Firewall (38 page)

The only proper light came from the railway station and the bus headlights reflecting off the icy ground. A streetcar appeared from nowhere and moved across the foreground.

The station had windows missing in the offices above platform level, and it was covered by decades of grime. It wasn't just this building, the whole place looked in deep decay. The main street was badly potholed and entire areas of blacktop had broken up like ice floes to create different levels for vehicles to negotiate.

The men in black had finished their task. Some of the street people wandered across the road in a group, maybe heading for the next refuge point, others started to beg by the buses. When they stood next to the passengers it was hard to tell who looked worse off.

Everybody seemed to be holding shopping bags, not just the homeless, but the people boarding the buses as well. Not a single one was laughing or smiling. I felt sorry for them-freed from Communism, but not from poverty.

I waited while the black teams climbed into their wagons and moved off, then I wandered back into the station. The place didn't smell any better now it was cleared, but at least it was warm. I thought I'd better clean myself up. I eventually found a rest room, though I didn't know if it was for men or women. It was just a set of stalls and a couple of sinks. A solitary bulb flickered in the ceiling and the place absolutely stank of piss, shit, and vomit. Once at the sinks I found out where all these smells seemed to come from.

Deciding to skip the wash, I inspected myself in the mirror. My face wasn't cut or bruised, but my hair was sticking out at all angles. I wet my hands under the tap and ran my fingers through it, then got out of there quickly before I was sick myself.

Wandering around the station, I tried to find out train times. There was plenty of information, all in Estonian or Russian. The ticket office was closed, but a handwritten notice on a piece of cardboard taped to the inside of the glass screen explained that there was something happening at 0700, which I took to be the opening time. I couldn't see if there was a clock in the office as it was cut from view by a faded yellow curtain.

Sheets of paper stuck to the glass also carried various destination names, in lettering I recognized, as well as Cyrillic. I saw Narva and the numbers 707. It seemed there was just seven minutes between the office opening and my train leaving.

My next priority was to get a coffee and find out the time. Nothing was open in the station, but with any luck there was some kind of facility outside for the bus passengers. Where there are people, there will be traders.

I found a row of aluminum kiosks, with no unity or theme to what any of them sold; each of them just sold stuff, everything from coffee to hair bands, but mostly cigarettes and alcohol.

I couldn't remember what the currency was-things were still blurry-but I managed to get a paper cup of coffee for a small coin that was probably worth two cents. From the same kiosk I also treated myself to a new watch, a bright orange thing with the Lion King grinning out at me from a face that lit up at the press of a but ton.

His paws rested on a digital display, which the old woman running the kiosk corrected to 0615.

I stood in between two kiosks with my coffee and watched the trams deliver and pickup passengers. Apart from those yelling at each other in line, there was very little talk from anybody. These were depressed people, and the whole ambience of the place reflected their state of mind. Even the coffee was horrible.

I started to notice people huddled here and there in small groups, passing bottles among themselves. One group of young men in a bus shelter, wearing old coats over shiny shell-suit pants, were drinking from half-liter bottles of beer and smoking.

In a strange way the place reminded me of Africa; everything, even the plastic toys and combs in the kiosk window displays, was faded and warped. It looked as if the West had dumped its trash and it had washed up with these people. As in Africa, they had stuff buses, trains, TVs, even cans of Coke but nothing really worked together.

Basically it felt as if the whole country was Made in Chad. When I was operating there, the republic used to be the byword for things that looked okay but fell apart in ten minutes.

I thought some more about the ferry attack. The guys in the toilets must have been NSA, but the only way I could have been spotted was by them checking the ticketing, then taking and checking out this guy called Davies. Once my passport had been swiped they'd cracked it: Davidson was on board. The two who'd attacked me would be out of commission, but would others soon be on my trail?

I bought another coffee to get more heat inside me, as well as another bar of chocolate and a bottle of twenty-four aspirin to clear my head and help with the body pain, then I wandered around the kiosks looking for maps as I washed down the first four tabs with crap coffee. I found a Narva town map, but not one for the northeast of the country.

Glancing at Lion King as I paid for it, I realized I had to get a move on.

On the way to the ticket office I brushed the worst of the dirt from my jeans. My body heat was drying them out slowly, so I hoped I didn't smell too much. For all I knew they might have a rule about not selling tickets to hobos.

I was first in a line of three when the grubby bit of curtain got moved away from the little window to reveal an iron grill behind thick glass, with a small wooden scoop at the bottom where money and tickets were exchanged. A woman in her midfifties glowered at me from behind the fortifications. She was wearing a sweater and, of course, a woolen hat. She was also probably resting her feet on a bulging shopping bag.

I smiled. "Narva, Narva?"

"Narva."

"Yes. How much?" I rubbed my fingers together.

She got out a little receipt book and wrote "Narva" and "707." It appeared the cost was 707 hertigrats, or whatever the money was called, not that it left at 7:07.

I handed her a 1000 note. $20 U.S. was going a long way here. She moved away from the glass, rummaged around, came back and dropped my change through the scoop. With it was a slip of paper as thin as tissue. I picked it up, guessing it must be some kind of receipt.

"Narva-ticket?"

She babbled at me gloomily. It was pointless, I didn't have a clue what she was on about. I didn't ask about the platform. I'd find it.

Tallinn station seemed to be the origin for all lines. This wasn't Grand Central Station, though; the platforms outside the hall were lumpy, broken pavement, with ice where the water had puddled and frozen. In places, exposed concrete had crumbled and rusting reinforcement rods protruded. The trains were old Russian monsters with a big Cyclops light; they all seemed to be blue, but it was hard to be sure under all the dirt and grime. Hanging on the front of each locomotive was a wooden destination board, and that was all the help you got.

I walked up and down looking for the word Narva, brushing past other passengers. I found the train, but needed to confirm it with one of my shopping-bag friends.

"Narva, Narva?"

The old man looked at me as if I was an alien, muttering something without taking the cigarette out of his mouth, so the light from the tip bounced up and down. He then just walked away. At least I got a nod as he pointed at the train.

I carried on along the platform, looking for an empty car, to the sound everywhere of the early morning coughing up of phlegm people holding one nostril and snot ting out on the ground, then putting the cigarettes back between their lips.

There didn't seem to be any completely empty cars, so I boarded anyway, taking the first free row of seats I could find. The car floor was nothing more than welded steel plates, and the seats were also made of steel, with two small, thinly padded vinyl sections, one for your back and one for your ass. There were a couple of forty-watt lightbulbs in the ceiling and that was our lot. All very basic, all very functional, yet surprisingly clean compared to the mayhem in the station outside.

And at least it was warm.

30

The wheels rattled rhythmically over the rails as I gazed out at the darkness. I couldn't see any of the landscape, just lights from what I supposed were factories and from windows of row upon row of prisonlike apartment buildings.

I was sitting by the sliding door at the front end, next to a window, with, thankfully, a heater directly under my seat. According to the travel guide I'd be here for at least the next five hours, which was good news for my jeans. There were a dozen other passengers spread about the car, all of them male, most with shopping bags, and either deep in thought or doing the nodding dog.

The door slid back with a crash and a woman in her mid-forties came in, wearing a man's gray overcoat that was far too big for her. Draped over her arm were a dozen copies of a tabloid. She started jabbering and was clearly asking me something. I waved my hand politely to say no thanks but she became very animated. When I waved my hand again and shook my head with a nice Australian smile, she reached into her coat and out came the same sort of book of receipts that Mrs. Glum had used in the ticket office. I realized she was the ticket collector, who was obviously running a newspaper concession on the side. Like me, she was taking the money where she could find it.

I fished out my slip of paper. She inspected it, grunted, gave it back and swayed with the momentum of the train on to the next passenger, no doubt telling him that the village idiot was on board. Given what I was about to try, she wasn't far wrong.

We began to slow, and finally stopped. Through the darkness I could just see a factory, complete with a series of enormous chimneys. The station didn't have a platform; the factory workers had to disembark directly onto the tracks. Outside, people seemed to wander all over the place, even between cars.

The train set off again, stopping every ten minutes or so to disgorge another group of workers. After each halt the old diesel engine would strain to get up speed again, belching smoke which quickly merged with the junk the factory chimneys were pumping out. The railway system made Britain's look positively space age by comparison, but at least these ran on time, were warm, clean, and affordable. I thought of inviting a few Estonian train managers to the U.K. to show our guys how it should be done.

The train snaked, shuddered, and shook its way through the industrial wasteland. After half an hour the lights started to die out and I was looking into darkness again. I decided to follow the lead of the one other passenger left in the car and get some sleep.

It was shortly after nine thirty and first light had just passed. The sky, in keeping with everything else, was a gloomy gray. Through the grime on the window I saw snow-heavy trees lining the track on each side, a barrier against snowdrifts. Beyond them lay either vast stretches of absolutely flat open ground, covered in virgin white snow, or thick forest that stretched on forever. The electricity and telephone lines following the track were just like the trees, sagging with the weight of the snow and huge icicles that hung from them.

The train was still moving very slowly between stations, maybe because of the weather, maybe because the track was in need of repair.

An hour later, after another couple of stops, the chocolate and meat started to take effect. I hadn't seen any signs for toilets and I wasn't even sure there were any. If not, I'd just have to have a quick dump in the hall and explain it was an old Australian custom.

I walked the length of two cars, bouncing from side to side, until I eventually found one. It was just like the rest of the train, very basic but clean, warm, and it worked.

Ripping hard sheets from the roll I threw them into the bowl until it was more or less blocked. As I pulled down my now dry jeans and sat on the bare ceramic bowl, I had a quick sniff of the denim.

Not that bad, considering; I could always blame it on a tomcat.

Bruises had developed on both thighs now; they'd soon turn black, complementing the ones I already had.

As the chocolate and meat mix started to force its way out I fought to keep control, wanting to catch the insurance policy, wrapped in two condoms and inserted up my ass with the aid of some Helsinki hotel soap.

This was something else I'd learned in reform school. It was the best way to make sure my fifteen pence weekly allowance wasn't stolen. Saran wrap hadn't been as good as these condoms, though.

It was a bit of a smelly affair retrieving it, but once I'd untied the knot in the first condom, pulled out the one inside and washed my hands-there was even soap and water in these toilets-everything was clean and fragrant again. I was still enthusing about Estonian railways when it was suddenly like being back on the King's Lynn-to London line: the flush didn't work.

I stayed a while and treated myself to a wash. Back in the carriage, it was time to study my Narva town map, working out exactly where I'd find Konstantin. According to Lion King there was about an hour to go before we arrived. I sat there feeling rather pleased the chocolate had worked and that I wouldn't have to waste time in Narva waiting for nature to call.

I dry-swallowed another four aspirin and looked out of the window. No wonder people had been getting off before entering this part of the country. This must be the start of the great industrial northeast the Soviets had created during their reign. Gone were the trees and open spaces of the wilderness; instead the view consisted entirely of slag heaps, with massive conveyor belts, and factories that churned out smoke from every corner.

We trundled past forbidding blocks of apartments, with TV aerials hung from every window and sometimes enormous, outdated satellite dishes.

There were no yards or play areas, just two or three cars up on concrete blocks. Even the snow was gray.

The scenery didn't change much as the stops became more frequent, except that every spare inch of ground along the track was covered with little vegetable patches. Even the spaces under electricity towers were turned into makeshift greenhouses using a patchwork of plastic sheeting. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more depressing, the train shunted past three cars parked at the side of the road, nose to tail. They were riddled with bullet holes and burned out. There was no snow or ice on them and shattered glass lay all over the place. It looked as if they'd only just been hosed down and flash lighted For all I knew there might still be bodies inside. A couple of kids walked past and didn't give them a second look.