Midnight in the Century (NYRB Classics) (29 page)

The manager of the State Bank should also have been locked up. He couldn’t have been unaware of the illegal use actually being made of the funds he was granting; and, when consulted on the bonus of 3000 roubles to be awarded to the factory manager for having carried out the annual plan ahead of schedule, he had given a favourable opinion. But the chief of the economic department of State Security didn’t want to take the initiative for this arrest, and Knapp hesitated to order it. If all the administrators in the district were suddenly sent to prison, couldn’t someone ask him if he had been asleep up to then? When the bank manager learned that his crony, the factory manager, had been arrested, he wrote out a crushing denunciation against him referring to another denunciation, written much earlier, in a veiled style so as to pass unnoticed. That clever devil took precautions. Knapp congratulated him.

Trotskyists, Zionists, Believers, fishermen, workers from the factory, administrators and company managers—in three days it added up to over a hundred extra prisoners to accommodate . . . A hundred women brought food-parcels to the gate of the Security building. They waited patiently from nine in the morning to seven in the evening standing in a long line against the wall in the square. The whole town was talking about them, but no one was surprised. Yes, they’re arresting people; they’re arresting them every night. Ah! And it’s not over yet, it’s like last year at this time, remember? The sabotage case, the food supply, distribution, and fishing cases! Ah! they locked up plenty of people; they were grabbing them every night! “Chernoe?” said Knapp. “A real combat assignment . . .”

The man who deserved the most sympathy in all of this, from the administrative viewpoint, was the commandant of the Security prison. His accommodations, cellars and cells, suitable for fifty prisoners, already held two hundred and twenty-seven two days before. Where could he house the hundred new prisoners? Where? And there were segregation orders: under no circumstances could certain prisoners be put in with certain others. The commandant was beside himself.

“Put ‘em wherever you want to,” shouted Knapp, who was swamped by the factory-bank dossier, “but, remember: you’re responsible for whatever happens. Cope.” The commandant had a brainstorm: the old stable, which had been turned into a garage, was empty except for two old machines which were never used. Fifty men could sleep as well there as anywhere else, on the ground, while waiting to be transferred to the prison. The stable was a sort of shed constructed of old planks, which stood isolated in the middle of the Security grounds and was surrounded with barbed wire to prevent the drivers from getting in to steal petrol . . . Naturally only quiet prisoners would be kept there, the kind who don’t escape or get into fights: politicos, administrators, Believers—well-behaved folk.

When Rodion entered this new prison, he found it full of people. Workers who were strangely clean and calm were sitting on the ground around the two old autos: they were Christians—Baptists, Flagellants, Castrati . . . Rodion had no need to push as he made his way through them, not even a little, for they politely moved aside to give him room. He went and lay down under one of the Fords along the planked wall. As neighbours, he had a young Jew on his left and on his right a bearded, forty-year-old fisherman whose clothes did not stink of either pickling-brine or fish-guts. The young Jew introduced himself “Zionist deportee. And you, comrade?” The bearded fisherman, questioned in turn, did not answer, but his whole face lighted up with a smile and he slowly nodded his head. We’re all men, aren’t we? At least that’s how Rodion, who didn’t press the point, understood him. “What is Zion?” he asked dreamily. “The light on the mountain,” the young Jew said gravely, “the hope, the salvation, the resurrection of the people of Israel: our socialism, which we have been waiting for since the Diaspora . . .”

They were still conversing as night fell. Little by little the murmurs faded in the garage. A motor rumbled close by behind the wooden wallboards, which seemed extremely thin to Rodion after the stone walls of the cellar. Raising his head a bit, he glued his eye to the place where two boards met and clearly saw the night, the edge of a roof, a patch of marvellously dark, clear sky . . . He lay down again with his arms behind his neck, overcome by emotion. The vast night was so close! The chill of the earth penetrated his shoulders. He stretched his arm out along the wall and his fingertips felt the friable soil at the bottom of the planks. Damp earth, ash: his fingers dug into it of their own motion. As he lay on his side, his hand became like a sly animal eagerly digging the earth right next to the head of the red-bearded fisherman, who was now asleep, murmuring through his half-parted lips: for the Silent One only escaped from silence through sleep. Rodion watched him and Rodion dug. Now, without effort, his hand emerged on the other side, opened out. The free, starry night cooled his palm . . .

From that moment on Rodion stopped thinking, as if he had shut the eyes with which he watched himself. Yet his whole being was now charged with lucidity as if he had opened new eyes of flesh, long closed, with which to see reality . . . His hand bathed in the dazzling air. Then it deftly seized the edge of the board, which gave way under its pressure. Rodion loosened it slowly, irresistibly, noiselessly. The old rusty nails were pulling out of their holes: he could sense this. His movements were sure. Flat on his belly, chin on the ground, using his head as a battering-ram, he put his weight against the planks in the darkness. They creaked, but some of the sleepers were groaning. One of them got up and went to piss noisily into the tank. Rodion pushed harder so that the noise of the second creak would be covered by this gurgling fountain. The board came loose. He held on to it with both hands. The night poured in, cool on his face. He looked around him. The rear end of a Ford half hid him. The young Jew was sleeping; no, he was feigning sleep. He had heard, he had understood. His closed eyelids were flickering, his breathing was strained. Rodion could sense the sweat on the man’s nose and forehead. “Farewell, comrade,” said Rodion within himself, “the paths of Zion pass through prisons without number, like those of the proletariat . . .”

On his other side, Rodion encountered the wide-awake eyes of the Silent One. “Close your eyes! Sleep!” whispered Rodion with an authority born of desperation.
No
, replied the Silent One with an almost imperceptible flicker of his eyelids. Rodion felt fear. The Silent One, who was lying on his back, turned his whole body toward Rodion. He stretched out his hand, took hold of the loosened board, pushed it aside, and signalled with his head:
Go
. “Come,” murmured Rodion. This time he shook his beard ever so slightly.
No. Why should I flee? Flee what? But you, since the cool night calls you, go. Follow your heart’s desire, may God help you!
This thought was only silence, but it cut through the silence. Rodion crawled into the opening left by the board. The Silent One held the board up with one hand; with the other he pushed Rodion’s back. The earth—totally black. The night air in his nostrils. In his ears, in his chest, the regular beating of his heart. A sharp pain in his belly—oww—the touch of barbed wire. The hand of the Silent One, moving by divination, slid under him, freed him, protected him . . .

Once outside, Rodion at first got up on his knees. The neighbouring buildings were shapes of sheer blackness standing out against a sky all streaming with crystals. Total silence. Rodion ran, leaped a wall, slipped like an intelligent shadow under a watchtower on which a sentinel stood guard, and suddenly filled his lungs with unbelievable freshness . . . The bend of the Black-Waters glistened at his feet between the line of the rocks and the line of the woods, at the beginning of everything.

* * *

Galia was the first to get up, at the break of dawn, in order to split wood, draw water at the river, light the stove, hang out the laundry washed the night before, clean the fish, cook the bread, make ready for the day . . . She went out, hair bound in her red kerchief, thin and palefaced in her loose smock, a hatchet in her hand. The last stars were fading in the sky. Blue shadows were vanishing across the earth. The colour of the young woman’s red kerchief stood out unique in a universe flooded with brightness. She wore that colour but she did not see it. It was the hour of the day’s first solitude; her throat felt tight, her arms cold. You have to go on living. Split wood, carry water, even with that stab in the heart, that slight nausea, those puffy eyelids because she had awakened in the middle of the night to think about Dimitri and to cry for herself as she thought about Dimitri. She selected a birch log, planted it deftly on the ground, raised the hatchet . . . At the edge of the yard, in the bushes, someone moved. And Galia actually
saw
Dimitri wave to her. Then her mouth tightened. It was only Rodion. “Galia, I escaped! I don’t know how it happened. Elkin will certainly be sent to Moscow. Don’t hope for anything: with them you should never hope. Take courage. I’m hungry. Find me something to eat. I’ll be walking for three or four days through the woods and across the steppe until I get to the White-Waters. I’ll take the longest way round since they’ll be after me. Quick, Galia, I haven’t a minute and I’m hungry, hungry.”

There was a joyful vibration in his voice.

He waited in the bushes while Galia went down into the cellar. From one minute to the next things were growing clearer and clearer inside him, as they were on the earth. Galia returned with her hands full of riches: bread, onions, dried fish, a green apple, matches, a knife, ten roubles—all she had. “Here’s my brother’s passport. Leave quickly, before it’s completely light. Try to ford the river with the woodcutters . . .” She filled his pockets, happy to touch him. He felt overwhelmed by a happiness he did not yet deserve and which he would pay for later.

“Galia, I’ll . . .”

“What will you do, Rodion?”

Taut, erect, she stared at him avidly: mouth open, dark; eyes wide, tinged with silver.

“I promise you, Galia . . .”

“What are you promising, Rodion?”

“I promise you and the others, I promise you all . . .”

He couldn’t say what, overcome by something definitive, at last attaining certainties which neither his thoughts nor his words could express.

“Farewell, Galia. Thank you.”

“Rodion, Rodion, what joy, what sadness . . .”

Suddenly she took his head in her hands, which were soft and supple, pulled him to her, hugged him, and he felt her kissing his hair, felt Galia’s dark lips seeking his face . . . He heard them murmuring: “Farewell, Rodion, farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell . . . Be strong, Rodion, hold on to yourself with strong hands . . . Don’t be afraid. Follow your road, Rodion. God be with you. Go my Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri, go . . .”

When Rodion was gone, Galia picked up the hatchet which had fallen at her feet. It made her feel good to grasp it firmly and heft it at the end of her arm. She walked back to the house with determined steps. The tears continued to drip, one by one, down her ashen face. Her eyes gazed implacably at the log whose white bark was shimmering under the dew and she split it with the first blow.

* * *

Comrade Knapp, the District Chief, had summoned his collaborators—Department Heads and Deputies—to his office at two in the afternoon as on great occasions . . .

Present were seven uniforms, four pairs of spectacles, seven service revolvers; there were two thin men, one fat man, one bemedalled man, one bald man, and the Runt. The fat one was Fedossenko, taciturn for the moment, the most important of the lot, but tortured by an aching anxiety: on the previous day the Chief had asked him for the dossier of the big case under investigation. Missing were the head of the Criminal Brigade, who was off on an expedition in the neighbouring woods looking for Rodion, and his assistant, who had wandered even farther afield in pursuit of some bandits. The latter was only to return on a stretcher, his head severed from his body. At the first stroke of two, Knapp strode rapidly in and waved his hand around the room—please keep your seats, comrades—but he did not shake hands. They noted his ashen face, his pinched nostrils, his eyes, which were evasive rather than distant. A chill entered with him. He took his seat behind his desk. The secretary, a young officer with a Charlie Chaplin moustache—perpetually jolly, today anonymous—handed him a printed sheet and a scratch pad. Knapp, head down, gave a slight cough. His shoulders were square, his neck thin, erect, and wrinkled, his chest flat. A shrivelled old life, perhaps ascetic, perhaps diseased, in any case tired of itself, slowly drying up. His silence was so weighty that the head of the Economic Department, who was smoking, comfortably ensconced in a leather armchair, put out his freshly lighted cigarette on the floor. The new Deputy in charge of prisons (his predecessor had been in jail since the day before yesterday, when Rodion had escaped) choking with fear, grabbed at the collar of his tunic like a hanged man. Knapp, applying to his subordinates the procedure he had successfully used in the past on prisoners under interrogation, prolonged the glacial silence. He was barely breathing. Finally, raising his head, his glasses as grey as his face:

“Comrade Department Heads and Deputies . . . (
Pause
). I have called you together today for a matter of extreme importance which involves the honour of the Security Department and our responsibility before the Party . . .”

This solemn exordium took everyone’s breath away. The Runt’s shoulders trembled from sheer nervous agitation. The director of inner-departmental services made a super-human effort not to turn pale. He preferred to cough. My God! If someone had discovered a leak in supplies, if . . . The same thought rolled from head to head around the room: “Which of these bastards has informed on me for . . .?” Knapp did not condescend to follow his effect on their faces. No one was smoking anymore. Knapp said:

“Comrade Fedossenko.”

Normally, the person thus addressed would murmur “Comrade Chief . . .” in reply without moving and would remain seated. But this time his name was pronounced with such icy authority that Fedossenko slowly got up, in spite of himself. He straightened his belt and the hem of his tunic with thick, squared-off hands. None of this augured any good. The Chief’s tone of voice was not suggestive of congratulations; yet the dossier . . .