Albert lost in thought, as if remembered something, then he asked:
-Paul, was it long ago, when you had learnt this?
-I was released from a prison camp, being fallen under the wholesale amnesty in the 1953. I liked a place situated not far. I had learnt there was a cheap house selling at the edge of a village. I liked a place situated not far. I had learnt there was a cheap house selling at the edge of a village. It occurred to me to sell my house in Tobolsk and leave for this hinterland to live out my life here. I knew that a hut would be cheaper here, and that time I needed the money very much. To say what I passed through, it could write a second "The Gulag Archipelago". The human being is imperfect and my wish was to revenge. Experiencing such things without hope to stay alive, from the very beginning I was guilty of a nothing. They accused me, like many other people, of espionage, this was the absurd accusation of that time. I was not lucky, because I was arrested in an epoch when the bloody terror still didn't reach such a scale, and I was among a few of the unlucky persons who was also "honoured". Then, as it became clear, in reality I was lucky, even I was lucky very much. If my arrest occurred three-four years after, I would be shot. But, how Mandelshtam's widow said one day, the time was still "vegetarian" one. They still haven't killed Kirov to justify their repression in front of the public. I was given ten years, and in the prison camp, they added me a few of years more. I joined to the thieves in law to survive. Till now, I don't understand, why was I liked by them, and it's possible, I'll never know it. But I guess, as in all the Soviet society, for example, one person can wriggle into the collective without problem, another person may be cleverer, even stronger, tries to enter in the given society with all his might, attempts to imitate them in everything, but all the same all others say: "He's not our". I understood it only in old age. Using the herd traditions of the people, the state-monster watches everyone, by dint of the same people. It would be enough no police, neither a secret police nor apparent one. It wouldn't be enough any money, but this isn't necessary. The people-flock grazes itself, rejecting those who has dared to differ from others with something, even if it wasn't willfully.
It occurred so that my behavioral stereotype, my habits, such external manifestations as the gait, facial expression didn't go beyond their standards. It occurred that those whom I was afraid the most, they became my protectors in spite that they rare favoured people not out of their caste, and before I didn't expect anything good from them. But after this, the state decided to make some adjustments in its system of the slavery. Did you hear anything about the bitches' war?
-Where is anyone who wouldn't hear about it now?
-The permanent malnutrition, the hard work, the cold, the danger intrigues, the nostalgia for freedom, all this continued during a lot of years. All this impacted negatively the state of mind of everyone in a different manner, depending on the heredity. I started to note the changes too: clear dreams, presentiments, which often came true, the others' mind reading, an inadequate internal reaction to current events, a sense of force and power, which I didn't possess as it seemed, however I felt that I possess a treasure, as if I would forget where is its place.
Autumn of the 1949. This day was to become a last day in my life. At night the turnkeys gave agreement in order the "bitches" would murder everyone in our hut of the thieves in law. That day the atmospheric pressure dropped sharply. I knew this by the improvement of health, as if in my body some channels had opened, which were locked before, and some vital juices, up to this point being locked, now they started to flow through these channels, correcting unknown disorders in the organism. Usually, I avoided confiding to others about my condition, but that time suddenly, I had burst into babbling and proclaimed that today something awful is going to take place and only I will be in security, and I advised to others to arm and not sleep at night. "Hey, you, Artist, whether you are going crazy?", - something like this I was answered, verbatim I don't remember. Artist - was my nickname in the prison camp. Remembering suddenly, that I had better don't confide, I shifted of subject: "Maybe the weather is going to change". "Here this seems less like a bullshit already. I feel it's going to rain", - said a knower of the folk omens. Towards evening all the sky was clouded. I prayed, at first as usual, after in other languages, how one pentecostal taught me. I finished with the pray "Our Father".
After supper, a thought occurred to me, like a fixed idea, I don't know, where it appeared from: "Your salvation is near the wash-hand basin, your salvation is near the wash-hand basin..."
The "bitches" with long knives had broken into near at one o'clock in the night, exceeding us by quantity and arming. Also, the suddenness a great role played. All took place like at the cinema or like in a dream: the brutal faces of the murderers, pattering, the swearing, howling, the blood, hits, flashing of blades. One of those who preferred to spit into the face of the death, when it is looking his eyes, he had hacked one of the "bitches" with an axe. I don't know how, but he was killed too, because except me nobody stayed alive in this hut. I guess, that time I petrified like a pillar. I came to myself because of a voice: "Look at him! Artist! Fucken crud! He is laying down like a dog, as if watching a movie. Kill him! Someone answered: he is not a thief, but only their cleaner. But the first voice insisted swearing: "He is in concert with them. He will canary to other thieves about us. Cut this scum!"
Suddenly I've jumped up, as if I would be electric and switched on. And in the same time I felt the force and easiness, and I've rushed to the wash-hand basin. I don't know till now, whether I saw it or imagined very much clear, this nook near two hundred meters from our hut, which was situated not far from the industrial premises, where we drank the chifir often. And this well studied place, which I was every day in, that instant, it had seemed to me, as it's in a greenish rectangle as tall as a man. Running I jumped into this rectangle and disappearing here... I appeared there.
The rain with a fury fell on me from above. Also, with a fury the storm thundered, but in spite of this, the sounds were heard of the swearing, of the death cry and breaking glass. It was nowhere to hide from the rain. As well as I remember, the air temperature was near plus ten. While I ran to the wash-hand basin, someone succeeded to sting me with a knife, but slightly, and now I felt the injury, to say truth, a scratch on the side, already it bled not heavily, but obstinately. After ending the rain, it continued bleeding near two hour else, and this gave to my clothes an awesome bloodstained look. I was lying a few of hours, shivering because of the cold, and although it rained only near one hour, I got soaked to the skin. It was impossible to return. I could become a victim of everyone, also, how to sleep together with thirty deads, whom death was violent! Towards morning I dozed off.
I woke because of the dog's teeth and turnkeys' calls, however looking at my bloodstained clothes, they understood that I was wounded and threw me in the prison hospital situated in the same camp. A lot of the prisoners got off here from the hard labor, in addition working was considered as a shame for the thieves, also a lot of them saved themselves from the prison intrigues and quarrels, the end of which would be the death with a high probability. They reached here, sometimes after eating nails or cutting their veins, or using a lot of other ways. The extreme conditions provoked people's ingenuity.
Although the blood loss was noticeable, the wound healed fast, and the people thought that some of these days I'd be discharged. However, when during a few of days I had a lot of sleep and got over the trauma, the wound began to fester. In spite of the fact that the wound wasn't very dangerous, the dangers came at all from another side: the pneumonia.
During a few of months I was between the life and death. Sometimes the disease receded, sometimes it led me down to a line, if to cross it, it would be impossible to return into this world. Just as they are going to discharge me from, a new wave of the illness knocked me down. The illness as if didn't want to let me go. This continued till the spring. I was discharged from the hospital in the end of April. I don't know why, but I believed that the end of all this will be good, and this faith gave to my body to withstand and even to strengthen.
I tried to analyze the events. But there wasn't anyone to tell. At once I understood, that I could escape out of the camp prison in this manner, but whether is possible to do the same over long distances? Abroad? Had that occurred accidentally? Is that such a thing may occur only in an extreme situation, while the probability of this is one millionth? Will repeat this once more?
By way of the trial and error, thinking many years, remembering, analyzing, comparing, collecting in crumbs information, which wasn't published, but only the gossip, the whispering, thus a coherent theory became formed gradually. Being in your age, I didn't understand at all these sciences as the physics and mathematics, but in the given case I had to connect including with them.
This wasn't a coercion. The cognition, seeking of the truth, this became for me as the most interesting game. What a happiness took place! As if I all my life I would be at home between four walls without knowledge that something exists on the outside, but here as if I would come out and set foot on the wonderful and immense Earth and new and new views of the horizon would be opening in front of me.
By coming out the prison camp to freedom, I had to be distracted in favor of the everyday problems. As I was going to do, I had sold the house in Tobolsk, where I lived before, and had bought one here, not far from the place I was jailed, near fifty miles.
So, still I didn't tell you this. I wanted to revenge, after gaining such awful and exotic experience, I'd noted that the best revenge would be to go aside and to watch how the enemies will to destroy each other. I liked the house at the edge, this wasn't accidental. I thought to use it only for a while. More and more I studied to live in the taiga. More and more often I went away and more and more rare I returned back. More and more far I receded into the taiga.
However, nobody knew where I went and why. In such villages often a person may be eaten, certainly, in a figurative sense, that is they are making him go away or to prison. Howsoever I fawned over them, howsoever I flattered them, sooner or later the end will be bad. But I immediately let them know, this is not their business, how I live, breathe, who I get laid with and what I think about.
Of course, I would be an object of the persecution number one for them. A lot of the hooligans, cops, turnkeys' sons and the soviet barrators (such a type of people exists too) lived there. This top of people was diluted by ordinary persons, who kept the tail between their legs and trimmed the sails to the wind. One could understand them. Only so one had to keep himself to survive. There was impossible to understand who whom is a friend and who whom is an enemy. Being drunk, he could swear to you by the friendship and fidelity, but a half hour after to tell to another drinking companion what a goat you are. They could break a rib or a jaw each other, but the next day drink vodka together. More than once, such an event took place that one neighbor contributed to imprison another. After being a few years in prison, he came out to the freedom, and they kindly greeted each with other in spite of the fact that such a thing could repeat. While the public holiday, there the drunkenness and scuffles with neighbor villages took place all the way. In the best case it ended in a hospital, in worst in a prison camp. If I lived there constantly, they would be happy to tear me. But every time when they intended to catch me, they caught the air. I escaped. I didn't stay there even for a single holiday. I put the money what I had acquired by selling the house in Tobolsk on a savings account in Krasnoyarsk. It was enough of it to take trips in Krim a few times, to improve my health after the prison camps. It's possible, you would like to ask me, why I didn't use my new talent to escape away from the camp. At the second time I had succeeded to do it only in the 1955 year, and that time I already governed the process consciously, and since the spring of the 1957 year I have been doing it constantly, and my ability works trouble-free, it's more reliable than a car.
-Did you try to count, - Albert asked, - how many times in a day you climbed, as you say, over the space as over a fence? On average?
-I've understood what are you saying about. On average, the number is a two - digit and it's closer to 10 than to 99. I cannot say more exactly. I didn't guess from the very beginning to keep records of this.
-That means, you climbed over at least 130000 times.
-And nothing of bad occurred, did you want to ask this about? We still didn't reach the technology of safety, however, I'm going to say this. And talking, it would be convenient for us don't climb, like over the space, but to move consistently and continuously. And if I have begun to tell about Siberia, let me tell the essential until the end, skipping the details.
So, the situation in the large village became strained. In the Khrushchev thaw the brawlers let go a little their instincts, and the fights between habitants of the village became more fierce. A lot of them left for the cities: Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, Abakan. Among the rest of the men in the quarrels the knives, axes, even the hunting rifles were used. All this occurred during the boozes. Being sober, they were cowardly like the hares. If before, the criminal proceedings initiated because of the hooliganism, now they went to prison for the grievous bodily harm or for murder. The congregation of the worst stinkers thinned more and more.
Next chapter: http://la-flagellation.blogspot.ru/2017/10/the-teleportation-part-1-chapter-7.html
The original Russian text of the chapters from 4 to 6: http://www.proza.ru/2010/01/08/48
-Paul, was it long ago, when you had learnt this?
-I was released from a prison camp, being fallen under the wholesale amnesty in the 1953. I liked a place situated not far. I had learnt there was a cheap house selling at the edge of a village. I liked a place situated not far. I had learnt there was a cheap house selling at the edge of a village. It occurred to me to sell my house in Tobolsk and leave for this hinterland to live out my life here. I knew that a hut would be cheaper here, and that time I needed the money very much. To say what I passed through, it could write a second "The Gulag Archipelago". The human being is imperfect and my wish was to revenge. Experiencing such things without hope to stay alive, from the very beginning I was guilty of a nothing. They accused me, like many other people, of espionage, this was the absurd accusation of that time. I was not lucky, because I was arrested in an epoch when the bloody terror still didn't reach such a scale, and I was among a few of the unlucky persons who was also "honoured". Then, as it became clear, in reality I was lucky, even I was lucky very much. If my arrest occurred three-four years after, I would be shot. But, how Mandelshtam's widow said one day, the time was still "vegetarian" one. They still haven't killed Kirov to justify their repression in front of the public. I was given ten years, and in the prison camp, they added me a few of years more. I joined to the thieves in law to survive. Till now, I don't understand, why was I liked by them, and it's possible, I'll never know it. But I guess, as in all the Soviet society, for example, one person can wriggle into the collective without problem, another person may be cleverer, even stronger, tries to enter in the given society with all his might, attempts to imitate them in everything, but all the same all others say: "He's not our". I understood it only in old age. Using the herd traditions of the people, the state-monster watches everyone, by dint of the same people. It would be enough no police, neither a secret police nor apparent one. It wouldn't be enough any money, but this isn't necessary. The people-flock grazes itself, rejecting those who has dared to differ from others with something, even if it wasn't willfully.
It occurred so that my behavioral stereotype, my habits, such external manifestations as the gait, facial expression didn't go beyond their standards. It occurred that those whom I was afraid the most, they became my protectors in spite that they rare favoured people not out of their caste, and before I didn't expect anything good from them. But after this, the state decided to make some adjustments in its system of the slavery. Did you hear anything about the bitches' war?
-Where is anyone who wouldn't hear about it now?
-The permanent malnutrition, the hard work, the cold, the danger intrigues, the nostalgia for freedom, all this continued during a lot of years. All this impacted negatively the state of mind of everyone in a different manner, depending on the heredity. I started to note the changes too: clear dreams, presentiments, which often came true, the others' mind reading, an inadequate internal reaction to current events, a sense of force and power, which I didn't possess as it seemed, however I felt that I possess a treasure, as if I would forget where is its place.
Autumn of the 1949. This day was to become a last day in my life. At night the turnkeys gave agreement in order the "bitches" would murder everyone in our hut of the thieves in law. That day the atmospheric pressure dropped sharply. I knew this by the improvement of health, as if in my body some channels had opened, which were locked before, and some vital juices, up to this point being locked, now they started to flow through these channels, correcting unknown disorders in the organism. Usually, I avoided confiding to others about my condition, but that time suddenly, I had burst into babbling and proclaimed that today something awful is going to take place and only I will be in security, and I advised to others to arm and not sleep at night. "Hey, you, Artist, whether you are going crazy?", - something like this I was answered, verbatim I don't remember. Artist - was my nickname in the prison camp. Remembering suddenly, that I had better don't confide, I shifted of subject: "Maybe the weather is going to change". "Here this seems less like a bullshit already. I feel it's going to rain", - said a knower of the folk omens. Towards evening all the sky was clouded. I prayed, at first as usual, after in other languages, how one pentecostal taught me. I finished with the pray "Our Father".
After supper, a thought occurred to me, like a fixed idea, I don't know, where it appeared from: "Your salvation is near the wash-hand basin, your salvation is near the wash-hand basin..."
The "bitches" with long knives had broken into near at one o'clock in the night, exceeding us by quantity and arming. Also, the suddenness a great role played. All took place like at the cinema or like in a dream: the brutal faces of the murderers, pattering, the swearing, howling, the blood, hits, flashing of blades. One of those who preferred to spit into the face of the death, when it is looking his eyes, he had hacked one of the "bitches" with an axe. I don't know how, but he was killed too, because except me nobody stayed alive in this hut. I guess, that time I petrified like a pillar. I came to myself because of a voice: "Look at him! Artist! Fucken crud! He is laying down like a dog, as if watching a movie. Kill him! Someone answered: he is not a thief, but only their cleaner. But the first voice insisted swearing: "He is in concert with them. He will canary to other thieves about us. Cut this scum!"
Suddenly I've jumped up, as if I would be electric and switched on. And in the same time I felt the force and easiness, and I've rushed to the wash-hand basin. I don't know till now, whether I saw it or imagined very much clear, this nook near two hundred meters from our hut, which was situated not far from the industrial premises, where we drank the chifir often. And this well studied place, which I was every day in, that instant, it had seemed to me, as it's in a greenish rectangle as tall as a man. Running I jumped into this rectangle and disappearing here... I appeared there.
The rain with a fury fell on me from above. Also, with a fury the storm thundered, but in spite of this, the sounds were heard of the swearing, of the death cry and breaking glass. It was nowhere to hide from the rain. As well as I remember, the air temperature was near plus ten. While I ran to the wash-hand basin, someone succeeded to sting me with a knife, but slightly, and now I felt the injury, to say truth, a scratch on the side, already it bled not heavily, but obstinately. After ending the rain, it continued bleeding near two hour else, and this gave to my clothes an awesome bloodstained look. I was lying a few of hours, shivering because of the cold, and although it rained only near one hour, I got soaked to the skin. It was impossible to return. I could become a victim of everyone, also, how to sleep together with thirty deads, whom death was violent! Towards morning I dozed off.
I woke because of the dog's teeth and turnkeys' calls, however looking at my bloodstained clothes, they understood that I was wounded and threw me in the prison hospital situated in the same camp. A lot of the prisoners got off here from the hard labor, in addition working was considered as a shame for the thieves, also a lot of them saved themselves from the prison intrigues and quarrels, the end of which would be the death with a high probability. They reached here, sometimes after eating nails or cutting their veins, or using a lot of other ways. The extreme conditions provoked people's ingenuity.
Although the blood loss was noticeable, the wound healed fast, and the people thought that some of these days I'd be discharged. However, when during a few of days I had a lot of sleep and got over the trauma, the wound began to fester. In spite of the fact that the wound wasn't very dangerous, the dangers came at all from another side: the pneumonia.
During a few of months I was between the life and death. Sometimes the disease receded, sometimes it led me down to a line, if to cross it, it would be impossible to return into this world. Just as they are going to discharge me from, a new wave of the illness knocked me down. The illness as if didn't want to let me go. This continued till the spring. I was discharged from the hospital in the end of April. I don't know why, but I believed that the end of all this will be good, and this faith gave to my body to withstand and even to strengthen.
I tried to analyze the events. But there wasn't anyone to tell. At once I understood, that I could escape out of the camp prison in this manner, but whether is possible to do the same over long distances? Abroad? Had that occurred accidentally? Is that such a thing may occur only in an extreme situation, while the probability of this is one millionth? Will repeat this once more?
By way of the trial and error, thinking many years, remembering, analyzing, comparing, collecting in crumbs information, which wasn't published, but only the gossip, the whispering, thus a coherent theory became formed gradually. Being in your age, I didn't understand at all these sciences as the physics and mathematics, but in the given case I had to connect including with them.
This wasn't a coercion. The cognition, seeking of the truth, this became for me as the most interesting game. What a happiness took place! As if I all my life I would be at home between four walls without knowledge that something exists on the outside, but here as if I would come out and set foot on the wonderful and immense Earth and new and new views of the horizon would be opening in front of me.
By coming out the prison camp to freedom, I had to be distracted in favor of the everyday problems. As I was going to do, I had sold the house in Tobolsk, where I lived before, and had bought one here, not far from the place I was jailed, near fifty miles.
So, still I didn't tell you this. I wanted to revenge, after gaining such awful and exotic experience, I'd noted that the best revenge would be to go aside and to watch how the enemies will to destroy each other. I liked the house at the edge, this wasn't accidental. I thought to use it only for a while. More and more I studied to live in the taiga. More and more often I went away and more and more rare I returned back. More and more far I receded into the taiga.
However, nobody knew where I went and why. In such villages often a person may be eaten, certainly, in a figurative sense, that is they are making him go away or to prison. Howsoever I fawned over them, howsoever I flattered them, sooner or later the end will be bad. But I immediately let them know, this is not their business, how I live, breathe, who I get laid with and what I think about.
Of course, I would be an object of the persecution number one for them. A lot of the hooligans, cops, turnkeys' sons and the soviet barrators (such a type of people exists too) lived there. This top of people was diluted by ordinary persons, who kept the tail between their legs and trimmed the sails to the wind. One could understand them. Only so one had to keep himself to survive. There was impossible to understand who whom is a friend and who whom is an enemy. Being drunk, he could swear to you by the friendship and fidelity, but a half hour after to tell to another drinking companion what a goat you are. They could break a rib or a jaw each other, but the next day drink vodka together. More than once, such an event took place that one neighbor contributed to imprison another. After being a few years in prison, he came out to the freedom, and they kindly greeted each with other in spite of the fact that such a thing could repeat. While the public holiday, there the drunkenness and scuffles with neighbor villages took place all the way. In the best case it ended in a hospital, in worst in a prison camp. If I lived there constantly, they would be happy to tear me. But every time when they intended to catch me, they caught the air. I escaped. I didn't stay there even for a single holiday. I put the money what I had acquired by selling the house in Tobolsk on a savings account in Krasnoyarsk. It was enough of it to take trips in Krim a few times, to improve my health after the prison camps. It's possible, you would like to ask me, why I didn't use my new talent to escape away from the camp. At the second time I had succeeded to do it only in the 1955 year, and that time I already governed the process consciously, and since the spring of the 1957 year I have been doing it constantly, and my ability works trouble-free, it's more reliable than a car.
-Did you try to count, - Albert asked, - how many times in a day you climbed, as you say, over the space as over a fence? On average?
-I've understood what are you saying about. On average, the number is a two - digit and it's closer to 10 than to 99. I cannot say more exactly. I didn't guess from the very beginning to keep records of this.
-That means, you climbed over at least 130000 times.
-And nothing of bad occurred, did you want to ask this about? We still didn't reach the technology of safety, however, I'm going to say this. And talking, it would be convenient for us don't climb, like over the space, but to move consistently and continuously. And if I have begun to tell about Siberia, let me tell the essential until the end, skipping the details.
So, the situation in the large village became strained. In the Khrushchev thaw the brawlers let go a little their instincts, and the fights between habitants of the village became more fierce. A lot of them left for the cities: Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, Abakan. Among the rest of the men in the quarrels the knives, axes, even the hunting rifles were used. All this occurred during the boozes. Being sober, they were cowardly like the hares. If before, the criminal proceedings initiated because of the hooliganism, now they went to prison for the grievous bodily harm or for murder. The congregation of the worst stinkers thinned more and more.
Next chapter: http://la-flagellation.blogspot.ru/2017/10/the-teleportation-part-1-chapter-7.html
The original Russian text of the chapters from 4 to 6: http://www.proza.ru/2010/01/08/48
No comments:
Post a Comment