“And so, food…” utters Ignatov forebodingly, walking right up to the stooped man, whose trembling nostrils instantly turn ashen. “Be thankful that you haven’t been shot! That the Soviet authorities continue thinking about you, taking care of you! That you’ll go in heated railroad cars with your loved ones!”
“Thank you,” the frightened man babbles to the green patches on Ignatov’s chest. “Thank you.”
“You’re going there to be liberated from the fetters of the old world, toward new freedom, one might say!” Ignatov continues thundering, striding along the ragged line of people, whose heads are shrinking into their shoulders. “And all you’re thinking about is how to stuff your belly! You’ll have… hazel grouse in champagne sauce and chocolate-covered fruit!”
He waves abruptly to the escort guard by the railroad car: Let’s go! The other guard draws open the door, which squeals as it slides to the side so the car reveals its rectangular black maw.
“Welcome to the Grand Hotel!” smirks the guard.
“With the greatest pleasure, citizen chief!” A nimble little man with dog-like mannerisms and a persistent gaze is the first to leap up into the railroad car, throwing a foot full force into the high opening – and revealing the fraying edges of his baggy trousers – and then disappearing inside.
A dangerous person, from prison, guesses Zuleikha. You need to stay far away from him.
And now it’s the exiles elbowing one another as they climb into the carriage to find places. The peasant men grunt, take a bounding run-up, and their feet push off, springing up. The peasant women groan, lifting their felt boots into masses of skirts, somehow clambering up, and pulling small, squealing children after them.
“And what about those who aren’t able to do this like monkeys? Will you carry them in your arms?” a calm voice asks amid the clamor.
It’s a stately lady with a high hairdo – a twisted tower of half-gray hair – and that bright-green hat with the veil. She’s standing with her mighty arms raised, as if she’s inviting someone to take her in their arms. A woman like that can’t be lifted, decides Zuleikha. She’s too heavy.
Ignatov stares right at the lady, who doesn’t avert her gaze and just lifts a thin eyebrow: And so? The old man with the cracked pince-nez tugs at her shoulder, frightened, but she obstinately brushes off his hand. Ignatov motions with his chin and a guard drags a thick board out of the clamps on the railroad car door and places it like a gangway from the railroad car to the ground. The lady heads into the car, graciously nodding her hat in Ignatov’s direction. Her large feet in laced shoes tread decisively and relentlessly; the board bends and shakes.
“Votre Grand Hôtel m’impressionne, mon ami,” she tells the guard, and he freezes, bewildered at hearing unfamiliar speech.
Zuleikha cautiously follows, carrying the bundle of her things in one arm and a sleeping child in the other. And how could this be, Allah, to contradict a man, a military man at that, and the chief at that. An old woman but brave. Or maybe she’s brave because she’s old? But going up on the board truly is easier.
The door squeals as it slides along its runners behind her. It’s dark again, like in the cell. The heavy clang of one bolt, then a second. And that’s it: one heated cattle car, numbered KO 310048 – freight capacity twenty tons, designed for up to forty humans or ten horses – is fully loaded with fifty-two deportees and ready for departure. Exceeding the planned load by twelve heads can be considered insignificant because, as the head of the transport hub in Kazan wisely noted that morning, soon they’ll be going with ninety per car, standing like horses.
By the time Zuleikha has helped the unfortunate peasant and his wife, who’s numb from grief, to settle in by putting the bundles with the infants to bed on the bunks as comfortably as possible – she was very sorry to tear herself away from that warm parcel, with its sweet baby smell – and found space for the restless older children, all the places have been taken and there’s no squeezing in because everyone’s packed the two-tiered bunks so closely. As before, Leibe helps out. He leans over from somewhere and pulls her up toward the ceiling by the hand, into the thick darkness of the second tier.
“I must ask you to observe your assigned place in the ward,” he grumbles.
Zuleikha gratefully agrees as she feels her way to squeeze in between the professor and a wall that’s cold as a rock. She bows her head slightly so she doesn’t hit it on the frost-covered ceiling. She pulls the shawl from her head and lays it between her leg and Leibe’s bony hip; it’s sinful to sit so close to an unrelated man. It’s even shameful for the forefathers three generations away, as her mother would have reproachfully said. Yes, Mama, I know. But your rules were only good for the old life. And we have – what was it Ignatov said? – a new life. Oh, what a life we have now.
The prison man with dog-like mannerisms pulls out a match that’s hidden deep in an inconspicuous crevice in the wall. He strikes it on the sole of his shoe and bends over a pot-bellied iron stove. It clatters with coal and then there’s a hot fire in it, crackling, flaring up, and flooding the car with a warm, quivering light.
Zuleikha looks around and sees plank walls, plank floor, and plank ceiling. In the center of the car – like a warm heart – is the crooked little stove, part of it rusted in patterns. Along the sides are bunks darkened with time and worn to a dull brownish shine by hundreds of arms and legs.
“Why so glum, you lot?” rasps the prison man, flashing his big, gray teeth. “Take it easy, I’ll be your minder. I won’t let anyone harm you: I’m an honest vagabond. Everybody knows Gorelov.”
Gorelov’s hair is long and shaggy, like a woman’s. Heavy, greasy locks keep falling over his face, turning his gaze wild and brutish. He walks along the bunks with a loose gait that’s almost like a dance, and he peers into gloomy faces.
“It’d be curtains for you without a minder here, my dear people. It’s a long way to ride.” And then he’s singing loudly, drawing out syllables: “Hush dogs, there’s no jumping trains! The screws will beat you for our pains…”
“How would you know, anyway?” The stooped drunk with the sorrowful eyes (“Ikonnikov, Ilya Petrovich, artist,” as he would later introduce himself to his neighbors) has sat down next to the little cast-iron stove, which is already white-hot, to warm his cold hands. “Maybe they’ll give us a lift as far as the Urals and throw us off.”
Gorelov walks up to the little stove. He tosses an assessing glance at Ikonnikov’s hunched figure, wearing a coat like a sack and scarf around his neck like a noose. Gorelov takes off a dirty shoe that’s falling apart at the seams and extends it: Hold this. He unwinds his foot wrap for a long time then finally takes out a cigarette butt hidden between his toes. He places it in his mouth, lovingly twists the foot wrap back on, and puts on his shoe. He lights the cigarette butt from the stove and exhales smoke in Ikonnikov’s face.
“How I know,” he says, continuing the conversation as if nothing happened, “is that I’m an old hand. I’ve done two hitches, pal. I’ve done Sakhalin time and been pounded into Solovki grime.”
Ikonnikov coughs and turns away from the smoke. Gorelov stands and scowls threateningly all around the silenced railroad car, challenging anyone to doubt him.