Shalamov - A Piece of Flesh

 YES, GOLUBEV had brought this blood-soaked offering. A piece of flesh had been cut out of his body and thrown at the feet of the almighty god of the camps: to appease the god. To appease him, or to deceive him? Life repeats Shakespeare’s plots more often than we think. Are Lady Macbeth, Richard III, King Claudius merely remote medieval figures? Is Shylock, who wanted to cut a pound of live human flesh out of the merchant of Venice, a fairy-tale figure? Of course, the wormlike bit of gut, an appendix, a rudimentary organ, weighs less than a pound. Of course, the blood-soaked offering was made under fully sterile conditions. Yet, all the same. . . . The rudimentary organ turned out to be not at all rudimentary. It was vital, active, and lifesaving.

The end of the year fills prisoners’ lives with anxiety. Anxiety besets everyone whose place is insecure (and what prisoner could be sure that he was secure), especially if they are convicted under article 58, once they have managed, after many years’ labor at the pit face, hungry and frozen, to win the illusory, uncertain good fortune of a few months, a few weeks working either in a job they were trained for or at some cozy idiot’s job—as a bookkeeper, a paramedic, a doctor, a laboratory assistant—everyone who’s won the fight for a job that is supposed to go to a free hired worker (except when there are no such workers available) or to a nonpolitical convict (and ordinary convicts look down on these “privileged” jobs, because they can always get one, and for that reason they spend their time getting drunk or worse).

Fifty-eighters can get permanent staff jobs, and they do them well. Very well indeed. And without hope. For a commission is bound to come, find them, and get them dismissed, and, what’s more, give their boss a reprimand. No boss wants to spoil his relations with this powerful commission, so he acts in advance by getting rid of anyone who is not entitled to work at these “privileged” jobs.

A good boss waits until the commission has arrived. Let the commission do the hard work of deciding whom they can dismiss and send away. Those who are sent away won’t be away for long, and those who aren’t dismissed will stay for some time, for a year, until the next December. At the very least, six months. If the boss himself does the dismissing, without waiting for the commission to arrive so he can report that everything is in order, he’ll do it worse and more stupidly.

The worst sort of boss, the least experienced, will conscientiously carry out his superiors’ orders and not allow anyone with article 58 to do any job that doesn’t involve pickax and wheelbarrow, saw and ax.

That sort of boss presides over the worst-run enterprises, and they are the ones who get dismissed quickly.

The flying visits by commissions always happen toward the end of the year. The top bosses have their own backlog of checks and control, and they therefore make an effort to catch up on the backlog by the end of the year. So they send out commissions. Sometimes they make personal visits. In person. That means they get travel expenses and their “hot spots” have not been left personally unsupervised. They can tick the boxes for fulfilling their duty, and they can simply relax, have a nice trip, or if they like, show what they’re made of, display their strength and their importance.

Both prisoners and their bosses, from the lowest to the highest rank with big stars on their epaulets, know all this. It’s an old game, a very familiar ritual. But it is still worrying, dangerous, and relentless.

A December flying visit can reverse the fate of many and quickly drive yesterday’s children of fortune to an early grave.

After such visits nobody in the camp ever experiences any changes for the better. Prisoners, especially if they come under article 58, expect only the worst from such visits. For them there were no good expectations.

Ever since the previous evening there had been rumors, camp “grapevine” whispers, the kind that always turn out to be true. People said some important bosses had come, with a whole truckload of armed soldiers and a prison bus, a Black Maria, to take their captives to a hard-labor camp. Faced with those masters of life and death, the local bosses went into a panic; even the senior figures began to seem juniors, unknown captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels. Lieutenant colonels were hiding deep in their offices. Captains and majors were running around the courtyard holding various lists, lists that probably contained surnames, and among those surnames Golubev’s was sure to be found. Golubev felt this, he knew it. But nothing had been announced and nobody had been summoned. Not one name in the zone had been listed yet.

About six months earlier, when a Black Maria had made its regular visit to the settlement and there had been another manhunt, Golubev, who was not on the lists then, was standing by the guardhouse next to a prisoner-surgeon. The surgeon was working in the hospital not just as a surgeon but as a general physician.

The new group of prisoners who had been caught, hunted down, or exposed were pushed into the Black Maria. The surgeon took his leave of a friend who was being sent away.

Golubev was then standing next to the surgeon. When the truck crawled off, raising a cloud of dust, and disappeared in the mountain ravine, the surgeon looked Golubev in the eyes and said, referring to his friend who had now gone to a certain death, “It’s his own fault. If he’d had an attack of acute appendicitis, he’d still be here.”

Golubev had committed those words to memory. It wasn’t the thought or the reasoning he remembered. It was a visual memory: the surgeon’s eyes, the mighty clouds of dust. . . .

“The clerk of works is looking for you,” said someone who had just run up to him. Golubev saw the clerk of works.

“Get your things!” The clerk was holding a paper list. It was a short one.

“Right away,” said Golubev.

“Then come to the guardhouse.”

But Golubev did not go to the guardhouse. He clutched the right side of his belly with both hands and groaned as he staggered in the direction of the clinic.

The surgeon came out onto the porch: it was the same surgeon. Something was reflected in his eyes, something he remembered. Perhaps it was the dust cloud that covered the truck that was taking his friend away forever. The examination was quick.

“Admit him. And call out the theater nurse. Call a doctor from the free village to assist. It’s an urgent operation.”

In the hospital, about two kilometers from the zone, Golubev was undressed, washed, and registered.

Two male nurses took him in and laid him on the operating table. They tied him to the table with canvas straps.

“The injection’s coming,” Golubev heard the surgeon say. “But I think you’re brave enough.”

Golubev said nothing.

“Answer! Nurse, talk to the patient.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“It’s always like that with local anesthesia.” Golubev heard the surgeon’s voice explaining something to the assistant. “It’s all talk, it doesn’t really work. Here it is. . . .”

“Hang in there just a bit longer. . . .”

A sharp pain made Golubev’s whole body jerk, but the pain stopped being acute almost immediately. The surgeons started talking, interrupting each other cheerfully and loudly. The operation was coming to an end.

“Well, we’ve removed your appendix. Nurse, show the patient his bit of flesh. Can you see it?” The nurse held a snakelike piece of gut, about half as long as a pencil, over Golubev’s face.

“We have instructions to show patients that there was a good reason for an incision, that the appendix really has been removed,” the surgeon explained to his assistant, who was a free worker. “Well, this gives you a little bit of practical experience.”

“I’m very grateful to you,” said the free doctor, “for the lesson.”

“For a lesson in human kindness, a lesson in philanthropy,” said the surgeon, speaking in metaphors as he took off his gloves.

“If you get anything else like this, be sure to call me in,” said the free doctor.

“If we get anything else like this, I certainly shall,” said the surgeon.

The male nurses, convalescent patients wearing patched white gowns, carried Golubev into the hospital ward. It was a small, postoperative ward, but there weren’t many operations in the hospital and none of the patients there were surgical ones. Golubev lay on his back, cautiously touching the bandage wrapped around him, like an Indian fakir’s or yogi’s loincloth. When he was a child, Golubev had seen drawings of such people in magazines; for almost the whole of his adult life he hadn’t known whether those fakirs and yogis really existed or not. But the thought of yogis slipped past and disappeared from his brain. The efforts of his will and his nervous tension weakened, and a pleasant feeling of having done his duty flooded his body. Every cell of that body was singing, purring a happy tune. This meant a break for a few days, a reprieve from being sent into the unknown realm of hard manual labor. For the time being Golubev was saved. This was a postponement. How many days did a wound take to heal? Seven or eight. So danger would return in a fortnight. Two weeks is a very long time, as good as a thousand years, long enough to prepare oneself for new ordeals. And in any case the time it takes for a wound to heal according to the textbooks, and for healing by primary intention, is seven or eight days, so the doctors said. And if the wound gets infected? If the plaster stuck over the wound should come off the skin too early? Golubev cautiously felt the plaster: it was a piece of gauze impregnated with gum arabic, and it was firm, already drying. He felt it through the bandaging. Yes. . . . This was an emergency exit, a reserve, a few extra days, possibly months if need be. Golubev recalled the big ward at the mine where he had been a patient a year ago. Almost all the patients there would undo their bandages at night and put in a bit of salutary dirt, real dirt picked off the floor, which they would rub in with their fingernails and thus reopen the wounds. Golubev was then a novice and these nighttime changes of dressing used to arouse his amazement to the point of contempt. But a year had passed and Golubev now understood why the patients had acted as they did. It was time for him to profit from what he had learned there. He fell asleep and woke only when somebody’s hand pulled the blanket off his face. Golubev always slept as camp prisoners did, with his head under the blanket, trying above all to get warm and to protect his head. Someone’s very handsome face was bending over Golubev. The face had a mustache and a haircut, which was either short on the back and sides or a crew cut. That meant the head was not a prisoner’s head. Golubev opened his eyes and thought it must be the memory of the yogis or a dream, perhaps a nightmare, but perhaps just an ordinary dream.

“Just an ordinary freier,” the man rasped in disappointment, putting the blanket back over Golubev’s face. “An ordinary freier. No proper people about.”

But Golubev’s feeble fingers pulled his blanket down so that he could look at the man. That man knew Golubev, and Golubev knew him. There was no doubt about it. But he must not, must not be in any hurry to show he recognized him. He had to remember things properly. Remember everything. Golubev did remember. The crew-cut man was. . . . Any moment now the man would be taking off his shirt by the window and Golubev would see a cluster of intertwined snakes tattooed on his chest. The man turned around and the cluster of intertwined snakes appeared before Golubev’s eyes. This was Kononenko, a gangster with whom Golubev had been in a transit camp a few months ago, a man who had served several sentences for murder, a prominent gangster who had been “taking a break” for several years in hospitals and pretrial prisons. Whenever the time came for him to be discharged, Kononenko would murder someone in a transit camp: he didn’t care who, any freier would do, and he would suffocate them with a towel. A towel, a prison-issue towel was Kononenko’s favorite murder weapon, it was his calling card. He would be arrested, a new case would be opened, he would be tried again and get an extra twenty-five years to add to the many hundreds of years he already had to serve. After the trial Kononenko would do his best to get into the hospital “for a rest,” then he would murder again, and the whole process would start anew. At the time execution of common criminals by shooting had been abolished. The only people who could be executed were “enemies of the people” under article 58.

“Kononenko’s in the hospital now,” Golubev reflected calmly, every cell of his body singing for joy, afraid of nothing, confident of success. “Kononenko is in the hospital now. He’s going through the hospital cycle of his horrible transformations. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow, Kononenko’s well-known program will require yet another murder.” Would that not make Golubev’s efforts—his operation, his terrible effort of willpower—count for nothing? He, Golubev, would be the next victim whom Kononenko would strangle. Perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to get out of being sent to hard-labor camps, where prisoners had the “ace of diamonds,” a five-digit number, stitched to their backs and were issued striped uniforms. But at least you didn’t get beaten there and they didn’t strip the flesh off your bones. And there weren’t all those Kononenkos there.

Golubev’s bunk was by the window. Kononenko was lying opposite him. By the door, a third man lay, his feet close to Kononenko’s feet. Golubev could see the third man’s face clearly, he didn’t even have to turn his head to see that face. Golubev knew that patient, too. It was Podosionov, a permanent inhabitant of the hospital.

The door opened and a paramedic brought the medicines in.

“Kazakov!” he shouted.

“Here,” yelled Kononenko, getting up.

“Something for you to read,” said the paramedic, handing a piece of paper folded over several times.

“Kazakov?” the name wouldn’t stop pounding inside Golubev’s brain. But this was Kononenko, not Kazakov. Suddenly Golubev realized what was going on, and his body broke out in a cold sweat.

Everything had taken a turn for the worse. None of the three men was mistaken. This was Kononenko, a “cold fish” as the criminals called him, who had taken somebody else’s name and under that name, Kazakov’s name, along with Kazakov’s criminal record, had gotten himself admitted to the hospital as a “shift worker.” This made things even worse, even more dangerous. If Kononenko was just Kononenko, his next victim might be Golubev or it might not. In that case there would still be a choice, a chance, a possibility of salvation. But if Kononenko was Kazakov, then Golubev had no hope of survival. The moment Kononenko suspected anything, Golubev would die.

“You, have we met before? Why are you looking at me like a boa constrictor looking at a rabbit? Or a rabbit looking at a boa constrictor? Which is the right expression, in your learned opinion?”

Kononenko was sitting on a bedside table in front of Golubev’s bunk; he was crumpling up his message with his big, hard fingers, scattering crumbs of paper over Golubev’s blanket.

“No, we haven’t met,” said Golubev hoarsely. He was turning pale.

“Well, it’s a good thing we haven’t,” said Kononenko, taking a towel off a nail that was hammered into the wall over the bunk, and shaking the towel in Golubev’s face. “Only yesterday I was going to strangle that ‘doctor’ over there,” he said, nodding in the direction of Podosionov, whose face now expressed boundless horror. “After all, what is the bastard doing?” Kononenko went on cheerfully, pointing the towel at Podosionov. “He’s mixing his own blood into his urine—look at the jar under his bunk. . . . He scratches his finger and puts a drop of blood in his urine. He knows what he’s doing. He’s as good as the doctors. The laboratory analysis results: blood in his urine. Our ‘doctor’ stays in the hospital. Well, tell me, does a man like that deserve to live or not?”

“I don’t know,” said Golubev.

“You don’t? You do. And then you were brought in yesterday. You were in transit camp with me, weren’t you? Before I was tried. I went under the name of Kononenko at the time.”

“I’ve never seen your face before,” said Golubev.

“You have. So I’ve decided. Instead of the ‘doctor,’ I’ll finish you off. What has he done wrong?” Kononenko pointed to Podosionov’s pale face, which was very slowly turning red as the blood began to circulate again. “What has he done wrong? He’s trying to save his life. Like you. Or, if you like, me. . . .”

Kononenko paced the ward, tossing the crumbs of paper, all that was left of the message he’d received, from one hand to the other.

“And I would do you, I’d send you to the next world, and I wouldn’t hesitate. Except the paramedic’s just brought me a message, you see. I’ve got to get out of here as quick as I can. The bastards at the mine are trying to kill us. All the thieves in the hospital have been called on to help. You don’t know what our life is like. . . . You stupid freier!”

Golubev said nothing. He did know what their life was like. As a freier, of course, by observation only.

After dinner Kononenko was discharged and he was out of Golubev’s life forever.

While the third bunk was still empty, Podosionov managed to get himself to the edge of Golubev’s bunk, where he sat at Golubev’s feet and started whispering.

“Kazakov is going to strangle both of us, no doubt about it. We’ve got to tell the bosses—”

“Go fuck yourself,” said Golubev.

1964

KOLYMA STORIES

Volume One