Later that day, the third, I saw through the window of the hut where I worked a prisoner carry a pair of boots into Camp 1. He cleaned them for an hour. He used his tunic to wipe off the vomit and blood, then spat on them and polished them with his undershirt. Of course, I cannot be exact in the time because there were no clocks in the hut, but I thought from the sun and the shadows beyond the window that it took him an hour to clean them.
Inside Camp 1 there were places for work, but some of the men were escorted outside to the forest to cut timber. Some of the women were taken out to the officers’ compound for cleaning. Inside Camp 1 there were workshops for tailors, who cut and sewed uniforms for the Germans, a shoemaker’s shop, where leather saddles were made for the Germans’ horses, a place for mechanics and for carpenters, a hut where paints were stored, and the kitchen.
I was sent to work in the kitchen within an hour of being separated from my family.
We mixed soup for the men and for the women. We provided the food for all, except the officers, in Camp 1. What we made was foul, and only hunger prevented us vomiting or refusing it. In that week I wondered where my family was, and whether they had the same food as us, and whether it was as awful, and where the kitchen was that made it. It is important to understand that the camp was a cage, and I knew nothing of life beyond the fences that were interwoven with dead pine branches. When the needles fell from them and it became almost possible to see out, the men brought more and repaired the gaps.
It was a miracle that my innocence lasted a whole week. It ended so suddenly.
We were heating soup on the seventh day — it was in old metal dustbins that were on bricks above chopped logs that made the fire, and we stirred it with lengths of wood that had been stripped of bark.
The capo was behind me and supervised an older woman who put potatoes into the water, and some turnips, but no meat. The capo was from Chelm and did not have to work; she was a Jewess but was privileged and carried a short whip. She was feared. I had forgotten she was behind me, I think tiredness and the ache in my stomach had made me forget her. Her name was Miriam.
I said to the woman beside me, ‘My elder sister won’t eat this. She has a delicate stomach.’
Because of the heat from the open fires under the soup, we hade the window slats open, and I heard the clank of a train behind our fence and beyond the officers’ compound, the howl of its wheels as it stopped.
The woman looked away and did not meet my eyes.
The capo, Miriam, flicked my buttocks with her whip so that I should turn and face her. She said, ‘We live here by sound. We exist by hearing — our ears are our eyes. A train comes. Musicians play. We hear those sounds. Our ears pick up the shouts of the Germans. After that there are screams, which are drowned, but not completely, by an engine starting. Then we hear geese. A prisoner goes into a little place where geese are kept, not to be eaten. He has a stick and chases them. The squawking means we can’t hear the screams and the engine. It is very short, this process. A train coming, an orchestra playing, orders, screams, an engine and the geese — it is what we hear every day. We heard it on the afternoon you came … You should not worry about your sister’s stomach because she was dead before dusk. All those you came with were dead before the light failed that afternoon … Stir harder, or the taste of the potato and turnip will not get into the water.’
I found that innocence lost is never regained.
They crossed the bridge over the Oka river and ahead were the ancient streets.
Yashkin said, ‘They boast here that Murom is the prettiest town in all Russia.’
‘They talk shit.’ Molenkov yawned, could not stifle it.
‘Gorky wrote, “Whoever has not seen Murom from the Oka river has not seen Russian beauty.” ‘
‘Fuck him.’
‘It’s the birthplace of the bogatyr, the epic hero, Ilya Muromets. Look, there’s the statue of him …’ Yashkin had his hand off the wheel and pointed from his window. A knight in armour, a cloak across his shoulders and a battle sword held high, triple the size of a man, was floodlit on a plinth. ‘It’s very fine.’
‘Another fucker.’
‘You know there are monasteries here that were founded nearly a thousand years ago. I think that’s the roof of the Monastery of Our Saviour.’
‘I don’t give a shit for a monastery.’
‘I read all this in guidebooks. It’s where the kalatchi bread comes from. Yes, we knew that.’
‘I don’t need to know about heroes, monasteries or bread. It’s ten to midnight. I’m exhausted and I want to know where we’ll sleep, that’s all.’
Yashkin grimaced. ‘I was only talking to keep myself awake.’
He heard the yawn again, then a groan, blinked and tried to keep his eyes open. At night in Sarov when he drove the Polonez as a taxi he always slept in the afternoon, at least four hours. At the thought of it, an officer of the 12th Directorate forced to ply for trade with his old car to put food on his table and light in his home, bitterness surged in him. Such a long day. He would have collapsed on his bed now if he’d had the chance.
And again Molenkov, beside him, wheezed his yawn. ‘I need to sleep.’
Yashkin took the Polonez down narrow streets, past the square that had the illuminated Cathedral of Our Saviour and Transfiguration — he’d read of it — and saw the scaffolding climbing towards the dome. They had money to rebuild old and useless monuments, but not to pay the pension of an officer who had given his life to the 12th Directorate. They reached the doors, closed, of a hotel. He parked. His friend was asleep, but he shook him hard.
They went together up the steps and hammered on the door, a tattoo of their fists. There was the muffled shuffle of feet, then a chain rattled and a bolt scraped. Light flooded them. Was a room available? A porter’s eyes raked over them. His head shook decisively. There was an inner door of glass behind him. Yashkin saw, through it, the reception desk, the line of hooks and keys hanging from the majority … and he saw his face and Molenkov’s reflected in the glass. The door was shut, the chain replaced and the bolt pushed home.
They went to two more hotels. At the last, they gained admittance to the desk, but were turned away. They were told by a girl, challenged but evading, that the rooms with the keys on hooks were undergoing ‘refurbishment’ and not available. There was a mirror behind her head, and it showed two old men, unshaven, with dirt and grease on their faces, and he remembered how they had struggled with the spare tyre before the jack had broken.
Beside the Polonez, Yashkin said, ‘It’s because of how we look. Did you see us?’
‘What do we do?’
He was pleased that the colonel (retired) deferred to the major (retired). Yashkin shrugged. ‘We must wash, but I’m not going to the Oka river to get clean at this time of night. We’ll find a park and sleep in the car.’
Under old elm trees, Molenkov lay across the front seats with the gear stick wedged in his crotch and snored. Yashkin was on his back, his spine pressed against the tarpaulin and what it hid.