The sharp, strong smell of male urine assaults his nose when he comes to the doors at the stern. That smell hovers everywhere on the barge, surrounding it like a cloud, but is especially acrid and cutting here, by the doors: it comes from the hold. It blends many generations of political and criminal prisoners. It’s a sort of final memory of them, a monument not made by human hands. Many of these people no longer exist: they’ve perished, but their smell remains.
There are two watchmen, not just one, by the doors at the stern. The opening of the square doorway is covered from the inside by a strong wrought-iron grate: the fat rods are sunk into the walls and hold the grate right up against them – it can’t be loosened or knocked out. On the outside are metal doors closed with a wide bolt the thickness of a hand. Thought out practically. You could keep bears here, to say nothing of people weakened from long months of travel.
“And this, why isn’t it locked?” Ignatov notices a half-open padlock in the bolt of one door.
“There was no order,” a watchmen exhausted from the heat lazily answers. “They say it doesn’t open well, needs to be repaired.”
Utter sloppiness. Ignatov takes the lock in his hands. The key’s sticking out of the keyhole and he turns it in one direction, then the other; the key clicks obediently when it turns. He hangs the lock on the door and closes it. Now everything’s in good order and a mouse couldn’t slip through. He pockets the key.
The people in the hold come to life and pound their fists when they hear voices.
“Chief!” carries, muffled, from behind the doors or maybe from under the boards of the deck. “Chief, we’re roasting!”
“There’s nothing to breathe!”
“If you opened the doors, we could at least take a little breath!”
“We’re already baked!”
Ignatov pulls at the collar of his uniform tunic. It truly is hot; it makes you want to dive right into the Yenisei.
“Don’t open the doors,” he tells the watchmen. “But you can open the little windows.”
A small row of low, tightly closed ventilation hatches stretches the length of the deck. The watchman kicks the little doors with the toe of his boot and they open, one after another. Sighs, sobs, and curses carry from the hatches.
“Were they given water?”
“There was no order,” the watchman shrugs.
“Water every hour.”
The last thing he needs is for someone to die of thirst on the final day.
Ignatov can now be more attentive as he gets his bearings. He continues his rounds. Towering over the deck are two squat wooden crew quarters held down by a flat roof. There are guards inside the quarters; provisions are kept there. On the roof is equipment, a couple of upside-down boats, and coils of rope. A few watchmen are wandering on the roof – their deep-blue shadows sway on the waves along the side of the barge and the merciless creak of boards is audible overhead. Everything creaks here: the deck (the boards gape with crevices that move underfoot as if they’re alive), the walls of the crew quarters (which have been eaten away by beetles, to dust in some places, and blackened from rot in others), and dried-out gangways. A low hum comes from railings, red from thin, rusty scabs on paint that was once white. It’s scary to lean against those. They leave a thick, dark red mark on your hand if you touch them.
“My grandfather sailed on this one,” says a barefoot sailor as he runs ahead of Ignatov.
“Your grandfather, well, that makes sense,” says Ignatov, shaking his head.
The closer to the engine room, the stronger the vibration under their feet. The engine room’s crooked door is wide open and the machinery inside lets out a monotonous metallic clanging and a blaze of heat. Somewhere below, in darkness that breathes out jets of flame, two blackened stokers are singing, their white eyeballs and bared teeth flashing angrily. “The sea stretches so wide…”
The motor is loud but it’s also strained and uneven, as though short of breath.
“Do you have a mechanic here?” Ignatov calls to the barefoot sailor.
“No need.” The sailor smiles. “My grandfather told me the Clara has a mind of her own. No mechanic can convince her if she stops.”
Well, there you go. That’s that, then. Quite the tub.
When Ignatov hears that the pregnant peasant woman in the hold has taken a turn for the worse, he allows her to be brought up on deck. He comes over and has a look as one of the guards leads Zuleikha, yellowish and pale, into fresh air and sits her down in the shadow of the crew quarters. Her face has narrowed over the months. It seems as if her eyebrows and lashes have thickened and darkened, and her eyes are rimmed with thick blue paint. These eyes are all that’s left on her face.
But what do you know – she survived. The fat redheaded battleaxe from car number six with the big scarlet birthmark on her cheek died way back at Shchuchye Lake, unable to sustain life force even with her solid body. The mullah’s stout wife, the cat lover, didn’t withstand the journey, either, and departed near Vagai. But this one’s alive. Not only that, she’s carrying a child. What is her soul holding onto?
Why hadn’t he left her with the investigator back in Pyshma? Ignatov couldn’t answer that question for himself. Most likely for the same reason he’d scuttled down the back stairs to avoid the unfamiliar official left in charge at Bakiev’s office. His heart had faltered and raced ahead of his brain so he’d gone and done something stupid. If he’d cooled off and thought things through… well, it wouldn’t have resulted in him running or removing that woman from the investigation. What did she have to do with him, anyway? That’s right, nothing. Ignatov couldn’t even recall her husband’s face, no matter how he tried. He got angry at himself every time – why torment himself? Life isn’t long enough to recall all the peasant men who’ve come at him with axes and pitchforks. An entire division of them have already taken up residence in his head as it is. The folder is called “Case K-2437” and it contains several hundred souls. Damn, he’d like to toss all those faces out of his memory but it doesn’t happen. Fine, he’ll take them to the Angara, hand them over to Kuznets, and basta, the end. They’ll be forgotten; with time they’ll definitely be forgotten.
“Stand watch over her, comrade Ignatov?” The guard nods at Zuleikha. Her belly’s a mountain in front of her and she’s holding it with both hands, arranging herself more comfortably, breathing heavily.
Ignatov waves a hand, letting the guard go. Where’s someone like her going? He suddenly remembers carrying her in his arms, how light and slender she was, as if she weren’t a woman but a girl. Nastasya’s another matter, with a body that’s fleshy, supple, and rolls around in your hands, undulating, so you want to squeeze, knead, and smooth it. Ilona’s body is different, too; it’s soft, languid, and pliant, but a woman’s body all the same. This one’s just air, though. And why, he might ask, was he so scared he sent for a doctor during the night? It’s clear why: he was afraid she’d breathe her last, that’s why. He felt sorry for her.