‘Well, I guess that would be all right,’ he said.
‘Let’s go,’ the pock-marked man said to me.
We went to a different corner of the cafeteria. Bent over by the wall sat a man in a pea jacket and a regulation-issue black flannel cap with ear flaps.
‘Sit down here,’ said the pock-marked man. I obediently sat down on the floor next to this man. He didn’t turn his head.
The pock-marked man and the unknown ‘warrior’ left, while the young one, ‘my’ guard, stayed with us.
‘They’re taking a break, you understand?’ the man in the convict hat suddenly whispered to me. ‘They don’t have any right to do that.’
‘They’ve long since lost their souls,’ I said, ‘so they might as well do whatever they like. What do you care?’
The man raised his head. ‘I tell you, they don’t have the right.’
‘Where are they taking us?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know where they’re taking you. I’m going to Magadan. To be shot.’
‘To be shot?’
‘Yes, I’ve already been sentenced. I’m from the Western Division – from Susuman.’
I didn’t like this piece of news at all. But then I didn’t know the procedures for applying capital punishment. Embarrassed, I fell silent. The pock-marked soldier walked up with our new traveling companion. They started discussing something with each other. Now that there were more guards, they treated us more roughly. No one brought me any more soup in the cafeterias.
We drove on for a few hours, and three more prisoners were attached to our group. The three new men were of indeterminate age – like all those who had gone through the hell of Kolyma. Their puffy white skin and swollen faces spoke of hunger, scurvy, and frostbite.
‘Where are they taking us?’
‘To Magadan. To be shot. We’ve already been sentenced.’
We lay bent over in the truck bed, our knees and backs touching. The truck had good springs, the road was well paved so we weren’t tossed from side to side, and soon we began to feel the cold.
We shouted, groaned, but the guard was implacable. We had to reach Sporny before morning. The condemned man begged to be allowed to warm himself even for five minutes. The truck roared into Sporny where lights were already burning.
The pock-marked man walked up: ‘You’ll go to the stockade and be sent on later.’
I felt cold to the marrow of my bones, was numb from the frost, and frantically beat the soles of my boots against the snow. I couldn’t get warm. Our ‘warriors’ kept trying to locate the camp administrator. Finally after about an hour we were taken to the freezing unheated stockade. Frost covered all the walls, and the floor was icy. Someone brought in a bucket of water. The lock rattled shut. How about firewood? A stove?
On that night in Sporny all ten of my toes were again frostbitten. I tried in vain to get even a minute’s sleep.
They led us out in the morning and we got back in the truck. The hills flashed by, and approaching vehicles coughed hoarsely in passing. The truck descended from a mountain pass, and we were so warm that we didn’t want to go anywhere; we wanted to wait, to walk a little on this marvelous earth. It was a difference of at least twenty degrees. Even the wind was warm, almost as if it were spring.
‘Guards! We have to urinate…’ How could we explain to the soldiers that we were happy to be warm, to feel the southern wind, to leave behind the ringing silence of the taiga.
‘OK, get down.’
The guards were also glad to have an opportunity to stretch their legs and have a smoke. My seeker of justice had already approached the guard:
‘Could we have a smoke, citizen warrior?’
‘OK, but go back to your place.’
One of the new men didn’t want to get down but, seeing that the stop was to be an extended one, he moved over to the edge and gestured to me.
‘Help me get down.’
I extended a hand to the exhausted man and suddenly felt the extraordinary lightness of his body, a deathly lightness. I stepped back. The man, holding on to the edge of the truck bed, took a few steps.
‘How warm!’ But his eyes were clouded and expressionless.
‘OK, let’s go. It’s twenty-two degrees below zero.’
Each hour it got warmer.
In the cafeteria of the village of Belyashka, our guards stopped to eat for the last time. The pock-marked man bought me a kilo of bread.
‘Here, take it. It’s white bread. We’ll get there this evening.’
A fine snow was falling when far below we saw the lights of Magadan. It was about fifteen degrees above zero. There was no wind, and the snow fell straight down in soft wet particles. The truck stopped in front of the regional office of the secret police, and the guards went inside.
A hatless man wearing civilian clothing came out. In his hands he held a torn envelope. With a clear voice and in the manner of a man accustomed to the job, he called out a name. The man with the fragile body crawled to the side at his gesture.
‘To the stockade!’
The man in the suit disappeared into the building and immediately reappeared. In his hands was a new envelope.
‘Constantine Ugritsky! To the stockade! Eugene Simonov! Stockade!’
I didn’t say goodbye to either the guards or the people who had traveled with me to Magadan. It wasn’t the custom.
Only I and my guards now remained at the office porch.
The man in the suit again appeared on the porch with an envelope.
‘Andreev! Take him to the division office. I’ll give you a receipt,’ he said to my guards.
I walked into the building. First of all I looked for the stove. There was a steam radiator. Behind a wooden barrier was a telephone and a man on duty. The room was somewhat shabbier than the one at Comrade Smertin’s in Khatynakh. But perhaps that room had created such an impression on me because it was the first office I had seen in my Kolyma life? A steep staircase led up to the second floor.
The man in civilian clothes who had handled our group out on the street came into the room.
‘Come this way.’
We climbed the narrow stairway to the second floor and arrived at a door with the inscription: Y. Atlas, Director.
‘Sit down.’
I sat down. In the tiny office the most important area was occupied by a desk. Papers, folders, some lists were heaped on it. Atlas was thirty-eight or forty years old. He was a heavy man of athletic build with receding black hair.
‘Name?’
‘Andreev.’
‘Crime, sentence?’
I answered.
‘Lawyer?’
‘Lawyer.’
Atlas jumped up and walked around the desk: ‘Great! Captain Rebrov will talk to you.’
‘Who is Captain Rebrov?’
‘He’s in charge here. Go downstairs.’
I returned to my spot next to the radiator. Having mulled over the matter, I decided to eat the kilo of white bread my guards had given me. There was a tub of water with a mug chained to it right there. The wind-up clock on the wall ticked evenly. Through a half-dream I heard someone walk quickly past me and go upstairs, and the officer on duty woke me up.
‘Take him to Captain Rebrov.’
I was taken to the second floor. The door of a small office opened and I heard a sharp voice:
‘This way, this way.’
It was an ordinary office, somewhat larger than the one in which I had been two hours earlier. The glassy eyes of Captain Rebrov were fixed directly on me. On the corner of the table stood a glass of tea with lemon and a saucer with a chewed rind of cheese. There were phones, folders, portraits.
‘Name?’
‘Andreev.’
‘Crime, sentence?’
I told him.
‘Lawyer?’
‘Lawyer.’
Captain Rebrov leaned over the table, bringing his glassy eyes closer to mine, and asked:
‘Do you know Parfentiev?’
‘Yes, I know him.’