The Monastery, page 10
“Are you going to continue with your proverbs or, maybe, let’s get to work?” said Artiom, because he had to say something already.
“The bitch will give it to you, but you’ll rinse your dick in her,” said the criminal and laughed again, looking at Artiom mockingly. “So enough with the ‘let’s’. Got enough of it from the foreman.”
“Listen,” Artiom bent down to him, trying to be moderately amicable. “You’ve got your buddies here.” Artiom nodded at the other gangsters who were listening in on their conversation with caustic interest. “You be with them, and I’ll be with my friend. Fair enough?”
Afanasiev stood there, somewhat deliberately scattered and seeming as though not listening in on someone else’s conversation.
Passport pushed the log so that it struck Artiom in the chest and only then took a step back. To add insult to injury, he hit his open palm on the surface of the water and splashed Artiom.
Artiom didn’t answer. Splashing in retaliation seemed stupid, while to smack him immediately in the forehead also seemed an action with no brain behind it. He just wiped off his face, and that was it.
“It’s better in the water,” thought Artiom, distracting himself from the unpleasant thoughts of the criminal, that one, what was his name, Passport. “The work here’s better than on shore. Because there’s only one thing to do — to push the logs to the shore. It’s a totally different thing to pull them towards yourself on land.”
But Artiom, of course, guessed wrong.
They had to push the logs to the shore, then grab them — wet, slippery and incredibly heavy — by one end, while Moisei Solomonovich grabbed the other end with the short muzhik, then to climb out to shore.
If four men could manage a log, that meant it was the smallest possible size.
At first, they lugged young trees that weren’t thick in the trunk or longer than five meters, more often shorter than that. But in the water you could see such giants that if it took the whole group to carry one, there would be no shame in it.
Plus, the shore was rocky — to walk on it, barely holding on to the log, was sheer torture.
Sivtsev worked together with the Chinese man. For some reason, Sivtsev called him “little rabbit”.
“Come on, little rabbit, go deeper…” he kept repeating, not without pleasure. “How awkward he is…”
The small muzhik couldn’t get into a work flow with Moisei Solomonovich. They more or less managed to pull the first log that Artiom and Afanasiev brought them away from the water, swearing and tripping over their own feet. The small muzhik dropped the next log and Passport yelled at him. Immediately, the little man started to cry like a child.
“I worked in an office,” he sobbed. “With papers! How many months now are they forcing me to strain my innards! I don’t have any strength left!”
“Fool for Christ,” thought Artiom irritably.
“Foreman! This guy’s fucking useless!” Passport yelled and immediately, quickly rowing with his hands, went deeper into the water as the foreman went for him. Passport had pimples on his back too, two by two like white-legged insects along his shoulder blade, spine and down to his rear end.
By tiring out their hands, by breaking their feet, they somehow managed, with insult added to injury, to drag out about ten logs to the shore.
“… The foreman said that our quota is one hundred!” It boggled the mind, but Artiom still had enough wits to find it amusing.
From the shore, they still needed to carry them to the sawmill.
While they lifted the first log, crouching and straining their backs, Artiom had time to despise it as a living thing — frantically, piercingly.
“Bastard, you’re so heavy, slippery. I wish I could chop your face off, you reptile.”
Hurriedly, Artiom made the first run without his shirt. Halfway there, he rubbed his shoulder raw on the wood.
The journey ended up being long, along hills and through shrubs. Artiom constantly waved off the mosquitoes. Afanasiev not only was a poet, but ended up being sturdy as a camel. “You’re a good dance partner, Tioma!” he said, breathing heavily through his nose.
Sivtsev and the Chinaman carried the front end. Artiom constantly stared at the Chinese man’s black head.
The saw shrieked in the sawmill. Seeing no road, Artiom understood by the sound that they were close, closer, closer… here… looks like they made it. On Afanasiev’s command of “three, four,” they threw down the log. Such gratitude flared up for a moment in his entire body. If only there weren’t any mosquitoes…
A grumpy, hunched-over man came out of the mill, looked at them and, without saying hello, disappeared in the doorway.
Artiom almost raced back to his shirt.
“Where are you rushing? Missing your work?” Afanasiev yelled in his wake.
His wet clothes hung off him unpleasantly. Artiom could feel his numb, shriveled and wrinkled-up scrotum. He suddenly remembered that he forgot some bread in his pocket. He stuck his hand in — yes, his hands were covered in wet and vile pulp. He slipped on the hillock, fell, unwillingly throwing forward his hand — the one that was holding the bread.
There wasn’t much left on his fingers. Artiom lay on the grass, feeling the cold, oozing water with his stomach… He licked his hands, covered in bread pulp.
“Ooh, look at him hiding there,” he heard Afanasiev’s voice behind him. “Waiting for a deer to come by? Or are you hunting frogs?”
Artiom got up and felt on the verge of tears. He turned his head, so that Afanasiev wouldn’t see.
That was his last bread. There were still two whole days on millet porridge and fish only.
He got control of himself, clenched his jaw, wiped his eyes, forced himself to turn and smile at Afanasiev. It worked; he bared his teeth.
Sivtsev wasn’t hurrying back and for some reason was walking in a crouch. Artiom decided he was eating berries.
Artiom didn’t want any berries. They’d managed to bring two logs, but there were ninety-eight left.
During the next run, it got hotter, though the day was cold.
He saw that Sivtsev seemed to be covered in ichor; at first, Artiom thought that the man had broken open his head. Turns out it was the berries. He had wiped them over his face against the mosquitoes, the cunning villager.
As they were coming back, Artiom also tried to find something, even a crowberry. It didn’t happen at first — Sorokin the foreman had gotten bored on the shore and came to greet the late workers. Once again, he screamed his head off like a robbed man.
The next time Artiom found a patch — the devil only knows what berry — but he wiped his face with them. He rubbed them in with such ferocity, as though he knew that death was coming up to his very heart, and here he found a living berry to save for later.
At least they stopped landing on his eyes and forehead.
The little muzhik, whose name no one knew, cursed out everyone except for Moisei Solomonovich. Every minute or so he stopped to breathe, barely getting up, then immediately managed to trip and drop the log as he oohed and yelped.
When the sun reached midday, the little man refused to work.
He came up to the foreman, hobbling on all his legs, and said, “Kill me. I can’t…”
“I’ll kill you,” answered the guard and began to kill him. He threw him to the ground and began to trample his face, drove his boot into his side several times, screaming all the while: “Are you gonna work, lazy bum?”
The workers stopped — it was break time. Someone even lit a cigarette. Only the Chinese man turned aside, crouched down and closed his eyes, as though he could disappear.
“I can’t! Don’t kill me!” The little man yelled with a weak voice. “I can’t! Don’t kill me!”
Artiom stupidly stared at him too. “First, ‘kill me’, then ‘don’t kill me!’” he thought to himself in passing.
If they had killed the little man then and there, Artiom would probably not have felt anything.
“What a strange expression, ‘don’t kill me!’” Artiom wondered again. “Never heard it before…”
When someone yelled, “Cut it out already, you hear?” Artiom, for a split-second, didn’t even realize that he had yelled it. A crack opened up along his cheek — the berry juice had dried up and as his mouth opened his cheek seemed to split in half.
The foreman, without batting an eye, turned and threw his bludgeon at Artiom, like into an open field.
Artiom barely managed to duck, or it would have hit him in the head.
“Bring it back, jackal!” the foreman ordered.
Artiom didn’t look the foreman in the eye, nor did he look at the other inmates. He looked askance at the two guards — they watched everything that was going on with a single and very simple emotion — they wanted someone to give them a reason to get mad. One of them even got up and started stamping — he so wanted to hit someone.
Artiom went to pick up the bludgeon — it was lying not far away on the rocks. Without raising his eyes, he gave it to the foreman.
During this entire sickening minute, he had no other thought than the repeating phrase: “The stupid boys get a stick in the ribs.”
Grabbing the bludgeon, the foreman swung at Artiom, but he ran to the water, crouched over, with a speed not typical for him and an unfamiliar, even unpleasant fidgetiness — the work, the work is waiting!
He didn’t even take off his shirt — just jumped in all the way to his neck.
The rest went in after Artiom.
“I don’t have strength left, comrade foreman,” begged the little man on the shore. “No-more-strength-left. My heart’s in my throat. I’m gonna die!”
When Artiom and Afanasiev brought another log to the shore, it turned out that the foreman had come up with a different job for the little man.
He was standing on a stump and yelling: “I’m a lazy bum! I’m a lazy bum! I’m a parasite to the Soviet government!”
Passport laughed and the rest of the gangsters also snickered.
“I’m a lazy bum! I’m a lazy bum! I’m a parasite to the Soviet government!” the little man repeated like a wind-up toy.
“Two thousand times. I’m counting,” said Sorokin the foreman, full of himself.
The guards, two big fellows, were rolling over, laughing, as well.
Having gathered ten logs on the shore, they once again started carrying them to the sawmill. Artiom’s left arm was ragged from the bushes and when they danced along the hillocks, everything scratched at them. This time he switched places with Afanasiev, and Artiom’s right arm started to get ripped up.
Behind them, the little man kept repeating:
“I’m a lazy bum! I’m a lazy bum! I’m a parasite to the Soviet government!”
On the way back, Artiom wrung out his shirt properly, but, it’s a strange thing, the damp fabric seemed even colder than when it was wet through.
The berry juice had washed off his face, and he didn’t find any new berries. He swung at the mosquitoes with full force — a scattering of red dots were left on his palm — that meant there was a dozen on him at once.
A new myriad replaced them.
The little man didn’t have much left. After a half an hour, he barely croaked. Once in a while the foreman encouraged him with the bludgeon.
They brought lunch; the little man, staring at the food, screamed about the lazy bum and parasite with his remaining strength and was about to go get his share, but the foreman didn’t understand what he was on about.
“Where you goin’, singing flea? Where you goin’?” He yelled. “You think you deserve to eat? What sort of a meal for the lazy bum? A thousand extra times!”
Artiom didn’t even look to see what was going on, he just heard the blows on living, unguarded flesh with that horrible crunch that he still hadn’t gotten used to in all of his twenty-seven years.
“What is all this?” Artiom thought helplessly and in snatches. “Why did everything turn out like this? Up to this point, I’ve been managing somehow… What am I going to do with that Passport? He’s got a whole posse of gangsters… It won’t be Vasilii Petrovich at my back, I insulted him for some reason! And the foreman! Disgusting! I ran away from him, shame! Why didn’t I just kill him…?”
No one had ever hit Artiom, except for his father. But his father… how long ago that was! He didn’t even remember his name anymore.
Then there were the seventy or so logs left. As though they hadn’t even started.
Afanasiev, who somehow found the strength to talk, was talking about Chechens. Artiom listened sluggishly, sometimes losing the thread. It didn’t help that the little man was still going on:
“I’m a lazy bum! I’m a lazy… bum! I’m a parasite… to the Soviet… government! I’m a … bun… parasite…”
“Not bun, bum!” Sorokin lorded it over him. “And first it’s two lazy bums, and only then the parasite. Otherwise it sounds off. And louder, louder! Well?”
Artiom found a branch on the ground that was straight and good on the teeth. He broke off the ends and stuck it in his teeth. Sitting there, he brushed his knees with his nails — moving the blood along.
“I can’t become weak! I can’t die before my time!” He kept repeating to himself, chewing on the branch.
Then he spit it out, bit himself on the hand several times, trying out his sensitivity.
“You can’t figure out those boys’ characters,” Afanasiev kept saying, trying to speak in such a way that he would be heard above the cries of the little man. “The youngest Chechen went to get his ration in the smoker, but he came back with three. How he managed to convince them I have no idea… Seemingly responsive, but immediately helpless… Naïve like children, but cunning… Fascinating people!”
Artiom rested a bit during the half hour they were given to eat, though he felt a chill on the outside — goosebumps ran up and down his skin like icy lice.
How wonderful it would be for a huge, hot and golden sun to blossom and appear all around them right now, like a samovar; Artiom imagined it, squinting. At first you would be able to reach your hands up to it, nearly touching it with your hands. Then you would turn around and lean against it for a moment, so that the steam rises off your shirt with a hiss. The important thing is to remember to turn away in time before the shirt sticks to the samovar, or there’ll be a hole… But if you walk away from the samovar slowly, not all at once, then the fabric will come off with a soft crunch, and how wonderful it will be for the back, how sweet. Then to turn the feet, to extend the heels — his heels were so frozen that you could just stick them right in the fire…
“Comrade foreman, can we make a fire?” asked Passport.
“It’s summer! What fire? Time to work, jackals!” the foreman answered and immediately yelled, “To work, jackals! You just started and already you’re dead?”
Artiom rushed to the logs already lying on shore with a certain hope of being warmed up.
The guards were throwing pinecones at the lazy bum and parasite. The little man didn’t even try to avoid them, but only sometimes made soft ladling gestures with his hands, as though trying to catch the cones every time but never managing it. Sometimes they hit him in the forehead. It seems they were trying to get into his mouth but couldn’t for the life of them succeed.
“Comrade foreman!” Passport kept going on. “Operetta here has lost his buddy and he’s so long, he’s only bothering us. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he’s no worker. Let him sing, then. He likes to sing. Put Moisei on the neighboring stump.”
The foreman would have preferred to send Passport to the farthest fields, but the other gangsters supported Passport’s request — it wasn’t so dangerous to wrangle from the water. Finally, one of the guards winked at the foreman, though it didn’t matter to the guard — he, as opposed to the foreman, didn’t answer for the quota.
“Come ’ere Solomon,” said the foreman and immediately got distracted. “And why have you stopped? Keep going, keep going, lazy bum and parasite! Yell as loudly as you can, you iodine-filled mouth!”
They did in fact put Moisei Solomonovich on a stump. He helplessly looked around, as though he couldn’t find any food around him and couldn’t start singing without it, especially since the little man was clearly bothering him… but, having sighed a few times, Moisei Solomonovich suddenly launched into song.
At first it was eternally about how his own mother was accompanying him somewhere; then, having noted the enthusiasm of the gangsters, he sang “Apple”, all the time slapping himself on his mosquito-infested cheeks.
“That’s right! Hit that drum!” Passport taunted him.
Then he sang something Gypsy and having finished about the Gypsy girl, he started one that Artiom didn’t know, about a falcon: “How sad he was, the young, bright falcon, sitting in captivity. In his golden cage, on his silver perch…”
“It’s a song about Sekirka,” Afanasiev quietly laughed.
They said that Sekirka had perch-poles like they do for chickens, only thicker, and that they forced penalized inmates to sit there for days on end. After a few hours, the whole body ached and moaned, begging for the torture to end, but you couldn’t — any movement was given a double punishment, and then they still put you back on the pole.
The funny little man kept wheezing his chant all this time; everyone had gotten used to his sickly clucking; and, if he stopped — while the foreman made for him, swinging his bludgeon — it felt somehow strange and uncomfortable. But whenever the foreman was only a few steps from the stump, a hissing, “I’m a lazy bum!” would sound, and everything went back to normal — the water, the logs, the bum, Moisei Solomonovich singing, the ringing in the ears, the black circles in front of the eyes. The water was also swirling and the swirling black in the eyes either competed with the ripples or mingled with them…
Artiom was nauseous, his head throbbed, warm blood flowed down his shoulder.
The little man wasn’t bothering Moisei Solomonovich.
