Forty Days at Kamas

by Preston Fleming

  In a speech as brief as it was blunt, Knopfler announced that, so long as we remained on his work team, we were to regard him as the final authority in all things at the site. It was he who kept attendance, made work assignments, set quotas, measured output, and determined who went on sick call and who was punished for shirking. He urged us to get to know each other and to work closely as a team because our collective output would from now on be the single biggest factor in our individual survival at Kamas.

  Knopfler then led us to a nearby section of the yard where dump trucks had delivered a towering heap of bricks, cinder blocks, paving stones, and stone building blocks. For the rest of the day our group's task would be to carry the bricks and blocks to an assembly area where we were to sort them by shape, size, and color and stack them onto wooden pallets. He and two of his foremen would work with us and instruct us in the proper way to carry out our tasks.

  For the next nine hours, we picked bricks and blocks from the heap and carried them across the yard on our shoulders or in hods, then stacked them onto pallets. Other than a ten–minute lunch break to eat our ration bars, we labored without interruption from morning till after dusk, and then assembled by the gate for the return march to camp. I watched my teammates closely, matching my pace to that of the men who worked neither fastest nor slowest. It was punishing work and every muscle and sinew in my middle–aged body cried out for relief, but somehow I survived until the end of the shift. When the whistle blew, we dropped bricks and hods where we stood and assembled for the march back to camp.

  As our brickyard work team was one of the first to reach the site’s main gate, we lined up near the head of the column and waited for the gate to open. We sat cross–legged on the ground, close enough to link arms if ordered to do so. I allowed my mind to idle, studying the landscape and surveying the compound's guard towers and perimeter fence for blind spots and other weaknesses.

  The convoy guards seemed unusually quiet and tense. I reasoned that they might still be in a state of heightened alert following yesterday's shooting in Division 3 and the brief work stoppage after Lillian's murder.

  But this still did not fully explain the behavior of the warders, who milled about nervously at a greater distance than usual from our column. From past experience, I would have expected them to pace up and down the road, giving a whack to anyone who stepped out of line.

  I took advantage of the warders' distance to turn around and face the rear of the column to gain a better view of the approaching work teams. As each team took its place in line, its members conversed while awaiting the order to sit.

  One group waited in a spot where the road passed particularly close to the perimeter fence and an adjacent watchtower. One of the guards in the tower bantered with the prisoners below as if they were wagering on something. Then suddenly a prisoner seated two rows in front of me pointed excitedly toward the tower, where one of the guards had tossed what appeared to be a tobacco pouch into the yard.

  A murmur rose from the group nearest the tower, then silence as one of the prisoners broke away from the column and strode toward the pouch. From where I sat, I recognized the prisoner as a stout little Chinese POW who worked in a different part of the brickyard from ours. He spoke little English but was a natural comedian, resorting to gestures and mimicry when words failed him. The Chinaman looked back at his teammates with a broad grin and made a rude gesture with his corncob pipe to show how manly he was to accept the dare.

  He approached the tobacco pouch gingerly, then stooped to snatch it off the ground. As he strutted back toward the column, the POW waved it over his head in triumph then tucked it into his coveralls. Suddenly he did a little jig and an instant later we heard a single gunshot. The Chinaman spun around and fell with a bullet wound in his hip. He looked up at the tower plaintively and dragged himself back toward the column lest the guards shoot him again.

  Without warning, a prisoner broke out of the column and ran toward the Chinaman to help. It was Will Roesemann. He knelt at the wounded man’s side, pulled his arm around his shoulder and lifted him the same way he and I had lifted Glenn Reineke two days before. It was a noble gesture, but it didn’t get him or the Chinaman far. The pair hadn’t taken more than three paces before a burst of machine gun fire slammed into Will’s back and blew a gaping hole through his chest. A round from the same burst hit the Chinaman in the neck and nearly tore off his head. Those of us who saw it gasped but did not dare break ranks, knowing that to do so would invite massive retaliation from the machine gunners above.

  As always, Will had done the right thing by his fellow man. Only this time it had cost him his life. And now I was more alone than ever.

  As if on cue, the convoy guards raced down the length of the column and took up positions spaced precisely ten yards apart. They barked orders for us to stay seated on the ground and link arms or be shot. Warders arrived moments later, swinging their clubs wildly at any prisoner who sat even slightly out of alignment with the column. I felt a glancing blow strike my shoulder and needed all my self–control not to attack the warder who hit me. Other prisoners looked daggers at their attackers but none dared raise a hand against them.

  While the guards and warders were busy enforcing order, Jack Whiting climbed down from the watchtower with a sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. His face held a look of animal satisfaction that sent a shudder up my spine.

  The march back to camp was highly charged, since we all knew that at any moment a sudden movement might incite the guards to fire upon us. We closed ranks as if we could hide from their bullets behind our fellow marchers. When we came within a mile of camp, we saw armored vans stationed at intervals along the side of the road, their swivel–mounted machine guns trained upon us. Inside the camp, more machine gunners drew beads on us from watchtowers and roofs. Instead of being released to the mess hall for dinner, the warders led us to our barracks in small groups and padlocked the doors behind us.

  Since every barracks had at least one inmate in Recycling Site A, the news that Roesemann and the Chinaman had been shot spread rapidly throughout Division 3. The shootings aroused a sense of dread in the veteran prisoners, who had seen camp conditions slowly improve over the past year but who feared a crackdown in response to the recent spate of stoolie killings. Most prisoners wanted desperately to believe that the security organs were gradually becoming more humane since the President–for–Life's death one year before. But now our hopes were evaporating and we imagined worse days ahead.

  I found a vacant bunk and lay back, lost in thought, trying to imagine what the future would bring when faced with such dire omens on my first two days at Kamas. But I was soon distracted by a raging debate in the next bunk.

  I recognized John D'Amato's voice. He was arguing the same position he had taken that morning.

  "Look what your stoolie–hunting has brought us to! You guys hit a stoolie, they shoot Lillian. You guys hit another stoolie; now they shoot Fong and the new guy. You’ll never win!"

  "So you think that if we stop killing Whiting's spies, he’ll stop shooting prisoners?" Ralph Knopfler answered. "What kind of numbskulls do you take us for? When has State Security ever shown respect for our lives? When they're not shooting us, they're starving us, freezing us, or burying us in the mines." First let them stop the spying. Then we'll have no need to whack stoolies.

  Others, most of whom seemed to side with Knopfler, joined the debaters. They seemed to recognize no middle ground between murdering suspected informants and allowing them to denounce us. My sympathies were generally with Knopfler but I had no stomach for the throat slitting. And the last thing I wanted was for the bosses to tag me as a rebel. So I listened to the discussion a few minutes longer, lost interest, and dozed off.

  CHAPTER 7

  "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

  —George Orwell

  NOVEMBER 2022

  I stepped out of the taxi in front of the Union Bank building on Grant
Street and immediately felt the bite of the west wind sweeping across the Allegheny. Juliet stepped onto the curb next, followed by Claire and Louisa. The girls, now aged eleven and nine, respectively, huddled close behind their mother to stay out of the wind while I fumbled in my wallet with half–frozen fingers to pay the fare.

  "You’re short," the driver objected. "The fare is forty–five bucks with the fuel surcharge."

  "But the meter includes the surcharge," I replied irritably. "I gave you forty, and that’s with a five–dollar tip."

  "Sorry, mister. Maybe you don’t ride cabs much lately. Nobody pays the metered rate. I know there’s price controls and all, but if cabbies went by the meter, these here streets would be empty."

  I fished out an extra five–dollar bill.

  "Sorry, I didn’t know that. Here, and have a good day."

  I followed Juliet and the girls into the lobby, where they stamped their feet to stay warm. The indoor temperature was only marginally warmer than it had been on the street. The wind whistled through the joints of the plywood sheets that had replaced the massive windows all along the front of the high–rise office block despite being sheltered by eight–foot–high sandbag barriers on three sides of the building. The plywood and the sandbags were a legacy of summer street battles between wildcat strikers and the National Guard, followed by student riots in September and October.

  The lobby seemed far darker than normal, even allowing for the overcast skies and the boarded–up windows toward the north. I looked up and saw that only a third of the lighting fixtures were lit, apparently to conserve electricity. As it was nearly ten, the morning rush was already over and foot traffic was surprisingly sparse.

  The overall effect was reminiscent of a trip I had made as a young man to the Russian Far East in the years following the fall of the Soviet Union. Every city looked and smelled the same: near–empty sidewalks, urine–soaked stairwells, parks choked with weeds, decrepit smoke–belching buses, long queues outside ill–stocked food stores, and dour faces on everyone except small children and the rare appearance of a young couple in love. Only now, Pittsburgh had the added charm of rows of vacant or shuttered storefronts. Though Thanksgiving was only a week away, no holiday decorations of any sort were to be seen.

  I stepped up to the reception desk with Juliet and the girls in tow.

  "We have an appointment with Stephen Daly in Commercial Lending at ten," I said to an expressionless woman of about fifty in a knitted beret, ski gloves, and full–length quilted parka.

  "Sign in," she replied, pulling off a glove to peck with her index finger at a touchscreen monitor. "You’ll each need a badge."

  She handed over four visitor badges and watched as we clipped them to our lapels.

  "It’s on the eleventh floor," she added, dismissing us. "Stay in the reception area until someone comes to get you."

  The elevator started with a jolt and Juliet reached out instinctively for Louisa’s arm. Juliet had been sleeping badly for more than a week and, in the harsh glare of the elevator’s overhead light, dark circles were evident under her eyes. Her mouth had taken on a grim set in recent weeks and, except when alone with the girls, she had become increasingly reserved, perhaps even depressed.

  It had been nearly a year since her parents had emigrated to England. Since then she devoted most of her time–when not managing the house, home–schooling the girls or taking them to visit other home–schooled students in Sewickley–attempting to sell our house, our cars, our furniture, and all the tangible personal property that we could not take with us on the plane when we, too, left the Unionist State behind.

  Having failed to find a buyer for my business after posting losses for six straight years, I closed the factory, paid off the remaining workforce, and sold the remaining assets to settle obligations to lenders, lawyers, and the tax authorities. Now, with today’s closing on the sale of the company’s real estate and payoff of the last remaining commercial indebtedness, there would be just enough funds to cover the family’s exit tax and to leave a few tens of thousands in cash to embark on our new life overseas.

  The exit tax was a recent invention of the Unionist administration, intended to stem the flow of moneyed citizens out of the country. Like the federal estate and gift tax, the exit tax was levied on the transfer of property–in this case, on transfers of cash to overseas accounts by American citizens intending to domicile themselves abroad. The tax rate was steeply progressive and, for those with total assets valued at more than a few thousand dollars, was tantamount to confiscation.

  We stepped out of the elevator opposite a pair of doors with frosted glass panels. The doors opened and Jeff Fisher stepped out to greet us with a brave but weary smile.

  Jeff had guided me through the entire ordeal of liquidating our family’s business and personal assets, settling our debts and taxes, and then applying for exit visas. The latter was a neat trick that the Unionists had borrowed from the playbook of other totalitarian regimes around the world. Ostensibly designed to prevent the flight of criminals, the real purpose of the exit visa was to prevent the flight of capital and skilled labor and the formation of a powerful opposition in exile. For if, in arranging one’s affairs, one did not give full satisfaction to the Unionist authorities, they would refuse to issue the visa. And to attempt to depart without an exit visa was a serious federal crime akin to sedition or treason.

  Perhaps Jeff felt guilty for not having convinced me to sell out six years earlier, when German bidders had offered to pay several million for the business, and when the exit tax was still two years from being enacted. By the time we realized that the Unionists would close the door to emigration, Juliet’s parents were already preparing to leave and Juliet had long since lifted her objection to our doing the same. But by that time, there were no bidders left for businesses like mine. I kept it running as long as I could, and in that endeavor Jeff was always ready to help. Even after he closed his own law practice in Sewickley and associated himself with a larger practice downtown, Jeff gave me discounted rates for advice that increasingly meant the difference between economic survival and destitution and possibly also between freedom and imprisonment.

  "Come on in and let me get you something warm to drink," Jeff greeted us as he held open the door.

  We stepped into a small meeting room that held a conference table set for eight and a sideboard where a tray with carafes of coffee and tea was waiting. Jeff poured Juliet a mug of tea and opened two packets of hot cocoa for the girls before pouring black coffee for him and me.

  "Were you and Daly able to finish all the tax forms last night?" I asked after greetings were exchanged, trying my best not to betray any lingering anxiety that some critical detail had been overlooked. "Juliet wants to make sure we allow enough time to stop for our bags at the hotel on our way to the airport."

  "That shouldn’t be a problem," Jeff replied. "Steve had to make some minor revisions this morning based on some revised tax calculations but I expect him here with the documentation in a few minutes. The Loan Committee was happy to get the amount they did to close out the debt. They were also able to persuade the Tax Department to go along with most of our proposals. These days the bank is practically an extension of the IRS, so I don’t expect any complications there."

  "Jeff, if you don’t mind my asking an impertinent question, how will they be paying the balance?" Juliet inquired. "Were we able to get it paid in gold, the way my father did when he emigrated?"

  "I’m afraid that’s no longer possible, Juliet. The foreign exchange regulations changed last year. Officially, the U.S. dollar is still a convertible currency. So you’ll be getting greenbacks."

  "Not redbacks?" she asked with a look of concern. "I thought that greenbacks were only for domestic circulation and that redbacks were the only dollars allowed overseas…"

  "Technically, yes," Jeff replied with a weary shrug. "But I’ve been assured that you can convert your greenbacks to redbacks at any major overseas bank
. The rules seem to change from week to week, so I called the Federal Reserve yesterday to confirm. To be completely safe, though, I suggest you take your money to the bank the minute you arrive in London."

  At that moment the door opened and a tall man of about thirty opened the glass–paneled doors pushing a cart bearing neatly arranged stacks of legal documents.

  Steven Daly gave the distinct impression of a man under pressure. He was thin and cerebral and, with his wire–rimmed glasses and well–tailored gray wool suit, seemed perfectly cast as the young loan officer working his way up the ranks in Western Pennsylvania’s leading regional bank. But his smile of attempted reassurance lacked mirth and his broad forehead glistened with nervous perspiration as he stepped into the light.

  "I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long," Daly offered as he transferred the stacks of documents to the conference table.

  Jeff Fisher introduced the banker to each of us, then immediately began checking off each set of documents against a list he took from his briefcase. Some documents he examined quickly, others he took the time to proofread line by line.

  When he reached the end of his checklist he looked up.

  "And will someone be bringing the cash?" he inquired. "It would be helpful for Paul to see how much space it’s going to take in his carry–on bag. We will also need a Form 105F, of course, to get through Customs."

  "Cash? Are you sure that was part of the agreement?" Daly reddened but kept his composure. "I’m sorry, Jeff, but I don’t recall if the bank ever agreed to that. The settlement sheet indicates payment by cashier’s check. That’s generally how we do these transactions, unless, of course, you prefer a wire transfer."

  "We’ve been over this a half dozen times, Steven. Paul has no account in London to receive the transfer. And we’ve made abundantly clear that a cashier’s is not acceptable. I’m afraid we must insist on cash."