Kolyma Tales (25 page)

His case was an amazing one. It was an exact repetition of a Chekhov story titled ‘Evil-Doers’. Lyonka had been unscrewing nuts from railroad ties, had been caught on the spot, and was arrested as a spy under Point 7 of Article 58. Lyonka had never heard of Chekhov’s story but tried to prove to the investigator, just as Chekhov’s protagonist had done, that he didn’t unscrew two nuts in a row, that he ‘understood…’

The investigator was using the Tumsk lad’s testimony to build a case involving some unusual ‘concepts’, the most innocent of which carried the death penalty. But the investigator hadn’t managed to link Lyonka with anyone else, and Lyonka was now spending a second year waiting for the investigator to establish such a link.

Persons who had no money in their personal account at the prison were supposed to be limited to the official ration without any supplementary nourishment. Prison rations are far from stimulating. Even a small amount of variety in the food brightens the prisoner’s life and somehow raises his spirits.

In all probability the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates of the prison ration (as opposed to the ration in camp) were arrived at on the basis of certain theoretical calculations and experimental data. These calculations were probably derived from some ‘scientific’ studies; scientists like to be involved in that sort of work. It is just as probable that in the Moscow Investigatory Prison the quality of food preparation guarantees the living consumer a sufficient number of calories. It is also quite likely that the official sampling of the food by a doctor is not a complete mockery or a formality as it is in the camps. Some old prison doctor might even ask the cook for a second helping of lentils, the dish highest in calories, before searching out the line in the official form where he is to place his signature to approve the menu. The doctor might even joke that the prisoners have no reason to complain about the food – on the grounds that he himself had just finished a bowl with relish. But then, the doctors are given plates of
today’s
lentils.

No one ever complained about the food in Butyr Prison. It wasn’t that it was particularly good, but that the prisoners had other things to worry about. The most disliked prison dish was boiled beans. Somehow it was prepared in such a singularly unappetizing fashion that it was termed ‘a dish to choke on’. Nevertheless, no one complained even about the beans.

Sausage, butter, sugar, cheese, and fresh rolls from the commissary were sheer delight. Everyone enjoyed eating them with tea – not the raspberry-flavored boiling water issued by the prison, but real tea steeped in a mug and poured from an enormous bucket-sized teapot of red copper, a teapot left over from czarist days, a teapot from which Russian revolutionaries of the nineteenth century might have drunk.

Naturally, ‘shop day’ was a joyous event in the life of the cell. Denial of ‘shop privileges’ was a severe punishment that always led to quarrels; prisoners feel such deprivations very keenly. Any accidental noise heard by the guard in the corridor or a disagreement with the commandant on duty was looked on as an act of insubordination, the punishment for which was denial of shop privileges. The dreams of eighty persons quartered in twenty different places went up in smoke. It was a severe punishment.

One might think that those prisoners who had no money would be indifferent to the withdrawal of shop privileges, but that was not the case.

Once the food was brought in, evening tea would commence. Everyone bought whatever it was he wanted. Those who had no money felt out of place at the general holiday. They were the only ones not to experience the nervous energy characteristic of ‘shop day’.

Of course, everyone would treat them. A prisoner could drink a mug of tea with someone else’s sugar and eat a white roll; he could smoke someone else’s cigarette – even two – but he didn’t feel comfortable, and it was not the same as if he had bought it with his own money. The prisoner who had no money was so sensitive that he was afraid to eat an extra piece.

The adroit collective brain of the prison found a way out, a way of ending the discomfiture of those who had no money, a way of protecting their self-respect and providing even the most impoverished prisoners with the official right to make use of the commissary. They could spend their own money independently and buy whatever they chose.

Where did this money come from?

A famous phrase from the days of military communism, from the first years of the revolution, was reborn: ‘Committees for the Poor’. Some unknown person mentioned it in one of the prison cells, and the phrase caught on in an uncanny fashion and migrated from cell to cell – by tapping on the walls, by notes hidden under a bench in the bathhouse, and, easiest of all, by transfers from one prison to another.

Butyr Prison is famed for its smooth functioning. The twelve thousand convicts in this enormous prison are in constant round-the-clock movement; every day, regularly scheduled buses take prisoners to Lubyanka Prison, bring prisoners from Lubyanka Prison for interrogation, for meetings with witnesses, for trial. Other buses transfer prisoners to other prisons…

In instances of cell-rule violations, the internal prison administration transfers prisoners under investigation to the Police Tower, Pugachov’s Tower, North Tower, or South Tower, all of which have special ‘punishment’ cells. There is even a wing with cells so small that one cannot lie down but must sleep sitting up.

One-fifth of the population of the cells is moved every day – either to ‘photography’, where profile and full-face pictures are taken and a number is attached to a curtain next to which the prisoner sits, or to ‘piano lessons’ – that is, fingerprinting (a process that for some reason was never considered offensive). Or they might be taken along the endless corridors of the gigantic prison to the interrogation wing. As they walk down the corridor, the guard taps the key against his own brass belt buckle to warn of the approach of a ‘secret prisoner’. And until the guard hears hands clap in response, he will not let the prisoner proceed. (At the Lubyanka Prison the snapping of fingers is used instead of the jingling of keys. As in Butyr, the response is a hand clap.)

Movement is perpetual, and the entrance gates never close for long. Nevertheless, there has never been an instance when co-defendants ended up in the same cell.

If a prisoner’s trip is canceled and he has crossed the threshold of the prison even for a second, he cannot return without having all his things disinfected. That’s the way things are done; it is known as the Sanitation Code. The clothes of those who are frequently taken to Lubyanka Prison for interrogation are quickly reduced to rags. Even without these special trips, clothing wears out much more quickly in prison than in civilian life. Prisoners sleep in their clothes, tossing on the boards that cover the berths. This and the frequent and energetic steam treatments intended to kill lice quickly destroy the clothing of every prisoner brought in for investigation.

No matter how strict the control, however, the words of the author of
The Charterhouse of Parma
ring true: ‘The jailor thinks less of his keys than the prisoner does of escape.’

‘Committees for the Poor’ came into being spontaneously, as a comradely form of mutual aid. Someone happened to remember the original Committees for the Poor. Who can say, perhaps the author who injected new meaning into the old term had himself once participated in real committees for the poor in the Russian countryside just after the revolution?

These committees were set up in a very simple way so that any prisoner could give aid to his fellows. When sending his order to the ‘shop’, each prisoner donated ten percent to the committee. The total sum received in this fashion was divided among all those in the cell who were ‘moneyless’. Each of them had the right independently to order food from the ‘shop’.

In a cell with seventy or eighty persons, there were always seven or eight who had no money. More often than not, money eventually arrived, and the ‘debtor’ attempted to pay back his cellmates, but he was not obliged to. In turn, he simply deducted his own ten percent whenever he could.

Each ‘beneficiary’ received ten or twelve rubles per ‘shop day’ and was able to spend a sum roughly equal to what the others spent. No thanks were expressed for such help, since the custom was so rigidly observed that it was considered the prisoner’s inalienable right.

For a long time, perhaps even for years, the prison administration had no inkling of this ‘organization’. Or perhaps they ignored the information of loyal cell informers and secret agents. It is hard to believe the authorities were not aware of these committees. Probably the administration of Butyr Prison had no desire to repeat its sad experience in unsuccessfully attempting to put an end to the notorious game of ‘matches’.

All games are forbidden in prison. Chess pieces molded from bread chewed up by the ‘entire cell’ were confiscated and destroyed as soon as they were noticed by the watchful eye of the guard peering through the peephole in the door. The very expression, ‘watchful eye’, acquired in prison a literal rather than figurative meaning: the attentive eye of the guard framed by the peep-hole.

Dominoes and checkers were strictly forbidden in the investigatory prison. Books were not forbidden, and the prison library was a rich one, but the prisoner under investigation derived no benefit from reading other than that of taking his mind off his own important and tormenting thoughts. It is impossible to concentrate on a book in a common cell. Books serve as amusement and distraction, taking the place of dominoes and checkers.

Cards are customary in cells that contain criminals, but there are no cards in Butyr Prison. Indeed, there are no games there other than ‘matches’.

Matches is a game for two. There are fifty matches to a box. Thirty are left in the lid, which is placed on end. The lid is then shaken and raised, and the matches fall out on to the floor.

Players use one match as a lever to pick from the pile any matches that can be removed without disturbing the remainder. When one player commits an error, the other takes his turn.

Matches is the well-known child’s game of pick-up sticks, adapted by the agile prison mind for the prison cell.

The entire prison played matches from breakfast to dinner, and from dinner to supper. People became very wrapped up in the game. Match champions appeared, and there were matches of a special quality – those that had grown shiny from constant use. Such matches were never used to light a cigarette.

This game soothed the prisoners’ nerves and introduced a certain calm into their troubled souls.

The administration was powerless to destroy or forbid this game. After all, matches were permitted. They were issued (individually) and were sold in the commissary.

Wing commandants tried destroying the boxes, but the game could go on without them.

The administration reaped only shame in this struggle against pick-up sticks; none of its efforts made any difference. The entire prison continued to play matches.

For this same reason – out of fear of being shamed – the administration ignored the Committees for the Poor. They were loath to become involved in this far from glorious struggle.

But rumors of the committees spread to higher and higher levels and ultimately reached a certain Institution which issued a stern order to liquidate the committees. Their very name seemed to indicate a challenge, an appeal to the conscience of the revolution.

How many cells were checked and admonished! How many criminal slips of paper with encoded calculations of orders and expenditures were seized in the cells during sudden searches! How many cell leaders spent time in the punishment cells of the Police Tower or Pugachov’s Tower! It was all in vain; the committees continued to exist in spite of all the warnings and sanctions.

It was indeed extremely difficult to control the situation. The wing commandant and the overseer who worked for years in the prison had, moreover, a somewhat different view of the prisoner than did their high-placed superiors. On occasion they might even take the prisoner’s side against the superior. It wasn’t that they abetted the prisoner, but when it was possible they simply ignored violations and did not go out of their way to find fault. This was particularly the case if the guard was not a young man. From the point of view of the prisoner, the best superior is an older man of low rank. A combination of these two conditions more or less guarantees an almost decent person. It’s even better if he drinks. Such a person is not trying to build a career. The career of a prison guard – and especially of a camp guard – must be lubricated with the blood of the prisoners.

But the Institution demanded that the committees be eliminated, and the prison administration vainly attempted to achieve that result.

An attempt was made to blow up the committees from within. This was, of course, the most clever of solutions. The committees were illegal organizations, and any prisoner could refuse to make contributions that were forced on him. Anyone not desiring to pay these taxes and support the committees could protest, and his refusal would be supported wholeheartedly by the prison administration. It would have been ludicrous to think otherwise, for the prisoners’ organization was not a state that could levy taxes. That meant that the committees were extortion, a racket, robbery…

Of course, any prisoner could refuse to make contributions simply by claiming he didn’t want to, and that would have been that. It was his money, and no one had any right to make any claims, etc., etc. Once such a statement was made, nothing would be deducted and everything ordered would be delivered.

But who would risk making such a statement? Who would risk placing himself in opposition to the entire group, to people who are with you twenty-four hours a day, where only sleep can save you from the hostile glare of your fellow inmates? In prison everyone involuntarily turns to his neighbor for spiritual support, and it is unthinkable to subject oneself to ostracism. Even though no attempts are made to exert any physical influence, rejection by one’s fellows is more terrible than the threats of the investigator.