Memoir of a Gulag Actress

Chapter 5

~Chapter5~ The night before the transport none of us slept. In the morning rations were handed out: five hundred grams of bread and two spoiled herring each. The sun was already shining in the prison yard, but still we had not been lined up. Someone found out our destination was the Djangi-Djir women’s camp. “Any idea how far it is from Frunze?” “About fifty or sixty kilometers.” “What are we riding in?” “Riding? What, you don’t feel like walking?” The reason for the delay finally became clear when a woman was brought out of the punishment block. She staggered and squinted in the light. Her swollen face, full of bruises, was blue and yellow. The young baby-faced transport commander shouted out in a piercing voice: “Everyone look over here! This scarecrow tried to escape! She’ll get what’s coming to her later. Now she’s going to lead the lot of you the way she ran. If we have to walk an extra hundred versts, you’ve only got her to thank. Is that clear? I said, is that clear?” The woman, indifferent to her surroundings, was placed at the head of the column. We were counted. The squad, ten rows of women, four abreast, surrounded by guards and dogs, was ready to set off. The young commander yelled: “Try to run and we shoot! Three steps to the right or left counts as an attempt to escape! Understand? I repeat: three steps to the right, three to the left, and you get a bullet.” The prison gates opened and we marched out through the streets. At one end of the town was the house with our abandoned room, at the Tamara Petkevich 155 other end my mother-in-law, Lina and the three-year-old wide-eyed Tatochka were still in their beds. On and on we walked, without exchanging a word. Only the youthful commander continued to yell at the poor stumbling woman who was forcing herself along in front of the column. Until about ten o’clock the walking was fairly easy. Gradually, though, everything we had found so pleasant after three months locked in a cell— air, wind, sun—became a punishment. The light blue sky turned dark and heavy, pitilessly pouring its molten lava over our heads. Each step forward in the constant wind stirred up sand that got into our mouths, eyes and hair. We soon passed the limits of our endurance, but we were not allowed to stop, not for a single moment. One fell, then another. The guards shouted, “Stand up or we shoot!” Those unable to get up were heaved onto one of the wooden carts at the rear of the column. I don’t know how many versts we walked before our first break, when we were finally permitted to crawl under the carts on which the sunstroked women lay covered by sacks. We dug into our bread and spoiled herring, and since we were not allowed anything to drink, we turned away when the guards unscrewed their flasks and poured wonderful silver water down their throats. Our faces were already burned by the sun, our eyes reduced to slits. “What I got was a Pole,” laughed the commander, “but she’ll be a Mongol by the time we get there!” And we set off again in the scorching sun. I didn’t know how much I could handle and what would prove beyond me. “Forget you’re a woman!” the lady in the karakul coat had advised me. Now I had to forget I was a human being, too. It was to keep my mind from this frightening thought that I dragged myself on and on, driven by a crazed, preternatural stubbornness. I was the youngest in the transport; beside me walked all old women. Each of us was forcing herself to the limit. If one fell, she made no sound or complaint. Here you immediately realized you were alone. WE SKIRTED AROUND the settlement of Djangi-Djir until it lay behind us to the left. Ahead of us loomed two large barracks and some outhouses surrounded by rows of barbed wire. It was the camp. A watchtower stood at each corner. Guards carrying machine guns were walking back and forth. But it was something else that sent a chill creeping through me, freezing my M E M O I R O...