Klim sighed, walked to the safe, and pushed it over onto the carpet. Then he pressed at the bottom of the safe, which gave way. Putting his hand inside, Klim drew out a pile of papers.
“Father got this safe,” he said, “as a souvenir from the insurance company after he’d gotten two burglars sent to jail. They had opened the safe so neatly that no one could guess what had happened to the two hundred thousand rubles locked inside. The door was intact, and the lock closed. It was only later that the investigator realized they had cut out the bottom with a special tool from America.”
Tears streamed down Lubochka’s cheeks. “Why are you leaving me behind? You still don’t understand that I love you, do you?”
“Lubochka…” Klim said in a reproachful tone. “Possessing doesn’t mean loving.”
“Do you think Nina loves you? She wrecked your life. She took away everything you had. And I pulled you out of the mire, and after that, you—”
Klim put Nina’s employment card in his pocket. “I know you’ve done your best, and I’m very grateful. But Nina and I are unhappy here.” He paused, not knowing what to add. “Thanks for everything,” he said at last.
“Damn you!” Lubochka yelled after him as he left.
She stood in the middle of the room next to the overturned safe surrounded by scattered papers. The house was as quiet as an abandoned mine.
Gradually, it dawned on Lubochka that she had no one left. It had all happened so quickly! Clearly, Klim had planned his escape. While she had struggled to guarantee him benefits that ordinary people couldn’t have dreamed of, he had been plotting against her all of the time.
But what about Sablin? How could he have abandoned her?
With a decisive step, Lubochka went into the hall and reached for the telephone on the wall.
“May I help you?” asked the operator.
“Nine-forty, please,” said Lubochka.
Suddenly, the connection was broken off.
“Don’t.” Her father came into the hall holding an unplugged telephone wire. “Don’t call the Cheka.”
“So, you’re on their side too, are you?” asked Lubochka, taking a step back from him.
Anton Emilievich shook his grizzled head. “Let them go,” he said. “They’ll have their necks wrung somewhere along the way. But if we call the Cheka, there will be an investigation, and the first thing they’ll do is come here. Is that really what you want?”
He stepped toward his daughter and took her in his arms. She sobbed on his shoulder like a child.
On their way to the special service train standing on the sidetrack, the “Red propagandists” were constantly stopped by patrols who demanded their documents. Nina held Klim’s hand and kept looking behind her to check that the old countess and Dr. Sablin were able to keep up.
It was horrible—creeping away like this with their tails between their legs and feeling so vulnerable at every moment. All they could do was keep praying silently, “Lord, have mercy on us!”
What if something went wrong? What if there was no locomotive? What if there was some sort of mistake in their documents?
A Cheka man at the footsteps of the railroad car examined their documents for a few agonizing minutes, scraping at the paper with his fingernail while his lips moved. It took some time for Nina to realize that he was holding the permits upside down. The man was illiterate.
Deliriously happy, they got into their compartment and locked the door. Could it be that they had made it? But, no—it was still too early to rejoice.
Klim put the field kit on the top shelf.
“Sofia Karlovna,” he said, “I forgot to ask—should a gentleman carry a lady’s knapsack?”
He was still able to joke.
“What are you talking about?” the old countess sniffed. “A gentleman shouldn’t carry anything for a lady except perhaps one or two books or a beautifully wrapped box of chocolates.”
“We’re fine then,” sighed Klim with relief, helping Nina to take off her knapsack. “Still, I feel sorry for Kaiser. Lubochka is sure to deny him his rations as punishment for our sins, and I’m sure she’ll eat Speckle.”
“Oh, do be quiet!” Sablin pleaded.
At nine o’clock, the train was still standing motionless in the same place. They spent another two hours in silence, devastated and jittery with anxiety. They heard soldiers running on the roof of the train and someone shouting at the conductor on the other side of the wall.
Finally, the engine whistled, the train jerked, and the grim buildings of railroad depots began to slide past the window.
“Rissoles—a hundred rubles each,” the attendant said, sticking his head around the door of the compartment. “White flatbread—forty rubles. Hot water—two rubles.”
Before the revolution, it had been possible to board a train in the evening and arrive in Moscow the following day.
The day after they had boarded the special service train, it had only gotten as far as Doskino two stations away from Nizhny Novgorod. Even the commander of an infantry regiment in the neighboring compartment—a very stern character—was unable to figure out the mysterious ways in which the railroad administration worked. He tried everything, including threats to shoot the staff, but neither swearing nor pointing a gun at the engine driver’s head had any effect.
“What am I supposed to do if I’ve been ordered to let the troop trains go ahead?” snapped the engine driver.
There was no other choice but to watch the boxcars full of recruits roll by. The sides of the cars were painted with slogans: “All forces join the fight against General Denikin!” Soldiers sat in the open doorways with row upon row of heads behind them.
“Cannon fodder,” Sablin whispered under his breath.
The “propagandists” arrived in Moscow the following week only to learn that the Whites under General Denikin had taken Poltava, Kremenchug, and Ekaterinoslav and launched an offensive against Kiev and Odessa.
It took them three weeks to receive passes from the Central Office of Military Communications. Unfortunately, by that time, the papers issued by Osip had expired. The Bolshevik officials were scared witless and claimed to have no idea what was going on at the front. The situation was changing every day, and communications with Kursk were sporadic.
Finally, all permissions were granted.
The “propagandists” boarded another special service train. This time, the neighboring compartment was occupied by a group of Red Army officers newly graduated from military school. Sablin gazed at the peasant boys. They were neatly dressed, polite, and modest, and their heads were filled with Bolshevik propaganda, nationalism, and flag-waving. They were clearly proud of the fact that the important folk in Moscow had such high expectations of them.
With no watches or calendars, the passengers could only guess at how much time was passing. They ate what the cook sent from the dining car and washed using the services of women who came to the station platforms with soap, towels, and buckets of water.
During the first days of their journey, Sablin was still having trouble taking in the enormity of what he had done. Every second took him closer to the frontline, and the only thing he knew for certain was that there was no way back.
He had not imagined how unbearable it would be to live in one compartment with Klim and Nina. She cut up an apple, stood on her bed, and passed the pieces one by one to Klim as he lay on the upper berth. Then instead of sitting down, she remained standing there whispering in Klim’s ear and laughing softly, making Sablin feel awkward, unwanted, and in the way.
The old countess sat playing patience, and Sablin thought longingly of Lubochka and the look she had given him when he had waved her goodbye. Really, when all was said and done, they had repaid her kindness very poorly.