutionary, he organized a few successful terrorist acts. As a police agent, he betrayed many of his friends. Azef did all of this for several decades. The situation seems improbable. How was he able to avoid being exposed? How was he able to make fools of Gershuni and Savinkov, or wrap Rachkovsky and Lopukhin* around his little finger, and use a mask for so long?