Hammer and Sickle, Part I by Andrew McLarney
They came during the night. They always do. The NKVD knows that a bewildered man awoken and scrambling to clothe himself is not in the right frame of mind to defend himself or his family, nor to rationalise any kind of defence for his supposed crimes. Accused equals guilty, and to protest such a verdict is futility. This is how our Great Leader has been able to cleanse our society of all deviants and wrongful thinkers in recent years. At first, however, one does not realise that oneself is in fact going to be counted amongst them.
My father was a writer for the Tula Red Star, a sports journalist to be precise. His healthy salary and our country home meant we were likely mistaken for Kulaks and incriminated during the Great Purge. It could be supposed, however, that he or a colleague wrote something that was deemed to undermine faith in the authority of the Party. Whatever the case may have been, he was charged under Article 58 and it was settled that our family would be separated and sent to the gulag. I have no idea where he or my mother went, much less my little sister, Anya. God bless her soul. I only pray that none of them were taken to a place any worse than here.
As for myself, I have ended up in Kolyma, for now. At present we are building a railway. Perhaps I should begin dating these notes and keep a timeline of its construction from start to completion. Perhaps a worker’s account might aid the Party in some manner? The only problem is that I haven’t the faintest clue of the present date. All I know is that I left Freedom in 1937 and that I haven’t returned since.
The cell I occupy is said to house six, built to house four, but they have crammed twenty-two of us into it. Try to imagine the stench and the heat of twenty-two sweaty inmates packed into such tight quarters after sixteen hours of back-breaking manual labour. Try to imagine the groans of such men when fed on a mere quarter ounce of bread per day. Picture, if you can, trying to get yourself to sleep in such conditions where no part of your body even touches the ground, but is supported instead by the frail bones and protests of your comrades. That is, after all, who we are.
Men of faith receive little grace here. Just yesterday another priest was taken behind the shed and beaten to death with a wooden mallet only minutes after conducting a ceremony for a dying woman in the camp hospital. “God…” perhaps it is best not to mention your name aloud at all, I even tremble at the very writing of the word.
Oh, Freedom. How I miss it out there in that place! Freedom: the beautiful illusion under which one can live with an element of faith in one’s surroundings. Faith in the Party, in its glorious methods and unquestionable patronage. Out in Freedom, where a man could wander the streets and smoke a cigarette and read the works of our great Pushkin without a trouble. How could one fail to appreciate that such glorious gifts were bestowed upon us by the grace and tireless workings of the infallible Party?
Now, in our cell, as in many others, it is considered poor etiquette to ask such a question as “what are you in here for?” Isn’t it obvious? We are all traitors to the Party! But being unable, even in this place, to tell such a tale, I feel it is best to write it down, so that I have at least for myself a record of the deed. And in the likely event that I should die in the wretched filth of this prison compound, may this testimony serve as my legacy.
Waking up is always the worst part of the day. Being torn from a pleasant dream back into the squalor and putrefaction of the cell. Sometimes you even forget that you have been put in prison, and only upon waking do you remember that your fate (your doom) has been sealed for you by paper-pushing men in uniforms with small hats. The legal documents pertaining to your case can never be viewed, of course, and any ‘updates’ to them usually mean that the situation has been made worse and not better. As the years pass, though, you tend to stop caring about such things.
Picture the following scenario, if you are able: A group of delinquent children approach a man they consider to be especially weak and susceptible to beating. They bludgeon the man senseless with a polearm and rob him of his cigarettes, break his glasses, his nose, his orbital bone and leave him wheezing in the dirt. Less than three minutes later they return and ask the poor bastard for a lighter, and he gives it to them. That is what I witnessed today. Indeed, that is what I experienced… I have learned to become a sort of passive witness to my own actions and body now. Our sort of work will do that to you. Physical pain is the least of our concerns, it is only a reminder that we are still alive. My soul, however, remains intact and out of the reach of any of them, as does my unshaken faith that all is for the best.
Yesterday we had soup for dinner. Soup! I even got a scoop “from the bottom” which is where the peas tend to sink and by far the best privilege afforded to a zek. This combination of oily water and peas is to us a heavenly banquet compared with the repetitious dry bread of past months, which tends to dehydrate the pallet and make work more tiresome. I can hardly recall the taste of foods back out in Freedom anymore, since my tongue has itself come to resemble a cooked piece of bacon. It is best to think of food as nothing more than fuel, I find. Fuel for the next day’s work.
I made a friend named Pyotr today whilst out working in the lumber yard. He told me that a war had broken out with Germany somewhere and that his detachment had been caught off guard on the frontlines. For this failure, his entire squad was sentenced to the gulags. Is this the way Mother Russia treats her own children? He was a pleasant enough chap. We talked about St Petersberg, even though neither of us have ever been. He has a four-year-old daughter waiting for him at home. I did not ask him when he had last seen her.
Escape! Revolution! There are whispers of it in the bunks! It turns out there is maintenance being done on the barracks over the coming weeks, and some of the zeks have decided it is the perfect time to strike. Surely they aren’t actually going to go through with it? To undermine the authority of our superiors? Even a child knows not to dare. The idea of a total breakdown of order worries me. How many will be caught in the inevitable crossfire? I’m sure I’ll know when the time comes which side to commit to.
Words by Andrew McLarney