Jason Overstreet - Beneath the Darkest Sky

“Comrade Sweet?” groveled Max. “Do you know the name of this new zek who is sleeping below you?”

“Yes,” I said, eyes closed. “Roy. He’s an American.”

“Okay. Thank you.” He kneeled down and turned his attention to Roy. “Hey, Comrade Roy! What is—”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” said Roy.

“I just wanted to know if you stole my toothpaste,” said Max.

“Get away from me!” said Roy.

Max stood again.

“Did you take my toothpaste, Comrade Sweet?” said Max, grabbing my foot and shaking it so I’d open my eyes.

“No, Max!” I said, eyes still closed.

“I think you did,” he said.

“I didn’t. Why don’t you continue making your rounds! I saw you earlier accusing Douglas, Richard, Chris, and Wendell of the same thing. Do you have something against the American zeks ?”

“How could I?” he raspily said, clearing his throat and spitting on the wood floor. “You know I’m an American, too.”

“Yeah,” I said, realizing this was the first time I’d spoken English in a long time, even James and I only speaking Russian to each other. “I do know you’re American, Max, and that’s why I’m puzzled at your choosing to pick on your fellow countrymen first. Go hassle Anatoly or Stanislav!”

“They only steal pencils,” said Max. “By the way, where did you get your pen?”

“How did you know I had a pen?” I said, turning on my side and opening my eyes.

“I saw you showing it to James the other day.”

“Koskinen gave it to me,” I said, looking at his rotten teeth, wondering if he’d ever even used toothpaste in his life. “By the way, where did you get toothpaste, Max? I haven’t seen or used any in a year.”

“My aunt sent me some rubles from Moscow. She is Russian. That’s how I ended up in this shithole. Visiting her!”

“Do they sell toothpaste in the commissary?” I asked.

“Sometimes. Usually the guards buy it all. But I got lucky. But now someone stole it.”

“It was probably Timofei or Yegor,” I whispered. “They’re the ones doing all of the stealing of rubles in this barracks. I heard that zeks like them—you know, actual hardened criminals—are being asked to do some of the policing for the NKVD. This has them feeling empowered to steal what they want from us politicals, as they know we can’t say or do anything about it. They take what they want.”

“Shit!” said Max. “And they already feed the criminals more than us politicals. I’m going to go find them.”

“You must have a death wish. I can tell you exactly where they are. They’re in the south corner beside the toilet room playing cards with those other eight, as always. Don’t you know this?”

“Yes,” he said. “I meant I’m going to go find them… as in… confront them. I’m going now.”

“Do you speak Russian? Because that’s all they understand.”

“No,” he said.

“I didn’t think so. Good luck, Max.”

He walked away and I shut my eyes again, letting the chatter and clinking throughout the barracks put me to sleep. These had once been the sorts of noises that kept me from sleeping, but now, on each night, after having simply survived the day, it all sounded like soothing rain. I knew this must also have been the case for James because he was already sound asleep up above me.

Having earlier sloshed the last bit of hot water around in my mouth to wash it, I lay there rubbing my teeth with my finger, trying to get the gunk off with my nail. A man’s gums and teeth rotting was a forgone conclusion in Stalin’s prisons. I was just trying to keep mine from eventually falling out. So far they were fine.

About an hour later I felt a tap on my arm. I opened my eyes to see Lovett standing there stone-faced. It scared me, so I jumped up. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, though.

“Easy, Bronzeville!” he said, many of his front teeth missing. “It’s just me.”

“My God!” I said, shocked as could be.

I rolled out of bed and stood. Both of us stared at each other. We were overcome with joy, pain, sadness, and disbelief. I felt tears forming in my eyes and could see some welling up in his, prompting both of us to break down and embrace. We must have stood there hugging for a good minute. My friend, like me, was much skinnier now, his beard bushy, specks of gray in his full head of nappy hair, a far cry from the slick, bald look he’d previously sported.

“What happened to your ear?” I said, both of us speaking English.

“One of those evil, murdering motherfuckers on the ship from Vladivostok bit half of it off when I tried to stop him from killing an Estonian comrade of mine. And his bite worked. He and his partner still wound up killing him. Beat him with their bare fists over a ration of fuckin’ black bread. Hell… at least I tried.”

“Biting is all they do in the prisons,” I said, showing him my thumb and webbing. “With no knives or other weapons available on the ships or in the barracks, teeth might as well be switchblades.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I said, “More than once I’ve seen one zek kill another with a hammer or saw. But teeth have caused by far the most injuries.”

“Speaking of teeth,” he said, opening his mouth and touching his upper and lower gums, “another thing that happened to me when I first left Kazakhstan for Vladivostok was the guards decided I wasn’t moving fast enough to board the train, so they took a baton to my mouth and knocked most of my front teeth out, as you can see. My lips were split open real good, too, but they had a nurse stitch me up right there on the train before we departed. Had ’em removed in Vladivostok.”

I shook my head with disappointment, and again we stood there holding our words, trying to let this stunning set of circumstances settle in. He looked up at James sleeping and half smiled. Then he looked down and past me like he was transfixed on something not present.

“How long ago were you arrested?” I said.

“Too damn long ago,” he said, snapping to.

I leaned over and touched the new zek , Roy.

“Yeah,” he said, opening his eyes.

“Excuse me, Roy. But would you mind taking my middle bunk for a while? I desperately need to sit and talk to my other American friend here. I’d really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” said Roy, rolling out of bed and hopping up to my spot. In the forty-eight hours he’d been here, the two of us had shown nothing but respect for each other.

“Thank you,” I said, Lovett and I sitting on his bed.

“Sure is good to see another colored face,” said Lovett, both of us shaking our heads in disbelief.

“I tried for almost two years to find out from B when I could see you after you left Moscow in late 1935. But she kept telling me she had lost touch with you. It was as if your wife had been hurt by you.”

“Na,” he said. “The entire thing was a lie. That night we met you and Loretta at the Foreign Workers’ Club, we had already received some bad news.”

“Come again.”

“About a week before that night, I’d been at that same club and had gotten into an argument with a couple of CPUSA members about that damn Langston Hughes book of all things. A book entitled, The Ways of White Folks . I had claimed that the book did too much pandering to white people. Well, Hughes is a hero to the Soviet Union, just like Robeson. Somebody in the audience reported my diatribe to the blue tops. Subsequently, they paid me a visit the next day and branded me a ‘counterrevolutionary’ right there on the spot. They visited B and me every day during the course of that next week, asking all sorts of questions.”