Beneath the Darkest Sky Read online

  7

  A Far East Forest, Russia

  September 1937

  I HAD BEEN AWAY FROM THE TRANSIT CAMP NEAR VLADIVOSTOK FOR about two weeks now, hidden away in the woods at Camp Z with a few hundred other male prisoners. We’d been tasked to cut down pine trees from dusk ’til dawn. No talking allowed unless it involved logistics. All of the men here were robust and fit, and most had a vicious air about them, many covered in tattoos and scars. I’d come to learn that a large percentage of Soviet prisoners convicted of violent crimes were covered in ink. They could easily double as pirates.

  Unlike my rather tame, scraggly beard, theirs were messy-long and caked with sawdust. They were young and muscle bound, as they were getting plenty of lifting exercise and hadn’t been deprived of food or water. Yet! Still, for the time being, one of the advantages of being stuck out here in the woods was getting to eat three hot meals a day.

  I was beyond worried about the well-being of James back at the transit camp, or wherever else he might be, but chose to believe Abram was looking after him as he’d promised. Still, I wondered whether or not the old man had finally succumbed to malnutrition. If he had, perhaps Boris or Yury was watching over my boy now.

  I tried not to think about what forms of brutality Loretta and Ginger might be suffering somewhere on this grand continent. Imagining their condition was too much to handle. I knew that no matter their circumstances, my wife and daughter would remain strong. Believing all of this was the only thing keeping me from falling further and further into Stalin’s perfectly assembled abyss.

  As I stood next to a tall pine tree, holding my end of a long, two-man chainsaw, my partner and I began to cut through the thick trunk—woodchips spraying our brown sleeveless coveralls and white undershirts, sap spitting at our goggles. I was holding the end with the levers, my partner the handle portion. As the rotating chain continued ripping through the wood, he and I braced for the big fall.

  “DEREVO PADAYET!” we yelled, as the tree began to tip and fall downward.

  Both of us took a big step back and listened to the big pine crash into the shrubby hillside. Looking past its top, I noticed two shiny black automobiles approaching on the dirt road at the bottom of the slope. They parked near the guard’s barracks and six men in pristine uniforms got out.

  “PUT DOWN YOUR CHAINSAWS!” yelled the guard who’d been tasked to watch over the six of us in this immediate area. “Time for lunch. When you are finished, you are to convene at the peeling yard. One of our commanders wants to speak to all of you zeks.”

  The guard led us down the slope and past a line of big trucks loaded with fresh-cut logs. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that a major part of Stalin’s prison system involved forestry. I’d heard from other mates, however, that up north in Kolyma, zeks were not tasked to do logging. They were sent out to mine for gold. It sounded as if Stalin had established an elaborate enterprise, all of it seemingly designed to line his own pockets while zeks across the land did his slave labor, hardly part of Karl Marx’s original plan.

  We finished eating our fish and beets at the food barracks and convened on the peeling yard, the perimeter lined with gun-carrying NKVD men. There wasn’t a second of the day when an armed unit of guards wasn’t watching our every move. And thankfully so, as I was certain there were savage murderers among us.

  The peeling yard was a large plot of land where freshly cut pines were dumped. It was here where the nubs were sawed off, the bark peeled away, and the trunks turned into usable logs. There was no visible dirt or vegetation on the yard, as it was completely covered with sawdust, aromatic pine needles, and bark peels.

  The most grueling part of being at Camp Z was having to pull trees down from the hillside to the road. Before pulling them, however, the treetops and most of the thick branches were sawed off. Then a chain was wrapped around the trunk, a thick rope tied to it. From there the trees had to be dragged to the road and loaded onto a low, flatbed trailer using a winch. The trailer was hauled away by a truck to the peeling yard. Pulling trees down the slope was excruciating labor, a team of men clutching a resin-covered rope and using every bit of strength just to move it a measly foot through the thick shrubs.

  Most of the labor on this camp was done by way of sheer man power. There was only one bulldozer and a single skidder at the camp, both located at the peeling yard. The first was used to clear and haul excess, the second to load peeled and ready logs onto the transport trucks. Luckily, because I could operate heavy machinery, I’d had more than my fair share of opportunities to man the skidder.

  If a zek were lucky, he’d get maintenance detail. This involved repairing, refueling, oiling, and cleaning the chainsaws at the tool barracks. It also meant removing resin from the handheld bark peelers with gasoline before sharpening them. Another routine job was that of a finisher. This person’s job was to receive the trunks at the peeling yard, saw off the remaining branches, and then peel off the bark.

  In the end, regardless of what job one had, the days passed quickly. None of us was immune to getting an inordinate amount of splinters stuck in our fingers and arms, or blisters on our glove-covered palms. I’d also swallowed plenty of sawdust.

  * * *

  As we finished filing into the peeling yard, I noticed a makeshift, shallow, wooden stage that had been assembled. And on it, sitting side-by-side, were the six men I’d seen exit the two black vehicles earlier. Joseph Stalin was not amongst them, but each had the same air as the communist dictator. Their uniforms were adorned with medals, and they sat very erect, half smiling, as if they were looking out at us with a certitude regarding our ultimate fates.

  The guards had positioned the few hundred of us zeks directly in front of the stage in rows of twenty-five. We hadn’t a clue what this meeting involved, and the looks of curiosity on the tired, black-oil faces around me begged for clarity.

  “REMAIN STANDING!” yelled an NKVD officer from the stage. “You are some very lucky zeks today! Sitting on this stage are six of the top men in charge of our Great Stalin’s Far East Logging Company. This is one of many logging camps, but you are supposedly the most robust zeks in this part of the country. These bosses have come to judge who among you is the best example of strength and determination. Who among you is the greatest fighter? Perhaps one of you is worthy of having your sentence reduced by two years. Or, for you monsters, your life sentence cut to twenty years. Is any one of you out there such a man?”

  “DA!” yelled all of the zeks, many of them foaming at the mouth at this surprising news. The screaming and hand-raising continued for at least a minute, as the men were desperate to hear their names called.

  “QUIET DOWN!” the officer finally yelled, and we immediately did so. “Calm yourselves, zeks! You all don’t know this, but we have been monitoring some of you for a long time, even from the time you were initially arrested. You were all selected to do logging because of your size and strength. But once you arrived here, we began comprising a list of the men we believe are truly the most impressive.”

  He took a sheet of paper from inside his jacket and prepared to read.

  “When we call your name, please come to the stage. And let me be very clear! If selected, you will be expected to fight each match until one of you can no longer move, either because of death, or because you are unconscious. If you stop before that . . . you will be taken away and shot! Now! Listen for your name!”

  All of the prisoners looked around at one another in anticipation. Not a single zek among us was afraid to fight if it meant a sentence reduction. I prayed they’d call my name.

  “Anatoly Ivanov!” he read aloud. “Bogdan Smirnov! Vitaly Petrov! Viktor Fedorov! Prescott Sweet! Leonid Nikita! Baldric Falke! Ziegler Hoffman!”

  I was standing in the back and began approaching the stage with both anxiousness and concern. All of these selected prisoners were at least six-foot-two like me, or taller, but they were thicker men, more muscular. The air of each suggested they were mo
re comfortable with death. Perhaps many of them didn’t have a family back home. What we all likely had in common was that we had killed before, albeit most of them looked as if they’d used their bare hands. Their victims probably hadn’t been on the receiving ends of bullets as mine had back in my Bureau days.

  “These are the eight men we have selected to do battle tonight!” said the officer. “We are giving you all a reprieve from work early today so you can have a good meal and enjoy the entertainment this evening. There will only be three more hours of work for you today! Then you can feast on chicken and potatoes!”

  The men bellowed as if they’d been offered a million dollars. The eight of us stood facing the six bosses, our backs to the crowd, while at the same time sizing one another up. The bosses smiled at us in a disturbing fashion, as if we were a line of prostitutes they were sizing up before making a final selection. And I’d seen this smile a lot on the faces of powerful Soviet men, particularly one Joseph Stalin. It was basically half smile, half frown. I liked to call it a “smown.”

  “Turn now and face your comrades!” said the officer, and the eight of us followed suit. “Two of these men at a time will dual each other. We have five Russians, two Germans, and one American. Who will win? We believe that one of our Russian comrades will take the trophy. They must! No German or American can win!”

  He locked eyes with the bosses. All of them nodded and smowned at him from under their hats with approval.

  “They have to win because they have Russian blood!” he continued. “Actually, we believe the zek from Leningrad standing on the far end over there will be triumphant. Are we correct, Leonid?”

  The massive Russian nodded with confidence. He was at least six-four and riddled with tattoos. He had dark black hair, and his messy, long beard covered most of his dirty, square face. His legs looked like tree trunks, his arms, like legs.

  “This will be like our own private Olympic Games,” said the officer. “Maybe our Negro American can win the fights the way his comrade Jesse Owens won the races last year in Berlin. You think yes, American zek?”

  He studied me and I nodded, not knowing if confidence was something I should show.

  “You are big, but not the biggest,” he said to me. “But you look like a perfect specimen. Very fit. If Leonid is our finest physical man, perhaps you are America’s. Who wins?”

  The prisoners began to yell different words, but it was unclear what they were saying.

  “QUIET!” shouted the officer, and the crowd hushed. “I am talking to the American.”

  The officer turned to the bosses, then back to me. My being an American took center stage for the moment. My country obviously drew the ire of these men. Or, maybe the fact that Jesse Owens had dominated at the Berlin Games had the whole of the Soviet Union pining to prove their might. After all, they hadn’t participated in the Games. But it was Germany who’d won the most medals. Why were they fixated on me? I could only guess it was my color.

  “Which country is better, you American?” he continued, completely disregarding the other fighters, particularly the two Germans. “This is not about communism versus capitalism. This is about Russian blood versus American blood. What you eat and breathe and drink and pray to on your soil, versus what we eat and breathe and drink and pray to on ours. You pray to Jesus . . . to God! We pray to our Dear Comrade Stalin, who is the Father of Nations, the Guiding Star. So! We shall see!”

  Later that night, with the peeling yard’s perimeter lined with officers, the entire camp population assembled once again, this time in a large horseshoe formation, the open end occupied by the shallow stage. Large logs had been placed in the shape of said horseshoe, serving as the only barrier between the fighters and the crowd.

  The zeks had been instructed to sit on the ground, while the bosses sipped vodka from their seats above. Poles had been placed in the ground along the perimeter of the entire horseshoe, behind the prisoners, ropes attached from one pole to the other. Hanging from them were several gas lamps that illuminated the entire area.

  The eight of us fighters were being kept in an adjacent work shed. Surrounded by hanging chainsaws, large oil and gas cans, tools, and spare peeler blades, all we could do was wait and listen.

  “WELCOME BACK, ZEKS!” the officer yelled from the stage outside. “GET QUIET AND LISTEN! We want you to scream and cheer for the combatants, but make no mistake . . . if you stand up, you will have your teeth knocked out immediately. Stay behind the logs! And if you stand up and try to move inside the ring, you will be shot. We don’t want to have to kill any zeks tonight. The only men who should die . . . maybe . . . are the ones who lose inside the ring. If one of the fighters falls into the crowd, just push him back inside. Now! Are ready to see some blood?”

  “DA!” they screamed.

  The eight of us sat in different areas of the gasoline-smelling shed and listened to the crowd hoot and holler. They’d been set ablaze upon hearing the word blood. I wasn’t making eye contact with any of my opponents. I just sat on a metal work stool in the corner, my knees apart, forearms resting on my thighs, head hanging down, as I stared at the oil drips decorating the wooden floor.

  “Vitaly Petrov and Leonid Nikita!” said an officer entering the shed. “You two are up first. Let’s go! You are to fight until Officer Kozlov calls the match off from the stage. No exceptions. If you surrender before then, it will not be good for you. That goes for all of you. You are fighting to have your sentence reduced. Don’t forget that.”

  About an hour later I was still waiting to be called for my fight. The other three brawls had already finished, and I was to take part in the fourth against one of the Germans, Baldric Falke. The winner of our match would join the other three who’d already won, the massive Russian, Leonid, being one of them.

  No one had been killed so far, but the three who’d lost had been dragged back inside our shed, saturated in blood and pummeled beyond recognition. The victors were now being housed somewhere else. Why these horribly wounded men hadn’t been taken to Camp Z’s hospital was a mystery. And not a single nurse had been called to the shed. The beaten men were being left to die.

  One of the battered zeks, Vitaly Petrov, had suffered the most gruesome of injuries. He, unlike the other two, wasn’t moaning because he was unconscious. According to what I’d heard the officers say upon dumping him near a pile of rusted winch cable, both of his testicles had been ripped away from his body. The officers had also laughed about the Russian’s ungodly misfortune before they’d exited.

  The sudden horror surrounding me was unspeakable. The shed felt like a blood-dripping slaughterhouse, and I had visions of waiting to be thrown into a meat grinder. My body ached and throbbed and I hadn’t even been touched yet.

  I closed my eyes and tried to counter the grotesqueness by thinking of my sweet wife and daughter, the tenderness of their simple smiles, the softness of their gentle touch, the kindness in their every word. I pictured my son doing his best to stay alive, his innate and beautiful optimism being put to the ultimate test. I kept my eyes closed until finally they came for me. It was time.

  My opponent and I walked toward the ring, as the crowd, now worked into a complete frenzy, began to roar even louder. I gazed at the stage and the vodka-guzzling bosses. They’d had their appetites plenty wetted at this point and appeared all the more ready to see more violence.

  The men in our path gladly moved aside, creating an opening for us. We stepped over the log and entered the ring. My eyes were fixed straight down and I could see blood splattered everywhere. Many of the bark peels were dark red now, and some of the sawdust and pine needles had been turned into bloody clumps. There were even pieces of human tissue scattered about, evidence that the combatants had bitten each other. But none of this distracted me. I was focused on James, Loretta, and Ginger. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  We stood in the center of the horseshoe, the hanging lamps beyond the crowd illuminating an otherwise pitch-black night. Baldric
Falke had white-blond hair and was my height. And like all the other fighters was covered in tattoos. He stood there bouncing up and down, all the while his knees bent and butt down like a wrestler. His face was twisted up into an intense frown. Even with his mouth closed, I could see some of his rotten teeth through his mangled cleft lip.

  “BORBA!” yelled Officer Kozlov from the stage.

  He had yelled for us to fight, and Baldric charged immediately, aiming for my midsection in an attempt to tackle me. I moved aside and he whiffed, still managing to keep his balance, however. I was focused on breathing, on not wasting any movements. Every punch I threw needed to be efficient, every kick I attempted, precise.

  “KILL THAT AMERICAN!” yelled someone, as the two of us stood five feet apart, circling.

  He lunged at me again and I went belly to the ground, grabbing both of his legs in the process and tripping him as he continued forward with his momentum. We were both on the ground now. I wasn’t about to wrestle him, so I jumped to my feet again before he could secure me in his grasp. He rolled over and up onto his knees but didn’t get to his feet fast enough. I kicked him square in the jaw with my heavy boot. I’d hurt him, even feeling a sharp pain in my own foot.

  The big German stayed on all fours shaking his head, trying to get the dizzy out, but the kick had landed in the sweet spot and he was struggling. I moved forward and delivered a heavy uppercut to his face, dropping him flat on his back. As the crowd shouted, I turned to the stage. The bosses showed no reaction. They simply waited for Baldric to get up. I watched him struggling, coughing up blood until it covered his face. I didn’t want to kill this man. I had no ill will toward him. But he damn sure appeared willing to kill me.

  I looked again at the bosses, assuming they wanted me to charge Baldric and finish the job. We were like Roman gladiators brought back from the past to fulfill these Soviet monsters’ sick, perverted fantasies. All of this was being done for their pure entertainment. It was evil. Yet I knew there was no choice, for if I refused to fight, they’d shoot me. Regardless, I looked at them and held my hands out, palms up, suggesting as best I could for them to call the fight off and drag this wounded man away. But they only sat there stone-faced, the crowd summoning, “KILL, KILL, KILL!”