Jason Overstreet - Beneath the Darkest Sky

“I would rather be a cow or a horse,” said Yury, walking beside me. “At least they have proper stalls and barns. And I bet hay tastes better than the black bread or the urine soup they give us.”

“I, for one, am looking forward to the soup,” I said. “Let’s try to think positive. Maybe we can salvage our sanity for a little while longer, Yury.”

“You Americans!”

“I’m starving,” said Mikhail, dragging his feet.

“So am I,” said Boris.

“Listen to me,” said the old man Abram, his Russian rather raspy, his old body damn near completely withered away. “Besides the boy here, James, we’ve all spent decades eating food, filling our bellies to maximum I’ll bet. So now it is time to overcome this feeling of hunger. It’s just that. A feeling! Overcome it! Think of the thousands and thousands of meals you’ve eaten, and imagine they were all consumed so you could survive this day, this week, this month, these years. Our lives have been a feast, and now we must accept this nothingness for a while and not succumb to it. It will all balance out in the end, this life of feasting and starving. We are loaded with nutrients, equipped to survive the torture. At least you all! My battle is with age.”

“You seem to be walking just fine, Abram,” I said.

“Because I was a runner.” He coughed. “Even when I was teaching history at the university in Leningrad for all of those decades, I’d run every day at lunch with a colleague. In fact, he’s the one I was visiting in Moscow when we were both arrested. Where he is now, I don’t know.”

“What did you do for work, Prescott, when you were free?” asked Yury.

“I was an engineer and a teacher, and I worked for a diplomat. I was—”

“Look!” said Yury. “There are women in that camp on the other side of the barbed wire fence in the distance.”

The six of us looked to the north a couple hundred yards away.

“You told me the women went north from Moscow, Abram,” I said.

“No women came on our train,” he said. “Those women have been here. They came on different trains.”

“I want to see Mommy!” said James, crying and beginning to walk fast toward the fence.

“Stop, son!” I yelled, running after him, clutching his arm and giving him a hug. “Your mother is not there!”

“She is!” he said, trying to break free from me. “I know she is! I want to see her!”

“You will, son. You will. Just not right now. You hear?”

Sobbing, he nodded into my chest. He felt so light, and his cry was barely audible. His body was too worn down to make tears.

“I’m here, son. I love you. Nothing’s going to happen to you. But don’t run away from me again. Understand?”

Once more, he nodded.

“It’s okay!” said Abram, approaching and putting his arm around James. “You will see your mother again, boy. I am an old man who knows this. Look at me.”

James pulled away from my clutch and gazed up at the old, wise Russian.

“I miss my children, boy. I know you are scared.” He coughed. “But you have a strong father. Trust him. Stay by his side. All of you… come!”

The six of us all huddled together.

“We are in hell,” said Abram. “Stalin’s hell! But we can stick together and support one another… keep each other alive. Try not to think of tomorrow. Try to think of only right now. Help one another with kind words and encouragement. Our spirits won’t die. You, Boris… who did you leave behind?”

“My mother and father,” said the blond-haired twenty-something-year-old who’d been sitting to my left the entire trip. “But they are in Sweden. I was studying at Moscow State University. I learned Russian there.”

“Think of them,” said Abram. “And don’t stop. You will see them again. And you, Mikhail… you have been sitting to my right for a month and I’ve heard you weeping under your breath. Whom do you weep for?”

“My wife,” said Mikhail. “My parents have been dead for years. My sister lives in Paris, so she is alive and well. But my wife is still home in Moscow where I worked as a clerk. She is pregnant. My child will be born in weeks and I won’t be there. I will never see my child and wife again.”

The tall, handsome, olive-skinned Mikhail stiffened his arms at his sides, closed his eyes, and began to cry. He didn’t hold back, and the anguish on his young, angular face helped tell the story. He was maybe thirty, but the gray specks in his black hair and thin beard suggested he was aging rapidly.

“Be strong, young man!” said Abram, touching his hand to Mikhail’s shoulder. “You must stay alive for your yet unborn child and lovely wife. She will be waiting for you. I don’t care if you spend all ten years in the camps, you must stay alive.”

“It’s important to watch each other’s backs,” I said, scanning the population. “There might be some real animals in here. Zones be damned! It’s not enough to simply stay mentally strong. We have to stay mentally alert as well.”

“You and Boris are the only ones imposing enough to defend yourselves,” said Yury. “In fact, Comrade Sweet, you look like a sportsman. How have you managed to maintain your large build during this journey? Are you Americans all like this, like machines that don’t need food.” He looked at James. “Of course not! Your son looks like me. He looks weak and thin. But you, Comrade Sweet… you look very alive.”

“I began the trip in very good condition,” I said. “I had built up a lot of muscle and it has served me well, I suppose. But it will atrophy soon enough. Muscle isn’t immune to the negative effects of being sedentary, not even mine.”

“When I used to hear stories five years ago about the prisons,” said Abram, “I heard that they separated the politicals from the murderers and rapists. And I still believe it’s true. The guards just told us that story about monsters in our midst to further torture us. No! The real animals are in the zone on the other side, waiting to go to Kolyma where then we’ll have to avoid them.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but we should be cautious nonetheless. Maybe those on the other side are just the ones getting ready to leave first. We can’t be sure. Are you feeling okay, son?”

“My stomach is swollen,” he softly said, his Russian words nasal-sounding from his emotional episode.

“Mine feels the same way, James,” said Boris. “Yet I am still starving. It must be normal.”

“It is,” I said. “It’s just water retention in your gut, son. Bloat from a lack of protein. Try to ignore it.”

I had some extra bread in my pocket that I wanted to give James, but figured I’d wait until the two of us had a moment alone.

“Negro zek Sweet!” said the familiar guard approaching. “You need to come with me now.”

I looked at him and then at James. Was he here to take me for another private meal? Maybe. But the tone in his voice sounded different this time, more urgent. I couldn’t help but feel real concern over leaving James.

“Can my son come with me?” I boldly, and perhaps stupidly, asked.

“No! Come! Now!”

Abram nodded at me, telling me with his sunken, droopy eyes that he’d watch over my boy. The old man even put his arm around James to further ease my panic. But my instinct told me I would be leaving my boy for more than a few minutes this time.

“Please!” I said to the guard, pleading with my eyes, hoping the private meals I’d eaten in front of him had somehow led to him taking a personal liking to me. But they hadn’t. He frowned at me, raised his rifle, and struck me in the stomach.

“Daddy!” cried James, as Abram held him back.

I leaned over trying to catch my breath.