Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

The next day Vasily did what he had planned to do. He began complaining about the bread, saying that it was not properly cooked, and he urged the other prisoners to call the warden in and lodge an official complaint. The warden arrived and shouted abuse at them, and on discovering that Vasily was the one behind the whole thing he gave orders that he should be put into solitary confinement in one of the cells on the floor above.

That was exactly what Vasily needed.

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Vasily was thoroughly familiar with the upstairs cell into which they had put him. He knew how the floor was constructed and as soon as he got in there he set about taking it up. When he had managed to worm his way under the floorboards he prised apart the panels which formed the ceiling of the room below and jumped down, into the mortuary. That day there was only one dead body lying on the mortuary table. In the mortuary they kept the sacks used for making the prisoners’ palliasses. Vasily was aware of this and he was counting on it. The padlock on the door had been taken off and the hasp pushed inside. Vasily opened the door and went into the room at the end of the corridor, where a new latrine was being built. In the latrine there was a hole leading from the second floor down to the lowest one, the basement. Groping his way back to the door, Vasily went into the mortuary again, removed the shroud from the corpse, which felt icy cold (he touched it with his hand in taking the shroud off it), then took some sacks and tied them and the shroud together to form a rope, and lowered his rope down the latrine hole; then he made the rope fast round a cross-beam and climbed down it. The rope was not long enough to reach the floor. Just how much too short it was he did not know, but there was nothing for it, so he hung down as far as he could, then jumped.

He hurt his legs, but he could still walk. In the basement there were two windows. They were big enough for him to crawl through, but they were fitted with iron gratings. He had to get one of them out, but what with? Vasily began to fumble about. On the floor of the basement there were some sections of timber. He found one which had a pointed end and began using it to lever out the bricks which held the grating in place. He worked away at it for a long time. The cocks had crowed for the second time, but the grating still held. At last one side of it came loose. Vasily inserted his piece of timber into the gap and pushed hard on it; the whole grating came away, but a brick fell out and crashed to the floor. The sentries might have heard. Vasily froze. All was quiet. He climbed up into the window aperture, and out. To make his escape he still had to get over the prison wall. In one corner of the yard there stood a lean-to shed. He would have to climb on to the roof of this shed, and from there on to the top of the wall. He would need to take a piece of the timber with him, otherwise he would not be able to get on to the roof. Vasily crawled back through the window. He crawled out once more with a length of timber and froze, listening to find out where the sentry was. As far as he could judge the sentry was walking along the far side of the square yard. Vasily approached the lean-to, placed the timber against it and started to climb up. The timber slipped, and fell to the ground. Vasily was in stockinged feet, with no shoes. He took off his socks so as to get a grip with his feet, put the timber in place once more, sprang on to it and managed to get his hand over the roof guttering. ‘O Lord, don’t let it come away, let it hold.’ He gripped the guttering, then got one knee on to the roof. The sentry was coming. Vasily lay flat and froze. The sentry did not notice anything and continued on his way. Vasily leapt to his feet. The iron roof clattered beneath his feet. One more step, a second, and there was the wall in front of him. He could reach out and touch it. One hand, then the other, then he stretched up, and he was on the top of the wall. If only he didn’t smash himself to bits now, jumping down. Vasily turned round, hung by both arms, stretched out as far as he could, and let go one hand, then the other. ‘Lord be praised!’ – he was on the ground. And the ground was soft. His legs were undamaged and he ran off.

When he reached his house at the edge of the town Malanya opened the door to him, and he crawled under the warm patchwork quilt which was impregnated with the smell of sweat.

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