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

The Way of Life and Customs Of the Natives I 223
And that is how the path of the nativc:: and his way of life . . .
come to an end.
But as a mattet: of fact it was Pavel Bykov who said: "Until
twenty-four hours have passed after death, don't be so sure that
it's all over."
•
"Well, Ivan Denisovich, what is there lei .. that we haven't yet
recounted? From the routine of our' daily lives'?"
"Whooo! You haven't even begun. It would take as many years
as you served to tell it all. Like about the zek who broke formation
to chase a cigarette butt apd the convoy guard shot him.1.2
How the invalid zeks in the kitchen gulped down raw potatoes:
once cooked they'd not get any. How tea was used in place of
money in camps. How they used to brew up a superstrong tea
mix-l * ounces to a glass-andget a high. But that was mostly
the thieves. They used to buy tea from the free employees with
stolen money.
"And how did a zek manage to live on the whole? If he couldn't
manage to weave string from sand-if he wasn't both tight-fisted
and ingenioUS'--he couldn't survive. Even in his sleep the zek had
to keep thinking how to dodge and twist his way through the
next day. And if you got your hands on something, or sniffed
out some loophole-then keep your mouth shut! Keep it shut, or .
else the guys next to you would find out-and mess it all up.
That's how it is in camp: there just isn't enough for everyone
anyway, so see to it there's enough for you.
"Well that's as may be, but stil~ven in camp you have the
old human custom of making friends. Not only old friendships-­
codefendants or comrades from out in freedom-but new ones
made here. People's hearts went out to each other and they confided
in each other. Buddies! Whatever we have we-share, and
whatever we don't-fifty-fifty. It's true that we keep our precious
bread ration. separate, but everything gotten hold of otherwise is
cooked in one mess tin and ladled from the same one. IS
. 12. In Dostoyevsky's time a prisoner could leave 'formation to beg alms.
And in formation the prisoners used to chat and sing.
13. For some reason, in the hard·labor regime described by Dostoyevsky
friendship di~ not flourish and no one paired off even to eat.
.224 I THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
"There were buddies who stayed together a short time and
others who stayed together a long time. Some pairings were
based ... on conscience and others . . . on deceit. Like a snake,
the 'godfather' used to.like to crawl in between such friendships.
Over a common mess tin and in a whisper you'd talk about everything.
"The old zeks admit and the former POW's will tell you too: .
The one who sells you down the river is the one who ate from
the mess tin with you.
"And that's also a partial truth.
"But the best deal is not to have a buddy but a girl buddy.
A camp wife, a zechka. * As they used to say, to get submarried.
What was good if you were young was to ---her somewhere
in a one-night shack-up, and that would do your soul good.
And even for an old, weak guy it was stilI good. You could get
something an~ay, earn a favor, maybe she would do your washing
for you, bring it to your barracks, put your shirt under your
pillow, and no one would laugh-it was in the law. She would
cook for you too, you would sit down on your cot next to each
other and eat. And that kind of camp espousal would suit even
an old chap particularly well, just barely warm with a little touch
of bitter flavor. You'd look at her through the steam from the
mess pot-and there were wrinkles on her face, yes, and on
your own too. You were both in gray camp rags, your padded
jackets were all stained with rust and clay and lime and alabaster
and lubricating grease. You never knew her before, and you
had never set foot on her -native soil, and she didn't talk like
one of 'ours' either. And outin freedom her children were growing
up, and yours too. And she had left a husband there toowho
was skirt-chasing. And your own wife had been left alone
too, and she wasn't letting the grass grow under her feet. either:
after all, eight years, ten years, everyone wants to live. And this,
~uoy camp wife, drags the same chain as you do and doesn't
complain.
"And we live-not like people. And we die-not like parents.
"Some zeks got visits from their real wives. In various camps
under various chiefs they were allowed to sit together for
twenty minutes in the gatehouse. And there were even cases
wbere they spent a night or two together in a separate shack. If
you were a 150 percenter. But these visits were nothing more than
poison. Why touch her with your hands and talk with her about