SERGEI DOVLATOV
187
The day of the dress rehearsal arrived. They glued little beards
and mustaches on Lenin and Dzerzhinsky . To this end, they re–
leased a counterfeiter named Zhuravsky from solitary, temporarily.
He had a steady hand and professional, artistic taste.
At first , Gurin had wanted to grow out his beard. But the se–
curity officer said it was against regulations. Still, for a month before
the performance, the actors were permitted to grow out their hair.
Gurin remained with his historically authentic bald head. Gesha
turned out to be a redhead. And Tsurikov sprouted an entirely ap–
propriate skewbald crew cut.
For costumes they dressed Lenin in a tight civilian suit, which
corresponded to real life. For Gesha, they borrowed a leather jacket
from Lieutenant Rodichev. Lebedyeva shortened a velvet party
dress . Tsurikov was alloted a khaki tunic .
And so the seventh of November finally came around. Four red
flags hung on the fences from early morning. The fifth was fastened
to the building of the penal isolator. The sounds of the "Varshav–
yanka" carried from all the metal loudspeakers.
The only ones who worked that day were the orderlies from the
housekeeping services. The logging sector was closed . The produc–
tion brigades all stayed in the zone.
Prisoners roamed aimlessly about the open yard. By one in
the afternoon, some began to appear drunk. It was more or less the
same in the barracks. Many had gone for liquor early in the morn–
ing. The rest wandered about the area in unbuttoned fatigue shirts.
The rifle park was guarded by six trusted re-enlistees. A
sergeant stood guard outside the provisions storeroom. On the an–
nouncement board, a memo had been posted, entitled, "On the in–
tensification of military watchfulness on the occasion of the Jubilee ."
Toward three o'clock, they assembled the prisoners on the
square by Barrack Six. The head of the camp, Major Amosov, gave
a short speech . He said, "Revolutionary holidays touch every Soviet
citizen. Even those who temporarily stumbled ... killed someone,
stole , raped, in general, made some kind of stir. . . . The Party
gives to these people the possibility to reform, leads them through
unrelenting physical labor toward socialism. In short, all hail the
jubilee of our Soviet government. But as for drunkards and smokers,
we will , as they say, call them to account .. . not to mention
sodomists. As it is, half the she-goats in the area have been messed
with , you no-good-"
"That's a funny one," a voice called out from the rows of men .
