Kolia (2 page)

When Kolia turned fourteen and found himself being eyed with interest by another zek in the showers, which would have brought back the horror to a survivor of Auschwitz, Iosif added the final rule to the Code of the Zek:

1. If somebody puts his hand on your ass, tell him you're sick. With any luck, he'll leave you alone.
   

By the winter of 1952, Kolia had spent sixteen years in the camp. Nobody knew exactly how long Iosif had been there . . . six, seven, eight years.

THE NEW MAN

IOSIF DISAPPEARED A FEW
months before Stalin's death. In the camp, death was always the logical conclusion. But Kolia, who was in the habit of keeping his thoughts to himself, could not accept the terse official version. It had already been presented to him to explain the disappearance of his mother.

He approached a man he had seen several times in the company of Iosif. The next day, the man handed Kolia a large envelope and asked him to hide it — if he didn't, they could both end up with problems.

“What kind of problems?”

The man didn't answer. He shut his eyes tightly and a frown line formed between his eyebrows. When he opened them again, Kolia understood. He asked where Iosif was, but the man told him to hold his tongue, which was exactly what Kolia did most of the time. He patted Kolia on the shoulder and then walked back towards the administration building.

Stalin died in March 1953. Kruschev would be named First Secretary of the Communist Party in September. Amnesties were granted and Kolia found himself among one of the first groups of liberated prisoners. The
new men
that Stalin had wished to create emerged haggard and haunted. Kolia left the K Mountains at the beginning of autumn. He took with him his threadbare blanket, his louse-infested underwear, a pair of woollen pants that left red blotches on his calves and thighs, one shirt, a padded jacket full of holes, a hat, gloves, and the envelope containing Iosif's papers along with his own. He also took a few rubles he had earned working. He was dropped off in Magadan — it could have been the middle of the jungle.

The coastal town of Magadan had been built almost entirely by convict labour. On the road that stretched between the camp and the town — a road whose innards concealed the bones of prisoners crushed to a fine powder — another man who had received a pardon began to wish aloud about taking the train back to Moscow, his native city.

“My son is twenty-five now; my wife, forty-five. She was beautiful. And she's still beautiful, I'm sure of it — her mother was beautiful at that age.”

Kolia had stuck closely to this man for the entire journey, from the K Mountains to Magadan.

“If I could, I would follow you all the way to Moscow, Alyosha.”

“Well, come with me!” said the man. “Ask for a visa here. My wife makes the best soup. My God, the taste of that soup!”

“But are you sure you have everything you need to return home?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the old man brandishing his papers, “I have everything, everything's in order. As soon as I step foot inside my bedroom, I'm going to close the door, barricade it with a chair, and stuff my head between my wife's breasts! Her name is Anna.”

He flashed a toothless smile at Kolia. He did in fact have one tooth left: a dubious grey molar that the tip of his thick tongue kept seeking out and whose shocking singularity aged him by a good twenty years; according to his documents, he was fifty. Everyone who left the camps returned much older.

After presenting himself to the authorities, Kolia decided to make the journey across Siberia as Alyosha had suggested — by train. This raised some eyebrows and provoked a few belly laughs before he was told that it was impossible. He was given authorization to take up residence in Khabarovsk, where the Amour and Oussouri rivers converge, less than fifty kilometres away from the border with China.

He arrived in Khabarovsk after a voyage that navigated the coasts of both the Okhotsk and Japan seas. When he stepped off the train, he was immediately struck by the symmetry of the architecture, the grey apartment buildings, the contour of the three hills on which the town had been built. One of the banks of the Amour River boasted sandy beaches, but Kolia couldn't imagine baring his body in public to go swimming. The only world he knew was one populated by pine trees and the vegetation native to the K Mountains, the snow, the mountain peaks, the almost lunar horizon, and the long, numbing route which had brought him from the camp to this port town. In Magadan — freezing cold and bundled into himself — he had seen nothing, he had followed the others like an automaton.

Kolia had no idea what it was to live as a free man. A whole new language needed to be learned. He was offered a small pension, which allowed him to rest up for a short time before he was assigned a job. He began to develop a pain in his right hip that would crop up just before a storm. The life of a Soviet citizen offered barely more freedom than the life of a zek.

He still didn't look quite like a man. In fact, it was difficult to determine Kolia's age. He was thin, with thick hair and a boy's beardless face that nonetheless betrayed his time in the camps; it was obvious by looking at him and his papers, and by the stink of his clothes, that he had just arrived. When the caretaker handed him the key to his room, she couldn't look him in the eye; instead she dictated the building rules to his shoulder. Men who had been liberated were reputed to be liars, to distort the truth of life in the camps, and were regarded by most as simply crazy. Kolia knew absolutely nothing about society and its conventions and didn't attach great importance to her apparent mistrust.

During the three months granted to Kolia for his recuperation, the only time he left his room was to buy food. The town scared him; he felt he was being watched everywhere he went. He spoke to no one. By the end of the third month, he had reconciled himself to the life that was being forced upon him: he was to return to work because he was young and clearly more robust than when he had arrived.

Kolia spent his days working on a road maintenance crew. During the winter of 1953/54, he shovelled snow and cleared the streets of his district, chopping through ice until he reached the gravel road beneath. A life of routine was nothing new to him, but his muscles, which he'd never really had before, started developing at an astonishing and painful rate. His arms were suddenly covered in wine-coloured stretch marks. He slept fitfully, longing to hear the sounds of other bodies around him, but the only sounds he brought home were the crunch of the shovel and the ringing of the pickaxe. The deep silence of his room was too much for him. In these moments, he would have preferred living in a hostel, surrounded by the warmth, the smells, and the violence of others. He couldn't bring himself to use the shared toilet; instead he relieved himself in the chamber pot in his room and emptied it every morning before his neighbours rose. There were times when he thought things would be much simpler if he were dead.

Food was more plentiful than it was in the camp, but there wasn't a lot of choice. Kolia didn't cook. For months, he lived off dry bread, boiled cabbage, soup broth, and dried fish. He learned to make tea, which had him pissing like a little boy. And when he ran out of food, a cup of tea would fill his stomach. Slowly his tastes expanded to include strong black tea into which he would drop some cardamom seeds.

Kolia was officially “rehabilitated” in the spring of 1954 and was issued a document which granted him the right to travel anywhere on Russian soil. What he didn't receive was any information regarding either his mother or his real father, whose existence remained unknown to him. Both his Russian nationality and his Soviet citizenship were clearly inscribed on the pages of his de facto passport.

In order to travel to Moscow and reside there, his papers had to be stamped with a
propiska
— a residency permit which allowed authorities to control the migration of the population and keep the big cities free from an influx of recently liberated criminals, as well as the children of dissidents.

Kolia wrote a letter to Iosif's sister, Tanya. The letter would certainly be read by some nameless third party who would most likely censor it. He decided not to take any risks and wrote it in Russian, composing four rough drafts on the flaps of two cardboard boxes. In simple language, he described his pardon, his arrival in Magadan, and his daily life in Khabarovsk. He expressed how much he wanted to see Moscow and his strong desire to move there. He wrote of Iosif's disappearance, but carefully avoided the word
dead
. Without mentioning the source, he quoted a Russian poet he didn't particularly care for, simplifying the passage somewhat and working it into his letter as if the words were his own:
I will cross my motherland, slipping through like the slanted rain of summer
. Perhaps Tanya would understand. He wanted to impress her — if she agreed, the trip could be made that summer. He mailed the letter at the post office and began to count the days.

In his growing impatience, he started to daydream. He attempted to take stock of his country and to measure the scope of his time in it. He had been free for six months. He had lost the only person who had ever really mattered to him; now he clung to the photo of Tanya and the clipped French sentences of her letters.

It was a passport photo taken in Moscow in 1951. On the back, beside the date, was her name:
Tanya Branch
. Kolia had found it in the envelope containing Iosif's documents. For months, he slept with the photograph in his hand as if it were a religious icon. She was the spitting image of her brother, without the wrinkled skin, and with hair that turned to curls at her shoulders. In the chaos of Khabarovsk, he found himself incapable of approaching women, in spite of his intense adolescent desire. He kept the photograph with him always.

Forty-two days later, Kolia found out that Tanya's Russian sentences weren't anywhere as concise as those she wrote in French, but full and graceful, almost sinuous: as if she were clearing a path towards meaning and truth, in order to unearth them.

TOWARDS MOSCOW

IN HIS SUITCASE KOLIA HAD
packed provisions for the trip: four sausages, some smoked herring, and three round loaves of bread, one of which he had cut into slices to dip in his black tea. Apart from that and his papers, not much else. His ticket for Moscow was rolled up tightly and rested between his lips like a cigarette. The day felt summerlike and he instinctively readied himself for the squalls of dust that would leave his teeth coated in grit.

He studied the movement of the passengers on the platform in order to determine how to board the train. His papers were checked first — the only trace of the gulag was his place of birth — and then Kolia faced the
provodnik
who stood in front of the entrance to the car.

“Ticket.”

As he unrolled his ticket, Kolia's knapsack dropped to the ground and his blanket fell open. The provodnik took a step backwards and then accepted his ticket with disdain. On the blanket, Kolia had sewn his name,
Nikolai Vladimirovich
, and, in a statement of bravado, the years
1937
,
1943
, and
1953
. The dates were glaringly obvious. The Great Purge, the war, the death of Stalin — events that traced Kolia's genealogy, like the branches of a family tree with no trunk.

He sat beside the window behind a big family who smelled strongly of something they were eating, something good. He ate some bread and waited for the train to leave. The open compartment filled up in a matter of minutes. Moscow, which he had once seen in a photograph, lay at a distance of almost nine thousand kilometres from where he sat. The train started moving.

The bartering had already begun throughout the car. Food was being exchanged for
papirosa
cigarettes or fabric, and anything else that one party had but the other didn't. People were reading books — the one book that some library attendant had deigned to lend them — and getting ready for bed. The provodnik served tea for a small fee. No one had started singing yet.

An old man sat down beside Kolia, placing his bag between his feet. Then he put his head in his hands, with his elbows on his knees, and fell asleep. Saliva dripped down between the old man's cupped hands and formed a dark stain on his green trousers. He got off at the second stop. The crowded train was made up of people of all kinds, but no one looked particularly dangerous.

At the fifth stop, Kolia got off and bought some cold soup from an old woman who was wearing a religious icon over her breast. He had seen similar icons in a book, but never with his own eyes. The face pictured on the icon was too elongated for his taste. “Maria,” said the old woman, whose opaque right eye had left her half blind.

The train did not run like clockwork. Kolia decided not to stray too far from the station. His legs felt heavy, his lower back was hurting, and his hip was killing him. He walked along the platform and studied one of the green railroad cars that had been built right on the tracks by convict labour, and had cost enough lives to populate an entire city. The hubs of the wheels were painted blood red.

Thanks to certain privileges she enjoyed, Tanya was able to obtain a visa for Kolia which would permit him to stay in Moscow for a few days. He would have to renew it for a longer period after he arrived. In exchange, he would agree to clean toilets and do other menial jobs that his compatriots generally turned down. He would also have to sleep in a hostel rather than a room of his own as he'd done in Khabarovsk. That was the price of admission to Moscow. He would have to play his cards right if he wanted to end up on the sunny side of the street.

The train resumed its journey. This time a young woman was seated to his left. She had her brown hair in braids that were coiled into a bun high on her head, and a striking profile, thanks to her nose. She kept her bag at her feet. Kolia stared at her breasts. He wasn't sure if he wanted to slap her with the back of his hand or fondle her. He shifted his gaze as soon as he realized he was getting an erection. In an attempt to control himself, he slid down and jammed his knees into the back of the seat in front of him. The girl got up and changed seats. He drank a little water and watched the passengers who remained on the platform recede along with the street vendors. The window was filthy. He spat on it and tried to wipe it clean with the sleeve of his peacoat. The bulk of the dirt was on the outside.

He could have slept for hours in the rocking and humming of the train, but the noise and smells around him — a blend of cigarette smoke, body odour, disinfectant, and the stink from food of all kinds — kept him awake well into the night. But somehow Kolia didn't object to them.

At night the sky was pitch black, leaving passengers almost blind. The stars were the only points of reference. At the onset of morning, which kept changing as the train entered a new time zone and the clock was set back an hour, Kolia, completely exhausted, would finally fall asleep — kneeling on the floor, his head resting on the seat and enclosed in his arms, with his suitcase and bag placed between his legs to protect them from being stolen.

During the day, the scenery that scrolled slowly past the windows was stunning. The sheer immensity of the landscape and the sight of rivers flowing northward to the Arctic Ocean was enough to make people think that anything was possible. As the train made its way around Lake Baikal, hugging the southern shore for kilometres on end, they witnessed wildlife that was found nowhere else. It was a country that instilled belief. The huge billboards with likenesses of the great figures of socialism, which were planted here and there along the route and erected in train stations, attempted to add a little inspiration of their own. Stalin's face still stared out from placards and posters and Ilyich was everywhere.

Kolia regularly repeated what Iosif had told him to buoy up his spirits in the camp.
Appear to be weaker than your aggressor. Breathe slower than your enemy. Eat only two meals a day to train your body to withstand hunger. Sleep less. Think more. Read everything you can and anything you want to. But above all, constantly question what others tell you, even books, even Victor Hugo. Even me.

High winds began to fill the car with dust that was inhaled and expelled into handkerchiefs as black threads of soot.

At Irkoutsk, a small gang of thugs took control of the car when the provodnik went for his break, threatening the other passengers, who were in fact just as bad off as they were.

“Show me what you've got in your bag.”

“That's not a good idea.”

“Shut your trap, okay? You say nothing, you open your bag, and you dump it out. And then we see if you've got anything we like.”

“I wouldn't advise you to do that.”

One of them, who couldn't have been more than fifteen, decided to play the big gangster and grabbed Kolia by the throat, repeating through his teeth: “Show me what you've got in your bag.”

“I said I wouldn't advise you to do that.”

The boy held a paring knife right under his nose, the blade still carried traces of the fruit it had recently cut into. In an instant, he grabbed the boy's wrist and forced him to drop the weapon.

“You misjudged your victim, little man.”

Kolia drove his knee into the boy's groin and then landed a punch to the solar plexus of the tall, skinny guy with a broken nose, who was standing behind him. He lifted his sleeve and revealed his gulag tattoo.

The ringleader spat on the floor and swore in a dialect that Kolia didn't understand. Then he made his retreat with the rest of his gang of halfwits in tow. Kolia lowered his sleeve.

When daylight broke, the gang of petty thieves was nowhere to be seen. On the bench beside Kolia, there was some dried blood and the pocket watch that he had managed to lift from the skinny guy with the boxer's nose. Stealing from a thief didn't count.

At Pervouralsk, the train crossed continents. There is a natural border between Asia and Europe where the landscape flattens into an expanse of plains that are much too great for one man. It would take him a thousand years to know them well.

After the episode with the would-be thieves, Kolia slept like a baby, numbed by the monotonous rhythm of the train and his own exhaustion. Every now and then, a small settlement of
isbas
would appear in the middle of nowhere; the log houses displayed a very rudimentary construction, but appeared to be inhabited. A young boy wouldn't stop crying. He kept pissing in a corner and licking his runny nose, and every few minutes, the car's resident drunk would bellow a drawling reprimand at the boy, as though he were the child's father. The mother seemed completely worn out. She stared through the window at a moving point on the horizon, and completely ignored her son.

The only time Kolia left his seat by the window was to get something to eat or go to the toilet. As the train progressed, more and more passengers got on board, heralding the imminence of their arrival in Moscow. There was no more tea. The passengers all wanted something hot to drink, even though the compartment was stifling. But the provodnik merely repeated, “We'll be arriving shortly.”

The train pulled into Yaroslavl Station — the nine-thousand-kilometre journey's final destination — on Thursday, August 5,1954. It had crossed two continents and seven time zones. Kolia waited until the car was empty before getting up. The provodnik made it clear by pointing to the exit that he had to get off like everyone else, and
now
. Kolia threw his knapsack over his shoulder and said goodbye. He stepped down from the train, petrified with nerves. His legs, on the other hand, felt like they belonged to a rag doll. He completely missed the last metal step and landed hard on the platform, taking three rapid steps forward until he collapsed at the feet of a man who was evidently waiting for someone. It looked ridiculous, but the fall had been executed perfectly.