McColl expected an argument from Komarov—if not fresh facts, an insistence that everyone makes mistakes. None was forthcoming.
Red Cossacks
Sergei Piatakov turned on his heel to better take in the vastness of earth and heaven. To north and west, the desert of the last few days faded into the distance, where a low line of sand hills merged into the blue-grey sky. Away to the south, above their receding train, a line of mountains loomed out of the heat haze. A half mile or so to the east, across an arid riverbed, the small town of Saryagash seemed sunk in torpor.
“Come on,” Brady said, picking up his battered suitcase. “Time to start our new career.”
The accompanying grin belonged on an explorer’s face, Piatakov thought. Or maybe a conqueror’s. Brady was more Cortés than Columbus—he wouldn’t be satisfied with looking around and reporting back.
The two of them walked across the tracks and started down the dirt road, making the most of the shade provided by the acacias that lined the route. It was incredibly hot—a hundred degrees at least, Piatakov guessed—but the air was so dry that he didn’t feel that uncomfortable.
He remembered thinking that seeing the world would make him a better teacher, but backward Turkestan hadn’t been high on his list of places to visit. He had always wanted to see America, and he and Caitlin had vowed to go there together once the revolution was safely entrenched. He would meet her family in New York and then perhaps travel west to see the Grand Canyon and the great meteorite crater and the geyser in Yellowstone Park—all those wonders of the world that had gripped his imagination as a child.
Well, he doubted he’d ever see them now.
Brady already had, of course, and been characteristically unimpressed. “A deep trench, a big hole, and a tall fountain,” had been his verdict, when Piatakov had mentioned his ambition to see them.
“What day is it?” the American asked, interrupting Piatakov’s reverie.
“Saturday.”
“That’s what I thought. Twelve days to travel two thousand miles.” He took out his fob and checked the time. “It looks like a ghost town,” he said, gazing ahead at the empty-looking Saryagash. “Maybe they’re all having siestas. With heat like this, they’d need to.”
Piatakov didn’t bother to reply. He understood the American’s slightly hysterical mood: twelve days on a crowded train, and this much light and space was enough to make anyone feel light-headed. And after only a few hundred yards, they were probably both beginning to feel the heat. The sun seemed to press down on Piatakov’s cap like a steam iron.
“Uzbeks,” Brady said as they saw their first people—a series of men laid out on mattresses in the shade of trees and buildings. “The Russian colonists down here call all the urban Muslims Sarts, but there are lots of different groups. You can tell them by their hats. See that guy over there?” He pointed out an old man sitting in an open doorway, wearing what looked like a long white nightshirt and a peakless embroidered cap. “That sort of hat means an Uzbek.”
Piatakov grunted. He sometimes felt that Brady should have been a librarian, albeit one who took no prisoners.
They came to a crossroads where the road from the station met a wide, tree-lined avenue that boasted a number of imposing buildings. Two Uzbeks were walking toward them, toting battered kerosene cans from which they sprinkled water across the sandy street. Their bare feet were blanched by the dust.
The Russian Imperial Bank seemed permanently closed, its double-eagle plaque hanging loose on the wall by the boarded doors. Three small boys were sitting on its veranda, watching the strangers with interest.
“There,” Piatakov said, pointing out another building fifty yards farther on, where a large red flag hung above an open door, low enough to serve as an entrance curtain.
Inside they found a large office, shutters closed against the sun. Two desks bore typewriters; several shelves sagged under piles of papers. The large map of Turkestan that hung on one wall looked as though someone had thrown a bottle of ink at it.
A chain of troika bells hung beside the door. Brady shook it, conjuring a mental picture of falling snow.
A bleary-eyed man emerged from the back of the building. He was a Russian, somewhere between youth and middle age, with a complexion that suggested more than a few years in Turkestan. He greeted them cordially, said his name was Ulionshin and that he was the local party secretary.
Brady passed over two of the identity papers that Aram Shahumian had forged in Moscow. Ulionshin took a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from a drawer and examined the papers carefully. “So, Comrade Travkin,” he said, addressing Brady, “you and Comrade Semionov here have come to report on the state of our roads in Turkestan.” He offered a wry smile. “It will be a short report, I’m afraid. One word would suffice for most of them and not a word you use when ladies are present. But accurate. The camels have been dropping it for several thousand years. Still, what can I do to help you?”
“Somewhere to sleep tonight and a ride into Tashkent tomorrow morning, if that’s possible,” Brady said.
“Transport by road, you mean?”
“It’s the only way to see what improvements are necessary.”
“Of course, of course. But we have no motor transport, I’m sorry to say. There was an automobile,” he explained almost wistfully, “but the Tashkent Cheka decided they needed it more than we did. And of course they were correct, but…” He shrugged. “I can have you taken by taranta.”
“Taranta?”
“I’m sorry. Living here for so long, one forgets. A taranta is a four-wheel carriage, quite comfortable, and Tashkent is only thirty versts away. Three hours at the most.”
“That sounds very acceptable,” Brady said.
“Good. As for a place to sleep, I shall be honored to share my roof; you will find nowhere cooler in Saryagash. And of course you must eat with us.”
It was a pleasant evening. Ulionshin’s wife was a lovely, almond-eyed Uzbek, and his equally beautiful daughters had a plethora of questions about the wider world, which Brady was happy to answer. The food was the best they’d eaten for several months: thick unleavened bread, which Ulionshin called lepioshka, and chunks of lamb on skewers grilled over a slow-burning fire, all washed down with raisin-sweetened, bloodred apple tea. Afterward, stretched out on his back in their allotted corner of the roof, Piatakov stared up at the starriest sky he had ever seen.
He lay awake for a long time, feeling the past gnawing at the edges of his contentment. This was his new life, freely chosen. Why was it so hard to cast the old one aside?
They left Saryagash soon after first light, sitting side by side on the taranta’s rear seat. The driver, a young Uzbek named Mirumar, spoke not a word of Russian but refused to be inhibited by this handicap. Whenever he had a moment free from shouting at the horses, he would explain passing scenes of interest with extravagant gestures, streams of incomprehensible words, and what he no doubt thought was a winning smile.
The journey was slow but mentally relaxing, despite Mirumar’s exuberance and the endless jolting of the ironclad wheels on the badly rutted road. They sat mostly in silence, aware of the heat’s slowly tightening grip, listening to the heavy breathing of the two ponies, watching the mountains rise in the distance. Only once did they encounter other travelers: a convoy of camels escorted by nomad horsemen, who treated them to an array of lordly stares.
“Kyrgyz,” Brady suggested, a word that unleashed a long stream of obvious invective from their driver.