Kuan Yu nodded, solemn. “That is true. There’s fear that the British will start another war, if the Qing do not get the Taiping under control fast enough.”
“So you do not think the Qing would be interested in allying themselves with Russia.”
“No.” Kuan Yu’s smile was frozen, a sliver of white ice in his dark beard. “Qing… you know they are foreigners, you know how Han hate them. But there’s also this: they have chosen their demon. They know it is a demon, a demon that torments and kills and mutilates them every day, and yet it is familiar and they tell themselves that it will protect them from other demons.”
“You think all westerners are demons?”
Woo Pei shook his head, impatient. “It is not that. Your god is taking over our gods, and maybe it is all right, maybe they can all live together or they will battle and the weak ones will perish. What it is, however, is this: we do not yet believe we must ally with any demon. Maybe we are naïve and foolish, but we do think like this: maybe we don’t have to honor demons, maybe there are angels, or maybe we, ourselves, are enough. Qing, they believe in nothing but the demons and are eager to strike a bargain without ever thinking that maybe they don’t have to.”
Despite his faltering words and circuitous manner of speaking, his explanation made sense to me. Moreover, I recognized myself, Eugenia, Jack: we all were too fearful to expect anything but disappointment. I thought maybe this was why all of us were constantly rewarded with it. I nodded, wordless, and sat back in my chair, no longer tense and reaching. “Maybe we are not demons,” I said.
“Maybe so.” Kuan Yu put a folded envelope in front of me. I opened it to find a sheet of paper covered in Jack’s careful hand. My heart fluttered, and I forgot to even feel disappointed once I realized it wasn’t my letter.
“My dearest Sasha,” the letter opened, rather dramatically, “I hope this finds you well. I must beg your forgiveness for not telling you earlier, but I fear that our pursuers (and I am ashamed to recognize them as my countrymen) may have too easy a time following us. Yet, I worry that if one of us were to be captured, the fate of the other would be as good as sealed. So I have made a decision to travel separately — and I hope you will forgive me for not betraying my means, for to tell you would be to put you in a greater danger.” I stopped there and thought peevishly that he knew the way I was traveling and therefore was in a position to betray me while not extending me the same courtesy. Or was he so certain that he liked me more than I liked him? I continued reading.
“I will wait for you in Krasnoyarsk, and only hope you will do the same for me if you get there first. If we do not meet in one week’s time, proceed without me. If it is at all in my powers, I will make sure the documents you need to achieve your purpose will be available to you.”
Strange — how could he make sure of something like that, unless he had a trusted courier? Moreover, there was no place of meeting indicated anywhere. I turned the page over, and found a faint, spidery scrawl that I would have missed if I had not searched so intently any sign at all.
“Follow your heart,” it read. “Believe your heroes.”
This advice seemed both too general and too hackneyed for Jack, so I decided it was a secret way of telling me where to meet him. The trouble was, I had no idea what was in Krasnoyarsk, and who I could possibly follow there, let alone which ones of my heroes he was talking about.
I folded the letter and stuffed it carefully into the inner pocket of my uniform, as Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi watched. I wondered if they had read the letter.
“Are you going to Krasnoyarsk?” I asked them.
“Eventually,” Liu Zhi answered and twisted his mustache thoughtfully. “Who knows when the next train comes? In winter, there’s snow, there’s cold and breakage. Trains unreliable. Unless the hussars let us join them.”
“This could be arranged, I’m sure,” I said, and rose. “Come along, it is high time the two of you met some of my colleagues.”
Liu Zhi and Kuan Yu nodded to Woo Pei and followed me; their docility and easy manner kept surprising me. After all, I had barely made their acquaintance before witnessing them kick in several English heads. I puzzled whether traveling with me would be of some benefit to them — if it were, it would be easier for me to accept their willingness to come along.
We found the party in the tavern had grown subdued, as most of the participants had either left for the train and its warmth and benches, or fell asleep where they sat. The rotmistr and still sober Volzhenko were the only two who seemed in possession of their faculties. A few hussars were leaving, and Volzhenko barked orders at them, telling them to all stay together, to take a head count when they left and when they arrived, and to report the irregularities to Cornet Petrovsky who was already on the train. When Volzhenko saw me, he grinned. “Has to be done,” he shouted by the way of explanation. “These sorry bastards get drunk, wander through the snow, fall over and pass out, and then we find them dead, like logs frozen solid. We make sure that if anyone falls behind, there’s someone there to go back and dig him out of a snowdrift. Necessary, that.”
“I see,” I said, and smiled.
The rotmistr winked and laughed, and gave an exaggerated head tilt in the direction of Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi. Woo Pei remained invisible in the kitchen, but his presence was still palpable in the sweaty, musty din of the room. “Your friends?”
“Fur traders from China,” I said. And added in a burst of inspiration, “I am paying them to escort me around Beijing. May they travel with me?”
The rotmistr scratched the back of his head, and then opened in his arms in a gesture of wide wonderment. “Oh, young Poruchik Menshov. How I envy your gift of making friends, of finding what you need to find. Of course they may travel with you — we have space.”
“Thank you, rotmistr.” I leaned over the table to shake his wide, calloused hand that reminded me of a piece of leather tack more than human flesh. “I cannot thank you enough for your kindness.”
He waved his hands in the air, as if suddenly shy of gratitude and praise. “The pleasure is all mine, poruchik,” he said.
I had to admire how quickly his speech changed from educated and businesslike to lilting and folksy, as if he was so used to playing one of his hussars, all peasants in their past lives, that it took him effort to remember how to speak as an educated man, while the reverse transition came as easy as breathing. “The pleasure’s all mine. You see, it’s winter, the nights are long, the days have all but disappeared, and the road is long and snowy and difficult. There are rumors of roaming wolves and rails busted open from the freeze, but — and call me a superstitious man if you must — but I look at you and I wonder. I wonder at how you manage to slip away from those who are looking for you and how you continue — as unstoppable as an arrow — and the world turns to spread itself under your feet so that you may get to wherever it is you’re going. With you on board, I am sure our journey will go well, little hussar, so you bring whoever you need to bring with you, and may God be with you all.”
I wasn’t sure if he was serious or joking, but I could not doubt that his sharp eyes saw Kuan Yu cross himself when God was mentioned.
Chapter 14
I wondered occasionally whether I had fallen asleep and dreamed this entire journey, if I would wake up back in St. Petersburg — or even in Trubetskoye, and discover that the last year of my life was just a dream brought on by a too late and too filling meal. I could hope, couldn’t I?
Not that I was unhappy, but I felt so detached from everything I had ever known. I drifted among the strange people and occurrences, missed my mother and my aunt, and still moved inexorably east, along the narrow steel tracks that pierced the heart of my country like a shining needle piercing the thorax of a butterfly.