‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the gorilla said without raising his eyes from the floor.
‘What do you mean, you don’t know? We just straightened you out!’
‘Nobody straightened me out.’
‘OK, friend,’ the neuropathologist said. ‘Have it your own way. I wanted to help you out. Just wait. In a week you’ll be begging to check out.’
‘Who knows what’ll happen in a week,’ Merzlakov said quietly. How could he explain to the doctor that an extra week, an extra day, even an extra hour spent somewhere other than the mine was his concept of happiness. If the doctor couldn’t understand that himself, how could he explain it to him? Merzlakov stared silently at the floor.
Merzlakov was led away; Peter Ivanovich went to talk to the head of the hospital.
‘We can handle this tomorrow, and not next week,’ the head of the hospital said upon hearing Peter Ivanovich’s suggestion.
‘No, I promised him a week,’ Peter Ivanovich said. ‘The hospital won’t collapse.’
‘OK,’ the head of the hospital said. ‘We can handle it next week. But be sure to send for me when you do. Will you tie him down?’
‘We can’t,’ the neuropathologist said. ‘He could dislocate an arm or a leg. He’ll have to be held down.’ Merzlakov’s case history in his hand, the neuropathologist wrote ‘shock therapy’ in the treatment column and inserted the date.
Shock therapy consisted of an injection of camphor oil directly into the patient’s bloodstream. The dose was several times that used in hypodermic injections for seriously ill coronary patients. It produced a sudden seizure similar to seizures of violent insanity or epilepsy. The effect of the camphor was a radical heightening of muscle activity and motor ability. Muscle strain was increased incredibly, and the strength of the unconscious patient was ten times that of normal.
Several days passed, and Merzlakov had no intention of voluntarily straightening out. The morning of the date scheduled in the case history arrived, and Merzlakov was brought to Peter Ivanovich. In the north any sort of amusement is treasured, and the doctor’s office was packed. Eight husky orderlies were lined up along the wall. In the middle of the office was a couch.
‘We’ll do it right here,’ Peter Ivanovich said, getting up from behind the desk. ‘No sense going to surgical ward. By the way, where is Sergei Fyodorovich?’
‘He can’t come,’ Anna Ivanovna, the physician on duty, said. ‘He said he was busy.’
‘Busy, busy,’ Peter Ivanovich repeated. ‘He ought to be here to see how I do his job for him.’
The surgeon’s assistant rolled up Merzlakov’s sleeve and smeared iodine on Merzlakov’s arm. Holding the syringe in his right hand, the assistant inserted the needle into a vein next to the elbow. Dark blood spurted from the needle into the syringe. With a soft movement of the thumb the assistant depressed the plunger, and the yellow solution began to enter the vein.
‘Pump it in all at once,’ Peter Ivanovich said, ‘and stand back right away. You,’ he said to the orderlies, ‘hold him down.’
Merzlakov’s enormous body shuddered and began to thrash about even as the orderlies took hold of him. He wheezed, struggled, kicked, but the orderlies held him firmly and he slowly began to calm down.
‘A tiger, you could hold a tiger that way,’ Peter Ivanovich shouted in near ecstasy. ‘That’s the way they catch tigers in the Zabaikal region.’ He turned to the head of the hospital. ‘Do you remember the end of Gogol’s novel, Taras Bulba? “Thirty men held his arms and legs.” This gorilla is bigger than Bulba, and just eight men can handle him.’
‘Right,’ the head of the hospital said. He didn’t remember the Gogol passage, but he definitely enjoyed seeing the shock therapy.
While making rounds the next morning Peter Ivanovich stopped at Merzlakov’s bed.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s your decision?’
‘I’m ready to check out,’ Merzlakov answered.
The Lawyers’ Plot
Into Shmelyov’s work gang were raked the human rejects; they were the by-products of the gold-mine. There were only three paths out of the mine: nameless mass graves, the hospital, or Shmelyov’s gang. This brigade worked in the same area as the others, but its assignments were less crucial. Here slogans were not just words. ‘The Quota Is Law’ was understood to mean that if you didn’t fill your quota, you had broken the law, deceived the state, and would answer with an additional sentence and even your life. Shmelyov’s gang was fed worse, less than the others. But I understood well the local saying, ‘In camp a large ration kills, not a small one.’ I wasn’t about to pursue the large ration of the leading work gang.
I had only recently been transferred to Shmelyov, about three weeks earlier, and I still didn’t know his face. It was the middle of winter and our leader’s face was wrapped in a complicated fashion with a ragged scarf. In the evening it was dark in the barracks, and the kerosene lantern barely illuminated the door. I don’t even remember our gang leader’s face – only his voice that was hoarse as if he had caught cold.
We worked the night shift in December, and each night was a torment. Sixty degrees below zero was no joke. But nevertheless it was better at night, more calm. There were fewer supervisors in the mine, less swearing and fewer beatings.
The work gang was getting into formation to march to work. In the winter we lined up in the barracks, and it is torturous even now to recall those last minutes before going into the icy night for a twelve-hour shift. Here, in this indecisive shoving before the half-opened doors with their cold drafts, each man’s character was revealed. One man would suppress his shivering and stride directly out into the darkness while another would suck away at the butt of a home-made cigar. Where the cigar came from was a mystery in a place that lacked any trace of even home-grown tobacco. A third figure would guard his face from the cold wind, while a fourth held his mittens above the stove to accumulate some warmth in them.
The last few men were shoved out of the barracks by the orderly. That was the way the weakest were treated everywhere, in every work gang.
In this work gang I hadn’t yet reached the shoving stage. There were people here who were weaker than me, and this provided a certain consolation, an unexpected joy. Here, for the time being, I was still a person. I had left behind the shoves and fists of the orderly in the ‘gold’ gang from which I had been transferred to Shmelyov.
The gang stood inside the barracks door, ready to leave, when Shmelyov approached me.
‘You’ll stay home,’ he wheezed.
‘Have I been transferred to the morning shift?’ I asked suspiciously. Transfers from one shift to another were always made to catch the clock’s hour hand so that the working day was not lost and the prisoner could not receive a few extra hours of rest. I was aware of the method.
‘No, Romanov called for you.’
‘Romanov, who’s Romanov?’
‘This louse doesn’t know who Romanov is,’ the orderly broke in.
‘He’s in charge. Clear? He lives just this side of the office. You’re to report at eight o’clock.’
‘Eight o’clock?’
An enormous wave of relief swept over me. If Romanov were to keep me till twelve, when our shift had its dinner, I had the right not to go to work that day. I felt an aching in my muscles and my body was overcome with exhaustion. But it was a joyous exhaustion.
I untied the rope around my waist, unbuttoned my pea jacket, and sat down next to the stove. As its warmth flowed over me the lice under my shirt began to stir. With bit-off fingernails I scratched my neck and chest. And I drowsed off.