Then there’s an unexpected shout: “We’ve arrived!” How could that be? Where had they arrived? Zuleikha looks around, confused. In front of her is a squat, dirty white building with tiny squares of windows that form a chain along one side and a tall stone wall around it, three times her height.
“Down you go, Green Eyes!” says Prokopenko, puckering his cheeks in a smile and winking, his gaze probing for the lamb under the burlap in the sledge: Is it in one piece?
Zuleikha squeezes her bundle tightly and jumps to the ground. Bayonets already bristle to greet her; a live corridor of young junior soldiers leads to a small open metal door. In there, then.
Prokopenko takes Sandugach by the bridle and the horse neighs shrilly, jerking under an unknown hand. Zuleikha drops her bundle and rushes to the horse, pressing her face into her dear muzzle.
“Not allowed!” is the anxious cry behind her and something sharp, a bayonet blade, presses at her back.
“Come on, now,” says Prokopenko’s smiling voice. “Let her say goodbye. Why begrudge that?”
“I’ll count to three!” utters the stern, anxious voice. “One!”
Sandugach smells of healthy sweat, hay, the shed, and milk – of home. She exhales joyfully as she nestles against her mistress and the warm dampness of her delicate nostrils settles on Zuleikha’s cheek. Zuleikha sticks her hand in her pocket and removes the poisoned sugar. The large, heavy lump weighs on her palm like a stone. Murtaza used foresight on everything: he’s already headed off to his forefathers, but his thoughts are still directing his loyal wife.
“Two!”
Zuleikha opens her sweaty palm and raises it to Sandugach’s face. The horse nods gratefully and joyfully. The foal jumps out from under her legs. Pushing its mother away and greedily stretching its long neck, it snuffles and smacks its outstretched lips, hurrying to take the treat.
“Three!” The bayonet is driving in, painfully, between her shoulder blades.
Zuleikha clenches her fingers and lowers her hand with the sugar into her pocket. She takes the broken-off chunk of bread from her other pocket and sticks it instead into the trusting outstretched lips of Sandugach and the foal.
Forgive me, Murtaza, for not fulfilling your order. I couldn’t. I disobeyed you for the first time in my life.
Ignatov’s dissatisfied voice is already behind her. “What’s going on? Why the delay?”
Zuleikha takes her bundle from the ground and ducks through the open door.
For a long time, she takes small steps through a bare, ice-coated courtyard, then along a narrow corridor, following an ungainly young soldier who’s striding forward, his soot-blackened kerosene lamp illuminating lumpy stone walls trickling with moisture. Another’s hobnail boots thud behind her. Zuleikha draws her shoulders together from the chill. Even the cold here is particular – it’s frigid, damp, and clinging. Voices carry from behind heavy doors that have tiny windows with crosses in their gratings: Russian, Tatar, Mari, and Chuvash speech; songs, cursing, a child’s crying…
“Could use some water, boss! Need to drink…”
“…I must ask you – no, I demand an attorney! A Soviet court should…”
“I want a woman, commander. Bring that one to me, huh?”
“…I beg you, the telephone number is 2-35. Just say you’re calling on behalf of Pavlusha Semyonych…”
“I’ve remembered! I’ve remembered everything! Send for Investigator Ivashov! And tell him Sidorchuk will sign the confession…”
“…and you will burn in the fires of Gehenna until the end of time…”
“…I’m begging you! Aspirin! The child has a fever…”
“On Deribasovskaya Street they’ve opened a new bar. It’s loud with beer, and there, my dear, is where the jailbirds are…”
“…Let me go, sons of bitches! Bastards! Scum! Ahhhh!”
A door creaks heavily and swings open. The young soldier nods: In here. Zuleikha steps into an inky darkness that breathes with the smell of bodies long unwashed; the cold metal door nudges her forward. A lock clicks outside. She listens to many mouths breathing as she waits for her eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. A dull light trickles from a window with bars and Zuleikha begins to discern silhouettes.
Two tiers of bunks are crowded with people. Others sit on crates, on heaps of old clothes, and on the floor. There are so many people that there’s nowhere to move to. There’s the sound of loud scratching, of snoring, and low voices. A mother whispers a fairytale to her child. In one corner, they’re murmuring, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on us sinners,” while another voice pleads to Allah for refuge from the devil.
Nobody pays attention to Zuleikha. She makes her way inside, trying not to step on anyone’s arms or legs. After reaching the bunks, she stands, not knowing where to settle because there are backs, stomachs, and heads positioned so close together here it’s as if they’re in several layers. Suddenly someone moves aside (it’s impossible to figure out right away if it’s a man or a woman), freeing up a hand-sized part of the bunk. Zuleikha perches, whispering a grateful thank you into the dark. A person turns a face – there are light curls around a high forehead, and a small, sharp nose – and announces protectively:
“I’ll see you’re issued clean linens and a change of footwear.”
Zuleikha nods readily, agreeing. She can hear from the voice that the person is already advanced in years, respectable. Who knows what sort of ways they have here.
“You don’t know where they’re taking us, do you?” she asks deferentially.
“Come to me tomorrow for an initial exam,” the other continues. “On an empty stomach.”
Zuleikha doesn’t know what an initial exam is but she nods again, just in case. There’s an unpleasant nagging in her stomach as she hasn’t eaten since yesterday. She takes the remainder of the bread from her pocket. Her strange neighbor noisily draws air into his nostrils and turns his head, his eyes boring into the bread. Zuleikha breaks the piece in two and extends half. Her neighbor thrusts his share into his mouth in a flash and swallows, almost without chewing.
“Strictly on an empty stomach!” he mumbles menacingly, his fingers holding back crumbs that threaten to fall from his mouth.
And with those remnants of stale bread, the foundations for an unusual friendship are laid. Zuleikha and Volf Karlovich Leibe will become conversation partners, if peculiar ones. In moments when his flickering consciousness flashes, he will occasionally speak, throwing in unconnected medical terms, recalling and clarifying diagnoses of former patients, and asking professional questions that demand no answers. She will listen gratefully, not understanding even the slightest bit of this blend of arcane Russian and Latin words but feeling an important meaning concealed behind them and rejoicing at her interaction with such a learned man. They keep silent most of the time but that silence doesn’t tire either of them.
Zuleikha’s fellow townspeople from Yulbash are soon settled into the cell, too: the mullah’s wife with the ever-present cat cage in her lap and the morose, black-bearded peasant with his numerous descendants. Convicts from Voronezh who worm their way in with the exiles take away the cat a week later and eat it, and one of the prison officials appropriates the karakul fur coat, forcing the mullah’s wife to affix her signature on a corresponding protocol regarding the surrender of property. She hardly notices the loss: she sobs for days on end, maybe about her husband, maybe about her cat.