But I didn’t. I took her dirty things to the wash basin and scrubbed them with my lye ration, then carefully hung them to dry in the best spot next to the wood-burning stove. Then I stripped and washed myself in the cold, cloudy water. Then I slept. Then it happened again the next day.
If I were to give you now what you’d asked for during our late-night chats in Lubyanka, Anatoli, would it do me any good? Would my sentence be lessened if I cooperated now? If I were to confess to every last charge, could I leave this place? If I took the sharp end of my pick and used all my force, could I end things for good?
* * *
—
One might think winter would be worse, but the summers are what wore us down most. As we worked the fields, digging or pulling or hauling, sweat pooled under our gray smocks. We called those smocks “devil’s skins” as they didn’t allow our skin to breathe. We developed sores and rashes and attracted black flies with vicious bites. To shield us from the sun, we stretched gauze over rusted wire to fashion hats that resembled a beekeeper’s. Other women, their hide already tanned from a decade or more in the fields, laughed at our hats, at our precious porcelain Muscovite skin. They were thirty or forty but looked sixty or seventy. They knew it would be only a matter of time before we’d give up trying to block the sun—before we’d turn our faces up and let the rays take from us the last remainder of the people we were before coming to Potma.
We were in the fields twelve hours at a time, Anatoli. I’d pass those hours reciting Borya’s poems in my head—timing the rhythm of each line, each break, with the clang of my shovel.
In the evenings, when we came back from the fields and they ran their hands over our bodies to ensure we hadn’t brought anything back to the barracks, I ran Borya’s words through my mind again, deadening what was happening to my body.
I’d also compose poems of my own, the lines appearing in my head as they would on paper. I’d say them to myself again and again until they were cemented. But for some reason I cannot recite them now, when I have the paper to write them down. Maybe certain poems are meant only for oneself.
* * *
—
They called for me one evening after I’d finished washing Buinaya’s dirty clothes. I was about to lie down when a new guard, who hadn’t quite mastered the tone of voice the other guards used when barking orders, entered the barracks and called out my number in her singsong way. I put on my smock and shoes and followed her out the door.
When the guard turned left at the end of the path that cut through the barracks, I realized where we were going: the small cottage whose upkeep was given to prisoners who’d gained favor with the camp’s Godfather. The style of the cottage did not fit with the rest of the camp, and the first time I saw it, I thought I might’ve been hallucinating. It resembled a grandmother’s dacha—bright green with white trim and neat flower boxes lining the windows.
In one window, I could see the glow of a red-shaded lamp. Beyond that, I could see, sitting at a desk, the Godfather—a man I’d seen only once before, standing at the center of a semicircle of lower-level government officials who’d once toured Potma. Even from a distance, I could see his thick white eyebrows. They seemed to stretch up his forehead, almost touching the white hair he’d combed down across his bald spot. He looked friendly, seated there at his desk like any dedushka. But I knew from some of the other women that he was no harmless grandfather. The Godfather’s job was to interrogate prisoners and recruit informers. He was also widely known to have taken several camp wives—women who were called into the green cottage and given the option of either letting him do whatever he wanted with them or face the rest of their sentences in another camp, where the most violent offenders were taken.
The camp wives were identifiable by the silk robes they’d wear after bathing and the large straw hats they wore to shield their faces from the sun. They were also taken out of the fields to work the easier jobs in the kitchen or laundry. Or they simply spent hours tending to the cottage’s hedges and flowers—and then whatever else needed tending to on the inside. Each of the camp wives was beautiful, the prettiest among them an eighteen-year-old named Lena. I never saw Lena, but her famed black hair, long and sleek as an orca’s back, was talked about across the camp. It was rumored that Lena had been given special shampoo the Godfather had smuggled in from France, and a pair of calfskin gloves to protect her slender fingers, as she had been a promising pianist in Georgia before her arrest. It was also rumored she was pregnant once, and a babki was brought in with her knitting needles to perform the abortion.
These were rumors, only rumors, I told myself as the guard pointed her truncheon at the cottage door. I told myself I was too old for the Godfather’s taste, which I’d heard was for women who’d yet to have children or reach the age of twenty-two—whichever came first.
I entered the two-room cottage and stood at the door. The Godfather sat at his desk, writing. I wanted him to speak, but all he did was point his fountain pen to the chair in front of his desk. Ten minutes passed before he put down his pen and looked at me. Without a word, he opened his desk drawer and handed me a parcel. “For you. These cannot leave this office. You must read them here.” He pushed a piece of paper toward me. “And when you’re finished, you will sign that you’ve seen it.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing of importance.”
Inside the parcel was a twelve-page letter and a small green notebook. I opened it, but the words didn’t register. All I could see was the handwriting—his handwriting—broad scrawls that always reminded me of soaring cranes. I flipped through the notebook, then the letter, and the words started to register. Borya was alive. He was free. And he’d written me a poem.
I won’t share the poem with you, Anatoli. Did you think I would? I read it over and over again until I committed it to memory, then I never saw the actual pages again. Maybe you’ve already read them, but I will pretend you haven’t—that his words are mine and mine alone.
In the letter, he wrote he was doing everything in his power to get me out, and if he could change places with me, he would do so gladly. He said the guilt was a weight on his chest that grew heavier each day. He said he feared the weight would become so heavy, his ribs would crack and he’d be crushed to death.
Reading the letter, I felt something I think only the nuns of the camp could understand—the warmth and protection of faith.
Why was I allowed to read what Borya had written me, Anatoli? Why had the Godfather given the letter to me after all that time? Perhaps he wanted something in return. Whatever it was, I knew then that I would do it. I’d become an informer, I’d become a camp wife—whatever it took as long as I could hear from him.
But, Anatoli, the Godfather never asked that I become his wife, nor did he groom me to become an informer. Only later did I discover that Borya had demanded proof I was still alive, and that they had sent him some months later the piece of paper I had signed that night after reading his letter.