2. MAGADAN

I WENT to Ivanov’s apartment in Magadan where, since his arrival from the North some weeks before, he had been directing the construction of the new Dalstroy headquarters building. He had been trying without success to get permission to leave. I learned from him what a complicated business it was.

Nikishov, the head of Dalstroy, had received instructions from Beria not to admit any new personnel, either prisoners or voluntary employees, to the Kolyma. A large number of the latter had collected at Vladivostok, where they were sending desperate telegrams to Magadan; none of them wanted to go into military service and Dalstroy was their only hope of salvation.

At the same time departures from the Kolyma were also forbidden. A few members of the Komsomol who had decided to volunteer had left their posts several months before, receiving a complete discharge from Dalstroy. They were now living in the apartment next to Ivanov’s, as they could not get permission to take passage on a ship. About a thousand former prisoners, almost exclusively from the ‘socially close’ category, who were not liable to a second arrest, had gathered in the Magadan transit camp. They were all waiting to be taken to Vladivostok and meanwhile were playing cards and organizing drinking bouts.

There wasn’t much alcohol but just at this time a ship arrived with a large load of Soviet champagne, apparently as a result of a misunderstanding. Champagne was something like small beer to Kolyma throats, used to drinking spirits, but in the absence of the latter it was extremely popular.

Soon after my arrival in Magadan I was invited to dinner by a highly placed official from headquarters with whom I had established good relations a long time before. During dinner there was lively discussion of the rumour that Smolensk had been retaken by Soviet troops, but it was not known when or where the rumour had originated. Much later I learned that it had covered the whole country and that its source was party organizations, which had been instructed to raise the morale of the people by such devices.

When the guests had all gone I was left alone with my host, with whom I was able to speak frankly.

‘Why did you come to Magadan?’ he asked, leaning back in an armchair and exhaling a cloud of smoke.

‘I want to go home, to my mother,’ I answered.

‘Do you want to go into the army?’

‘Well, if the worst comes to the worst I can go into the army.’

‘How many years did you serve out here? Five, six?’ he asked.

‘Six.’

‘That’s not enough, really, not enough,’ he said unexpectedly.

I was silent. The conversation was taking too serious a turn.

‘By staying here you will escape mobilization. We’ll find you a suitable job. And when the war is over – then go with God.’

‘But how will it end, Andrew Stepanovich?’ I asked. It was his turn to be silent. Then, finishing most of the champagne in his glass, he said, ‘It’s hard to say right now. We have information that at the front and in the areas near the front there is complete disorganization and that the army doesn’t want to fight. The Germans are advancing at the rate of 75 miles every twenty-four hours. The sudden entry of Japan into the war in the Far East is feared. We can’t expect effective help from anywhere.’

‘And then?’

‘What do you mean, “then”?’ he asked in an irritated voice. ‘You’re not a child who has to have everything explained.’

We were silent again. Then I said decisively, ‘You may be right, but I still want to go, if it’s at all possible. I want to get to where my mother lives, and after that we’ll see. I shall ask you to help me arrange my departure.’

‘Well, if you’ve decided . . . Come and see me in two days; I’ll tell you what to do.’

In a few days I received a short note from him introducing me to the wife of the head of the personnel department. She turned out to be an amiable woman. No one else was in the apartment and we could talk freely.

‘Yes, I know. Andrew Stepanovich has told me about you, but it’s a difficult problem. I can tell you confidentially that almost all the Dalstroy ships have been taken away from us to bring cargoes from America, and all navigation will soon cease. My husband is waiting for permission to ship to Vladivostok at least some of the people waiting in Magadan more than three months. The lists have already been made up.’

‘Can I hope that Ivanov and I will be included?’

‘Wait, I’ll try,’ she said, and picked up the phone.

‘Yes, it’s me. How are you? Here’s what. Two men will have to be included on the first priority list for shipment to Vladivostok – Petrov and Ivanov . . . They’ll be in to see you . . . You’re welcome . . . Yes, I’ll wait.’

Then she told me whom to see in the personnel office.

‘Do you have money?’ she asked. I nodded.

‘Give him some – well, about 500 rubles apiece – and he’ll take care of everything. Only I warn you again, be careful in Vladivostok. They sort out former prisoners there: some go directly into labour battalions and are sent to the front, and some are sent back to camps, especially former political prisoners.’

I thanked her and left.

The next day Kostya and I went to see the man about whom the director’s wife had told me. The money lay in prepared envelopes together with our documents. The official did not open them but told us to return in a week for our documents. When we came back at the appointed time everything was ready: we were included in the passenger list of the first transport.

The first transport was also the last: the steamer Dalstroy was making its last trip from Nagayevo, after which it was scheduled to sail to America for lend-lease supplies.

When we had finished all we had to do we went to the supply office to draw rations for the voyage. In the director’s office where we had to go to get an order signed I overheard a conversation. A representative of the mining administration was speaking.

‘For a month we haven’t received any fat, sugar, or salt. Even the rations for the voluntary workers have had to be reduced to a minimum. I urgently request you to issue us at least the indispensable items, even if you can give us only half quantity!’

The director answered, ‘Remember once and for all – and you can tell your fellow workers too – that the rations in all deficient products’ – and which ones are not deficient, thought I – ‘have been reduced by 90 per cent until the end of the war. Of course, if the war is over quickly . . .’

This ended their conversation. The director signed our requisitions. For a week’s voyage we were to be issued ten pounds of bread and four pounds of herring. In addition we were to receive soup once a day on board ship. It occurred to me that this was exactly the same ration I had received on my trip to the Kolyma as a prisoner, but I did not mention it.

Finally the day came when several hundred of us ex-convicts, who were, according to the Constitution, full-fledged citizens of the Soviet Union, but who really had a status which differed little from that of actual convicts – were taken to Nagayevo, where they began to load us on the ship. The embarkation process started in the morning, but it was evening before the last lucky passenger was aboard. There was a control post at the gangplank where the numerous documents of each man were painstakingly examined. The moment we boarded the ship each man’s scanty baggage was torn open and inspected and he himself subjected to a humiliating personal search. They were looking for gold.

From the top deck the aristocrats of Soviet society were looking down on us – voluntary employees of Dalstroy and officers of the N.K.V.D. They were assigned cabins. We were put in smelly, dimly lit holds.

It was almost dark when the gangplank was taken up. Most of the passengers remained below, but I went on deck. Ignoring the cold and wind, I stared at the darkening shore.

The engines started and the ship moved slowly away from the pier. The Kolyma was receding into the past . . .

Images of the recent and yet so distant past flashed through my mind. Almost six years of my life I had given to this God-forsaken region. I remembered people who had become animals under the influence of camp conditions, and perhaps for the first time I thought of them not with the feeling of the superiority of a survivor, as was customary on the Kolyma, but with real pity and sympathy, It is a terrible thing, this battle for existence in the camps. The chance of survival is so small. There are so many degraded and sinking people. Human tragedy is seen at each step in such limitless quantities that all human feelings are dulled and the capacity to pity and sympathize dies away. They say about any man who has survived a winter on the Kolyma that his ‘eyes have been frozen off’, that conscience and pity are dead in him.

With these thoughts, from somewhere in the depths of my soul, there rose up such a terrible, uncontrollable hatred for those who created this hell on earth that I felt afraid of myself. I looked up to where the gay, carefree officers of the N.K.V.D. were strolling in their warm overcoats and watching the dwindling shore. If looks could kill, they would immediately have ceased to exist.

Suddenly feeling chilled, I went down to the hold.