'I k n o w… I used to go fast when I was first at Perm, and my gut punished me. Slow yourself, Michael Holly, walk with me.'
'There are many you can walk with.'
He could have bitten at his tongue. Crudeness and arrogance, enough to shame himself. Chernayev turned towards him, little of his face showing. The old zek, the one who took care of himself and who would walk out of Camp 3, Zone 1, when his time came.
'Easy, Michael Holly… you should not forget who you are. You are not one of us, you are from outside us. In the hut we all talk of you, you know that? If a man drinks only an alcohol made from paint or varnish or polish or acetone then he will dream of vodka. If a man talks only with the prisoners of his own world then he will seek out a stranger
… You are important to us. You make a window for us.'
'I will walk with you, Chernayev.'
Holly fell into step with the old thief, clipped his pace.
Holly's shoulder was high above Chernayev's. There was a distant whistle from behind Chernayev's teeth as if he tried to blow away the wind that settled on him.
'The dirt is the hardest, you find that, the filth is the hardest. ..'
'I suppose you learn to live with it,' Holly said distantly.
'I've never learned to. I hate the scum on my body… And this week there will be no showers…'
'Why not?'
'Look with your own eyes.' Chernayev waved his arm towards the centre of the compound. The snow was dirtied there, earth spattered,, and a dark mound was set beside a hole. 'We dug a new water pipe, two summers back, across the middle of the camp. The old pipes were cracked, leaked.
Some bastard cheated, they say there was not enough binding put around the joins, again the pipe leaks. It's the main water supply for the whole camp, for us and for the barracks. They won't keep the barracks short, so we lose the water, we do without.'
'Yes.'
'Where they have dug the hole is a main junction, they say it is the worst place for the leak, where the water is sepa- rated. Some goes to us from the junction, the rest goes to the barracks. The men who work in the hole say it is a pig to work there.'
Holly's eyes flickered.
'Where the hole is, that is the junction between their water and ours?'
'Yes… Imagine working in a pit with the water frozen round you, and you cannot wear gloves. If you wear gloves then the water will freeze on them, freeze them hard, and you cannot work. The supervisor says that they cannot wear gloves.'
'After the place where they have dug the hole, after that all the water flows to the barracks and the administration?'
'Yes… they always cheat on materials for the camp. We earn our wages here. We work in the Factory, good work is done here, and they deduct for our food and our keep. If they used the money that they take from us for the maintenance of the camp we would live like kings. It's exploitation, you agree with me?'
'I agree with you, Chernayev.'
The old thief rambled on and together they completed another circuit of the perimeter path. Holly barely listened.
He thought only of a water pipe, a narrow metal pipe that carried water away from the compound and under the wire and the high wooden fence and on towards the two-storey barracks and the kitchens and dormitories of the guards. A slow smile played at Holly's mouth, and there was a bright happiness in his narrowed eyes.
'And the water is cut off while the men work?'
'What do you say?… The water…? The mains water
…? Of course it is cut off. But the bastards in the barracks have the water tower to supply them. Once a day they flush the water through the pipe so that the water tower is topped, that's why the hole is water filled each morning when the men start work. We have only a water tanker this week, so no showers. They're right bastards who cheated on the materials…'
'If they have the water then they should enjoy it. Holly's head was doubled on his chest, and his words were spoken without sound, and Chernayev talked on from the side of his mouth, oblivious to the loss of his audience.
An old man talking and a younger man who no longer listened.
No man lingered in the latrine wing of the Bath house. Fear of the rats hurried even those with the fluid stomach of embryonic dysentery or gastroenteritis. Some said they had seen the quizzical, grey-whiskered faces staring up at them as they crouched on the two boards above the refuse pit, peering at the nervous men from beside the walls of the cubicles and showing no apprehension. The poison was insufficient to destroy the rat colony Beneath the boards on which the men squatted the matter froze hard and solid Before he cleaned himself with old newspaper, Holly knew the germ of his idea.
The prisoners shambles in an untidy mess towards the open space between Hut 3 and Hut 4. Soon the Commandant would come through the gates and into the compound and the orders would be shouted for them to form their ranks for roll-call and check before the march to the Factory for Holly stood beside a poorly dug hole and he looked down at a T-shaped junction of pipes and saw that the screw-fastened aperture that gave access to the pipe join and its subsidiary were swathed in cloth and knotted around in plastic sheeting. The screw would be adequately protected against the night frost. He believed he would be able to unfasten the screw turn. His eyes roved to the perimeter fences where thelights still shone as if in defiance of the coming day The lights were far away, and at their nearest points the bulk of Hut 3 and Hut 4 would shelter the hole in shadow. A clean ice sheet at the pit of the hole was evidence that the work was not close to completion. At the pace the zeks worked, the hole would not be filled by that evening.
There was a barked shout. Without emotion the prisoners took their places in the appointed line.
He had dressed that morning in his civilian clothes, reckoning that military uniform was unsuitable for the work of the day. He would not attend parade, he would avoid his Commandant. A pleasant enough looking young man was Yuri Rudakov in his slacks and open check shirt and loose grey jacket. His hair was combed and carefully parted, he had shaved with a new blade. On his way to the office he had asked for a thermos of coffee to be sent to him and two mugs and a bowl of sugar and some milk. When they had been brought he ordered that Michael Holly should be escorted to the Administration building from the Factory's furniture production shop. From beyond his rooms and from outside his seldom-washed windows he heard the persistent hammer blows of the carpenters astride the new roof of the Commandant's office.
'Sit down, Holly.'
'Thank you, Captain Rudakov.'
'Some coffee?'
'Thank you.'
'A cigarette?'
'No, thank you.'
'You are well, you are not ill?'
'I am not ill, not by the standards that exist here.'
'You would like sugar with your coffee?'
'No.'
'All the prisoners take sugar.'
'Then I am different.'
'You have settled here?'
'As well as I will ever settle here.'
'The other men in your hut, how do they treat you?'
'I have no problems in the hut.'
Rudakov leaned forward across his table, extracted a cigarette from a Marlboro carton, reached with his fingers for his lighter.
'But it's ridiculous, Holly, ridiculous and stupid.'
