Trans-Siberian Express (13 page)

Sitting up quickly, he squinted at the face of his watch. Despite the darkness, it was eight o’clock in the morning, Moscow time. It wouldn’t be long, he thought, as the train crossed the various time zones, before night would become day and he would be having dinner at dawn and breakfast at bedtime. He quickly removed his shirt and pants and poked in his suitcase for fresh clothes. Quickly, he zipped up his slacks and began to work his loafers over his feet. He noted that the bottle of vodka was nearly empty.

Standing up again, he began to button his shirt, goaded by some strange sense of modesty, feeling the pressure to be dressed by the time Mrs. Valentinov returned. Then the door opened and she stood in front of him, wearing only a half slip. His eyes went immediately to her pugnacious breasts which seemed about to burst from their brassiere.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said.

“Not at all. I’m programed to wake up at this hour anyway.”

“The ingrained habits die hard, although you will find that it will be more and more difficult to maintain them on this journey.”

“I can imagine.”

“That’s part of the adventure,” she said, pulling a blouse from her suitcase and putting it on. Then she took a gray skirt from a hanger and stepped into it. He marveled at her nonchalance, dressing before a total stranger. It seemed as natural as if he were at home with Janice.

She patted her stomach. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“You should be.”

“The tendency on these trips is to eat too much.”

“And drink too much,” he said, pointing to the vodka bottle.

“So,” she said, laughing. “We have a moralist on board.”

“No. Just a doctor,” he said quickly, and immediately regretted it. He had tried so hard to be guarded and discreet, to offer nothing about himself. But Dimitrov and all his problems seemed far away now, and his suspicions about Dimitrov’s plans seemed absurd, impossible. I imagined it all, he told himself.

“A doctor?” she said easily, as if it were mildly interesting. “How secure. I can outline my ailments for the next few days.”

“From the look of you that would hardly take more than a few minutes.” My God, he was being flirtatious.

“I’ll make some up,” she said, coquettish, promising.

She put her hand on the handle of the compartment door. “I’ll save you a seat in the restaurant car,” she said. “Breakfast is always a bit of a scramble and Russians are quite voracious in the morning.”

“Great,” he responded, going into the washroom.

But before he could put a ribbon of toothpaste on his brush, he heard a great commotion in the passageway. He opened the compartment door and peeked out. The small boy was kicking furiously at one of the toilet doors. Heads poked out of doors and Tania came running down the passageway, her lips pressed together. She grabbed the boy by the shoulders and tried to draw him away. But he broke free and began bashing the door again.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” MacBaren, the sandy-haired Australian, cried as he looked into the passageway, his face still heavy with sleep.

“I want to go to the toilet,” the boy shouted, grappling with Tania, who had pulled him finally from the door.

Another head popped out from the compartment next to Alex’s. It was the red-haired agent, his “protector.” So they put him right next door, Alex observed with some annoyance.

“I want to go to the toilet,” the boy shouted.

Tania dragged the boy toward his parents’ compartment and knocked on the door, banging with the heel of her fist.

“I’ll pee in my pants,” the boy shouted, his arms lashing out at Tania’s stomach. Finally, the door to the compartment opened and the bloated man in filthy striped pajamas stood there blinking into the attendant’s face.

“You had better teach this young man some manners,” Tania said.

The Australian shook his head, shrugged and slammed the door to his compartment.

“You leave that boy alone,” the bloated man hissed, suddenly comprehending the situation. The boy smirked and broke free from Tania’s grip.

“He was kicking the door, making a racket, annoying the passengers,” Tania explained to Trubetskoi.

“Listen, you bitch,” he said imperiously, the model of stern Communist authority, in spite of his incongruous costume. “You do this again and I’ll have your job.”

He looked toward the locked door of the toilet and walked out into the passageway. “Who the devil is in there, anyway?” he said between clenched teeth, obviously enjoying the exercise of his authority. Alex watched with some curiosity, feeling a suggestive pressure on his own bladder. Maybe the kid’s got a case, he thought.

The boy’s father strode to the door of the toilet and banged against it. “Who is in there?” he shouted.

But before he could bang again, the red-haired man, as agile as a big cat, had moved behind him to hold back his hand.

“I wouldn’t,” he whispered.

“Who the hell are you?” the fat man asked, still flaunting his authority.

Instead of answering the red-haired man twisted Trubetskoi’s arm behind him and moved him swiftly back to his compartment.

Tania, left in the passageway alone, looked at Alex and smiled thinly, shrugging, as if such activity were all part of a normal day’s work. Then she moved down the passageway to her own quarters.

Alex stepped back into his compartment, keeping the door open a sliver and pressing his eye to the crack. His curiosity was aroused. Why had there been no response from the toilet? The train bounced and he pressed his body against the wall, holding the compartment handle to keep the door from opening wider. Then he saw the toilet door move, first slightly, then quickly. A man emerged, moving swiftly down the passageway, and deftly letting himself into the compartment next to Alex’s. Zeldovich! Alex shut the compartment door and stood with his back against it. So Zeldovich was on the train after all. How silly he had been earlier to think that all that had gone before was a mad dream.

Anna Petrovna, he whispered, as if she were in the room. Was she really one of them? he wondered. The memory of Zeldovich’s face jabbed him. “Don’t be a fool, Kuznetzov,” he said aloud, and walked into the washroom.

When he had washed and shaved, he made his way to the restaurant carriage, where Mrs. Valentinov was already eating a big plate of eggs and a small mound of caviar. As she had predicted, the restaurant was crowded, with lines waiting at either end, but she had obviously protected his seat with great determination, much to the annoyance of the little manager. They were seated opposite the British gentleman whom he had shocked the night before. So they were letting him communicate without harassment, he thought.

“Albert Farmer,” the man said, putting out a delicate white hand.

“Alex Cousins. And this is Mrs. Valentinov” Alex paused. “Anna Petrovna,” he said boldly.

“Very good,” she said, winking at Alex and smiling at Farmer.

“A pleasure,” he responded.

“She’s my roommate,” Alex said, feeling an odd sense of possessiveness, perhaps a bit of macho. He remembered her strong, tall body as she dressed that morning.

“I must say you’re luckier than me. I’ve got a snoring Australian.”

The waitress came and dropped the fifteen-page menu on the table before him.

“I won’t go through that again,” said Alex. “Eggs and caviar,” he said in Russian, pointing to Mrs. Valentinov’s plate. The waitress nodded and started toward the kitchen. As he watched her depart, he noted a familiar face in the crowd, the red-haired man, waiting patiently, big sleepy eyes trying to look indifferent. Poor Zeldovich, Alex thought maliciously, doomed to sucking sausages in his compartment and making surreptitious trips to the john.

Mrs. Valentinov spread caviar on a piece of toast and stuffed it into her mouth with relish. Alex watched her, caught by the sensuality of the act. Would they have a brief future together? Why not? he thought, his confidence soaring. He looked beyond Farmer at the sky lightening over the low hills, a layer of glistening frost covering everything with a blanket of spangles, like a tranquil Christmas scene.

“We are in Asia now,” Mrs. Valentinov said. She sounded wistful, almost sad.

“We must have passed the Monument of Tears,” Alex said, still watching the passing scene. Beyond that marker, his grandfather had told him, was the unknown—Asian Siberia, a vast waste, from which few returned. “You were entering the gates of hell,” his grandfather had said. “What was there to do but wash the earth around this marker with your tears?”

Albert Farmer looked nervously at his watch.

“We will be in Kirov soon.”

“Where are you headed?” Alex asked.

“Ulan Bator,” Farmer said. “I’m with the British Embassy there.”

“Oh.” Alex’s interest quickened. Ulan Bator was the capital of Mongolia. It was the edge of the world. Ghengis Khan’s capital. “I didn’t know the British maintained an embassy there.”

Again he wondered if this mild-mannered man could carry his information.

“Ah, yes. The residents of our little island always had their bit of wanderlust.”

“So I’ve heard. Anyway, it sounds quite gloomy.”

“Quite the contrary. It’s rather exciting.” Farmer looked furtively around, then continued. “Just take a peek at any map. It’s rather in the middle of things.”

Alex was, of course, quite familiar with the location of Ulan Bator. He had seen it on the map of China at Dimitrov’s dacha. I must be careful, he warned himself.

“You know Mongolia, Mrs. Valentinov?” Farmer asked.

“When you live in Irkutsk, Mongolia is not as exotic as you might imagine. We’re very neighborly.” She spoke pleasantly, but Alex sensed a certain tenseness that hadn’t been there before.

“Irkutsk. Lovely city. Been there many times. I rather am fond of music and Ulan Bator is, well, not exactly a cultural mecca. But in Irkutsk, you have a superb symphony orchestra.”

“You see,” Mrs. Valentinov said to Alex, jiggling his elbow with a child’s exuberance. “That’s my town.”

“The waitress brought his eggs and caviar and Alex began to eat.

“And you, Mr. Cousins,” Farmer said blandly, breaking the silence. “What are you doing on the Trans-Siberian?”

The inquiry came too suddenly, like a spear thrust. Chewing hard, Alex held up one finger to signal that the answer would be forthcoming, while his mind raced to prepare a safe response.

“A private visit to ancestral haunts,” he said, smiling at his choice of words, suspecting that he had encouraged Farmer’s curiosity. He felt Mrs. Valentinov stir beside him.

“So, your people are also from Siberia.” She spoke the words with a raised eyebrow, and he suddenly remembered. The night before, he had listened silently as she talked about Irkutsk, holding back his natural responses, feeling the tension of resisting his own inclination to talk. She must think I’m an idiot, he thought. He was suddenly angered by his caution.

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Valentinov,” he said, relieved to be speaking at last, “our grandparents came from the same town.”

“No,” she said in disbelief, her eyes glistening in excitement. Then she ran her fingers through her hair.

Could she be acting? And so successfully?

“Cousins,” she mused, a fingertip on her cheek.

“Kuznetsov.”

“Ah ah.” She laughed, then turned to Albert Farmer. “He is traveling under false pretenses and a false name.”

“Nobody in America could pronounce the damned thing,” Alex said in English.

He washed the last of his eggs down with tea, savoring the warmth. He was enjoying this easy bonding of relationships, particularly with Mrs. Valentinov. He turned and looked at her over his uplifted cup, studied her high cheekbones and the deep-blue eyes set wide apart. Her natural blonde hair fell softly to her shoulders. There was a fullness, a sensual richness, in her lips that he had not noticed before. His eyes met hers. She did not turn away. Again he felt a twinge of possessiveness.

“Soon we’ll be seeing nothing but the taiga,” Albert Farmer said, as he looked out of the window. “The endless white birch forest.”

The train seemed to be slowing.

“Kirov,” he said, looking at his watch. “And right on time. That’s the most fascinating thing about Russian trains. They are always on time, to the minute. It’s astonishing, considering the Russians’ lack of efficiency everywhere else.” He flushed suddenly, remembering Mrs. Valentinov. “A ten-minute stop,” he said briskly, refolding his private timetable.

Out on the station platform people huddled in overcoats, their faces red with cold as they watched anxiously for the train to stop. A line of women near the tracks suddenly came to life as the train finally ground to a halt. Older women in their babushkas, young flat-faced girls carrying baskets stocked with foodstuffs and strange-looking bottles of a milky substance, which Alex later learned was
kvas,
packages of sunflower seeds and little bouquets of flowers. A motley assortment of people in pajamas, housecoats, jogging suits, overcoats and uniforms swarmed around the women purchasing their wares.

Alex paid his check and stood up.

“I think I’ll pop out to the terra firma,” he said. “Anybody like something?” He had to test them.

Both Mr. Farmer and Mrs. Valentinov shook their heads. Alex moved into the aisle, stopping by Miss Peterson’s table.

“Would you like something?” he asked politely.

“Are those sunflower seeds?” she said, pointing at one of the baskets.

“If they are, I’ll get you some.”

He moved through the crowd, brushing past the red-haired man, who was still pretending to wait for a table. Bounding down the metal stairs, Alex felt the cold bite through his jacket. Looking down the length of the train, he noted the long line of carriages, including one tacked on at the end that seemed different from the others. Beside it, clusters of armed troops stood around smoking cigarettes, automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. Alex gave a quick backward glance toward the restaurant car and picked out the lumbering red-haired man.

Alex smiled to himself and stood aloof from the crowd around the sunflower-seed vendor, patiently waiting his turn. When it came, he made his purchase and stuffed the bags of seeds into his pockets. Starting back to the train, he passed the flower vendor and bought a little bouquet, then grabbed the hand support and lifted himself aboard. The red-haired man had kept a respectful distance, but the string seemed to have little slack.