Now comes the more complex task of sorting out the dekulakized. First find all those alive on the list and mark them, then cross out the rest.
The small Tatar woman, Zuleikha, is kneeling just a few steps from Ignatov, dressing the grouse he shot. He finds her name on the sheet and circles it with the charcoal. The line comes out bold and fat, densely black. Like her brows, he thinks. He scrutinized her face well then, in the water. No, he hadn’t just scrutinized it, he’d memorized it, learned it by rote. He’d kept peering: Is she alive? Breathing? Not too tired? He couldn’t allow her to die. Her life seemed to him to be the only forgiveness for the others, who were destroyed. When he saw her being lifted onto the launch and laid on the deck, he felt such sudden exhaustion he could have died, but only one thing was in his head: I saved her, I saved her, pulled her out, led her, dragged her the whole way. A mean thought flashes: Do you think that will be taken into account? I let three hundred go to the bottom and pulled one out. I’m quite the savior, there’s no denying it…
As you were, Ignatov commands himself, tiredly, already habitually. As you were and back to work.
And so. Avdei Bogar, one-armed. An invalid but works quickly, deftly laying branches on the shelter’s roof, telling the others what to do as he points his finger. Well, now there’s one who’s actually leading the construction! They obey him, nod. Obviously a sensible guy. His eyes are keen and tenacious, and they’re constantly lowered around Ignatov, as if he fears Ignatov will see something in them and figure him out. This one might be dangerous. The others will listen to someone like this even though he only has one arm.
Lukka Chindykov, a red-bearded Chuvash, is pottering around near Bogar. Chindykov is unprepossessing; it’s as if all of him leans and lists to one side, plus he’s desperately ugly. He lost his whole family along the way and is scared to death, haggard, and confused. Even now he’s looking around wildly, as if he doesn’t understand where he is. A broken person, not dangerous.
Musa-hadji Yunusov’s white beard hovers close by. He is as thin and flat as a reed. At the beginning of the journey, there was a blindingly white turban glowing around his head, but then it disappeared somewhere, possibly used as rags. Ignatov smirks as he imagines Yunusov sawing spruce branches in his glowing turban. Yunusov’s face is always bright and detached – he’s thinking already about the eternal, not the earthly. That’s exactly why he’s a hadji. Also not dangerous.
Leila Gabriidze, a plump Georgian woman, short of breath…
As he peers into their faces, Ignatov recalls the names of everyone working in the camp. He finds them on the list, circles them with the charcoal, and counts again. There are twenty-nine people, including the Leningraders. Russians, Tatars, a couple of Chuvash, three Mordvins, a Mari woman, a Ukrainian man, a Georgian woman, and a German man whose mind is gone and has the fanciful and sonorous name Volf Karlovich Leibe. In short, an entire international organization. Ignatov crosses out the rest. As he draws the coal along shabby sheets that look greasy from wear, he tries not to look at the surnames. Toward the end, his fingers are black and almost velvety, leaving bold round marks on the paper.
As soon as the job’s finished, Ignatov jumps up from the log with a start and swiftly walks to the riverside. He wants to wash it off his hands as quickly as possible. He wants to breathe in the cold river air. He wants very much to smoke.
Zuleikha has adjusted to plucking birds with a large sliver of spruce – of course a knife would be better but both knives are in use at the shelter construction site. The work can be done with a suitable piece of wood, though. Her mother was right when she said that head and hands are the most important tools for any work. Zuleikha holds the sliver firmly in her hand and quickly pulls the feathers from the bird’s soft, pliant body, pinching them between the wood and her thumb. First come the long, firm ones, the contour feathers, then the smaller, softer ones. The carcasses haven’t had a chance to cool yet and they pluck nicely, willingly.
Izabella is right beside Zuleikha. The two of them – the pregnant woman and the oldest woman – were assigned the role of fire tenders and cooks. The others are assembling shelters and arranging the camp.
“Zuleikha, my dear, I’m afraid I can’t keep pace with you.” Izabella is watching, bewildered, as the sliver of spruce flashes so quickly in the air it almost dissolves.
“Gather the feathers instead,” says Zuleikha. “They’ll come in handy.”
She’s pleased she can do this work better. It’s good to be useful. Her conscience would bother her if she just sat by the fire and added wood while everyone else was working. But going back and forth between the camp and the spruce forest for branches would have been difficult for Zuleikha as her belly has grown heavier since swimming in the Angara; it’s as if it had swelled with lead. The baby is constantly moving and fidgeting, her own legs are very weak, and her forehead sweats. A couple of times Zuleikha has felt something start to hurt down in her belly – a cramping, aching, and churning – and she’s begun praying to herself, thinking she’s going into labor. But they turned out to be false alarms.
Murtaza’s gift of poisoned sugar flowed off into the Angara. This means she’ll give birth no matter how much she fears the outcome. She will endure if Allah sends her the death of yet another child. The Almighty’s will is sometimes capricious and incomprehensible to the earthly mind. Of all the traveling companions on the deadly barge, she was the only one Providence left among the living. More than that, it sent her husband’s killer, the arrogant and dangerous Red Hordesman Ignatov, to save her. Perhaps Fate wants her to live?
Zuleikha felt a tremendous happiness, the likes of which she’d never experienced, when Ignatov’s distorted face suddenly flashed beside her in a furious whirl of spray after she’d been tossed up from the water’s depths to the surface. She was shuddering from wheezing and coughing, and almost choked. She’d never been that glad to see her husband, may the deceased Murtaza forgive her those thoughts. She’s had time to think about how Ignatov might have swum past, not noticed her, or not wanted to save her; but there he was, already next to her, helping and calming. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had dragged her under by the braids and drowned her, but he held her, held her firmly, saying something, even joking. When it became obvious she couldn’t swim to shore, he didn’t start cursing and didn’t abandon her. He saved her.
If a savior turns out to be a good person, one should probably kneel before him and shower his hand with kisses. If Murtaza were alive, he would have endowed that person with rich gifts. If the mullah were alive, Zuleikha would have requested that he say a prayer of thanks in her savior’s honor. She has none of those “ifs.” She has only herself and the harsh, unapproachable Ignatov. He’s sitting next to the fire, scrawling something in his papers with charcoal, frowning, and clenching his jaw. Zuleikha simply wants to say thank you, but she doesn’t dare interrupt his thoughts. Soon he exhales, abruptly and angrily, slams the folder shut, and goes off to the riverside.