The Monastery, page 14
Vasilii Petrovich breathed in the aroma of the tea and continued, beginning certain words in a whisper and ending them with his lips alone, without sound:
“So, about your brigade leader there. The thug that he killed, he was avenged terribly — they killed Krapin’s ten-year-old son. Then Krapin exceeded his authority again and, as he raided a certain gambling den, without any need, he shot several people there, including a woman and a Soviet public servant who had come to have a good time.”
Artiom listened carefully, unsure what to make of it all.
“It’s strange,” suddenly, in his typical manner, Vasilii Petrovich distracted himself. “During the Civil War, they killed people by the thousands! Many have the blood of one, three, ten men on their hands! Here one guard was screaming that he had shot one hundred White Army officers in 1920 alone! Then, the war suddenly ended! Now, you’re not allowed to kill anyone! But people got used to it! I think Krapin sincerely can’t understand how he, a former Red Army soldier, was imprisoned for the death of several gangsters, an accidental woman and a government worker — after all, he had gone on an evil path!”
“Vasilii Petrovich,” said Artiom with a slightly mocking tone, so that his words wouldn’t sound like a request for advice, “there’s one thing I don’t understand. How am I supposed to apply all this history to myself?”
“Well, Artiom,” answered Vasilii Petrovich with assumed strictness. “All you’d like to do is memorize poetry — yes, yes, I noted that little sin of yours, don’t be upset, you move your lips too obviously, and it’s one and the same phrase… You memorize poems, but you can also read some things in human souls. Here’s my reading: our leader Krapin hates the gangsters. You’ve noticed: on Solovki, they rarely beat the counter-revs, as for Krapin — he doesn’t touch them at all. As for the gangsters, on the contrary, he always finds himself at odds with them… I’m not sure that he will always come out the winner. For this government, as strange as it may seem, the scum of the earth and thieves — they’re close in a social sense. Krapin can’t figure it out — how can this filth of society be close to the government? Unlike the Bolshevik idealists, Krapin is sure that you can’t reeducate them. Nor should you save them, either. But as for you, Artiom, maybe you’re worth saving. That, at least, is what Krapin thinks. When he hit you with the stick, know that he was directing you to the right road, like a young bull. Well, he wasn’t going to explain it to you in words, that’s beneath his dignity! But since he couldn’t knock sense into you with his stick, Krapin did something incredibly powerful — he talked to you. Value that, Artiom.”
Artiom listened with such rapt attention that his fingers almost boiled on the warmed-up mug.
“Do you know what else I have?” Vasilii Petrovich got agitated. “Round crackers, believe it or not! Or rather, one cracker. A little dry, but if you do this…” Vasilii Petrovich broke it in two relatively equals halves with some effort, then, measuring them with his eyes, gave Artiom the larger half.
“Afanasiev is wrong about him, after all,” thought a mellowing and grateful Artiom. “Our poet doesn’t understand anything. Vasilii Petrovich is a dear, wonderful man…”
“Here, I look at the cracker and with bitterness in my heart I remember all the food that I didn’t eat from satiety or stupidity in the past,” Vasilii Petrovich shared. “I remember it was Lent and I, appearing at lunch having just come from outside, poked at my fried buckwheat with onions and didn’t eat it! The onion seemed unappealing to me! Plus, the buckwheat was a little too fried! Also, there was frozen cranberry with sugar on the table — dessert. But I, just before, had stuffed myself with these same round crackers. My father sent me away from the table — Lent is Lent, after all…! Oh, Artiom, what a tragedy. What a terrible stupidity I committed. I’m so sorry for it, so sorry…”
Vasilii Petrovich dipped the cracker in his tea and sat there, frozen in place. Artiom kept glancing to see whether or not it would fall apart in the hot water — it wouldn’t taste good then.
“I also remember how I used to walk around the market as a boy. An old woman with cabbage gave me a cabbage heart. She pulled it out of an aromatic tub like it was a magic fish! Chew it, she said. It’s rough, you’ll break off your milk teeth and new ones will grow. But I was so afraid of parting with my teeth that I didn’t eat it. I thanked her and walked a little farther away and threw the heart into the snow. Now, I would jump into that snow with my face, like a dog, digging around and I would find it by its smell. It was — what happiness! — that crunch on the teeth! Oh. Oh, Artiom.
“And how many eggs I didn’t eat on Pascha!” Vasilii Petrovich lamented. “You’d fill your pockets with dyed eggs — to battle the other boys. You’ll take ten, then all your pockets are covered in red egg dye. Then you give the eggs to the birds… The birds were so full on Pascha! Not like us now. And what about the cheese pascha! My mother used to make a chocolate one! And a pistachio-flavored one! You eat one piece, another and you’re full already. Mother then used to treat everyone in the yard, and I wasn’t sorry at all — so full was I. Then in the morning you’ll come out and there’s a plate with dried-out pascha on the table, and you think: oh, I don’t want any more. How much can you have…? If I could catch that rascal now — the one who didn’t want to eat — I’d grab him by the ear and twist it!”
Vasilii Petrovich, laughing mirthlessly, even made the gesture of catching someone by the ear.
“Or, I remember, that bream with mushrooms… it was from a fairy tale…! It was like the white knight, Artiom!”
“Enough, enough, enough!” Artiom protested, biting his dry cracker in a kind of frenzy. “Stop it immediately!”
The dirty hand came out from under the bunks; the palm opened up.
Vasilii Petrovich bit off a piece of his cracker with visible reluctance, leaving himself only a little piece, wanting to put it in the extended hand, but then thought better of it.
“Listen,” he called. “Come on, outa there. Let’s at least get acquainted. What am I feeding you here without seeing you?”
Artiom quickly finished off his cracker — who knows what was going to crawl out of there, maybe something covered in scabs.
But no, the homeless boy still had a human look, only impossibly filthy, extremely skinny, and, most importantly, almost completely naked. What passed for his shirt was a bag with holes for the head and the arms, and he had nothing on his legs — only a big tin can tied with string in the area of his groin. Evidently, it replaced his undergarments.
“Yes,” said Vasilii Petrovich. “What… armor… you have there. Well, sit on that bench in the corner. No one can see you here.”
The boy looked no more than twelve. His hair was so dirty that you couldn’t tell what color it was. Something impossible was also happening to his ears. Artiom tried not to look there — it seemed they were filled to the brim with dirt.
“Will you have some tea?” offered Vasilii Petrovich. “Only not into that can of yours, young man. I have an extra. Artiom, would you mind bringing some more hot water?”
Artiom went to the stove with Vasilii Petrovich’s extra can; the Chechen duty officer was fussing about there — the same one with whom they had gone to destroy the cemetery a few days prior.
“Chechens were never Christians,” he said scornfully, looking at Artiom.
“As you wish,” answered Artiom. “Can I heat some water?”
Vasilii Petrovich had found another cracker and a bit of dried fruit. The homeless boy took all of it and threw it into the hot water and immediately began to drink, seemingly not afraid of being scalded.
“At least tell us something,” offered Vasilii Petrovich.
“What?” the boy asked dispassionately.
“Do you have a mother?” asked Vasilii Petrovich.
The boy nodded.
“What about a father?”
The boy thought about that, then nodded again.
“Your name?”
“Serii.”
“Where are you from?”
“Arkhangelsk.”
“What does your mother do?”
“How should I know? I’m here.”
“OK, what did she do?
“Mother? Scrubwoman in a bathhouse.”
“Your father?”
“I have a father.”
“What did he do?”
“Got drunk every day. Used to throw mother out into the cold — we used to get warm in the horse stables.”
Serii was quiet for a long time, then, apparently tired from such a long conversation, decided to shorten the journey.
“One time, Father was drinking with a muzhik. They got in an argument and Father killed him. He found money in his pocket. Said to mother: ‘Well, what can you do? Let’s get used to this line of business.’”
Vasilii Petrovich even put his mug down on the bunk, he was so upset. He quietly asked, for some reason using the informal “you”.
“Did you get used to it?”
“One time they took a long time killing a muzhik, couldn’t finish him off. He was screaming a lot and everything was covered in blood. And so, I left. Give me another cracker. I saw that you had some.”
Vasilii Petrovich sighed and got the cracker.
“What did you do? Steal?”
“You can steal from the rich,” said Serii confidently.
“What about the poor?”
Serii thought about that but didn’t answer. It seemed he had excellent manners; he just didn’t answer unpleasant questions.
“For how many years have you been stealing?” Vasilii Petrovich wouldn’t back down.
“As long as I can remember; I’ve always stolen. You can write it down: from age three.”
“We’re not writing this down,” Vasilii Petrovich said quietly.
“Why then? Why the curiosity?”
Mitya Schelkachov also listened in on the conversation, having moved closer on his bunk to see the overgrown head of Serii from the side.
All this time, Artiom dug around in his emotions: “Do I feel sorry for him? What about now? I think I almost don’t feel sorry. What? Am I completely deaf to emotion?”
Serii was clearly no dunce — his conversation made that obvious, and Artiom wondered: how can that be?
No sooner did he start thinking about speech than he suddenly understood a strange and very important thing about himself — he truly almost had no pity. It was replaced by something that people sometimes call a sense of the fantastic, while Artiom himself would have called it a sense of tact with reference to life.
He used to steal puppies from the boys in the yard who had made fun of him or he would stand up for weak schoolboys, not out of pity, but because it ruined his perception of how things should be. Artiom remembered Afanasiev and with his words finished his thought: “… that didn’t rhyme!”
On Solovki, Artiom unexpectedly began to understand that only the inborn emotions survive, those that grow naturally, together with the bones, sinews, flesh — the first things to go were the preconceived notions.
The conversation with the boy was interrupted by an angry noise from the corner where the gangsters all lived together. Serii immediately disappeared as though he had never been there and took with him the unfinished can with tea.
Artiom listened and in a minute understood what was going on.
The gangsters, more often than not, used to hide their things or rip up their own pants, shirts, and even shoes — anything not to go to work, because it was forbidden to force a naked man to work.
A ferocious Krapin began to undress one of those who had come back from the day’s work down to his skin in order to dress those who were going out to night work.
“All my stuff is wet! And tomorrow morning it’ll be even wetter! Am I gonna go out in wet stuff?” someone was yelling.
“But you’re still gonna rip them all anyway! Rotten liars!” Krapin yelled, convincing first one, then another with his bludgeon. Burtsev seemed to be helping him, but it seemed to Artiom that he was more restrained with the thugs than with the Chinese man.
When Krapin tore the pants off Shaferbekov, lying on the bunk, with his own hands, everyone got the message that there was no way out of this one. Passport parted with his jacket — the foreman Sorokin had ripped his only shirt. Shoes, shirts and boots fell at Krapin’s feet.
“We’ll get even,” said Shaferbekov, covering his legs with a coat that was clearly stolen from some unfortunate.
In no way warning of his intention and as though knowing in advance that Shaferbekov wouldn’t be quiet, Krapin wound up and struck his face with the bludgeon, then a few more times on his hands when Shaferbekov, barking from the pain, tried to protect his head.
“You’ll get even,” said Krapin, breathing heavily. “In the meantime, count your teeth.”
He nudged the pile of clothes with his foot and ordered the night workers: “Get dressed; it’s warm.”
There was clearly not enough for everyone, and Krapin, walking among the bunks, ordered Lazhechnikov, Sivtsev and the much-suffering Chinese man to get undressed. He didn’t even look at Afanasiev and Vasilii Petrovich. Moisei Solomonovich was very convincingly sleeping, as though that could save him — but there you go, it saved him.
That would have been enough to finish the day. Unfortunately, there was enough time for another event.
After a tedious evening roll call, the night workers left and everything seemed to quieten down.
They brought Shaferbekov a pitcher of water and a rag — he washed his face for a long time, rubbing off the dried blood from his eyebrows and applying his palms, filled with pink dampness, to his lips. The gangsters watched Shaferbekov with rapt attention, as though that were a way he could pan out gold.
Artiom admitted that he was feeling a natural, huge, very fair and very gleeful joy at the misfortune of others.
It’s possible that’s what got him.
Shaferbekov, who was touching his wobbling teeth for a long time, caught Artiom’s glace. Artiom immediately turned away, lay down on his bunk, was silent, ready to fall asleep. He even slept a little — the day was long, long, long and its tail was getting lost, to get to the beginning was almost impossible — the homeless Serii with his black ears filled with soot was drinking hot water, the two Indians were smiling and softly bowing, the switches were aromatic and rustling, Afanasiev was laughing, shaking his red head as though there was straw in his hair, straw and the sun, then even earlier the hanged man was taunting everyone with his tongue, while the fly…
By that time, the gangsters called Afanasiev. Artiom didn’t want to think about that; he was already sleeping honestly and deeply… but they pushed him awake anyway.
He opened his eyes. He chewed with his dry mouth. A single bulb shone and the light poured through the open door from the duty officer’s lean-to.
Many of the inmates were already asleep, but someone walked among the bunks, someone lazily swore, while Mitya Schelkachov was playing chess with one of the Indians.
“What?” said Artiom, trying still to find his saliva in his mouth.
“Tioma, basically, this is the deal,” Afanasiev said quickly, as though he wanted to finish a boring job quickly. “You’re going to share half the package with Passport. He’s the victim.”
“What package?” Artiom sat on his bunk. “My package? Tell him to go to hell.”
“Quiet,” said Afanasiev, lowering his voice. “The package hasn’t come yet. Wait. Who knows what will happen before it comes. Don’t be hasty.”
Artiom bared his teeth — he wanted to swear terribly. Afanasiev was also clearly not himself.
“You shouldn’t have hit him, Tioma,” Afanasiev tried to explain, assuming that strange and false tone that adults sometimes use with children when they know in advance that they’re on shaky and shameful ground. “Do you get it? In their world, you can’t just fight like that. You need a good reason! You’ll notice, Tioma, that the gangsters can scream at each other with awful words; it seems that any minute now they’ll start fighting. But it’s like a game to test their self-control. You can only hit someone for a real, deadly offense. And you let him have it for a trifle. He was kidding! Now he’s puking every time he eats! I couldn’t explain your action to them in a way that they would understand you being in the right.”
“Fuck their understanding anyway,” Artiom seethed. He was filled not so much with greed for his horsemeat sausage — though there was that too. It was more the unexpected, sickly, unpleasant offense to his mother. There she was, walking around the markets, buying him, her little son, a present with her last rubles. Now he’s going to feed dratted Passport with it?
“Artiom, there are a lot of them. They can kill you, you know all that,” Afanasiev whispered, holding Artiom by the knee, but now, attracted by the conversation, Passport himself showed up, stripped to his waist and very pleased with himself.
Afanasiev turned around and stood in his way, so that Passport couldn’t walk up to Artiom’s bunk.
“Friend or no, don’t stand in my way,” Passport said to Afanasiev.
“I’m standing in my own place, Passport,” Afanasiev answered firmly. “This isn’t your way.”
“Did you tell him?” Passport asked Afanasiev, rocking from side to side and looking at Artiom mockingly. “For a year, he’s got to give me half of his packages. So I can see.”
“One package, Passport,” Afanasiev repeated stubbornly, but not as firmly as before.
“What fucking one, Afanas?!” Passport shrieked, sensing how his power was waxing as the other’s was waning. “Enough! Enough, Afanas! My advice to you? Don’t stick your nose in someone else’s business. You’re no thief. You’re a friar, even with all your icons.”
Afanasiev didn’t budge. Passport rocked once more from side to side; his hanging lower lip also rocked. Without waiting for an answer, he left.
Artiom was silent, looking somewhere to the side, head cocked. He didn’t know where he was looking and didn’t understand what had attracted his attention.
