The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 2 An Experiment in Literary Investigation - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Way of Life and Customs of the Natives I 219
-
in the compound they only put in three, four hours of real easy
work: pounding rocks to pave roads, cleaning up the compound,
or making repairs. And if there were half a thousand people in
the camp--they'd open a 'Rest Point for fifteen. And then if
everything had been divided up honestly; everyone wQuld have
gotten Rest Point once in just over a year., But just as there was
no justice in anything in camp, there was especially none with
Rest Points. They would open up a Rest Point sneakily, the way
a dog snaps, and right off there would be lists ready for three
whole shifts there. Then they would shut it down quick as a wink
too-it wouldn't last half a year. The types who pushed in would
be the bookkeepers, barbers, shoemakers, tailors-the whole
aristocracy, with just a few real sloggers thrown in for the look
of the thing-the best workers, they said. And then the tailor
Beremblyum would shove under your nose, 'I made a fur coat for
somebody outside and a thousand rubles was paid the camp
cashier for it, and you, idiot, haul beams a whole month and the
camp doesn't even get a hundred rubles for you, so who's the
. best worker? Who should get Rest Point?' And so there you go
around, your, heart bleeding, trying to figure how to get -into
Rest Point just to catch your breath a little bit, and before you
look around it has already been shut down, and that's the end of
it.. And the sorest point of all is that at least they could enter in
your prison file that you had been at a Rest Point in such and
such a year-it wasn't that they didn't have enough bookkeepers
in camp. No, they wouldn't. Because it was no good to them. The
next year they'd open up a Rest Point again-and again Ber-.
emblyum would be in the first shift, and again you'd be bypassed.
In the course of ten years they'd roll you sideways- through ten
camps and in the tenth you'd beg them just to let you poke your
nose in the OP to see what it was like, whether the waIls were
painted decently and so on, because after all you'd never been
in one your whole term-but how could you prove it?
"No, no point in getting worked up about the Rest Points.
"But maiming yourself was ano,ther mater~ To cripple yourself
but still stay alive and become an invalid. As they say: one
minute's endurance-and a year of loafing. Break your leg, and
then stop the bone from knitting right. Drink salt water and swell
up. And smoke tea-spoil your heart. Or drink stewed tobacco
-good for wrecking the lungs. But you had to be careful not'to
220 I THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
overdo, hurting yourself so badly that you leapfrogged invalidism
into the grave. And who knew just how far to go?
nI~' many ways, an invalid didn't have things too bad: he filight
be able to get himself a spot in the cookhouse, or the bast-sandal
shop. But the main thing smart people were looking for,in making
themselves invalids was early release on health grounds-­
'aktirovka.' Except that 'aktirovka,' especially in waves, was
even harder than getting into Rest Points,. They got together a
commission, inspected the invalids, and for the very worst of
them wrote up an 'act'-a certificate: from such and such a date,
because of state of health, so-and-so is classified as unsuited to
serve out his term further, and we petition for his release.
"We only petition! And while this certificate proceeded upward
to the higher-ups and then back down again you could cash in
your chips. That happened often. After all, the higher-ups were
sly bastards. They rele~ed ahead of time on health grounds those
who were going to kick the bucket in a month anyway.n And
also the ones who could pay well. There was a confederate of
Kalikman who had go~ away with half a million-she' paid a
hundred thousand---'and went free. Not like us fools.
"There used to be a book· going around the barracks, and
the students read it aloud in their corner. In it there was one
fellow who got himself a million and didn't know what to do
with his million under Soviet power-there wasn't supposed to
be anything to buy, and you could die of starvati(~m with it, with
that million. We used to laugh: Tell that bull to someone else.
As for us, we've seen quite a few of those millionaires walk out
of camp too. You can't buy God's health back for a million, but
you can buy freedom, and buy power; ~d buy people too, lock,
stock, and barrel. And there are oh, oh, oh, so many of those
who have piled up millions out in freedom too; only they just
don't shout it from the housetops or wave their arms about when
they have i!.
"But for the 58's early release for health is a closed door.
During all the time the camps have existed, they say that maybe
three times, for a month apiece, prisoners sentenced under Section
10 were released early for health, and then that door, too,
11. In O. Volkov's story "Grandfathers," those old men released for bad
health were driven out of camp, but they had nowhere to go, and hung on
right in the vicinity to die-without the bread' ration and shelter they had in
camp.