Trans-Siberian Express (40 page)

When the door opened, she was startled by a sudden surge of familiarity. Something was reminding her of Grivetsky. She handed Zeldovich the message, all the while looking beyond him, over his shoulder into the compartment. It was the smoke. She smelled the same peculiarly rich cigar smoke that had filled Grivetsky’s compartment at their first meeting and which still lingered there. Zeldovich slammed the door in her face, but not before she had confirmed the aroma. Somehow she had felt the general’s presence, as if the smell were not just a reminder, but a personal message to her. She shook off the idea that the general was in Zeldovich’s compartment, sitting relaxed in a chair as she had first observed him. Actually, this reminder was more annoying than anything else, since she had managed to forget Grivetsky and, with him, the entire record of her sordid indiscretions. The raw wound of her humiliation was now opened again, and once again she could not believe that Grivetsky had used her so badly. Again she felt the tug of suspicion about Grivetsky’s hasty departure. She went into her quarters and shook the old crone. The woman gasped, swallowed in mid-snore, and opened her eyes.

“I am going to tell them about the bribe you took from the Jew.”

The older woman blinked, not understanding.

“I am going to tell the inspector.”

“What?”

A nerve palpitated in the old crone’s cheek and her eyes narrowed with fright.

“The inspector. Sokolovich. I am going to tell him that you were bribed by the Jew.”

The woman gasped.

“Please—” she began, but it was happening too fast and she could not think of what to say.

“I want you to tell me the truth about General Grivetsky.” Tania gripped the woman’s shoulders and raised her to a sitting position.

“It was not my business,” the woman said, trying to shake loose.

“Quickly,” Tania hissed. The smell of the cigar smoke was still in her nostrils.

“They had him between them,” she whispered, her resistance gone, her body limp. “His head was bobbing. I thought he might be drunk. I should not have looked.”

“Looked where?”

“Out the window. They pushed him out of the door. It was all very fast. He rolled into the river. Then they threw off his bags.” She looked up at Tania, pleading.

Tania felt the tears begin, then run down her cheeks.

“I did not want to look,” the woman whispered urgently. “I turned away quickly and put it from my mind. It is not my business.”

Tania pushed the woman back on her bunk as if she had been holding something unclean. “You must not report me,” the old woman pleaded, her chest heaving. She repeated it over and over again like a litany.

“Shut up.” Tania snapped, wiping the tears away with her sleeve.

The woman continued whimpering, but Tania’s mind was drifting. How proud she had been of the general’s interest in her. He had not abused her. Now she could mourn a lost love.

“You will not report me?” the woman whined.

It was an intrusion, angering Tania again. “Get out,” she snapped.

When the old woman had gone, Tania undressed. Carefully, she laved her body in the sink, soaping herself, scrubbing as hard as if she was peeling away old skin. Rinsing off the soap, she patted her skin until it tingled, feeling the sweetness of her own cleanliness. Then she tightened the sheets of her bunk and slipped between them.

The initial chill made her shiver, and she lay stiffly, waiting for the warmth which came moving upward from her feet, over her legs and thighs, to her breasts. The train bounced beneath her reassuringly, and she listened contentedly to the sounds of her world, the tiny click of metal wheels on the track rivets, the clank and heave of metal couplings, the whoosh of the freight cars that passed heading westward.

She felt a drowsiness descend, an uncoupling, as if her mind were being let loose to roam. Her thoughts turned happily to the general, the neat cut of his uniform, his elegant carriage and, best of all, those moments in which he confided his anxieties. What had seemed indiscretions only a few hours before were now, in her mind, heroic deeds. She had sacrificed a bit of herself, endangered her status on the railroad, the most meaningful thing in her life. She recalled the anticipation which she had felt in those moments of preparation, before he was taken from her, and her hands began to stroke her thighs. Her nipples came erect, rubbing against the cool cotton of the sheets, and she felt herself reaching out for him. Her hands were his hands and they were greedy for the touch of her. He pursued her, his fingers caressed and reached inside of her and she felt his ardor, the relentlessness of his passion, and heard him whisper words of devotion in her ear. Waves of surrender engulfed her as she drowned willingly in the pleasure of it, feeling his pleasure as well, his release, his fulfillment.

Whether she had slept or fainted or both, she could not recall, except that now she was being shaken awake and was resisting with all her will. Then she was sitting up, slowly recovering her sense of time and place, and there before her was the wrinkled face of the old crone. The window was pitch-black.

“He wants to get off at Birobidjan,” the older woman said.

“You woke me for that?” Tania said angrily.

The old woman flicked a switch and the little bulb on the wall behind the bunk lit up. Tania gathered the blanket around the naked upper part of her body.

“You must forgive me, Tania Revekka,” the older woman pleaded.

Tania smiled thinly. The woman was simply stupid, worse than a child.

“So let him off,” she said, forgiving now, remembering what the woman’s confession had given her.

“He can’t move his legs.”

“Who?”

“The man who was in the compartment with the Jew.”

Him again, Tania thought, a sudden image of the pale, squat man flashing through her mind. She lifted the clipboard with the list of passengers from its place on the hook near her bunk.

“He is ticketed to Khabarovsk.”

“I know. But he wants to get off at Birobidjan. He has been making a great racket about it.”

Tania remembered the general’s fear of the man, and the little brat mimicking his walk. Still shrouded in the blankets, she slipped out of her bunk onto the cold floor. She lifted the woman’s thin wrist and peered at the face of her watch.

“I will be right out,” she said. “We are forty minutes out of Bira. We will only have a minute or two.”

Godorov was sitting on his bunk. Beside him on the floor of the compartment was a battered cardboard suitcase, its frame dented, the clasps broken, held together by rope. Somehow he had managed to pack and dress. The collar of his coat was turned up and his little eyes peered out. Tania was startled at his appearance. Whereas he had once appeared sinister, he was now frail. The look of the hunted dog had vanished and in its place was an enigmatic indifference. His legs trembled as they hung over the side of the bunk, his battered shoes tapping lightly and helplessly on the floor.

“You will please carry me off the train at Birobidjan.”

Tania wanted to ask why, but he was too obviously determined. It is not my business, she told herself, stifling her curiosity about the man’s condition. The old crone picked up the cardboard suitcase and moved quickly through the passageway.

“And the body in the baggage car,” he began. “I have been charged with its burial.”

“You, too?” Tania said flippantly.

Was he joking? She was under orders to return the body to Moscow.

“I have money,” he said, taking a wad of rubles from his coat pocket.

She turned away quickly, wondering if the guard who stood in the corridor was listening. The compartment door was open.

“Put that away,” she said.

His proposition was insulting. Did she look as if she would be receptive to a bribe? Human garbage, she told herself, feeling the train begin to slow.

Godorov suddenly reached out and grabbed the edge of the upper bunk and, grunting with strain, hoisted himself to a standing position. Tania tried to support him, but his weight was enormous. The old crone came back and let Godorov edge his other arm over her shoulder.

“He is like a ton of lead,” Tania said as they moved him out into the passageway. The guard looked at them curiously, then turned away. Not your business, eh? Tania thought, as they struggled ahead.

In the space between the cars, Tania opened the door and let Godorov sink to the steps as she squinted into the distance. Ahead, she could see the sparse lights of Birobidjan. Of all eastern Siberia, Birobidjan had always appeared the most desolate place of all. Years ago, when Tania had first started on the railroad, she had been told that Stalin had chosen it as a place for the Jews.

“It is a rotten place,” someone had said and it had stuck in her mind. “A perfect place for them.” It was the kind of stop along the line that seemed an afterthought.

Godorov looked up at her.

“Just leave me on the platform and remove the body from the baggage car. I will give you the rubles when the job is done.”

Tania looked down at him contemptuously. The old crone turned away.

The train pulled into the station. Half the lights were out, and the others barely lit the platform. Not a single person was in sight. A banner, frayed by the wind, hung limply between two poles.

Tania stepped over the seated figure and stood waiting at the foot of the steps. Godorov reached out and lifted himself by the handrail, while the older woman supported him and Tania braced herself to receive his weight. She looked around in the darkness for a place to leave him, and spotted a wooden crate standing against a brick wall near the edge of the platform.

“Hurry,” Godorov said.

The two women, bowed under his weight, carried him across the platform, his lifeless legs dragging behind. Puffing with effort, they deposited him on the crate. Even in the bad light, Godorov’s ashen face glowed with sweat.

“Now the body,” he urged.

Tania looked back at the train. The empty restaurant car cast the only light in the deserted station. Not a single passenger had debarked and both ends of the platform ended in total blackness. Godorov removed the rubles from his pocket and waved them in front of the two women.

“Hurry,” he said. “You will not get this until you do it.”

Tania looked down at him with disdain, remembering how he had once struck fear in the heart of the general. She looked at her watch. A man appeared in the dark doorway of the station house and waved at the engineer. Tania and the old attendant moved toward the train, still watching the man, who sat helplessly on the crate.

“Hurry,” he shouted.

“Stupid man,” Tania hissed, turning quickly and running for the train, which had already started to move, the old crone hobbling behind her.

They watched from the metal steps as the man slipped off the crate onto the platform and tried to crawl forward, like some strange reptile. He was shouting something, but Tania could not hear. She watched until he faded out of sight, a black blob passing finally into invisibility.

THE
train halted with a violent jerk, toppling the vodka bottle from the little table in Zeldovich’s compartment. It was empty and made a dull thud as it dropped to the floor. Zeldovich opened heavy eyes, rubbed them and looked out of the window. The lights of his compartment were off and he had been sleeping in the chair for what might have been hours or minutes.

Something was happening along the track. Soldiers armed with machine guns were running along the westbound track. They seemed to be taking up skirmishing positions along the length of the train. He rubbed his eyes and strained to see the insignia of the troops, some sign of their command. They were Red Army, definitely not KGB.

Although the train had come to a dead halt, there was no sign of a station. Drawing out his wrinkled timetable, he placed it flat against his knees and flicked on the light. By his calculation, they were twenty minutes outside of Khabarovsk. Outside the compartment, he heard the heavy thud of footsteps.

He opened the compartment door cautiously, gripping the butt of his revolver, which he shifted from his belt to a side pocket. The KGB guard outside the doctor’s compartment had disappeared and at either end of the carriage he could see Red Army soldiers in pairs, their feet planted across the space of the doorway, machine guns at the ready. He looked out of the window on the eastbound side and saw the shadowy shapes of Army trucks. Above his head he heard the rhythmical clunk of footsteps. Soldiers were also on the roof. They were everywhere.

A compartment door opened and a sandy-haired man appeared, rubbing his eyes.

“What now?” he said.

The gray-haired woman, her face still puffy with sleep, was observing the activity from a vantage point near the toilet door.

“We are apparently being captured,” she said cheerfully. “By the whole Red Army!”

Zeldovich pressed his face against the icy window and watched as the KGB troop car was shunted to a siding. Three trucks were lined up, their axles chained to the troop carriage, which was moving slowly forward.

“You see,” Dr. Cousins said, from behind him.

Zeldovich turned quickly, reaching into his pocket, gripping the butt of the revolver. Behind Cousins stood Anna Petrovna.

“See what?” Zeldovich asked, his throat tight and dry.

“Power belongs to him who has the guts to take it.”

Zeldovich smiled. So the doctor thinks Dimitrov is behind this.

“Did you think you could stop him?” the American doctor asked.

He looked smug and Zeldovich felt a brief tremor of uncertainty. It was true that Dimitrov might get the Red Army to move, but not without explaining his request to Bulgakov first. Which was why he had sent Grivetsky to Chita in the first place, to circumvent Bulgakov and isolate the function of command. Had he miscalculated, based upon the American doctor’s assessment? Was Dimitrov really dying? This exercise of power required health. If Dimitrov were visibly failing, he would have had difficulty getting these orders carried out. The jackals would be at his throat.