A Leaf moves ~ chapter 6

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Days drifted into weeks, with Illya having little success at devising his escape. There were no regular patterns of pickups and the guard’s shifts varied.  The living conditions in the prison were hardly tolerable, and the food given the inmates, was at best, barely providing enough calories to allow the men to have the energy to maintain the grueling work schedule they were forced to endure.  



They were given a soup made of hot water with starch for breakfast, and beans for lunch and dinner with a slice of dark bread.  Sometimes there would be potatoes instead of beans or turnip soup. The apple Illya had been given while in solitary confinement was the only piece of fruit he’d seen since he arrived.

There was a temporary improvement when a visitor from the Red Cross arrived to inspect conditions there.  That day they were served Kashi with real milk and hard boiled eggs for breakfast,  Thick cheese sandwiches and apples for lunch, and for supper a hearty stew with beef, carrots and potatoes.

Those prisoners who were weakened or looked too malnourished  were hidden and missed out on the hearty meals.  Work in the brickyard ceased for the day, with only a few workers maintaining the kiln and cooling platforms. There would be no carrying of bricks today.

No one was allowed to speak to the inspectors, but somehow Illya managed to slip one of them a small piece of paper with his information on it and who to contact. He’d tossed it on the ground in front of a woman, and she picked it up when no one was looking.  He only hoped she would discreetly open it, read it and follow through with the instructions but as an afterthought, he hoped she wouldn’t report him to the guards. The delegation left, and he breathed a sigh of relief when there were no repercussions. All he could do now was hope his message would make its way to his partner. As each day passed, Illya looked for a sign, something to give him hope. “Napoleon, please find me?” He whispered.

The next day, the rations returned to the usual thin gruel and turnip soup and the toiling began again.

The hardest thing to endure were the eleven hour work days, six days a week, of hauling the bricks to a warehouse where they were stored until the lorries arrived to transport them or working near the heat of the immense kiln used to bake the bricks. Inmates were forced daily to perform hours of backbreaking labor, under the watchful eyes of their guards who’d  punish any prisoner for the most trivial of reasons. Hinko Kordić, the ruthless head guard, would personally lash inmates in order to force them to work harder.

Their toils were non-stop day in and day out, and when Illya would return to his cell after his shift, he would fall exhausted to his bunk, with his last words whispered before falling into a deep sleep.  

“Napoleon where are you?”

Illya’s cellmate was an older man named Radovan Dragovic, who had once been a doctor on the outside until he mistakenly killed the wife of a high ranking party member.  He was not capable of working in the brickyard, and since he had medical experience, he was put in the prison clinic, treating as best he could, cases of typhus, pleuritis, influenza, dysentery and diptheria, as well as exposure to the elements as the prisoners worked, rain or shine. There were never ending injuries such as broken arms, fingers and legs...as well as the wounds from the lashings of Hinko  Kordić.

Dragovic had little medical supplies to work with and what was legitimate was to be held in reserve for the guards. He convinced one of them to get him seeds, and he planted a small herb garden that he could use for medicinal purposes.

Illya used the tin plate he’d been issued, to scratch marks on his cell wall, and at first it seemed like a good idea and gave him something to focus on, but as time passed he stopped. He was too exhausted at times to think about it, and the more hash marks he made, the more hopeless they made him feel.

He kept to himself for the most part, given there was a language barrier with only a few of the men speaking Slovak. There were a few Russian prisoners, but he thought it best to avoid speaking his native language, as that might open doors that he wanted to remain shut.

When he had the energy he would converse with Dragovic, but he let the man do most of the talking and try not to fall asleep while he did.

“So how did you come to be in this place Zoran?”

“I was set up by a colleague of mine,” Illya mumbled.

“So you are innocent then? That is a story I have heard many times over.” Radovan smiled.

“I did not say I was innocent,”Illya slyly smiled, and rolled over in his bunk, ending the conversation. He fell asleep quickly.

Radovan listened as his cellmate talked in his sleep saying but one name, repeating it...Napoleon. He wondered why the man would be dreaming of the French Emperor? Strange.
.

There were no panes of glass in the barred windows of each cell;  on the outside there were only wooden shutters that Illya presumed would be closed when winter came, cutting them off even more from the outside world.  They had a small laundry in the prison and once a month the inmates were permitted to boil their clothing, but waiting for them to dry was not easy as they would have to sit naked,  wrapped only in their blankets as their clothes dried.   Most of them simply learned to live with the filth rather than suffer that cold indignity.

Weeks now turned into months and Illya became familiar with this prison life. He found himself weakening, becoming malnourished and overworked, but reminded himself to fight to live through the hardships and abuse.

Periodically the threat of death would be very evident not just from starvation and weakness. The guards would put on public punishment, selecting an inmate as they lined up in the courtyard for the morning headcount.  An individual would be randomly selected to receive the punishment of death for no reason at all and executed with a shot to the head in front of the others. The guards would make it worse by prolonging the process, stomping about and asking questions, gazing into the inmates eyes, choosing one and then would stop and point their revolver at another and shoot him instead. It was all for the sake of fear and controlling the prisoners.

There was little the inmates could to to resist, either passively or aggressively. There were some who would gather together, steal food and plot escapes, but eventually their actions caught up with them.  Those who did nothing, and remained passive could only hope they would get through their day unscathed.

To the guards, they were subhuman, especially the Serbs. Illya was listed as Serbian, though his features did not resemble that of one who was a Serb.   Most of the guards suspected he was Russian, given he was marked as a Communist with his blond and blue-eyed looks, and guessed he might be KGB; given that, they thought it best to leave him be.

KGB struck fear into their hearts even in their prison world where they controlled life and death. That was the one thing that helped Illya survive, he was left alone for the most part, unlike most of the other prisoners.

Little by little he watched many of the men become like animals;  their lives revolving around following orders and eating whatever food they could get their hands on. Nothing else mattered to them, they became oblivious to their despair and thought only of surviving one more day.