Lost Face · Part 1

Now it was the end.

Subienkow, the Pole, had travelled a long and painful road. From Warsaw, through Siberia, he had always hoped to reach Europe, which he imagined as a safe and civilised place. Like a bird flying towards its nest, he kept looking towards those distant cities that meant safety.

But instead, he found himself here, in the north of America, in a frozen and isolated region. His journey ended here.

He was crouching in the snow, his hands tied behind his back. He was waiting to be tortured.

In front of him, a large Cossack lay face down on the ground. The men had finished torturing him and had left him to the women. The giant’s terrible screams showed that the women could be even more cruel than the men.

Subienkow watched the scene, shaking.

He was not afraid to die. For a long time, his life had been nothing but pain. Dying no longer frightened him. But torture did. It was not only the physical pain that filled him with horror. It was also the humiliation. He knew he would scream, that he would beg, that he would ask for mercy, like big Ivan and all the others before him.

He would have liked to die bravely, with dignity, perhaps even with a smile. But he knew that would be impossible. The pain would change him. He would become a weak man, screaming like an animal.

There was no hope of escape. He had always felt that his fate was already written. From Poland, through Saint Petersburg, the mines of Siberia and Kamchatka, he had followed a road that led him here, to this terrible end.

He sighed.

Could that body, still screaming, really be big Ivan? Ivan the Giant, the strong man who hardly felt pain? People said that nothing could hurt him. And yet the Indians had found a way to make him suffer. They seemed to know the human body perfectly. Ivan held out longer than the others, but he was suffering terribly.

Subienkow felt that he could not bear to watch much longer. He was going to go mad.

But when Ivan’s screams stopped, it would be his turn.

Yakaga was there. He was watching him with a cruel smile. A week earlier, Subienkow had kicked him out of the fort and hit him with his whip. Now the Indian was going to take revenge. Subienkow was certain of it. Yakaga was probably saving the worst suffering for him.

The women finally moved away from Ivan’s body. They were laughing and clapping their hands.

Subienkow then saw what had become of the giant. The sight was so horrible that he began to laugh nervously. It was a strange laugh, almost mad. The Indians looked at him in surprise. How could he still laugh?

But he could no longer stop.