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A GUARD hits me with his truncheon again and again. He soon tires, leans back against the cell wall. I want to tell him: I understand why my pain is required. I want to tell him: The truncheon will break my rib just once, but it will go on breaking you.
Stalin’s death and denunciation led to the decommissioning of the prison. Camp administrators transferred from the Interior Ministry to the Ferrous Metallurgy Ministry without even changing offices. The same people pulled nickel from the ground.
The television dramas we grew up on, stories of star-crossed lovers, stories of love overcoming all obstacles, well, they’re all fairy tales, obviously, like the television news; but the obvious is only obvious when it happens to someone else. We’ve all ended up with men we’d pity others for marrying.
Before ninety-one only party members lived there and after ninety-one only criminals. No one moved in or out.”
If there is an operation, and if that operation is successful, she says she will move to Sweden. I fear for her future in a country whose citizenry is forced to assemble its own furniture.
They pressed together with a need that is never satisfied because we can’t trade atoms no matter how hard we thrust. Our hearts may skip but our substance remains fixed.
