Artyom is surprised at how quickly the bandages dry and, when the cast is set, they lay a blanket over the dog’s hunched form and Artyom looks at Grigory, a shine in his eyes.
“It’s yours now. You can take care of it,” Grigory says.
“We can’t move it. It’s asleep.”
“Of course not, but when it wakes.”
Artyom shakes his head sadly. “I can’t, my mother wouldn’t allow it into our quarters. Besides, what could I feed it? We barely have enough food already.”
“Well, let’s keep it here then. It’s your dog, but it lives here. I’ll have a word with the supply secretary, see if we can get some scraps.”
Artyom smiles wide and bright, and Grigory takes this as a gift for carrying the animal here, tending to it, a reward that makes it all more than worthwhile. They shake hands, an exchange that has a strange solemnity to it. The boy has an aura of experience, of gravitas, any youthful naivety long since departed.
“Batyr. I’m naming him Batyr.”
Artyom nods, taking in the fact with eagerness, the anticipation of a new parent stirring within him.
He repeats the name before he exits. “Batyr.” It’s the first good thing he’s done in months.
Chapter 14
Maria is three hours into her shift when it happens. The commotion comes from above them, the metal stairway to the management offices. Shouting. A scuffle. At first they think it might be an argument between two senior managers, which would be a juicy piece of gossip in itself, but it’s a woman’s voice. There are no women on the management committee. Maria’s comrades stop and look up. They all instinctively press the suspension buttons on their machines before turning around. The whole place, powering down momentarily, the sound of forces slowing, cooling. Maria looks around and can see others looking around, captivated as the great beast to which they have chained themselves quietens its roar.
The void is replaced by a murmur. More shouts from the stairway. Those who can’t see spread word to those who can. It’s Zinaida Volkova. They can’t believe this. They ask those nearest to confirm and see a bundle of black cloth being ushered by three officials through the doors that lead to the reception area.
In the forty years Zinaida Volkova has worked in the plant, she has never been known to raise her voice.
Zinaida is a senior committee member of the workers’ union. Everyone knows her, knows her story. After the war, at twenty-four, she had become a member of the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya work brigade. A welder with two Hero of Labour medals. Zinaida is who you go to if you have a personal problem. She organized extended maternity leave, secured concessions in working hours for those who had obligations to a sick relative. Half of the factory have stood before her at some stage, had her listen with that alert stare of hers, twitching like a bird, doling out advice and reassurance.
Even the line supervisors are in shock. They can’t treat a Hero of Labour this way.
When Zinaida’s protests fade, a menacing silence takes over. Some machines tick in their state of rest, parts cooling and contracting. Nobody moves. They see a man in a grey suit walk hurriedly along the metal walkway in front of the plate-glass windows. Mr. Shalamov.
The line managers look down at the floor, or stroll as casually as possible to the toilets.
The plant chairman, Mr. Rybak, emerges from the glass door of his office.
“Start your machines.”
Silence.
“Who here can do without their job? Put your hand up.”
Silence.
“I will stand here with a clipboard checking off names if I have to. Ask yourselves if you want to go home to your families and tell them why you will be standing at some other gate to some other factory tomorrow morning. Stomping your feet in the freezing cold. Turn on your machines or explain it to them.”
A slight shuffling across the building, like a breeze has floated through.
A machine purrs, revving up.
The line managers return to the floor. They say nothing, just stare at the workers. The sound spreads, flywheels gaining speed, moulding machines reaching full pressure and, in Maria’s section, router blades becoming invisible as they turn. Industry washes forward once more, and everybody is filled with self-loathing.
At lunch Maria sits, as usual, with Anna and Nestor, her strongest friends in the factory. Anna has a two-year-old daughter, so she feels particular loyalty to Zinaida. The extra maternity leave was a godsend.
“So,” Nestor says. Nestor is a construction draughtsman and therefore has direct contact with different processing areas. He has a wan, thin face, his jawline meeting at a dimpled chin. “She’s been trying to set up an independent union. Apparently, the last wage cut sent her over the edge.”
Their wages have been decreased three times over the past six months, the union barely raising an objection, the officials getting kickbacks from the management. Everybody knows this. But they aren’t in a position to object.
As wages come down, food prices have been rising. Sugar has doubled in price in the past eighteen months. Bread and milk have risen by 60 percent, meat by 70. All of them know how to readjust a household budget, to cut corners an extra millimetre or two, to scale back and scale back. You still need to eat something, though. Some of the older workers have been fainting at their stations. People have been getting ill with much greater frequency, and Maria has noticed other, more subtle, changes that the body takes on. She notices how Nestor’s gums have receded. He has three children. He takes on the majority of the sacrifices. People’s skin has greyed, their hair has dried, become fragile. Each evening, on the bus home, she notices strands of dislodged hair resting on the shoulders of their dark jackets.
Nestor lowers his voice. “She might get her wish now. I can’t see people continuing to be represented by the rest of that gang.”
“It’s not as easy as you think, Nestor. An independent union is quite a fight.”
“Other places have got concessions. The dockers in Vladivostok. The railway workers in Leningrad,” Anna says.
“Only because they had to—they are crucial industries. The authorities are getting a lot more hard-line about this. They don’t want protests like that to spread. One place gets concessions, they come down even harder someplace else. Why else would they fire Zinaida?”
Nestor looks at his lunch with distaste and lights a cigarette instead.
“Zinaida gave the union credibility. It’ll be hard for them to carry on without her. There’ll be a petition started by the end of the week, mark my words.”
Maria snorts. “Names on a page. What good does that do?”
“It’s a start.”
“It’s not anything.”
Anna looks at Maria. “I didn’t see you walk away in protest.”
A sharpness in her voice.
“No, you didn’t,” Maria says. “I’m thinking of my wage, same as everyone else, pitiful as it is.”
“Maria Nikolaevna Brovkina.”
Mr. Popov is standing at the entrance to the canteen. It’s so rare for a line manager to come here, among the workers, that a silence descends.
“Mr. Shalamov would like to speak with you.”