Pigsty

By noon, my hands were no longer holding the ax, and I almost cut my leg twice. Only high military boots saved the day. The blade slipped down the boot on one occasion and got stuck in the welt another time. Otherwise, I would have lost a toe or more.

“And here is the invention of our times. Better than the light bulb,” announced Victor, a tall and strong guy, whom we called, naturally, Bolshoi (Big). He tore a strip of fabric from his shirt and bandaged his hand to the ax. “Quite another matter,” he concluded, chopping the log a couple of times with an ax. “And most importantly, it will not slip out of the hand and will not inadvertently cut into any of the vital organs.”

“You can’t reach the vital organs with an ax,” Sergey corrected him, pushing up the end of another log on the wall where Bolshoi stood, who sharply stuck the lower corner of his ax into the log and dragged it along the wall, while Sergey carried the other end.

Together, they easily put the log into place. Bolshoi quickly drilled it through with an electric drill, going deeply into the lower log. Sergey drove a wooden pin into the hole, while Bolshoi drilled another hole, where Sergey then drove another pin.

“I am not sure that’s true,” he said, driving an ax into the next log pushed up by Sergey. “The head, for example, is a vital organ, and you can get it with an ax.”

“Only if somebody else tries to tickle your skull for fun or another purpose,” – objected Sergey, helping him to lay the log on the wall. “Yourself, you can only hit the forehead with a butt.”

They quickly fastened the log with pins on the top of the wall, and Sergey jumped down to grab another log. He pulled out a cigarette from a pack with his teeth. After hard work, the fingers did not bend. He then tried to open a matchbox and to fish out the match. Swollen fingers barely fit inside the matchbox. He was huffing and puffing, trying this and that, until Alexey has noticed his suffering, came up and gave him a light from his cigarette.

In general, the matches turned out to be the most useful thing we brought with us. In addition to making a fire and lighting a cigarette – the two main outlets in continuous pushing the body over its objections – they also saved us from a gnat – our biggest concern during the entire season.

We brought with us three different types of gnat repellants, and they did their job. A cloud of these parasites buzzed around each of us, but the repellant pushed them away, and only rare kamikaze reached the skin. The first two weeks, our faces were swollen, but then the swelling began to subside – the body probably got used to it – and we almost did not react to the bites anymore. But the eyes remained unprotected, and every few minutes a tiny nasty thing flew into the eye, and it was not always possible to simply blink it out. This is where the matches came in handy.

The sufferer, the attacked eye closed, took out a match and walked to the nearest comrade, silently giving him the saving wooden stick, with which he pulled the beast out of his eye. This happened so often that everything was done in silence, without any thanks or other comments.

Swollen from the gnat, with swollen and stiff fingers, we continued to work from dawn until dusk, collecting the instrument just before the complete darkness – fourteen hours a day – knowing that in two weeks the body would get used to it and begin getting stronger. You just have to be patient. That was how it went every summer when we – university students, future physicists – went to Siberia to earn money in remote places where there is not enough labor or doing what the locals refused to do at such low prices. For the rest of the year, we “worked” with fountain pens only. Well, we also played soccer in a hockey rink. That was the greatest physical stress we put on ourselves. So, at the beginning of each summer, we had to endure until the body gets into the right shape.

That summer we have signed up to build a pigsty not far from Lake Baikal. There were six of us, and we figured that if we work seven days a week and all daylight hours, then we can make it. The work was lump-sum, that is, almost without advance payment – so that the construction would not be left unfinished. I don’t remember how much money we agreed on. I just remember that it didn’t look significant if you did it for six months. But if you could complete the project within two or three months, then it turned out well.

Soon, however, one of us fell ill, began to cough up blood, and had to go home. Another one was called by his family by telegram. Someone was dying or some other necessity demanded his presence – I don’t remember – so, only the four of us remained.

We had just finished digging trenches for the foundation and were sitting, thinking, to take the risk of continuing and not finishing until the first snow in September (God forbid, it will fall early!) or quit now and try to find another – smaller – job.

On the other hand, we already looked for a job when we first arrived here. The problem was that that summer the Baikal-Amur Mainline (the legendary “BAM”) – the railroad from Bratsk to the Pacific Ocean – was under construction. A lot of people came here hoping to make some money, but the bridge over the Lena River had not yet been built. So, everyone got stuck on this side of the river and, waiting for the winter, when Lena freezes, took over all the jobs in the area. We were actually lucky that we had managed to sign up a contract for this pigsty. That’s why there was little hope of finding another job.

Yet, we tried after we had found out at what low wages we were going to work. We boarded a freight train and rode along the railroad two hundred miles in each direction. One of us jumped off at the next station or village and went to inquire about the availability of work. We combed the area thoroughly and found nothing. And now we had either to finish the pigsty or go home.

So, we were sitting there, trying to figure out what to do. And around us, the taiga was towering – a solid wall of tall – twenty meters high – trees. It stood like this for thousands of years, when the mammoths were still around. Well, mammoths would not have passed here. They most likely wandered in open places – on the tundra. So, there was no one here before the village was established – neither people nor animals. Animals need water, and from here it was several hundred kilometers to the nearest river.

The feeling of a mighty eternity that surrounded us from all sides made our problems insignificant and the pain from palms rubbed to blood – unimportant. With admiration and respect, we looked into the face of nature, while it calmly and even indifferently did its job, regardless of our efforts and desires.

Taiga filled the air with healthy forest smells so densely that it seemed to be enough to maintain strength in the body even without food. And the beauty of sunrises and sunsets restored harmony in the soul. Just for this, it was worth coming here.

Bolshoi broke the silence first.

“We can try and remove the fence from the contract,” he said. “This will shorten the completion time by a week.”

Everyone understood that this was not enough, but it showed that Bolshoi was inclined to stay. So, everyone began to think about how else to reduce the scope of work.

“I’ve been thinking about the cesspool before,” said Sergey. “It is what? Ten meters by ten and three meters deep. It is a lot of digging for us four. And there is no excavator in sight, I asked.”

A cesspool is a concrete pit where all the excess from the pigsty should be collected. We were going to dig it out and to mix up concrete manually. That was a significant part of the total estimate.

“But there is a bulldozer,” continued Sergey. “Given the situation, for us, it is more important to complete the project faster than to save money. We can rent the bulldozer and roll out a depression three meters deep. We then put up the formwork, brace it the inside, so it does not collapse, and then push the dirt back on the outside. I think we can win three weeks this way.”

It was the critical moment for making a decision. A whole month less! This gave us hope, provided, of course, that nothing unexpected happens and we could sustain the physical exhaustion.

But we were young and believed that the whole world was focused on helping us. And if it did not work out, then the worst would be the loss of the summer. Even not that. It would be not a loss if you worked for two or three months in the fresh air, got stronger, and learned a lot? It would be much better than to waste time on a beach all summer. And the stories we would be able to tell for the rest of our lives!

We looked at each other

“Well?” Bolshoi asked. “Any other ideas?”

No one answered.

“Okay,” said Bolshoi, getting up to his feet. “Then let’s not waste time.”

And now we kept at it, working non-stop and waiting for the body to get used to it and strengthen. Eventually, it has happened as expected. After two weeks, the fingers began to bend a little, and after a month we forgot about fatigue and just moved as efficiently as possible.

We managed to exclude the fence from the project. The foreman who oversaw the contract execution was a rather elderly and very taciturn man with smart and even wise eyes. We later learned that he had five children from his first wife, who died during the war, and he adopted four more, having married another woman, already here, where he was exiled to a settlement after the war. Why he was sentenced to live there, we never found out. Local folks were not eager to share their and other people’s stories. Everybody had something they did not want to talk about.

By the way, he warned us then that some locals were after us. They wanted to take on the pigsty themselves but demanded higher pay. So, we spoiled their negotiations.

“Look over your shoulders,” the foreman advised us.

We became more careful, cut down our interactions with the locals, and walked outside our construction site only in a group.

We quickly have finished the cesspool, using a bulldozer, exactly as Sergey had planned. The foreman came, glanced at the result and said nothing, probably satisfied.

“He also needs us to make it before the snow,” Bolshoi said. “Otherwise, the locals will charge him a top dollar if they have to finish.”

Once, when the walls had reached almost the full height, we discovered that at night someone was trying to set them on fire. In one of the corners, the floor was almost burnt, but the wood we were building from was damp, and the fire did not spread. Lucky for us, the arsonists turned out to be inexperienced.

“If they’ll manage to put it to torch and it bursts in flames, I will not extinguish the fire,” Sergey sad with fatalistic undertone. “I will just lit up a cigarette from the fire and go home.”

From that day on, we began to sleep at night right in the pigsty. We fenced off a corner so that the wind would not blow, brought in mattresses and blankets, and slept there. It was colder than the house where we lived before, but we had peace of mind, which was much better for a good sleep. And we saved time without walking back and forth. That was how we worked and lived when the Builder’s Day came.

This day (the second Sunday in August) is celebrated throughout Siberia. In the club, practically the entire population of the village gathered for the official meeting. In those days, this and similar holidays were not complete without standard speeches, recognition and awarding of the best workers and, often, a concert of local amateur entertainers.

To add weight and formality to the occasion, we were also invited to the club as “builders from Moscow.” They asked Bolshoi to make a speech and put him at the presiding table on the stage. The table was appropriately covered with a red tablecloth on which stood a decanter of water. The three of us were seated in the best seats in the middle of the third row among the most respected guests. In front of us, in the front rows, were children and hearing-impaired old people.

First, the chairman of the local timber enterprise made a speech about their achievements, future plans, and how they “respond to the decisions of the last Communist party congress.” Alexey whispered: “Wow. I didn’t know that this was the last one. How are we going to live without such guidance anymore?” Alexey was known for his jokes and wry delivery style.

The chairman finished, and the audience clapped. Then they announced Bolshoi: “Now we are honored to welcome the leader of Moscow builders.” Bolshoi was, well, big, and his legs were long. He barely fit them under the table, so when he started to get up, he knocked the table over.

Fortunately – no one had time even to gasp – he straightened the table back with one hand and picked up the already falling down decanter with another hand. He did it so smoothly as if he had been rehearsing this trick for a long time.

At the same time, he glanced into the audience and quietly but clearly said: “Alexey, just don’t laugh.” Under such duress, he still managed to think about the possible provocation of his friends. Other people in the audience would not dare to laugh out of respect for him personally and the solemnity of the occasion. In general, I noticed that among the working people it is not customary to mock others, especially when in public. Another situation was in our cynical circles. We were always proud of giving a hard time for anybody at any time. Bolshoi, it seemed, thought about it too and issued a warning, striking preemptively.

Then he walked to the lectern and made a short but solid speech, which was expected of him. He congratulated everyone on their “well-deserved holiday”, thanked the management of the timber enterprise for the good organization and timely supply of the building materials, and ended with unforgettable words: “Our team had a chance to work in many parts of our vast homeland. But nowhere else have we had such good relations with the local population.” At the same time, he threw forward both hands, palms up, spreading them apart, either sharing the honor of high achievements with the audience or simply repeating the gesture of a folk dancer who had just completed his solo number: “Oh-pa!”

The crisis came in the second week of September. The nights became very cold, and occasionally a rare snowflake fell during the day. We just finished the roof structure, and it took a toll on us. According to the project, we had to put three layers of inch-thick boards and cover them with three layers of roofing material. The snow in Siberia is heavy and stays for nine months.

We carried up all the boards from the ground all the way to the roof and placed them there. But we had no more energy for the roofing material. Probably, the proximity of the end also relaxed us. We woke up in the morning, but just could not get up. We lied wrapped in the warmth of blankets and could not step out into the cold and start carrying the heavy rolls up to the roof.

An hour later, when the sun had already risen noticeably, Sergey said what everyone was thinking: “There is no strength to work, but we have to pee. Otherwise, it will be colder to sleep on wet matrasses.”

Then we ate something, I don’t remember what we had. Then we sat in the sun under the wall, where there was no wind, for at least an hour.
Suddenly Sergey jumped up, grabbed a roll of roofing material, and with a drawn-out “A-ah-ah!” almost ran up to the roof. I also carried up one roll, feeling my hands losing it all the time. Bolshoi and Alexey together brought up one roll together. Then our energy was spent again, and we didn’t come down from the roof. We remained lying on the sunny side on the heated boards, silently, even without thoughts.

“If the foreman pays us nothing,” Alexey eventually said slowly, barely moving his tongue, “I’ll only ask him for money for the trip back home and leave immediately.”

“It would be nice if someone else carried us to the station and threw us on the train,” Sergey added just as slowly.

Bolshoi, after a long pause, said (he represented us and met the foreman more often, sometimes visiting him in the office during lunch):

“I didn’t tell you, but we still have money from the advance. Not much, but enough for the trip back.”

There was no point in giving up. But there was no energy to anything else either. The body was leaden, and it was impossible to move it. The thoughts were leaden as well.

We lay there until eleven when the foreman came. Seeing our condition, he immediately understood everything.

“I thought you’d break down earlier,” he said calmly and, looking around the construction site, then added, “Okay, we’ll finish it without you. Let’s go to the office and close the business,” he turned to leave and mumbled as if to himself, “But they worked very well. Longer than I thought.”

I couldn’t believe our luck. Suddenly we were free. We could go home and, it seemed, with the money.

Our bodies got recharged. We went to the office, where they gave us a dozen of thick rolls of money. Each got three rolls.

We went out. The sun was up. Life was good. We smoked. Bolshoi lingered behind, signing the documents, then joined us and said quietly:

“The foreman says that we should not return to the construction site. And that we should not go to the railroad station. Instead, we should walk to that turn, remember? Where the train slows down. He said we should jump there on a freight train and do not show money to anyone until we get home.”

This advice suited our mood perfectly. We were so tired of our surroundings and wanted to go home so much that we immediately walked in the opposite direction from the station. The weather was good. The sun did not reach us on a narrow path between tall trees though, but its light gleamed above and delighted the soul.

After an hour of brisk walking, Bolshoi slowed down.

“According to my calculations, we should have reached the rails by now,” he said uncertainly.

“Yes,” confirmed Sergey, “I also thought about it.

We have never walked this path before.

“There were several forks at first,” said Bolshoi. “At the very beginning, near the village.”

No one but him noticed those forks. We were so glad to be free that we paid no attention to anything.

“Do you think we should return?” Sergey asked.

“I don’t know,” Bolshoi shook his head. “Let’s walk a bit more and see.”

We walked along the path for a while. The excitement of liberation began to turn into a state of watchful alertness.

“Well, what are we going to do now?” Bolshoi asked, slowing his pace again.

Nobody answered him. We stopped and began to look around.

“Maybe to climb a tree and look?” Alexey suggested.

Everyone looked up. There were about twenty meters to the treetops. They swayed noticeably in the wind.

“You can’t get to the very top anyway,” Sergey concluded. “And if it is lower, you will not see anything anyway.”

“Maybe, we can find a clearing or a hill and climb up a tree there,” Alexey did not want to give up.

“You can try,” Bolshoi supported him. “But you’ll hardly notice anything from there either. Do you remember? There is a forest on both sides of the railway. There are twenty meters from the forest to the rails, no more. You won’t even notice this clearing from the treetop.”

We were silent for a few seconds.

“Any other ideas?” Bolshoi broke the silence.

“No, I don’t want to go back,” Sergey stretched. “But it seems we have to.”

“Let’s go, then,” Bolshoi nodded.

We returned almost to the village, it seemed, faster than we left. But another hour has passed

Two more paths started at the fork the Bolshoi was talking about.

“Maybe we can ask someone in the village?” Alexey suggested.

“And to announce our plans?” Sergey objected.

Alexey did not respond.

“Which path should we take?” Bolshoi asked.

“We have no criteria for choosing,” Sergey answered. “We are guessing anyway. Let’s take this one.”

And we went. And again, an hour later we decided to return, because there was no railroad, and we knew that that turn was not far from the station, half an hour walk at most.

This time we have not discussed anything. We needed to act quickly. One can’t walk in taiga in the dark. And it was already close to the evening.

We had not even walked an hour along the third path when Bolshoi stopped and said:

“That’s it, let’s not go further. If we want to get out of taiga today, we must follow the familiar path to the station. Otherwise, we will spend a very cold night in the forest.”

He turned and walked resolutely back towards the village. The rest follow him.

We decided not to enter the village, but to go out onto the path to the station through the forest. It was already getting dark, we wandered between the trees almost by touch, and when, at last, we got out on the path, we could not see almost anything already.

The only way to navigate and stay on the path was to follow the gap between the trees against the background of the still light sky. Underfoot, we saw nothing. Everything has sunk in the dark. So, we crept, step by step, bumping into trees and each other every minute. It’s good that we were sure that this path led to the station.

Finally, already in complete darkness, we felt that the trees parted. Then rubble rustled underfoot, and Bolshoi tripped over the rails. Fortunately, he was tired and in a bad mood, so he did not exclaim anything. He simply said: “Rails. “

We had to walk another two hundred meters along the rails to the station when Sergey suddenly whispered: “Shhh. Someone is there. “

And then we all saw the red light of a burning cigarette. Ahead, fifty meters away, someone was sitting on the rails, smoking. We turned around and walked in the opposite direction as quiet as we could.

Reflecting back now, I cannot understand why we were tried to get to the station anyway. We had to go in the opposite direction – to the turn. But we, apparently, were already tired from wandering in the darkness and we wanted to get to the light and certainty, and, in general, to be closer to home, probably. I remember that for some reason I imagined a cozy compartment of a sleeping carriage, the darkness of the forest running back outside the window, and a glass of hot tea with lemon.

And that light of a cigarette … Maybe someone was really waiting for us. Or maybe not. We never found out. We reached the turn, waited for the freight train, and began to run after it one by one, so as not to crowd each other.

Usually, I tried to jump on the step of the last door of the last carriage, so as not to accidentally get under the wheels. We learned how to do it well at the beginning of the summer when we were looking for work. But now it was dark, and I had no choice. I didn’t want to wait for the next freight train, let alone sit there until morning.

So, we ran along the freight cars and platforms, looking closely at what to grab onto and hoping that there would not be any ditch, pit, or another obstacle under the feet. I think that only very young people, who are sure that nothing bad can happen to them, can act this way.

I finally noticed the footrest and handrails of the brake pad, accelerated as best I could, grabbed the handrails, and in one pull lifted my body off the ground and put my left foot on the footrest, and then my right. Only after I had slumped on the floor, I remembered the money, felt it, and was glad that everything was in place – a pack in each trouser pocket and one pack in an external breast pocket, buttoned, next to my passport. We have always carried documents with us since the attempted arson of our construction site.

I don’t remember how long we rode to Bratsk. I think not more than a night and a day because I did not get particularly hungry.

All trains stop in Bratsk. I dropped to the ground and went along the train to look for my friends.

All were alive and well. Bolshoi like me rode the brake pad. Alexey got an open platform, and he was very cold at night. Only in the morning, he was able to jump to the next platform, where some kind of load was installed, covered with a tarpaulin, so that he was able to climb under the tarp and warm up.

Sergey got on the open platform, too, but behind the car with coal. So, he was soaked all over with fine coal dust, and even for a few days after that, his eyes looked like mascara. We called him “Egyptian”, and he replied that he was proud of his lineage – all the way back to the pyramid builders, who in turn were descendants of the gods.