Stamboul Train (19 page)

Ninitch sighed and went out into the bitter air of the small platformless station. He had forgotten to put on his gloves, and before he could huddle them on, his fingers were nipped by the cold. He dragged his feet slowly through the first half-melted and then half-frozen mud and snow. No, I am glad I was not in Belgrade, he thought. It was all very puzzling; they were poor and he was poor; they had wives and children; he had a wife and a small daughter; they must have expected to gain something by it, those Reds. The sun getting up above the roof of the customs-shed touched his face with the ghost of warmth; a stationary engine stood like a stray dog panting steam on the up-line. No train would be passing through to Belgrade before the Orient Express was due; for half an hour there would be clamour and movement, the customs-officers would arrive and the guards be posted conspicuously outside the guard-room, then the train would steam out, and there would be only one more train, a small cross-country one to Vinkovce, that day. Ninitch buried his hands in his empty pockets: then would be the time for more
rakia
and another game of cards: but he had no money. Again a slight suspicion that he had been cheated touched his stubborn mind.

‘Ninitch. Ninitch.' He looked round and saw the station-master's clerk plunging after him through the slush without overcoat or gloves. Ninitch thought: He has robbed me, his heart has been touched by God, he is going to make restitution. He stopped and smiled at Lukitch, as much as to say: Have no fear, I am not angry with you. ‘You fool, I thought I should never make you hear,' said the clerk, panting at his side, small and grimy and ill-natured. ‘Go at once to Major Petkovitch. He's wanted on the telephone. I can't make the guard-room answer.'

‘The telephone went out of order last night,' Ninitch explained, ‘while the snow fell.'

‘Incompetence,' fumed the clerk.

‘A man was coming from the town to see to it today.' He hesitated. ‘The major won't come out in the snow. He has a fire in his room so high.'

‘Fool. Imbecile,' said the clerk. ‘It's the Chief of Police speaking from Belgrade. They were trying to send through a telegram, but you were talking so hard, how could anyone hear? Be off.' Ninitch began to walk on towards the guard-room, but the clerk screamed after him, ‘Run, you fool, run.' Ninitch broke into a trot, handicapped by his heavy boots. It's curious, he thought, one's treated like a dog, but a moment later he thought: After all, it's good of them to play cards with me; they must earn in a day what I earn in a week; and they get paid, too, he said to himself, considering the deductions from his own pay for mess, for quarters, for fires. ‘Is the major in?' he asked in the guard-room and then knocked timidly on the door. He should have passed the message through the sergeant, but the sergeant was not in the room, and in any case one never knew when an opportunity for special service might arise, and that might lead to promotion, more pay, more food, a new dress for his wife.

‘Come in.'

Major Petkovitch sat at his desk facing the door. He was short, thin, sharp-featured, and wore pince-nez. There was probably some foreign blood in his family, for he was fair-haired. He was reading an out-of-date German book on strategy and feeding his dog with pieces of sausage. Ninitch stared with envy at the roaring fire. ‘Well, what is it?' the major asked irritably, like a schoolmaster disturbed while going through his pupils' exercises.

‘The Chief of Police has rung up, sir, and wants you on the telephone in the station-master's office.'

‘Isn't our own telephone working?' the major asked, trying, not very successfully, as he laid down the book, to hide his curiosity and excitement; he wanted to give the impression of being on intimate terms with the Chief of Police.

‘No, sir, the man hasn't come from the town yet.'

‘How very trying. Where is the sergeant?'

‘He's gone out for a moment, sir.'

Major Petkovitch plucked at his gloves and smoothed them. ‘You had better come with me. I may need a messenger. Can you write?'

‘A very little, sir.' Ninitch was afraid that the major would choose another messenger, but all he said was, ‘Tut.' Ninitch and the dog followed at the major's heels across the guard-room and over the rails. In the station-master's office Lukitch was making a great show of work in a corner, while the parcels clerk hung round the door totting up entries on a folio sheet. ‘The line is quite clear sir,' said Lukitch and scowled at Ninitch behind the major's back; he envied his proximity to the instrument.

‘Hello, hello, hello,' called Major Petkovitch acidly. The private soldier leant his head a little towards the telephone. Over the long miles between the frontier and Belgrade came the ghost of a cultured insolent voice with an intonation so clear that even Ninitch, standing two feet away from the instrument, could catch the measured syllables. They fell, like a succession of pins, into a deep silence: Lukitch and the parcels clerk held their breath in vain; the stationary engine across the track had stopped panting. ‘Colonel Hartep speaking.' It is the Chief of Police, Ninitch thought, I have heard him speak: how proud my wife will be this evening: the story will go round the barracks, trust her for that. She has not much reason to be proud of me, he considered simply, without self-deprecation, she makes the very most of what she has.

‘Yes, yes, this is Major Petkovitch.'

The insolent voice was a little lowered; Ninitch caught the words only in snatches. ‘On no account . . . Belgrade . . . search the train.'

‘Should I take him to the barracks?'

The voice rose a little in emphasis. ‘No. As few people must see him as possible . . . On the spot.'

‘But really,' Major Petkovitch protested, ‘we haven't the accommodation here. What can we do with him?'

‘. . . a few hours only.'

‘By court-martial? It's very irregular.' The voice began to laugh gently. ‘Myself . . . with you by lunch. . . .'

‘But in the event of an acquittal?'

‘. . . myself,' said the voice indistinctly, ‘you, Major, Captain Alexitch.' It fell lower still. ‘Discreet . . . among friends,' and then more clearly, ‘he may not be alone . . . suspects . . . any excuse . . . the customs. No fuss, mind.'

Major Petkovitch said in a tone of the deepest disapproval, ‘Is there anything else, Colonel Hartep?' The voice became a little animated. ‘Yes, yes. About lunch. I suppose you haven't got much choice up there. . . . At the station . . . a good fire . . . something hot . . . cold things in the car and wine.' There was a pause. ‘Remember, you're responsible.'

‘For something so irregular,' began Major Petkovitch. ‘No, no, no,' said the voice, ‘I was referring, of course, to lunch.'

‘Is everything quiet in Belgrade?' Major Petkovitch asked stiffly. ‘Fast asleep,' the voice said.

‘May I ask one more question?'

Major Petkovitch called, ‘Hello. Hello. Hello,' in an irritated voice and then slammed down the receiver. ‘Where's that man? Come with me,' and again followed by Ninitch and his dog he plunged into the cold, crossed the rails and the guard-room, and slammed the door of his room behind him. Then he wrote a number of notes very briefly and handed them to Ninitch for delivery: he was so hurried and irritated that he forgot to seal two of them. These, of course, Ninitch read; his wife would be proud of him that evening. There was one to the chief customs officer, but that was sealed; there was one to the captain at the barracks telling him to double the station guard immediately and to serve out twenty rounds of ammunition per man. It made Ninitch uneasy; did it mean war, that the Bulgars were coming? Or the Reds? He remembered what had happened at Belgrade and was very much disturbed. After all, he thought, they are our own people, they are poor, they have wives and children. Last of all there was a note for the cook at the barracks, containing detailed instructions for a lunch for three, to be served hot in the major's room at one-thirty; ‘Remember, you're responsible,' it ended.

When Ninitch left the room, Major Petkovitch was again reading the out-of-date German book on strategy, while he fed his dog with pieces of sausage.

II

Coral Musker had fallen asleep long before the train reached Budapest. When Myatt drew a cramped arm from under her head, she woke to a grey morning like the swell of a laden sea. She scrambled quickly from the berth and dressed; she was hurried and excited and she mislaid things. She began to sing light-heartedly under her breath:
I'm so happy, Happy-go-lucky me.
The motion of the train flung her against the window, but she gave the grey morning only a hurried glance. Lights came out here and there, one after the other, but there was not yet day enough to see the houses by; a lamp-lit bridge across the Danube gleamed like the buckle of a garter.
I just go my way, Singing every day.
Somewhere down by the river a white house glowed; it might have been mistaken for a tree trunk in an orchard, but for two lights in ground-floor rooms; as she watched, they were turned out. They've been celebrating late; she wondered, what's been going on there? And laughed a little, feeling herself at one with all daring, scandalous, and youthful things.
Things that worry you Never worry me. Summer follows Spring. I just smile and . . .
Quite dressed now except for her shoes, she turned towards the berth and Myatt.

He was uneasily asleep and needed a shave; he lay in rumpled clothes, and she could connect him with the excitement and pain of the night only with difficulty. This man was a stranger, he would disclaim responsibility for words spoken by an intruder in the dark. So much had been promised her. But she told herself that that kind of good fortune did not come her way. The words of elderly experienced women were brought again to mind: ‘They'll promise anything beforehand,' and the strange moral code of her class warned her: ‘You mustn't remind them.' Nevertheless, she approached him and with her hand tried gently to arrange his hair into some semblance of her lover's. As she touched his forehead he woke, and she faced with courage the glance which she feared to see momentarily blank with ignorance of who she was and what they had done together. She fortified herself with maxims: ‘There's as good fish in the sea,' but to her glad amazement he said at once without any struggle to remember, ‘Yes, we must have the fiddler.'

She clapped her hands together in relief: ‘And don't forget the doctor.' She sat down on the edge of the berth and slipped on her shoes.
I'm so happy.
He remembers, he's going to keep his promise. She began to sing again:
Living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight, Having a wonderful time.
The guard came down the corridor knocking on the door. ‘Budapest.' The lights were clustered together; above the opposite bank of the river, apparently dropped half-way from the heavy sky, shone three stars. ‘What's that? There. It's going. Quick.'

‘The castle,' he said.

‘Budapest.' Josef Grünlich, nodding in his corner, started awake and went to the window. He had a flashing glimpse of water between tall grey houses, of lights burning in upper rooms, cut off abruptly by the arch of the station, and then the train slid to rest in a great echoing hall. Mr Opie at once emerged, brisk and cheerful and laden, dumping two suitcases upon the ground, and then a golf bag, and a tennis racket in its case. Josef grinned and blew out his chest; the sight of Mr Opie reminded him of his crime. A man in Cook's uniform came by leading a tall crumpled woman and her husband; they stumbled at his heels, bewildered, and unhappy through the whistling steam and the calling of strange tongues. It seemed to Josef that he might leave the train. Immediately, because this was something which concerned his safety, he ceased to think either humorously or grandiloquently; the small precise wheels of his brain went round and like the auditing machine in a bank began to record with unfailing accuracy the debits and credits. In a train he was virtually imprisoned; the police could arrange his arrest at any point of his journey; therefore the sooner he was at liberty the better. As an Austrian he would pass unnoticed in Budapest. If he continued his journey to Constantinople, he would run the risk of three more customs examinations. The automatic machine ran again through the figures, added, checked, and passed on to the debit side. The police in Budapest were efficient. In the Balkan countries they were corrupt and there was nothing to fear from the customs. He was farther from the scene of his crime. He had friends in Istanbul. Josef Grünlich decided to go on. The decision made, he again leant back in a dream of triumph; images of revolvers quickly drawn flashed through his mind, voices spoke of him. ‘There's Josef. Five years now and never jugged. He killed Kolber at Vienna.'

‘Budapest.' Dr Czinner ceased writing for a little more than a minute. That small pause was the tribute he paid to the city in which his father had been born. His father had left Hungary when a young man and settled in Dalmatia; in Hungary he had been a peasant, toiling on another man's land; in Split and eventually in Belgrade he had been a shoemaker working for himself; and yet the previous more servile existence, the inheritance of a Hungarian peasant's blood, represented to Dr Czinner the breath of a larger culture blowing down the dark stinking Balkan alleys. It was as if an Athenian slave, become a freed man in barbarian lands, regretted a little the statuary, the poetry, the philosophy of a culture in which he had had no share. The station began to float away from him; names slipped by in a language which his father had never taught him. ‘
Restoracioj,' ‘Pôsto,' ‘Informoj.'
A poster flapped close to the carriage window: ‘
Teatnoj Kaj Amuzejoj,
' and mechanically he noted the unfamiliar names, the entertainments which would be just opening as the train arrived at Belgrade, the Opera, the Royal Orfeum, the Tabarin, and the Jardin de Paris. He remembered how his father had often commented, in the dark basement parlour behind his shop, ‘They enjoy themselves in Buda.' His father, too, had once enjoyed himself in the city, pressing his face against the glass of restaurants, watching, without envy, the food carried to the tables, the fiddlers moving from group to group, making merry himself in a simple vicarious way. He had been angered by his father's easy satisfaction.