186
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Come on," Gesha fussed, "let's try it again. I have a feeling this
time I'm going to transform all the way."
I made an effort to take an active part. Not for nothing had
they crossed my name off the convoy schedules. Better to rehearse
than to freeze out on the taiga.
I said something or other, using expressions like mise-en-scene,
super-task, public solitude....
Tsurikov practically never joined in these discussions. Or if he
did say something, it was always totally unexpected. I remember,
once, we were talking about Lenin, and Tsurikov suddenly said,
"It
can happen that someone looks like the lowest of the low, but his
prick is healthy. Type of A-one baloney."
Gurin grinned. "You think we still remember what it looks
like? I mean, that baloney."
"Some conversation," the political instructor said angrily.
Rumors about our dramatic circle spread through the camp.
Attitudes toward the play and the leaders of the Revolution were
ambivalent. Lenin, generally, was respected . Dzerzhinsky - not
very much. In the mess hall, one
kapo
made a crack to Tsurikov in
passing: "So, you found yourself a nice job, Stilts! Made yourself
into a Chekist."
Tsurikov's response was to hit him over the head with a ladle.
The
kapo
fell down.
It
became very quiet. Later the morose truck
drivers from logging said to Tsurikov, "At least wash the ladle . You
can't dip it in the slops now."
Gesha was always being asked, "Well, what about you,
Clean-up? Who do you play? Krupskaya?" To this, Gesha would
answer evasively, "Well, just ... a working lad ... an insider."
And only Gurin walked around the camp with an air of im–
portance. He practiced burring his Leninist "r's". "You ag following
the tgue goad, Comgade Gecidivists!"
"Looks like him," the zeks would say. "Pure cinema."
Khuriev got more nervous each day. Gesha waddled, spoke his
lines jerkily, and kept adjusting a nonexistent Mauser. Lebedyeva
sobbed almost without interruption, even at her regular daytime
job. She put on so much weight that she no longer zipped up her
brown imported boots. Even Tsurikov-he too was slightly trans–
formed. He was overcome by a hoarse, tubercular cough, from
which he stopped scratching himself.
