Rachel's Hope

by Shelly Sanders

  “Maybe love keeps women from abandoning their exiled husbands,” said Sergei to his companion in a wistful voice.

  “Or their own fear of being alone,” he answered drily.

  “How come you’ve been exiled twice? When my time is up, I’ll make sure I never end up here again.”

  “The first time, as a student at Moscow University, I was exiled to western Siberia without a trial, for being friends with people who belonged to a political organization.”

  “You weren’t a member of this group?” asked Sergei.

  “No, but my closest friend was one of the leaders. He was banished to penal servitude in Yakutsk, just south of the Arctic Circle.”

  “And the second time?”

  “I went back to university and completed my engineering degree, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my friend, who would likely die in Yakutsk. He had never been violent. He wanted an end to censored books and newspapers, the right to free speech. I was caught circulating pamphlets at the university. By the way, my name is Cyril.”

  Sergei beckoned for Cyril to follow him away from the throng of exiles. “I’m Sergei, but I have false identity papers under another name. I helped Maxim Gorky distribute Iskra throughout Moscow. But that is not what got me arrested.”

  “Gorky is a good man,” said Cyril. “It’s a shame he has been arrested again.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No,” said Sergei. “Tell me.”

  “He was arrested at the end of December, for his part in the Moscow uprising. I read about it in the Novo Vremia.”

  “But I never saw him at the prison.”

  “They took him directly to the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petersburg,” said Cyril.

  “I can’t believe it,” murmured Sergei. “I know he’s been imprisoned before, but I just can’t imagine him alone in a dark cell, without his books and papers.”

  “He’s not the first writer to be arrested and he won’t be the last,” said Cyril. “Vladimir Korolenko, a journalist who publicly criticised the tsar, has been exiled four times, and never had a trial.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Back onto the train,” ordered an officer, cutting Sergei off and jabbing him in the ribs with his club.

  Sergei fell forward. Cyril grabbed him to keep him from crumpling to the ground. Together, they entered the train, which seemed to stink even worse after the brief respite outside. Finding no place to sit, Sergei ended up standing beside a giant of a man. His nose came to the man’s foul armpit, where it stayed until the next fuel stop.

  With each passing hour, Sergei’s head grew foggier. He lost track of time, his mind often traveling back to Kishinev. He visualized himself sitting in his flat with his mother. She poured him a glass of tea and fussed over him. He felt warm and content. When the train jerked or pitched forward violently, he was shaken back to the reality of the Ural Mountains, his sense of comfort replaced by isolation and shame.

  ⚓ ⚓ ⚓

  “Vot granitsa, here is the boundary,” said an officer, who opened the train door.

  “Where are we?” Sergei asked Cyril.

  “The border between Russia and Siberia, where Perm meets Tobolsk.” Cyril clambered to his feet.

  Outside, the sun burned his skin after so many hours in darkness. Sergei rubbed his eyes to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on him. Grown men, their bodies pressed against a square, white boundary post, wailed hysterically and kissed the pillar. Others had fallen to the ground and gathered soil in their hands as if it were sacred. Sergei shuffled toward the boundary post to get a closer look. About ten feet high, it had the coat of arms of Perm on one side and the coat of arms of Tobolsk on the other. Inscriptions and names of previous exiles covered the post. One man had written Good-bye, Tatiana. Another inscription read: Boris was here, 1891.

  “They stop here to let us have one last farewell to Russia,” explained Cyril, who’d come up behind Sergei. “My first time, I took some soil with me, but it didn’t make me feel any better.”

  Sergei turned and watched as exiles kissed the soil, or held it up to the sky in the palms of their hands. For the first time since he’d been sentenced to exile, the finality of this punishment hit him. He had a sudden urge to bolt.

  Sergei watched the officers guarding the prisoners. He observed their guns and realized he’d be doomed from the start if he ran. Trying to escape would be suicide, an unforgivable action, even in these dire circumstances. Besides, he reasoned, he did deserve to be punished for taking part in von Plehve’s murder. Exile meant justice and hopefully an easing of his conscience for his past transgressions.

  ⚓ ⚓ ⚓

  By the time the train rolled into Tiumen, the first town within Siberia, Sergei’s trousers were so loose around his waist he had to hold them to keep them from falling down. He could hardly see the skin on his hands through the dirt, and his throat was parched.

  “Welcome to your home for the next two weeks,” said Cyril, as the officers impatiently waved the men off the train. “Every exiled person spends about two weeks here, in the forwarding prison, before going any farther.”

  “Will there be more room for us to sleep?” asked Sergei. He stepped down from the train. His legs shook, his knees buckled, and the leg-fetters clinked.

  Cyril chortled. Sergei groaned inwardly.

  They had to walk through the town to get to the prison. The ground was muddy from a recent rainfall. Before long, Sergei’s feet were covered in sludge, and he struggled to keep his loose-fitting shoes on. A river snaked beside them for a few minutes and disappeared as they neared the village—two rows of unpainted log houses. Between every two houses stood an enclosed side yard. Flowers adorned the windows, and the shutters were decorated with intricate designs in surprisingly bright colors, but there were no sidewalks, trees, or grass.

  The Tiumen forwarding prison, a three-story, white stucco building with a red roof, stood behind a gate. The women’s prison faced it on the opposite side of the road. The whitewashed brick wall surrounding the men’s prison rose about fifteen feet, and had a sentry box with an armed guard at every corner. In front of the gate, peasants sold rye bread, boiled eggs, milk, and fish pies to the exiles. Sergei reached into the coarse, gray bag he’d been issued for some money provided by the government for exiles, and bought a boiled egg. It slid down his throat as easily as water; he could have eaten a dozen but he had to conserve his meager funds.

  A sentry in a green double-breasted tunic appeared, wielding a saber and a revolver. He opened the gate and ordered the prisoners to have their identification papers ready. Another guard directed the men into four lines once they were in the yard. Sergei and Cyril ended up in separate lines beside one another.

  “Papers,” said the sentry when Sergei reached the front of his line. The sentry held out his hand.

  Sergei gave him the documents that stated his false name, age, residence, what he’d been arrested for, and the term of his sentence. The sentry reviewed the information, his lips moving as he scanned the documents, and told Sergei to report to the main barracks.

  “There?” Sergei pointed at a large, stuccoed building. The sentry nodded and gestured for him to move on.

  A dank corridor greeted Sergei when he opened the door. On each side, heavy wood doors opened to kameras, cells that were already filling up with prisoners. Down the center of each cell ran the sleeping bench, a wood platform wide enough for two rows of men, about two feet off the floor. All benches were full, leaving the remaining prisoners, including Sergei, with just the cold, damp mud floor to sleep on. The only other item in the room was a wooden tub for excrement. Small, filthy windows were covered with iron grates. Spying an unclaimed corner, Sergei sank down on the ground and curled into a ball. He pressed his eyes shut and attempted to imagine himself back in his warm, soft bed in
Kishinev. But the ground was hard, and the moisture seeped through his clothes to his skin. He shivered the entire night, drifting in and out of an unpleasant sleep.

  14

  Rain pelted down sideways as Sergei marched with five hundred other exiles to the steamer landing. His head and feet grew heavy as he trudged through the slimy mud. They were going on the convict barge to Tomsk, where they would be kept in another forwarding prison before the long exile march to eastern Siberia.

  The barge had a black hull and was more than two hundred feet long. Two yellow compartments covered a large portion of the upper deck. Between these lay a cage with a roof for the exiles. Divided into two sections, the smaller one was for women and children and the larger for men.

  Just like the Tiumen forwarding prison, the barge had obviously been designed to hold about half of the people it would actually carry. Exiles were surrounded by soldiers in heavy overcoats and woollen winter caps made of lamb’s fleece. Once the last exile had boarded, gates slid shut, separating the people on the barge from the people on the bridge. A priest stepped forward and began to chant a prayer. Most of the exiles crossed themselves, kneeled, and pressed their foreheads to the deck.

  A steamer began to pull the barge as the sun rose. Sergei clutched the gate with both hands and watched Tiumen get smaller and smaller as the barge began its long voyage down the Irtish River.

  With hardly any standing room on the deck, the prisoners quickly moved into sleeping cabins, one for women and children and three for men. These were much like the kameras at the prison, with sleeping platforms down the middle, but on the barge they would lie in four rows, not two.

  Sergei sniffed and detected the faint scent of disinfectant. This freshness soon disappeared as the cabins became overloaded with exiles. Sergei and Cyril returned to the cage on the deck for air, but they could hardly find a few inches of empty space.

  “The farther we go, the worse it gets,” Sergei said. “I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

  Cyril gave him a half-smile. “We’ll be going to Semipalatinsk, which many exiles call the devil’s sandbox.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  “Believe it or not, things will actually improve once we arrive in Chita.”

  Sergei looked at him skeptically.

  “No, really. Once we are there, we’re not confined. We don’t have to wear these damn leg fetters and we can do as we please, as long as we check in with the police regularly.”

  “Why don’t more people escape, if there are so few restrictions?” asked Sergei.

  “Because they’re in the middle of nowhere, without enough money or food to make it through the harsh conditions. Think of Siberia as a vast prison.”

  A bunch of field sparrows flew overhead, their wings flapping in the breeze. Sergei tilted his head back and envied their freedom to roam the sky, to stop when they wanted to rest, and to forage for food when they were hungry.

  I think I’d rather be free and hungry, he thought, than a prisoner with a half-full stomach.

  ⚓ ⚓ ⚓

  Tomsk, the second-largest city in Siberia, sat partially on a bluff and partially on low land that bordered the Tom River. The convoy of exiles walked along the unpaved streets through the market square, passing churches, schools, a library, a synagogue, and a mosque.

  Log walls enclosed the prison. The place felt much more primitive than Tiumen, and more vulnerable, set on open land with nothing else in sight. Within the walls, stood eight one-story log buildings with board roofs. Armed sentries guarded every door. Each of these buildings had been divided into two kameras with two double rows of sleeping benches on mud-covered floors. Half of the exiles in each cell found themselves sleeping on the mucky ground.

  Sergei ended up beside Cyril, under the benches with his nose on the floor. Though exhausted from the walk, Sergei couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned all night, his shoulder blades scraping the ground whenever he changed positions. His teeth chattered from the cold.

  From the nearby family kamera, came the heart-wrenching sound of babies crying and mothers’ despondent voices trying to calm them.

  “Where are you going?” yelled a guard.

  Sergei propped himself up on his elbows listening to the shouting outside.

  “To the bathhouse,” came a woman’s feeble reply. “My baby is freezing. It is warmer in there.”

  “Just one night,” said the guard. “Tomorrow you will sleep in your kamera.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” said the mother.

  If I had a wife and child, I would forbid them from coming with me into exile, vowed Sergei. This is no way for them to live. He thought of Rachel and was relieved that she would never know how far he’d fallen. He remembered their moonlit walks, when the stars overhead seemed to shine just for them. He drifted off to sleep, dreaming that he held her hand.

  Tormented wails woke Sergei abruptly. For a second, he thought he was back in Kishinev with Rachel. Then he smelled the filth. The cries came from outside.

  “My baby! My baby!”

  It was the voice of the woman who had asked the guard if she could sleep in the bathhouse.

  With the leg fetters still around his feet, Sergei scrambled over Cyril and the other exiles sprawled on the ground. When he opened the door of his cell, a pitiful sight met him. A stick of a woman held a lifeless baby girl in her arms. The infant, an awful shade of bluish-gray, looked as stiff as a board.

  “I’m sorry, matushka, little mother,” said the prison warden in an effort to console the distraught woman. “The bathhouse was too hot and damp for a baby.”

  The baby’s father, tall with a blond beard, arrived, and fell to the ground when he recognized his child.

  Sergei glared at the warden. “This death is on you. I heard this baby and her mother crying because of the cold. But instead of offering warm blankets, the guard allowed them to sleep in the bathhouse.”

  Powerful arms gripped Sergei and yanked him away.

  “You can’t speak to the warden like that,” said the guard holding Sergei.

  “Maybe after a little time in solitary you’ll think twice before criticizing him again,” snarled his partner.

  They opened the door of a small log building in the farthest corner of the yard, and threw Sergei in. They bolted the door shut and Sergei found himself alone in the dark. No light, no ventilation, and no benches.

  I can’t do this, thought Sergei. He pressed his hands against the walls, feeling for a weak spot, a place where he could break through. Nothing. How could anyone last a day or two in here? They’ve locked me in here to die.

  He paced back and forth, ten steps from side to side. I could bang my head against the wall. I could end my life right now. Images of his sister and mother passed before his eyes. He remembered how he’d vowed to take care of them and rammed his shoulders against the wall. “Good job,” he said out loud to himself. “You’re really looking out for your family.” He rubbed his aching shoulder and remembered how Rachel had survived the Kishinev massacre. She, her mother, and sister, had spent the night in a foul-smelling outhouse, hearing the unbearable sounds of people they knew and loved, being tortured and killed.

  Sergei straightened his shoulders. If Rachel could survive that night, I can survive this. And I don’t want my mother to carry the burden of my death. Besides, I want the guards to see that they can’t break me, that I’m stronger than they are.

  ⚓ ⚓ ⚓

  Two days later, the door creaked open. Sergei, who had slipped in and out of consciousness since being locked in, held his hands over his eyes to block the light.

  “Are you ready to come out and keep your mouth shut?” said a gruff voice.

  Sergei opened his mouth to respond, but couldn’t make a sound. He hadn’t had food or water for two days.

  “Did you hear me?”

 
; Sergei nodded and tried to speak again. Still no sound.

  “Idiot,” grumbled the voice. The door began to shut.

  “No, please,” whispered Sergei.

  But the door closed tight.

  One thousand and eight, one thousand and nine…. Sergei counted in his head to stay awake and alert, and to keep gloomy thoughts from taking over his mind. He’d also told himself stories, favorites from his childhood, to keep from giving up. But he quickly tired of counting and couldn’t remember any more stories.

  He sucked out the saliva from his tongue to moisten his throat and practiced speaking. “Yes,” he said faintly, rehearsing his answer for the day when the door would open again.

  One thousand and eleven, one thousand and…Sergei toppled over to one side. Just a little sleep, he told himself. I will be much stronger after I get some rest.

  The door opened slowly, but no light appeared.

  “Sergei.”

  A familiar voice entered Sergei’s consciousness.

  “Sergei!”

  The voice sounded louder and more persistent.

  Sergei opened his eyes. “Cyril?” he croaked.

  “I’m here with the guard to let you out.”

  Slumped over with his back against the wall, Sergei tried to lift his head but failed. He tried to stand but could not.

  Cyril grabbed him under the arms and dragged him outside. The guard spat on the ground and walked away.

  “I can’t believe they kept you in here for three days,” said Cyril.

  Sergei’s mouth hung open and his lips were cracked and dry.

  “Drink this.” Cyril supported his friend’s head and poured water down his throat.

  Sergei gagged. The cold air created goose bumps on his skin.

  “How did you get me out?” he asked Cyril.

  “I gave the guard some cigarettes.”