The Book of Intimate Grammar by David Grossman

Author:David Grossman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466803749

20

Once, at Komi, at the end of the day’s work in the quarry, a stranger turned to Papa and asked to speak to him later that night, outside the barracks. Papa had qualms about him, but the man looked so puny, he figured he could beat him if it came to that.

The man’s name was Molochinko, and he was one of the Urkas, the criminal element, who were brutal as animals, the only prisoners ever to attempt an escape across the frozen steppes. When a group of them broke out, they would take along a couple of lucky “politicals,” this being—Papa traced a bitter smile across the wall—a political’s only hope of leaving the camp alive. Molochinko informed Papa that a couple of Urkas were planning to break out the following night, and he had been chosen to go with them, since he looked strong enough to carry the provisions they would need on such an arduous trek. Papa was terror-stricken, but he agreed to join them. He had managed to survive two winters in Komi; a third, he knew, would kill him, and he would die again each day till then regretting the lost opportunity. That’s how I was. Papa hacked at the wall, arching the muscles of his back like steel!

Crowds of big black clouds peeked into Edna’s window, their cheeks swelling furiously over childish mouths. And one moonlit night the Urkas made their getaway. They had lavishly bribed the guards, who in any case did not believe they would survive in the taiga. After a few hours’ march by the light of the icy moon, Molochinko sprained hisankle and had to stop. The Urkas huddled together and quietly conferred while the three politicals stood apart, in vague trepidation. At last the Urka chief, a murderer from Lithuania, announced that they would abandon Molochinko there. No one protested, and they set off again, but a little farther on Papa dropped out and sneaked back to the casualty: What could I do, I felt sorry for the mutt.

Molochinko was staggered to see him and wept in gratitude, clutching Papa’s hands with his iron claws. The taiga wolves had caught his scent and were prowling nearby in the darkness. Papa lifted Molochinko onto his shoulders and carried him for days. After almost a week without any food, Papa cut himself with a knife and let Molochinko lick his blood. Molochinko sucked his arm, gazing up like an overgrown calf. When he finished he blurted out that the Urkas took politicals along to use for meat on the journey, and fell to his knees, begging Papa’s forgiveness for having tricked him into joining the escape, with the excuse that he hadn’t really known him at the time.

Now the hammer boomed to a heavy cadence, louder than the storm outside. And so, for weeks—or was it months, who knows—Papa and Molochinko roamed the taiga. They lost their way, and the howling wolves that trailed them expectantly drove them half insane. Once they came across a skeleton with the cap of a political lying beside it.

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