The Zone

by Sergei Dovlatov

  The firewood in the stove hissed as it flared up. And there was already a smell of wet snow.

  “Pavel, don’t be angry.”

  “What’s there to be angry about?”

  “Bring some apples from Vozhayel.”

  “By the way, the ice in the washbasin is melting.”

  Katya came up behind him and put her arms around him.

  “You’re big,” she said, “like a tree in a thunderstorm. I’m afraid for you.”

  “Fine,” he said, “everything will be all right. Everything will be simply wonderful.”

  “Is it really possible everything will be all right?”

  “Everything will be wonderful. If we are good ourselves.”

  “And is it true the ice is melting in the washbasin?”

  “It’s true,” he said, “it’s normal. A law of nature.”

  In the kennel, Harun began to howl again.

  “Wait a second,” Yegorov said, pulling away from Katya. “I’ll be right back. This will just take a minute.”

  Katya let her hands drop. She went into the kitchen and lifted the heavy cover of the washbasin. Inside, a small lump of ice was melting.

  “It really is melting,” Katya said out loud.

  She went back, sat down. Yegorov was still out.

  Katya put on a scratchy phonograph record. She remembered some lines from a poem that had been dedicated to her by Lyonya Mak, a weightlifter and unacknowledged genius:It’s plain I’ve come at an awkward moment,

  The phonograph has long since stopped, it whispers,

  Better let’s wait for a waltz, Katya,

  It’s easier for me not to dance this one…

  In the kennel, a shot rang out. The hoarse canine howl changed to a screech and then stopped.

  After a few moments, the captain returned. He walked past the windows. He was carrying something wrapped in a tarpaulin.

  Katya was afraid to lift her eyes.

  “So, what do you think?” Yegorov said, grinning. “It’s a bit quieter now, isn’t it?”

  Katya tried to ask, “What’s this? Now what?”

  “It’s not a problem,” the captain assured her. “I’ll call over a flunky with a shovel.”

  May 17, 1982. Princeton

  Dear Igor,

  As you know, Shalamov regards the camp experience as entirely negative.

  I knew Varlam Tikhonovich slightly through Gena Aygi.* He was an astounding man. And all the same, I don’t agree with him.

  Shalamov hated prison. I think that’s not enough. To have that feeling does not yet signify having a love of freedom, or even a hatred of tyranny.

  Soviet prison is one of countless manifestations of tyranny, one of the forms of total, all-embracing violence.

  But there is beauty even in prison life. And if you only use dark colours you won’t get it right.

  In my opinion, one of its delightful adornments is language.

  The laws of linguistics do not apply to prison-camp reality, inasmuch as camp speech is not a means of exchange. It is not functional, in fact is designed least of all for practical use. Camp life, which is nauseating in essence, endows language with a preference for particular expressiveness. It is a goal in itself and not a means.

  Very little of camp speech is wasted on communication: “Duty officer wants to see you.” “Was looking for him myself.” You get the feeling that the zeks economize on everyday verbal material. In its essence, camp speech is a creative phenomenon, aesthetic through and through, and artfully purposeless. It is fanciful, picturesque and ornamented. It is close to the euphonic orchestration of the Remizov school.*

  A camp monologue is an absorbing verbal adventure. It’s a kind of drama, with an intriguing beginning, a fascinating climax and a stormy finale – or else an oratorio, with deeply significant pauses, unexpected accelerations of tempo, rich tonal shading and heart-rending vocal fioriture. It is an accomplished theatrical spectacle, buffoonery, an exuberant, daring and free creative expression.

  Speech for an experienced camp inmate takes the place of every usual civil adornment – specifically: haircuts, imported suits, shoes, ties and glasses and, beyond these, money, position in society, awards and regalia.

  Well-turned speech is often the only weapon of a camp old-timer, his only lever of social influence, the unshakable and steadfast foundation of his reputation.

  Top-notch speech evokes the respect a master gets. Work skills in camp do not count for much; usually, it’s the opposite. Achievements on the outside are forgotten. What remains is the word.

  In camp, scrupulously chosen speech means having an advantage on the same order as physical strength. A good storyteller in the logging sector means much more than a good writer in Moscow.

  It is possible to imitate Babel, Platonov, Zoshchenko* and Hemingway. Dozens of young writers do so, not without success. Camp speech is impossible to fake, inasmuch as its main condition is to be organic.

  Allow me to reproduce here a not entirely proper entry from my army notebook.

  They sent us a sergeant from Moscow. A highly intelligent young man, the son of a writer. Desiring to pass himself off as a veteran guard, he made constant use of obscenities.

  Once he yelled at one zek, “What are you, fucked off?”

  The zek responded with solidly grounded objections. “Citizen Sergeant, you are wrong. You can say that someone’s ‘fucking off’, ‘fucked up’, or ‘getting fucked’. But ‘fucked off’ – that doesn’t exist, pardon me, in the Russian language.”

  The sergeant got a lesson on how to speak Russian.

  A dupe pretending to be a confidence man is a funny and indecent spectacle. They say of such, “The prancing homo’s playing at Code man.”

  The art of camp speech rests on traditions shaped long ago. Indestructible canons exist in it, stock expressions and innumerable regulations. It calls for the usual creative meticulousness. As with literature, the genuine artist leans on tradition while he develops the features of his own originality.

  As surprising as it may be, there are very few obscenities in camp speech. A real criminal rarely condescends to use them. He spurns the unhygienic locution of obscenities. He prizes his speech and knows its value. He values quality and not decibels and prefers exactness to profusion.

  The disgusted “You belong by the piss bucket” is worth more than ten choice swear words. The wrathful “What are you selling yourself for now, bitch?” kills on the spot. The condescending “That’s a real dope, can’t steal and can’t stand guard” discredits someone absolutely.

  A form of verbal contest, brilliant conversational duelling, is still alive in camp. I observed such battles often, with their warm-up volleys, feigned apathy and sudden fireworks of murderous eloquence, with their sharpened formulations in the style of Krylov or La Fontaine:* “The wolf gobbles up the sick sheep too.”

  In camp, people don’t swear on relatives and dear ones. You don’t hear oaths and verbose eastern protestations. Here they say, “I swear by freedom!”

  The following excerpt is about the same Captain Yegorov. The piece in the middle got lost. There was a story with a horse in it – I’ll tell you sometime – and also one about a riot in Veslyana, when Yegorov was knocked out with a shovel.

  All in all, about twenty pages were lost, all because our literature is equated with dynamite. This is a great honour for us, I think.

  IT WAS CLEAN AND COOL in the men’s room. Yegorov sat smoking on the window sill. Outside the window, firemen were playing skittles. A bread van drove by, then heaved and braked by a bakery.

  Yegorov stubbed out his cigarette and walked outside. Sunbeams lay across the hospital corridor. There were many windows here. Gauzy curtains quivered, lifted and fell.

  A nurse was coming down the corridor. She looked like a nun and seemed pretty.

  All the hospital nurses seemed pretty. And they really were pretty, in so far as they were young and healthy, and all around them so many transpar
ent white curtains, so much cold light and not one superfluous thing.

  “Well, how is she?” Yegorov asked.

  “Condition satisfactory,” the nurse answered coldly. She had slanting eyes, neat bangs, and a bluish uniform that was tied at the waist.

  The nurses in the wards and in the admitting office seemed to have no feelings. After all, they had to say things not everyone liked to hear.

  “That’s clear,” the captain said. “Satisfactory means bad?”

  “You are detaining me from my work,” she said in the tone of voice of a harassed postal worker.

  “I’d like to stick your head in a meat-grinder,” the captain muttered under his breath.

  Down the corridor, hurrying, came the surgeon with his four assistants. They were all taller than he was. The surgeon was saying something to them without turning around.

  Yegorov stood in their way.

  “Later, later,” the surgeon said, drawing away from him. “We physicians are superstitious.” He was almost jovial.

  “If my wife,” the captain said, “if anything happens… everything afterwards will have no meaning.”

  “Stop blaspheming,” the surgeon said. “Go have lunch. Drink some port. There’s a canteen around the corner.”

  “How healthy you look,” the captain said.

  “Who is this?” the surgeon said, bewildered. “And why? You know I asked not to be disturbed…”

  As he left the hospital, Yegorov turned to the wall and burst into tears. He thought of Katya’s face, childlike and angry, remembered her fingers with their chewed nails, recalled everything that had come before.

  Then he lit a cigarette and headed for the canteen. There were only a few people in it. Most of the aluminium stools were stacked in the corner.

  The captain sat down by a window, ordered wine and schnitzel. The waitresses in the canteen seemed pretty and looked like nurses. They wore bright-coloured silk blouses and lace aprons. The woman at the cash register gazed into the hall with a discontented look. A thick, torn book lay in front of her.

  As he ate, Yegorov watched two soldiers washing a truck.

  He left the canteen, bought a newspaper, rolled it up and stuck it in his pocket. A woman with a broom was coming towards him. The woman scratched at the sidewalk, trying to sweep up flattened cigarette butts.

  A railway worker rode by on a bicycle. The spokes made a light, flickering circle.

  An hour later, Yegorov was back at the clinic. He stood in the corridor beneath a chandelier. A plant with hard green shoots rocked slightly by an open window. The flowers in the hospital looked artificial.

  The surgeon was coming down the corridor. He carried his wet hands in front of him. The nurse handed him a towel and then turned to Yegorov.

  Suddenly, she seemed ugly to him. She looked like an overly clever, serious boy. She was wearing a uniform with an ink spot on the collar and worn slippers.

  “Your wife is better,” the captain heard her say. “Manevich performed a miracle.”

  Yegorov looked around – the surgeon was gone. He had performed a miracle and left.

  “What’s his name again?” Yegorov asked the nurse, but she had already gone too.

  He walked down the stairs. The coat attendant handed him his jacket and peaked cap. The captain held out a rouble to him. The old man lifted his eyebrows respectfully.

  The nurse in the admitting office was crooning:“Give me a rock from the moon,

  A talisman of your love…”

  She seemed ugly to Yegorov too.

  “Evidently, my wife is better,” the captain said. “She’s sleeping.” He was silent a moment, then added, “No matter what, the people in the know are the Jews. Maybe they’ve been persecuted all these centuries for nothing? Around 1960 they sent us one. Everyone said, ‘A Jew, a Jew.’ It turned out he was just a drunk.”

  The nurse broke off her singing abruptly and busied herself with her paperwork in a displeased way.

  The captain walked out onto the street. Coming towards him were people – in sandals, cloth caps, berets, bright shirts and dark glasses. They carried bags for their shopping and briefcases. Women in multicoloured blouses seemed pretty and looked like nurses.

  But the main thing was, his wife was sleeping. Katya was safe. And, he was quite sure, she was frowning in her sleep.

  May 24, 1982. New York

  Dear Igor,

  I have already said that the zone can be seen as a miniature replica of society. Sports, culture, ideology are all represented. There’s an equivalent of the Communist Party (the Section of Internal Order). The zone includes commanding officers and privates, academics and dunces, millionaires and beggars.

  The zone has its equivalent of school, and of career-building and success. Here, life keeps the same proportions in human relations as on the outside.

  Correspondence with relatives takes up an enormous part of camp life, even though only some prisoners have relatives. This is a particular problem for criminals serving long sentences. The years of camp and prison tell on them the most. Wives find themselves new admirers. Children become set against their fathers. Friends and acquaintances are either serving time themselves or have got lost in the huge world.

  But those who do have relatives and dear ones treasure correspondence with them to an extraordinary extent.

  A letter from home is a sacred thing in prison camp. God prevent you from laughing at those letters. They are read aloud. Insignificant details are offered up as veritable sensations.

  For example, a wife informs her husband: “Little Leonid is so persistent. Got an F in chemistry.”

  The happy father interrupts his reading. “What do you know, F in chemistry…” His face stretches into a contented smile. And the whole barracks repeats respectfully, “F in chemistry… Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

  Writing to “volunteer (lady) pen pals” is a completely different matter. There is a great deal of cynicism, affectation and posing in these letters, which are composed collectively. Prisoners portray themselves as victims of tragic circumstance. They indicate wherever possible their burning desire to return to constructive work, and lament their loneliness and human malice.

  In a prison zone, you can always find a coryphaeus of the epistolary genre, a master at composing heart-rending texts. Here is a typical opening of a camp letter to a volunteer pen pal:Greetings, unknown lady (or maybe young girl) Lyuda! Writing to you is a former incorrigible burglar, but today a qualified logging-truck driver, Grigori. I am holding the pencil in my left hand, for my right hand is festering from back-breaking labour…

  Letters to these volunteers are phoney and mannered, yet they can also contain rather deep feeling. What is apparent is that the prisoner needs to have something that lies beyond his own foul existence, beyond the zone and his prison term, beyond even himself – something that allows him to forget about himself, to release, if only for a short time, the brake on his self-love. It has to be something hopelessly far away, almost mythical, some supplementary source of light, some object of disinterested love, not too sincere, silly or sham, but specifically – love.

  Besides, the more hopeless the object, the deeper the emotion; hence the boundless attention that free women in camp attract.

  As a rule, there are few of them in the zone. They work in the Division of Economic Administration, the accounting office and the infirmary. There are also the officers’ and re-enlisted men’s wives, who always seem to be stopping by the compound.

  Every woman in the vicinity of the zone is followed by scores of ecstatic eyes, no matter how plain she is. This attention is disinterested and even chaste in its own way. A woman becomes something like a visual extravaganza, theatre, pure cinema. Her very unattainability ensures the purity of the men’s thoughts.

  “You just take a look at her,” the zeks say. “What a woman! I’d subscribe to a martsifal like that!”

  The emphasis is all on the noun. It is woman in general who
is striking, not any one of the woman’s specific qualities; it is woman as fact that rules all minds. As such, woman is a miracle. She is martsifal, which is to say, something mysterious, lofty, and exotic. Marzipan and waterfall.

  It is extremely rare for a zek even to try to approach a female camp employee. In the first place, it’s hopeless. The social chasm is too great. Besides, making a pass is of much less importance than the cult, the dream and the presence of the ideal.

  As a result, imagined love affairs with the camp chief’s wife supply most of the dramatic conflicts in the local folklore. This theme wanders through prison mytho-creation, and though it is close to a science fiction fantasy, one can see in it an indisputable artistic logic at work. It presents a way to realize the dream of social retribution.

  Something very similar happens outside of prison too. I knew a man in Tallinn named Aino Ripp who had managed to seduce the wife of the Estonian Minister of Culture. She was so cross-eyed that in restaurants people who didn’t know her would come over and ask, “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  All the same, Ripp adored her. By possessing the wife of a Party functionary, he was somehow asserting himself. He experienced moments of social triumph when he tormented her. He used to say to me, “Through her I have hit back at the cursed Soviet regime.”

  Let us return to the manuscript. There are four odd pieces left. To try to paraphrase the missing pages would be foolish. To restore them is impossible, inasmuch as the main thing has already been forgotten – what I was like myself.

  TRY GOING TO DR YAVSHITZ carrying your severed head in your arms. He’ll look at you with his bleary, nearsighted eyes and ask indifferently, “What seems to be ailing you, Sergeant?”

  To get medical leave from Yavshitz, you have to have survived a plane crash. And yet after a year I learnt how to simulate illnesses, from arthritis to nasal drip. I worked out my own method, which consisted of the following: I simply named some outlandish symptom, and then tried to substantiate it with wild stubbornness. Once I tried to dupe Yavshitz for a whole month by repeating, “I’ve got this strange feeling, Doctor, that oxygen is being pumped out of me. Besides that, my nails hurt and my spine itches.”