THE NIGHT SPEEDS THROUGH THE DARK into dim morning, a dogged queue at the shrine of the WC, a dry wash among the puddles of pee, sputum, shame, sheepish looks, shadows of steaming tea glasses in the windows, large, flat cubes of Cuban sugar, paper-light aluminium spoons, black bread, Viola cheese, sliced tomatoes and onion, the roasted torso of a young chicken, canned horseradish, hard-boiled eggs, salt pickles, mayonnaise, tinned fish, and canned peas from Moldavia.
The darkness breaks out in a new day, snow rising from the ground up the tree trunks, the silence fading in their upper branches, a hawk perched on a turquoise cloud, looking down at the slithering worm of train.
Quiet spread orange over the snowy taiga. The man sat on the edge of his bunk, placed teacups on the table, and waited impatiently for the girl to look at him.
‘Once, in Moscow, there was a father, a mother, and a son. On 65 Kropotkin Street, in a little room behind a communal kitchen, in a home where locks couldn’t protect them. This family was quite ordinary, the mother working behind the counter in a bread shop, the father drinking on a construction site, but a true Stakhanovite nonetheless. Late one evening, when he thought the boy was asleep, the man said to his wife, It’s the boy or me. The wife whispered back in a sweet voice, Wait another month and he’ll be gone.’
He wiped his nose with his palm and swallowed.
‘In the morning the boy said his goodbyes to his one-eyed dog and pulled the door shut behind him. By nightfall he had joined a gang of other runaways and started living on the streets of Moscow. These street children slept wherever and whenever they could, in a heap like puppies, together with the deformed and the crippled, the thieves, whores, mental patients and hunchbacks. Nobody missed them, but they, too, wanted to live. The less bread they had, the more misery they had, the greater their desire to live became. They knew no fear because they were so young that they didn’t yet know the value of life. They didn’t know themselves and they didn’t know the world. This boy grew up on the streets. He grew up to be a shaggy, iron-belted Soviet Citizen who pissed pure vodka.’
He poured steeped tea into both glasses and added hot water from the samovar to get it to the right strength.
‘Tell me, do you know why a rainbow never forms behind the back of the person looking at it?’
There was a thud, a knock, and then the train braked furiously. The rails trembled, the carriages swayed, the snow on the roadbed flew into the air. The train jerked along with the brakes screeching for some distance. Boxes toppled off the shelves and the tea glasses smashed against the wall of the compartment. A woman screamed, children cried, someone ran down the corridor with heavy steps.
Arisa’s calming voice could be heard. ‘Don’t worry. Everything’s normal. Citizens, please stay in your compartments. There’s nothing to see here.’
The man opened the door a crack. The passageway was filled with the curious. The girl looked out of the window and saw only forest smothered in snow. The man went into the corridor and she followed him. The door to the next carriage was open, the people crowding off the train, some bareheaded, some wearing slippers. The man shoved his way through the people and jumped into the snow among the staring, clamorous crowd. The girl remained standing in the crush on the top step of the carriage doorway. She could see drops of blood dripping into the pure white of the snow a short distance ahead. Her gaze followed a tree trunk up towards the sky. Among the pine branches hung an elk’s bloody leg.
‘The animal’s suffering. We have to finish it,’ Arisa sputtered. ‘Bring the axe, quick!’
The axe swung in Arisa’s hand as she waded towards the engine. The three-legged elk was breathing quickly, terror glittering in its eyes. Arisa lifted the axe and struck its sharp blade into the middle of the elk’s head. The blade sank into its skull, but it didn’t die.
Shaking his head, the man strode over to the twisting, bellowing animal, grabbed his jackknife from the side of his boot, snapped the blade open, and stuck it into the elk’s jugular vein. Blood sprayed in an arc and landed in the snow, then it was very silent for a moment.
‘The journey continues!’ Arisa shouted sharply, shooing the passengers back onto the train.
On the train, the man wiped his knife on his bootleg, folded it closed, slid his hand up his side, looking for his trouser pocket, and slowly, with a slight smile, slipped the knife in. The girl waited for the train to roll into motion.
‘Once we were on a trip to Pskov to renovate a convent. We were sitting in third class, drinking. The train was rattling quietly onward across snowy nature, just like now. In the middle of this game I felt the carriage shudder. Then it started to lean and the old ladies started screaming. I looked out of the window and saw shards of railway sleepers fly by and the snow on the ground getting closer and closer. One sharp turn and the ground under the train embankment filled the window, and then the carriage was on its side in the snow. I thought I’d died and everybody else had too. But it was nothing, just a few bloodied heads, crawling out from any exit we could find. Some genius who needed the iron had stolen a stretch of the rails. We walked along the tracks for three days before we saw the towers of Pskov Kremlin. We got there, put on a couple of new roofs, and in the spring when the rails had been replaced and the guilty party found and executed, we took the same train back to Moscow.’
The girl dug her headphones out of her bag, flopped onto her bunk, closed her eyes, and listened to music. She fell asleep, switched from Louis Armstrong to Dusty Springfield, and fell asleep again.
4
THE TRAIN HAD SPED through the Udmurt Republic, and now was dragging limply past the Balezino station. The man rubbed his chin. The girl was listening to the choked puff of the small air vent and drawing. The morning stared sternly at them. The man opened up a draughts board and set out the pieces. The girl chose black.
They played three games, of which she won two. He congratulated her with a fierce squeeze of her hand.
The white sun rose high and hearty above the snowy woodland. Smoky clouds rushed to the centre of the sky looking for a resting place. The man and the girl sat silently. They sat in their own thoughts for a day or two.
It had been a sunny turquoise summer day. When Irina’s girlfriend Julia left, the girl went into Irina’s bedroom and looked down at Bakunin Street. People were walking in their spring coats. The girl even saw a couple of stylishly cut, flowered summer dresses. Just as she was about to look away, she noticed three men under the old maple trees. Something strange was going on among them – quick movements, lurches, swinging motions, sudden slumps. Then she saw a red blood stain on one thin man’s white shirt. One of the other men ran away. She saw him throw a knife down in a driveway. One stabbed man fell to the ground, another rolled on the pavement holding his stomach. There was a truck in front of the bakery. Five workers were lounging on the back of the truck. They ran after the stabber, got hold of him, and knocked him down. All five of them started to hit and kick him. Soon there were dozens of people around him, mostly women, beating him with handbags and gigantic sweet potatoes. The girl’s gaze shifted to the stabbed men. They were both lying motionless. No one was interested in them. A militia car arrived and the crowd around the stabber reluctantly dispersed. Blood poured out of the beaten man’s mouth and ears; his head had swollen to the size of a watermelon; one of his legs was bent in an unnatural position. There were two militiamen. They dragged the horrifying pile of flesh over to their Lada and then straightened their backs as if they were pondering how to cram the dying killer into the little car. When one of them grabbed him to shove him into the back seat, he wrenched himself free and hopped on one foot, vomiting blood, and got into the car.