One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (12 page)

Shukhov and Kilgas came out onto the second story. They heard Senka creaking up the ramp behind them. So poor deaf Senka had guessed where they would be.

Only a start had been made with laying the blocks on the second-story walls.

Three rows all around, a bit higher here and there. That was when the laying went fastest.

From the knee to the chest, without the help of a scaffold.

All the platforms and trestles that had been there had been swiped by the zeks--some had been carried off to other buildings, some had been burned. Anything to prevent another squad getting them. But now everything had to be done right. Tomorrow they'd have to nail some trestles together; otherwise the work would be held up.

You could see a long way from up there--the whole snow clad, deserted expanse of the site (the zeks were hidden away, warming up before the dinner break ended), the dark watchtowers and the sharp-tipped poles for the barbed wire. You couldn't see the barbed wire itself except when you looked into the sun. The sun was very bright; it made you blink.

And also, not far away, you could see the portable generator smoking away, blackening the sky. And wheezing, too. It always made that hoarse, sickly noise before it whistled. There it went. So they hadn't, after all, cut too much off the dinner break.

"Hey, Stakhanovite! Hurry up with that plumb," Kilgas shouted.

"Look how much ice you've got left on your wall! See if you can chip it off before evening," Shukhov said derisively. "
You
didn't have to bring your trowel up with you!"

They'd intended to start with the walls they'd been allocated before dinner, but Tiurin called from below: "Hey, men! We'll work in pairs, so that the mortar doesn't freeze in the hods. You take Senka with you on your wall, and I'll work with Kilgas. But to start with, you stand in for me, Gopchik, and clean up Kilgas's wall."

Shukhov and Kilgas looked at one another. Correct. Quicker that way.

They grabbed their axes.

And now Shukhov was no longer seeing that distant view where sun gleamed on snow. He was no longer seeing the prisoners as they wandered from the warmbig-up places all over the Site, some to hack away at the holes they hadn't finished that morning, some to fix the mesh reinforcement, some to put up beams in the workshops. Shukhov was seeing only his wall--from the junction at the left where the blocks rose In steps, higher than his waist, to the right to the corner where it met Kilgas's. He showed Senka where to remove ice and chopped at it energetically himself with the back and blade of his ax, so that splinters of ice flew all about and into his face. He worked with drive, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His thoughts and his eyes were feeling their way under the ice to the wall itself, the outer façade of the power station, two blocks thick. At the spot he was working on, the wall had previously been laid by some mason who was either Incompetent or had stunk up the job. But now Shukhov tackled the wall as if. it was his own handiwork. There, he saw, was a cavity that couldn't be leveled up in one row; he'd have to do it in three, adding a little more mortar each time. And here the outer wall bellied a bit--it would take two rows to straighten that. He divided the wall mentally into the place where he would lay blocks, starting at the point where they rose in steps, and the place where Senka was working, on the right, up to Kilgas's section. There in the corner, he figured, Kilgas wouldn't hold back; he would lay a few blocks for Senka, to make things easier for him. And, while they were puttering around in the corner, Shukhov would forge ahead and have half the wall built, so that his pair wouldn't be behindhand. He noted how many blocks he'd require for each of the places. And the moment the carriers brought the blocks up he shouted at Alyosha: "Bring 'em to me. Put

'em here. And here."

Senka had finished chipping off the ice, and Shukhov picked up a wire brush, gripped it in both hands, and went, along the wall swishing it--to and fro, to and fro--cleaning up the top row, especially the joints, till only a snowy film was left on it.

Tiurin climbed up and, while Shukhov was still busy with his brush, fixed up a leveling rod in the corner. Shukhov and Kilgas had already placed theirs on the edges of their walls.

"Hey," called Pavlo from below. "Anyone alive up there? Take the mortar."

Shukhov broke into a sweat--he hadn't stretched his string over the blocks yet. He was rushing. He decided to stretch it for three rows at once, and make the necessary allowance. He decided also to take over a little of the outer wall from Senka and give him some of the inside instead; things would be easier for him that way.

Stretching his string along the top edge, he explained to Senka, with mouthings and gestures, where be was to work. Senka understood, for all his deafness. He bit his lips and glanced aside with a nod at Tiurin's wall. "Shall we make it hot for him?" his look said. We won't fall behind. He laughed.

Now the mortar was being brought up the ramp. Tiurin decided not to have any of it dumped beside the masons--it would only freeze while being shifted onto the hods. The men were to put down their barrows; the masons would take the mortar straight from them and get on with the laying. Meanwhile the carriers, not to waste time, would bring on the blocks that other prisoners were heaving up from below. As soon as the mortar bad been scooped up from one pair of barrows, another pair would be coming and the first would go down. At the stove in the machine room, the carriers would thaw out any mortar that had frozen to their barrows--and themselves too, while they were at it.

The barrows came up two at a time--one for Kilgas's wall, one for Shukhov's. The mortar steamed in the frost but held no real warmth in it. You slapped it on the wall with your trowel and if you slowed down it would freeze, and then you'd have to hit it with the side of a hammer--you couldn't scrape it off with a trowel. And If you laid a block a bit out of true, it would immediately freeze too and set crooked; then you'd need the back of your ax to knock it off and chip away the mortar.

But Shukhov made no mistakes. The blocks varied. If any had chipped corners or broken edges or lumps on their sides, he noticed it at once and saw which Way up to lay them and where they would fit best on the wall.

Here was one. Shukhov took up some of the steaming mortar on his trowel and slapped it into the appropriate place, with his mind on the joint below (this would have to come right in the middle of the block he was going to lay). He slapped on just enough mortar to go under the one block. He snatched it from the pile--carefully, though, so as not to tear his mittens, for with cement blocks you can do that in no time. He smoothed the mortar with his trowel and then--down with the block! And without losing a moment he leveled it, patting it with the side of the trowel--it wasn't lying exactly right--so that the wall would be truly in line and the block lie level both length-wise and across. The mortar was already freezing.

Now if some mortar had oozed out to the side, you had to chop it off as quickly as possible with the edge of your trowel and fling it over the wall (in summer it would go under the next brick, but now that was impossible). Next you took another look at the joint below, for there were times when the block was not completely intact but had partially crumbled. In that event, you slapped in some extra mortar where the defect was, and you didn't lay the block flat--you slid it from side to side, squeezing out the extra mortar between it and its neighbor. An eye on the plumb. An eye on the surface. Set.

Next.

The work went with a rhythm. Once two rows were laid and the old faults leveled up it would go quite smoothly. But now was the time to keep your eyes peeled.

Shukhov forged ahead; he pressed along the outside wall to meet Senka. Senka had parted with Tiurin in the corner and was now working along the wall to meet him.

Shukhov winked at the mortar carriers. Bring it up, bring it up. Steady. That's the ticket. He was working so fast he had no time to wipe his nose.

He and Senka met and began to scoop out of the same mortar hod. It didn't take them long to scrape ittotbe bottom.

"Mortar!" Shukhov shouted over the wall.

"Coming up!" shouted Pavla.

Another load arrived. They emptied that one too--all the liquid mortar in it, anyhow. The rest had already frozen to the sides. Scrape it off yourselves! If you don't, you're the ones who'll be taking it up and down again. Get going! Next!

And now Shukhov and the other masons Mt the cold no longer. Thanks to the urgent work, the first wave of heat had come over them--when you feel wet under your coat, under your jacket, under your shirt and your vest. But they didn't stop for a moment; they hurried on with the laying. And after about an hour they had their second flush of heat, the one that dries up the sweat. Their feet didn't feel cold, that was the main thing.

Nothing else mattered. Even the breeze, light but piercing, couldn't distract them from the work. Only Senka stamped his feet--he had enormous ones, poor slob, and they'd given him a pair of valenki too tight for him.

From time to time Tiurin would shout "Mo-o-rtar," and Shukhov would shout

"Mo-o-rtar"--he was shouting to his own men. When you're working all out, you're a sort of squad leader to your neighbors yourself. It was up to Shukhov to keep up with the other pair. Now, he'd have made his own brother sweat to hurry up with the mortar.

At first, after dinner, Buinovsky had carried mortar with Fetiukov. But the ramp was steep and dangerous, and the captain dragged his feet to begin with. Shukboy urged him on gently: "Quicker, captain. Blocks, captain."

Every time Buinovsky came up he worked faster. Fetlukov, on the other hand, grew lazier and lazier. He'd tilt the barrow as he came up, the lousy bastard, so that the mortar would siop out of it and then it'd be lighter to carry.

Shukhov poked him In the back: "Hey, you damn bastard. When you were an overseer I'll bet you made your men sweat."

Buinovsky appealed to the squad leader: "Give me a man to work with. I won't go on working with this shit."

Tiurin agreed. He sent Fetiukov to heave up blocks from below; and made him work, on top of that, where the number of blocks he handled was counted separately. He told Alyosha to work with the captain. Alyosha was a quiet man; anyone could order him about.

"It's all hands on deck, sailor," the captain urged. "See how fast they're laying blocks?"

Alyosha smiled meekly. "If we have to work faster then let's work faster.

Anything you say."

And tramped down for the next load.

Thank God for the man who does his job and keeps his mouth shut!

Tiurin shouted to someone down below. Another truckload of blocks had apparently arrived. Not one had been brought here for six months; now they were pouring in. You could work really fast as long as the trucks brought blocks. But this wouldn't go on. Later there'd be a hold-up in the delivery and then you'd stand idle yourself.

Tiurin was bawling out someone else down below. Something about the lift.

Shukhov would have liked to know what was up but he'd no time to find out--he was leveling his wall. The carriers came up and told him: a mechanic had come to repair the motor of the lift, and the superintendent of electrical repairs, a civilian, was with him.

The mechanic was tinkering with the motor; the superintendent watched.

That was according to the rules: one man works, one man watches.

Good if they fixed the lift now. It could be used for both blocks and mortar.

Shukhov was laying his third row (Kilgas too was on his third), when up the ramp came yet another snoop, another chief--building-foreman Der. A Muscovite. Used to work in some ministry, so they said.

Shukhov was standing close to Kilgas, and drew his attention to Der.

"Pfah!" said Kilgas contemptuously. "I don't usually have anything to do with the bigshots. But you call me if he falls off the ramp."

And now Der took up his post behind the masons and watched them work.

Shukhov hated these snoops like poison. Trying to make himself into an engineer, the fathead! Once he'd shown Shukhov how to lay bricks--and given him a belly laugh. A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer.

At Shukhov's village of Temgenovo there were no brick houses. All the cottages were built of wood. The school too was a wooden building, made from six-foot logs. But the camp needed masons and Shukhov, glad to oblige, became a mason. A man with two trades to his credit can easily learn another ten.

No, Der didn't fail off the ramp, though once he stumbled. He came up almost on the double.

"Tiu-u-urin," he shouted, his eyes popping out of his head. "Tiu-u-urin."

At his heels came Pavlo. He was carrying the spade he'd been working with.

Der was wearing a regulation camp coat but it was new and clean. His hat was stylish, made of leather, though, like everyone else's, it bore a number--B 731.

"Well?" Tiurin went up to him trowel in hand, his hat tilted over one eye.

Something out of the ordinary was brewing. Something not to be missed. Yet the mortar was growing cold in the barrows. Shukhov went on working--working and listening.

"What do you think you're doing?" Der spluttered. "This isn't a matter for the guardhouse. This is a criminal offense, Tiurin. You'll get a third term for this."

Only then did Shukhov catch on to what was up. He glanced at Kilgas. He'd understood, too. The roofing felt. Der had spotted it on the windows.

Shukhov feared nothing for himself. His squad leader would never give him away. He was afraid for Tiurin. To the squad Tiurin was a father, for them he was a pawn. Up in the North they readily gave squad, leaders a second term for a thing like this.

Ugh, what a face Tiurin made. He threw down his trowel and took a step toward Der. Der looked around. Pavlo lifted his spade.

He hadn't grabbed it for nothing.

And Senka, for all his deafness, had understood. He came up, hands on hips. And Senka was built solid.

Der blinked, gave a sort of twitch, and looked around for a way of escape.