The Secret Speech

girls, or love Leo, that has been the reality of your situation for the past three years. And Raisa, now you must choose.

KOLYMA GULAG 57 SAME DAY

LEO COULD BARELY STAND, let alone dig. Working in a crude system of trenches three meters below the topsoil, his pickaxe pinged uselessly against the permafrost. There were vast smoldering fires, like the funeral pyres of fallen heroes, slow-burning to soften the frozen ground. But Leo was near none of them, deliberately located by the leader of his work brigade in the coldest and most remote corner of the gold mines, in the least-developed trench system where, even had he been at full strength, it would’ve been impossible to fulfill his norm, the mininum amount of rocks he needed to break in order to be fed a standard ration.

Exhausted, his legs quivered, unable to support his weight. Swollen and bubbled, his kneecaps were sunk behind sacs of fluid, swirls of purple and blue. Last night Leo had been forced onto his knees, his hands tied behind his back, his ankles lifted and bound to his wrists so that his entire body weight was supported on his kneecaps. To keep him from falling over he’d been secured to the steps of a bunk. Hour after hour he’d been unable to relieve the pressure: skin stretched tight, bone grinding against wood, sandpapering his skin. At each shift in position he’d cried out and consequently been gagged in order that the prisoners might go to bed. They’d slept while he’d remained on his knees, teeth chomping like a mad horse against the filthy rag, which the prisoners had prepared by rubbing it across their weeping boils. While snores had crisscrossed the barracks one man had remained awake — Lazar. He’d watched over Leo the entire night, removing the gag when he’d needed to vomit, retying it after he’d finished, displaying a paternal dedication: a father tending to a sickly son, a son that needed to be taught a lesson.

At dawn Leo had spluttered back into consciousness as ice-cold water had been poured over his head. Untied, his gag removed, he’d slumped, unable to feel his feet, as though his legs had been amputated below the knees. It had taken several excruciating minutes before he’d been able to stretch them and several minutes more before he’d been able to heave himself up — hobbling — aged a hundred years. His fellow prisoners had allowed him to take breakfast, to sit at a table, to eat his ration, his hands shaking. They wanted him to live. They wanted him to suffer. As a man wandering in a desert might dream of an oasis, Leo’s mind concentrated on the shimmering mirage of Timur. Since it was impossible to make the journey from Magadan at night there was only a narrow window, in the early evening, when his friend, his savior, might arrive.

Arms shaking with fatigue, Leo lifted the pickaxe above his head, only for his legs to give way. Falling forward, his puffy knees slammed into the ground. On impact the fluid sacs burst, popping like ripe adolescent pimples. He opened his mouth, a silent scream, his eyes streaming as he toppled onto his side, taking the pressure off his knees and lying at the bottom of a trench. Exhaustion smothered any sense of self-preservation. For a brief moment, he would’ve been content to shut his eyes and go to sleep. In these temperatures he’d never have woken up.

Remembering Zoya, remembering Raisa and Elena — his family— he sat up, placing his hands on the ground, slowly pushing himself up. He was struggling to his feet when someone grabbed him, hissing in his ear:

— No rest, Chekist!

No rest, no mercy either — that had been Lazar’s verdict. The sentence was being carried out with vigor. The voice in his ear didn’t belong to a guard: it was a fellow prisoner, the leader of his brigade, driven by an intense personal hatred, refusing to allow Leo a single minute where he didn’t experience pain or hunger or exhaustion, or all these things together. Leo hadn’t arrested this man or his family. He didn’t even know the man’s name. That didn’t matter. He’d become a talisman for every prisoner: an ambassador for injustice. Chekist had become his name, his entire identity, and seen in that way, everyone’s hatred was personal.

A bell was rung. Tools were downed. Leo had survived his first day at the mine, a modest ordeal compared to the upcoming night — a second as yet unannounced torture. Dragging his legs up the ramp, limping out of the trench, following the others back, his only source of strength was the prospect of Timur’s arrival.

Approaching the camp, the dim daylight, diffuse among the sunken cloud cover, had almost completely disappeared. Emerging out of the darkness, he saw the headlights of a truck on the plateau. Two fists of yellow light, fireflies in the distance. Were it not for his knees, Leo would have dropped to the ground and wept with relief, prostrate before a merciful deity. Pushed and shoved by the guards, who dared curse him only out of earshot of their reformed, enlightened commander, Leo was herded back inside the zona, his eyes constantly thrown over his shoulder, watching as the truck grew closer. Failing to keep his emotions under control, his lip trembling, he returned to the barracks. No matter what torture they’d planned, he’d be saved. He stood by the window — eyes and nose pressed up against the glass, like an impoverished child outside a sweet shop. The truck entered the camp. A guard stepped down from the truck’s cabin, then the driver. Leo waited, fingernails digging into the window frame. Surely Timur was among their number, perhaps seated in the back. Minutes passed, no one else stepped out. He continued to stare, desperation overwhelming logic, until he finally accepted that no matter how long he watched the truck, there was no one else on board.

Timur hadn’t arrived.

Leo couldn’t eat, his hunger displaced by disappointment so strong it filled his stomach. In the dining barracks he remained at the table long after the other prisoners had left, lingering until the guards angrily ordered him out. Better to be punished by them than by his fellow inmates, better to spend the night in the isolator — the freezing punishment cells — than to go through another torture. After all, weren’t these guards operating under the changed Commander Sinyavksy? Hadn’t he spoken about justice and fairness and opportunity? As the guards pushed him toward the door, in a deliberate act of provocation, Leo lashed out, swinging a punch. He was slow and weak: his fist was caught. A rifle butt smashed into his face.

Dragged by his arms, legs trailing in the snow, Leo wasn’t taken to the isolator. He was dumped in the barracks — left sprawled in the middle of the room. He heard the guards leave. His eyes focused on the timber beams. His nose and lips were wet with blood. Lazar looked down at him.

He was stripped bare and wet towels were wrapped tight around his chest, tied behind his back. They rendered him unable to move, arms pinned by his side. He felt no pain. Although he’d never served as an official interrogator, he had firsthand knowledge of their methods. From time to time he’d been forced to watch. Yet this technique was new to him. He was lifted up and left lying on his back. The prisoners continued with their evening activities. His stomach was cold and wet with the towels. But he was too exhausted to care and, seizing the opportunity, he shut his eyes.

He woke, partly due to the sound of prisoners getting into bed, mostly because of the tension around his chest. Slowly he began to understand the torture. As the towels dried they became tighter, constricting incrementally, steadily crushing his ribs together. The subtle dynamic of the punishment was the knowledge that the pain would only get worse. While the other men readied for bed, Lazar took his regular place on a chair beside Leo. The red-haired man, Lazar’s voice, approached:

— Do you need me?

Lazar shook his head, ushering him to bed. The man glared at Leo like a sulking, jealous lover, before retreating as ordered.

By the time the prisoners were asleep the pain was so intense that had he not been gagged Leo would’ve cried out for mercy. Watching his face slowly contort, as if screws were being tightened, Lazar knelt beside Leo in a gesture of prayer, lowering his mouth to his ear, his bottom lip touching Leo’s lobe as he spoke. His voice was as faint as the shuffle of autumn leaves:

— It is hard… to watch another suffer… no matter what they have done… It changes you… no matter how right you are… to desire revenge…

Lazar paused, recovering from the exertion of these words. His pain had never stopped, he lived with it as a