Vorkuta 1942

I never knew winter could be so merciless. 

I remember blue skies before the Kulak Purges of '37. I remember skiing over glistening surfaces and loving the innocence. And the laughter. But here, beyond the barbed wire of Kapitalnaya Forced Labour Camp, the bitter snow has frozen all colour from the Siberian landscape. Swept away all form. Deadened all reason.

For the hundredth time today I gaze through the dirty barrack window, past the heavy guards with their steaming dogs to the watchtowers. I can just see the metal fence, heavy with ice. But beyond that? Nothing.  

We have seen nothing now for seven weeks.  

The camp floats in a freezing white void, desolate to our souls and deadly to our bodies. This morning the vast sky is at least fifty below. Even we, whose value to the Gulag is so pitiful that they'd rather we grow stick-thin than feed us, even we won't be made work outside in this temperature. We'd die too quickly. We'd be left to lie like the railway sleepers we've been lugging for the Konosha-Kotlas railway. Lie like piles of bodies under thick white blankets. 

My wooden bunk is by the window. My younger brother, Pavel, slumps on the next bunk across. The air in the room is kept just above freezing by the rows of grim-looking, skinny men who sit on thin mattresses, unpicking and shredding rags for the paper mill in Kotlas. We keep looking but we never find anything useful. We shiver; our breath is white. We pick up a cloth remnant from the stinking piles, tear it into little pieces and throw the bits into sacks. Monotonous work. Our fingers split, our eyes redden. Dust fills the room and men wheeze pitifully in the shafts of colourless light. Yet who'd rather freeze outside? 

Perhaps we would.

We are not supposed to talk but the barrack guard is dozing in his trenchcoat, leaning back into the corner by the small pot-bellied stove. The flaps of his fur ushanka are pulled over his ears. The thick cudgel resting on his lap says he'd better not be disturbed. We murmur softly beneath the incessant susurration of ripping cloth and tear gently so as not to wake him.  

'Do you remember that winter in Altai, Pavel? When we skied from our farm to the Katunsky Falls. And they were all frozen? We had Sonya Volkova with us. She'd brought that wonderful cheese. And the bread she'd baked. And the ham – remember the ham, Pavel!'

Pavel is dying. My younger brother is so much thinner than he should be. His forehead glistens unhealthily. His bloodshot eyes have ringed and dark. Pavel's face is long and unwashed; his nose runs onto blue lips. He weakens daily: he hasn't even the strength to fight for the meagre food we get three times a day. Nobody cares. He only survives now because we've been inside these last weeks. 

Pavel struggles to rip his cloth. 'I can't remember, Grisha. It was so long ago.' 

'Not that long ago Pavel Korovin! It was the winter. I was on leave from the army. It was the best winter, wasn't it? Sonya Volkova wore her white reindeer suit. She'd embroidered it with flowers. She was so beautiful. And the sky was so blue. You said it hurt to look. You must remember, Pavel.'

My younger brother looks across kindly and seems to wince. 'I do, Grisha, I do. It's just... Remembering hurts too much. I don't want to.'

'But Pavel, that's all we have now.' I say urgently but keeping my voice low. 'When we stop remembering, it'll all be over. I want to remember!'

'You're right Grisha. You always are.' He sighs, and coughs. He knows he will die soon. We both can see it.

'It's time I remembered too,' he mumbles. 'The sky was blue, wasn't it, Grisha?'

'That day was so, so good,' I say. 'The best of days! I loved Sonya so much. Since we were children. You knew that of course. But you didn't know that I kissed her that day. Did you! By the frozen waterfall. You were off somewhere. I never told you.' 

I chuckle softly to myself and pick up more cloth.

'I kissed Sonya Volkova. At last! Just once.' 

The icy window draws my eyes yet again. The white, freezing world beyond the fence never changes. My sense that the hut floats in a desolate, edgeless dream becomes stronger. The cold bites into my chapped, bleeding hands but I can't feel it. None of those abandoned in the Gulag have much physical feeling any more: our bodies starve, which is why memories are such dangerous meat. 

Pavel's hands shake a little at the cloth. 'She did tell me you kissed her, Grisha. I was glad. You'd been called back again, hadn't you? I stayed with the farm. You left for Barnaul the next day.' 

'That's right. With Alexi and Georgi. Poor bastards.' The army is something I'd rather forget, but I'm happy with my memories this moment. In the time since Pavel and I found ourselves in the same camp – by a miracle in the same hut! - this is the first time we've really talked about the past. He's dying. There is little time to share the good things we had. 

'I miss Sonya so much, Pavel,' I say. 'I wanted to ask her to marry me. Many times! But I was so shy. I didn't have the nerve. God, what a waste. I wanted to stay. But when they call you, you have to go. Or be classed a deserter. My heart is still broken, Pavel. I regretted not asking her the moment I left. Sonya wrote me so few letters. That hurt. Then they stopped. Yours too, brother. I did hear the Volkovas lost their farm in the Kulak Purge. Just before we lost ours.' 

I spit in disgust and look up quickly at the guard. But the big man slumbers on to the soothing drone of tearing and soft undertones. I wipe my dripping nose with the back of my dirty sleeve. Through the dust around me, shadowy figures shred rags that are not much worse than those they wear. 

I close my eyes. Three years in the army and four in here have beaten or drained much out of me, but never that small ember of hope: Sonya's kiss by the Katunsky Falls. I rarely have the strength or courage to look at the memory, but I feel it now.  

'One kiss, Pavel. Just that one kiss. I can see the blue sky and taste her now. Sonya. Sonya Volkova. I think you loved Sonya a bit too. Didn't you Pavel? I've no idea where she is now.'

'She died, Grisha.'

The strength goes out of my hands. 

I look straight at my brother. His eyes are wet; his pale cheeks flush sickeningly. A thin, pale man clutching a bit of rag like a child's comforter. I cross quietly over to and sit next to my brother on his bunk.

'Lie back a bit,' I say. 'The guard's well out. Put your feet up a moment. You look terrible.' 

Pavel takes my hand. Callouses and the cold have robbed our skin of sensation but, as I wait for him to tell me more, a little warmth seeps between us.

Pavel wheezes. 'Grisha. I never told you what happened. I couldn't. You being in the army, so far away and everything.' He turns his head away, breathing as if a distressing weight sits on his chest.

'I did love Sonya. Not like you, Grisha. I know, but I did. She was going to have my child.'

I stare stupidly at my brother, feeling my mouth open, like a fish.

'Your child? What do you mean. A child with Sonya?'

'She was so hurt and angry. You didn't speak for her before you left. You should have asked her to marry you, Grisha. You should. I was there. And you weren't. It just happened.' 

His words begin to tumble: 'She wouldn't do anything about it. She said it was the nearest thing to being yours that she'd ever get and she would keep it. Her parents eventually found out of course, and reported me. But the NKVD were coming anyway.' 

I am pinned by Pavel's confession. He gasps for breath and grips my sleeve. 

'Grisha, I was there when they came to the Volkova's farm. There were a lot of them. I hid. They dragged her parents into the stables and shot them. Just shot them, Grisha! Then they pulled Sonya about the yard. Calling her a whore. They were going to shoot her too. She had no ring on. She screamed that she did have a man for the baby. Then they shouted around the yard: "Come out. This woman's man! Come and claim her. We just need to know she has a man!"'

My brother's distress increases with every word. 'I thought they'd see me hiding. All of them were so close.'

'But you went out. Pavel? Tell me you stood up and claimed her. Pavel!'

Pavel's knuckles shine white against the cloth.

'I didn't move, Grisha. I was so afraid. Oh god, I can still see the blood trickling from the stable door. Sonya was crying and screaming.' 

'Pavel. No! What are you saying. She was with child for god's sake. Your child.' I shake him by his grimy collar. He chokes and coughs. 'Me. I would have gone. I would have claimed my Sonya.'

Pavel twists to look into my eyes. 'I abandoned her,' he said, softly. 'I could have saved her, Grisha. But I didn't.. I could have reached out my hand, but I held it back. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' 

I stare drunkenly at my weeping, dying brother, shivering on the bed. He's mumbling the same words, over and over.

The drone of tearing cloth deadens my mind. The deep, monotonous cold numbs my body. I turn to look through the dirty window into the bleak whiteness.