Child 44 - Страница 62

At a guess there were several thousand prisoners on the platform. They were being forced into carriages in such a way that it seemed as if the guards were trying to break some record, hundreds being beaten into spaces which, at a glance, should take no more than thirty or forty. But she’d already forgotten — the rules of the old world no longer applied. This was the new world with new rules and space for thirty was space for three hundred. People didn’t need air between them. Space was a precious commodity in the new world, one that couldn’t be wasted. The logistics of moving people were no different from the logistics of moving grain; pack it in and expect to lose five per cent.

Amongst these people — people of all ages, some in fine tailored clothes, most in tattered rags — there was no sign of her husband. As a matter of routine families were broken up in the Gulags, sent to opposite sides of the country. The system took pride in breaking bonds and ties. The only relationship which mattered was a person’s relationship with the State. Raisa had taught that lesson to her students. Presuming that Leo would be sent to another camp she was surprised when her guard stopped her on the platform, ordering her to wait. She’d been made to wait on the platform before, when they’d been banished to Voualsk. This was a particular trait of Vasili, who seemed to delight in witnessing as much of their humiliation as possible. It wasn’t enough that they suffer. He wanted a ringside seat.

She saw Vasili coming towards her, leading an older man with a stooped back. Less than five metres away she recognized this man as her husband. She stared at Leo, bewildered at his transformation. He was frail, aged by ten years. What had they done to him? When Vasili let go of him he seemed ready to fall over. Raisa propped him up, staring into his eyes. He recognized her. She placed her hand on his face, feeling his brow:

— Leo?

It took him an effort to reply, his mouth shaking as he tried to pronounce the word.

— Raisa.

She turned to Vasili, who was watching all of it. She was angry that there were tears in her eyes. He’d want that. She wiped them away. But they wouldn’t stop.

Vasili couldn’t help feeling disappointed. It wasn’t that he didn’t have exactly what he’d always wanted. He did, and more. Somehow he’d expected his triumph, and this was the crowning moment of it, to be sweeter. Addressing Raisa, he said:

— It’s usual for husbands and wives to be separated. But I thought you might like to take this journey together, a small act of my generosity.

Of course, he meant the words ironically, viciously, but they stuck in his throat and gave him no satisfaction. He was curiously aware of his actions as pathetic. It was the absence of any real opposition. This man who’d been his target for so long was now weak, beaten and broken. Instead of feeling stronger, triumphant, he felt as if some part of him had been damaged. He cut short the speech he’d planned and stared at Leo. What was this feeling? Was it a kind of affection for this man? The idea was ridiculous: he hated him.

Raisa had seen that look before in Vasili. His hatred wasn’t professional; it was an obsession, a fixation, as if unrequited love had grown awful, twisted into something ugly. Though she felt no pity for him she supposed that once upon a time there might have been something human inside of him. He gestured at the guard, who shoved them towards the train.

Raisa helped Leo up into the carriage. They were the last prisoners to be loaded in. The door slid shut after them. In the gloom she could feel hundreds of eyes staring at them.

Vasili stood on the platform, his hands behind his back.

— Have arrangements been made?

The guard nodded.

— Neither of them will reach their destination alive.

One Hundred Kilometres East of Moscow

12 July

Raisa and Leo crouched at the back of the carriage, a position they’d occupied since boarding the previous day. As the last prisoners on, they’d been forced to make do with the only space left. The most coveted positions, the rough wooden benches which ran along the walls at three different heights, had all been taken. On these benches, which were little more than thirty centimetres wide, there were up to three people lying side by side, pressed together as close as if they were having sex. But there was nothing sexual about this terrified intimacy. The only space Leo and Raisa had found was near a hole the size of a fist cut out of the floorboards — the toilet for the entire carriage. There was no division, no partition, no option but to defecate and urinate in full view. Leo and Raisa were less than a foot from the hole.

Initially, in this stinking darkness, Raisa had felt uncontrollably angry. The degradation wasn’t only unjust, appalling, it was bizarre — wilfully malicious. If they were going to these camps to work, why were they being transported as if they were intended for execution? She’d stopped herself from pursuing this line of thought: they wouldn’t survive like this, fired up with indignation. She had to adapt. She kept reminding herself:

New world, new rules.

She couldn’t compare her situation to the past. Prisoners had no entitlements and should have no expectations.

Even without a watch or a view of the world outside, Raisa knew it must be past midday. The steel roof was being cooked by the sun, the weather collaborating with the guards, inflicting a steady punishment, radiating an unrelenting heat on the hundreds of bodies. The train moved with such sluggishness that no breeze came through the small slits in the timber walls. What little breeze there might have been was soaked up by the prisoners lucky enough to sit on the benches.

Forced to let go of her anger, these intolerable temperatures and smells became tolerable. Survival meant adjusting. One of the prisoners had chosen not to accept these new rules. Raisa had no idea exactly when he’d died: a middle-aged man. He’d made no fuss — no one had noticed him or if they had, no one had said anything. Yesterday evening, when the train had come to a stop and everyone had disembarked for their one small cup of water, someone had called out that a man was dead. Passing his body, Raisa suspected that he’d decided this new world was not for him. He’d given up, shut down, turned off, just like a machine — cause of death: hopelessness, uninterested in surviving if this was all there was to survive for. His body was slung off the train, rolling down a bank, out of sight.

Raisa turned to Leo. He’d slept for most of the journey so far, resting against her, childlike. When he was awake he appeared calm, neither uncomfortable nor upset, his mind and thoughts elsewhere; his brow furrowed as though he was trying to make sense of something. She’d searched his body for signs of torture, finding a large bruise on his arm. Around his ankles and wrists there were red strap marks. He’d been tied down. She had no idea what he’d been through, but it was psychological and chemical rather than crude cuts and burns. She’d rubbed his head, held his hand — kissed him. This was all the medicine she was able to offer. She’d fetched his chunk of black bread and single strip of dried salty fish, their only meal so far. The fish, with its small crunchy white bones, had been so crystallized in salt that some prisoners had held it in their hands, desperately hungry and yet agonized by the prospect of eating it without water. Worse than hunger was thirst. Raisa had brushed off as much of the salt as she could before feeding it to Leo in small pieces.

Leo sat up, speaking for the first time since boarding the train, his words barely audible. Raisa leaned closer to him, straining to hear.

— Oksana was a good mother. She loved me. I left them. I chose not to go back. My little brother always wanted to play cards. I used to say I was too busy.

— Who are they, Leo? Who is Oksana? Who is your brother? Who are you talking about?

— My mother refused to let them take the church bell.

— Anna? You’re talking about Anna?

— Anna is not my mother.

Raisa cradled his head, wondering if he’d gone insane. Surveying the carriage, she was conscious that Leo’s vulnerability made him an easy target.

Most of the prisoners were too terrified to be of any threat except for the five men in the far corner perched on a high bench. Unlike the other passengers they were fearless, at ease in this world. Raisa guessed that they were professional criminals with sentences for theft or assault, crimes which carried far shorter sentences than the political prisoners around them, the teachers, nurses, doctors, writers and dancers. Imprisonment was their turf, their element. They seemed to understand the rules of this world better than the rules of the other world. This superiority came not only from their evident physical strength; she noted power was conferred on them by the guards. They were spoken to as equals, or if not equals at least as a man might speak to another man. Other prisoners were afraid of them. They made way for them. They were able to leave their bench, use the toilet and fetch their water, all without fear of losing their prized spot. No one dared take their place. They’d already demanded that one man, who they apparently did not know, give them his shoes. When he’d asked why they’d explained, in a matter-of-fact tone, that his shoes had been lost in a wager. Raisa had been thankful that this man didn’t question the logic of this: