Kolyma Tales

Berries

Fadeev said: ‘Wait, let me talk to him.’ He walked over to me and put his rifle butt up against my head. I lay in the snow, clutching the log that had fallen from my shoulder, for I could not pick it up again to join the column of people descending the mountain. Each man carried a log on his shoulder, some larger and some smaller, and all were in a hurry to get home. Both the guards and the prisoners wanted to eat and sleep; they were all tired of this long winter day. But I was lying in the snow.

Fadeev always used the formal form of address in speaking to the prisoners.

‘Listen, old man,’ he said. ‘Anyone as big as you can carry a log like that. It’s not even a log – just a stick. You’re faking, you fascist. At a time like this, when our country is fighting the enemy, you’re jamming sticks in her spokes.’

‘It’s not me who’s a fascist,’ I said. ‘It’s you. You look in the papers and read how the fascists kill old men. How do you think you’re going to tell your bride about what you did in Kolyma?’

I had reached the stage of absolute indifference. I could not tolerate rosy-cheeked, healthy, well-dressed, full people. I curled up to protect my stomach, but even this was a primordial, instinctive movement; I was not at all afraid of blows to the stomach. Fadeev’s booted foot kicked me in the back, but a sudden warm feeling came over me, and I experienced no pain at all. If I were to die, it would be all the better.

‘Listen,’ Fadeev said when he had turned me face upward with the tips of his boots. ‘You’re not the first one I’ve worked with, and I know your kind.’

Seroshapka, another guard, walked up.

‘Let me have a look at you, so I’ll remember you. What a mean one you are…’

The beating began. When it ended, Seroshapka said: ‘Now do you understand?’

‘I understand,’ I said as I got up and spat out salty, bloody saliva. I dragged the log to the accompaniment of chortles, shouting, and swearing from my fellow prisoners. The cold had gotten to them while I was being beaten.

The next morning Seroshapka led us out to a site where the trees had been cut down the previous winter, to gather anything that could be burned in our cast-iron stoves. The stumps were tall, and we ripped them out of the earth, using long poles as levers. Then we sawed them into pieces and stacked them.

Seroshapka hung ‘markers’ in the few branches still remaining in the area where we were working. Made from braided dry yellow and gray grass, the markers indicated the area beyond which we were not permitted to set foot.

Our foreman built a fire on the hill for Seroshapka and brought him an extra supply of wood. Only the guards could have fires.

The fallen snow had long since been carried away by the winds, and the cold, frosty grass was slippery in our hands and changed color when we touched it. Hummocks of low mountain sweet-brier grew around the tree stumps, and the aroma of the frozen dark lilac berries was extraordinary. Even more delicious than the sweet-brier were the frozen, overripe blue cowberries. The blueberries hung on stubby straight branches, each berry bright blue and wrinkled like an empty leather purse, but containing a dark blue-black juice that was indescribably delicious. By that time of the year, the berries had been touched by frost, and they were not at all like the ripe berries, which are full of juice. The later berries have a much more subtle taste.

I was working with Rybakov, who was gathering berries in a tin can during the rest periods and whenever Seroshapka looked the other way. If Rybakov could manage to fill the can, the guards’ cook would give him some bread. Rybakov’s undertaking began to assume major dimensions.

I had no such customers, so I ate the berries myself, carefully and greedily pressing each one against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. The sweet aromatic juice of the crushed berry had a fleeting narcotic effect.

I never even considered helping Rybakov in his gathering, and he himself would not have desired such aid, since he would have had to share the bread.

Rybakov’s can was filling slowly, and we were finding fewer and fewer berries. While working and gathering berries, we had approached the border of the forbidden ‘zone’, without even noticing it. The markers were hanging right over our heads.

‘Look at that,’ I said to Rybakov. ‘Let’s go back.’

Ahead, however, were hummocks of sweet-brier, cowberry, and blueberry… We had noticed them earlier. The marker should have been hanging from a tree which stood two yards farther away.

Rybakov pointed at his can, not yet full, and at the sun, slowly setting on the horizon. Slowly he crept toward the enchanted berries.

I heard the dry crack of a shot, and Rybakov fell face down among the hummocks. Seroshapka waved his rifle and shouted:

‘Leave him there, don’t go near him.’

Seroshapka cocked his rifle and shot in the air. We knew what this second shot meant. Seroshapka also knew. There were supposed to be two shots – the first one a warning.

Rybakov looked strangely small as he lay among the hummocks. The sky, mountains, and river were enormous, and God only knew how many people could be killed and buried among the hummocks along these mountain paths.

Rybakov’s can had rolled far away, and I managed to pick it up and hide it in my pocket. Maybe they would give me some bread for these berries, since I knew for whom they were intended.

Seroshapka calmly ordered us to get in formation, counted us, and gave the command to set off home.

He touched my shoulder with his rifle barrel, and I turned around.

‘I wanted to get you,’ he said, ‘but you wouldn’t cross the line, you bastard!’