When I left the apartment again only fifteen minutes had passed, but in that quarter hour, a resolve had developed in my core so that I knew exactly what I needed to do. I was determined to make the evening train to Moscow. From there I would take a taxi directly from Kazanksiy Station to the airport and catch the first flight out of Russia, using my Aeroflot ticket, or if necessary, winging it to any safe European capital and from there back to the United States. I was determined not to spend more than one more night in Russia.
The Moskovskiy station was all but empty at nine o’clock that evening. Only a few travelers were crossing the dusty granite floors and just a few taxi drivers were waiting for a fare. The city was still celebrating tonight in concerts and festivals in the old city. Nobody was traveling.
A feeling of despair and panic rushed through me when I found the ticket window closed for the holiday. The trains were idle for the fifty years anniversary. There were no departures listed for that night. I turned and looked again at the empty hall. My ribs throbbed, and in the gash on my left arm I could feel every beat of my racing heart and my head was spinning as I hadn’t eaten all day. My thoughts raced with all the horror scenarios that could happen in the next forty-eight hours if I wasn’t on an airplane by Monday morning. Del had told me specifically to be gone by Monday morning. Why? What was going to happen on Monday morning? Was Del going to try and stop Mr. P’s meeting with the mayor by exposing them both? The next train to Moscow wouldn’t be until Sunday evening at ten o’clock. Where could I hide out for the twenty-four hours? I couldn’t call Del anymore. Returning to and sleeping in my apartment was only asking for trouble; if they wanted to find me again I would be an easy target. I needed to stay hidden. Yulia was away in Moscow. Staying in a hotel would be just as unsafe as sleeping in my own apartment. Nothing happens in the hotels without the police and mafia goons knowing about it before it happens. Then my thoughts caught a flash of hope: Hans! Where is Hans tonight? Hans should be at home! I stepped quickly to the taxi stand.
I asked the taxi driver to take me only as far as Senaya Square via the lower embankment and the Kazanskiy Syezd so that if later questioned by any operatives of Mr. P., they would think of, and look first at Del’s apartment and not a few blocks further up at Hans’s apartment on Proviantaksaya street. The walk was a little too much for me with my entire body aching. I stopped several times and sat on benches near bus stops and in the occasional courtyard of another apartment building. I used this as a chance to see if I was possibly being followed by anybody. I highly doubted that anybody would have had the chance to follow me as I had moved quickly from my apartment to the train station by metro and then by taxi to the old city again. As the taxi driver hadn’t sent nor received any radio messages while I was in his cab, not even to radio his destination for his dispatch coordinator, I was pretty confident that nobody who might have been watching for me would have had the chance to be in place at Senaya Square where I exited the taxi. I walked along Bolshaya Pecherskaya instead of Minin Street down to Hans’s street. If I had been tasked with keeping an eye for myself, Minin Street is where I would have been waiting, and so I stayed in the twilight shadows a street over instead of walking right past the American Library again. There was nobody on this street; no automobiles, no footsteps, no street cars. There was not a single soul visible up and down the street as far as I could see. I needed to hurry.
Following a young family through the ground floor entrance of the building and off the street as they returned home from the festivities on Minin Square, I felt already a bit safer. At least, if needed, I could hide anonymously in this random stairwell if Hans wasn’t at home. Not wanting to sound and look panicked I waited a few moments until the adrenaline subsided and I caught my breath again before I headed up the stairs to Hans’s door. The building and the stairwell were quiet, the street even more so.
I rang Hans’s bell and waited to hear movement behind the door. I rang the bell again and then a third time in short bursts. This time somebody inside was stirring and padding quickly to the door. From the peephole a flash of pinpoint light pricked the darkness of the landing. The spy glass went dark. I could feel Hans blinking at me. I removed my cap and waved at him. The latches eventually were opened after a moment of hesitation and the door opened letting light spill from the apartment’s hallway on to my feet and legs. Hans stood shirtless behind the door, poking his head into the gap between door and door jam.
Hans was annoyed. “Peter, this really isn’t a good time” he was giving signals with his face and head movements that I had buzzed him at just the wrong moment. He seemed to be in earnest.
“Hans, I really need to sleep here for the night,” I whispered from the shadow on the landing. “I”m in serious trouble and have no place else to go.”
“Peter, not now! Really, not now! Please just come back in two hours…,” he was insistent.
From behind him I heard a woman’s voice call out from the living room.
“Who’s there, Hansy?” it was Tamara.
“Nobody, Mein Schatz, just a drunk guy looking for his keys,’’ Hans replied and moved to close the door.
Without thinking I put my foot between the open door and the door frame before Hans could get the door on the latch. His reaction was one of shock and disbelief. His face took on a concerned look and he peered past me further into the dark stairwell.
“Hans, I really need your help! Please don’t close the door,” I said firmly. I didn’t push the door any further, but I did not remove my foot.
Our eyes met and we strained at each other’s glare for a few tense moments. To my relief his resistance gave way and the door opened a bit further and Hans waved me in with a defeated drop of his head and closed the door behind me. I glanced at Tamara’s bare legs and backside in the dark living room as she was picking up her clothes and dashed into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
“Peter, this had better be good!” He wheezed at me not wanting to raise his voice.
“Hans, thanks for letting me in. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have no other safe place to hold up.”
I calmly explained to my friend, grateful that he didn’t send me away. “Listen, I was robbed, beaten, threatened with a pistol and had my apartment broken into and ransacked. I’m trying to get out of town but there is no train to Moscow tonight. I have to be out of Nizhniy by Monday morning so don’t worry, tomorrow I will be gone.”
“Why do you have to leave Nizhniy by Monday?” Hans was now looking worried.
“Listen, I don’t want to involve you any further than letting me sleep here tonight. Tomorrow I will be gone, by Monday I’ll fly away to the USA and won’t bother you anymore,” I explained.
“Look, Peter, you’re not a bother. It was just a bad moment. Come in. Do you need some tea?” he offered.
“I haven’t eaten all day. Do you have something I could eat too?” I had no pride left.
I woke with a start! The room was dark. I could hear a terrible commotion on the streets outside with blue lights flashing and reflecting off the glass of all the windows up and down the buildings on Minin street. I panicked and rushed to pull my shoes on. In the dark, I stumbled over the coffee table and landed hard on the floor on my left side and let out a yelp of pain. My eyes were pulsing in the dark searching for the shadows coming to deliver more blows as I struggled to get up. How did they find me? I was so careful! Holding my wounded left arm against my ribs I stood up again from a kneeling position and moved clumsily to the hallway. Hans stepped out and turned on the hallway light.