Soldiers led her to the nearest building, and she hoped it would be their barracks. But it was merely an administrative center where she had to wait to be registered. Then she followed the line leading to another large room, where male guards ordered her to strip. They sniggered at the naked women as they handed them the bundle of their prison clothing: underwear, padded trousers and jacket, and felt boots. In the room beyond, they were allowed to dress.
As she slowly warmed in her padded clothing, rough hands shoved her toward one of a row of chairs. Men with razors and buckets of water stood behind them and shaved the newly arrived prisoners completely. “To keep away lice,” someone said, dragging the razor along her scalp. Afterward, someone handed her a ushanka for her bare head, similar to the one she’d worn at the front. But on this one, the flap across the forehead displayed the same number that was painted on her jacket, G 235.
The entry procedure ended in a double lineup, with women on one side and men on the other. A guard counted off twenty and led them onto the field with the strange hillocks. Smoke wafted from most of them through a narrow pipe at the center, and she realized with horror they were in fact hovels, covered holes in the ground where people lived.
“This is your zemlyanka,” the guard said, shoving Alexia toward one of them. The canvas door opened, and a bony woman drew her into the dark interior and urged her onto a wide wooden plank. When her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of a kerosene lantern, she could see the walls were packed soil with narrow logs pressed against it to keep it from falling in. Overhead, a mass of saplings, branches and twigs, made up the roof, with dirt and snow packed into it to create a solid mass. Off to one side was a barrel of what she presumed to be water, and at the center, with a metal pipe leading through the roof, was an iron stove. She could see it was burning, but in the frigid November air, she felt none of the heat where she sat. In spite of the cold, the entire hovel stank of mold, urine, and sweat.
“Didn’t expect that, did you?” the woman who had guided her in said. “Well, you better get used to it. You’re a zek now, and every place else you’ll be is going to be worse.” She took off her winter hat and scratched her scalp. Her head was covered with short, oily brown hair, obviously several weeks of growth after a head-shave.
“A ‘zek’? What’s that?” Alexia asked.
“Short for zaklyuchennyi, prisoner,” a second woman explained. She had slightly longer hair, jet-black, and a flat Asiatic face. “By the way, I’m Nina. That’s Olha.” She pointed with her chin. “And this one here is Sophia.” She poked her neighbor with her elbow.
Alexia managed a weak smile at all three women. “This is where I’m supposed to sleep?” She patted the plank they sat on.
“Yeah, and this is your blanket.” Olha poked something filthy and brown rolled up against the wall. “It’s got lice.
“We’ve all got lice,” she added more cheerfully, “but at least they let us bathe once a week and they wash our clothes. It’s important to stay clean and not let yourself go. Do you smoke?”
“Uh, no,” Alexia replied, puzzled.
“Good. Most of us don’t. But we still get a tobacco ration. Not much, less than the men, but if you save it, you can exchange it with someone for the things you’ll need.”
“What am I going to need?” Looking around, she realized it was a stupid question.
Nina said the obvious. “Everything.” Then, “So, what’s your name? What were you before?”
“Alexia, from Arkhangelsk. I was a soldier. Rifleman.” She saw no reason to elaborate.
“Ah. I was a farm girl in Kurgan,” Nina said. “The wife of a kulak.”
“Me, a seamstress in Smolensk,” Sophia added.
Eyes turned to Olha, who simply said, “None of your business.”
“So what happens next?” Alexia asked, facing the others.
“You learn the rules next.” Sophia sat down beside her. “Don’t go near the barbed wire. The guards on the watchtowers are allowed to shoot you then. Do your share of the work so your brigade gets done on time, but learn the ways to not work too hard. Don’t go out to the latrine alone. A good way to get raped.”
A siren rang in the cold air, startling Alexia. “What’s that?”
“Supper,” one of the women at the back of the dugout called out, rushing toward the canvas door.
“C’mon. We want to make sure we get there while the food’s still hot.” Nina nudged Alexia by the elbow out of the dugout, and they jogged together toward the mess yard.
They lined up before a low window where a hand shoved forward a bowl of something thick. It was kasha, though of a cruder sort than Alexia had eaten at the front. She gave her number and was also handed a slice of black bread in the dimensions for which she qualified. As a new arrival, that was for only 500 grams.
She moved quickly away to stand with two of the women whose names she knew. Both ate with spoons, though she had none. “How do I eat this?” she asked.
“For now, just drink it or use your fingers. You’ll have to buy a spoon from someone, and a bowl, too, if you can. They don’t have enough, so sometimes you have to wait until someone finishes eating and turns in their bowl. If you have your own bowl, you’re served first.”
Alexia ate, observing the others, calculating how to survive. Spoons, bowls, lice. At least the trivia of daily existence let her forget for a moment the greater tragedy. They finished in silence, and Alexia handed in her bowl, for which later arriving prisoners already waited.
Another siren sounded, and they lined up in the mess yard to be counted. The November day had been short, and it was already dark when they returned to their earthen shelter. Someone added the last log to the inadequate stove, extinguished the single smoky kerosene lantern, and the dugout was dark, save for the dull orange visible in the stove vents. She dropped back onto her bed plank and rolled up in her filthy blanket. Oh, Mia. I could endure all of this if you were here. But Mia was at home in the US now. How long before she would forget her Russian sniper and their kiss? She was too weak and tired to cry, and dropped into sleep as into a bottomless pit.
The now-familiar siren awakened her. They’d slept in their work clothes so needed only to stand up, use the latrine, and report for roll call. It was still full night outside. Another lineup for what was obviously the same kasha reheated for breakfast, and then they fell in for work assignments.
The system appeared straightforward. Each task required a brigade, and since almost no paper was available, a wide wooden plank on the wall of the dining hut displayed the list of brigades, their members—shown by numbers, and their tasks. Alexia was on woodcutting brigade three. Fortunately, Nina, Sophia, and the five other women from her dugout were its members. The brigadier who led them was a man who, according to Nina, lived in a wooden hut rather than a dugout. The obvious question was, how did he manage that?
The zeks lined up in rows of five, and at the next siren, the gate opened and they began the daily march out. It had begun to snow lightly, and Alexia was glad for the felt valenki she wore in place of shoes. Only her hands were red with the cold, and she blew on them. It was already well below zero. Could she make it through the day without frostbite?
When they reached the work site, the brigade leader pointed out the stand of slender trees at the bottom of a gully that had to be felled and trimmed for transport. The quota for the brigade that day was thirty trees. She was aghast. She saw no sign of chainsaws. Nor could she see any motor vehicle to collect or transport logs. Ten women were going to have to do it all by hand, and she had no gloves.