Not all at once, but gradually, until all that’s left is a black wick. In December Zulfiya approached Kozlova in the barracks after lights-out. She said quietly, barely moving her lips: “Valya, I need to get assigned to outside work.”
“Out on the steppe. Every day.” Kozlova looked at her for a long moment.
Then asked, “Why?” Zulfiya answered, “To gather herbs. For tea. The women are getting sick. Need vitamins.”
Kozlova knew that wasn’t the whole truth. Maybe not even half of it. But she nodded.
Two days later Zulfiya was added to the work crew that went beyond the perimeter. Clearing roads, repairing fence lines, gathering brush for the stoves. Officially.
Under guard, of course. But what kind of guard? Two nineteen-year-old conscripts who couldn’t have cared less what an older woman was doing as long as the crew was shoveling snow.
Picking dry stems out of the ground? Fine. Let her pick stems.
Only it wasn’t just stems. Zulfiya knew what to look for. Her grandmother Sholpan-apa had taught her.
Monkshood in winter is dry stalks with seed pods still clinging. The root is the most poisonous part. You can dig it out of frozen ground if you know where to look.
Henbane too. Dry seed pods that hold through winter. But Zulfiya understood herbs alone weren’t enough.
Monkshood kills, but not fast enough. And it has a taste. Bitter, burning.
You can notice it in food if you know something’s off. She needed something else. Something colorless, odorless, tasteless.
Something that would disappear in pilaf with strong spices. That’s when Zulfiya thought of Seryoga Kuzmin. Sergei Ivanovich Kuzmin, 35.
A driver. Civilian employee. He hauled food to the colony from Karaganda in a GAZ truck.
Three trips a week. Flour, grain, canned goods. Sometimes meat.
A free man. That’s what the inmates called him. Someone from the outside who crossed the line between two worlds.
Kuzmin was a simple sort. Short, thickset, red wind-burned face, hands that smelled like diesel even after a bath.
Lived in the settlement near the colony. A cluster of houses for civilian workers and officers’ families. His wife had left him two years earlier.
Took their son. Kuzmin drank, but not enough to get himself fired.
The main thing about him was that he was greedy. Not for big money. For little extras. Ten rubles to carry a package past the checkpoint.
A pack of tea to pass a note. A bar of soap to bring in a bottle of cologne from town. The inmates used it like alcohol.
Zulfiya knew Kuzmin. He delivered food to the kitchen and unloaded with her. They traded a few words now and then.
“Morning, Akhmetova. What are you cooking today?” “Whatever you brought me, Seryoga.”
Normal work talk. In January 1979, during one delivery, Zulfiya held Kuzmin back. Asked him to wait until the others had left the kitchen.
Kuzmin stayed. Zulfiya poured him tea. Strong, with sugar.
Two spoonfuls. Set a pastry in front of him, one of the ones she baked for the administration. Kuzmin ate and waited.
He knew nobody in prison did anything for free. Zulfiya said, “Seryoga, I need poison. For rats. The kitchen’s overrun.”
“They’re getting into the grain, chewing the bread. The bosses are complaining.” Kuzmin chewed his pastry. Then asked:
“What about sanitation? Doesn’t the district service handle that?” “They came six months ago. The rats were back in a week.”
“I deal with them every day. You know how it is, Seryoga—paperwork. By the time a request gets filed, approved, and somebody shows up, the rats won’t have waited.”
Kuzmin finished his tea. “What exactly do you need?” “Thallium. Thallium sulfate. Rats die for sure from that.”
“You can get it at veterinary supply stores. Farm use.” That part was true.
In the 1970s, thallium sulfate could still be bought in some veterinary pharmacies and supply stores as rodent poison. No prescription, no paperwork. White powder, no taste, no smell.
Dissolves in water. A fatal dose for a person is less than a gram. Kuzmin thought it over.
“Fifty,” he said. Fifty rubles. Roughly a month’s pay for a cleaning woman.
For an inmate, a fortune. But in three years in the kitchen Zulfiya had saved. Prison had its own economy—tea, cigarettes, sugar.
You could trade those for real money through civilian workers like Kuzmin. Zulfiya didn’t smoke, drank little tea, barely touched sugar. She saved.
She nodded. “In a week?” “Two. I’m going into Karaganda for parts.”
Kuzmin brought it twelve days later. A baby-food jar with about fifty grams of white powder. Handed it over during unloading.
Slipped it into her hand with the delivery slip. Zulfiya tucked it into her apron pocket. Kuzmin got his fifty in three folded bills.
Later, thirteen years on, when reporter Somov tracked Kuzmin down in Karaganda, Kuzmin would be working as a night watchman at a motor pool. Somov asked him, “Did you know what she wanted the poison for?” Kuzmin answered, “She said rats. So I figured…”
“Rats? What was it to me? Rats in a prison kitchen—that’s normal. There are rats everywhere”…
