17. The Belly of the Prison

· Fiery Trails - 1

The weekend passed. The morning inspection passed. For some reason, they did not call me. It was a day of rest for me.
By this time, I had learned the details about the first building.
On the first floor of the left wing, there were twenty-four cells for especially dangerous prisoners.
Along the right wing were cells for those condemned to death, prisoners sentenced to be shot. About twice a month, at night, someone would be led away from the death cells. Their cells were almost directly below us. When they were led across the prison yard, where a special vehicle with a special convoy awaited them, some would scream. After their screams, I could not sleep the whole night.
Once I heard a woman screaming.
“Where are you dragging me? Where?” she cried, “I don’t want to. Citizen warden, isn’t it true you’ll take me back to the cell? Warden, dear, just tell me, you’re not taking me there, are you? Just tell me.”
I felt horror.
What are women sentenced to be shot for? I asked Boris.
The same as everyone else, Boris answered, for embezzlement on an especially large scale, for large-scale illegal currency operations, for murder. They don’t shoot them here in Vladivostok right now, Boris continued, She’s screaming and doesn’t know that right now they’ll send her by stage to Novosibirsk. Right now, across the Far East and Siberia, they carry out executions in the Novosibirsk prison. Before, they also shot people in Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok. Then they decided it wasn’t profitable to keep an executioner in every prison; his job isn’t full-time, since they don’t have to shoot people every day. But this way, they bring the condemned from different places to Novosibirsk. There, the executioner has full-day work, I think, especially since there are often riots in the camps; the guys can’t take it, they riot, kill a guard, for example, and then many are sentenced to death. They send a lot from the camps to be shot.
On the second floor, in the left wing, there were several cells with Chinese defectors. Mostly Chinese sat there who, as I later found out, having heard Soviet radio broadcasts in Chinese, defected to the Soviet communist paradise. On our floor, there were twenty-seven of them. They were all registered under the KGB. Usually, for illegal border crossing, they got two or three years of camps, and then were sent to settlement in the remote areas of Khabarovsk Krai or the Amur Region. In the same wing sat convicted women. Opposite them in the right wing were cells with teenagers from fourteen to eighteen years old. These were investigative cells. Often, if there was a shortage of space, adult criminals were placed in these cells, or conversely, a teenager would sometimes be placed in a cell where adult criminals sat. But in general, they tried to keep teenagers separate. On the third and fourth floors were mainly investigative cells, designed for four people, but they always held ten to sixteen people.
The fifth and sixth floors were built on during Brezhnev’s time. There were large cells for convicts there, housing from twenty to sixty people. And on the roof of the sixth floor were the exercise yards.
The prison was built before the revolution, in 1904, but particularly rapid construction and expansion of the prison continued in the last years of Brezhnev’s rule. Opposite the first building, another six-story building was being erected. The construction went on day and night. Prisoners built it, mostly without machinery, by hand. Everything — bricks, mortar, concrete — was carried on stretchers. The construction of an underground prison, carved into the rock, was also being finished opposite the first building, only on the other side. I learned all this from two prisoners who had participated in this construction but had messed up and were being sent to camps. In general, terrible rumors circulated about the construction of the underground prison. All these rumors gave off a sense of some kind of changes in the country’s politics. [Cell] five-three lived its usual life. After the informant’s escape, another man was brought to us. He came in disheveled, confused, frightened. He looked about forty years old. Since we already had many people, we carefully watched to ensure that lice did not appear in the cell. Anatoly, who had hit the informant, took charge of this. Right away, he made the newcomer, whose name was Fyodor and who was immediately nicknamed Fedoska, check all the seams in his clothes, because lice hide in clothing seams. Fedoska examined his underpants with such a businesslike look, the way a jeweler might examine his creations. I looked at Fedoska and understood that something was not right with his head. Fedoska looked over his clothes and said everything was fine. Anatoly himself undertook to check his clothes.
“You such a dog, on what farm did you breed this herd? Or were you parachuted in here to breed lice here?” He started slapping Fedoska’s face with his underpants. Fedoska stood undressed in a short undershirt, glancing around stupidly at everyone.
“They don’t bite me at all,” he said guiltily. Boris came up to him.
“This clothing just needs to be thrown out.”
I have spare clothes, I offered, but they will be too big for him. They dressed Fedoska. Meanwhile, Boris went to the door and started fussing near the peephole. From the corridor side, a piece of rubber covered the round glass opening. The guard would lift this rubber, peer into the cell, and watch what was going on. But from inside the cell, we could not see what was happening in the corridor. Boris heated the glass with a lit match and poured water on it. The glass cracked. He widened the crack with a needle, and with the same needle pushed the rubber aside and began to observe what was happening in the corridor. Without taking his eyes off the peephole, he called me over.
“Want to catch some scenes in the corridor? Look.”
I started looking through the peephole. A young guard, called Sasha, was pacing the corridor. He was no more than twenty-five years old. There was something rat-like in his face. Like a rat, he prowled the corridor and looked through the peepholes of the cells where the teenagers were. He was interested in those cells for some reason. He ran from one cell to another. Finally, he settled on observing just one cell, which was almost directly opposite ours.
“Why is he darting around like that?” I asked Boris. “He probably spotted them passing a ‘horse’ (contraband).”
I continued watching. The guard Sasha opened the door and led out a teenager about fifteen years old. He was a small boy, shorter than average, thin. His clothes hung on him like a sack. The guard closed the door and remained alone in the corridor with the boy, who looked around fearfully.
With a small, creeping step, the guard circled the teenager and unexpectedly punched him in the stomach. The boy gasped and doubled over. The guard waited for him to straighten up, then immediately dealt him another lightning-fast blow. The boy doubled over again. And it all repeated again. I understood that the guard was practicing strikes to vulnerable areas. After the fourth blow, the boy fell and started writhing on the floor. I began to kick the iron door. The guard looked at our door, and with a dancing gait, playing with a large prison key, approached our door and saw that the rubber had been pushed aside. He opened the food slot.
“What are you displeased with, Mister Criminal?”
I had never called anyone names, but this time I couldn’t restrain myself.
“What are you doing, you prison rat? Who are you beating? He’s a child. Or does your communist morality teach you this?”
The guard’s ruddy, rat-like face turned crimson.
“What? What did you call me? Say it again.”
“Prison rat, you communist bastard, your place is here, in a cell. I will write a complaint about you to the prosecutor.”
The guard turned even redder, swore profusely, ground his teeth, and slammed the food slot shut.
“He probably knows what case you’re under investigation for, he’s afraid of the KGB,” said Boris. “Without their instruction, he’s afraid to touch you, otherwise he would have called a detail by now and dragged you off to the ‘room of laughs.’ The walls in there are padded with felt; you can’t hear screams from inside. In there, they would have beaten your lungs or kidneys. You’d cough up blood afterwards. Writing a complaint is useless. This guard is on shift with the Chechen, the one who sent you to the bedbug-infested cell. The complaint will only reach the Chechen. He will tear it up and throw it away, and then praise the guard. They practice karate techniques here, especially on teenagers. You won’t prove anything here with these complaints. That’s how I earned my sentence.
“I was under investigation for the first time,” he began to tell, “for speculation. I once went with my wife to visit her relatives in the Baltics. I got some spare car parts there. I thought I’d resell them at a higher price, and they caught me. It looked like they might release me; I almost got out of it. Then I come back from the interrogation one day, and there’s a kid just like that sitting in our cell, crying: ‘Oh, mommy, take me away from here.’ For several days, he cried all the time. Then after the inspection, the guard led him out into the corridor. We heard him start beating him. The kid screamed so loudly. I couldn’t take it; I started banging on the food slot with my fist. I had a chess king in my hand. The guard opened the slot. I beckoned him with my finger, as if I wanted to tell him something. He stuck his snake face into the slot. That’s when I landed the king on him. I didn’t think I’d hit him in the eye. The guard got a glass eye after that. Maybe they even gave him a medal for bravery, but they beat my liver badly. I can’t get by without pills ever since, and they piled on eight years on top of that. I rolled logs for eight years at a logging camp on Sakhalin. I worked in forty-degree frost, left all my health there. I was released sick. My wife left me, remarried, while I was still in the camp. I was free for only four months. Once I got drunk out of grief. I’m walking down the street, and they are walking arm in arm. My wife saw me and hid behind him. Well, I landed one on her new husband’s face. And now here I am, getting done for hooliganism. They could tack on up to five years. If they give me five years, I probably won’t survive.”
Several more days passed, and I still wasn’t called for interrogation. I rested both physically and mentally. How does it happen, I thought, the first time I ended up in a cell, it seemed horrifying to me. I thought I would never get used to it. These dark walls, these bars, the concrete floor, the light bulb that burns around the clock, the disgusting slop, the unbearable prison smells, the constant raids of bedbugs and cockroaches, and the constant danger of lice — sometimes you examine your clothes twice a day. But after I started ending up in the punishment cells (“cups”), the cell no longer seemed so terrible to me, and indeed, it began to seem like home. It’s not for nothing they call it a “khata” (hut). It seems scary at first, but when you go through the circles of prison hell, you realize that the cell is not the very worst thing.
Nobody noticed how the cell door opened. The building officer, nicknamed Arlekino, appeared in the doorway.
“Everyone stay where you are! Don’t move!” he shouted. Behind him stood several more guards. In everyone’s hands were flexible steel rods, sharpened at the end.
“If you have any forbidden items, I suggest you hand them over voluntarily, otherwise we’ll turn everything upside down and rip open the mattresses. Who is your duty officer today?”
“I am,” answered Fedoska.
“Any forbidden items?”
“We did have forbidden items here,” I said, “Fedoska brought in lice, but we got rid of them, and now the bedbugs and cockroaches are overwhelming us, we should get rid of them with something.” Arlekino glared at me angrily.
“Hands behind your heads, and out into the corridor one at a time, quickly! Run!” he shouted.
He accompanied everyone who ran out with a strike from the rod. Several more guards stood in the corridor.
“Face the wall, and don’t move!” one of them shouted. Guard Petya, the one under whom Shurik had sewn his mouth shut, was on duty in the corridor. Near him stood “Durov,” a prisoner named Yarovoy. He delivered the slop and washed the floors on the prison floors. Rumors circulated through the prison about him, that he was a chronic informant who did not hesitate to rat out everyone — guards and prisoners alike.
Arlekino and guard Petya began to search the cell, while the others began to search us. A cramp appeared in my right elbow. I took my right hand off my head, and immediately scorching blows from the steel rods rained down on me. These rods, with a whistle, stung my body. I turned sharply and received a blow to the forehead. The skin on my forehead split, blood began to pour over my face. This stopped the guards.
Just then, Arlekino jumped out of the cell. He heard that something was happening in the corridor. When he saw the blood on my face, it enraged him.
“Are you morons, what have you done? There was no order to beat!”
“The order was to turn the cell upside down! You’ll answer to the KGB yourselves! Now, because of you, he will slander us abroad, saying he was beaten in prison. But nobody touched him,” suddenly something occurred to him, “It’s true, isn’t it, that nobody beat him?” he turned to the prisoners.
“Yes, nobody beat him, he hit his own head against the wall,” answered “Durov” — Yarovoy.
I went, washed, and pressed a handkerchief to my forehead. The search continued. Arlekino came out of the cell again.
“Whose is this? What are these pills?”
“My pills,” said Boris.
“We don’t have such pills in the prison hospital. Where did you get them? Maybe these are drugs?”
“I have a sick liver, and I’ve been using these pills for several years. This is no-shpa. My mother sends them to me.”
“And do you have a doctor’s note saying you need these pills?”
“Everything is in my file, you can check.”
“I’m confiscating these pills; they are not permitted in prison. These are imported pills. It looks like you don’t have anything else forbidden.”
Just then, “Durov” — Yarovoy said:
“Citizen building officer, allow me to search, I know where they hide things.” He had sat in a cell before and knew where something could be hidden.
Arlekino allowed it, although they had already found what they needed. Yarovoy ran into the cell and, about ten minutes later, triumphantly brought out tea in a plastic bag, a homemade shaving kit, and several blades.
“See?” he said, “They haven’t been to the bathhouse for over a week, but they’re all clean-shaven.”
Arlekino praised him.
“You are a good man,” he said, “but you won’t keep your head when you’re free.”
We were returned to the cell. Everything there was thrown around.
I understood that this was Bykov’s doing. He decided to take revenge on Boris for refusing to inform on me.
In the evening, as usual, I narrated the next chapter from the Gospel. This was the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, I retold the Sermon on the Mount.
“What a powerful passage, ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake’,” said one of the prisoners, an engineer from the Vladivostok port, “How I wish I could be in your place. To suffer for the truth is a great honor. See, I am sitting here for bribes, and I’m ashamed that I’m sitting here, but your situation is completely different. I would gladly switch places with you.”
If you live by the truth, if you keep the commandments of Christ, you will have many opportunities to be persecuted for the truth. That is what happened to Christ, to His disciples, and it awaits all His followers.
Everyone was silent for a long time.
“Brothers, do what you want, but from this day on, I’m quitting smoking and swearing,” said the engineer.
It’s possible not to smoke, Fedoska supported him, I don’t smoke either. Why smoke? There’s no air to breathe as it is. But what if we all quit smoking, huh? If smoking were of any use to us, but it’s only harmful.
“Ah, what are you going on about, ‘if, if’? Have you started to turn meek, or what?” Anatoly interrupted him, “So, if I eat your slop, will you be meek too, or will you hit me over the head?” Fedoska became confused.
“I’ll be meek. How could I hit you over the head? If I only wanted to hit you over the head, you would have already hit me.”
Everyone laughed.
“Enough laughing at the man,” said Boris, “Fedoska is saying everything right. I don’t smoke either.”
And everyone in the cell decided to quit smoking, except for Anatoly.
“But I won’t quit smoking or swearing until I slip a louse onto that investigator. Tomorrow, if he calls me for interrogation, I’ll slip a couple onto that goat. Let him itch. And I also have to get revenge on Yarovoy for taking the tea and the shaving kit.”
Anatoly went to the latrine bucket (parasha).
“Eight-five, eight-five,” he shouted.
“Eight-five listening,” came from the pipe.
“Do you have lice? Send a couple over to five-three on the ‘horse,’ and make ’em big, breeding ones. If you don’t have any, ask around in other cells.”
About half an hour later, a pair of huge black lice, packed in plastic, were sent down to Anatoly on the “horse.” Anatoly admired them:
“Now these are real, breeding ones; they’ll produce a good herd.” He took a matchbox, carefully shook them into it, and said, “Be fruitful and multiply in the investigator’s underpants. I’ll parachute you over to him, and maybe you’ll even crawl over to his little wife. That goat won’t understand what’s up right away, so don’t waste time — multiply.”

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