One year ago he was sentenced to a term of fifteen years imprisonment. Up to now he has known the soft ride of the foreigners' block at Vladimir… From now he will be treated as a Soviet offender, that is why he is not at Camp 5…
He is a spy, he is a traitor, perhaps he is fortunate not to have faced the extreme penalty provided for in the Criminal Code.'
The Major strode back towards the window and his boots sounded drum rattle over the hollow spacing under the bare boards of his office. A spartan, soldierly room.
'This Holovich, he is a self-confessed spy?'
The Captain laughed quietly. 'They were dilatory in Moscow. He is not self-confessed. That is to come…'
Always when the snow had recently fallen there was a damp fog over the camp, a link between the low grey cloud and the whitened ground. It was hard for the Major to see the little procession that moved away from the Administration block towards the heart of the camp, but he fancied he could still make out one dark head amongst the hazing image of the retreating column.
There were faces at the glass of the windows watching their approach.
A timbered hut, a hundred feet long and balanced on stilts of brickwork, with smoke flowing from a central chimney.
There were other huts visible as outlines in the mist of early afternoon, but it was to the hut with the figure '2' painted in yellow on the doorway that they were led. The snow had drifted at one end, at the beck of the wind, so that it reached almost to the eaves of the roof.
And the old man at Pot'ma had said that self-pity was not acceptable.
Holly kicked the snow from his shoes against the jamb of the door and climbed the few steps into Hut 2.
Chapter 4
There was a smell from Hut 2 that was unlike anything Holly had known before. Stronger than the smells of Lefortovo or Vladimir, more pervasive than the smells of the Lubyanka interrogation cells or the train. It was the smell of a hundred bodies that had not been bathed for a week, of a hundred sets of clothes that had been lived and slept in for a week, of excreta and vomit trapped by the windows that had not been opened for a week. It floated in the dull light of the hut, a wall that hung from the wooden rafters to the boards of the flooring. The smell would catch its victims as a spider's web ensnares a fly.
Holly and two others were delivered to Hut z, the rest would be further dispersed. The door closed on his back.
He thought he would choke, he thought he would be sick.
The bile ran in a bitter taste to his mouth.
The door split the centre of one wall of the hut, a long wall. Holly turned slowly from left to right, gazed and absorbed.
A poster, white lettering on red background, blared from the gloom of the opposite wall, under the conditions of socialism every man who leaves the path of l a b o u r is able to return to useful activity.
In the centre of the hut stood a tall coke stove, blackened from use, deep in dust, and its chimney stack climbed to the ceiling and through its open hatch there was the glow of fuel working out a second day's burning. There were windows without curtains. What else, Holly? What else is there to see in Hut z? Only the bunks, nothing else. The bunks are round the walls, the bunks fill the central aisle of the hut.
Wooden framed and two tiered, half a yard between them.
Hut 2 is a dumping-ground for bunk beds, it offers no space to any other furniture. There are no tables, chairs, cupboards. This is the place where they dump you, Holly, you and the bunk-beds. This is where they leave you while your existence is hacked from the memory of the former life. This is home for the forgotten. Of course, you'd read of these places and screwed up your nose in disgust and said such things shouldn't be permitted, and why didn't someone else do something about it. But now, Holly, you're in Hut 2 of ZhKh 385/3/1, and nobody did do anything and the hut is reality. Tbe hut breathes and lives and survives. The hut is your home, Holly.
'What is your name?'
A voice beside him, Holly spun to his right.
There were faces peering at him. Tired faces all of them, some old and some young. The men lay on the bunks, all but one. He was a small man with a puffed chest and a jutting chin. Holly saw the bright red band that was sewn to the upper arm of his tunic, the red diamond on his chest.
'What is your name… you, the one in the front?'
Holly knew the standing of the man. There had been similar men at Vladimir. The trustie of the Internal Order System. The toadie, the crawler, the compromiser, the one who worked for favours. The man came closer, manoeuvring with the confidence of authority between the bunks.
'Holly, Michael Holly…'
'We are Soviets here, we are not foreigners.'
'My name is Holly.'
'If you are in Camp 3 you are a Soviet. If you are in this camp you have a Soviet name. What is your name?'
'My name is Michael Holly… I was charged in that name, I was sentenced in that name.'
And the faces stirred above the grey blue pillows, and the bodies shifted beneath the dark blankets. A newcomer disputed with the trustie in his first moments inside the hut.
That was entertainment. Like cats' eyes on a night road the pale faces beamed at Holly and his adversary through the greyness of the room.
'Smart arse, clever prick… What is your name in Russian?' Anger flared in the man who was not accustomed to the answer back.
Holly smiled. 'When I was born my parents called me Mikhail Holovich. My name now is Holly… '
Their eyes held, Holly's and the trustie's. The trustie looked away, far down to the recesses of the hut.
'At the end of the line you will find a bunk… And Holovich, be careful, you clever shit. Learn what is the arm band, learn what is the diamond, remember them and be careful.'
The faces watched him as he walked half the length of the hut, searchlights following him, and Holly went briskly as if by the speed of his step fourteen years might somehow trickle faster through the future's fingers. The two men who had stood behind him gave their names quickly, eagerly, anxious to avoid association. Holly went to the end of the hut. He had not given his name in Russian and the bunk that was allocated to him was against the wall at the furthest stretch from the narrow band of heat that the boiler might service.. The two tiers of the end bunk were unoccupied. He chose the upper bunk. There was sagging wire beneath the frame, a drip of water plunged sporadically into the space where his feet would rest.
This is home, Holly…
He had no possessions to swing onto the bunk, he wore them all. Two pairs of underpants, two pairs of socks, two vests, his gloves, his scarf. He shivered, wrapping his arms tight around his body.
'You are a foreigner?'
The voice was sharp, beside Holly's knee. He was little more than a boy. Vivid red hair cut back to his scalp, a sheen of stubble across his cheeks.