Sean Michaels - Us Conductors

In the morning I learned our brigade had finished below quota for the fifth straight day. We were ordered to work an extra two hours. I saw the Boxer exchange a look with Sergey. Both urki seemed to be losing their night vision. Or perhaps I had imagined it. They shook their heads and slumped up the path. It was one of those mornings when you notice the size of the sky, the strange quiet, the endless roll of the land past the wire. You remember that you are at the very edge of things.

I worked all day and for two more hours, pushing my tripping wheelbarrow through the frost. All day, carrying stone.

The group completed only three trips.

That evening I lay in my bunk, on my side, trying to tune out the conversations around me. I was tired and so hungry. I was thinking.

Finally, I rolled off the boards and went searching for Nikola.

THE MAJOR AGREED TO see us before the midday meal.

Vanya, our guard, found me in line.

“Now?” I said.

“Now.”

I gazed at the queue ahead of me. I discovered I was ready to give the whole scheme up. None of my grand ideas were worth as much as that ladle of pea soup.

“Did you hear me?” Vanya said.

Bigfoot was watching us from the next queue over.

“Forget it,” I said.

“Forget it?” Vanya was short-tempered but not so bad. He always slouched in his uniform, as if the epaulets forced him to lean forward. He stared at me, and the line, gradually comprehending. “You can eat after,” he said.

I tried to gauge his honesty.

“Where’s Nikola?” I said.

“He’s meeting us at the officers’ building.”

From his place in line, Bigfoot looked worried. I gestured that it was all right.

I still had not left the queue.

“Termen?”

“All right,” I snapped. I came away from the line. It was as if I were extruding a sword from my side.

We walked in silence. The grass was stamped down, speckled with snow. Nikola was waiting for us on the steps, hands in pockets. “Hello,” I said. He didn’t answer.

Vanya rolled his eyes at this little performance. “All right, then?” he said.

Nikola sniffed. He muttered yes.

I nodded.

We followed Vanya inside the building. I had never been through this door. The entranceway was bare and whitewashed. The walls kept the wind out. A bouquet of pale blue blossoms rested in a vase and for a moment we watched them as we walked, Nikola and I, the prisoners.

We came to a door with the major’s name. Vanya knocked.

The major said, “Come in.”

We huddled into his little office. There were no windows. There was a painting of Red Square and a painting of Stalin and a painting of a peasant woman with a cow. There were pinned-up charts and many typed lists. The major was a young man with a roman nose, long hair pulled back in a tie. He was not thin but he was quite handsome, with a straight clear look. I assumed his long hair was a violation of the military dress code. Like his age, like his assignment, it suggested the major was either very good or very bad at his work.

Vanya saluted.

The major nodded wearily. “All right, junior lieutenant. Proceed.”

Vanya hesitated. “If it’s all right, sir, I’ll let the prisoners speak for themselves.”

“Fine. What are your names?” The major took a short breath.

“Lev Sergeyvich Termen.”

“Nikola Zharykhin,” Nikola said.

“You’re both on Junior Lieutenant Bragin’s roads team?”

I had become nervous. The major was writing our names on the pad in front of him. This seemed like a record, already; like evidence, liability, a reason somehow to give us each five more years.

I said nothing. Nikola eyed me, disquieted. The major was still waiting for a response. He cleared his throat. “Yes?”

“Yes.” I tried to shake off my anxiety. “Wheelbarrows.”

The major offered an even smile. “Wheelbarrows.” He crossed his arms. “Well, what’s this idea?”

Another silence.

I realized no one was going to speak if I did not.

“To improve efficiency,” I murmured.

“I’m not going to give you any more food, Termen.”

I had noticed the radio on the major’s desk, the dish with a piece of sausage, the photograph of two children.

“No,” I said. “No, let me explain.”

“Yes?”

“Comrade Zharykhin and I were discussing our work and we had a realization. So we consulted with Lieutenant, er, Bragin, and he was very helpful as we — er, distilled this concept into, well—”

“Cut to it.”

I swallowed. “The main detriment to our team’s production total is the rate at which we travel with our loads between sites.”

“The wheelbarrows,” the major said drily.

“Yes. Or, really, the roads. In most conditions the transit is very slow.”

“I cannot give you new roads, Termen. New roads are what we are trying to build .”

“Yes sir, but the thought is this: tracks for the wheelbarrows. Runners.”

“Made of what?”

“Wood. Simple planks. Perhaps with a groove down the centre.”

“Hm.” The major tapped his pad. Vanya, hunching in his uniform, exhaled.

“These planks would just sit on the road and you would push your wheelbarrows along them?”

“That’s right. By my rough estimate, the use of tracks would accelerate each transit by as much as four hundred percent.”

The major narrowed his eyes. “By four times?”

I hesitated. “Less in the summer.”

The major’s lips twitched. “Hm,” he said again. But then he realized the obvious thing and he straightened, skeptical. “How far do you travel with these wheelbarrows?”

“About ten kilometres,” I said. “I will save you the arithmetic: it would take several thousand runners to line the whole route.”

The major said, “So we will cut down a forest? To save you some work?”

“There is another solution.”

Nikola shifted beside me.

“It requires just six pieces of wood.”

“Is there a section of the route that is particularly precarious?” the major asked.

“No,” I said quietly. “We could take three pieces of wood, tied end to end, with a rope handle at the front. One member of the team does not push a wheelbarrow — he lays down this section of track. When all the carts have passed over it, he hauls the track ahead of them.”

“One section of rail, advancing with the group.”

“Yes. But we do not want to waste time waiting for the track to advance. So we could use two men, each with three lengths of track.”

“When the wheelbarrows have passed over the first stretch, that man runs to the front.”

“Precisely.”

“But it would also remove two men from the work crew.” The major picked up his pencil. “So total production would only …”

“Six men working at triple capacity still more than doubles the production of eight men.”

The major squinted. “If we expand the team from eight men to ten — keeping two for the rails …”

I considered for a moment. “Comparing like with like, it improves production by a minimum of 2.4.”

The major clicked his tongue. He lifted his eyes to look at Vanya. The junior lieutenant seemed to freeze.

“Very good, Bragin.”

Vanya all but melted into the floor.

“And you too, Zharykhin.”

Nikola inclined his head.

“And you, Termen, what are you?”

“Sir?”

“An engineer?”

Standing in that sunless room, for the first time in many months, I felt a thing called pride.

“I’m a scientist,” I said.

“Termen the scientist.” The major made a note on his pad. “Our own little expert.”