Most of the zeks were sitting down, waiting for lights-out and talking about soup, women, the dishonesty of the bread-cutter, the fate of their letters to Stalin and petitions to the Public Prosecutor, the new norms for cutting and trucking away the coal, how cold it was today, how cold it would be tomorrow…

Abarchuk walked slowly by, overhearing scraps of conversation as he passed. It seemed as though one and the same conversation had been going on for many years between thousands of men in transport-ships, trains and camps, the young talking about women and the old talking about food. It was somehow even worse when the old men talked greedily about women, and the young men talked about the delicious food in the free world outside.

Abarchuk quickened his pace as he passed Gasyuchenko. The old man – who was married, with children and grandchildren – was saying something truly awful.

If only the lights would go out, so he could lie down, bury his head in his jacket, see nothing, hear nothing…

Abarchuk looked at the door: any minute now Magar would come in. He would persuade Zarokov to put them side by side and when it was dark the two of them would be able to talk together, openly and sincerely – teacher and pupil, both of them members of the Party.

A feast was being held on the boards belonging to the masters of the hut – Zarokov, Barkhatov and Perekrest, the leader of the coal-team. Perekrest's lackey, an economist called Zhelyabov, had spread a towel over a bedside table and set out some bacon-fat, herrings and gingerbread – the tribute Perekrest had received from the members of his team.

Abarchuk felt his heart flutter as he walked past. They might call out to him and ask him to join them! He could do with something tasty to eat. Barkhatov was a real swine. He did just as he pleased in the storeroom: he pinched nails, he'd gone off with three planes, and Abarchuk had never said a word about it. He might at least call out: 'Hey, you! Why don't you come over here for a moment?'

Abarchuk knew – and he despised himself for it – that it wasn't just a matter of wanting something to eat. He was aware of one of those vile, petty desires born of the camps, the desire to hobnob with the strong, to chat with someone whom thousands of people lived in awe of.

Abarchuk cursed first himself and then Barkhatov.

They didn't call him, but they did call Nyeumolimov. The man who had once commanded a cavalry brigade, the holder of two Orders of the Red Flag, smiled as he walked over towards them. And twenty years before, he had led cavalry regiments into battle to fight for a world commune…

What could have made him talk to Nyeumolimov about Tolya, about everything he held most dear? But then he too had fought for Communism, he too had sent reports to Stalin from his office on a building site in the Kuzbass, and he too had anxiously hoped they would call his name as he walked past, looking down at the floor in pretended indifference.

He walked over towards Monidze's place. Monidze looked up from the socks he was darning and said: 'Guess what Perekrest said to me today? "Remember, my friend, I can smash your skull in – and when I tell the guards they'll thank me. You're the vilest of traitors." '

'There are worse things than that,' said Abrasha Rubin, who was sitting nearby.

'Yes,' agreed Abarchuk. 'Did you see how happy the commander of the cavalry brigade was when they called out his name?'

'I suppose you were disappointed not to be called yourself,' said Rubin.

'Look who's talking!' retorted Abarchuk, smarting at Rubin's perceptiveness.

'Me? It's not for me to feel disappointed,' Rubin murmured, his half-closed eyes making him look rather like a chicken. 'I'm one of the very lowest caste, the untouchables. Did you hear my conversation with Kolka just now?'

'You shouldn't say that kind of thing,' said Abarchuk dismissively, and walked on down the narrow passage between the boards. Once again he heard snatches of the same never-ending conversation.

'Borshch with pork every day, Sunday included.'

'What breasts! You wouldn't believe it.'

'I like things simple. Kasha and mutton. Who needs all these sauces of yours?'

He turned back and sat down by Monidze. Rubin was saying: 'I couldn't understand why he said, "You'll become a composer." It was a joke about informers. Do you see? Writing an opera – writing to the operations officer!'

Monidze carried on darning. 'To hell with him,' he said. 'Inform-ing's the very last thing you should do.'

'What do you mean?' demanded Abarchuk. 'It's your duty as a Communist.'

'Ex-Communist,' replied Monidze. 'Like you.'

'I'm not an ex-Communist,' said Abarchuk. 'Nor are you.'

'Communism's got nothing to do with it,' said Rubin. 'I'm fed up with eating maize-slop three times a day. I can't even bear to look at the muck. That's one reason for informing. But then I don't want to be attacked during the night and found in the latrine next morning like Orlov – my head sticking through the hole. Did you hear my conversation with Kolka Ugarov just now?'

'Head down, feet up!' said Monidze and started laughing, evidently because there was nothing to laugh about.

'There's more to life than the instinct for self-preservation!' said Abarchuk, feeling an hysterical desire to hit Rubin. He jumped up and walked off down the hut.

Of course, he too was fed up with cornmeal soup. How many days now had he been trying to guess what they'd have for dinner on the anniversary of the October Revolution – vegetable ragout, sailor's macaroni, meat-and-potato pie?

And a lot depended on the operations officer – the ways of attaining high position were obscure and mysterious. He might end up working in the laboratory: he'd wear a white smock, the woman in charge would be a civilian worker and he would no longer be at the mercy of the criminals; or he might join the planning section or be put in charge of a mine… But all the same, Rubin was wrong. Rubin liked to degrade a man by ferreting out what was creeping up from his subconscious. Rubin was a saboteur.

Abarchuk had always been uncompromising with opportunists. He had hated all double-dealers and socially-alien elements.

His spiritual strength, his faith, had always lain in his right to make judgements. He had doubted his wife – and had separated from her. He hadn't trusted her to bring up his son a steadfast fighter – and had denied him the right to bear his surname. He had damned anyone who wavered; he had despised all grumblers and weak-minded sceptics. He had brought to trial some engineers in the Kuzbass who had been pining for their families in Moscow. He had condemned forty socially unreliable workers who had left the construction site for their villages. He had renounced his petty-bourgeois father.

It was sweet to be unshakeable. In passing judgement on people he had affirmed his own inner strength, his ideals, his purity. This was his consolation and his faith. He had never deviated from the directives of the Party. He had willingly renounced Party maximalism. For him, self-renunciation had been equivalent to self-affirmation. He had worn the same boots and the same soldier's tunic whether he was at work, at meetings of the Board of the People's Commissariat, or going for a walk along the quay at Yalta when he had been sent there to convalesce. He had wanted to become like Stalin.

And in losing his right to pass judgement, he lost himself. Rubin had sensed that. Almost every day he would allude to the weaknesses and cowardice, to all the petty desires that somehow stole into your soul in the camp.

The previous day he had said: 'Barkhatov supplies his young thugs with metal from the store, and our Robespierre doesn't say a word. As the song goes, even a chicken wants to stay alive.'

When Abarchuk was about to condemn someone and then felt he could equally well be condemned himself, he began to hesitate, to lose himself, to fall into despair.