"Mix some more."
"We've got half a box mixed."
"Mix
another."
What a pace they set! They were driving along the fifth row now. They'd had to bend over double when they were working on the first row, but now the wall had risen shoulder-high. And why shouldn't they race on? There were no windows or doors to allow for--just a couple of adjoining blank walls and plenty of blocks. Shukhov should have stretched a string higher but there was no time for it.
"The eighty-second have gone off to hand in their tools," Gopchik reported.
Tiurin looked at him witheringly. "Mind your own business, squirt. Bring some blocks."
Shukhov looked about. Yes, the sun was beginning to set. It had a grayish appearance as it sank in a red haze. And they'd got into the swing---couldn't be better.
They'd started on the fifth row now. Ought to finish it today. Level it off.
The mortar carriers were snorting like winded horses. Buinovsky. was quite gray in the face. He might not be forty but he wasn't far off it.
The cold was growing keener. Busy as were Shukhov's hands, the frost nipped his fingers through the shabby mittens. And it was piercing his left boot too. He stamped his foot. Thud, thud.
By now he needn't stoop to the wall, but he still had to bend his aching back for each block and each scoop of mortar.
"Hey, boys!" he pestered the men handling the blocks. "You'd better put them on the wall for me. Heave 'em up here."
The captain would gladly have obliged but lacked the strength. He wasn't used to the work. But Alyosha said: "All right, Ivan Denisovich. Show me where to put them."
You could count on Alyosha. Did whatever was asked of him. If everybody in the world was like that, Shukhov would have done likewise. If a man asks for help why not help him? Those Baptists had something there.
The rail changed. The signal went dinning all over the site and reached the power station. They'd been caught with some unused mortar. Ugh, just when they'd got into the swing of it!
"Mortar! Mortar!" Tiurin shouted.
A new boxful had only just been mixed. They had to go on laying; there was no other way. If they left anything in the box, next morning they could throw the whole lot of it to hell--the mortar would have petrified; it wouldn't yield to a pickax.
"Don't let me down, brothers," Shukhov shouted.
Kilgas was fuming. He didn't like speed-ups. But he pressed on all the same.
What else could he do?
Pavlo ran up with a barrow, a trowel in his belt, and began laying himself. Five trowels on the job now.
Now look out for where the rows meet. Shukhov visualized what shape of block was needed there, and shoving a hammer into Alyosha's hand egged him on: "Knock a bit off this one."
Haste makes waste. Now that afl of them were rac ing one another Shukhov bided his time, keeping an eye on the wall. He pushed Senka to the left and took over the laying himself toward the main corner on the right it would be a disaster if the walls overlapped or if the corner wasn't leveL Cost him half a day's work tomorrow.
"Stop!" He shoved Pavlo away from a block and leveled it himself. And from his place in the corner he noticed that Senka's section was sagging. He hurried over to Senka and leveled it out with two blocks.
The captain brought up a load of mortar, enough for a good horse.
"Another two barrowsful," he said.
The captain was tottering. But he went on sweating away. Shukhov had had a horse like that once. He'd thought a lot of that horse but then they'd driven it to death.
They'd worked the hide off -it.
The top rim of the sun dipped below the horizon. Now, without Gopchik having to tell them,. they saw that the squads had not only turned in their tools but were pouring up to the gates. No one came out into the open immediately after the signal--only a fool would go and freeze out there. They sat in the warmth. But the moment came, by agreement between the squad leaders, when all the squads poured out together. Without this agreement, the zeks, a stubborn lot, would have sat each other out in the warmth till midnight.
Tiurin himself realized that he'd cut things too fine. The man in charge of the tool store must be cursing him out.
"Hey," be shouted, "use enough of that shit! Carriers! Go and scrape the big box.
Throw what's left into that hole there and scatter some snow on it to keep it hidden. You, Pavlo, take a couple of men, collect the tools, and hand them in. I'll send Gopchik after you with the three trowels. We'll use up the last two loads of mortar before we knock off."
Everyone dashed to his job. They took Shukhov's hammer from him and wound up his string. The mortar carriers and the- block lifters hurried down into the machine room. They'd nothing more to do up there. Three masons remained on top--Kilgas, Senka, and Shukhov. Tiurin walked around to see how much wall they'd built. He was pleased. "Not bad, eh? In half a day. Without any fucking lift."
Shukhov noticed there was a little mortar left in Kilgas's hod. He didn't want to waste it, but was worried that the squad leader might be reprimanded if the trowels were handed in late.
"Listen, men," he said, "give your trowels to Gopchik. Mine's not on the list. So I won't have to hand it in. I'll keep going."
Tiurin said with a laugh: "How can we ever let you out? We just can't do without you."
Shukhov laughed too, and went on working.
Kilgas took the trowels. Senka went on handing blocks to Shukhov. They poured Kilgas's mortar into Shukhov's hod.
Gopchik ran across to the tool store, to overtake Pavlo. The rest were just as anxious to bein time, and hurried over to the gates, without Tiurin. A squad leader is a power, but the escort is a greater power still. They list latecomers, and that means the guardhouse for you.
There was a terrible crowd near the gates now. Everyone had collected there. It looked as if the escort had come out and started counting.
(They counted the prisoners twice on the way out: once before they unbolted the gates, to make sure they were safe in opening them, and again when the gates had been opened and the prisoners were passing through. And if they thought they'd miscounted, they recounted outside the gates)
"To hell with the mortar," said Tiurin, with a gesture of impatience. "Sling it over the wall."
"Don't wait, leader. Go ahead, you're needed there. (Shukhov usually addressed Tiurin, more respectfully, as Andrei Prokoflevich, but now, after working like that, he felt equal to the squad leader. He didn't put it to himself, "Look, I'm your equal," he just knew it.) And as Tiurin strode down the ramp he called after him, jokingly: "Why do these bastards make the work day so short? We were just getting into our stride when they call it off."
Shukhov was left alone now with Senka. You couldn't say much to him. Besides, you didn't have to tell him things: he was the wisest of them all; he understood without need of words.
Slap on the mortar. Down with the block. Press it home. See it's straight Mortar.
Block. Mortar. Block....
Wasn't it enough that Tiurin had told them himself not to bother about the mortar?
Just throw it over the wall and fuck off. But Shukhov wasn't made that way-- eight years in a camp couldn't change his nature. He worried about anything he could make use of, about every scrap of work he could do--nothing must be wasted without good reason.
Mortar. Block. Mortar. Block. . . .
"Finish, fuck you," shouted Senka. "Let's get out of here."
He picked up a barrow and ran down the ramp.
But Shukhov--and if the guards had put the dogs on him it would have made no difference--ran to the back and looked about. Not bad. Then he ran and gave the wall a good look over, to the left, to the right His eye was as accurate as a carpenter's level.
Straight and even. His hands were as young as ever.
He dashed down the ramp.
Senka was already out of the machine shop and running down the slope.
"Come on, come on," he shouted over his shoulder.
"Run ahead. I'll catch up," Shukhov gestured.
But he went into the machine shop. He couldn't simply throw his trowel down. He might not be there the next day. They might send the squad off to the Socialist Way of Life settlement. It could be six months before he returned to the power station. But did that mean he was to throw down his trowel? If he'd swiped it he had to hang on to it.
Both the stoves had been doused. It was dark, frightening. Frightening not because it was dark but because everyone had left, because he alone might be missing at the count by the gates, and the guards would beat him.
Yet his eyes darted here, darted there, and, spotting a big stone in the corner, he pulled it aside, slipped his trowel under it, and hid it. So that's that.
Now to catch up with Senka. Senka had stopped after running a hundred paces or so. Senka would never leave anyone in a jam. Pay for it? Then together.
They ran neck and neck, the tall and the short. Senka was a head taller than Shukhov, and a big head it was too.
There are loafers who race one another of their own free will around a stadium.
Those devils should be running after a full day's work, with aching back and wet mittens and worn-out valenki--and in the cold too.
They panted like mad dogs. All you could hear was their hoatse breathing.
Well, Tiurin was at the gates. He'd explain.
They were running straight into the crowd. It scared you.
Hundreds of throats booing you at once, and cursing you up and down. Wouldn't _you_ be scared if you had five hundred men blowing their tops at you?
But what about the guards? That was the chief thing.
No. No trouble with them. Tiurin was there, in the last row. He must have explained. Taken the blame on his own shoulders.
But the men yelled, the men swore. And what swearing! Even Senka couldn't help hearing and, drawing a deep breath, gave back as good as he got He'd kept quiet all his life--but now, how he bellowed! Raised his fists too, ready to pick a fight right away. The men fell silent. Someone laughed.
"Hey, one hundred and fourth," came a shout. "Your deaf guy's a fake. We just tested him."
Everyone laughed. The guards too.
"Form
fives."
They didn't open the gates. They didn't trust themselves. They pushed the crowd back from the gates (everyone stuck to the gates like idiots--as if they'd get out quicker that way!).
"Form fives. First. Second. Third . . ."
Each five, as it was called, took a few paces forward.
While Shukhov was recovering his breath he looked up. The moon had risen and was frowning, crimsonfaced. Yesterday at this hour it had stood much higher.
Pleased that everything had gone so smoothly, Shukboy nudged the captain in the ribs and said: "Listen, captain, where does this science of yours say the old moon goes afterward?"
"Where does it go? What do you mean? What stupidity! It's simply not visible."
Shukhov shook his head and laughed. "Well, if it's not visible, how d'you know it's there?"
"So, according to you," said the captain, unable to believe his ears, "it's another moon every month."
"What's strange about that? People are born every day. Why not a moon every four weeks?"
"Phaugh!" said the captain and spat. "I've never met a sailor as stupid as you in my life. So where do you think the old moon goes?"
"That's what I'm asking you. Where does it go?" Shukhov showed his teeth in a smile.
"Well, tell me. Where does it go?"
Shukhov sighed and said with a slight lisp: "In our village, folk say God crumbles up the old moon into stars."
"What savages!" The captain laughed. "I've never heard that one. Then you believe in God, Shukhov?"
"Why not?" asked Shukhov, surprised. "Hear Him thunder and try not to believe in Him."
"But why does God do it?"
'Do
what?"
"Crumble the moon into stars. Why?"
"Well, can't you understand?" said Shukhov. "The stars fall down now and then.
The gaps have to be filled."
"Turn around, you slob," a guard shouted. "Get in line."
The count had almost reached them. The twelfth five of the fifth hundred had moved ahead, leaving only Buinôvsky and Shukhov at the back.
The escort was worried. There was a discussion over the counting boards.
Somebody missing. Again somebody missing. Why the hell can't they learn to count?
They'd counted 462. Ought to be 463.
Once more they pushed everybody back from the gates (the zeks had crowded forward again).
"Form fives. First. Second. . . ."
What made this recounting so infuriating was that the time wasted on it was the zeks' own, not the authorities'. They would still have to cross the steppe, get to the camp, and line up there to be searched. The columns would come in from all sides on the double, trying to be first at the frisking and into the camp. The column that was back first was top dog in the camp that evening--the mess hall was theirs, they were first in line to get their packages, first at the private kitchen, first at the C.E.D. to pick up letters or hand in their own to be censored, first at the dispensary, the barber's, the baths--first everywhere.
And the escort too is in a hurry to get the zeks in and be off for the night. A soldier's life isn't much fun either--a lot of work, little time.
And now the count had come out wrong.
As the last few fives were called forward Shukhov began to hope that there were going to be three in the last row after all. No, damn it, two again.
The tellers went to the head guard with their tally boards. There was a consultation. The head guard shouted: "Squad leader of the hundred and fourth."
Tiurin took half a pace forward. "Here."
"Did you leave anyone behind in the power station? Think."
"No."
"Think again. I'll knock your head off. . . ."
"No, I'm quite sure."
But he stole a glance at Pavlo. Could anyone have dropped off to sleep in the machine shop?
"Form squads," the head guard shouted.
They had formed the groups of five just as they happened to be standing. Now they began to shift about. Voices boomed out: "Seventy-fifth over here," "This way, thirteenth," "Thirty-second here."
The 104th, being all in the rear, formed there too. They were empty-handed to a man, Shukhov noticed; like idiots, they'd worked on so late they'd collected no firewood.
Only two of them were carrying small bundles.
This game was played every evening: before the job was over the workers would gather chips, sticks, and broken laths, and tie them together with bits of string or ragged tapes to carry back with them. The first raid on their bundles would take place near the gates to the work site. If either the superintendent or one of the foremen was standing there, he'd order the prisoners to throw down their firewood (millions of rubles had gone up in smoke, yet there they were thinking they'd make up the losses with kindling). But a zek calculated his own way: if everyone brought even a few sticks back with him the barracks would be warmer. Barrack orderlies were issued ten pounds of coaldust a stove and little heat could be squeezed out of that. So the men would break up sticks or saw them short and slip them under their coats.
The escort never made the zeks drop their firewood at the gates to the work site.
For one thing, it would have been an offense to the uniform; and secondly they had their hands on machine guns, ready to shoot. But just before entering the zone several ranks in the column were ordered to throw their stuff down. The escort, however, robbed mercifully--they had to leave something for the guards, and for the zeks themselves, who otherwise wouldn't bring any with them.
So every zek brought some firewood along with him every evening. You never knew when you might get it through or when they'd grab it.
While Shukhov was scouring the ground in search of a few chips
, Tiurin had finished counting the squad.
"One hundred and fourth all present," he reported to the head guard.
Just then Tsezar rejoined his own squad from the group of office workers. His pipe was glowing as he puffed away at it; his dark mustache was tipped with frost
"Well, captain, how'd it go?" he asked.
A man who's warm can't understand a man who's freezing. "How'd it go?" What a damn fool question!
"If you really want to know," said the captain, his shoulders sagging, "worked so hard I can hardly straighten my back."
You might give me something to smoke was what he meant.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Signet Books) Page 11
