“They have made it difficult for me to keep an eye on you,” continued Savushkin, “but not impossible. You might not see me, but I will try to be there when you need my help.”
Before Pekkala could thank Savushkin, the next man in line took his place.
When he had finished handing out the rations, Pekkala, who had not yet been given any food for himself, swiped his wetted thumb around the inside of the large aluminum bowl which had contained the bread. Dabbing up the crumbs, he popped them in his mouth and crunched the brittle flakes.
Although this yielded barely a mouthful, Pekkala knew that from now on he would have to take food wherever he could find it.
He already knew the grim equation of the quota system at these camps. If a man completed his daily workload, he would receive one hundred percent of his food ration. But if he failed to meet this quota, he received only half of his food. The following day, he would be too weak to carry out his tasks, and so his ration would be short again. Inevitably, the man would starve to death. The only sure means of survival was to break the rules and avoid getting caught. Prisoners referred to this as “walking like a cat.”
After the rations had been distributed, Pekkala sat down with Melekov at the little table in the corner to eat their own breakfasts. Pekkala was permitted to take a single
While Pekkala ate, he paused to watch an old man dragging a sledgehammer out across the camp. The man came to the edge of a sheet of ice which had formed in the yard. He raised the hammer and brought it smashing down, slowly breaking up the ice.
Two guards approached the old man. Laughing, they bowed to him and crossed themselves. Pekkala recognized the taller of the two guards as the man he had seen in Klenovkin’s office, the same one who had shot the prisoner dead when they first arrived at the railhead.
“That big one is Sergeant Gramotin,” explained Melekov. “During the Revolution, he was involved in battles against the Whites and the Czech Legion up and down the Trans-Siberian Railroad. People say he lost his sanity somewhere out there on those tracks. That’s another person you should do your best to avoid.” As he spoke, Melekov wolfed down his breakfast, his face only a handsbreadth above the wooden bowl. “Most of the guards in this camp are sadists and even they think Gramotin is cruel. Lately, he’s been worse than I’ve ever seen before, on account of the fact that six prisoners escaped from the camp last month. Some of them were found by the Ostyaks-”
“Dead?”
“Of course they were dead! And lucky for the convicts that they froze to death before the Ostyaks found them. But a few of those prisoners are still missing and Gramotin will take the blame if they can’t be accounted for.”
“Do you think they got away?”
“No,” growled Melekov. “They’re lying out there somewhere in the valley, frozen solid as those statues in the compound.”
“If they’re dead, then what is Gramotin worried about?”
“Dalstroy wants those bodies. They make good money selling corpses, provided the wolves or the Ostyaks haven’t eaten too much of them by the time they get back to camp.”
“Who’s the other guard?” asked Pekkala.
“His name is Platov. He’s Gramotin’s puppet. He does whatever Gramotin does. Gramotin doesn’t even have to prompt him. If Gramotin whistles the first notes of a song, Platov will finish it for him.”
It was true. When Gramotin bowed, Platov immediately did the same. When Gramotin laughed, Platov’s laughter was only a second behind.
“And the old man they are tormenting?”
“That is Sedov, another Comitati. But you don’t have to worry about him. He won’t cause you any trouble. They call Sedov the Old Believer because, even though religion has been banned in the camps, he refuses to give up his faith.”
First Gramotin, and then Platov, unshouldered their Mosin-Nagant rifles and began to prod the convict with fixed bayonets.
“Dance for us!” shouted Gramotin.
“Dance! Dance!” echoed Platov.
“Dancing is a sin in the eyes of God!” Sedov shouted at them. “Didn’t anyone tell you?” shouted Gramotin. “God has been abolished!”
Platov cackled, jabbing Sedov so violently that if the man had not stepped backwards, the bayonet would have run him through.
“You may have abolished God,” retorted Sedov, “but one day He will abolish you as well.”
Melekov shook his head, a look of pity on his face. “Sedov has forgotten the difference between this life and the next one. Gramotin will kill him one of these days, just like he killed Captain Ryabov, that man we’ve got lying in the freezer.”
“Gramotin killed Ryabov?”
“Sure!” Melekov said confidently. “Ryabov thought it was his job to look after the other Comitati, since he was the highest-ranking officer among them, but it proved to be a hopeless task. One after the other, most of them died. There was nothing he could do. That’s just the way things are in these camps. People say it pushed Ryabov over the edge, not being able to save them. The rumor is that he finally just snapped.”
“And did what?”
“He went up against Gramotin one too many times. That’s how you end up in the freezer, while Klenovkin tries to figure out whether anyone will buy a body whose head is practically cut off.”
Swathed in the hand-me-down clothes of a dead prisoner, and with a beard quickly darkening his cheeks, Pekkala had become invisible among the similarly filthy inhabitants of Borodok.
But he knew this couldn’t last. If he was to solve the murder of Ryabov, he would have to learn, from the Comitati themselves, everything they knew about the killing. Pekkala’s only chance was to win their confidence. But he would have to move carefully. If the Comitati learned of his true purpose, or even if they became suspicious, he would never leave Borodok alive.
While he waited for the right moment to break cover, Pekkala studied them from a distance.
Lavrenov was a tall, thin man with feverishly glowing eyes and cheeks hollowed out by years of Gulag life. “That one deals in everything,” Melekov told Pekkala. “From tobacco, to razor blades, to matchsticks, Lavrenov can get his hands on whatever you want, as long as you can pay for it. And, somehow, he can still keep out of trouble.”
Sedov, the Old Believer, could not. He was small, wiry, and muscular, with the scars and crumpled cheekbones of a man who had been beaten many times. Most prisoners kept their hair short, as a precaution against lice, but Sedov’s was long and plaited with dirt, as was his unkempt beard. A broken, slightly upturned nose and twisted lips had given him a permanent expression of bemusement, as if recalling some private joke. This, in combination with a stubborn, almost suicidal refusal to conceal his religious faith, made him a perfect target for Gramotin. Daily, the sergeant sent the old man skittering across the ice-patched compound, while he taunted the convict, chanting scraps of outlawed prayers.
But the man Pekkala watched most closely was Lieutenant Tarnowski. Now the ranking member of the Comitati, Tarnowski enforced its violent reputation. At those rare times when words alone proved unsuccessful, Tarnowski carried out his threats with a relish that seemed to rival even that of the guards.
On Pekkala’s fifth day at the camp, after the rations had been distributed, he sat down as usual with Melekov at the little table in the corner to eat breakfast.
On the floor beside Melekov’s chair was a battered metal toolbox, which he used to carry out repairs around the camp. Whenever anything mechanical broke down-phones, alarms, clocks-the guards would send for Melekov.
“What is it this time?” Pekkala nodded towards the toolbox.
“Guard tower phones are down again.” As Melekov spoke, he removed a hard-boiled egg from the jumble of pickled beets, cheese, bread, and scraps of cold meat which filled his bowl. Gently, he rolled the egg between his palms, until the shell was mosaicked with cracks. “The batteries that power the ringers keep freezing. I hate going
