The Railway (18 page)

One day, or rather night, not long after Easter, Father Ioann came across a boy curled up under a bush on the edge of the cemetery; he stank of vodka, of what people called
the green snake
. What could inspire greater disgust? The serpent beneath the Tree of Knowledge.
..
Father Ioann wanted to fetch Satan a blow with a cudgel, but – O Lord! – there was nothing to hand except a cross sticking up from a grave. Father Ioann seized this cross, raised it in the air, then stopped short; the boy, a native of these parts, was whispering in Russian: “Mummy.”

But the boy did not awake – neither when Father Ioann carried him to the burial mound, nor when he climbed down to continue his work in the Cathedral, leaving the boy to lie under the stars with no covering except Father Ioann's torn sheepskin. Long after midnight, with an excitement that bordered on lust, Father Ioann carried the boy into the Cathedral. Never had Father Ioann known anything like this; it was as if his every movement were being followed by thousands of eyes of thousand-winged yet incorporeal angels, as if his every moan or groan were being heard, as if his every thought were being examined for purity, and he was eager to show that his own lust was not like other people's lust; so it is that a man seeks to commune with eternity, in some sense to master it, but in the end, because of our imperfections, nothing remains but these stirrings of lust.
..
Stammering and confused, the Father read the fifty-fifth of the Psalms of David and then made the sign of the cross over the boy. Just for a moment the boy half-opened his eyes, cast them round the Cathedral, the steps and columns, the cupola, the opening into the wide-open dawn sky, and then closed them again.

What the priest wanted now was for the boy to die, and then – it was with horror, with shame, but with an irrepressible longing that he caught himself thinking this base thought – he would administer the last rites to this innocently sinful child and thus fill the Cathedral with meaning; but the boy did not die, and Father Ioann did not kill him for the sake of the fulfilment of his own Cathedral.

What happened was more prosaic. In a state of trembling intoxication, leaving the boy lying before the altar on a stone that represented the Coffin of our Lord, Father Ioann climbed into his cradle in order to remove the last piece of petrified moss; this broke off at the first blow, tore off a piece of Father Ioann's ungainly cope, crashed onto one of the granite steps, chipped a small piece off the step and hurtled downwards again. The old man climbed down after it in agony, as if it were his own heart that had been chipped, but the damage to the step was only slight and Father Ioann turned his face to the heavens in joy, whereupon he heard the slender sound of an underground stream, a slowly mounting, snake-like current
…
Appalled at the remorseless movement of fate, losing his footing on the polished steps, the old man hurried down until, in darkness where the light of day never penetrates, he heard the rustling wings of angels now flying away. Water from the fires of Gehenna was rising unstoppably, along with a stinking steam. Father Ioann would have rushed down to meet this water but a sudden burning pain dragged him back up to the boy, whose eyes were now clear and open. The old man snatched him up in his arms and then, his cope flapping against the polished steps, rushed up to the cupola, to the opening into the sky.

That was the day of calamities, the day of the earthquake that brought about the collapse of the water tower opposite the house of blind Hoomer. Hot mineral water gushed from the Russian cemetery and the resulting flood swept away the graves that had been dug by Father Ioann – or Old Vanka, as most people called him. Coffins and pages from the Father's annals were carried off higgledy-piggledy by the healing waters. Later, however, Oppok-Lovely got hold of some bulldozers from the local Motor Tractor Station and from three other centres run by the sons of Chinali and had a tower built over the former Cathedral. This tower, known as the Collective Farm Hydroelectric Station and separated by a path from the Russian cemetery where Vanka-Prophet is buried, is now used by the District Health Committee for sulphuric baths.

Indian films? Indian films, Indian films!

If anything educated the social conscience of Gilas and its inhabitants, it was not of course the dismal Socialist Saturdays during which Gogolushko and Satiboldi-Buildings supervised the planting of tubercular trees – which grew neither taller nor broader yet never quite died, and which would be transplanted again in the course of the next Socialist Saturday. Nor was it the slogans daubed all over Gilas – including the public toilets – by Ortik-Picture-Reels. (As you may remember, none of these slogans were ever read by anyone except Musayev – although it is true that he was allowed free access, in his search for hidden meanings in Party decrees, even to the women's toilets. As for Ortik-Picture-Reels, he nearly drank himself to death on the royalties he received for his work from the Party.)

No, if anything truly educated, quietened and comforted Gilas, it was, of course, Indian films.
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First, their titles provided the boys with a word game that was popular, even if not always quite fair. Yes, thanks to the bribes that his stepfather, Shop Inspector Ryksy, received from local shopkeepers, Kobil-Melonhead was able to make regular trips to the City and therefore had a considerable advantage over the other boys. Making the most of this, he would look at Kutr, the son of Bolta-Lightning and Vera-Virgo, and ask a succinct question, for example: “L.I.S.?” After scratching his head for a bit, Kutr would repeat some words he'd picked up at home from one of his mother's visitors and admit defeat, having already bet Gilas's first condom, which had been left behind by one of those same visitors. “
Love in Simla!
” Kobil cried out triumphantly as he took possession of the condom. “It's never been shown here,” Kutr whined – but it was too late. Kutr then suggested playing
nuts
;
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very soon he had not only won back his condom but also won rights to the titles of eight films that no one in Gilas apart from Kobil-Melonhead had ever seen: S. for
Sangam
, F. I. T. D. for
Flower in the Dust
, E. A. M. F. for
Elephants Are My Friends
, and so on.

So much for the children. As for the old men, they went to these films so they could weep freely for all their relatives who had died one way or another before, during or after the War – as well as for their own displaced, dislocated lives; the Koreans also wanted the chance to weep freely, to drown the grief of separation from their beloved Sakhalin Island with a still greater
Indian
grief; the pregnant wanted to be sure their babies would be born safely and happily; alcoholics wanted to spend a few hours without drinking – and then, of course, there were the Crimean Tatars
110
and the travelling gypsies, who had Indian blood themselves and goodness knows what going on in their obscure souls. Once, on the day of Yom Kippur, after writing the film title
Shri 420
(
Mister 420
) with his own urine on the wall of Huvron-Barber's little shop, Yusuf-Cobbler went to see the film itself. Why he went is unclear – he may have wanted to laugh at those who were weeping, or he may have hoped to see a size 420 shoe – but the film affected him more deeply than he expected. Stealthily weeping thousands of years' worth of Jewish tears onto the floor, he saw his tears join streams of other tears flowing across the dank carpets Ortik-Picture-Reels had acquired after they had been “written off” by the Party; these rivulets rose to the level of his clients' ankles, to the level of their calves, to the level of their bottoms – and soon Yusuf-Cobbler was thinking not only of the Great Flood and Noah's Ark but also of the Mount Ararat of salt-corroded soles and heels that he would soon be required to repair. Be that as it may, he was so shaken that he decided never again to piss against the wall of Huvron-Barber's little shop. Such is the power of Indian films.

But the story I want to tell happened long before
Mister 420
. I want to tell you the story of what happened after
The Railway to Pradesh
(T.R.T.P. – as Kobil-Melonhead would have put it). Or rather not
after
the film was shown, but
while
it was being shown, since Ortik-Picture-Reels showed every Indian film eight times: four times one day and four times the next day. The takings from the first two screenings went to pay the rental, the takings from the next four went to the local Party officials, and the takings from the last two constituted his profit. And Temir-Iul-Longline published a regular supplement listing changes made to the railway schedule in order to co-ordinate it with the film programme and the times workers finished their shifts.

Temir-Iul-Longline was, of course, an important figure. It was often said that his long-lived grandfather Umur-Longline had not only built the local railway but had also been buried somewhere beneath it; this, at least, was how Temir-Iul's father had understood the sentence, “The iron road was built on the blood of the Russian and local proletariat.” Old Hoomer, the local sage, never contradicted this interpretation – and Temir-Iul gratefully arranged for him to be paid a considerable personal pension. He also, in case Hoomer should ever blurt out anything best left unsaid, ordered an entire Timur team
111
to keep an eye on him.

But it's hard to be sure of anything in this world. There were also certain sharp-tongued old women – like Nakhshon Shtonner, especially if her husband's pension was late – who sometimes tried to make out that Umur-Longline had been killed by Russian navvies: he had, so these women said, been profiteering from their labour – selling off railway sleepers, already coated with tar, to be used for building work in the town. Yes, mouths are different from saucepans – you can't keep a lid on them. And half of the buildings of Gilas did indeed have foundations made from these sleepers. There was no doubt that something had been built on the blood and bones of Temir-Iul's grandfather – it was just a little uncertain exactly what!

But enough of that – let's get back to the film. This particular film – like all Indian films, of course – was simple enough as regards content. Beside the railway line lives the family of the local Teacher, who has taken in the orphaned Gopal and brought him up together with his own daughter; yes, Gopal and the beautiful Radkha are like brother and sister to one another. The Teacher has taught Gopal to read and write; after betrothing him to Radkha, the Teacher even pays with the last of his money for him to go to Bombay and study in the Railway Academy. But after Gopal's departure, the Teacher's family sinks into poverty. The Teacher is growing old and can only teach the occasional lesson, and Radkha is now the breadwinner. She has no choice but to work as a dancer in the station restaurant. There she is seen by the Station Supervisor, who at once begins to think Evil Thoughts.

Meanwhile, Gopal, still in Bombay, is in trouble as the result of an encounter, during the Festival of the Sacred Cow, with Dimna – a student in the year below him and the daughter of the very same Station Supervisor. Dimna is in love with him; in the womb of the monument to the sacred cow, with festivities and fireworks going on outside, she tries to seduce him – but in vain. Gopal finishes his studies and returns to his birthplace. In the evening he goes straight to the station buffet to drink a cup of Indian tea and – O Vishnu, O Shiva! – whom does he see but Radkha, dancing before a crowd of drunkards? A terrible storm sweeps through his heart. Radkha tries to explain herself – but in vain.

Gopal finds himself a room in a local boarding house. Soon, however, the Station Supervisor receives a letter from his daughter and not only allocates him official housing but even appoints him director of the maintenance section.

A year passes. On one and the same day Dimna returns from her studies and the Teacher dies of consumption. Since he has no money, he is buried in a part of the cemetery beside the railway line. Not knowing any of this, Gopal arranges to meet Dimna. Radkha hears of this and much else from the station drunkards; forty days after her father's death, she accepts the Station Supervisor's long-standing proposal that she marry his half-wit nephew. This will make her the Station Supervisor's concubine and perhaps, in due course, her rival's stepmother.

News of the Teacher's death and Radkha's fateful decision reach Gopal as he lies in the peachy embrace of the shameless Dimna. Suddenly his eyes open. Abandoning everything, he runs down the railway line to the cemetery. Led by Fate, Radkha is already there, weeping over the tragedy of her life. Gopal and Radkha sing a sequence of songs to one another, explaining everything – both past and present. But there is no way out: they are in the grip of inexorable forces. Nevertheless, love is invincible; there on the grave, beside the Teacher's portrait, they love one another.

Meanwhile, the Station Supervisor and his dishevelled and devilish daughter, hell-bent on revenge, are coming down the line in a handcar – or do I mean handcart? A crowd of fire-breathing locals, armed with sticks and staves, accompanies them.

Gopal and Radkha are standing on the track, embracing. Their clothes and hair flutter in the wind. The handcar, accompanied by wild screams, draws closer. Something terrible is about to happen. But the whistle of a steam engine, coming from behind, overwhelms everything. Nothing can be heard above the grinding and crashing except Radkha's and Gopal's love song. The train sings this too, beating out the rhythm of their eternal song against the rails.

My darling, have no regret for the blood that's been spilt –
These rivers of blood will soon form a boundless sea.
Falsehood and lies will be swept from the face of the earth –
And the earth will be covered by wonderful flowers.
O pyari, pyari tumsa.
..

Temir-Iul-Longline had a son, as pock-marked as he was himself; afraid that this son would soon be disfigured irredeemably, he decided he must find him a wife. He had, however, left this too late. Democritis Chuvalchidi, the son of Auntie Lina (who worked as a cleaner at the Party Committee building) and the late Aristotilis Chuvalchidi (a Greek Communist refugee who had died of consumption far from his beloved Hellas) had already singled the boy out. Democritis had, in fact – if the reader will forgive me for saying this – already buggered the boy.

In spite of the fact that the pock-marked son of the pock-marked father bore the name of the heroic Sohrab,
112
he had turned out to be a gentle and tender-hearted young boy. He used to while away hour after hour in Rukiya's Selpo shop
.
Or he would go to the Kok-Terek Bazaar and his eyes would fill with tears as he ran dreamy fingers over a newly arrived bolt of woollen suiting or a piece of the very same
fil-de-perse
from which, before the War, Oppok-Lovely had made socks for her husband Mullah-Ulmas-Greeneyes. There was no one in Gilas whose knowledge of these materials and their provenance could compare with Sohrab's.

While everyone in Gilas – even the intellectual Mefody-Jurisprudence – was still wearing cream-coloured single-breasted Chinese jackets behind which could be glimpsed a Ukrainian shirt with an embroidered collar, Sohrab was wearing drainpipes and a tweed jacket he had bought straight off the shoulders of a bewildered old Kazakh who had just arrived, surrounded by rams, at the Kok-Terek Bazaar.

Barely had he acquired the nickname of Sohrab-Sharpie before he had shifted to a broad-checked stitched shirt and flared dacron trousers. And Guloyim-Pedlar, who had started up a cottage industry producing drainpipes and tweed jackets for up-to-the-minute Gilas Koreans, had barely had time to christen him Sohrab-Bell-Bottom before he was sauntering around in jeans made in India.

And so – back to the Indian film.

At the very moment that Sohrab, who was pock-marked but as tender and sensitive as a crêpe-de-Chine mallow, was being corrupted in the wool-washing shed by Democritis son of Aristotilis Chuvalchidi, who never even thought of washing his one and only smelly grey tunic – at that very moment Sohrab's father, Temir-Iul-Longline, was trying to arrange for his son to marry the only daughter of Faiz-Ulla-FAS, the younger son of Umarali-Moneybags and the director of the station FAS, or Factory Apprentice School.

Meanwhile, as in
The Railway to Pradesh
, Faiz-Ulla-FAS was bringing up his nephew Amon, whom he had inherited after the death of his sister; she had died soon after her father, of a heart attack brought about by her inability to remember where it was that the two of them had buried a large bag of both pre-war and wartime gold loan bonds. After educating Amon in his very own FAS, Faiz-Ulla had entrusted him to the care of Master-Railwayman Belkov. And on Amon's return from military service, Faiz-Ulla had decided, in the light of the shameful story of the betrothal of Amon's fellow-conscript Nasim, the grandson of Tolib-Butcher, that it would be best to avoid unnecessary expense and simply marry Amon to his own daughter. He would hardly, after all, need to pay bride-money to himself!

After the first screening of
The Railway to Pradesh
but before the beginning of the second screening, Faiz-Ulla was visited by matchmakers. And who do you imagine had sent them? The Station Supervisor, of course! Learning of this visit, the whole of Gilas held its breath. After all, Zainab and Amon truly loved one another. How could they not love one another when an epic poem had already been written about their love?
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Faiz-Ulla-FAS, who had himself betrothed the young couple, had no idea what to do. Were he to refuse the Station Supervisor, he would have to say goodbye to his FAS, to his pension and to the station itself. What else was there in life?

“The Station Supervisor has asked us to visit you. He is honouring you with his attention,” Tadji-Murad began obliquely. “Not everyone is honoured with the good will of our supervisor,” said Ashir-Beanpole, as if through the crackly, tar-impregnated loudspeaker he used for his hourly announcements about train departures. And then, making Faiz-Ulla blink with surprise, he added, “You know his son, don't you? A real warrior of a man!”