the Cell

“...the darkness is my closest friend.” Psalm 88

	Just before midnight, Dmitri’s shaven head snapped up. A key was rattling in the lock. He saw Ivan and Yuri jerk their heads up also as the door swung open; and then a new prisoner stumbled into the cell. He stared blankly at Dmitri. Relaxing enough to offer a weak smile, Dmitri dropped back heavily on the thin straw mattress. Just another zek. Maybe no one will be called tonight. He noticed that Pytor, lying next to him, had not looked up, though his eyes were wide open.
	As soon as the door slammed and the key rattled again, Ivan and Yuri began whispering at the stranger. Yuri asked if he was from freedom. Ivan wanted tobacco. Ignoring Ivan, the newcomer mumbled something about freedom that sounded sarcastic, and began to lay out his blanket on the concrete floor between the two beds. The blanket appeared to be his only possession. Ivan lay back down, but Yuri persisted with a soft barrage of questions until Dmitri silenced him. “He’ll be here tomorrow. Go to sleep!”
	Pulling his blanket close around him to keep out the cold, Dmitri resisted the urge to tuck his arms under it. Once a minute, a hostile eye peered into the cell, checking that all the prisoners’ hands were in sight. As if on cue, the peephole cover slid open with a soft click. Dmitri closed his eyes tightly against the harsh brightness of the cell, and tried to remember that somewhere it was dark.

	Less than an hour later, he was rattled awake again. This time, a guard appeared. “Bakhtin!” Pytor quickly rolled off the bed, stumbled over the man on the floor, and was jerked to his feet. The door fell shut. Dmitri closed his eyes again, but the sound of the receding footsteps sickened him. Pytor can not survive many more nights like this. The interrogators must be losing their patience.
	Then once again, sleep mercifully released him. Tonight, he escaped Ivanovo prison #2 and the winter of 1937, to the spring of 1936 in Moscow. He was home. Tatyana was clearing the dishes as he watched, admiring the grace of her quick movements. Sergei and Tasha babbled endlessly about all the fascinating and completely insignificant events of the day, and Dmitri was immensely satisfied with it all. Then the telephone rang. Dmitri answered, in the best of moods—he wasn’t even annoyed when the supervisor at the textile plant asked him to come back in for a repair. But when he hung up, he suddenly remembered. It is a trap. I am to be arrested tonight. He turned to his wife and began to give orders to gather their things, then stopped suddenly. Their faces had changed. Before him stood his interrogators: one wearing Tatyana’s dress, and the other two—miniatures—in his children’s clothes. “What... what have you done with them?” he heard himself stammer. But the three did not speak. Tatyana thrust him into a chair, while one child placed a paper in front of him and the other produced a pen.
	The paper called him a wrecker. All of the textile mill’s failures to meet quota were his doing; he was an enemy of the people. And he had not acted alone. Attached was a list, “provided by the prisoner,” containing the names of all those who had cooperated in his wrecking. Dmitri recognized some of the names; others he had never seen before. Then his hand picked up the pen—he could not stop it—and slowly signed the paper. Dmitri stared helplessly at the signature, his eyes filling with tears. He knew that when he looked up his wife would not be there.

	 “Time to get up!” wrenched him awake, and habit rolled him out of bed. The prisoners folded their blankets and lifted the beds, which folded into the wall and locked. This revealed four round stumps, the only seats in the cell. All of the men sat down. Dmitri was surprised that he had not heard the door being unlocked as the guard entered to awaken them. He must have slept hard. Then, through the haze of semi-consciousness, images from his dream began slowly to return.
	Ivan dropped the latrine bucket next to his stool, startling him. He must have been selected bucket-bearer; he hadn’t heard that either. When the guard returned, Dmitri immediately lifted the bucket chest-high and led the procession of prisoners to the toilet. He was glad to get out of the cell. Even if it is with a shit-bucket under my nose. The cell was only ventilated during the few minutes each day when the prisoners were granted use of the toilet, so even the stuffy corridor was a relief.
		He dumped the bucket and was handed a small square of paper to use in the toilet. When he sat down, he noticed that there was something printing on it; it looked like the title page of a book. “The Brothers Karamazov.” And on the other side of it: “Dedicated to Anna Grigorievna Dostoyevski”; Dmitri recognized the name. Half of the sheet was torn off, but part of a quote was legible: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abideth alone....” Dmitri usually never read in the toilet; these moments of relative solitude were reserved for thoughts of his family. But today images from his dream disturbed him, and he could not find the faces he loved. He dragged himself back to the cell with the others and dropped onto a stool. Then he noticed that Pytor had not yet returned.

	Dmitri scanned the faces in the cell. None of them seemed to notice Pytor’s absence. And the new prisoner, lost in thought, seemed to have absolutely no interest in the cell or its inhabitants. When Dmitri had first arrived in the cell, he had studied it carefully. About eight feet long, seven feet wide. Two beds that folded up into the walls. And opposite the door, a shallow shelf with the bucket under it. There was also a window. It was small and high up, and you could not see through it, but enough light filtered in to let you know when it was daytime outside. A small pane could be opened to let air in, though it was always shut when the prisoners were in the cell. The ceiling was very high, at least fifteen feet, and glared with the eternal light of a 200-watt bulb. All this for just four men. Five men, he corrected himself.
	Dmitri eyed the new man, who was slowly pacing the short floor, brushing Dmitri’s knees each time he passed. The first few questions Yuri asked produced nothing but a name: Aleksandr. But when Ivan ventured “So what did you do?,” Aleksandr stopped abruptly. “What did I do? What do you think I did? Nothing!” He pressed Ivan to the wall with his furious eyes. “I am to be shot for nothing!” Dmitri smiled. Of course.
	They had all been arrested for that same “nothing.” Ivan was a middle-aged peasant farmer who had done rather well for himself—too well—and had been labeled a kulak. Enemy of the people. Yuri, only 24, had been denounced by a fellow officer trying to please his interrogators and, with his four “co-conspirators”, had been sentenced to death. Enemy of the people. And Dmitri himself: a wrecker. Enemy of the people. Of course, I also denounced my friends. Perhaps he had earned the sentence he would get. But none of them had been arrested for doing much of anything.
	Except Pytor, Dmitri thought, he had done something. Pytor had refused to become an informer for the NKVD. He certainly was unique in that respect. Otherwise, there was nothing unusual about him—nothing that would warn you that he was such a fool. His disobedience had saved no one, and had made him a “project” for the interrogators. But Dmitri still respected something in him. He wondered if Pytor would be coming back.
	A raised voice interrupted his thoughts. Ivan had quickly regained control of the conversation and was working Aleksandr into a rant. Dmitri wondered if the new man had figured out yet that Ivan was a stool pigeon. So far he hadn’t said anything too compromising, just confusing phrases about purity and ideals and conviction, so maybe he knew. “The will of the people is infallible; it does not condemn innocent men to death. This... this is the work of individuals—individuals abusing their freedom. The result—this suffering—should not exist.” Aleksandr sounded like a real communist. But then again, you didn’t want to be too much of a communist. And his lack of restraint was certainly a bad sign; it was also dangerous to be too passionate. Of course, if he is already sentenced to death, what does it matter? “The will of the people necessarily produces the common good, but this is not what we are experiencing. Why?” Wreckers?, Dmitri thought, carefully watching the inspired preacher. “Because certain individuals,” Aleksandr’s black eyes blazed, “prefer to sacrifice the common good out of pride. They scorn the will of the people and would do only their own will, accepting only their own narrow-minded judgment. So we suffer.”
	“I know the type,” Ivan purred. “We have one in this cell—well, not at the moment; he is being questioned.” Ivan hated Pytor, and used every opportunity to turn the other prisoners against him. “He refuses to accept authority, and looks down on the rest of us because we know when to submit. Submission to authority is our obligation—our duty—to our comrades.”

	The lock sounded, silencing everyone, and Pytor was thrust into the cell. Not able to steady himself, he sprawled between the stools and lay there. For a moment, no one moved. Then Dmitri broke the spell and tried to help him onto a stool, finally giving up and propping him against the wall. He sat next to Pytor and quickly looked him over for traces of last night’s questioning. His face showed no obvious marks of torture, only the haggard lines of sleeplessness, and tears that slowly leaked onto his cheeks. The back of his right hand bore two small, round, angry burns. With his left hand, he held himself gently between the legs. His eyes were open, fixed on the floor, but he made no sound.
	Neither did anyone else. Aleksandr had glanced quickly at the man sprawled on the floor; now he stared at the door with his head in his hands. Ivan, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes off Pytor. Dmitri was sure that, even like this—especially like this—Pytor scared Ivan. Closing his eyes, Dmitri slowly rubbed his forehead, where a terrible pain was gathering.
	When he heard the peephole cover slide open, he stood up, and noticed that Yuri was watching him. Over the past few months, Dmitri had become something of a father figure for the young officer. Yuri tried to get on everyone’s good side; but he trusted Dmitri, and when he was scared, it was to Dmitri that he turned. “It’s all right, he’ll live” was the best Dmitri could manage. It was mostly a lie, but that was what Yuri wanted. Without lies, what would the boy be left with?

	At 8 o’clock, breakfast arrived: a pound of soggy bread, half potato flour, followed by tea in a aluminum cup. The food helped take everyone’s mind off the human lump on the floor. Yuri chattered quietly at his confidant, something about the page he had read in the toilet. But Dmitri continued to watch Pytor. He put some bread in front of him, but the exhausted man made no move for it. Finally, Dmitri tossed the bread on the shelf for later, and when the guard came to collect the cups, he gave the tea to Yuri.
	Pytor still hadn’t moved at 9 o’clock, when the lieutenant appeared for the morning check-up. So Dmitri was surprised when he suddenly struggled up from the floor to come to attention with the rest of the prisoners. Dmitri was almost moved to help him, but the gaze of the lieutenant kept him rigid. “Requests?” Naturally, no one requested anything, except Ivan, who wanted to see the doctor again. It was his teeth this time. A guard escorted him out; and Dmitri knew that when he came back, it would be with a pocketful of tobacco. He wondered what Ivan could possibly tell that was worth anything to them. Whatever it was, Dmitri was just happy to get him out of the cell.
	The door shut and Pytor dropped onto a stool. Dmitri offered him bread again and he took it, thanking with his eyes. The crumpled shape on the stool reminded Dmitri of his own interrogation. Not that he had suffered anything like what Pytor was going through. But he knew what it was like to be driven into a corner and crushed.
	Almost immediately after his arrest at the mill—in the middle of the night—he had been driven to a prison, stripped of his coat and shoes, and stuffed into a “box.” It was brightly lit and impossibly small. When the door pressed shut, there was barely enough room to turn around. After an hour, he found that he could rest with his knees slightly bent and pressed against the wall of the box, and could almost sleep. The light was a problem, though. And the bugs; the box was full of them and they were ravenous. Dmitri vigorously protected himself for the first couple of hours, then he gave up and resigned his flesh. His mind immediately fled to his family. Are they looking for me yet? The image of Tatyana’s face, creased with worry, flooded his thoughts. What will she do while I am being held? He didn’t think they could possibly keep an innocent man in such a place for much longer. But the hours continued to grind on, and when the door finally popped open, he was sure that most of the day had passed.
	Exhausted, he stumbled down the corridor trying to make his legs work, and the guard deposited him in another brightly lit room. The room was empty except for a table, behind which a man sat, looking over some papers. A revolver lay on the table. The guard withdrew, leaving Dmitri standing in the middle of the room.
	The man looked up from the table and smiled. “Dmitri Ivanovich. You are an engineer... and very good at what you do. Your supervisors... all speak well of you in your evaluations. I suppose you are a respected man.” The man paused. Dmitri did not know if he was supposed to answer. He almost expected to be told that his arrest had been a mistake. The man continued, “I respect you as well. That is why I will simply ask you: What have you done, Dmitri?”
	Completely confused, Dmitri stammered “What? I... nothing....” The man smiled again. “Now Dmitri Ivanovich, surely you weren’t arrested for nothing?” Dmitri’s eyes were on the floor as he began again, “I don’t know why....” Then looking up, he saw that the man was no longer smiling. Dmitri stopped. “It seems that you do not respect me, Dmitri Ivanovich. It seems that I will have to earn your respect. I have learned ways to earn respect.” The man’s hand was on the revolver.
	Dmitri knew that he had broken rather easily. But it wasn’t the fatigue or the revolver that had done it. He had held himself together pretty well until the third interrogator of the night. That was when they began to threaten his family. They had threatened his daughter.

	Yuri, feeling better, had moved next to Aleksandr and was attempting to make a new friend. “Ivan’s a stoolie, you know. You’ve got to watch what you say when he’s around. He’s not so bad, he gives me tobacco sometimes. But he takes care of himself first.” Aleksandr made no response, not even looking at him, so Yuri tried a different approach. “There’s supposed to be an amnesty, did you hear, for the twentieth anniversary of the Revolution.” That worked. Aleksandr looked straight into the young officer’s smiling face. “And you believe that?” Stunned, Yuri said nothing. “You think the government is going to release all those who have tried to sabotage the revolution? Don’t you see how vulnerable we still are? I am here, condemned to die—unjustly condemned to die—for that very reason I see that it is impossible to grant an amnesty. Rather, there are still many that must be removed! There will be no amnesty.”
	Yuri looked from Aleksandr to Dmitri, and back to Aleksandr. Dmitri felt the young man begging for reassurance, but this time he could not give it. The amnesty rumor was popular with the prisoners, but he knew that Aleksandr was probably right; and he hated him for it. What was the point of crushing the boy’s hopes? Yuri was condemned to die, but he was far from resigned to his fate. When he described, often and in detail, his arrest and sentencing, he was always telling a story, never admitting the brutal reality of his situation. As far as Dmitri could tell, Yuri truly believed in the amnesty. Or he was trying very hard to convince himself that he did. Yuri was very open with everyone—except maybe himself.
	“There will be amnesty.” All eyes flew to Pytor. “It will not be on the anniversary. But there will be amnesty... though not for all.” Pytor began to cough and could say no more. He spit blood on the floor. Dmitri, pained by the confused look on Yuri’s face, wiped away the blood with his boot.

	When Ivan returned, it only took him a moment to re-engage Aleksandr. Apparently, Aleksandr had been a writer. This labeled him an intellectual, and intellectuals were not trusted by the government. To Ivan’s severe displeasure, Yuri got interested in the conversation and started asking questions. But Aleksandr answered them both with sweeping pronouncements. “A writer is the midwife—a helper—to bring into being what is pure and beautiful. This is a constant struggle. Sometimes the work is stillborn, but sometimes it bursts into the world full of life and promise.... If not for the murderers....” Ivan became interested. “Who?” Aleksandr seemed not to hear. “Beauty is so fragile. I have learned that. It is so easily crushed by a single, meaningless individual.... Like a child treading thoughtlessly on a tiny flower—tiny and perfect....”
	Aleksandr got up and started pacing again, alone with his thoughts. Seeing that further questions were futile, Ivan pulled some tobacco from his pocket and prepared to smoke it. Yuri moved to the stool next to him and he rolled one for each of them. Then he pulled a lighter out of his pocket. A new one, Dmitri observed. He’s got to be telling them lies.
	Dmitri didn’t smoke. Tatyana abhorred the smell of tobacco, and the children, following her lead, had continued to badger him until he gave it up. He could see them, pretending to cough and hack as they danced around him, trying to snatch his cigar away. Tatyana used to try to chase him out of the house with a stern face, but he always caught her smiling at the children’s silliness. Now, the thought of that stealthy smile pained him terribly.
	The clatter of a cart in the corridor brought him back. The 1 o’clock meal usually consisted of two shallow plates, not bowls, one of soup and one of a thin gruel. The next meal would follow it closely at 4 o’clock, when they would get another plate of gruel. Then nothing until morning. Aleksandr stopped pacing to eat, and everyone was silent until the aluminum plates were returned to the guard.
	The food seemed to strengthen Pytor. When Ivan moved to use the bucket, Pytor got up, walked slowly to the other end of the cell, and eased himself to the floor next to Yuri. He was not an old man, but now he moved like one. And he was starting to sound like one. Looking at Aleksandr, who had begun staring fixedly at the peephole, Pytor spoke softly to Yuri. “That one is dead already. There is no need for a pistol, he has murdered himself... and the world with him. He cannot live in a world where the children trample the flowers. If he only loved the children he could live, because this is all for them.... ‘It is for such as these....’” Ivan, putting together another smoke, snorted loudly. “And that one,” Pytor went on, “he is also a carcass. But his death is slow and painful—for everyone—because he runs from it. Only a man lost in misery laughs at others in misery.”
	Ivan smiled at Yuri. “I think they gave him a little too much last night.” But Yuri did not return the smile, and the cell fell silent. An hour or more went by and no one moved, all of them dozing as prisoners do: with their eyes open.

	A familiar clatter outside the door announced that the evening gruel was being served. But when the door opened, it was not food that appeared. A guard barked “Svechin!” Immediately Ivan stiffened; then he slowly got up, smoothing his shirt. As he left the cell, he glanced at Pytor and grinned, baring his teeth.
	When Pytor moved to the vacant stool, Dmitri leaned over to him. “Why do you make yourself his enemy? He can tell them anything about you.” Pytor studied him, but did not speak. “You achieve nothing by insulting him—or perhaps you enjoy digging your own grave. You talk about others as dead men, but you seem to be the first in line. I’d be surprised if you last another week. You stumble in, spitting blood... for what? No one is better off, your life is thrown away; and what of your wife? I think you’re the one that wants to die.” Dmitri stared at him, demanding an answer. Pytor spoke evenly, “No—death is not what I want. I say that they are dead, but I do not want them dead. Death will come. What I want is that you live through it.” Dmitri jumped up. “I want to live, too, but not here! I want my family around me—and I do what I have to do to get back to them. I don’t want to be beaten to death in some interrogation room, or spend the rest of my life rotting in the camps. Men that go like that simply disappear. That would be... no, I will not!”
	The food arrived and Dmitri sat down. The plates were passed around and the guard withdrew, but then another took his place. “Anichkov!” Dmitri almost dropped his plate. He looked at Pytor, handed the food to Yuri, and stepped out of the cell.

	Dmitri was confused. Interrogations were rarely held in the daytime, and it had been months since he was last questioned. Early on, every time he had been summoned, he was sure that he was going to be released. After all, confession or not, he hadn’t done anything. The thought of release tried to crowd into his head now, but he thrust it out. He would not be released. They did not acknowledge mistakes, therefore mistakes simply did not occur.
	He was escorted into line with several other prisoners. At least he wasn’t the only one. And there, ahead in the line, there was Ivan, looking as confused as Dmitri felt. He probably thought he was going to see the lieutenant, Dmitri guessed. Surprise! Then the guards started barking and the line began to move.
	Their first stop was the showers. This meant either a move or some kind of interview, something big. They were given plenty of time in the large, steamy room, and the rumors began to churn. Naturally, some thought they would be released; some guessed sentencing; one idiot said they were all going to be shot. Dmitri tried not to listen. He thought sentencing was most likely; he had been waiting for almost a year to find out the penalty for wrecking.
	It was a long, hot shower, and everyone tumbled out pink and tender—and stinking of prison soap. They dressed and were directed outside, through the courtyard. With his wet hair and thin clothes, Dmitri gasped as the cold gripped him. But more than the icy air, the open sky took his breath away. The stars were just becoming visible in the clear winter twilight, and Dmitri was awed. He hadn’t seen anything but concrete over his head for months. The depth, the sheer expanse, seemed to swallow him up, and he began to shiver uncontrollably. It was only a few steps, then they were back inside.
	The prisoners were immediately deposited in a large, empty room with narrow benches along the walls. Some began to pace; a few sat down. Ivan looked lost, and apparently hadn’t noticed Dmitri yet. Good. Dmitri wanted to be alone. The darkening sky had reminded him of an evening, almost ten years ago, when he had taken his son out for a walk. Dmitri had found Sergei’s dog Sasha dead, possibly poisoned. It was an accident, but that didn’t make it any easier to tell the boy that his best friend was gone. Dmitri didn’t remember what words he had used, but he remembered the way his son’s face had changed, how he had called his father a liar. The boy ran home crying, tripping and falling on the way. And when Dmitri arrived home, there was Tatyana, her forehead creased with pain, her eyes pleading, as if he was somehow responsible. It made his heart ache, all the more because he was completely helpless.
	Ivan came over and sat next to Dmitri. Having almost regained his composure, Ivan joked with him, something about being released. But Dmitri wasn’t listening. If this was to be his sentencing, he would soon know the end of his hopes. How long will Sergei be crying this time? He fled the thought of Tatyana, gathering the sorrows of her children into her own—for years. It seemed unbearable. “Then there’s the possibility of the amnesty,” Ivan babbled on, nervously. “There will be amnesty,” Pytor had said, “though not for all.” Dmitri looked at Ivan. The stoolie’s scared, he thought. Dmitri was scared himself, but Ivan was clearly terrified. He was also waiting for his sentence. Of course, Ivan has been very cooperative; they’ll probably go easy on him.... Speaking of being cooperative, Dmitri reflected, lacerating himself, what about your own confession, complete with the names of accomplices known and unknown?
	Ivan was quiet now, staring across the room. Pytor was right, Dmitri admitted, looking at him. He’s a dead man; only fear and instinct keep him moving. “Death is not what I want.” Pytor could say that. Ivan didn’t seem to have a choice any more.
	
	They had been waiting for hours. Now men were being called out, one by one. These returned only minutes later, some in shock, some almost laughing. Dmitri couldn’t hear all the conversations, but it seemed that most of them were getting a tenner, a ten ruble bill. Ten years hard labor.* Of course, that’s just the initial sentence. They can add more years later—and they probably will. Ivan was called. Dmitri felt a noose tightening around his neck; now he looked for Tatyana’s face and could not find it. “Dmitri Ivanovich Anichkov.” He stepped to the door just as Ivan returned. Looking for some sign, Dmitri met empty eyes; Ivan’s bloodless face was expressionless.
	The guard walked him only a few feet, then into an office. A bored-looking NKVD major sat at a small, dimly lighted desk. He motioned Dmitri onto a stool opposite, and asked him his name. A quick shuffle through a stack of identical half-page forms produced the appropriate paperwork, and the major began to read mechanically: “From a decree of the OSO of the NKVD of the U.S.S.R. of January 19, 1937... designated as a socially harmful element....” A tenner. When he had finished reading, he wrote on the back of the form that the sentence had been read to the prisoner, and left a place to sign. The sheet was placed in front of Dmitri. The major handed him a pen.
	Dmitri turned the paper over with a nervous hand, looked at the printing, then up at the major, and down again. But what he suddenly saw was Tatyana. She was young, younger than he had ever seen her. Her skin, white and smooth, glowed with a fire that made his eyes water. Her dark hair was longer than he remembered it, but the same piercing black eyes greeted him. Lost in the dark depths of those eyes, Dmitri heard her laughing. It was a child’s laugh. “It is for such as these....” He picked up the pen and with careful and deliberate strokes wrote: “This sentence is illegal and unjust. I demand to be released immediately.” He put the pen down. The major reached across and picked up the paper, and slowly read what Dmitri had written. The sheet trembled for an instant in his hands. Then he tore up the paper, and called for the guard.
	I have accomplished nothing, of course. But on his way back to the cell, Dmitri quivered with excitement. Passing through the courtyard, he gazed through the blaze of floodlights into the deepest black of the night sky, breathing it in with the cold. The darkness now was very dark. But he was not dead.
	
	In the brightness of midnight, they came for Pytor. As his bedmate got to his feet, Dmitri whispered, “If you do not come back...?” Pytor stopped and rubbed a hand over Dmitri’s stubbled head. “Never mind. There will be amnesty.” The guard started angrily into the cell, but Pytor stepped to meet him, and led the procession out of the cell and down the corridor.
	Dmitri closed his eyes and listened to the footsteps in the darkness.