Return from Vorkuta [antikvár]

He sat on the unyielding boards of the passenger-carbench, smelling the rank effluvia of crowded bodies, vodka,and the stench of the communal parasha at the end of thecar. Around him huddled ragged men, women, and babies,most of them like himself freed from siblagsthe correc-tional labor camps of Russian Siberiaor from the osoblagerhard-regime camps like Magadan, Kolyma, and the Pechoramines.Survivors all, dehumanized, unreasoning creatures from afrozen underworld. Brutish troglodytes. Some with remnantsof families waiting at stops along the way; others who wouldbe met at the Potrna redistribution center. And still others,like himself, who had no family at all in Russia.With a piece of newsprint he rolled a cigarette of strongmakhorka, lighting it from a smoldering wick that passedfrom hand to hand among the passengers. Those who didnot smoke dipped into cones of sunflower seeds purchasedat Ukhta, the last train stop.Unlike his squat Slav companions he was tall, but in com-mon with them his face wore the grained evidence of emacia-tion. Deep-set eyes and a falcon nose set him apart from thenative Russians, and as he studied their stolid faces his handlifted and touched a deep scar that slashed'down across hischeekbone from the corner of his right eye. It was a mark,a physical alteration, which saved him from the facelessanonymity of existence in the siblags. KF 728 his numberhad been. Kontrik * KF 728: survivor of two wars; Lubianka,Lefortovo, and Butyrki prisons; Userda, Novostroika, andfinally Vorkutathe siblags where he had spent twenty yearsof his life, twenty wasted years that had ground away youngmanhood and left him in middle age.His eyes peered through the steamed window at the frozensteppes beyond. Here in the white wasteland there was no* Political prisoner sentenced under Article 58.