Natasha found her in the morning. Lying on her side, one hand under the pillow, face peaceful. As if she had simply gone to sleep and decided not to come back.
She was buried in the Muslim cemetery in Karaganda. Quietly, without speeches. Natasha, Kozlova, and the mullah who read the prayer.
It was November, windy. That same steppe wind that cuts at your face. The ground had already started to freeze.
When the mullah finished and stepped away from the grave, three women approached. Natasha didn’t know them. Older women, dark scarves, standing at the edge.
One of them laid three red carnations on the mound. One for each man.
Natasha asked, “Did you know Zulfiya-apa?” The woman who had laid the flowers looked at her. Dry eyes, no tears.
She answered, “We knew her. She fed us when nobody else did.” Then they left.
All three of them. Natasha never learned their names. At the memorial meal, modest and held in the kitchen, there were three people at the table.
Natasha, Kozlova, and Raikhan Amarova, who had come from Aktau just for the funeral. Three women. Pilaf on the table.
Natasha had made it from Zulfiya’s recipe. Tea in bowls. Natasha said, “Aunt Zulfiya saved me.
And not just me. She saved the women we’ll never know by name. The ones they never got to after her.
Because after her, they were afraid.” Kozlova nodded. Added, “After February 23, they sent a new warden to Stepnaya.
A younger man. From Alma-Ata. Thursdays stopped.”
Completely. Just like that. The new warden turned out to be a decent man.
Maybe because he knew how the last one ended. Or maybe he was simply decent. Those exist too.
Raikhan was quiet. Then said softly, “I’m guilty too. I knew and kept quiet.
We all kept quiet. Zulfiya didn’t. She acted.
We didn’t.” They finished their tea, washed the dishes, and went home. Lieutenant Andrei Kovalenko, the one who survived, spent six months in the hospital.
Effects of thallium poisoning: kidney damage, nervous system damage, partial loss of vision in the right eye. Medically discharged from service, moved to another city to live with his parents. Worked as a high school gym teacher.
Died in 2004 of kidney failure. He was 51. Doctors never established a formal connection between his death and the poisoning twenty-five years earlier.
Or chose not to. Doctor Kovaleva left the prison system in 1980, a year after the events. Took a job at a city clinic in Karaganda.
Worked as a general practitioner. Retired in 1993. Whether she is still alive is unknown.
Neither Somov nor Dzhumabayev could find her. Or chose not to look too hard. Guard Zueva retired in 1985 after completing her service.
Received a departmental apartment in Karaganda, a pension, and a commendation for years of service. People said she insisted to the end that she knew nothing. Maybe she even believed it.
Driver Kuzmin stayed in Karaganda. Worked at a motor pool, later as a watchman. When Somov found him in 1992, Kuzmin didn’t want to talk at first…
