Belly of the Beast (15 page)

Pytor unwrapped a red scarf and held it up.

“Auntie Alina gave me yarn from an old sweater.”

Pytor put the scarf around his neck. “It’s just perfect.” Tears filled his eyes. He glanced at Niki. “I’m sorry. Grandfather Frost didn’t know we would have company.”

“Your hospitality is a special gift.”

Pytor poured the tea.

“I don’t need anything this year,” said Katrina.

“Then you won’t be disappointed. But I suppose you could have a little sugar.”

Pytor went to the kitchen and returned. “Strange. I found these in the sugar bowl.” He handed Katrina three sticks of wax: green, blue, and red.

“Ski wax. Thank you, Papa, but we have wax at school.”

“Ah, but perhaps you might want to ski when you are not at school.”

“But the skis are at school.”

“You never know what Grandfather Frost might bring—when real Christmas comes.”

“My own skis?”

“Of course he’s not likely to bring new ones.”

“They’ll be new to me. Thank you, Papa.” Katrina hugged her father, then fingered the wax.

“She’s quite a racer,” said Pytor nodding toward the ribbons on the wall.

“I have something, too,” said Niki. She pulled her Black Diamond Skiwear gloves from her bag and handed them to Katrina.

“Niki, you don’t have to—” Pytor began.

“I want to,” said Niki. “I noticed that Katrina likes bright colors.” She handed the gloves to Katrina. “I like to ski myself but never won any medals. My mother wouldn’t let me race.”

“The gloves are warm,” said Katrina, “and just my size. I’m big for my age, you know. I love purple.”

Katrina’s eyes darted, Niki could almost hear her thinking.

“And I have something for you,” Katrina announced. She went to the wall and took down the medal. “It’s for cross-country skiing. It’s bronze, but it’s for first place. Gold and silver are just for the Olympics. It used to have a ribbon, but it broke. I braided a new cord from some parachute cord Papa got for shoestrings.”

“We make do with what we can get,” said Pytor.

Katrina held out the medal to Niki.

Niki leaned back. “No, you won it. I couldn’t—”

“I want you to have it so you’ll remember me. You can show it to Alex.”

“He would like that, but—”

Katrina slipped the cord over Niki’s head before she knew what happened. “First place skier,” said Katrina.

“Wear it for luck,” said Pytor. “I think Katrina will be winning a replacement soon.”

“I want to go outside with my new gloves,” said Katrina.

“We’ll all go,” said Pytor, “but first Niki has some papers to burn.”

Niki burned her extra notebook in a pan by the window. The cold draft blew most of the smoke into the room.

“Now’s a good time to go out,” said Pytor. “I need to make a phone call anyway.”

New snow whitened Sverdlovsk’s gray underwear. Katrina wore her new gloves, Pytor the red scarf, and the bronze medal hung from Niki’s neck. A whistle blew.

“Hope the trains didn’t bother you last night,” said Pytor.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if the tracks ran through the apartment. I’ve never been so tired. I stayed up half the night before I left and didn’t get much sleep on the planes.”

“You slept until noon today,” said Katrina.

“It was barely light.”

“Winter days are short in the Urals,” said Pytor. “We’re quite far north. Wait here; I’ll be right back.” He stepped into an official looking building.

Katrina spied a big bank of snow, looked down an alley, and said, “Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

Niki felt more vulnerable than ever standing alone in the middle of Russia. Before she had fixed goals that she could achieve—Moscow, Vnukovo Airport, Sverdlovsk—but now she was at Pytor’s mercy.

Pytor returned. “Katrina left you?”

“Just for a minute. You were making a phone call?”

Pytor nodded. “Business.”

“Could I call Alex?”

Pytor sucked air between his teeth as he glanced about. “A call to America would not be a good idea. I’m worried enough someone will learn that you’re staying at our flat.”

“I understand.”

Katrina returned with a cardboard box and flattened it into a sled. She headed for a snow bank until she saw three boys walking down the street. With the cardboard behind her, she smiled as they passed. They all looked back to give her a last look before rounding a corner. As if their departure had been a starting gun, Katrina raced up the bank and slid down, tumbling and laughing. Niki took her hands out of her coat pockets and followed Katrina’s example. She ended face first in the snow. Pytor took off a glove and reached to help her. She took his hand, felt the warmth of his fingers for a second, then pulled him head over heels into the snow beside her. Katrina jumped on top of both of them.

“This is more fun than jumping in the lake,” said Katrina.

“It’s a bit cold for swimming,” said Niki.

“But we do,” said Katrina.

Pytor smiled. “It’s a tradition. We swim through a hole in the ice on Epiphany Day.”

Katrina stood up and pretended to shiver. “It’s not so bad.”

Pytor rose and offered his hand again. “You’re not going to be mean to me again, are you?”

Niki offered her hand and savored Pytor’s warmth.

“You’re freezing,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking letting you out like this.” Pytor insisted on giving Niki his gloves, then carefully brushed the snow from her cheek.

“At least it’s not very cold,” said Katrina. “On really cold days, Father says, ‘It’s so cold, bureaucrats have their hands in their own pockets.’ I’m not sure what that means.”

“Be careful what you say around her,” said Pytor.

An old woman approached pushing a baby pram, its wheels crusted with ice. “Hot tea?” she asked uncovering a steaming kettle. Pytor bought three cups for one ruble fifty. He gave the old woman three rubles and told her, “Happy New Year.”

“That was nice of you,” said Niki.

“Sometimes you have to help a stranger.”

The woman struggled to push the pram on through the new snow, rounded the same corner as the boys, and was gone.

“She needs a little sled,” said Niki.

“As I said, we make do with what we have.” Pytor held up the torn cardboard. “Case in point.” Katrina grabbed it and ran for the snow bank.

Niki thought about Rob’s thousand-dollar snowmobile and wondered which brought greater pleasure.

Katrina slid to Niki’s feet, then looked up. “Have you ever thought about moving to Russia?”

Niki took a breath of the cold air. “I miss my son, but Russia is turning out to be nicer than I thought.”

“Niki’s son and husband are waiting for her in Canada,” said Pytor.”

“I’m not married. It’s just Alex, me, and our little cabin. I’m a little cold. Perhaps we should head back.”

“A penny for your thoughts,” Pytor said in English as they walked.

“You know our sayings?”

Pytor nodded. “It’s one of the ways we learn English, sayings and songs.” He touched her arm. “Some enchanted evening. . .”

Niki shivered. “I thought we disliked each other.”

“That was yesterday. We didn’t know each other. It’s good to laugh a little, isn’t it?”

A cloud of guilt covered Niki face. “I shouldn’t be enjoying this walk. I’m in a life and death race to save my son.”

“Even the best athlete must breathe.”

“I wish things were different.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Katrina.

“Niki misses family,” said Pytor.

“Then today we must be Niki’s family.” Katrina stepped between Niki and her father and wrapped her arms around their waists.

Niki put her arm around Katrina’s shoulder. For a brief moment, it didn’t matter that she was a desperate American traipsing through the Russian winter.

Back at the flat, Pytor sautéed onions for his soup. Mole arrived after a couple of hours with a loaf of bread under his arm and snow on his shoulders. “Sorry I’m so late. The bread line was longer than usual.” Mole shook off his coat and left his shoes by the door. He looked down and wiggled his toes through holes in his socks.

Katrina laughed, then pulled a second package from behind the sofa and handed it to Mole. “Alina had to do most of it.”

Mole unwrapped a pair of knit slippers, red like the scarf. “These are wonderful, but isn’t Father Frost a bit early?”

“It’s Christmas in Canada,” said Katrina.

“Just as well,” said Mole. “A storm front is moving down from the Arctic. The heat wave is over.” He hugged Katrina. “Father Frost will have to make an extra trip for you, my little turnip, but he’s got good news for Niki.” He pulled an envelope from his coat and smiled. “Your new visa, in record time.”

Niki jumped up and studied it. “It looks like the real thing.”

“I’m glad I could help.” He turned to Pytor. “Onion soup again?”

Pytor nodded. “It’s about the last of them. Next week we will have egg foo yung.”

“You’re hauling eggs tomorrow?”

The smile fell from Niki’s face. “I thought we would be going to Kyshtym.”

“We are; I arranged it on the phone when we were out. The wholesaler wanted me to go tomorrow anyway. We’ll be hauling eggs. It’s how I make a living. I get paid in produce and trade for gas and whatever else we need. Last week we got onions. Hauling produce is also how I get to places I shouldn’t be.”

“I don’t like it when you’re gone,” said Katrina.

“Alina can teach you how to darn Mole’s socks. We’ll be home by dinnertime, don’t worry.”

Pytor tapped Niki’s shoulder. “Time to get up. Are you ready to find your father?”

Niki opened her eyes to the day of reckoning. “
Da-nyet
,” she replied with the classic phrase meaning both yes and no. She felt the empty space on the bed beside her. “Where’s Katrina?”

“On her way to school. I thought you needed as much sleep as you could get. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Pytor dished out hot porridge when Niki came in, then handed her a pair of fleece-lined boots. “They were Irina’s. I hope you don’t mind. Temperature’s dropping. You’d better wear your ski jacket.”

“It doesn’t match. My leather coat will be fine with a sweater.” Niki slipped on the boots. They were loose, but Niki didn’t mention it. “Thank you. They’re perfect,” she said. “I imagine you were a wonderful husband.”

“I couldn’t keep Irina from dying. All I can do now is try to protect Katrina.” Pytor handed Niki the lavender ski gloves. “Katrina insisted that you wear them today. You’d hurt her feelings to refuse.”

Niki put the gloves in her pocket with the envelope that held Alex’s picture, then picked up her leather satchel.

“Katrina sewed up the cut while I cooked her breakfast. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m grateful.”

“I don’t think she meant to snoop, but she said there is a giant syringe inside.”

Niki was thankful the girl hadn’t found her notebook. “The syringe is for extracting bone marrow.”

“And you got that through customs?”

“I had it wrapped in my extra underwear in my suitcase. The customs officers were more interested in the radio.”

While Pytor washed dishes, Niki rechecked her medical kit, then stuck it where her money had been. She hid her notebook deep in her pants pocket.

Outside, the morning air was crisp, a fresh dusting of snow glistened in the streetlights. Niki inhaled the familiar scent of coal smoke. A crossing guard flagged traffic, mostly trucks and buses, as a freight train rumbled by.

“The trains burn coal?”

“Russian,” whispered Pytor. “Only speak Russian when we’re outside.”

“The trains burn coal?” Niki repeated in Russian.

“Some, and the power plant does. Sverdlovsk was founded on coal and iron.” Pytor turned the starter key until his car finally coughed to life.

“I gather from what Katrina said that it’s not polite to ask personal questions,” said Niki.

Pytor stepped out and chipped ice from the windshield. “It’s a holdover from the Stalin era,” he said through the open door. “Back then, any personal information could be wielded as weapon against you. Is there something you want to know?”

“I’m just interested in your life. Tell me more about your Irina.”

The little Zhuguli coughed and blue smoke drifted by the open door.

“First things first,” said Pytor, as he rearranged several bottles under the driver’s seat, tucked the dosimeter between them, then got in. “Got your passport?”

Niki patted her satchel.

“From now on, don’t speak Russian, and don’t acknowledge anything in Russian. Let me do all the talking.”

Niki shrugged, “You keep changing the rules,” she said in Russian.

“English, English only.”

“Okay.” Niki tucked her hands under her arms. “This
is
a cold place.”

Pytor jiggled the heater control, wiped the windshield with the back of his glove, and put the car in gear. “It won’t be so bad once the heater kicks in.”

A green and gold passenger train rolled by two blocks away.

“The westbound,” said Pytor.

“The Siberian Express?”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“It’s famous.”

Pytor looked at his watch. “8:05. Right on time. We should be in Kyshtym by 10:00. It’s only a hundred and fifty kilometers.”

“How many miles is that?”

Pytor thought for a moment. “Ten kilometers equals about six miles, so Kyshtym is about ninety miles.”

Pytor drove down Prospect Kosmonav. Like ghosts, old women in babushkas and men in fur caps stared out from frosted trolley windows. One of the few cars had skis tied to its top. Tall buildings of brick and stone lined the way. Although it was still dark, children with schoolbooks walked well-trod paths through the parks that twined between buildings.

Pytor slowed to a stop at a traffic light. To the right was a church out of a fairy tale. Lacy towers balanced seven gold domes.

“I never thought Russia would be like this,” said Niki. “The buildings are beautiful, and there’s no traffic.”

“No cars. I still don’t know how I happened on to this Zhuguli. Some government official sold it to me for a fraction of its value.”

“Probably because of the heater.”

The light changed.

“We’ve always been told Russians were so poor with shortages and all,” Niki continued, “but that church is absolutely fantastic.”

Pytor thought about it. “Sometimes you must look below the surface. That church is a warehouse now, and these fancy buildings are for the government. Not many of us get to go inside and when we do it’s usually bad news. And wherever you don’t see people waiting in line, it’s because there’s a shortage.”

“But the children look happy even though it’s so cold and dark.”

“We don’t mind what we are used to. Katrina loves to play outside.”

“She’s at an awkward age, caught between being a little girl and a woman.”

“I hope she doesn’t have to grow up too fast. Everything is changing.”

“For better or worse?” asked Niki.

“It’s hard to say. What’s good for one is not necessarily good for another. Book censorship ended last year. That was good for me, bad for the censors.”

Pytor pointed to a little log building. Icicles hung from the roof. “That’s where the Tsar and his family were murdered. Sverdlovsk was called Ekaterinburg then—and will be again, I’ve been told. The death of the Tsar was good for some, bad for others.”

Fancy buildings changed to squat apartments. “Now you can see Russia’s unveiled face. Those precast concrete buildings are Khrushchev flats, all alike with their low ceilings and dysfunctional kitchens, but it was a giant leap from the
kommunalki
of Stalin’s reign where twenty people might share a kitchen and toilet, places like Mole’s. The
Khrushchev
flats gave each family their own kitchen and toilet, dysfunctional as they were. Irina and I were lucky to get post-revolution flat with a kitchen. It was her parents’ place. With no insulation and uncontrolled heat pipes, most of the apartments are too cold or too hot. We got a warm one. An open window is our thermostat.”

Pytor pulled onto a side street, drove a few more blocks, then stopped in front of a windowless tin building with a new sign that said
Soukhoznyy Produce
. He beeped his horn.

A plump-faced man came out and peered through the spot on the windshield that Pytor kept wiping. “What’s wrong with your defroster?”

Pytor got out. “The heater is finicky, but it’ll be fine once we’re underway.”

“Zhuguli are pieces of junk.” Steam poured from the man’s breath. “I didn’t buy eggs to have them freeze on the way to market.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll be okay.”

“This isn’t the old days. I had to pay for these eggs. You pay me up front, and I won’t worry about them.”

“You know I can’t afford that.”

“That’s why I’m the businessman. I know how this new economy works. Come back when you have a real truck.”

Pytor got back in the car, head down. “We can’t go,” he whispered. “The cold is our enemy today.”

“We have to go,” said Niki.

“We don’t have gas money to drive down and back. I stashed my spare gas money for Katrina’s skis. I need to haul something.”

“I have American dollars.”

“They’d be worse than a phone call.”

“Doesn’t that man have something that won’t freeze?”

Pytor beeped his horn again.

“I’ve got carrots you can haul to Berezovskiy, it’s close enough that they won’t freeze.”

“Kyshtym must need something besides eggs,” said Pytor.

“They get most stuff by rail. Why is it you always want to go to Kyshtym? You got a girlfriend down there?”

Pytor smiled.

“On second thought,” said the man, “I do have something that’s perfect for that car of yours, but you’ll have to convince the produce man in Kyshtym to take them.”

Niki helped Pytor fill the back of the Zhuguli floor to ceiling with assorted cardboard boxes all filled with frozen salmon. “Don’t let your car warm up,” warned the warehouse man.”

Back on the road, moonlight filtered through tall pines as the apartment buildings thinned out. Ski trails lined a meandering river. Niki wished for a moment she was on her skis.

“Your daughter must be quite a skier,” she said. “I can’t believe she insisted that I wear her medal.”

“She is very special.”

“She was joking about language tapes saying the rats ate the barley, wasn’t she?”

“I’m afraid not. It probably didn’t seem strange to the man who made the recording. Want to hear some? I listen to tapes while I’m making deliveries.” Pytor took a cassette tape from the glove box and plugged it into a player that was screwed to the bottom of the dashboard. “The crops have failed again,” said a voice in Russian, then in English.

Pytor turned it off and slowed down. “We’re about to come to a checkpoint. Let me do all the talking.”

Several militiamen peered from a little warming hut. One stepped outside and waved them past with his rifle.

“They probably recognized my car,” said Pytor as he zigzagged around concrete barricades. “And it’s easier to get out of a city than in.”

“The car is warming up,” said Niki, gagging slightly.

Pytor rolled down his window a few inches. “Once it starts to heat, it won’t stop. I wish we had the eggs. Sorry about the smell.”

The road was straight and fast. Potholes packed with snow had been scraped smooth by snowplows. Headlights came and went, mostly trucks. Two horse-drawn wagons, each loaded with hay, passed each other in opposite directions. Several broken-down trucks lined the roadside, a couple almost drifted over with snow.

Beyond the highway were snow-covered fields, rows of trees, and an occasional building. Ahead, cottage lights glowed warmly.

“We can drive all through Sverdlovsk without stopping,” said Pytor, “and there are two checkpoints at this little village.”

A militiaman directed Pytor to a stop by a barricade. As Pytor opened his window fully, the man covered his nose, glanced at Pytor’s passport, and waved them on.

In the village itself, a roadside market sold potato pies and hot tea that steamed into the overhead lights. Several military trucks were parked along the road.

“Best not to stop here,” said Pytor.

Just past the village was the next checkpoint.

“Papers.” A young soldier held out his gloved hand.

Pytor handed over their passports and Niki’s visa.

“Canada?”

“She’s a visiting scientist.”

The soldier stuck his head in the window. “You know Gordy Howe, Wayne Gretzky?”

“She doesn’t speak Russian.”

“You don’t need to speak Russian to know Wayne Gretzky.”

The soldier stared at Niki, then at the Russian visa in her passport, then behind the front seat where a back seat should have been. “Turn off your car and give me your keys.”

Pytor did as he was told.

“Wait here.” The soldier took the passports and ducked into a warming shed.

“What’s going on?” whispered Niki.

“Don’t know. They usually don’t have to check with someone to take a bribe. He knows something is odd, probably never even saw a foreign passport before.”