Memoir of a Gulag Actress

Chapter 8

~Chapter8~ The camp was six kilometers from the railroad. The fields and meadows gathered the warmth and tint of the dim sunlight, but the taiga forest allowed no sun into its thicket, letting the light touch only the top of the canopy . The birds were chirping. I tried to take as many gulps of freedom as I could before we arrived at the camp. I was lodged in the same medical barracks I had lived in during my first stay here. The place looked almost the same, but the people had changed. In the camps, the women with children were called “mamkas.” There was much to this nickname: a recognition of some of their rights, a share of condescensionandlenience ,pityanddisdain.Aswitheverythingelsehere,there weremamkasofalltypes:youngandold,thievesandintellectuals,thosemarriedtotheirchildren ’sfathers,thosewithoutthem.Afather,ofcourse,wasalways desirable, but it was the child that became the light of the women’s lives. The women’s determination to have a child in the camps was a solitary rebellion against a society that had gotten the hang of taking even that—the inalienable right of every woman—away from them. Only time could make clear who would win or be defeated in the fight for the power of life against cruelty. The conditions of this fight were hideously unequal. In the bed beside mine lay a young nurse, Olechka Udres, who had just given birth to a weak baby girl. The baby’s father, an older doctor in the same camp, dearly looked after both of them. But Olechka often cried, saying: “The baby has the eyes of a grown-up. It seems like she’s saying good-bye to me…” Soon after the baby died. The young and attractive Tonya paced around the barracks. The foreman with thick wet lips had gotten her pregnant. She lived with him, without crying or complaining, but her gaze revealed a strained question: “Is this all? And for what?” Tamara Petkevich 283 A woman from my native Leningrad, proud and educated, was sometimes visited by her husband, a prisoner doing time at a different camp. They were both head over heels for their newborn girl, though the baby’s health was very poor. This baby was their entire world; nobody and nothing else existed for them. As soon as I moved to Mezhog, Filipp increased his attention toward me tenfold. He often wrote, and sent regards with everyone who was traveling to Mezhog. His parcels contained pieces of fabric, soap and even things like thread and tooth powder. His love protected me. Many told me how lucky I was to have somebody who loved me so much. I felt calm and peaceful. I was assigned to work in the agricultural brigade. Early in the morning, at the sound of reveille, I would set out to the camp checkpoint, just like before. Whether I worked in the fields or in a greenhouse, most of the time I had to remain bent over. Returning to the zone extremely tired, I’d wash my hands and want only to lie down. But the older women instructed: “No, sweetheart, you have to move. Go take a walk around the zone.” I would obey and set off to make my circles around the barracks. I hearkened to the women’s advice on how to prepare myself for maternity. My child kicked inside of me. I gasped for breath, but every day after work I forced myself to go for a walk. The doctors didn’t like the way I looked. Filipp had asked the local chief doctor to petition for lighter working conditions on my behalf, but I resolved to work just like all the rest. I wondered if it would be a boy or a girl. I felt something grand and beautiful drawing near. UNEXPECTEDLY, I was summoned to the Second Department. It turned out that Vera Nikolaevna Sarantseva, my friend from the NKVD prison in Frunze and the Djangi-Djir camp, had been looking for me. My relatives hadn’t been searching, but a friend had not given up on me! Indeed, there is some greatness in prison friendship. We began writing to each other, and our correspondence carried on for thirty years. Vera Nikolaevna had been released. Altogether, she was imprisoned for little more than a year. Of course, they did not have the right to transport her to Nizhny Tagil at the time. Her release decree followed her from station to station, though it was often misaddressed and delayed. Meanwhile, she languished...