I put my stethoscope around my neck, shook hands with Irene, thanked her tipsily, and made my way with as much dignity as I could back to my own examining room, where I told the orderly to keep the door shut as I had an experiment to perform. Then I stretched out on my little cot and had a solid two hours of sleep.
Margolinshch was in the clinic half an hour after evening outpatients’ hours began. I was surprised it took him so long.
“Doctor, Doctor! It was not heaven. It was hell. I think I am going to commit suicide unless you can help me. What can I ever do!”
I smiled at him. It was an old problem by now, and I had read as much as I could and talked it over with Adarich on many occasions. A sort of delayed honeymoon impotence. So many prisoners had complained of it, when they were first released and had their first experience with a woman, that, frankly, I had been afraid about my own performance and quite possibly was rescued by Dr. Irene’s liberal pink jam and CH3CH2OH prescriptions. When Victor had been living as a free man for a few months, he met and married a lady that he had become very much in love with.
Their first night was a disaster. Victor had been suicidal and had come to me much as Margolinshch did now. I gave Margolinshch the same treatment. Six drops of tincture of strychnine in a glass of water, with orders to come back for more before he next anticipated a sexual encounter. The more important part of the therapy was a large dose of reassurance, an explanation of how heightened anticipation and anxiety can ruin everything for the first time out, an absolute preachment that being a prisoner for so long was more than enough excuse and the experience did not mean that his manhood was gone forever.
Margolinshch came back for more strychnine in a couple of days. He never needed it again, and every time I saw him after that he was grinning and humming away at some Latvian tune. I saw the pink orderly a few times and she looked very satisfied as well. My relationship with Dr. Irene Kopylova was, after that first encounter, purely professional and somewhat aloof, though not unpleasant. She found herself a former Russian army sergeant who liked obeying orders, and I went back to working out an arrangement that would allow me to spend a lot of time with the eager Zoya.
Chapter 26
In the end it was easy and uncomplicated. Zoya, who was such a friendly and generous soul, had no trouble persuading two of her roommates to keep watch while we made love in their apartment. Probably most of the women in the block knew of it, but nobody bothered us about it. Zoya’s bed squeaked and we had to throw the mattress on the floor, but that did not matter at all. We both knew what was happening. It was not a case of falling in love at all; it was just that we recognized in each other a strong physical appetite and a kind of harmony in our willingness to share the enjoyment of that appetite. It was not complicated or soulful. No great sighs of anything but physical gratification and joy in the exploration of tenderness. There had been precious little tenderness in our lives for so long. Soon Zoya made friends with a woman guard. I brought over some hospital supplies of alcohol when I could keep some from Lavrenov, who now, as my supervisor, had two bases to raid. I gave little medicine bottles to Zoya every few days and she gave them to the guard and the guard turned a blind eye when Zoya wanted to leave the enclosure at night. For a while it was most nights. We would move well away from the apartment buildings and find a heap of sacks in a tool shed, or bring our coats and throw them down somewhere. Once or twice we boldly walked a couple of kilometers out into the stark desert and made love under the incredible stars.
I felt a little uneasy about Gertrude. Yet I was young and romantic enough to make a complete distinction between the highly spiritual involvement I had with her and the easy, giving, physical, and uncomplicated meetings with Zoya. Zoya and I were honest with each other. We knew what we wanted each other for, and we found it perfectly acceptable. We rejoiced in each other’s body and made no pretense of any future together. We could never have lived together and we knew that perfectly well.
Gertrude and I, however, began to talk more and more about finding a way to be together “after.” I explored endless fantasies about bringing her to America, about seeing the Great Lakes with her, and Niagara Falls, and the Grand Canyon, and of course exploring the streets of New York City that now seemed so far away. In none of this fantasy was there any sex. Gertrude to me had a purity of person that somehow stood outside of sex. I knew that when, one day, we escaped together and made a new life in a free land we would marry and have children, but that had nothing of Zoya in it; it was on another plane. We talked with growing intensity every time we met.
Gertrude became animated and warm with me, but we never so much as held hands.
There was a seminar for women physicians at Kingir, and Dr. Irene Kopylova was invited to attend. Lavrenov came and told me that I would have to take over the women’s clinic for a few days. The women were so anxious for the touch of a man that attendance at the clinic tripled while I was there. Many of them wanted me to listen to their chests. I had never treated women before and I was pretty shy about it, but I never dismissed them or made fun of them even when it was clear that there was nothing wrong but lack of attention. God knows that was real enough and wrong enough. I prescribed a few bitter drops of some kind, or some aspirin, or valerian, which is very soothing, and told them to come back the next time. It is interesting that in this state of really exaggerated sexual tension and appetite I never felt any inclination to take advantage of these poor women, and I never did.
The worst embarrassment was when Galya Zaslavskaya turned up. She had a kidney infection and had to receive penicillin injections. Irene had left her record for me to examine. Galya came into the clinic and refused to take her trousers off for her injection, and I had to coax and cajole and finally shout at her and order her to at least pull down the edge of her waist band so that I could inject into her upper hip. She had to have these injections every three or four hours, and every time she fussed over undoing her trousers. This was another thing we often got laughs with, years later in Moscow, when Galya Zaslavskaya and her husband were very much a part of our trusted circle of Trade Union members.
Whenever Lavrenov came to see me he was either drunk or at the very least had had something to drink. We were on good enough terms by now, but communication became less and less frequent. When he did not come there was no message from him, and he never seemed to have received messages I sent. When he did come, he was often not very clear about our conversations afterwards, and particularly forgetful about special needs I had for medical supplies.
From my training under Adarich and Atsinch I had come to rely very heavily upon the therapeutic value of injections of various kinds. But syringes were in short supply and although I was very careful there was always a certain rate of loss through breakage or theft. Lavrenov never could seem to remember that I needed syringes.
One day I decided, since I was free, to go to the town of Dzhezkazgan myself and see if I could buy syringes at the pharmacy there. I had some rubles of my own and not much to spend them on, so I thought I would procure my own supply and keep it locked away very carefully. I raised this with Lavrenov on his next visit and he breathed pure alcohol over me and gave me his permission. I found out that an ambulance would be making the round trip that day, going from our area into the town, on to other camps, and back past Nikolsky after dark. I asked for a ride into town and the driver was agreeable. He dropped me off in the marketplace and we agreed to meet there again that night at five o’clock.
The marketplace in Dzhezkazgan was like a big yard surrounded by dusty yellow two-story stone buildings. In the center of the yard were several rows of market tables with the goods laid out on them and sunshades held above them on poles. The Kazakh women picked their way among the stalls and pawed over the chunks of raw lamb and dried meat and pancakes. When they wanted to urinate they just squatted in the street, and there was a strong smell of human urine in the streets of the town. I spotted the drugstore across the square and headed fo
r it. It was late morning. The temperature was about 900 and there were few people around. Just as I came up to the drugstore I met three men I knew: Felix Zaporozhets2, George Zhorin, and another I had treated back in the Zone but whose name I never did know. They hailed me very warmly. They were released now, sentences complete except for the exile they were serving in Dzhezkazgan, working in various projects as free workers.
“Hi, Doc, where are you going?”
I said, “The pharmacy. I’ve got to buy some syringes.”
“Ah, the hell with syringes, let’s go get a drink and celebrate. Long time!” Etc., etc., etc.
Well, it was a long time, even though these guys were not particularly close friends. But here I was walking around free again and the idea of a drink sounded awfully good. Something inside me said, Remember the last time! but I was sure I could keep control of myself, so I said, “Sure. Let’s go get a drink.”
“To the pharmacy then!” Zhorin said.
I didn’t get it. I said, “No—I agreed. Let’s get a drink instead.”
“That’s right,” Zhorin said. “There’s no vodka in town so we have to drink perfume.”
The thought made my stomach heave in that stifling heat. I remembered men coming back from perfume drunks and going to the latrine and when they came out the whole building smelled hideously of perfumed feces. I said, “Not for me, thanks!”
But Felix Zaporozhets said, “Come on, Doc. We’ll take it home and mix it with something so you can’t smell the perfume. Be a good fellow, hey? Come along.”
Fortunately the pharmacist was all out of perfume, because of the vodka shortage. I was relieved when we came out. I held on to my rubles in case we could find some vodka somewhere, and just then Zhorin said, “Say! Look who’s back in business!”
It was a Georgian mors-vendor, and my friends seemed to be his favorites, from the way he welcomed them. Mors is sweetened cranberry juice. The boys said, “Mors!” and went dashing across the square to the little stand. The Georgian had black bushy eyebrows and a hooked nose that nearly reached his chin. He was very jolly. He poured out big glasses of mors and then said, “Now, brothers, do you want the number-one drink? I have the finest mors in the world, of course, but if you want to reinforce it a little, I also have some very fine cha-cha.” Cha-cha is Georgian moonshine. I had never had it. We all said yes to cha-cha. The Georgian ducked under the counter and came up with a bottle of almost clear milky-yellow stuff. He poured a big slug into each mors glass. It tasted awful. I was nearly sick.
“Not the best cha-cha in the world,” the Georgian said. He wiped his hands on his white apron. “But definitely the best you can find anywhere. Have some more.”
We had some more. I began to get control of my stomach. The Georgian looked furtively up and down the street every time he poured the booze,—but we were never bothered. By and by Zhorin asked the Georgian just to give us a couple of bottles we could take home with us to his apartment. The Georgian made a terrible fuss—how dangerous it would be for him to sell us a whole bottle of cha-cha; he would get run in, etc., etc. We were willing suckers. In the end we paid him about three times the going price for a bottle of illicit booze. We went to George Zhorin’s apartment and got happily, stupendously drunk.
I suddenly remembered five o’clock. The boys helped me find my way to the marketplace. I was quite cockeyed and fell down in the street in front of the ambulance. Fortunately it had good brakes. I pulled myself up and said to the driver. “Going back?” He had a funny expression on his face; I guessed I looked pretty potted. But he said, “Sure. Hop in.”
The minute I shut the back door of the ambulance, which was empty except for the driver, he took off at a tremendous speed. I hung onto the stretcher for dear life. We banged and rocked over the lousy roads. The curtains were closed and I could not see out. I was sure I would be sick. I could not understand why it was taking so long. After what seemed an hour but must have been less than forty minutes we stopped and the driver called, “Destination. Everybody out.”
I practically rolled out the back door and was sick in the dust. I heard the ambulance drive off. Then I realized it was not dust I was sick on: it was a paved road. I could not remember any paved roads in Nikolsky, only dust. I wandered around for some time gaping at the buildings and street signs: the Workers Club, Proletariat Street, Communist Labor Street. All paved. Nice town. Finally I saw a sign: City Market. Son of a bitch brought me back to the same place. I go along to the market. Not the same market. Different place altogether.
Sobering thought. Where the hell am I? Man walking by. “Excuse me, Comrade, can you tell me where I am?”
“Right here,” he said brusquely, and kept walking.
I followed after. “What city is this?”
“The same city.” I could see he was disgusted with me.
Well, I finally found out I was in Kingir. Dzhezkazgan was 27 kilometers away, and Nikolsky somewhere in between.
It was getting dark. At nine there would be a roll call. I would be counted missing and that would be the end of my pass.
Out on the road, humping along as fast as I can. Walk all night if I have to and try to be innocently asleep in the morning. Maybe I can get away with it.
Convoy of trucks comes along. Dazzling headlights. Flag a ride. Truck stops.
Voice says, “Hop in.” I hop in.
Then a look at the man. Suddenly feel quite sober. MVD colonel. I could see his insignia in the light from the instrument panel. The driver put the truck in gear and the convoy lurched along. The colonel said, “Where are you from?” in a friendly way.
I made a fatal mistake. Of course I should have addressed him as comrade but I was too conditioned by my years in camp.
I said, “Citizen Colonel, I live right here in Kingir; I’m going to Dzhezkazgan to visit friends.”
The colonel just pursed his lips and gave me a very funny look. Then he rapped on the roof of the cab. A soldier riding outside stuck his head in the window and the colonel said something to him and then something to the driver. I couldn’t hear. In a few minutes the truck stopped by a tall gate with watchtowers.
“You’re a prisoner,” the colonel said. “I can always tell.” He told the guards to throw me in a cell and he would see me in the morning.
They kept me all the next day. I was dying with anxiety. My stomach was knotted up.
Finally the colonel sent for me. It turned out that he was security chief for the whole Karaganda Region, including Dzhezkazgan and Kingir and a lot more. I had picked a real winner!
I said, “Yes, I’m a prisoner. I’m a doctor at Nikolsky Project. I could not get syringes from the supply room. I hitchhiked to Dzhezkazgan. I was going to buy syringes with my own money. I met some old fellow prisoners. They gave me some bad stuff to drink. I never would have touched it if I had known. It made me very sick. I never drink like that. I feel terribly ashamed. And I am so worried about my patients.”
And a lot more pious stuff like that. Maybe it worked a little bit. The colonel told me that he had been sure I was planning an escape as Kingir is a major rail depot. But now he would just charge me with drunkenness, which would mean the end of my pass. He pulled my pass out of the little dossier they had made on me. I said, “Please don’t cross it off!”
He said, “Yes. I am going to.”
He made two big black crosses in India ink across my photograph and everything. He wrote on the back “To Be Deprived of All Passes Forever.”
It was like a death warrant.
At first, when I got back to camp, I was able to bamboozle the guard who had missed me at roll call. I told him Lavrenov had given me permission to leave the area, that I was treating a guy in another camp, and so on. Astonishingly, I got away with it. But I knew if they ever asked for that pass and saw what was on it I would be in deep trouble, so next day I burned it.
A search had been started for me, I found out later, and there were questions asked, but Lavrenov, who prob
ably was not sure what it was he had authorized, went to bat for me. And so if it had not been for the October Revolution anniversary celebrations I probably would have been all right, because all the time I had been at Nikolsky no one had ever asked for that pass.
There was some anxiety among the administration about the possibility of the October celebrations setting off a riot or a mutiny, and for the week before and after the celebrations we were all shipped back to the Zone and had to stay in overcrowded barracks. Of course when it was time to go back to Nikolsky I had no pass to show. I had thought it would be easy to get away with it. But Voloshin, the godfather who had caught me the last time I got drunk, interrogated me personally and in detail. He was sure I had sold the pass or given it to some unauthorized person.
They knew I had been missing for two days and that Lavrenov had suppressed the information. Voloshin said, “You know, we have an open charge against you. We can always charge you with attempted escape. The only way you can protect yourself is to be truthful.”
I had my own ideas about how those bastards regarded the truth. And about how they treated people whom they had persuaded to confess. But I could see no other route. I told him about the cha-cha, without naming names. I said, “Look, I did not spend the whole time roaming around. I was in your own prison in Kingir. Check the records.”
He checked it out. He was ready to go easy on me then, except that I still could not produce the pass.
I never told him it had been canceled by the chief of security, and I hoped he would never find out. But he simply said anyway, “Prisoner, there will be no more pass.”
And I never went back to Nikolsky again.
The worst part was not seeing Gertrude and not making love to Zoya. I wrote them both every chance I got. I sent off the letters with truck drivers, and Zoya wrote back frequently—warm, affectionate letters, memories of nights under the stars, how much she missed me, and so on. Gertrude wrote sad letters about how long it seemed to be before she would ever see freedom, and how committed she was to finding a way to leave the country. Occasionally there would be oblique references to a future in which I appeared. I was enormously gratified by those few words.
An American in the Gulag Page 45