The Zone

by Sergei Dovlatov

  That time, however, my method didn’t work. My arthritis failed ingloriously. Yavshitz said to me, “You can go, Sergeant.” And demonstratively opened his volume of Simenon.

  “Interesting,” I said, implying that the doctor would be responsible for the fatal progress of a disease.

  “I won’t detain you,” the doctor said.

  I had a drink of water from the zinc container, then stopped by the Lenin Room. There, all alone, sat Fidel. In front of him was a chair turned upside down. Like one of the old masters, Fidel was covering the underpart of the seat with an elegant wood carving. He was singing to himself as he did this.

  “Hullo,” I said.

  Fidel pushed the chair a little away from him, then looked with pride at his work. I read out a short, all-embracing obscenity.

  “There it is,” he said, “a cry of the soul.” Then he asked, “Do you like Lollobrigida?* Only, be honest with me.”

  “Naturally,” I said.

  “Her face or her figure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to think someone’s doing it to her,” Fidel mused.

  “Not unlikely,” I said.

  “In women, that’s not the main thing,” Fidel said. “The main thing is character. In the sense of her positive qualities. I had a broad in Syktyvkar, so I used to bring her flowers. Forget-me-nots, roses, all kinds of chrysanthemums—”

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  “I’m lying,” Fidel agreed, “only that’s not the point. The point is the principle… Are you on duty tonight?”

  “What about it?”

  “The zeks are up to something in Barracks Six. The security officer himself warned us.”

  “What, specifically?”

  “I don’t know, you ask him. They’re brewing something nasty. Or just marking time…”

  “It would be good to find out.”

  “Ask the security officer.”

  We crossed the army barracks yard. The recruits were doing training exercises. The one in charge of them was Sergeant Meleshko. When he saw us, he quickly changed his tone.

  “Hey, Paramonov,” he roared at one of the recruits, “your balls getting in the way?”

  Paramonov’s father was a literary critic. His son did not know how to march. He called a fatigue shirt an undershirt, a sub-machine gun a rifle. Besides this, he wrote poetry. With each passing day his verses sounded more and more degraded.

  We passed by the outside latrine with its door thrown open, then reached the kennel. The spacious enclosures were fenced off with wire mesh. There the guard dogs raged. Shaggy Alma, in a fury, was chewing her tail. Her coat had blood on it.

  Pakhapil wasn’t around. Instructor Volikov was working on something on the table. A loudspeaker lay in front of him, its back section unscrewed. I smelt the sharp odour of resin.

  Seeing us, the instructor switched off the soldering iron.

  “You have it good here,” Fidel said. “The brass hardly ever look in.”

  We looked around at the plank walls, the carelessly made bed, the colour photographs above the table, the chart of soccer championships, the guitar, the instructions for dog training…

  “They’re gonna give me the boot,” Volikov said. “The dogs are literally out of their heads. I put Alma out on a chain post. A zek walks along the fence – she wags her tail. Then a soldier comes along – she throws herself on him. Gone completely wild. She doesn’t even know me. I have to feed her, the wretch, through a special embrasure.”

  “If I were in her place,” Fidel said, “I’d chew on Captain Tokar’s throat. After all, she doesn’t have to worry about a court-martial.”

  “If you want, I’ll show you the puppies,” Volikov said, pulling up his pants.

  We had to stoop down to go into a special little closet. There, on her side, lay the rusty-coloured bitch Maw-Maw. She raised her head anxiously. Beside her, nestling into her belly, the puppies wriggled.

  “Don’t you touch,” Volikov said to Fidel.

  He began picking up the puppies and handing them to us. They had pink bellies, and their delicate paws trembled.

  Fidel held one of them up to his face. The puppy licked him. Fidel laughed and turned red.

  Maw-Maw watched us uneasily and swished her tail.

  For a few seconds everyone stood silent. Then Fidel lifted his hands like the jazz singer Celentano on the Supraphon record jacket. Then he showered curses on the seven puppies, the bitch Maw-Maw, the company command, Captain Tokar personally, the local climate, the instruction of the surveillance staff, and the forthcoming traditional cross-country skiing race.

  “Time to get a bottle,” Volikov said, as if he had seen the appropriate sign.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I’m on duty tonight.”

  “Some crap is brewing in Barracks Six, did you hear?”

  “What, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. The security officer apprised me.”

  “You should go to Yavshitz,” Fidel said. “A heart attack, tell him… I’m coughing… I have terrible stomach cramps…”

  “I went. He threw me out.”

  “Yavshitz has gone completely wild,” Volikov said, patting Maw-Maw, “absolutely. I went there once. Swallowing, I say, hurts. And he up and says to me, ‘You should swallow less, Lance Corporal!’ Implying, the pig, that I drink. He probably guzzles schnapps himself there all alone.”

  “Not likely,” I said. “The old man’s in excellent shape. He’s never been seen drunk.”

  “He partakes, he partakes,” Fidel put in. “Doctors have oceans of pure alcohol. Why not take a swig of it?”

  “That’s basically true,” I said.

  “I heard that he was one of the doctors who did in Maxim Gorky back when he was an enemy of the people. Then in 1960 they pardoned him. They leha… rehali… rehalibitated him. But the doctor got insulted: ‘Where were you looking while I was doing my stretch?’ So he stayed in the north.”

  “If you listen to them,” Volikov said angrily, “every one of them is doing time for nothing. I don’t generally care for spies. The same goes for enemies of the people.”

  “You’ve seen some?” I asked.

  “I came across a Jew, the head of a bathhouse, who was in here for molesting minors.”

  “What kind of enemy of the people is that?”

  “What do you call him, a friend?”

  Volikov went off to relieve himself. After a minute, he returned and said, “Alma’s gone completely wild. Barks at me as if she didn’t know me. Once I couldn’t stand it and also started howling. Scared the hell out of her.”

  “In her place,” Fidel said, “I’d tear open everyone’s throats, the wardens’ and the zeks’.”

  “Ours too? For what?” Volikov asked.

  “For everything,” Fidel answered.

  We were silent. We could hear the puppies squealing in the closet.

  “Fine,” Volikov said, “we might as well.” He took a bottle of vermouth with a green label out from under the mattress. “Here, I hid it even from myself. And found it right away.”

  The vermouth was sealed with wax. Fidel didn’t feel like bothering with it and broke off the neck on the edge of the burner.

  We drank out of the same mug. Volikov found some Bulgarian cigarettes.

  “Oho,” Fidel said, “this is what it means to live far away from the boss. You’ve got it all, schnapps and smokes. And I heard that one instructor at Veslyana even managed to get the clap.”

  Outside the window, Sergeant Meleshko was marching his platoon to the latrine. The command followed: “Relieve yourselves!”

  They all stayed outside, spreading out around the planked stalls. After a minute, the snow was covered with spirals. Immediately an improvised distance contest began. As far as we could make out, the winner was Yakimovich from Gomel.

  White smoke rose over the garrison roof. The over-laundered flag hung limply. The plank walls seemed especially motionless, the way a boat j
etty beside a swiftly moving mountain river can be motionless, or a request-stop station at which an express train brakes slightly and then rushes on.

  Orderlies in padded jackets were cleaning snow near the porch with broad plywood shovels. The wooden handles of the shovels shone in the sun. A green truck, the back of it covered with canvas, stopped by the door of the army kitchen.

  “Bob, how do you feel about the zeks?” Fidel asked, drinking down the last of the vermouth.

  “It depends,” I said.

  “And I,” Volikov said, “just about come when I look at them.”

  “And I,” Fidel said, “I’m all mixed up.”

  “All right,” I said. “Time for me to go on duty.”

  I stopped by the barracks, put on a sheepskin jacket, and went to find Lieutenant Khuriyev. He was supposed to give me instructions.

  “Go,” Khuriyev said. “Be careful!”

  The camp gates were thrown wide open. Con-mobiles were driving up from the logging sector. Prisoners sat on the floor in the bed of the truck. The soldiers were spread out behind the barriers by the checkpoint cabin. When the truck pulled to a stop, they quickly stepped down to the side, holding their sub-machine guns in a horizontal position. After this, the zeks jumped down and walked towards the gates.

  “First column – march!” Tvauri commanded. In his right hand he was holding a small canvas bag with identification cards. A prisoner’s last name, distinguishing marks and length of term were given on each of them.

  “Second column – march!”

  The prisoners walked on, their quilted jackets open, not paying attention to the growling dogs.

  The trucks turned around and lit up the gates with their headlights.

  When the brigades had passed, I opened the doors of the checkpoint cabin. The controller, Belota, was sitting at the desk, wearing an unbuttoned fatigue shirt. He released the latch pin. I was now behind the bars in the narrow transit corridor.

  “Got anything to smoke?” Belota asked.

  I threw a few limp cigarettes into the sliding tray for documents. The latch returned to its former position. The controller admitted me into the zone.

  In the north, it generally gets dark early. And in the zone especially.

  I walked along the walls of the barracks, reached the gates, under which the narrow-gauge rails dimly shone, then stopped at the Command Patrol Station, where some re-enlistees were playing cards.

  I greeted them – nobody said anything back. Only Ignatyev from Leningrad yelled out in excitement, “Bob, today I’m hanging in!”

  The creased cards fell soundlessly on the table, which was shiny from elbows.

  I finished my cigarette, put the butt in an empty can. Then, throwing open the door, I convinced myself that it had truly grown dark. I had to go.

  Barracks Six was located to the right of the main avenue, under a watchtower. This was where the security reports said the zeks were planning something.

  I could easily have not gone into the barracks. And yet I went. I wanted to get it all over with before the absolute silence set in.

  Shadows were hiding in the corners of Barracks Six. A dim bulb lit the crudely made table and the bunks.

  I looked over the barracks. Everything here was familiar to me: life with its covers torn off, a simple and monotonous sense of things, a latrine bucket by the entrance, pictures from a magazine pinned up on the sooty beams. None of this frightened me, only made me feel pity and revulsion.

  Zek Brigadier Agoshin sat with his elbows propped wide apart. His face expressed nasty impatience.

  The others spread out into the corners.

  Everyone was looking at me. I felt uncomfortable and said to Agoshin, “Walk with me.”

  He stood up, looked around, as if giving final instructions, then headed for the door. We stepped out on the porch.

  “Zek Agoshin awaiting orders,” the brigadier said.

  His manner was a mixture of respect and impudence, typical of prisoners in high security. Beneath the hypocritical “Chief” one could distinctly hear: “Blockhead!”

  “At your service, Citizen Chief!”

  “What are you cooking up in there, Brigadier?” I asked.

  I should not have asked this question. By doing so I was violating the rules of the game. According to the rules, the guard figures everything out himself and, if he’s able to, takes measures.

  “You wrong me, Chief,” the brigadier said.

  “What, you think I don’t see?”

  As he spoke, I remembered a red-faced waiter who worked in a modernized beer joint in the Ligovka part of town. Once I decided to catch him at his cheating and got out a ballpoint pen. While I checked his addition of the bill, the waiter looked me in the face, unperturbed, and even kept repeating in a familiar tone, “Go on, add up, add up… I’ll out-add you all the same.”

  “If something happens, you’ll get kicked out of the zek brigadiers!”

  “For what, Chief?” Agoshin said, feigning alarm.

  I felt like punching him in the face. “Fine,” I said, and walked away.

  The snow-covered, reddish windows of Barracks Six were left behind.

  I decided to go see Security Officer Bortashevich. He was the only officer who addressed me familiarly. I found him in the penal isolator.

  “Gud ivning,” Bortashevich said, “good thing you showed up. I’m wrestling with a philosophical question – why do people drink? Let’s suppose, as they said earlier, it’s a vestige of capitalism in the mind of the people, a shadow of the past… And, mainly – the influence of the West. Even though we really let ourselves go in the East. But that’s all well and good. Just explain this to me. Once I lived in the country. My neighbour had a goat, a lush the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Be it red wine, be it white – just pour it. And the West here had absolutely no influence. And a goat has no past, you would think. It’s not like he was an old Bolshevik… So I thought, maybe some mysterious power is locked in alcohol, something like the one that appears when the nucleus of the atom breaks up. So couldn’t we harness that power for peaceful aims? For example, to get me demobilized before my term is up.”

  There were bars on the windows in the isolator. In the corner was a camp stove, and on it a boiling tea kettle ringed with dry bread rusks. Behind the wall were two solitary cells, called “tumblers”. Right now they were empty.

  “Zhenya,” I said, “something seems to be brewing in Barracks Six. Is it true?”

  “Yes, I was just meaning to warn you.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “My philosophical thoughts came rushing out. I got carried away. Pardon.”

  “What’s going on there?”

  “They want to rub out a stoolie. Onuchin, Ivan.”

  “But that’s your favourite type.”

  “Not any more. I’m in no position to use someone like that. He’s a regular psycho. Touched in the head with politics. Whatever you ask him he turns into politics. Such and such prisoner, he says, debased a great image. Another one has unhealthy tendencies. As if the only person fighting to preserve Soviet power is Citizen Onuchin. Ugh! The things nature comes up with.”

  “What’s he in for?”

  “Petty larceny, naturally. I tell you what. You just sit the night out at Command Patrol. Or else in my office. Don’t poke your nose in Barracks Six.”

  “But then they’ll kill him. Each one will have a go so that everyone keeps quiet after.”

  “You’re what, sorry for Onuchin? Then you should know he’s even squealed on you. For indulging the contingent.”

  “Onuchin is not the point. We’ve got to follow the law.”

  “In general, you fuss over the zeks too much.”

  “It just seems to me that I’m the same as them. And so are you, Zhenya.”

  “That’s a good one,” Bortashevich said, bending down to pick up a splinter of mirror, “that’s a good one! My kisser may look like it should be sued for damages,
but before the law I am relatively clean.”

  “I don’t know about you. But before doing guard service I drank, got into trouble, ran around with black-marketeers. Once I hit a girl on Perinnaya Lane. Her glasses got broken…”

  “Fine, but what have I got to do with it?”

  “Can you honestly say that inside you there isn’t a burglar or a con man? Can you say that in your mind you haven’t killed or robbed? Or, at the very least, raped?”

  “And how, hundreds of times. And maybe thousands. In my mind – yes. But that doesn’t mean I give licence to my impulses.”

  “And why not? Are you afraid?”

  Bortashevich jumped up. “Am I afraid? I can say no to that! And you know it very well.”

  “You’re afraid of yourself.”

  “I am not a wolf. I live among people.”

  “All right,” I said. “Calm down.”

  The security officer walked over to the camp stove. “Look at this,” he said suddenly. “Does this ever happen to you? When a tea kettle comes to the boil, you get this terrible urge to plug this thing with your finger. Once I couldn’t resist. I almost lost a finger.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’m going.”

  “Don’t be in such a hurry. You want some beer? I’ve got beer. And a can of cod.”

  “No. I’m going.”

  “Look at him,” Bortashevich said, overwhelmed. “He’s gone completely uncivilized. He has no desire for beer.”

  He stood in the doorway and yelled after me, “Alikhanov, don’t go looking for adventures!”

  From the isolator I headed for the most dangerous corner of the camp zone, the place where an illuminated furrow ran between the barracks walls and the fence – the so-called free-fire zone.

  When giving instructions to a detail, a guard commander always demanded that special attention be given this area. Precisely for this reason it was always peaceful here.

  I walked alongside the barracks, shouting to the sentry from far off, “Hullo, Rudolf!”

  I wanted to avoid the standard shout, “Who goes there?” which always ruined my mood.