The Day Will Pass Away

by Ivan Chistyakov

  I got a poor night’s sleep because of the cold. It was cold even under two blankets, a leather coat and a fur jacket. My rheumatism is back and I have aching calf muscles and a cramp in my legs.

  1 January 1936

  New Year’s Day. Day off. I go hunting with my deputy and miss a goat. I’m dog tired. I’m thinking over a lot of things, but all my thoughts centre on getting demobbed, getting rid of those tabs on my collar and of BAM. Even moving into the personnel section is an impossible dream. The Armed Guards Unit is part of a great construction project. We’re devoting our lives to building a socialist society, and what recognition do we get? None. Unless we get hauled before the Revtribunal.

  I haven’t been to the bathhouse for the past fifteen days and see no prospect of it. Smashing!

  2 January 1936

  Minus 40 and chilled through. The zeks are breaking the camp up. They need fuel too, to keep warm, to cook. There’s been so much big talk in the past, and big talk now, with more to come, and yet we never see a stick of firewood delivered. The era of War Communism is over and the Cheka should have changed. Stalin has said A greater concern for people should be shown in full measure.’ But here? Here I’d be reluctant to even imagine Stalin’s words might be applied. Everyone should apply them for themselves. That’s the Party line. They say it’s your own fault if something hasn’t been done. BAM is a complete shambles. The camp guards force the zeks to lie down in the snow. Sigitov’s approach is:

  ‘If you want to stand, you can stand out here for four hours, or sit for two hours, or lie in the snow for one. The choice is yours.’

  Fedosov was fondling Kalugina. ‘It was a bullet that tore my socks and trousers but it missed me. Broke into pieces, nearly hit me. I’ll get them mended at the end of the week.’ What a load of nonsense.

  3 January 1936

  And now it’s 52 below freezing. I’m gasping for air like a fish out of water. The wind is searing. I’m on my way to Arkhara, summoned by the company commander. Well, you see, the problem is this, as it were . . .

  I went into a shop. Sod all. It didn’t even have sugar, let alone butter. I’ve had nothing to eat since morning and there’s nowhere to get a meal. The buffet at the station is closed until 8 p.m. There’s no train and nobody knows when the next one will come. I hung around till the buffet opened. Dinner was 5 rubles 40. Soup was probably yesterday’s leftovers, and it was a good four days since the carp was fried.

  At 10 p.m., I got an express freight train. At last. Hardly able to breathe.

  At 11 p.m., I was back in my room. Need to sleep now.

  4 January 1936

  To Phalanx 13. The head of the section invites me out hunting. We go: me, the section head and the stationmaster. We don’t spot anything. I hand back the rifle and on the way home, to rub it in, see two goats. Could’ve had meat for dinner tonight.

  How beautiful is nature here

  Where all around is wild and sere.

  A desolate, silent, hungry place,

  Nor bird nor beast nor human face

  Nor sound, nor aught to fear.

  5 January 1936

  Still cold. Zeks not working so we get to take it easy. I give the lads a talk about astronomy. They’re really interested. We go to the bathhouse in the evening. Some bathhouse! Five degrees of frost with ice on the floor, walls and ceiling. The water is barely warm. Once you get your kit off you can’t stop your teeth chattering. The political instructor says he’s been poisoned by carbon monoxide from the stove. I tell him he looks a healthy pink. We wash our legs and bodies but can’t wet our heads or our hair would freeze. Even so, we get scales of ice on our bodies. It must be good for us.

  6 January 1936

  Do the rounds of the phalanxes, 35-ers. Pretty weak after riding 40 km.

  I’m in an odd mood, don’t care about anything. I feel jaded, empty.

  7 January 1936

  Go hunting with my deputy and Romanenko. There are plenty of tracks, just no goats. Hunting them is a matter of chance. If you see one in the right position you’re in luck and should be able to kill it. If you don’t, you won’t.

  An agent turns up with information. Hell, what a trickster. They checked a suspect, searched him and packed him off to the Third Section. At the siding he tried to escape, immediately swapped clothes with another zek and denied who he was.

  ‘I’m a passenger. I’ve just got off the train and have no idea what you are talking about.’

  We’ll have to wait and see what happens. They’ve caught Vasiliev. He’d been living at Phalanx 7 for fifteen days, wearing a skirt and a towel round his chest to pad himself out. They arrested him anyway.

  I’ve got a pain in my left temple from the cold. I just hope it isn’t meningitis. My feet are freezing at night, and my shoulders. I can’t step on the floor, it’s colder than ice. Undressing and dressing would be suicide. I go to bed at night and worry myself sick over whether tonight’s the night the bridge gets blown up or burned down.

  8 January 1936

  It all took off in the night. Batonogov turned up to report that some arrested prisoners were not on the train. I spent a restless night wondering whether they would bring them in or not. They didn’t arrive in the morning either. One had escaped by knocking out a window. He disappeared, jumping in different directions in the snow. The devil only knows why. Perhaps it’s a trick to put pursuers off his track, or perhaps he’s one of several. Two others arrested, both of whom gave the same surname. Sent them to the Third Section to sort out.

  Commanders’ training day. One commander is missing, with a woman in the stables. Another is missing because he’s too busy commanding a division. A five-storey building is going up at HQ. ‘I expect that’s for us!’ More likely we’ll get a dugout, and get to dig it out ourselves.

  No class timetables, no syllabus, no textbooks. It’s stupid and pointless to complain about lack of support. Who could provide it? Rank doesn’t confer knowledge and there’s no instruction manual. Rank teaches some of them how to strike a pose, which they think proves what a lot they must know. In fact, it just makes them look stupid and ignorant.

  They’ve started burning coal in the stove. It does seem to make the place warmer, or perhaps it’s just because it’s got warmer outside. You can get frozen apples for 4 rubles 50, which is good news. Fruit, fruit! I manage to get butter too, an achievement here. We get what we think might eventually come in handy. We’re not yet at the level where we can just go and buy what we need. That’s sometime in the future.

  9 January 1936

  As we’re using coal for heating, a thick layer of dust settles on everything. It seems a bit warmer and you get used to it. We still have a North and South Pole in the room. We’re still burning railway sleepers. There’s no other solution, and both the Third Section and the phalanx leader look the other way. For the first time in two years they are training the middle ranks. It’ll be interesting to see how the company commander measures up.

  We’re handing over the Zhuravli-Uletui stretch of the track tomorrow. You keep your spirits up with talk and speculation. It helps. I’ve been issued a greatcoat from the clothing section. I’m accumulating military bits and pieces now, but I have no interest in life – meaning life out here, of course. I’ve learnt a lot: don’t worry too much about orders, escapes, or training the armed guards and junior commanders. You teach them in order not to fall behind yourself, to retain at least something in your memory. My manner and attitude probably seem odd. I’m beginning to have that mark on my face, the stamp of stupidity, narrowness, a kind of moronic expression.

  I remembered my white collar. Useless luxury here, of course. I haven’t been in the bathhouse for a month, but my collars used to be dazzling. I can’t get my hands clean. Everything I handle is covered in dirt, dust, and soot.

  10 January 1936

  Feeling foul. I’m waiting for something bad and unpleasant to happen. What could be worse than BAM? If they demote me, it’s probably fo
r the best and means I’ll be out sooner. I feel rotten about angling for that. The guards are all talking about who will go home and when. I reckon right now they’re luckier than us.

  11 January 1936

  It’s only three months since I arrived here from Moscow but it feels like a year. Leshchuk, the platoon clerk, is going home and doesn’t want to. Incredible. I would cheerfully live in even worse conditions if it meant leaving BAM. He says he’s got nowhere else to go. Odd. A state farm is being organized on land allocated to my platoon and with people from my subdivision. Life might be easier there, although it would increase the likelihood of staying here permanently, which is definitely not what I want. I pictured Karetno-Sadovaya Square, the noise of the trams, the streets, the pedestrians, the thawing snow, and the yard sweepers clearing the pavements with their scrapers. I thought about it till my head ached. I have less than half my lifetime left now, and BAM is eating into even that. Nobody cares about my life. How do I gain the right to control my own time and my own life?

  12 January 1936

  I ride out to Phalanx 13 and round all the territories: Krasnaya Gorka, Antonovka, Klyuchi, Nizmennoye. Thought I might happen upon some game. Nothing. I see a local hunter on the trail of a wolf. He’s wearing a goatskin jacket and matching goatskin boots and cap, and is carrying a five-chambered Berdan rifle.

  Sivukha tells me the story of how he tested the guards:

  I came to Klyuchi in the night. The armed guards were all asleep, the sentry out somewhere in the phalanx. I lifted out a pane of glass, flicked the catch, and took all the rifles and ammunition. They were fast asleep. I took up position round the corner. Bang! They were still sleeping. Bang again! I hear ‘To arms!’

  ‘Lads, there are no rifles! We’ve been disarmed!’

  Bang, bang!!! Bullets! Where? Over there! Get under the bed! Bang, bang! Up runs the sentry. ‘ “To arms!” What do you mean, “To arms!?” There are no rifles. Get under the bed, there are no rifles.’ I show myself. Sufmis is on his knees, his hands crossed like Jesus on his chest. Speechless. Out of his mind. A lesson he’ll never forget.

  A Chinese gang could have disarmed and shot the lot of them.

  13 January 1936

  I got a letter from Laudenbakh. Letters are a cause for celebration. I spent all day writing a reply. Yesterday they filled up the gaps in the walls with clay and now it’s warmer. Last night, though, my sides still got cold. I felt as if I’d been used to pull a plough, and stayed home all day.

  A delivery of sleepers. Yes, I know they need heat but this is not a bloody holiday resort. We keep being ordered to work with the masses, to take them under our wing, but they just spit in our faces. Bloodsuckers! That and more. You want me to try to teach that lot? First let’s see all those superiors of ours have a go. They just want someone else to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. Well, sorry! Mikhailov fixed himself up nicely and has managed to leave. Norokhodov lived with a zek and what happened? They suspended him and will probably transfer him. The top brass can do whatever they please and get away with it. Party members just say, ‘Oops, sorry. Won’t do it again.’ But non-Party members? The flotsam and jetsam of society? Where do we go, who do we ask for protection and help? Anyway, what does ‘non-Party member’ mean? We’re just dross. The quartermaster and phalanx boss get drunk, and where does that money come from? They’re selling the railway workers’ food. The ‘soldiers of the track’, poor sods, eat badly but still stand up for them. The Third Section chooses to be broad-minded. Well, to hell with them. A pity, though, to watch state property being embezzled.

  14 January 1936

  This place is so empty it makes the Torricelli vacuum look bustling. Admittedly, there’s plenty of work of one sort or another: prisoners being redeployed, replacements arriving, the Third Section, the lecturing, inspections. We are gradually moving eastwards. Money makes the world go round. Money is what lured the hired armed guards here. When they’ve lived at BAM for a while, they’ll see what they’ve landed in. There is disorder everywhere and no firewood anywhere, people refuse to go out to work, and quartermasters sell the food in the stores and spend the money on drink. The camp administration is down on us, the railway workers are down on us. That’s a real classless society.

  But the fact remains that we’ve built a railway!

  With each passing day my stomach problems get worse.

  15 January 1936

  Every day is as like every other day as two drops of water. There was another flurry of escapes. I need to go and lay down the law, and I will. The top brass are all over the supposedly record-breaking Stakhanov ‘shock workers’ and reward them with this and that, whereupon they escape.### If I don’t describe the weather, I have nothing to write about. Insufferable. I’m so disgusted with this whole foul place. Sometimes I don’t feel like writing, it’s all filth and savagery. But my life is in this diary. Administrators deal with lofty matters, plans for the future. They are enthusiastic, excited, but what about us?

  The sword of the Revtribunal is always hanging over us. We don’t want all those awards and other perks they have at our local HQ. Just give us our rations, our firewood, and potatoes that are not frozen and rotten. I took a trip to the bathhouse at Uletui and felt reborn. I hadn’t washed properly for a month, and suddenly I was in a warm place that even had steam. The floor may have been cold, but it was still luxury. An hour of bliss. Deserting your post can get you solitary.

  16 January 1936

  I went to Kulustai, travelling on the shuttle as far as Domikan and trudging the rest. The wind was as sharp as a razor. I enjoyed sitting with the lads, told them about things they’d never heard of. They found it interesting. It was an occasion for them and they enjoyed it.

  I walk back. Milky fog. The outlines of the bushes are blurred and obscure. You can’t see ten metres in front of you. All kinds of thoughts crowd in while you’re walking 42 km, you can turn everything over in your mind. A train flies by, clacking on the joints of the rails. Light shines from the windows, curtains sway. Those people are thinking too. It would be good if their ideas could be written down as well. So many tragedies and joys, so much despair and hope. How many lives destroyed! How many emotions and aspirations, how much apathy endured! For now I have to turn away from the world and all its pleasures. I have to be only part human because so much is out of reach. But still, no frontal attack. I need to scheme and wriggle and connive. The straight road invariably leads to disaster. I suppose that’s how diplomacy works, who can outsmart whom. Let’s see how good I am at it. Let’s tr-y-y!

  17 January 1936

  I go to Phalanx 13 with a squad commander. There’s a shop wagon. What to buy? There is nothing. I just wish I could escape from all this, if only for a day. But where to and how? When it’s warm again I’ll be able to go and lie on a hill and clear my head, but right now? I know I make the guards uneasy. Wouldn’t want them to see and hear too much.

  18 January 1936

  I went hunting with the squad commander. Shot at a goat on the run but missed. Reluctant to go back to my room, where there’s no space. I can only sit on a stool or stand immobile. The guards are going away on leave and I’m actually pleased for them. I’ll do the same sometime, and not come back. A crow flew by and my thoughts followed it. ‘Free as a bird.’ Human beings, the most intelligent of creatures, hem themselves in with the most complicated laws, restrict themselves with rights and customs and all the rest. Form, style.

  19 January 1936

  They say Stakhanov methods are a grand thing, and I agree, but what does over-fulfilling the Plan’s quotas actually achieve? I am a pragmatist. I play a small role in something major, but I do it in such a way that I can say, ‘I’ve done that in an exemplary manner.’

  20 January 1936

  Got a dressing down over the intercom from the company commander over Squad Commander Krivosheyev. Cursing and swearing as usual! Went to Arkhara.

  21 January 1936

  Scandal! Tha
t son of a bitch Osipov has hit the bottle. There’s going to be thunder and lightning from the company commander, ranting and raving, but what good will that do? None, other than fuelling resentment. I went to Zhuravli with the political instructor. We talked as we walked, about the company commander, the way BAM is run, and times past.

  The company commander kicks me out of his office, shrieking. He offers no constructive suggestions or advice, probably because he has none to give. Fat chance of the Party organization taking him in hand. It stands up for Party members, not for the rest of us. Look at how they handled the case of Political Adviser Molchanov against Platoon Commander Maikher. Everything gets turned against the lower orders. The company commander needs sorting out, although how much good would that actually do? Not a lot.

  That sky! All the beauty and magnificence, all your finest feelings get trampled in the mud of BAM. Delighting in the sunrise, though, you can forget the lot of it. What a life!!!!! What if . . . ’ But no, that’s not an option. We just have to carry on. Am I really worse than other people? I’m used to moving up every couple of months, but here I’m probably better off without promotion, because otherwise I may never get away. I have been issued a passport which gives my permanent place of residence as Arkhara. Isn’t that something?

  It’s only January, but already you can feel the sun. It just might be getting warmer. The birch trees seem like a brown backdrop, misty and spring-like, against the white of the snow.

  Nature will come back to life, wake up, and people will follow. They will meet her with joy and happy smiles. But here? When I think about it I feel sick at heart. Some prisoners are such vipers you can’t scare them with the threat of solitary or a longer sentence. They don’t care. They’re not fools by any means; intelligent, creative people, but they behave disgustingly and cheat themselves out of so much. Osipov has drunk himself stupid. Fine, join the ranks of the labourers. Hack at the ground and freeze. Drink their gruel and feed the lice until you’ve atoned and get remission.