SERGEI DOVLATOV
175
I took the papers, saluted, and withdrew.
We neared Ropcha close to midnight. The settlement seemed
dead. The darkness muffled the sound of dogs barking.
The logging-truck driver who had given me a ride asked,
"Where are they sending you in the middle of the night? You could
have gone in the morning."
I had to explain, "This way I'll be returning in daylight. Other–
wise I'd be coming back at night. What's more, in the company of a
dangerous recidivist."
"Could be worse," the driver said. "We've got dispatchers in
logging who are more terrible than the zeks."
"It happens," I said. We said goodbye.
I woke the orderly in the checkpoint cabin, showed him my
papers. Asked where I could spend the night. The orderly thought
about it.
"It's noisy in the barracks. The convoy brigades get back in the
middle of the night.
If
you took someone's bunk, they might use their
belt on you. And in the kennels the dogs bark."
"Dogs - that's already better."
"You can stay here with me. All the comforts . You can cover
yourself with a sheepskin jacket. The next shift comes in at seven."
I lay down, put a tin can near the trestle bed, and lit a cigarette.
The main thing is not to think about home. To concentrate on
some urgent daily problem. Here, for instance: I'm running out of
cigarettes. And the orderly, it seems, doesn't smoke .
I asked, "You don't smoke, or what?"
"If
you offer me one , I'll smoke."
Still no better.
The orderly tried to start a conversation with me. "Is it true
that your soldiers in the Sixth do it with she-goats?"
"I don't know. Doubtful. ... The zeks, now, they might in-
dulge."
"In my opinion, it's already better in a fist."
"Matter of taste."
"Well, all right," the orderly said, taking pity on me, "sleep. It's
quiet here."
As for quiet, he was wrong. The checkpoint cabin adjoined the
penal isolator. In the middle of the night, a zek woke up inside it. He
