The First Day in the Camp Kindled a Spark of Hope

The first day in the camp kindled a spark of hope that from now on, those who remained alive would be treated humanely. And indeed: a proper Siberian bathhouse with steam relieved the lice-infested soldiers of unbearable itching, and clothes roasted in special drying chambers freed them from the very lice and nits. As for the two-week rest that followed, and the relatively decent food—plain though it was, but proper hot soup and slightly more bread than they'd had on the journey—it altogether cheered them up. And it mattered not that they still barely dragged their feet; the men boosted each other's spirits:

"We'll make it," they said among themselves. "The commander seems like a caring man; look how he cursed out the guards for the dead ones. He even threatened them with court. Maybe he really won't let us be wronged. And what about the frost? Where our people haven't perished… We've been through worse!"

David took a different view when Vanya shared these thoughts with him. Throughout this time they had managed to stay near each other, and their relationship had become increasingly trusting: Kranz completely avoided speaking about himself, but listened with evident interest to the boy's stories about his family, and with particular eager attention and undisguised curiosity listened to various stories from the Gospel. This evening, toward the end of the second week, both sat on their bunks after lights-out.

"Don't comfort yourself with false hope," he sighed sadly. "This commandant is worse than any monster, and he'll soon show his true face such that we'll envy those who died on the way. That's why he pretended to be so merciful and caring at first—so that we, while still alive, would at least gain some spirit and not follow those poor wretches to the grave. Because if everyone dies, who will work?"

"You think this leniency is temporary?" Ivan sank.

"I don't think—I'm certain about the commandant. Because I heard him order the guards to 'resolve the situation' when he saw the congestion at the barrack entrance. That's when he immediately showed his true self. To him, we're all 'Germans,' and that says a lot. It means we're not just a defenseless labor herd to him, but enemies, and he needs to squeeze every drop out of each of us before we die. Mark my words: if there weren't a need for working hands, we wouldn't have had baths or rest. We wouldn't have lasted these days. They'll just feed us enough to keep us on our feet, and then drive us to the logging camps. And I know from experience what that means. No, Vanya, we have nothing to hope for here and no one to hope to." Here David raised both hands: "I know, I know what you want to say. We must hope in God, right?"

"Yes," Ivan nodded rapidly. "The Bible says that blessed is he whose hope is in the Lord. God will not abandon such a person with His mercy."

"Well, I'm not against it," David smiled sadly. "I understand all that, Vanya. Hope, as they say, dies last. But even your hope in God dies too. That's why people follow another commandment: 'Trust in God, but don't be idle yourself.' It's a human commandment, not a biblical one, and that's why it's closer and more understandable."

He fell silent, leaned on his elbow, and suddenly opened up unexpectedly.

"I didn't want to, Vanya, to dredge up the past, but I see that I'll have to return to what I tried not to look back on. These stories of yours—verses from the Bible—have touched me. It's not the first time I've heard of it. And the situation repeats itself. Even the feeling that I sense my own end. I've cheated death once before; I survived. That was at Solovki. The Solovetsky Camp of Special Purpose, SLON—have you heard of it? I was there until 1925, then they transferred the politicals to the mainland. I come from an intellectual family, and that alone was reason enough for arrest. At the time, I wasn't even forty, but I looked eighty. A walking corpse, to be brief. But I wanted to live. Oh, how desperately I wanted to! That's when one believing prisoner advised me to pray for life: he said, ask God—and it shall be given to you. And I believed his words so much that I began to pray day and night. It's true, my entire prayer consisted of two or three words, sometimes a few more. And—you won't believe it!—although nothing was getting better, in fact everything was getting worse, I became convinced that I would survive. And somehow it happened that just when I was saying goodbye to life, our foreman—his name was Egor—got me a job in the kitchen. An unprecedented stroke of luck, if you know that the kitchen was staffed exclusively by criminals. No politicals were allowed anywhere near it. How Egor managed to negotiate with them, I never learned. As for the camp leadership, he had no problems there: all the documentation for work was in his hands, and at the end of each quarter the camp commandant practically bowed to him! And I helped him a lot with work assignments, so he went out of his way to save me. It was a lucky break, in short. A very lucky break. I loitered about that kitchen for about three months, but once I recovered completely, I went back to my brigade. I asked to go back myself, so as not to become a savage. In constant contact with criminals, you can degrade very quickly and very easily. But as it turned out, I would have been kicked out anyway, because by that time Egor had been transferred to another camp. Now, since unlike me he was a confirmed atheist, I credited my salvation not to God but to him. I sometimes used to read the Bible to my grandmother, and though I understood nothing properly, something did stick in my memory. I thought: surely God couldn't use someone who opposes Him in His salvation? I believed that right up until my release in early 1926, when I suddenly heard that my foreman had died, and before he died, he repented and even, it seems, managed to receive baptism. This news was brought to me by the same prisoner through whom I had begun to pray. He brought it secretly and told me that Egor had asked him to tell me everything as it was: that is, it was from this Kranz that the Lord began to reveal Himself to him. From that very day when some unknown force compelled him to take part in my fate, and he convinced the head cook to take me into service. In exchange, he had to inflate the percentages for the cook's assistant who had been transferred to the logging camps. That assistant got into serious trouble—it couldn't be swept under the rug. In short, as Egor said later: 'square deal.' And when he was dying, he asked me to be told to repent myself. Yes-s-s…"

David smiled sadly and was silent for a long time, thoughtfully shaking his head. As often happened, at such moments he forgot about his listener and "went into himself."

"And you?" Ivan impatiently pulled at him. "Well, Uncle David? Did you repent?"

"What?" he started. "Ah. No, Vanya. This news came just before my release, and I simply wouldn't have had the courage to do it, even if I had wanted to. And in those conditions it couldn't have happened any other way; freedom was already beckoning ahead. Long-awaited. Hard-won. Well, and thoughts to match: they say, I'll have time to turn to God now; what's the hurry? It's hard to change direction on the run. Especially at such a stage of it. So I told that believing man: you see, I'll look around first, and then right away. Yeah. I didn't have to persuade myself for long; I soon believed it myself. Life, as it happened, went wonderfully well during my first time of freedom. I've always been quick and clever in trade, and my hands know their way around, so prosperity came quickly. Why, I even became quite rich, and on Sundays I would harness a pair of bay horses—with bells and decorated trappings—to go to the Orthodox church (in memory of my grandmother: she was Russian) for the holidays. And there was a grand prayer service in the city church with a choir singing and the priest's vestments, and the altar with the throne, and walls with icons, and a ceiling with flying angels—I had it all. Except that blessed feeling that came after prayers in the camp—that profound, moving feeling when even a simple prayer would make the soul weep with tenderness!—no matter how hard I tried to summon it, never came again.

I understood, of course, that in pursuit of wealth my soul was hardening, which is why I couldn't feel that blessed sense of peace as in the camp. In fact, I remember, a certain fear would creep in—not astonishment, but fear!—but I couldn't overcome myself. And gradually I calmed down altogether. I thought that… no, I didn't think—I became convinced that it would always be this way now. After all, look how well life had worked out. That's why I stopped going to church. Completely. And this was even before they started closing them. And then… well, you know as well as I do what came after. You see, Vanya, when you were telling me about your father, I saw myself in him; our lives are so similar. And now it's become identical: he's on his second sentence, back in the camp, and I haven't fallen behind. Only he's in the camp again, and I'm here. But labor conscription doesn't differ from a prison camp at all, and in the fact that these are all Germans, it's even more defenseless. If prisoners at least have some rights, even if only on paper, we have none. That's why I've already lost hope of returning to life as it happened in the camp. I haven't fully recovered my health; I feel I don't have long to live, and conscience won't let me ask God for mercy again. I didn't keep the promise I gave Him when I was at death's door. I broke faith, as the prisoners say. Now I understand that life was given anew by Him, and Egor was only an instrument in His hands. But I got everything backwards. I didn't listen to that believing prisoner's words back then. But what good is it that I understand now?"

"No, no," Ivan got excited. "There's always benefit and always will be. If one repents sincerely and with faith, confessing one's sin before God, He will forgive and grant salvation of eternal life. The Bible says so: 'Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved' (Mark 16:16). You just need to hurry and ask Him in prayer for forgiveness."

"You see: hurry. No, Vanya, I've woken up too late."

"Nothing of the sort! And what about the robber we talked about? By that logic, didn't he arrive too late? So that's it? But Christ forgave him right on the cross when he acknowledged his sin: 'We,' he said, 'are justly condemned, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.' And what did Christ say in response? Remember how He said to the robber: 'Today you will be with me in paradise'!"

"Well, you certainly made a comparison, Vanya," David smiled sadly and for a moment grew thoughtful. But only for a moment. In the next second his face brightened, he closed his eyes, and in some blissful impulse said dreamily: "Oh, if I could only see the living Christ as that robber did—living, you understand?—then I would repent. And it would happen with anyone who experienced such a thing. There would be no doubt about it. It makes a big difference, Vanya."

"Uncle David," Ivan reproached gently, "we already discussed this. Christ died, but He rose again! And He is living now and always. You can't see Him, but you can feel His presence. The thing is, Jesus doesn't reveal Himself to just anyone, as you said, but only to those who bring their sin to His feet and accept Him in faith into their heart. Otherwise, why did the other robber on the cross do nothing but revile Him? He heard too that this was the Son of God, but he didn't believe, didn't repent, and didn't ask for himself, as his companion did."

"Mmm, I misspoke," David said, embarrassed, scratching his head, but quickly recovered: "But when they were hanging there dying, how were they supposed to think about who He really was, if they themselves were already at death's door? But people are made differently: some hope for life until the end, while others give up. It's the same here: one still hoped for something, while the other had lost all hope."

"Granted. But how many people lived beside Jesus when He was on earth; followed Him, listened to His teaching, even agreed with Him, yet far from all recognized themselves as sinners and repented. Right, Uncle David? Only those who believed in Him repented. They are His chosen ones, and received the gift of eternal life. Now they are in paradise."

"In paradise," David echoed. "So it turns out that first robber was more clever. But as for me, it's not even a question of whether God will forgive me or not, but that I can't forgive myself. It's shameful that I proved to be so… uh… No, not greedy. I never seemed to be greedy, but that I gave in to the temptation of wealth, I did. As soon as money appeared, thoughts immediately went in one direction—how to multiply it. The intentions were noble enough, of course: I would help the poor. I even almost built a church. But somehow there was always a reason to put off those good deeds. Ah, how I wish, Vanya, to read the Bible myself. There must surely be something about something similar in it."

"Definitely, Uncle David. The apostle James said: 'What good is it, my brother, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?' And both one and the other are needed to be pleasing to God. Because faith without works is dead. I keep this verse on my tongue, but I can't quite remember it right now. If I had the Bible at hand, it would be different."

"That's a shame. I probably understand much now," Kranz sighed. "But you can't fix things with hindsight. Whether with the Bible or without it."

"I would like to read it too," Ivan said dreamily. "Papa liked to say that no matter how many times you read the Bible, each time it reveals something new to you. That's why I pray so that God will help me find it here. Maybe someone has it."

"That would be wonderful, Vanya."

"Then let's pray about it together, shall we, Uncle David?"

"You pray, Vanya, you pray. And I'll ask God for you. Not in prayer—I'm not worthy of prayer. I don't remember a single one of those I've heard and repeated before. However I can, I'll ask."

"But that will be a prayer, Uncle David! In your own words, not memorized ones. The Lord will hear it more readily, coming from the heart, rather than something someone else prepared."

"Well, either way," David chuckled. "But I won't dare pray for myself anyway. I tried; it doesn't work. But for you—I can manage. I see how the Lord sustains you. That means you're pleasing to Him." And he immediately changed the subject. "By the way, I know for certain that very soon we'll be distributed to work. Mostly in brigades at the logging camps. So I'll be asking God to keep you away from there. It'll be too much for you. So tell them you're not yet sixteen. Well, that's just in case they ask; to look at you, they wouldn't give you even fourteen."

"And you, Uncle David? You—to the logging camps?"

"Maybe not. You see, Vanya, I'm what you might call 'handy at everything.' Something should turn up for my hands in the camp. Perhaps the workshops or even the kitchen. We'll see."