One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Read online

  “Tell him it was there already. Like that when we got here.”

  Der hung around a bit more. He could see they weren’t about to kill him there and then. He strolled around quietly, with his hands in his pockets.

  “Hey, Shcha-854,” he growled. “Why are you putting the mortar on so thin?”

  He had to take it out on somebody. And since nobody could find fault with Shukhov’s bonding, he had to say the mortar was too thin.

  “With your permission,” Shukhov lisped, with a bit of a grin, “if I lay it any thicker, this Power Station will be letting in water all over next spring.”

  “You’re just a bricklayer—you’d better listen to what your overseer tells you.”

  Der frowned and puffed out his cheeks—a habit of his.

  Well, maybe it was a bit thin in places. Might have been thicker if we’d been working like human beings, not out here in the middle of winter. You ought to show a bit of consideration. We’ve got to earn all we can. No good trying to explain, though, if he can’t see it himself.

  Der went quietly down the ramp.

  “You get my hoist fixed up!” the foreman shouted after him. “What do you take us for—cart horses? Heaving cinder blocks up two stories by hand!”

  “You’ll be paid for it!” Der answered, from halfway down—but peaceably.

  “Wheelbarrow rate, I suppose? Go on, get hold of a wheelbarrow and try running it up that ramp. We want handbarrow rate!”

  “I wouldn’t grudge you. But Accounts won’t put it through at handbarrow rate.”

  “To hell with Accounts! I’ve got my whole gang carrying for four bricklayers. How much can I earn that way?”

  The foreman went on laying steadily while he was shouting.

  “Mor-tar!” he shouted down.

  Shukhov took up the cry. “Mor-tar!” Finished leveling up the third row, now get going on the fourth. Ought really to take the string a course higher, but it’ll do. We can rush up one course without it.

  Der was away across the site, all hunched up. Heading for the office to get warm. Feeling a bit uncomfortable, I bet. Ought to stop and think before he takes on a wolf like the foreman. Keep on good terms with Tyurin and his like and he wouldn’t have a care in the world. Nobody expects him to break his back, he gets big rations, lives in a cabin of his own—what more does he want? Wants to show how clever he is, that’s what.

  Somebody came up the ramp to say that the manager (electrical maintenance) and the mechanic had both left, and the hoist couldn’t be mended.

  So—donkey work it is.

  Every job Shukhov had been on, either the machinery broke down or else the zeks broke it. A conveyor, say, they’d wreck by ramming a rod through the chain and putting on the pressure. Just to get a rest. If you’re made to stack peeled logs all day, bent double, you can get stuck that way.

  “More blocks!” the foreman shouted. He was in top gear now. The heavers and carriers got called everything under the sun.

  Loud voices from below. “Pavlo says what about mortar.”

  “Mix some, what do you think.”

  “We’ve still got half a trough left.”

  “So mix another.”

  It was going like a house on fire. They were on the fifth course. They’d had to do the first doubled up, but the wall was breast-high now, or nearly. Nothing to it, anyway—no windows, no doors, just two blank walls, joining up, and plenty of cinder blocks. Should have raised the string—too late now.

  “Gang 82 are handing their tools in,” Gopchik reported.

  The foreman flashed a look at him. “Mind your own business, small-fry, and get some blocks over here.”

  Shukhov looked over his shoulder. Yes, the sun was going down. A reddish sun in a sort of grayish mist. We’re really getting somewhere now. Couldn’t be better. On the fifth course now, so we’ll just finish it off. Then level it all up.

  The carriers sounded like cart horses out of breath. The captain’s gray in the face. Well, he must be forty, or getting on that way.

  It was some degrees colder already. Shukhov’s hands were busy, but the cold nipped his fingers through the thin mittens. And sneaked into his left boot. He stamped his foot now and then to warm it.

  He could work on the wall without crouching now, but had to bend his aching back for every cinder block and every spoonful of mortar.

  “Come on, boys,” he said roughly. “You could put the blocks up here on the wall for me.”

  The captain would have obliged, only he hadn’t the strength. Wasn’t used to it. But Alyoshka said: “Right, then, Ivan Denisovich. Just show me where you want them.”

  Never says no, that Alyoshka, whatever you ask him to do. If everybody in the world was like him, I’d be the same. Help anybody who asked me. Why not? They’ve got the right idea, that lot.

  The clanging of the hammer on the rail carried across the whole site as far as the Power Station. Knocking-off time. Just when the mortar was made. That’s what comes of trying too hard.

  “Mortar! Let’s have some mortar!” the foreman yelled.

  A new batch had just been made. Nothing for it now—just keep on laying. If we don’t empty the trough, it’ll be the devil’s own job cracking it tomorrow. The mortar will be stone-hard, you won’t gouge it out with a pickax.

  “Don’t give up yet, boys!” Shukhov urged.

  Kildigs looked angry. He didn’t like rush jobs. Back home in Latvia, he said, everybody took his time and everybody was well off. But there was no getting out of it. He had to step on it, like the rest of them.

  Pavlo hurried up top between the shafts of a handbarrow, bringing his trowel. He joined the bricklayers. Five trowels at work now. Just time enough to center blocks over the joints below. Shukhov would quickly size up the block needed in each case and shove a gavel at Alyoshka.

  “Here—square it up for me.”

  More haste, less speed. Now that the others were out to break records, Shukhov stopped forcing the pace and took a good look at the wall. He steered Senka to the left and took the right, over toward the main corner, himself. To leave a bulge in the wall or make a mess of the corner would be a disaster. Take half of tomorrow to put it right.

  “Hold it!” He came between Pavlo and the block he was laying and straightened it himself. Looks as if Senka’s got a dent near the corner there. He darted over and straightened two blocks.

  The captain hauled another load in like a willing horse.

  “There’s another two barrowloads to come,” he shouted.

  On his last legs, but still pulling his weight. Shukhov’s gelding, the one he had before collectivization, had been the same. Shukhov had taken good care of him, but when strangers got their hands on him, they worked him to a frazzle. And did him in in no time.

  The rim of the sun had disappeared behind the earth now. Shukhov could see for himself, without Gopchik telling him, that all the other gangs had handed their tools in and men were flocking toward the guardhouse. (Nobody went outside the moment “down tools” was sounded. They weren’t daft enough to stand out there freezing. They sat around in their warm corners for a bit. But at a certain moment the foreman would agree to move and the gangs streamed out all at once. They had to do it that way because convicts are such a pigheaded lot they’d be there till midnight seeing who could sit in the warm longest.)

  Tyurin realized that he’d left it a bit late. The toolmaker would be calling him every name he could lay his tongue to.

  “Right,” he said. “No good saving crud! Hodmen—whizz down, scrape out the big trough, carry the lot to that hole over there, and shovel snow on top so nobody can see it. You, Pavlo, take two men, collect the tools, and hand them in. I’ll send Gopchik after you with the three trowels once we’ve got through the last couple of barrow-loads of mortar.”

  They jumped to it. Took Shukhov’s gavel from him, untied his string. The hodmen and brick heavers all hurried down to the mixing room—nothing left for them to do up top. Only the
three bricklayers—Kildigs, Klevshin, and Shukhov—stayed behind. The foreman walked around checking what they’d done. Seemed pleased.

  “Good bit of bricklaying, eh? For half a day’s work. Without a hoist, or any other effing thing.”

  Shukhov saw that Kildigs had only a bit left in his trough. But he was worried that the foreman would get in a row in the tool store for keeping the trowels back. He found the answer.

  “Listen, men, go ahead and take your trowels to Gopchik, mine isn’t counted, and I don’t have to hand it in, so I can finish the job.”

  The foreman laughed. “They’d be crazy to let you out! Any jail would be lost without you!”

  Shukhov laughed back at him. And went on laying.

  Kildigs carried the trowels away. Senka fed cinder blocks to Shukhov. They tipped Kildigs’s mortar into Shukhov’s trough.

  Gopchik ran all the way to the tool store, trying to catch up with Pavlo. And Gang 104 set out across the site by itself, without its foreman. A foreman carries a lot of weight—but the convoy guards carry more. They’ll make note of latecomers—and pack them off to the hole.

  The crowd by the guardhouse had thickened alarmingly. Everybody was there by now. Looked as if the guard had turned out, too, to count them all again.

  (They count twice at every turnout. Once with the gates shut to find out whether it’s safe to open them, the second time as the men are passing through the gates. And if they fancy they see anything wrong, they count yet again outside the gates.)

  “To hell with the mortar,” the foreman said impatiently. “Chuck it over the wall!”

  “Better be off, foreman! You’re needed there more!” (Shukhov generally called him Andrei Prokofyevich, but working as he was now made him the foreman’s equal. He didn’t put it in words to himself—”I’m as good as he is”—just felt it.) “Bloody nuisance, these short working days,” he called out jokingly, as the foreman strode down the ramp. “Just when you’re beginning to enjoy yourself, it’s quitting time.”

  Only himself and the deaf man left. No good talking to him. No need, anyway: he’s cleverer than the lot of them, you never have to tell him anything.

  Slap on the mortar! Slap on a block! Press it down a bit. Make sure it’s straight. Mortar. Block. Mortar. Block.

  The foreman had ordered them not to worry about wasting mortar, to chuck it over the wall and take off. But Shukhov was the sort of fool who couldn’t let anything or anybody’s work go to waste, and nobody would ever teach him better.

  Mortar! Block! Mortar! Block!

  “Enough, damn it!” Senka shouted. “Time to be off!”

  He grabbed a handbarrow and was away down the ramp.

  If the guards had set their dogs on him, it wouldn’t have stopped Shukhov. He moved quickly back from the wall to take a good look. All right. Then quickly up to the wall to look over the top from left to right. Outside straight as could be. Hands weren’t past it yet. Eye as good as any spirit level.

  He ran down the ramp.

  Senka came running out of the mixing room and up the slope. Turned his head to shout.

  “Come on!”

  “Keep running. I won’t be a minute.”

  Down into the mixing room. Can’t just leave the trowel lying around. Might not be brought out tomorrow. They might pack the gang off to Sotsgorodok. Could be six months before I get back to this place. I’m not going to let that trowel get lost. Hide it, then, and hide it good and proper!

  All the stoves were out in the mixing room. It was dark. He felt afraid. Not because of the dark, but because everybody had gone, he’d be the only one missing at the guardhouse, and the guards would pitch into him.

  Still—take a good look around. He spotted a hefty stone up a corner, rolled it over, shoved the trowel behind, and covered it. Okay now!

  Quick, catch up with Senka. He’s only run a hundred yards. Wouldn’t go any farther without me. Never leave anybody in the lurch, Senka wouldn’t. If there’s going to be trouble, we’re in it together—that’s Senka.

  They ran side by side, the big man and the shorter man. Senka was head and shoulders taller than Shukhov, and it was a huge head he had on him.

  Some people with nothing better to do run races in stadiums of their own free will. Silly devils should try running for their lives, bent double after a day’s work. In this cold, with wet mittens and worn-out boots.

  Shukhov and Senka were as hot as rabid dogs. Their own panting was all they could hear.

  Still, the foreman was at the guardhouse, he’d explain.

  They were running straight toward the crowd, and it was scary.

  Hundreds of raucous voices started baying at them: cursing them up and down and calling them all the bastards in creation. Who wouldn’t be scared with five hundred furious men yelling at him!

  What mattered, though, was how the guards would take it.

  The guards weren’t bothered. The foreman was right there, in the back row. He must have explained, taken the blame on himself.

  The men went on yelling and cursing horribly. Yelling so loud that even Senka heard quite a bit; he took a deep breath and roared back. He lived his life in silence—but when he did sound off…! He put up his fists, spoiling for a fight. The men stopped shouting, and some of them laughed.

  “Hey, 104! Thought you said he was deaf!” they called out. “We wanted to make sure.”

  Everybody laughed. Guards as well.

  “Form up in fives!”

  They weren’t opening up, though. Didn’t trust themselves. They pushed the crowd back. (The idiots were all glued to the gates as though that would speed things up.)

  “By-y fives! First! Second! Third!”

  As they called out each five, it moved forward a few meters.

  While this was going on, Shukhov got his breath back and looked around. Old Man Moon was right up there now, red and sulky-looking. Just past the full. Yesterday it had been a lot higher at that time.

  Shukhov felt playful now that everything had gone so smoothly. He nudged the captain and shot a question at him. “Here, Captain, you know science—where does it say the old moon goes?”

  “What do you mean, where does it go? What an ignorant question! It’s there, we just can’t see it.”

  Shukhov wagged his head and laughed. “So, if you can’t see it, how do you know it’s there?”

  The captain looked surprised. “According to you, then, the moon really is new every month?”

  “What’s so strange about that? People are born every day, why shouldn’t a moon be born every four weeks?”

  The captain spat in disgust. “I never met a sailor as stupid as you. Where do you think the old moon goes, then?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you—where does it go?” Shukhov showed his teeth.

  “Go on, tell me.”

  Shukhov sighed and delivered his reply with a slight lisp. “Where I come from, they used to say God breaks up the old moon to make stars.”

  The captain laughed. “What savages! I never heard anything like it! So you believe in God, do you, Shukhov?”

  Now Shukhov was surprised. “Of course I do. How can anybody not believe in God when it thunders?”

  “Why does God do it, then?”

  “Do what?”

  “Break up the moon to make stars. Why, do you think?”

  “That’s an easy one,” Shukhov said with a shrug. “Stars fall every now and then, the holes have to be filled up.”

  “Turn around, goddamn you!” the guards were shouting. “Get lined up!”

  The count had reached them. The twelfth row of five after four hundred went through with two men behind them, Buynovsky and Shukhov.

  The guards were flummoxed. Consulted their tally boards. A man short again! The rotten dogs might at least learn how to count!

  They’d counted 462 and they told each other it should be 463.

  The men had pressed forward to the gate again, and once again they were shoved back and it
was:

  “Form up in fives! First five! Second!”

  The time wasted on these recounts of theirs was not the state’s but the men’s own—that’s what made it all so vexatious. They still had to trudge over the steppe back to camp and line up outside for the body search. Men from all the different sites would be racing to be searched first and dive into camp before all the others. Whichever work party arrived first was king for the day: the mess hut would be waiting, they’d have first chance to claim parcels, be first at the storeroom, first at the individual kitchen, first at the CES* to collect letters or hand in their own to be censored, first at the sick bay, the barber’s, the bathhouse—everywhere.

  Generally, the guards were in just as much of a hurry to get the men off their hands and withdraw to their own quarters. A soldier couldn’t afford to hang about, either: there was too much to do and too little time for it.

  But the figures didn’t add up.

  As they were waving the last rows of five past, Shukhov thought for a moment that there would be three of them right at the back. But no—it was still only two.

  The counters hurried over to the guard commander with their boards. There was some talk, then the commander yelled out: “Foreman Gang 104!”

  Tyurin took half a step forward. “Here.”

  “Any of yours left behind at the Power Station? Think before you answer.”

  “No.”

  “Think, or I’ll tear your head off!”

  “It’s like I said.”

  But he shot a glance at Pavlo—maybe somebody had gone to sleep back there in the mixing room?

  “Form up by gangs!” the guard commander shouted.

  The gangs had been mixed together. When they formed fives, each man had just moved up to whoever was nearest. Now there was a lot of shoving and shouting “76—this way!” “13—over here!” “Come on, 32!”

  104 stayed where it was, behind all the rest. Shukhov was now able to see that the whole gang was empty-handed. The idiots had been working so hard they hadn’t collected any kindling. Only two of them had dainty little bundles.

  This was a game they played every day. Before quitting time, the workers would collect wood chips, sticks, bits of broken board, and carry them off tied up with a strip of rag or a bit of string. The first raid might come at the guardhouse. If the site manager or one of the overseers was waiting there, he would order them to drop the lot. (As if by collecting wood chips they could make up for the millions they’d sent up in smoke.) But the workers had ideas of their own. If every man in a gang got home with just a stick or two, the hut would be that much warmer. Without this, there was only the five kilograms of coal dust issued to the hut orderlies for each stove, and you couldn’t expect much warmth from that. So besides the wood they carried in their hands they broke or sawed sticks into short pieces and stuffed them under their jackets. That much they’d get past the site manager.