Chapter 45 Chapter 14 Change fate!

It is impossible to protect yourself in this savage world.Strike - is a dead end.Hunger strikes -- are futile. As for losing lives, there is always time. What way out is left for the prisoner?rush out!To change fate! (Prisoners also called Runaway "Green Attorney General." He was the only popular Attorney General among them. Like the other Attorney Generals, he kept many cases the same or even worse than they were, but sometimes made people Just let it go. It's--the green forest, it's--the thicket.) Chekhov said: If the criminal is not a philosopher who is calm in any situation (or to put it this way: he can detach himself and contemplate), then he cannot and should not want to run away!

You shouldn't want to! -- This is the order of the free mind.It is true that the natives of the archipelago are far from such people, and they are much more docile.But, among them there were always those who were thinking of running away, or were about to run away.The frequent, even unsuccessful, escapes here and there are conclusive evidence that the prisoner's energy has not been exhausted. This is a camp.It was well-guarded: the fences were strong, the cordoned-off zone in front of the area was solid, and the watchtowers were properly distributed—every spot was within sight and range of fire.But when you think you're doomed to die on this enclosed piece of Panama ground, you don't know what to do.So why not try your luck? --How about breaking out of the siege to change your destiny?Especially at the beginning of a sentence, during the first year, the urge is often strong, even reckless.The first year is generally said to be the period in which the prisoner's entire future and his entire moral outlook are determined.Afterwards, this impulse gradually weakened somehow.You can't tell if living outside is more important to you.The thread that connects you to the outside world becomes weak, the spiritual fire burns out, and one slips into the harness of the labor camp.

During the entire existence of the camp, escapes appear to have occurred on a number of occasions.Here is some information obtained by chance: In March 1930 alone, 1,328 people escaped from prisons in Soviet Russia. (How come we haven't heard about this in our society, not at all!) Due to the great expansion of the archipelago after 1937, especially after all the guards with combat effectiveness were transferred to the front line during the war years, it became more and more difficult for guards to be held in custody. Even the maliciously conceived self-defense method did not Always gets managers out of trouble.At the same time, they want to get as much economic benefits, products, and labor as possible from the labor camps—this forces the labor camps (especially the logging camps) to expand their scope, and set up dispatch points and dispatch points one by one in desolate places Go--and their guards are becoming more and more nameless.

Some dispatch points in the Ustvem labor camp already had no segregated areas in 1939, but only some pile fences or fences, and there was no lighting at night! --In other words, no one stopped the prisoners from leaving the camp at night.At the reform-through-labor point of this labor camp, even when they went to work in the forest, there was only one infantry escort for the entire working class of prisoners.Of course he couldn't see it firmly.Thus, seventy escaped there in the summer of 1939 (one even escaped twice a day: before lunch and after lunch!), but sixty of them returned.The rest have no news.

But that was in the wild.And in Moscow, I witnessed three easy escapes: a young thief from the labor section of the Kaluga checkpoint got through the fence of the construction site in broad daylight (and, in their bragging habit, A day later, a postcard was sent to the labor camp: saying it was going to Sochi and please send your regards to the camp commander); I have already written about this), and from there a young ordinary prisoner jumped on a bus and drove straight to the city center, admittedly, he was not detained at all: the police dogs of the Ministry of State Security were fully focused But we don't care about losing a common criminal.

Presumably, the Gulag calculated that it would be cheaper to allow a certain percentage of inmates to be lost each year than to have a really tight guard on all the islands in the tens of thousands. Besides, they trusted in some invisible chains that held the natives firmly in place. One of the strongest chains is the general despondency, total submission to one's own slavery.Whether the prisoners in Article 58 or ordinary criminals, they are almost all family members who love to work. They can only show bravery legally, according to orders and with the approval of the superiors.Even if they are sentenced to five or ten years in prison, they can't imagine how they can stand up individually (let alone collectively!...) to fight for their own freedom, and fight with the state (their own country), internal affairs agencies, and civilian police. , guards, and police dogs stand in opposing positions; even if they are lucky enough to escape, how can they live on fake IDs and names in the future, if IDs are checked at every intersection, if there are suspicious eyes from every door Watching passers-by.The general sentiment in the camp was: what are you doing standing there with guns and staring at us?Even if you are all gone, we won't run anywhere: we are not criminals, why should we run away?We'll be free for a year! (Amnesty...) K. Strahovich tells how in 1942 their train was bombed on the way to Uglich.The escort team scattered here and there, but the prisoners knew nowhere to escape, waiting for the escort to return.Many will tell of what happened to an accountant in the Karl Lagertau sub-camp; he was sent forty kilometers away with a report of expenses--with an escort accompanying him.On the way back, he not only had to pull the drunk escort in a cart, but he also had to protect his gun so that the bastard would not be judged for throwing the gun.

The other chain is - the state of riding the wind, the starvation of the labor camp.And though it is this hunger that sometimes drives desperate men into the taiga in the hope of being more or less well fed there than in the labor camps, it also leaves them too weak to go far, and unable to gather the energy of the road. food reserves. There is another chain - the threat of a new sentence.If political prisoners escape, they will still be given another ten years according to Article 58 (I have gradually found out that in this case it is best to give 58-14, that is, counter-revolutionary sabotage).Although the thieves were given 82 pieces (simple escape) and only two years in total, but before 1947, they did not get more than two years for committing theft and robbery, so the weight is similar.And the labor camp is their "home" where they don't starve and don't work—their immediate intention is not to escape, but to serve the full sentence, not to mention that they can always enjoy preferential treatment and amnesty.To the burglar, escape is just a well-fed game of a strong body and an outburst of unbearable greed: fun, robbery, drunkenness, rape, ostentation.Among them, the only ones who seriously escaped were armed bandits and murderers who had been sentenced to heavy sentences.

Burglars are fond of telling lies about escapes that they never attempted, or exaggerating escapes that they did.They'll tell you how "India" (the thieves' shed) got the traveling pennant because it was well prepared for the winter - planted thickly around the shed, and this It was they who dug the tunnels and put the soil openly in front of the rulers.Do not believe! --The whole "India" will not run away, they don't want to dig hard, they will do what they can do, and the officers will not be so stupid as not to see where they get their soil from . -Korzinkin, a ten-time ex-burglar, the trustee of the Battalion Commander, did walk away in fine attire, and did identify himself as Assistant Attorney-General, but added that he was the same The fugitive special agent (there are such) spends the night in a farmhouse and steals his uniform, weapons, and even police dogs during the night - and later calls himself the special operation agent.This is downright lying.The burglar in his fantasies and stories is always more heroic than he really is.

Also, what keeps the prisoners chained is not the ghetto, but the freedom from detention.Those prisoners who received the most lenient care—without bayonets to go to and from work, and sometimes abducted to the outer villages—valued their privileges.After escaping, this preferential treatment was deprived. The geography of the archipelago is also an insurmountable obstacle to escape: these endless snow-covered wastelands or deserts, tundra, taiga.Although Kolyma is not an island, it is more difficult than an island: a small piece of cut-off land, where to go from Kolyma?Running from here is only out of desperation.It is true that at some time in the past the Yakutians were very kind to the convicts and assured them: "By the witness of the nine suns - I will send you to Khabarovsk." And indeed they drove them away in a sleigh.But then the escaped thieves began to rob the Yakutians, so the Yakutians changed their attitude towards the fugitives and handed them over.

The hostile attitude of the surrounding population, encouraged by the authorities, was the main obstacle to escape.The authorities reward those who catch fugitives (which is also a kind of political education).Therefore, the ethnic minorities living in the area around the Gulag gradually got used to thinking that catching a fugitive was a festival, a fortune, like a successful hunt, or like finding a small piece of precious metal.Flour and tea are paid to the Tungus, Komi, and Kazakhs; in densely populated areas, residents on the left bank of the middle and lower reaches of the Volga near Brepolom and Unzhrag are paid two dollars for each fugitive captured. Put flour, eight meters of cloth, and several kilos of salted herring.During the war years, salted and fresh fish could not be obtained by other means, so the local residents also called fugitives "salted herring".In the village of Shrstka, for example, whenever a stranger appeared, the children ran and shouted in unison: "Mother! Here comes the salted herring!"

What about geologists?What about these pioneers of the wild north, these brave bearded, high-jacketed heroes, Jack? London's hearts?It is not good for fugitives to pin their hopes on our Soviet geologists, and it is better not to go near their campfires.The Leningrad engineer Alerosimov, who was arrested in the "Industrial Party" stream for ten years, escaped in 1933 from the Nivaglas labor camp.He wandered in the taiga forest for 21 days, and he was so happy when he met the geologists!But they took him to the settlement and handed him over to the chairman of the trade union committee. (Understand the geologists, too; they don't act alone, they fear each other as informers. What if the fugitive is really a criminal, a murderer? -- kill them in the night too?) If the captured fugitive has been killed, he will be thrown near the canteen of the labor camp, and let him lie there for days and nights with festering wounds -- so that the prisoners will value their own clean water and rotten vegetable soup more seriously some.If you catch him, let him stand next to the gate post, and make the dog bite him when you change shifts (dogs will strangle people to death or bite people when they are ordered, and some will just tear their clothes and lose everything).You can also write a sign in the cultural and education department: "I ran away, but the dog caught me", hang it on the neck of the captured fugitive, and parade it in the labor camp. If you hit him—then you have to knock the waist off.If you put on handcuffs, you will have to lose sensation in the wrist joints for life (Solokin, Yves Gerrag).If he was put in confinement, he would not be released until he got tuberculosis. . Torturing and killing fugitives was, truth be told, the main form of combating fugitives in the Islands. If escapes did not take place for long periods of time, escapes were sometimes even fabricated.In 1951 a group of convicts were allowed to pick berries in the Durbin Gold Mine (Kolyma).The three of them went astray and did not return.Lieutenant Peter Lomaga, the camp director, sent some hunting thugs.They let the dogs out on the three sleeping men, shot them, and smashed their heads with the butts of their rifles, turning them into a bloody mess with their brains pouring out--with a big cart They were taken to a labor camp.Here, instead of horses, four convicts pulled the cart past the queue.Lomaga declared: "Look, this is what happens to every fugitive!" In the face of such situations, who can find in himself the courage to face life and death without trembling? --Let's go! --Let's go to the end! -It's easy to say, but where are you going?There, when the fugitive finally arrives at the desired destination, who is not afraid of being involved, who will come to meet you, hide you, and protect you?Only those thieves have an agreed "happy nest" waiting outside, and for us fifty-eight prisoners, this kind of residence is called a joint place, which is almost an underground organization. See how many obstacles and traps there are to prevent escape! However, desperate hearts sometimes do not weigh the pros and cons.He saw that the river was flowing, and there was a log floating in the river--so he jumped!Let's go drifting!As soon as Vyacheslav Bezrodnyi of the Orzhan labor camp was released from the hospital, he was still very weak, so he fled along the Indigirka River by driving two logs connected together—once he reached the Arctic Ocean. go!where to goWhat hope did he hold?It is hard to say that he was caught, he was picked up on the high seas, and brought back to Orjan by the winter road, where he was admitted to the hospital where he had been. Not every prisoner who did not voluntarily return to the labor camp, who was not escorted back alive, or who was brought back dead can be said to have gone away.Maybe he just didn't die slowly and unfreely in a labor camp, but died free like a wild animal in the taiga. When the fugitives lingered rather than fled, and later returned of their own accord, the operational agents of the labor camps even took advantage of them: they could be given a second sentence without much trouble.If the escape doesn't happen for a long time, then set a trap and instruct some eyeliner to put together a gang of prisoners to "escape" - and then lock them all up. But a convict who is serious about getting away can quickly turn into a very scary person.Some set fire to the taiga forest behind them in order to disorient the police dogs. The fire burned continuously for several weeks in an area of ​​tens of kilometers. --In 1949, a fugitive with human flesh in his backpack was detained on a pasture near Wesleyan State Farm: he killed an artist he met on the road, which was a five-year sentence without supervision the prisoner, cut the flesh from him, but had no time to cook it. In the spring of 1947, in Kolyma, near Ergen, two escorts escorted a group of prisoners.Suddenly, without prior consultation, a prisoner attacked the escort individually and skillfully, disarmed them, and shot them both. (Don't know his name, turns out to be a frontline officer not so long ago. Rare and vivid example of a frontline soldier who didn't lose his courage in a labor camp!) The brave man announced to the whole team that they were free!But the prisoners were terrified, and no one followed him. They sat where they were and waited for the new escort to arrive.The frontline soldiers outnumbered them - but in vain.So he took up his weapon (thirty-two rounds, "thirty-one for them!") and went off alone.He also killed and wounded several pursuers and ended his own life with the thirty-second bullet.If all the frontline soldiers acted like that, maybe the islands would collapse. In Kraslag, a former soldier, hero of the battle of Harleshin, attacked one of the escorts with an axe, knocked him unconscious with the back of the axe, and took his gun and thirty rounds of ammunition.They sent out the dogs after him, and he killed two and wounded the handlers.When he was caught, he was not shot dead, but in order to avenge himself and the police dog, with a cruel heart, he was pierced with a bayonet.In this state he was left lying by the gate post for a whole week. In 1951, in this very Kraslag, nearly ten long-term prisoners were escorted by four infantry guards.The prisoners attacked the escort by surprise, took away the automatic rifles, put on their uniforms (but spared the infantry!--the oppressed is often more lenient than the oppressor), and the four marched the team in a grand manner, Take your companions to the narrow gauge railway.There stood a train of empty wagons ready to load lumber.The dummy convoy went up to the locomotive, drove the locomotive crew out (a fugitive used to be the train driver), and pulled the train at full speed towards the Leshty station, on to the Siberian main line.But they need to travel nearly seventy kilometers.During this time, reports have been made about them (the pardoned guard infantry was the first to report), several times they had to drive back to the guards while driving, and a few kilometers from Reschetti, in their Landmines have been laid on the front line, and a battalion of guards has been deployed.In a battle of disproportionate strength, all the fugitives were sacrificed. Escaping quietly is usually luckier.Some of them were very successful, but we rarely hear stories of those lucky ones: those who escaped did not speak to reporters, they changed their names and went into hiding.Kutikov Skaczynski, who escaped successfully in 1942, only speaks out now because he was exposed in 1959—after seventeen years! Here's how it came out: a man who had run away with him was caught in another case.His real identity was ascertained based on fingerprints.In this way, it became clear that the fugitives did not die as expected.So the search for Kudikov began.For this reason, he was carefully investigated in his hometown, and his relatives were tracked--and he was gradually found along the clues of relatives.After seventeen years, I still don't hesitate to spend energy and time to do all this! The only reason we know about Zinaida Yakovlena Povalyeva's successful escape is that she failed in the final analysis.She received a prison sentence for remaining a teacher at her school during the German occupation.But the Soviet army did not arrest her as soon as they arrived. Before being arrested, she had married a pilot.Only then was she arrested and imprisoned, and sent to Vorkuda's No. 8 mine.She got in touch with the outside world and with her husband through a Chinese cook.The husband works in civil aviation, and he arranged for himself a voyage to Vorkuda.On the appointed day, Zina went to the shower room in the work area, where she threw away her camp clothes and loosened her night-curled hair from under her kerchief.Waiting for her husband in the work area.There were operators on duty at the ferry, but they didn't pay attention to the perm girl who was holding a pilot by the arm.They flew away in the plane.For a year, Tena used other people's documents to live.But she couldn't help it, and wanted to meet her mother, who was being watched.In the new interrogation, she made up a set of lies, saying that she escaped in a coal truck.That would keep them from finding out that her husband was involved. Yanis Le-S came to Latvia on foot from the Perm labor camp in 1946, although he spoke Russian so poorly that he could hardly express himself.The fact that he escaped from the labor camp itself is simple: he ran and knocked down the rotting fence and stepped over it.But later in the swampy forest (with bark shoes on the feet) for a long time to eat berries for a living.Once he drove a cow from the village into the forest and slaughtered it.After eating enough beef, he sewed a pair of shoes for himself out of cowhide.On another occasion, he stole a sheepskin jacket from a farmer (the residents treated fugitives with hostility, and fugitives involuntarily became enemies of the residents).In crowded places, Le-S presents himself as a Latvian conscript who lost his papers.Although the universal inspection pass system had not been abolished that year, he was able to walk in Leningrad, which he was not familiar with, without saying a word, to Warsaw Station, walked four kilometers along the line, and boarded a train there (but there were Little Les is sure: in Latvia people will have no qualms about undressing him. This makes his escape meaningful). Escapes like Lays required the strength, strength, and agility of a peasant.Could a city guy, and an old man serving a five-year sentence for telling a joke, escape?It would have been possible, if staying in his own labor camp (a small camp between Moscow and Gorky, where shells have been manufactured since 1941) for the elderly and weak, was guaranteed.Five years is originally a "kindergarten sentence", but if he rushes to work and doesn't give him food, the joker can't stand it for five months.This kind of escape is a bold and dangerous move, a momentary impulse, and after half a minute, you will have no reason or strength to do this kind of thing.A train came into the labor camp and was loaded with shells.A sergeant of the convoy was walking beside the train, and a few cars away from him was a railway worker: the sergeant pushed open the doors of each red leather car, and after making sure that no one was there, pushed the doors shut again , while the railway workers followed suit.Our wretched, hungry, debilitated joke-teller (all true, but his name has not survived.) threw himself behind the passing sergeant and in front of the passing railroad worker. Jumping into the carriage, he finally climbed up, finally opened the car door silently, this was not planned, this must be exposed, and he is already regretting it.He takes cover and his heart stops--now the sergeant will come back and kick him with his boot, and now the railroadman will shout, Listen, someone has touched the door--and it's sealing! ... (I thought to myself: Maybe the railway worker is a kind person? Seeing it—but pretending not to see it?... The train driver left the camp. The train was heading to the front line. The fugitive was not ready, and a piece of bread beside him No, within three days and nights he will surely die in this moving isolation room where he is voluntarily locked up. He will not reach the front line, and he does not need the front line. What to do? How to escape now? He saw , the cannonball box was strapped with iron straps. He got the strap off with his bare hands and sawed the floor of the car in the empty space where the boxes were not piled up. Is this impossible for an old man? And dying is possible Is it possible to be found and caught? The box is still tied with hemp rope loops for carrying. Let them hang in the hole cut in the undercarriage. How exhausted he is! His bruised hands are useless! What a price he pays for a little joke! Before he reaches the station, he is at Cautiously under the hole while moving, feet in one collar (towards the rear) and shoulders in the other. The train moves, the fugitive hangs and wobbles. The train slows down, Then he made up his mind, let go of his feet, dragged them to the ground, and pulled him down entirely. A circus show of death—but the telegram might catch the train, and they might search the carriages, for by then he must be found in the camp Missing. Don't stoop, don't poke, he clings to the sleepers. He closes his eyes and prepares to die. The last few cars speed and clatter past -- and there's a sudden, lovable silence. The fugitive Open your eyes, turn over: the red taillights of a passing train! Freedom! But this is not saved.Liberty was free, but he had no papers, no banknotes, and was dressed in tattered labor camp clothes, and he was still doomed.Swollen and ragged, he barely made it to the station, where he mingled with a train coming from Leningrad: the half-dead evacuated were helped out and given hot meals at the station.But that probably wouldn't have saved him—if he hadn't found an old dying friend in his car, and took his papers, and he knew all about his past.They were all transported near Saratov, and for several years, until the post-war years, he lived there, working on a poultry farm.Then he missed his daughter so much that he set out to find her.He had sought her in Nalchik, in Armavir, and at last found her in Uzhgorod.During this time, the daughter had married a border guard.She thought her father had died safely, and she listened to his story now with a mixture of horror and loathing.She had retained a shameful remnant of kinship, though she had fully committed herself to citizenship, and instead of prosecuting her father, she merely threw him out of the gate.The old man has no relatives anymore, he wanders from one city to another, leading a meaningless life.He became a drug addict, and in Baku he took a certain kind of "Anasha" and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where he gave his real name in a coma and his usual false name when he woke up. Hospital It was our Soviet hospital, which couldn't give treatment without identification, so a comrade from the State Security Service was called in - so, in 1952, ten years after his escape, the old man got another for twenty-five years (which gave him the fortunate opportunity to tell his story in his cell, which is now immortalized). Sometimes the life after a successful fugitive is more dramatic than the escape itself.This may be said to be the case with Sergei Andreevich Chebotarev, who is mentioned more than once in this book.Since 1914 he has been an employee of the Eastern Railway, and since February 1917 - a member of the Bolshevik Party.He was imprisoned in a Chinese prison during the Eastern Railway conflict in 1929, and returned to his homeland in 1931 with his wife Yelena Prokofievna and two sons Gennady and Victor.Here everything is done in the way of the motherland: after a few days, he himself is arrested, his wife goes mad, the two sons are sent to different nurseries, and they are given another father's name against his will and surname, although they clearly remembered their father's name and surname, and resisted.The GGPU Far East trio (another trio!) initially gave Chebotarev only three years due to inexperience, but he was soon arrested again, tortured, and his sentence commuted to ten years , and at the same time deprive him of his communication rights (because what can he write now?), and even have to strengthen his detention on revolutionary festivals.This aggravated sentence unexpectedly helped him.From 1934 he was imprisoned in Karlage, building the road to Mointi.During May Day in 1936 he was placed in a correctional isolation facility there.A free man, Avtonom Vasilyevich Chuhu, was thrown there and they were treated in the same way.It is not known whether he was drunk or sober, but Chebotarev was able to steal his passport issued by the village Soviet, which was valid for three months.It was already May 8th, and Chebotarev left the Mointi labor camp, completely dressed in the clothes worn by outsiders, not a single rag from the labor camp, with two half-liter wine bottles in his pockets , like the ones alcoholics always carry around, except that instead of vodka, it's filled with water.First came across a saline grassland.Twice he fell into the hands of the Kazakhs who went to build the railway. He knew a little Kazakh, "using their religious feelings, they let me go." The station was detained.They took his ID and questioned him about himself and his relatives. False Qiuping gave exact answers from memory.At this time, another unexpected thing happened (he would probably be caught if it didn’t happen)—the leader of an action team came in from the earthen house, and Qiu Ping rushed ahead of him and said, “Ah! Nicholas, hello , do you recognize it?" (Abacusing on transience and facial wrinkles, this is a visual memory contest: I do recognize it, but if you recognize it, then I am screwed!) "No, yes No." "How can that be? We've been on the train together! Your name is Naydynov, and you've told how you met Olya at the Sverdlovsk station—just in the same room. In a private room, she got married later." Everything is true.Naydenov didn't know what to do; he lit a cigarette, smoked, and then let him go. (Ah, blue hats! No wonder you have to be taught to talk less! You shouldn’t be open and frank like ordinary people. I told you, but not in the car, but a year ago at Karlage’s nursery. I told the prisoners out of confusion, but I didn’t remember the faces of all the people who listened to you. You probably like to talk about things in the train, and not only on the train, but also on the train! And Chebotarev’s bold bet was on this point!) Chupin, elated, continued onwards, passed a lake, went south, and walked along the road in the direction of the Chu River station.He mostly travels at night, whenever the headlights of a car shine, he will dodge into the reeds passing by, and lie in the reeds during the day (there is a reed bush there).Fewer operatives were encountered, and the cancer cells in the archipelago had not spread to these places at that time.He carried bread and sugar with him, and he ate slowly, having no water at all during the journey of five days and nights.He walked about two hundred kilometers, and when he got to the station, he left by car. Thus began the age of the free, nay, the life of the trapped beast, for he dared not take the risk of settling down and staying in one place for long.In that year, a few months later, he met one of his godfathers in the labor camp in the garden of Fulongyi City!But it was so fleeting, there was so much joy, music, girls, and the godfather didn't have time to recognize him.He had to leave the job he had found (the chief accountant questioned him and guessed the reason for his urgent resignation - but he was also an old Solovitz prisoner himself) and went elsewhere.At first, Chebotarev did not dare to take the risk of looking for the family members, but then he came up with a way.He wrote to a cousin in Ufa asking: Where are Lena and the children?Who is this letter to you, guess for yourself!But don't tell her just yet.The reply address is Jilabulak Station, received by Qiu Ping.The cousin wrote back: the children are missing, the wife is in Novosibirsk.So Chebotarev entrusted her with a trip to Novosibirsk, where he had to tell his wife without anyone else that he was missing and wanted to send her money.My cousin went for a trip.Now the wife wrote a letter by herself: After passing through the psychiatric hospital, she lost her ID card and was sentenced to three months of forced labor.My heart is about to pop out, I should take a trip!So the husband sent an insane telegram: Take such and such train and such and such car... Please answer, our hearts are powerless against emotion, but, thank God, the presentiment has not been blocked.On the way, these premonitions made him so uneasy that he got out of the car two stops before Novorossibiersk and took a car that came along.After he handed over the things to the depository, he desperately searched for his wife's address.Knock!The door opened of its own accord, and there was no one in the house (first coincidence, adversarial coincidence: the landlord had been on guard all day and night to warn him of an ambush--but just went out to fetch water at this time!).go inside.The wife is not there either.On the bed lay a Cheka officer, wearing a military overcoat, snoring loudly (the second coincidence, a convenient coincidence!).Chebotarev hastily slipped away.At this moment, the landlord, a surviving acquaintance of his during the Middle East Railway, stopped him.It turned out that his son-in-law was an operative, and brought the telegram home himself, and waved it before the eyes of Chebotariov's wife: Look, you scoundrel has thrown himself into a trap!Been to the train station - not intercepted, the second operator temporarily walked away, this one lay down and rested.Chebotarev called his wife anyway, traveled by bus for a few stops, and there he boarded a train to Uzbekistan.Another marriage was registered in Leninabad—that is, she did not divorce Chebotarev, but married Chupin!但他们没有住在一起的勇气。用她的名义向各地送去找寻子女的启事--都没有结果。战前他们过的就是这种东分西散、提心吊胆的生活。四一年，丘平应征入伍，在第六十一骑兵师当无线电报务员。一次在其他战士面前开玩笑，不小心说了香烟和火柴的中国话叫法。一个人知道某些外国话，这在哪个正常的国家里会引起怀疑呢？在我们这里却引起了，眼线们打了小报告。过了一小时，二一九骑兵团的行动人员政治指导员索科洛夫已经盘问起他来了："你从哪里知道中国话的？"丘平回答说：只知道这两个词。 "你没有在中东铁路工作过吗？"（在国外工作--这马上就是一种深重罪孽！）派了行动人员和坐探盯着他，没有打听出什么来。为了自己安宁起见还是依照五十八条一10把他关押起来： --不相信情报局的战报； --说德国人的技术装备多。 （好像大家都没有亲眼看见过）。 不打在额上，就打在头上！……军法论处。枪决！祖国的生活本来就已经使切博塔廖夫感到万分厌恶，所以他没有提出免罪减刑的请求。但国家却需要劳动力，于是就给改判十年徒刑和五年"带笼口"。又回到了"老家"……他坐了（折抵后）九年。 还发生了一件事。有一次在劳改营里另一名叫H?弗-夫的犯人把他叫到上层板铺的僻角里轻声问他："你叫什么？""阿夫托诺姆?华西里奇。"--"你的原籍是哪一省？"--"秋明省。"--"什么区？……哪个村苏维埃？……"切博塔廖夫-丘平都一清二楚地作了回答，可是他听到："你全是撒谎。我同阿夫托诺姆?丘平在一个机车上工作了五年，我了解他像了解自己一样。碰巧是不是你在三六年五月偷走了他的证件？"真想不到还有这样的水下的锚会割破逃犯的肚子！一个小说家要是想出这样的会见来，怎会使人相信呀！在那个时候，切博塔廖夫又想活下去了，所以当那个人说："别害怕，我不会上教父那里去告发，我不是恶狗！"他就紧紧握了下这个善心人的手。 就这样，切博塔廖夫作为丘争取满了第二个刑期。但倒霉的是：他的最后一个劳改营是特别保密的，是莫斯科一10、图拉一38、斯维尔德洛夫斯克一39、切利亚宾斯克一40，这一批原子能工程中的一个。他们从事分离铀和镭矿的工作，工程是根据库尔恰托夫的计划进行的，工地主任特卡钦科中将直接受斯大林和贝利亚的领导。每季度都要从犯人取得"不泄露机密"的具结。但这还不算倒霉，倒霉的是，刑满释放的人不放回家去。在一九五O年九月，把一大批"获释者"送到了科雷马！只是在那里才把他们解除了看押，并宣布为特别危险的特殊人员--所以危险，是因为他们帮助制造了原子弹！ （啊，这一切怎写得完呢？须知这需要写许多章呀！）这样的人有几万名，分散在科雷马各处！ ! （翻翻宪法吧！翻翻各种法典吧！--关于特殊人员那里写着些什么？？） 可是现在他至少可以把妻子接来。于是她就来到了在马尔吉亚克金矿的丈夫身过。从这里他们又发函查询儿子们的下落--得到的回答都是："没有"，"名单上没有"。 斯大林伸了腿--老人们便离开了科雷马到高加索去--以度余年。气候变暖了，虽然是缓慢的。在一九五九年他们的儿子维克托，基辅的钳工，决定丢掉可惜的姓，并宣布自己是人民公敌切博塔廖夫的儿子！过了一年，父母找到了他！现在父亲所关心的事，是给自已恢复切博塔廖夫的姓（三次冤狱都得到了平反，他对逃跑已经不负责任了）。他也作了声明，把指纹寄到莫斯科去核对。只有当三个人都得到了写着切博塔廖夫姓氏的身份证，儿媳妇也成了切博塔廖娃以后，老人才安下心来。但是又过了几年他给我写信说，悔不该找到维克托：儿子骂父亲是罪犯，并认为他是自己的倒霉遭遇的罪魁祸首，对于平反证明则挥挥手不屑地说："废纸一张！"长子根纳季终于不明下落。 从上述那些事件可以看到，即使是成功的逃跑也还完全不给人以自由，所给予的是经常受压迫、受威胁的生活。逃犯中某些人清楚懂得这一点--这是那些在劳改营中已经来得及在政治上脱离祖国的人，还有那些浑浑噩噩只是为了活着而活着的人！有一些人抱定目的逃往西方，认为只有实现了这都逃跑才算大功告成，这样的人在逃犯中也不是很稀见的（失败时有现成的回答："我们想跑到中央去请求查明真相！"） 关于这些逃跑最难讲述。那些没有跑掉的，已经躺在潮湿的土里。那些又被抓住的--闭口不言。那些跑掉了的--也许会在西方出现，但也可能为了某些留在这里的人而重新保持沉默。有过这样的传闻，在楚科奇半岛犯人们夺得了一架飞机，七个人飞到了阿拉斯加。但我想：大约只是试图劫夺飞机，可是事败未成。 所有这些事件还将久久地被封锁起来，逐渐过时，而成为不需要的东西，像这本手稿一样，象在我国所写的一切真情实事一样。 请看一个这样的事件，但人们的记忆又没有保留下英勇逃跑者的姓名。他是敖德萨人，民用专业是一个机械工程师，在军队里是一个大尉。战争结束的时候他在奥地利，在维也纳的占领军里服务。在一九四八年由于被告密而被捕，得到了五十八条一10和当时已经施行的二十五年。被送到了西伯利亚离泰谢特三百公里的劳改点，就是说送到了一个远离西伯利亚铁路干线的地方。他很快就在伐木场上变得衰弱不堪了。但他还保持了争取生存的意志和关于维也纳的回忆。他从那里--从那里！ --竟能逃跑到了维也纳！It's incredible! 他们的伐木场区的边界是一条从小了望塔上可以观察的林间通道。在选定的日子，他上工时随身带着口粮。他砍倒了一株枝叶繁茂的云杉，使它横卧在通道上，在枝叶的遮盖下爬到树端。云杉遮不住整个通道，但他继续爬行，幸运地走掉了。他带走了一把斧头。这事发生在夏天。他沿着暴风吹倒的树木穿过泰加林，行走很困难，可是整整一个月他没有碰到任何人。他把衬衣的袖子和领口系上，用它捞鱼，生吃鱼肉。他采食松子、蘑菇、浆果。他半死不活地终于走到了西伯利亚铁路干线，幸福地在一垛干草堆里睡着了。他听甸人声醒了过来：看见有人用大叉在取干草，并且已经发现了他。他已精疲力竭，既不准备逃走，也不打算挣扎，只是说；"好吧，抓起来吧，交出去吧，我是逃犯。"那是一个铁路巡道工和他的妻子。巡道工说："我们也是俄国人呀。好！坐着不要露面。"说完就走了。但逃犯不相信他们：他们可是苏维埃人呀，他们有告发的义务。于是就爬进了森林。从森林边上注视着，他看到，巡道工回来了，带来了衣服和食物。--入暮，逃犯便沿线路而行，在林区一个小车站上坐上了货车，到早晨就跳下来--白天躲进森林。他就这样一夜一夜地前进，当身子变得结实一些以后，在每个停车站上都下来--躲在树林里或者步行前进，赶上火车，在行驶中跳上车去。这样他就几十次地冒着丢掉手脚和脑袋的危险（告密者的笔头轻轻划几下就使他吃尽了这种种苦头……）。但在快到乌拉尔的时候，他违反了自己的常规，在装载原木的平台车皮上睡着了。他被踢了一下，一盏灯照在脸上："证件！"--"就给。"站起身来，一拳把警卫从高处打落下来，自己则跳到了另一面--迎头又碰上了另一个警卫！--他把这个也打倒了，从旁边停着的列车下逃走了。在站外扒上行驶中的火车。他决定绕过斯维尔德洛夫斯克，在它的郊区抢了一个货亭，拿走了衣服，身上穿了三套，装足了食物。在某个站上卖掉了一套衣服，买了一张切利亚宾斯克-奥尔斯克-中亚细亚的车票。不，他知道要往哪里去，到维也纳去！但应当搞乱行踪，使人们不再找寻他。在土库曼，一个集体农庄主席在集市上遇见了他，不看证件就把他带到了自己的集体农庄去。他的手没有辜负了机械工程师的称号。他给集体农庄修理了所有的机器。过了几个月，他算清了帐，前往国境线附近的克拉斯诺沃次克。列车过了马里以后，一名巡逻走过来检查证件。那时我们的机械工程师便走到车厢平台，打开了门，把身体悬在厕所的窗外（从里面不可能透过涂上白色的玻璃看到他），只有一个脚尖支撑在台阶上以便回来。门框角上露着一个鞋尖，巡逻没有发觉，便到下一个车厢去了。胆战心惊的时刻就这样过去了。逃犯顺利地超过了里海后，坐上了巴库一会彼托夫卡的火车，由此直奔喀尔巴泽山。经由荒僻陡峭的森林地带越过山脉国境线的时候，他很审慎--但还是被边防军人截住了！从那西伯利亚的劳改点起，从那砍倒的第一株云杉起，需要作出多少牺牲，经受多少痛苦，想出多少花招和付出多少精力--而在最最末尾一刹那间一切都垮了！……像在泰谢特草垛里那样，他一点力气都没有了，他再也不能反抗，撒谎，只能怀着最后的狂怒喊道；"抓起来吧，刽子手！抓起来吧，这是你们的权力！""什么人？""逃犯！从劳改营逃出来！抓起来吧！"但边防军人表现得有点奇怪：他们蒙住了他的眼睛，把他带进了土屋，在那里解开，重新进行讯问--突然弄清楚了：自己人！班杰拉分子！（呸！呸！--有教养的读者皱起了眉头，冲我挥着手说："嘿，你选的角色真不错，如果班杰拉分子都是他的自己人！好一路货色！"我也摊开双手说：实际上也就是这样的人底逃跑的时候就是这样的。劳改营使他成为这样的人。我对你们说，他们这些劳改犯是按猪一样的"存在决定意识"的原则而不是按报纸生活的。对于一个劳改犯说来，那些同他一起在劳改营受苦的人都是自己人。那些放出警犬去追踪他的人都不是自己人。没有觉悟嘛！）他们拥抱了！那时，班杰拉分子还有越过国境的通道，他们就把他客客气气地带了过去。 他重新又在维也纳了！--但已经是在美占区里。他还是服从于那个迷惑人的唯物主义的原则，怎样也忘怀不了自己那个血腥的死亡营，他已经不去找机械工程师的工作做了，而是跑到美国当局那里去倾吐积愫。开始在他们那里担任了某种工作。 but! --人的特性是：危险一过去，我们的警惕性也就削弱了。他决意要给敖德萨的父母寄钱去，为此他需要把美元兑换成苏联货币。某个犹太商人邀请他到维也纳苏占区的寓所去兑换。人们不断地跑来跑去，很少区分是哪国的占区。而他则万万不能越过去！但他越过了--于是就在银钱兑换商人的寓所里被抓住。 完全是俄罗斯的故事：千辛万苦做成的，一杯伏特加酒就给喝光了。 他被判处枪决，关在柏林的苏联监狱里，他把这一切讲给了另一个军官和工程师安尼金听。这个安尼金在此以前已经在德国的俘虏营呆过，曾在布痕瓦尔德奄奄待毙。被美国人解放出来后，送到了德国的苏占区，临时留在那里拆卸工厂。后来他逃到了西德，在慕尼黑附近建筑水力发电站，从那里被苏联谍报机关劫走（用汽车前灯把眼照花，推进了汽车）。--他经历这种种是为了什么呢？是为了听取这个敖德萨机械工程师的故事并给我们保存下来？是为了后来两次无结果地从埃克巴斯主兹逃跑（关于他我们还将在第五部中讲到）？最后在惩戒石灰厂里遭到杀害？ 这是前定的！这是命运的乖戾！我们怎能看清个别人的生命的意义呢？ ... 我们还没有讲过集体逃跑，而这种逃跑也是很多的。据说，在一九五六年芒切哥尔斯克近郊的整个小劳改营都逃跑了。 从群岛逃跑的事件是罄竹难书、不胜枚举的。甚至想专门写一本关于逃跑的书的人，也会爱惜读者和自己，而略去几百起这种事件。