SAKHALIN/MANHATTAN — I. Sanctuary Island. Sakhalin, that Russian penal colony: imprisoned yet free, each person trapped. Chekhov traveled here by rail, months-long, from Moscow, tubercular. Took a transcendent census of inmates and freed men, annexes, forest burdocks, and nettles. Tragic, beautiful numbers. The Better, the Verst. The people he counted were barely named elsewhere: the Oroks, the Nivkhs. 58 living residents, 40 houses. No ideas but in things. No things but…