Midnight in the Century (NYRB Classics) (5 page)

“I’m telling you they’re croaking, Comrade Chief, and that’s against the hygiene regulations.”

“All right, all right,” said the supervisor. “They won’t croak tonight. There’s no room in the infirmary. Wait till tomorrow.”

They must have been waiting for death to empty two beds in the infirmary before moving in these stinking moribund men. Upstairs, from nine to eleven, the bands played gallant tunes. The brunettes, the chestnuts, the blondes, even the redheads with brilliant shawls over their shoulders, danced around on the arms of soldiers.

A shirt was stolen from Aunty-Fat-Fart, a respectable young man accused of occultism on whom nature had inflicted a slightly disproportionate posterior. An aunt kept him supplied with edibles: hence his double nickname. He rejected the idea of a general search, proposed by the Elder, as an indignity. But this provoked long debates, a whole moral crisis in the midst of Chaos, during which the thieves, who made up an organized faction under the presidency of Little-Guy Malych (of the Smolensk Square Marketplace), published their demand that the stolen object be restored during the night, or else they would make a point of finding the guilty party and depriving him of any desire to start in again. The next morning Aunty-Fat-Fart found his shirt at the foot of his straw mattress. It was intact except for a rather large square of cloth.

Something altogether extraordinary, secret, unbelievable, happened when Malych came back from the latrines—where they went twice a day, all together, to line up over the holes while the men from the second and third shifts stood waiting in front of them, the second shift with their pants already lowered, for the guards were at the door yapping “faster, faster”—the altogether extraordinary thing was that Little-Guy Malych came back with a pint of brandy for the Thieves’ Faction. The fabulous liquor was drunk among initiates. Thus an elite revealed itself in Chaos. Kostrov was deeply moved when, at one a.m., a fellow from the Faction passed him a little of the divine tonic in the bottom of a tin cup. He had been thinking, for no reason, of Tamarochka’s death; that little bit of alcohol sobered him up. He was sure that at that moment Tamarochka was asleep, all pink, with her fist closed under her chin and her Teddy-bear lying next to her.

The two Trotskyists of the first days had left. They were replaced by two others, workers from the Amo factory, one of whom, at least, didn’t have the least understanding of ideas. There also arrived an extremely clean social-democratic bookkeeper, who was completely filthy by the next day—inexplicably. He tackled Kostrov on the question of workers’ democracy: “You came to it twelve years late, esteemed comrade.” Mikhail Ivanovich nearly lost his temper. “We have nothing, nothing in common with Menshevism. Between the Kautskyist counter-revolution and ourselves . . .”

They argued a lot, very hostile, yet amicable. The Menshevik looked Jewish. He knew the country around Ufa, Seymipalatinsk, Kansk, and Shenkursk, having been deported out there for seven years. This time he hoped to be sent to Kazakhstan. Later, Mikhail Ivanovich would never be able to remember his face: for it was an ordinary face and they generally had their discussions in the dark, lying next to a partition. On the other hand, Mikhail Ivanovich could have recognized his interlocutor out of a thousand by the smell of his breath and by his unconscious habit of going
plock-plock
with his lips from time to time.

There were few serious cases in this Chaos. It wasn’t like Chaos No. 18 where more than half the prisoners could expect to be bumped off within a few months. Here, there were only a postal clerk (parcel theft) and a cart-driver (theft of two sacks of grain) who ran a serious risk of having their skulls smashed by a bullet from a Nagan under the law of August 7, 1932 on the sacred character of collectivized property. The cart-driver talked about it without apparent feeling. “I’m a second offender, understand? They pardoned me once, I don’t think they’re likely to do it again.” He passed the time lying with his hands under the back of his neck, observing everything, speaking rarely. His inner life found its sole expression, about once an hour, in the string of curses he mumbled to himself. “Ah! shit, ah! bastards, Goddam, Goddam.” (In reality it was much stronger than that, and monotonous.) The postal clerk, young and blond, a member of the Communist Youth, seemed more confident. Little-Guy Malych, who guessed this at first glance, had told him in front of everyone, on the boulevard:

“You’re not a bad guy, but you’re a born rat. I’m not worried about the solidity of your skull-bone; you’re destined to have an honourable career in the concentration camps. You’ll watch while the other guys are breaking up the rocks, and you’ll fill in little cards, and you’ll be a member of the shock brigade. Don’t deny it, it’s for sure; as sure as you squealed on your buddies. Don’t bother to deny it, brother, I won’t press it.”

The postal clerk turned crimson. The Elder was rarely visible, but his voice would always rise up just in time from behind a screen of acrid smoke. It liquidated the incident before it got started.

“Shut your trap, Malych. No one has the right to impugn the perfect honour of a citizen of Chaos.”

The Elder intrigued Mikhail Ivanovich. Twice a week the guard supplied him with a few pieces of toilet-paper, and he would plant himself in the middle of the boulevard and propose:

“Anyone want to write to the proletarian authorities?”

With his long, thick hair, his black, close-cropped beard, his pale flesh under deep-set eyes, standing with his long legs spread apart, he spoke the words with an undefinable accent of mockery. “Counter-revolutionary?” wondered Mikhail Ivanovich. One day, having offered him his portion of soup (he had a little fever that day) he addressed him: “And you, Elder, what article of the penal code brings you here?”

Usually people told each other this information gladly. Besides they didn’t give any details unless they wanted to confide in someone, and so it was not much of an indication. The Elder gave a strange wink and replied:

“That I won’t tell you, my dear fellow. Maybe I don’t know myself. There are cases like that, there are. In Chaos, you see, half the brothers are liars; and half the others don’t know what they’re saying, because neither the ones nor the others know what’s happening to them. I must tell you I believe in destiny. Sure as truth, we each have our own destiny and there’s also an overall destiny for everybody where everything equals out in the end, like, you might say, when they balance their figures at the Planning Commission . . . Only, I’m sure you’ll admit, you can’t live without secrets. Chaos needs a mystery. Well, it’s me. No one knows what I am. I’ll never tell. Not to anybody. Not even to Them.”

The word
Them
took on strange proportions in his mouth and eyes. It embraced the ten concrete storeys, the two hundred offices, the special battalions, the Secret Collegium, everything unknown about that powerful, complicated and fabulous structure through which men are carried along as inexorably as grains in a winnowing machine.

“They can hold me till the Last Judgement, comrade, I won’t tell them anything. Anything. Understand? They’d like to know everything, ha ha ha! And maybe they don’t even know what they want from me. Me, I keep my mouth shut. That’s the secret. Maybe there’s nothing. Maybe there’s
everything
.”

The word
everything
contained a threat, a confession, terror, night, irony—everything. The Elder laughed. His mouth planted with strong yellow teeth was sound; under his bushy eyebrows a tiny light—very far off—shone in his eyes.

Then, serious, he bent over, almost touching Mikhail Ivanovich’s ear. “You’re right to write them little papers every three days. It’s necessary.”

“Why?” asked Mikhail Ivanovich.

“For all the boxes they have; they number the little papers and they file them in boxes, and the boxes in cabinets and there are fifteen storeys of cabinets, brother. It’s important.”

Mikhail Ivanovich thought the Elder was putting him on; in any case, he didn’t let anything show. “No,” Mikhail Ivanovich said to himself, “he’s crazy.” But from that time on he respected him all the more. And he continued to write little papers every three days.

To the Comrade Judge responsible for investigating political cases . . . appeal by . . . member of the Party since 1917
.

To the Comrade Procurator in charge of Control of the State Political Administration . . . appeal by . . . member of the Party since 1917
.

To the comrade Chairman of the Special Collegium of the State Political Administration . . . appeal by
. . .

To the Comrade Chairman of the Central Control Commission of the Party . . . app
. . . .

They were little squares of toilet paper written in aniline pencil; the texts were indignant, humble, begging, precise, childish, cloudy, tortuous, false and true. Since twenty-odd citizens of Chaos were writing, the Elder would hand over a whole sheaf twice a week to the Head Guard.

* * *

When Mikhail Ivanovich was suddenly removed from this subterranean world, brought back to the surface of the earth, to the bright daylight of ordinary life, he found himself in a rather neat little office adorned with a picture of the Chief hanging opposite a map of Moscow. The window looked out on roofs powdered with sunshine; belfrys tinted a delicious green attracted the eye. It was reassuring to see life going on so peacefully. The last remains of smoke-soiled snow were melting on the sides of roofs which faced North. The guard waited motionless at the door. The little office was empty. Mikhail Ivanovich turned his head and recognized himself—barely, with an unpleasant little shock—in the glass front of a cabinet full of files. His disembodied image flickered there against a backdrop of old papers. He had grown thin, old, and pale. His nose seemed to him hardened, yet somehow empty: this hobo’s face with its unruly beard expressed a strange inconsistency. Mikhail Ivanovich recognized in himself the inhabitant of Chaos. “Citizen of Chaos” he said to himself with bitter irony, for he had just thought: “God, this way of living breaks your body down fast.”

“Good day, Mikhail Ivanovich,” said a cordial voice from behind him.

The investigating judge, a handsome officer of about thirty with a pipe in his mouth, regarded him as an old acquaintance. “Sit down. Cigarettes?”

The interview made no sense. When all was said and done, Mikhail Ivanovich was not accused of anything. Only this: it would be a good idea if he would examine his own conscience. No one doubted his devotion. Indeed, that was why they were appealing to it in this instance. The two men seated smoking on opposite sides of the table seemed to be playing a complicated game by means of sentences with double meanings in which veiled threats mingled with wheedling entreaties. The tone changed from fatherly to official. “Well, it will be as you wish!” concluded the investigating judge. “Excuse me, I don’t have much time.”

At that moment Mikhail Ivanovich exploded: “No! Come on now! What kind of dirty game is this? Are you putting me on? I want to know what this is all about, do you understand? And I want you to know under what conditions you’re holding me. That such prisons exist in the fifteenth year of the revolution is a disgraceful abomination. I doubt that Fascist prisons . . .”

“Oh! Oh!” the investigating judge said softly, “that’s an unfortunate comparison. It smells of counter-revolution a mile off.”

Mikhail Ivanovich blushed. Moreover, his momentary fury had exhausted him. The beating of his heart filled his chest with an oppressive noise. He tried to take a cigarette, but his trembling fingers found only emptiness under the silk-paper in the judge’s box. “Calm yourself,” said the judge. “I had no idea you were so badly housed. Nonetheless, a knowledgeable militant like yourself ought to understand that we are swamped with work. I spend my nights at it, esteemed comrade, and I don’t get any days off. If our houses of detention are overcrowded, it’s not the fault of the proletarian dictatorship but that of the counter-revolution which assails us on every side. Forgive me for reminding you of these basic truths. Drink a glass of water. I’ll have you put into an individual cell, you’ll be well off there. Goodbye, Mikhail Ivanovich. Think it over, Mikhail Ivanovich.”

He was pushing the prisoner out by the shoulders, gently and cordially. In the dark corridor down which Mikhail Ivanovich walked, followed by his guard, all the numbered doors were closed. A door opened suddenly and a young woman with wild blonde hair and circles under her big eyes, emerged so violently that she nearly bumped into him. “Not so fast, citizeness,” said an unseen male voice, in deep and commanding tones. It was already over, part of the past; never again would those big circled eyes, that wild blonde hair reappear. Mikhail Ivanovich swore to himself, “Goddam! This really is Chaos—and that sonofabitch who—that sonofabitch with his cigarettes and his sanctimonious mug . . .”

Elevator. Two men, face to face again, touching: one heavy-set, well built, erect in his tight-fitting uniform. The other shaky, distracted by an itching armpit, overcome with sickening anger. “Enter, citizen” (politely). Mikhail Ivanovich heard the cell door close. The man in the elevator had been faceless: a standard oval instead of a face, an oval. Mikhail Ivanovich was expecting Chaos and suddenly there was silence, order, soft light, solitude. He turned around: the door. Further, the window. Bars. Iron bolts outside. The cot. He sat down, suddenly sad enough to cry. Inexplicably. All those companions of moments past—gone forever. And this solitude, this private talk with this other self who no longer looked like him, bearded and dirty, overcome with anger, his cold reason impaired. Shoulders hunched, head in hands, he closed his eyes. “I was wrong to complain about Chaos. Ah!” It might have been the same if he had not complained. Ah! The silence was crushing him. “I should have asked for some books.” The table was bare. What a strange uprooting! The Elder’s grave, ironic voice, Little-Guy Malych’s wink, Tatarev’s wrinkled cheeks, Chaos’s odour of human animals and rough tobacco. Nostalgia for all that caught in his throat. Separated—forever—from that squalor, alone here, alone, alone, alone, alone, alone . . .