Dmitri and the Milk-Drinkers

by Michael Pearce

  ‘And you stayed with them all the time?’

  ‘Well, no, because one day, quite late in the journey, they came along and said there’d been a bit of an accident, and would the Milk-Drinking women mind going along and giving a hand. Well, of course they wouldn’t mind, that’s what God put us here for, isn’t it? And the women were used to nursing the sick, so off they went, including Marya and the baby, and there wasn’t any need for me. So back I went to join the men.’

  ‘And you didn’t see the women again?’

  ‘No. They’ll be over in the women’s prison.’

  ‘And you didn’t hear any more about this accident?’

  ‘No, not a thing. I thought I might – news travels along a convoy, after all, and I wanted to hear how the women were getting on – but I didn’t hear a word. Haven’t heard a word since, either.’

  Dmitri had submitted a request to visit the infirmary. Back that came, too. On it was written.

  Permission refused. Contagious diseases.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ said Methodosius. ‘It’s not like getting into the women’s prison. Besides, they’re after me now.’

  Support, though, came from Timofei.

  ‘He knows she’s there,’ he said.

  ‘And I can’t get in there any other way,’ said Dmitri.

  ‘It’s just across the road. Give him a hand.’

  Methodosius began to weaken.

  ‘I’d have to have some help,’ he said.

  ‘What sort of help?’

  Methodosius did not reply.

  ‘It’ll cost you money,’ he said.

  ‘How much money?’

  ‘More than a few cigarettes.’

  The next day, however, when he came up to Dmitri in the yard, he said:

  ‘It’s not just money.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘They want to talk to you. They won’t do it without.’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind talking. Who are “they”?’

  ‘It’s the Artel.’

  ‘The Artel? What’s that?’

  ‘Well, it’s – it’s like what they have in some of the big firms. A sort of workers’ co-operative. They all get together.’

  ‘A trade union?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Like that. Sort of.’

  ‘They all get together to defend their interests?’

  ‘Yes. You could say that. Yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right. I don’t mind talking to them.’

  ‘Yes. Well. Good. It’s … it’s not altogether like a trade union.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I mean, well, it’s prisoners, you see.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right. I can see the Government might not recognize it, but then it’s not going to recognize some of the things I do, either.’

  ‘Too true. But – ’

  ‘I don’t mind talking to them.’

  ‘The question is’, said Methodosius, ‘whether they mind talking to you.’

  ‘Oh. You mean because I’m an Examining Magistrate?’

  ‘Is that what you are?’ said Methodosius, looking unhappy.

  ‘Perhaps we’d better just say “lawyer”.’

  Methodosius was silent.

  ‘Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?’ said Dmitri impatiently. ‘They know I’m a lawyer already. I said I was at the gate. You know, that time – ’

  ‘Yes, I know. As a matter of fact, that’s why they might be willing to see you.’

  ‘Because I’m a lawyer, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Only, you see, they want to know what kind of lawyer you are. I mean, are you an Examining Magistrate kind of lawyer, or are you – well, you did speak up at the gate, didn’t you? The point is, before they’d agree to do anything like this – it’s crazy, isn’t it, I mean? – they’d want to be sure about the sort of lawyer you are.’

  ‘I don’t know what kind of lawyer I am,’ said Dmitri.

  ‘Well, that’s just it. That’s how they feel too. So they want to make sure. They want to talk to you first.’

  ‘I don’t mind that.’

  ‘No. Well. Perhaps not. Only …’ He fished around for words. ‘The thing is – look, I’ll try to get them to promise that they’ll leave you alone, even if they don’t like you, but the thing is – ’ he looked despairingly at Timofei for help – ‘they’re not the sort of blokes, see, who would always keep their promise.’

  ‘Oh. I see,’ said Dmitri.

  Nevertheless, he agreed; and the following night the meeting took place.

  It took place after dark when all the prisoners were supposed to be in their barracks. The yard was indeed deserted when Dmitri came down. He stood for a moment uncertainly. Then a figure detached itself from the wall.

  ‘Right?’ said Methodosius.

  He took Dmitri across to one of the huts. The door was supposed to be locked. It wasn’t.

  Inside, the room was full of men, some lying on the sleeping platform, others squatting on the ground playing cards. The room was lit by two oil lamps, one at each end of the sleeping platform. Most of the men were clustered at the nearest end. Methodosius led Dmitri to the other end.

  A small group of men was sitting talking. On the sleeping platform between them was a jug of vodka. They looked up as Methodosius and Dmitri approached.

  ‘This him?’

  Methodosius nodded.

  Most of the men got up and moved away, leaving just two of them. One had a large scar running diagonally across his face. The other had two scars, one running one way, one, the other, so that they formed a large X. Dmitri knew he had not seen the men before and yet their faces seemed vaguely familiar. After a moment he worked out why. They were the sort of faces he saw every week in the Court House at Kursk; on their way to prison.

  One of the men motioned to Dmitri to sit down. Methodosius hesitated, then sat down too. The men looked at him. He fidgeted nervously but stayed.

  They turned their attention to Dmitri and sat looking at him for a long time in silence.

  ‘He looks like a political,’ one of them said at last.

  ‘He can’t help the way he looks,’ said Methodosius.

  ‘I don’t like politicals.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ said Methodosius, beginning to perspire slightly. ‘I know him.’

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘He helped me at the gate,’ said Methodosius, evading the issue.

  ‘We know that.’

  They continued to inspect Dmitri in silence.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ one of them asked suddenly.

  ‘I’m looking for a girl.’

  ‘Bollocks!’

  Dmitri shrugged.

  ‘You asked; I’ve told you.’

  ‘He really is,’ put in Methodosius.

  ‘Shut up!’

  They continued to study Dmitri.

  ‘What’s her name?’ asked one of them unexpectedly.

  Dmitri hesitated.

  ‘That’s a bit complicated, actually. Her real name is Anna Semeonova. But she’s here under the name of Shumin.’

  That didn’t seem to bother them. Perhaps they were used to people appearing under different names.

  ‘She a political or something?’

  ‘I hate politicals,’ said the other one.

  ‘Shumin’s a political; she’s not.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ said the more reasonable-seeming one, the man with a single scar. ‘Are there two of them?’

  ‘No. Shumin escaped. The other one somehow got sent in her place.’

  ‘To Siberia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How was that, then?’

  ‘I don’t know how it happened. That’s what I’m here to find out. I think’, said Dmitri cautiously, ‘it may simply have been a mistake.’

  ‘Mistake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She got sent to Siberia by mistake?’ said the single-scarred man incredulously.

  ‘I think so.’


  ‘Look, mate,’ said Single-scar definitely, ‘people don’t get sent to Siberia by mistake! The bloody Tsar knows what he’s doing!’

  ‘One would have thought so, but – ’

  ‘He talks like a political,’ said Double-scar. ‘I hate politicals.’

  ‘Why don’t you shut up?’ said Dmitri.

  The man’s face went hard.

  ‘This girl got sent out by mistake?’ said the other man, disregarding him.

  ‘I think so. She was in the prison yard at Kursk and the guards put her on a cart thinking she was – ’

  Single-scar turned to Double-scar.

  ‘Believe it?’ he said.

  ‘Not a word!’

  ‘I know it sounds incredible – ’

  ‘It bloody does!’

  ‘He talks like a political,’ said Double-scar. ‘I hate politicals.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Dmitri. ‘Don’t you have any other ideas in your thick head?’

  ‘I’m getting pissed off with you,’ said the man, beginning to stand up.

  ‘Well, I’m getting pissed off with you, too,’ said Dmitri, also rising.

  The man put his hand in his pocket.

  ‘Easy, now,’ said Methodosius quickly.

  The knife came out.

  Methodosius caught the man’s arm.

  With incredible speed the man transferred the knife to his other hand and slashed at Methodosius.

  Dmitri hit him.

  The lamp on the sleeping platform went out. The lamp at the other end of the hut went out too. In its last flicker, Dmitri saw men standing up all over the place, their knives out.

  Then the hut was plunged into darkness.

  Someone – Methodosius – caught him by the arm and began to drag him towards the door. They blundered into someone and pushed him aside. Dmitri felt a sharp kick on the shins. Then they ran into a whole knot of men and couldn’t get further.

  Methodosius began to move again, this time sideways. They came up against the wall and began to feel their way along it.

  Suddenly, somehow, a lamp came on. Everywhere there was a struggling mass of men. And there, right beside him, were the men from the Artel.

  ‘Don’t do it!’ cried Methodosius desperately. ‘He’s an innocent!’

  The knife stopped.

  ‘Innocent?’

  ‘Yes, he’s simple. Simple as a child. He didn’t mean anything by it!’

  ‘It’s unlucky to knife an innocent, Ivan!’ said someone worriedly.

  Other voices joined in, in support.

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘It’s all wrong!’

  The knife was lowered.

  ‘Well, how was I to know he was an innocent?’ grumbled Double-scar.

  ‘He can’t be that much of an innocent,’ said Single-scar. ‘He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?’

  ‘Well, that’s what you want, isn’t it?’ cried Methodosius. ‘You wanted a lawyer! And then when one comes along you try and stick a knife in him!’

  The two men looked at each other.

  ‘You wanted a lawyer,’ said Methodosius, pressing home his advantage. ‘Well, now you’ve bloody got one. Why don’t you get on and talk to him, for Christ’s sake?’

  The single-scarred man nodded slowly. He sat down on the platform again, reached out and pushed the jug of vodka towards Dmitri.

  ‘Have a drink,’ he said.

  Some time – and quite a lot of vodka – later, relations had become very warm.

  ‘I wouldn’t have cut him!’ said Double-scar tearfully.

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t!’ Single-scar reassured him. ‘How were you to know?’

  ‘It’s because he talks like a political. I never could understand those buggers.’

  ‘They’re a funny lot,’ Methodosius agreed pacifically, inspecting the jug and finding it, to his surprise, empty. Dmitri hoped the big man was not going to pass out.

  ‘They get up my nose,’ said Double-scar. ‘I mean, what are they doing out here, anyway? I mean, it’s not as if they’ve done anything. I mean, you sit down here next to anyone and you get talking and you find he’s hit some rich merchant on the head. Well, that’s something, isn’t it? I mean, you say to yourself, here’s a man who’s done something. But you never find a political like that. There’s nothing to them. What have they ever done in life?’

  ‘It takes all sorts to make a world,’ said Methodosius, still pacific.

  And still thirsty. He picked up the jug and looked around. Someone took it from him and returned it full. Where they got the drinks from, Dmitri did not know. It appeared that the usual prison laws did not apply to the Artel.

  ‘And that’s very true,’ said Double-scar, much struck. ‘But what I’m saying is, politicals are not like the rest of us. You can’t trust them.’

  Dmitri hastily filled the man’s mug.

  ‘Thanks. You’re not a bad sort, even though you’re a bit simple. Where was I? Oh, yes, politicals. Well, as I say, you can’t trust them. Take this recent business, for instance. Now I’m not against having a go at the guards, right? Sometimes they ask for it and you wait until they’re on their own one dark night and then you let them have it. But that’s different, isn’t it, from putting others up to it? Putting them up to it and egging them on and then keeping out of it yourself? I don’t call that right.’

  ‘I don’t call it right, either,’ said Dmitri firmly. But hazily. What was it that he was not calling right?

  ‘No. And I’m with you there. And what I’m saying is, it was poor sods like us who got put up while the politicals stayed out of it. Put us up and then stayed out of it. I don’t call that fair, and that’s what I’ve got against politicals. They’re a sneaky lot!’

  ‘Takes all sorts,’ muttered Methodosius indistinctly, descending fast.

  ‘And so it does. And what I say is …’ He lost his thread and looked around in puzzlement. ‘Jesus, what is it I say?’

  He put his head down on his arms and followed Methodosius into insensibility.

  That left Single-scar and, surprisingly, Dmitri. But then Dmitri had been talking so much that he had not been giving the same attention to the vodka jug as the others had.

  ‘He’s got it in for politicals,’ he said thickly.

  Single-scar embraced him affectionately.

  ‘He doesn’t mean anything by it,’ he said. ‘It’s just his way.’

  ‘Why’s he got it in for politicals?’ demanded Dmitri, drunkenly belligerent and reluctant to abandon offence.

  ‘Well, he didn’t like this recent business. People were used. He says that’s the trouble with politicals. They get some idea and everyone else has to jump to it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dmitri, head swimming. ‘Bastards!’

  Belligerence gave a last flare.

  ‘Bastards! Bastards!’ he shouted, and tried to stand up.

  Single-scar pulled him down.

  ‘Have a drink!’

  He poured and missed.

  ‘You’re drunk!’ said Dmitri.

  ‘No I’m not!’ said Single-scar indignantly. He pointed at Double-scar and Methodosius. ‘They’re drunk!’ he said, and cackled.

  ‘That’s right!’ said Dmitri, giggling. ‘They’re drunk. The bastards!’

  What was it, through the mists, that he had come to this place for? Something to do with a woman? What woman was it? Dmitri for the life of him couldn’t remember. Vera Samsonova, was it? Flat as a board! He giggled again.

  ‘He just doesn’t like politicals,’ said Single-scar, still, at a distance, roughly in touch.

  ‘Why’s that, then?’

  ‘It’s this recent business.’

  The mists momentarily receded.

  ‘Recent business? What business is this?’

  ‘What we want to talk to you about. You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dmitri thickly. ‘Bloody good one!’

  ‘Knew that! Knew it as
soon as I saw you. Well, then.’

  ‘I’m your man!’ said Dmitri enthusiastically. Then, as through a gap in the clouds: ‘What for?’

  ‘They’re all there. You’ll see them. You’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Dead right,’ said Dmitri. The clouds now, however, began to swirl disconcertingly. The gap, if there had been one, was moving sharply away. In it, though, suddenly appeared a word.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The infirmary. They’re all there.’

  The infirmary! The gap gave a lurch. That was what he was here for! Anna Semeonova! That’s where she was.

  ‘I’ve got to get there,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll look after that.’

  ‘That’s where she is.’

  Single-scar looked at him curiously.

  ‘Are you really after a girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well bugger me!’ He reached for the jug. ‘What’s she like, then?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This girl of yours.’

  ‘Beautiful!’ said Dmitri. ‘Beautiful!’

  ‘The bitch! What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Dmitri, now totally befuddled.

  ‘Got into a scrape, has she? Well that’s the way with bitches.’

  ‘Dead right,’ said Dmitri. ‘Bitches!’

  ‘They’re all the same!’

  ‘So they are! Bastards!’ shouted Dmitri.

  ‘Bastards!’ echoed the single-scarred man, looking about him confusedly.

  ‘I hate politicals!’ shouted Dmitri, as his head fell forward on to the platform.

  9

  When Dmitri came to he found himself in the prison yard lying propped against the wall. It was the next morning, and quite well on into the morning judging by the number of people in the yard. They must have brought him out at first light and put him here.

  Dmitri sat up sharply. What if the guards had seen him lying here? He would have some explaining to do.

  ‘Easy on, Barin,’ said someone soothingly. ‘You’re not yourself yet.’

  There was a group of men clustered round him, shielding him, he suddenly realized, from the gaze of unwanted onlookers. He looked up at the faces and thought he recognized some of them from the night before. The faces of the men from the Artel were not among them; nor was that of Methodosius.