“Very good, sir.”
Sam counted out two hundred forty dollars. “Thank you so much.”
The man handed him his change in rubles. “And can I see your passports?”
Sam had his passport in his coat, but it occurred to him that he didn’t want his name on the record, either for the Russian police, who would come and get him, or Poliakoff’s men, who would kill him. He patted his pockets, a look of horror on his face. “Oh, no. My wife has our passports.” He turned and craned his neck, searching for the imaginary woman. He also ascertained that the line behind him had grown to about fifteen people, many of whom were looking anxious.
“Never mind,” the man said. “Here.” He handed him two tickets. “If anyone asks on the train, just show him your passports then.”
“Thank you again.” Sam rushed off.
Sam had only twenty minutes to wait and so he went to the platforms and spotted a sign in Latin letters that spelled Gorky. He stood eagerly waiting for the chance to get on the train. He saw pairs of policemen walking up and down the platforms, occasionally stopping people to talk, sometimes even asking to see a ticket. Sam reminded himself that this was perfectly normal behavior. When he had ridden the subway in Los Angeles, there would often be pairs of sheriff’s deputies, in their khaki pants and shirts, stopping people with the same half-friendly authority: “Didn’t forget to get your ticket, did you?” The main thing was not to look furtive or frightened.
When the doors to the train opened, he held his ticket in his hand and stepped in. He walked from car to car until he found one that said “2me” which he hoped meant second class. He found a seat beside a window toward the back of the car. Almost immediately a man about his age sat next to him. There was alcohol on the man’s breath, and he was broad and took up a bit more than his seat. Sam contemplated moving but was reluctant to draw attention to himself, and one by one the seats all filled up. Sam waited for a few minutes until the train doors closed and the people around him began to get settled. He leaned his head against the window for a time, looking out as the train moved slowly through the station, past the platforms, and then the open train yard, with its dozens of parallel tracks, under the evening sky. There was a disorienting feeling as a train clattered into the station on the track just to his left, giving him the unsettling impression that his train was suddenly traveling at high speed.
His train did gain speed from then on, heading out toward the farthest eastern reaches of the city. He hoped the man beside him was not going to try to chat the time away. If he did, Sam planned to smile stupidly, produce his American passport, and say he just spoke English. But there was no talk. The man folded his arms, leaned back in his seat, and fell asleep. After a few minutes, his deep breathing became a snore when he inhaled and a hiss when he exhaled. Sam stared out the window for an hour until the gray buildings floating by turned darker and were farther apart and then disappeared into the night.
Sam had walked most of the day, had many tense moments that he’d had to get through, and had finally gotten into a secure, comfortable place, a train that was taking him toward Remi. The repetitive sound of the wheels on the tracks, the gentle rocking of the car, even the soft sound of two women talking quietly, were reassuring. After a time, he succumbed to sleep.
He slept for seven hours and woke to a still-dark car full of sleeping people. He remembered seeing on the schedule that the train would arrive in Gorky at five forty-five. He checked his watch and saw that it was five. Somewhere far ahead of the train, the sky had become darker than night in preparation for the first light of dawn. He couldn’t see the sun yet, just sense its energy. He had time to think about his next move. He realized he had been desperate and foolish to climb aboard a train that would take him unerringly to the train station in his enemy’s hometown. How could Poliakoff not have photographs of Sam to hand out to whatever shadowy figures he could hire to watch for Sam and warn Poliakoff when Sam got off the train?
Sam was sitting passively, letting the train carry him straight into a place where his enemies were watching and waiting for him. From the moment he bought his ticket, he had been like a steer walking down one chute to the next on his way into the slaughterhouse. Each turn he made closed off another alternate route and brought him closer to the end. He could see the open fields beside the train now and the telephone poles slipping past. The fields of alfalfa looked inviting, but he could tell the train was going too fast to permit him to jump. Maybe if there were a turn, or a hill, the train would slow down, but this area was as flat as the American Plains. There was no reason for a train to do anything but barrel into the bright morning. And then he felt the train slowing down.
He held his hand over his ticket inside his pocket and sat on the edge of his seat, looking out to see what was happening. People around him seemed to be waking up, poking or shaking one another, whispering. Then there was a definite slowing, and a recorded voice announcing a destination. People took that as a signal to stand and get their belongings off overhead racks or put on their jackets against the morning chill.
The train pulled into a station that was simply a pair of outdoor platforms, one on either side of the tracks, and a plain-looking brick building. He had no idea what the sign said. The train stopped, the doors opened, and people struggled with heavy luggage and children and their own stiff-leggedness from sitting eight hours. They got out the open door and started to walk.
Sam had instinctively tried to stick with crowds, but this wasn’t a crowd. A trickle of people who didn’t look much like him crossed a platform to a rural road that looked empty. He thought, It’s time. It has to be now. He got up and stepped out the door with his schoolboy bag and his cap and began to walk. He heard the doors close behind him, then a muffled Russian announcement from inside the train, and the big diesel engine began to pull it away. He kept going. He looked at his watch. It was 5:08. If the train was on time, it was thirty-seven minutes from Nizhny Novgorod.
He knew he must be subjecting himself to a very long walk, but he also knew that he had probably just saved his own life. He thought about his route. The train had gone pretty much due east for hours, and there was no reason to imagine it wasn’t designed to go due east the rest of the way. He could see the sun rising at the eastern end of the road, so he headed toward it. He pushed his hat’s brim down to protect his eyes and stared ten feet ahead at the ground alongside the road. He was going to get to Remi.
He knew he wasn’t getting there quickly, but he decided it had to be that way. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, to be the one who was different. When he got there, he wanted to be like a drop of water in a rainstorm. He was just another Russian worker making his way.
NIZHNY NOVGOROD, RUSSIA
IT WAS LATE THE FOLLOWING NIGHT WHEN SAM SAW THE big farm that a woman on the road had pointed out. There were large fields surrounded by fences, but there didn’t seem to be anything growing except grass. He could see the big old manor house about half a mile back from the road and a number of white buildings beyond that he supposed must be barns and stables. There were no lights on that he could see. He could tell there was a stream that ran from somewhere in the back part of the farm down under the road and off in the direction of the Volga River. Most of the field was just short grassy vegetation that he couldn’t identify in the night, but along the stream were tall reeds, and its course was marked by a long line of bushes and trees that grew there because of the abundant water.