Voroshilovgrad (36 page)

The car was half-empty. My fellow riders were mostly shady salesman types who had thrown canvas bags stuffed with priceless Chinese-made goods right on the floor, then sprawled out on top of them. The train's wheels were squeaking like park swings: it rolled on for a time, then stopped and reversed, as though it had forgotten something. After a bit of this, though, it started pushing forward again.

As for me, I'd curled up in a quiet corner between the salesmen's bags and various boxes of cold meat that stank of death. I settled in, peering out a window at the black swaying of the tree branches and the heavy mass of the moon tumbling across the Donetsk railroad. The autumn air, permeated by the smell of vegetables, was kind enough to allow freight and passenger trains alike to pass through it, gracing them with a ripe scent, the ripe scent of decay, and driving a dry, eastern wind through them. The train was at last gaining momentum after a stop and retreat at yet another crossing, where lights nearly unable to bear the weight of the darkness above them shone in on us through the windows. We were rushing now into the inexpressible blackness, before the train decided to stop dead again, rattling its metal body and awakening the already restless dealers in dead animals.

I was just on the verge of falling asleep when we braked at a small, two-platform station. There was the usual pre-departure hustle and bustle under the lampposts. I crawled out from among the boxes of death and stepped into the vestibule. I stuck my head through the broken window. Some men in uniform were walking along the platform, coming from the front of the train. There were three of them. The man out front was holding an
AK, the other two were tucked in behind him. Their stride was purposeful and swift, yet unhurried, as though they knew where they were going and what for. When a loud alarm sliced through the silence, though, announcing our imminent departure, the cops got nervous all at once, running up to the nearest train car and banging on its locked doors, which were opened almost immediately. Something told me that they had been waiting for me on this God-forsaken platform—somebody might have tipped them off, or maybe it was just dumb luck. Three train cars separated us, three whole minutes for them to cross. The train was about to head out. Once it left the station, I'd have no way out. I tried opening the exterior door. It wouldn't budge. I found the lock in the darkness, slid it aside, and tried the door again. Success—I hopped down onto the asphalt, and just in time: the train set off almost immediately afterward, crawling away and leaving me to fend for myself. After the last car passed by, I noticed that there was another train, consisting of just three dark and mysterious cars, parked by the second platform. There wasn't a single sound coming from over there, not a single ray of light emerging from its silent innards. “That's odd,” I thought to myself. “Who travels on a train like that?”

The train I had just hopped out of stopped a bit farther down the tracks. Once again, screeching metal disrupted the nighttime silence. I saw the cars freeze for a second and then begin rolling back, slowly, toward the station and me. I panicked: I had to make myself scarce. I turned toward the station building and suddenly saw a stream of light flooding the darkness, headlights coming out of the night and approaching the platform. The train cars were
already parked by the first platform. Now there were voices and footsteps everywhere—three train station employees rounded the corner of the station building, running toward the train carrying heavy-looking cardboard boxes. One of the men was visibly struggling with his load, his three boxes cutting into his hands. Seeing the dark train parked at the platform, they picked up the pace. The first two men hopped down onto the tracks, scurrying over to the second platform and scampering along beside the unmoving ghost cars. The third man, still holding his three boxes, couldn't muster up the courage to dip under the train, so he stopped for a second. At which point he caught sight of me.

“Hey, give me a hand here, buddy,” he said.

I ran over and took one of the boxes out of his arms. I heard a clink inside. “Ah, he's got some booze in there. Champagne or dry wine,” I thought.

Meanwhile, the guy hopped down onto the railroad ties and was trying to duck under the train like his friends. I hopped down after him. The green, dusty hunk of metal had already been set in motion, but right then we popped out onto the other side and were now running alongside its black windows, dodging all of the dangerous traps set for us by the ministry of railways.

The doors of the last ghost car were open. The guys with the boxes tossed them on board and hopped in. I gave the last guy a boost, then grabbed my box and followed him onto the train. I found all three of them standing there in a dark corridor with doors on both sides, leading to the train's compartments. The car attendant's compartment was open, but no one was inside; on the other hand, a tough-looking guy with a scowling, bashed-up face
and a handgun in a shoulder holster, most likely a security guard, emerged from the void. He nodded at one of the guys as if to say “Come with me.” The first sleeper compartment in the car was open too. The tough guy with the gun stepped inside, and we started squeezing our way in behind him. We placed the boxes on the top bunks. I was the last one to slip in—there wasn't much room in there. I tossed my load on top, not knowing what to do next. I stepped back and wound up in the dark corridor.

“Close the door,” the security guard said.

And one of the men did so, softly, right in front of my face, leaving me out in the corridor all by myself. I could hear their voices nonetheless. They had evidently forgotten about me. We were passing another train; I saw some shadows whip by the nearest window, some lights burning through the darkness, some footsteps resonating in the vestibule between the cars. I headed down the corridor, away from the closed door. It was an odd car, with no sign of life. The sleeping compartments were open and packed with stuff. There was a Xerox machine in one, on the table, and some binding machines, as well as heaps of heavy paper, were resting on the bottom bunks. The next compartment was stuffed with bunches of newspapers and magazines, all covered with a camo net. The rest of them were closed. I walked down to the last one and slid the door to the side as softly as I could manage. I stepped inside and locked myself in—the voices from the other end of the car were getting closer, most notably the guard's. He was asking the guys who'd been carrying the boxes about something. “Maybe he's asking about me,” I thought. I could hear the guard moving down the corridor and checking the sleeper
compartments as he went. He would get to me in just a moment or two. “Why now?” I asked myself. He tried yanking open the door to the compartment next to mine, but it turned out to be locked, as it was apparently supposed to be. He came up to my compartment and tried the door, but it wouldn't budge. He made one more attempt at opening it. The compartment was securely locked.

“Good to go,” the security guard said to himself. The sound of his heavy, resolute footsteps started fading down the corridor. The voices disappeared and complete silence descended. I lay down on the bottom bunk, closing my eyes and plummeting into green pits of sleep.

It seemed like dark beasts covered in prickly fur with flashlights in their skulls and hot nighttime breath steaming form their mouths were peering through the curtained windows of my compartment as they passed, blinding and intimidating me.

The light that would occasionally flood in, like plaster filling up a mold, submerging my eyes in its abrasive liquid before disappearing almost immediately, leaving the surrounding blackness looking as thick as pond water. The ghost train on which I'd so improbably wound up had been rolling down the tracks for the past few hours, slowly but surely, in who knew what direction, taking me farther and farther from the events of the last two days. What would I remember from this trip? The mixture of glare and darkness, the aftertaste of autumn air, and the sensation of
my skin being touched. It felt as though I had been riding along that well-traveled route for a hundred years, taking refuge in deep, secret chambers to keep hidden from predators' hungry eyes. It was like I was holding my breath in someone else's closet, my head resting on my knees, with fancy suits and fur coats, untouched since last winter, hovering over me in the dark like cow carcasses in a meat locker. I felt protected by the clothes hanging above me, permeated with other people's smells, luring me closer and scaring me away at the same time. Voices and songs echoed in my head, looping and returning . . . all the hymns they sang, all their toasts, their goodwill, their secrets and revelations: all those miraculous people, all their peculiar circumstances—why should I have cared about their struggles, about their attempts to stand their ground? And why should they have cared about my problems, helping me to escape, to hide? Whoever we are, we're always moving along our own routes, finding ourselves in foreign lands, reaching beyond the curtains of our own experience; everyone we meet along the way remains in our memory, their every word and every touch. Even if I never get out of this train compartment, even if I have to spend the rest of my days on this bunk, caught in this trap of walls and rails, nobody will ever be able to take away my memories of what I had seen—not such a bad deal, all things considered.

Closets looked like aquariums and they had a musty smell. Oddly enough, the smell of ironed dress shirts was somehow overwhelmed by the smell of store shelves, just like the smell of life is
overwhelmed by the smell of death. My best childhood memories are the ones where death gives way to life. Then those thoughts vanished, along with the old, worn clothing in the closet. “Why was I thinking about a closet during this particular trip, still feeling a sense of alarm and excitement?” The past was blinding me like lampposts casting their light into the dark corners of train cars.

Back in the day, during what felt like another life, I experienced many different things—and they may have always been there in the back of my mind as I tried to understand how danger and satisfaction could come together in one lump at the back of my throat. The woman I was thinking about was older than me—though, actually, maybe it'd be better to say I was much younger than her. How old was I then? Fourteen or so. Pretty much just a kid. But someone had planned our itinerary; somebody made sure I was in the right place at the right time—I don't even remember how I got there, anymore. It was just one of those insignificant instances; life is full of them. I had to give someone something, or tell someone something, or bring someone some books, or something like that. It went something like this; she was sorting through some old clothes in a closet, spreading her parents' things across the floor and stepping over her mom's fancy dresses like the banners of a defeated adversary. When I came by she asked me to wait for a bit. I took a seat on the couch, carefully observing her as she bent over her parents' coats and dresses, taking out their suits and hats, stepping over them with her bare feet, a whole haze of unfamiliar smells and images flashing by. We barely even talked, but as she was seeing me out, she touched my shoulder in a particular way—as though she was pushing me away from herself and all
of that clutter spread out on the floor, but drawing me in at the same time. But that isn't the real story; the story came some time later. Ever since our first meeting, I had been absolutely convinced that something was going to happen. She wouldn't have been stepping over her parents' yellow and red dress shirts so carefully, her hands wouldn't have been so hot when she was touching my shoulder if something wasn't going to happen. Her hands were hot again when we wound up sitting next to each other on a nighttime Ikarus bus heading from who knows where to who knows where. The boisterous kids riding along with us couldn't seem to settle down—they were passing spirits and apples down the aisle, yelling over each other, shouting curses and confessions into the summer night. Our merry bunch, all the neighborhood kids, was coming back from some celebration: there was the gold of the evening suburbs, the pine trees, the night wrapped up in black, the cool air pushing through the open hatches, and somewhere in the middle of this darkness she put her head on my shoulder, pretending to be asleep, the oldest trick in the book. As was usual for me, it didn't look like it was going anywhere, but suddenly her hand slid underneath my shirt, and all of this without her so much as opening her eyes. I tried sliding my hand under her sweater, but she removed it with a tired yet definitive movement, letting me know who was going to pleasure whom; I, naturally, had no objections. She was a grown woman with soft skin and green, sensible eyes. She was wearing a sweater and jeans, and she'd had her experiences and would have her own future—it just so happened that I was lucky enough to fall in between the two, however accidentally. Later on I would think about how life
is made up of such things, of older women's adept and passionate movements that turn luckless kids from the outskirts of town into men; they taught us how to love, so we wouldn't think that life consists of nothing but struggle and vengeance. Over the years, there were moments when we had to stand up for them, our older women, protect them from the passage of time. We couldn't retreat or desert them when they were really down in the dumps. I don't know whether the majority of us actually realized what we were doing when we enjoyed their devotion; most of the time we didn't feel as though we were doing anything special, and we'd quickly forget about it. Nobody paid particular attention to their relationships with women; they were consumed with the task of understanding their relationships with life and death. Nobody knew that women
are
life and death. Neither did I, not yet, —but I realized that important and serious things were happening, and that neither the lethargic animals peering into our windows with flashlights in their heads, nor my friends who would occasionally call out my name during my dream, nor my complete immobility and utter helplessness could negate the importance of those things. Because nobody could deny the importance of becoming a man. We had to make sure we stayed still; we had to make sure we didn't wake anyone up, and most importantly we had to make sure we didn't wake her up.