The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  The imperial government, of course, was not inclined to leave security merely in the hands of the elements. It constructed man-made prisons as well, manned their towers and reinforced their walls. Yet with all this, regimes of Russian tsars had for centuries steadily perfected an even more insidious deterrent to escape and rebellion than any prison, than any wilderness, than any punishment could afford.

  Stronger than any wall was the rampart of despair.

  The mines of Kara lay at the eastern extremity of the Trans-Baikal region of southern Siberia, some four hundred fifty versts from its capital of Chita. Bounded by the Shilka River on the south, the mines themselves were scattered along the Kara River valley for a distance of twenty miles. Accessible only by boat in the summer and sledge across the ice-locked rivers in the winter, there were several weeks in autumn and spring, during which the ice was either forming or breaking up, when the mines were totally isolated from all access to the outside world. No traversable overland route connected Kara in any direction to anywhere.

  The mines were the tsar’s personal real estate, worked entirely for the benefit of his purse. Arguably, the operating expenses greatly outdistanced whatever profit came to the emperor. But the mines yet continued in operation. The name Kara was derived from the Tartar word “black,” in reference to the gold-laden black sands of the river. The uses made of the place by the emperor had long since given the appellation a darker meaning.

  The Lower Diggings, one of the first settlements along the river, had the appearance of a typical Siberian village. However, the whitewashed tin-roofed officers’ quarters and log barracks of the Cossack guards contrasted harshly with the dilapidated, gloomy prison block. The government buildings had been arranged with some order, intersected by a few broad streets, furthering the village-like impression. On the outskirts of a cluster of buildings scattered along the road leading to the next settlement sat a score or more of poor shanties—ramshackle wooden houses occupied by the convicts of free-command. Those politicals who had completed the hard-labor portion of their sentences resided away from the prison cells themselves. If such an existence could be called “freedom,” the hardy ones who endured their years of toil were free to continue their labor on the tsar’s behalf.

  As the sun dropped behind the western hills bordering the mines, the little nondescript village stirred with activity as its residents returned from their labors. From the mines a few walked alone or in groups of two or three in the direction of their own personal hovels. The rest formed a long, drab line of humanity along the road, shuffling listlessly toward the prison enclave—apathetic, unsmiling, unfeeling. The gall of their despair weighed down their spirits more heavily than the day’s work had tired their muscles or the chains dragged down their legs as they walked. The gates of the compound swung wide for them, but they responded not with a shout of relief at returning home, but with a rusty groan as from a floundering ship about to break on the shoals of despond. Awaiting them was only a vermin-infested barracks and a meal of doughy black bread, watered-down soup with a sliver of discolored meat, and tea if they were fortunate. This sparsity they ate on their bare-boarded bunks, after which most fell quickly into an exhausted sleep without blanket or pillow or even so much as a layer of straw for a mattress.

  Onetime Prince Sergei Viktorovich Fedorcenko chewed on his broken life with little more enthusiasm than he showed the bland, rubbery hunk of bread. Since the beginning of their journey, the artel had been broken and its original members sent in two or three diverse directions to different destinations. By the time Sergei’s senses finally began to come back to him, Paul was on his way farther northward. He never knew whose hand had fed him, or how close he had been to one he once had loved.

  Sergei’s senses had gradually returned as he had trekked with the others of his party across the lowlands north of Mongolia. Thoughts came back. He remembered. But he had allowed no hint of former dreams to clutter his desolation. He wore his bitterness like his tattered gray coat, hugged to his body against the late-evening chill. He wore it as a badge, more vivid than the convict tattoo on his forehead. To the others of the artel he had come to be known as Pokoinik, the dead one, an epithet once applied to none other than Dostoyevsky during his own sojourn in Siberia, and thus especially fitting to the young prince who had once dreamed of spending his days, like the great novelist before him, weaving stories of Russian life. Sergei no longer dreamed of writing stories, for all the hopes that gave rise to tales had grown more bitter than bile. The name his fellow travelers had given him held fast.

  Shifting his wracked frame on the hard, cold boards, he found it difficult to even dredge up hope enough for recriminations. Whom could he blame for his plight? A government whose injustice and irresponsibility had driven him to the extremities of violence, madness, and suicide? A war whose atrocities still revolted him, even at the very memory? A moment of insanity that had made of him the animal he had hated in his commander?

  No. What was the use in blame? Blame was a luxury only for those who hoped for some vindication.

  In a moment of blind and desperate frenzy, caught in the horrifying battle-slaughter where mothers and children were being cut down along with warriors, his reason had snapped like a dry twig. Unable to witness one more death, although the battlefield was already strewn with thousands, he had made himself an instrument of death as well. He had thought nothing of the consequences. He had not considered right or wrong. His numbed mind was still too crazed with guilt over the woman his own horse had trampled to death.

  He had not thought . . . he had only acted. And with his act, his very power of thought had seemingly been taken from him.

  Suddenly he was bound and chained and imprisoned and tried and sentenced and sent on a march that now seemed like the only life he had ever known. Time had lost all meaning. He had no idea how long he had been gone, only that somewhere in the journey he had been deathly sick. They told him he had tried to take his own life, but he remembered nothing of it. In truth, he remembered little of anything. Most of the time he had not even remembered Anna. Faint sensations fluttered at his heart upon occasion, but the one who seemed to be calling to him never came into focus.

  But as he had walked, gradually the effects of the typhus lessened. And in spite of the exhausting regimen, by degrees his bodily strength began to come back. With soundness of limb, once again his mind slowly began to function. Sights, sounds, memories began to intrude where had been only a void for so many months.

  His arrival at Kara had snapped his mind from the trap of insanity. As thought processes slowly took hold, the reality of his situation dawned all too clear. There would be no blame, no recriminations, no vengeance. Perhaps he would never write again, never see civilization again. And perhaps he was indeed a pokoinik. But he would not attempt again to achieve that end by his own hand. If dead he must be, it would not be by the tsar’s guards at this hellish place. It would not be from his own doing, nor would he ever again carry a weapon on a battlefield to die fighting innocent enemies of the great Russian state. If he was to die, he would die with purpose.

  His was a life beset with ironies. He blamed neither himself, nor his father, nor Rustaveli, nor the tsar, nor anyone. If he was going to be called “the dead one,” at least he would earn the name.

  He could not—would not—stay here enduring a living death for all his days. He would drown in the river, freeze in the bitter wastelands, or starve in the taiga wilderness.

  But he would not stay . . . never to die, and yet never to live.

  50

  The light of dawn pierced the grimy, heavily grated windows of the barracks with a bent, turbid light. It was welcomed with the groans and mutterings of dried-up voices, and the clank of chains as the inhabitants pried their stiff bodies from hard beds.

  Sergei did not move immediately. He wondered, as if it were a surprise, why the cheerless beams of light slanting over his prostrate body did nothing to warm his frozen limbs. The othe
rs had been here a year, two years . . . ten years. They were used to the unwarming sun. But the incongruity now struck him for the first time. He glared at the pale rays as if to intimidate them into doing their job. But all they did was illuminate the dirty walls, splattered with the blood of countless bedbugs that had met their end with the cold slap of a convict’s hand. Sergei had killed a few himself, although he noticed that those who had been here longest no longer bothered, but let the pests share their beds of hopelessness. The realization further nurtured his budding resolve not to allow himself to become one of such hopelessness.

  Sergei’s vacant stare fell on the yellowed placards nailed to the wall across the room. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, one read. Some benevolent warden had thought to install a measure of hope into his charges. But the words blared out like a bad joke. Maybe the warden had not been so benevolent after all. Perhaps it was just another form of punishment, planting the seeds of hope within the hearts of inmates for whom there was no hope.

  Sergei had tried faith. Some time long ago, deep in his past, he remembered actually thinking there might be a Being who could give him rest, peace. But that was long ago, before he became the dead one. Such ideas belonged to that insanity whose comfort he could not afford.

  He could not believe. He could not hope for life. He could only hope to give the death that had already come to him some meaning. To grasp after the unattainable would only lead again to devastating despair. The catalyst of pain and suffering drove him away from hope rather than toward it.

  Instead of the words of Jesus, Dante’s words should have been nailed to the kamera wall: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. The warden would have done better with this saying than to mock them all with drivel about rest for the heavy laden. Even if some Father in heaven existed to whom one might go, what would it matter? The harsh truth of this living hell would not change one iota. If there were some heavenly Savior, He would do better to expend His saving energies elsewhere.

  Sergei would hope . . . but not for life as he had once known it, neither for eternal life. He would hope only to be away from this place so that he might die in peace. Not peace with God, but perhaps a modicum of peace with himself.

  With a sudden, violent jerk, Sergei swung his feet off his bed. Such morose thinking was dangerous. He had to keep his wits sharp. He couldn’t fade off again into the emptiness . . . the fathomless black pit. He would be better off not to think at all. Better to concern himself with only matters of survival until the day came—and he would be sure it was soon!

  The other inmates were already attacking the tray of bread and bucket of warm tea left by the guard. Sergei shouldered his way through the mob. The men gave way to him. There was some advantage to being a quiet newcomer, with a reputation that had grown over the course of the journey. Some said he was a murderer, others that he was dangerous for other reasons. The faraway look in his eyes gave evidence of a strangeness that separated him from most convicts at Kara, and Sergei did nothing to dismiss any of the speculations one way or another. He let them think what they would. Let the rumors spread and fester. If it got him a bigger crust of bread, what did it matter?

  He grabbed one of the hunks left on the tray, then dipped his dirty tin cup into the bucket twice, draining off the first cup in a few seconds before going back for another. A reputation could not hurt in this place where men killed for little more than a morsel of food. Survival was the only liturgy worth heeding in this house of the dead.

  A few moments later the inmates shuffled outside for the verification inspection that preceded the day’s toil. Everyone was present except those who had died during the night—the lucky ones.

  “One more day, eh, Kaplan?” said the guard to one of the older prisoners—one who had befriended Sergei his second night at Kara.

  Kaplan grinned garishly. “Just make sure you have the key to unlock these chains tomorrow at this time,” he said.

  Sergei wondered if he should feel happiness or remorse for him. In a few months winter would be beating against the thin walls of his shanty in the free-command edge of the village. The old convict would doubtless die long before General Kukushka rallied his army of escapes next spring. Sergei didn’t want to have to wait so long. Perhaps his old friend’s release might afford him an opportunity somehow. He would be alert today and try to make his brain think more than it had of late.

  Then they were off, herded like beasts to another day in the unending drudgery of pick and shovel and mine carts.

  If only Dmitri were here, thought Sergei. He would be able to devise some way out of this godforsaken and hideous place!

  51

  Another day’s toil behind him.

  It was only his eighth since arriving at Kara. Some of these men had been here twenty years . . . even thirty. How did they keep from insanity? He had not been here two weeks, but he would not last many more days.

  The black bread grew more tasteless and the soup more watery with each passing evening. Tonight there was no tea.

  Sergei lay down on his bunk with a wearisome groan and stared straight up at the dark ceiling.

  A dull, scraping sound drew near Sergei’s bed, but he made no response to it until a voice like the scrape of fetters on the plank floor rasped in his ear.

  “Hey, Pokoinik,” said the man called Kaplan. His visage appeared ancient and his face as gray and creased as the Siberian landscape. “Don’t tell me you are asleep.”

  “Why not?” Sergei answered in a frayed voice that still revealed the effects of the typhus.

  “Tomorrow I go into free-command.”

  “I am happy for you, Kaplan. But your good fortune will not help me.”

  “They say I am reformed,” replied the other, seeming to ignore the young prince’s comment. He chortled a sound that was supposed to resemble laughter. The glint in his squinting eyes hinted that he had pulled a great joke on his keepers. “You can join me, Pokoinik,” he added, in a low, nefarious voice that hinted at some undisclosed scheme.

  Stiffly Sergei rolled over in his bunk and eyed the old man.

  “You told me you did not intend to remain here as long as I,” Kaplan went on. “Perhaps I might assist you.”

  “Why should you help me?” Sergei asked. He had already developed the skepticism that permeated such prison camps and kept most of the convicts within self-made walls even thicker than those around the perimeter of the compound. His words sounded like a challenge.

  “Pokoinik! Did I not befriend you and take care of you when you arrived? I saw in you a friend. Now that my big chance has come, I am offering you the chance not to have to wait twenty years as I have. You need me, Pokoinik, if you are to get away from this place.”

  “It is fatal to need someone, Kaplan.”

  Kaplan lowered his voice still further, to little more than a raw whisper. He ignored Sergei’s skepticism. “In the spring I will answer the call of the cuckoo,” he said. “From the free-command village, it will be much easier.”

  The first songs of the cuckoo in the spring gave the signal that the taiga would once more be warm enough to be hospitable to potential escapees. Even then, however, an escape was considered foolhardy, for without food, weapons, or allies, the wilderness at any season was not a friendly place, and the majority of Siberian peasants would sooner kill a convict than help him. Nevertheless, hordes of prisoners attempted to join General Kukushka’s army each spring. Few made it out of Siberia.

  “You are a fool, Kaplan. You will never make it.”

  “That is why I need you as much as you need me, my friend.”

  “You expect me to repay a week’s friendship by risking my life to get you out of Siberia?”

  “And you out too. We help each other, eh?”

  “What makes you think I want to escape?”

  “You have told me so, Pokoinik.”

  “Even supposing you are right, I have no intention of waiting until spring.”


  “To leave now would be certain death. We would scarcely be away from here before winter would freeze us in our tracks.”

  “I would sooner die in the attempt than spend the winter here waiting for Kukushka.”

  Kaplan paused, thinking. After fifteen years of living like an animal, chained like some wild and dangerous beast, he knew no other life. Once he had hid the death of one of his fellow inmates for two days so he could get the man’s ration of food. They had chained him to a wheelbarrow for three days for that horrendous crime. They had attached the barrow to his leg fetters and he dragged it behind him morning till night and even while he slept, as if it were some millstone of sin. Once, by some unknown fluke, a book had found its way into the kamera. A young man, a new inmate, had somehow smuggled it past the inspectors. Kaplan vaguely recalled that in the past books had meant something to him, just as they had to his new friend, the condemned seditious author. In the night, he had stolen that book—and thrown it into the brick oven for fuel against the bitter cold.

  He had learned to survive, but in so doing he had allowed himself to become like his surroundings. Perhaps that was why he had befriended the young new fellow in the next bunk, the one he called Pokoinik. The young man seemed to symbolize something to him, something of what he had once been.

  Escape. The very thought sent floods of anticipation mingled with the nausea of terror through his body.

  The thought that he would at last be free of these cursed chains told him he ought to dismiss the notion of escape. Yet . . . how could he not long to be completely free? Perhaps the young one was right.

  His physical condition was a repulsive wraith of his former self. His pale hair was riddled with lice and stained with dank strands of gray. His weathered, mottled skin made him look as if he should be called the dead one, not the young prince. His once tender and sensitive eyes had turned hard and cold in their dark sockets, like the waters of a bubbling brook frozen by implacable winter. The gaunt, hollow aspect of his ghastly pale face made him look twenty years older than he was.