Free One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Page B

clapped his hands together again and repeated his hammering.
    (He'd hidden his trowel in a nearby crack in the wall. Although he was among his own men, one of them might swap it for his own. That applied to Kilgas too.) And then every thought was swept out of his head. All his memories and worries faded. He had only one idea--to fix the bend in the stovepipe and hang it up to prevent it smoking, He sent Gopchik for a length of wire--hang up the pipe near the window with it; that would be best.

    In the corner there was another stove, a squat one with a brick chimney. It had an iron plate on top that grew red-hot, and sand was to be thawed and dried on it. This stove had already been lit, and the captain and Fetiukov were bringing up barrows of sand. You don't have to be very bright to carry a handbarrow. So the squad leader gave such work to people who'd been in positions of authority. Fetiukov had been a bigshot in some office, with a car at his disposal.

    At first Fetiukov had spat on the captain, bawled at him. But one punch on the jaw was enough. They got on all right after that

    The men bringing in the sand were edging over to the stove to warm up, but Tiurin drove them off.

    "Look out, one of you is going to catch it in a hurry. Wait till we've got the place fixed up."

    You've only to show a whip to a beaten dog. The frost was severe, but not as severe as the squad leader. The men scattered and went back to their jobs.

    And Shukhov heard Tiurin say to Pavlo: "Stay here and keep them at it. I'm going to hand in the work report."

    More depended on the work report than on the work itself. A clever squad leader was one who concentrated on the work report. That was what kept the men fed. He had to prove that work which hadn't been done had been done, to turn jobs that were rated low into ones that were rated high. For this a squad leader had to have his head screwed on, and to be on the right side of the inspectors. Their palms had to be greased, too. But who benefited, then, from all those work reports? Let's be clear about it. The camp. The camp got thousands of extra rubles from the building organization and so could give higher bonuses to its guard-lieutenants, such as to Volkovoi for using his whip. And you? You got an extra six ounces of bread for your supper. A couple of ounces ruled your life.

    Two buckets of water were carried In, but they had frozen on the way. Palvo decided that there was no sense in doing it like this. Quicker to melt snow. They stood the buckets on the stove.

    Gopchik brought along some new aluminum wire, used for electric leads.

    "Ivan Denisovich," he said, as be turned it over to Shukhov, "It's good for making spoons. Teach me how to cast them."

    Shukhov was fond of the kid. His own son had died young, and the two daughters he had left at home were grown up. Gopchik had been arrested for taking milk to the forest for Bendera's men, *[* General in the Soviet Army who betrayed his country in World War II.] and had been given an adult's term of imprisonment. He was like a puppy and he fawned on everyone. But he'd already learned cunning: he ate the contents of his food packages alone, sometimes during the night.

    After all, you couldn't feed everyone.

    They broke off a length of wire for the spoons and hid it in a corner. Shukhov knocked together a couple of planks into a stepladder and sent Gopchik up to hang the stovepipe. The boy, as nimble as a squirrel, climbed up into the beams, pounded in a nail or two, slipped the wire around them, and passed it under the pipe. Shukhov didn't begrudge him his energy; he made another bend in the pipe close to the end. Though there was little wind that day, there might be plenty tomorrow, and this bend would prevent the pipe from smoking. They mustn't forget that it was for themselves that they were fixing the stove.

    Meanwhile, Senka had finished making the laths, and Gopchik was again given the job of nailing them up. The little devil crawled