Midday. Lay down tools. The dinner break.
Damn it, they'd waited too long. They should have gone off to the canteen long ago and taken their places in the line. There were eleven squads at work at the power station and there was room in the canteen for only two at a time.
Tiurin was still missing. Pavlo cast a rapid glance around the shop and said:
"Shukhov and Gopchik, you come with me. Kilgas, as soon as I send Gopchik to you, bring the whole squad along."
Others took their places at the stove the moment any were vacated. The men surrounded it as though it was a pretty broad. They all crept up to embrace it.
"Come on, don't spend all night with her!" others shouted. "Let's smoke."
They looked at one another to see who was going to light up. No one did. Either they had no tobacco or they were holding onto it, unwilling to let it be seen.
Shukhov went out with Pavlo. Gopchik loped behind like a hare.
"It's gotten warmer," Shukhov said at once. "Zero, no lower. Fine for laying the blocks."
They stole a glance at those blocks. The men had already thrown a lot of them up to the platform and quite a number had been shifted to the floor above.
Screwing up his eyes at the sun, Shukhov checked its position. He was thinking of the captain's "decree."
Out in the open the wind was still having its way and the cold was still fierce.
Don't forget, it was telling them, this is January.
The zeks' canteen was no more than a shanty made of boards nailed together around a stove, with some rusty metal strips over the cracks. Inside, it was partitioned into a kitchen and an eating room. In neither was there a wood floor; it was pitted with the lumps and hollows that the men's feet had trodden into it. All that the kitchen consisted of was a square stove with a soup kettle stuck on top.
The kitchen was run by two men--a cook and a sanitation inspector. Every morning as he left the camp the cook drew an issue of grits from the main kitchen: about one-and-a-half ounces a head, probably. That made two pounds a squad, a little less than a pood *[* Thirty-six pounds.] for the whole column. The cook didn't much like carrying the sack of grits the two miles himself, so he got a "helper" to carry it for him--better to give the "helper" an extra portion at the zeks' expense than burden his own back. There was water to be carried, too, and firewood for the stove, and these were jobs the cook didn't much like either; so he found zeks to do them instead, for extra helpings at others'
expense. What did it matter to him?
Then there was a rule that food must be eaten in the canteen; but the bowls couldn't be left there overnight, they'd have been swiped by civilians, so about fifty, not more, had to be brought in, and quickly washed after use and turned over to the next diners (an extra helping for the man who carried the bowls). To make sure that no one took bowls from the canteen, a man had to be posted at the door; but however careful he might be people took them just the same, either by distracting his attention or talking him into it. So someone else had to go over the whole site to collect the dirty bowls and bring them back to the kitchen. And he got an extra helping. And many others got one too.
All the cook himself did was this: he poured the grits Into the pot, adding salt; he divided the fat between the pot and himself (good fat didn't reach the zeks, and the rancid all went into the soup kettle, so when there was an issue of rancid fat from the warehouse, the zeks welcomed it as an extra). Another thing he did: he stirred the kasha *[*
Oatmeal.] when it was boiling.
The sanitation inspector had even less to do--he sat and watched: but when the oatmeal was ready he got his helping, as much as his belly would hold. And the cook too.
Then the duty-squad leader arrived--the squad was changed every day--to have a taste and decide whether the stuff was good enough for the workers. He received a double portion.
The whistle sounded again. The squad leaders at once lined up, and the cook handed them bowls through the serving window. In the bottom of the bowls lay some oatmeal, how much you didn't ask, or try to judge by the weight. All you got if you opened your mouth was a bunch of swearwords.
The steppe was barren and windswept, with a dry wind in the summer and a freezing one in winter. Nothing could ever grow in that steppe, less than nothing behind four bathers of barbed wire. Bread comes only from the bread cutter; oats are threshed only in the warehouse. And however much blood you sweat at work, however much you grovel on your belly, you'll force no food out of that earth; you'll get no more than the damned authorities give you. And you don't even get that--because of the cook and the
"help" and all the other trusties in soft jobs. They rob you here, they rob you In camp, they rob you even earlier--in the warehouse. And those who do the robbing don't swing picks. But you--you swing a pick and take what they give you. And get away from the serving window!
Pavlo and Shukhov, with Gopchik bringing up the rear, walked into the canteen.
The men stood there so close to one another that you couldn't see either tables or benches.
Some ate sitting down but most stood. The men of the 82nd, who'd been digging those holes half a day without a chance of getting warm, had been the first to get in after the whistle; now even after they'd finished eating they didn't leave. Where else could they warm up? The swearing fell off them like water off a duck's back--it was so much more comfortable here than inthe cold. Pavlo and Shukhov elbowed their way in. They'd arrived at a good moment: one squad was being served, another was awaiting its turn, and there was only one deputy squad leader near the window. So, they were well ahead of the rest.
"Bowls, bowls," the cook shouted through the window and people huthedly handed them over. Shukhov was collecting another lot and turning them in, not to get extra oatmeal but to get what was coming to him quicker.
Behind the partition some "helpers" were already washing bowls--for extra oatmeal.
The cook began to serve the deputy squad leaders who stood ahead of Pavlo in the line.
"Gopchik," Pavlo shouted, over the heads of the men behind him.
"Here I am," came Gopchik's thin goatlike bleat from the door.
"Call
the
squad."
Off he went.
The main thing today was that the oatmeal was good--real oatmeal, the best sort.
It wasn't often they had it. More often they got _magara_ twice a day. But real oatmeal is filling, it's good.
How often had Shukhov in his youth fed oats to horses! Never had it occurred to him that there'd come a time when his whole soul would yearn for a handful of them.
"Bowls, bowls," shouted the cook.
Now the 104th was in line. That squad leader's deputy, up ahead, got his double helping and bounced away from the window.
This extra helping, too, was at the zeks' expense--but no one objected. The cook gave double helpings to afl the squad leaders, and they either ate the extra helping themselves or gave it to their deputies. Tiurin gave his to Pavlo.
Shukhov's job now was to wedge himself in behind a table, oust two loafers, politely ask another prisoner to move, and clear a little space in front of him--for twelve bowls (to stand close together), with a second row of six, and two more on top. Next he had to take the bowls from Pavlo, repeating the number as he did so and keeping his eyes peeled--in case some outsider should grab a bowl from the table. And he had to see he wasn't bumped by someone's elbow so as to upset a bowl--right beside him people were leaving the table, stepping over the benches or squeezing in to eat. Yes, you had to keep your eyes peeled--was that fellow eating out of his own bowl? Or had he wormed his way up to one of the 104th's?
"Two, four, six," the cook counted at the window. He handed out the bowls two at a time--it was easier for him that way; otherwise he might count wrong.
"Two, four, six," Pavlo repeated quietly to himself, there at the window, in Ukrainian, and at once gave the bowls, in pairs, to Shukhov, who put them on the table.
&
nbsp; Shukhov didn't repeat the numbers aloud--but he counted more sharply than anyone.
"Eight,
ten."
Why wasn't Gopchik bringing in the squad?
"Twelve, fourteen," the counting continued.
The kitchen ran out of bowls. Shukhov had a clear view through the window past Pavlo's head and shoulders. The cook put two bowls down on the counter and, keeping his hands on them, paused as though thinking. Must be bawling out the dishwashers. But just then another bunch of dirty bowls was pushed onto the counter. The cook let go of the two clean ones he'd filled and pushed back the pile of dirty ones.
Shukhov left the fourteen bowls he'd already stacked on the table, straddled a bench, took the two filled ones from the counter, and said quietly to Pavlo rather than to the cook: "Fourteen."
"Stop! Where are you taking those bowls?" shouted the cook.
"He's from our squad," Pavlo confirmed.
"'Our squad,' but he's mixed up the count."
"Fourteen," Pavlo said with a shrug. Himself, he wouldn't have swiped the extra bowls, for as deputy squad leader he had to maintain his dignity; but now he was simply repeating what Shukhov had said--he could always blame him for the mistake.
"I've already counted fourteen," the cook expostulated.
"So you did, but you didn't pass them out. You kept your hands on them,"
Shukhov shouted. "Come and count for yourself if you don't believe us. Look, they're all here on the table."
As he spoke he'd noticed the two Estonians pushing through to him, and he shoved the two bowls into their hands as they passed. And he'd managed to get back to the table to see that all the bowls were in place--the next table hadn't swiped any, though they'd had plenty of opportunity to do so.
The cook's red face loomed large in the window.
"Where are those bowls?" he asked sternly.
"Here they are, at your service," yelled Shukhov. "Move along. scum, you're spoiling his view," he said to someone, giving him a shove. "Here they are, the pair of them." He picked up two bowls from the second row. "Here we have three rows of four, all nice and neat. Count them."
"Hasn't your squad come?" the cook asked, looking suspiciously around the small segment of the canteen he could see through the window--it had been kept narrow to prevent anyone looking into the kitchen and seeing how much was left in the kettle.
"No, none of 'em are here yet," said Pavlo, shaking his head.
"Then why the hell are you taking bowls when the squad's not here?"
"Here they come," yelled Shukhov.
And everyone heard the peremptory shouts of the captain at the door: "Why are you hanging around here? he yelled, in his best quarter-deck voice. "If you've eaten, beat it and let others in."
The cook muttered something through the serving window. Then he drew himself up, and his hands could again be seen giving out the bowls: "Sixteen, eighteen."
Then he ladled the last portion, a double helping: "Twenty-three. That's all. Next squad."
The men of the 104th pushed through. Pavlo handed them bowls, passing them over the heads of the prisoners sitting at the second table.
In summer five could have sat on a bench, but now, as everyone was wearing thick clothes, four could barely fit in, and even they found it awkward to move their spoons.
Figuring that of the two bowls of oatmeal that had been swiped one at least would be his, Shukhov lost no time in applying himself to his first bowl. He drew his right knee up to his stomach, pulled his spoon ("Ust-Izhma, 1944") from under his boot top, removed his hat, put it in his left armpit, and ran his spoon under the edge of the kasha.
This is a moment that demands complete concentration, as you remove some of the scanty kasha from the bottom of the bowl, put it carefully into your mouth, and swirl it around there with your tongue. But Shukhov had to hurry, to show Pavlo he'd already finished and was waiting to be offered a second bowl And there was Fethzkov to be dealt with. He had come into the canteen with the two Estonians and had witnessed the whole affair of the two extra bowls. Now he stood there, straight in front of Pavlo, eying the four undistributed helpings as if to say that he ought to be given at least half a helping too.
Young swarthy Pavlo, however, went calmly on with his double portion, and there was no way of telling whether he noticed anyone standing there, or even reniembered those extra bowls at all.
Shukhov finished his kasha. He had promised his belly two helpings, so one wasn't enough now to give him the full feeling he normally got from real oatmeal kasha.
He groped in his inside pocket for the scrap of clean rag, found the unfrozen crescent of crust, and meticulously used it to wipe off the last remnant of mush from the bottom of the bowl and any that still clung to the brim. Then he licked the crust clean; then repeated the whole process. The bowl looked now as if it had been washed, with a dull film, nothing more, on the inside surface. He handed it over his shoulder to one of the dish-collectors and sat on, without replacing his hat.
Though it was Shukhov who had swindled the extra bowls, it was for Pavlo to distribute them.
Pavlo prolonged the agony a little longer while emptying his own bowl. He didn't lick it clean; he merely gave a lick to his spoon, tucked it away, and crossed himself. And then, very lightly, he touched--there wasn't room to move--two of the remaining four bowls. It meant he was giving them to Shukhov.
"Ivan Denisovich, take one for yourself and give the other to Tsezar."
Shukhov knew one of the bowls bad to be taken to the office of Tsezar, who would never lower himself by going to the canteen or, for that matter, to the mess hall in camp. He knew it, but, all the same, when Pavlo touched the bowls his heart contracted.
Could Pavlo be giving him both? And now, as Pavlo spoke, his heartbeat went back to normal.
Without losing any time be leaned over his lawful spoil and began to eat with deliberation, Insensitive to the thumps on his back that the zeks in the next squad were dealing him. The only thing that vexed him was that the second bowl might still go to Fetiukov. Fetiukov was a past master at cadging, but he lacked the courage to swipe anything.
Nearby sat Captain Buinovsky. He had long finished his kasha. He didn't know the squad had two extra portions to dispose of. He didn't look around to see how much Pavlo still had left to hand out. He was simply relaxing, warming up. He was not strong enough to rise to his feet and go out into the cold or into that icy warming-up spot. He, like the very people he had Just bounded out of the canteen with his rasping voice, was occupying a place he had no right to and getting in the way of the next squad. He was a newcomer. He was unused to the hard life of the zeks. Though he didn't know it, moments like this were particularly important to him, for they were transforming him from an eager, confident naval officer with a ringing voice into an inert, though wary, zek. And only in that inertness lay the chance of surviving the twenty-five years of imprisonment he'd been sentenced to.
People were already shouting at him and nudging him in the back to make him give up his place.
"Captain!" said Pavlo. "Hey, captain."
Buinovsky shuddered as though he was being jerked out of a dream. He looked around.
Pavlo handed him a bowl of kasha. He didn't ask him whether he wanted it.
The captain's eyebrows shot up. He looked at the bowl as at something miraculous.
"Take it, take it," said Pavlo reassuringly, and picking up the last bowl--for the squad leader--went out.
An apologetic smile flitted over the captain's chapped lips. And this man, who had sailed around Europe and navigated the Great Northern Route, leaned happily over half a ladleful of thin oatmeal kasha, cooked entirely without fat--just oats and water.
Fetiukov cast angry looks at Shukhov and the captain and left the canteen.
But Shukhov thought Pavlo had been right. In time the captain would learn the ropes. Meanwhile, he didn't know how to live.
Shukhov still nursed a faint hope that Tsezar would give him h
is bowl of kasha.
But it seemed unlikely, for more than two weeks had passed since Tsezar had received his last package.
After scraping the bottom and rim of the second bowl In the same way as the first, then licking the crust, Shukhov finally ate the crust itself. Then he picked up Tsezar's bowl of cold kasha and went out.
"It's for the office," he said, as he pushed past the man at the door who tried to stop him taking the bowl out.
The office was in a log cabin near the sentry house. As in the morning, smoke was curling out of the chimney. The stove was kept going by an orderly who worked as an errand boy too, picking up a few kopecks here and there. They didn't begrudge him shavings or even logs for the office stove.
The outer door creaked as Shukhov opened it. Then came another door, calked with oakum. Bringing with him a cloud of frosty vapor, he went in and quickly pulled the door shut (so that they wouldn't yell at him: "Hey, you bastard, shut the door").
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Signet Books) Page 8