Voroshilovgrad (37 page)

I wonder what Tamara was up to back then.

I forced myself to get up and step out of my compartment. A thick blanket of fog had settled outside, the morning sunlight barely poking through it. I walked down the corridor, stepped into the vestibule, opened up the door, walked through, and found myself in the next car. The light was harsh. I shielded my eyes with my hand.

I was now in a dining car that had a bar off to the side with a few stools, and some tables, most of which were bare as fields in wintertime. The exception was the single occupied table, at which I saw two sluggish and sleepy men. One of them, who had a beard, was wearing a black suit, while the other man was wearing a black army sweater; both had crew cuts. They had a couple of cups of coffee on their table, as well as a Kalashnikov with its stock sawed short. Another man, wearing a long, black jacket was sitting on one of the bar stools, drinking his own coffee and skimming through some newspapers. Seeing me, all three tensed up. The two men closest to me both stood up, reaching for the Kalashnikov simultaneously and keeping their eyes fixed on me. I groped for door handle behind me.

“Freeze,” the bearded man said, getting to the Kalashnikov first. “Who are you?”

I had no clue what to say.

“How'd you get in here?” the bearded man demanded.

“I was over in the next car. I guess I got on the wrong train.”

“What the fuck are you trying to pull? What do you mean you got on the wrong train?” the bearded man asked, justifiably skeptical. “This is a special train, buddy boy. What are you doing here?”

“Well, what can I say . . . we were carrying some boxes in, and
then I fell asleep.”

“Are you drunk or something?”

“Who me? Nah, I'm not drunk.”

They exchanged glances, clearly not knowing what to do.

“Nick!” the man sitting at the bar called out.

The bearded man looked over at him.

“Check him,” the third man said, though it was more a request than an order.

“Hands up,” Nick said, giving his partner the gun, coming up to me, and searching me thoroughly.

“This feels awfully familiar,” I thought. “It's a good thing I decided to change . . . it sure would have been hard to explain what I was planning on doing with a pair of Bosch electric scissors.”

“He's clean,” Nick yelled and stepped aside.

“Okay then,” said the dude at the bar. “Go out to the vestibule—man, security on this train fuckin' blows. And you”—he meant me—“come over here.”

I walked over to the bar, feeling more self-assured. The dude nodded at the empty stool next to him. I sat down.

He was roughly the same age as me. He was giving me an angry, prickly look, but it was somehow detached from his personality, as though he was wearing anger-tinted contact lenses. He was clean-shaven, actually so clean-shaven that he had a few red cuts on his neck. He didn't have too much hair, but he had slicked back what he did have fastidiously; everything about this guy was slick, combed, and washed. I noticed his jacket immediately, a long Milan jacket—the same one One-Eyed Tolik had been wearing, the only difference being that I could instantly tell that the one he
had was authentic. One of his sleeves had been stained by blood . . . or, maybe, red paint. Under his jacket was a dark, expensive suit, a mellow-colored tie, and a snow-white dress shirt. The best of the Russian financial press was laid out on the table in front of him. Eventually he finished whatever he was reading abruptly folded it in half, tossed it onto the bar, next to all the other printed matter there, and clamped down on it with his small hand. As he did so, I saw that his nails were finely trimmed like those of a surgeon. I also noticed how clean his dress shirt was.

“What's your name?” he asked, looking me straight in the eye.

“Herman.”

“Herman? You got your passport with you?”

I reached into my pockets, silently thanking Injured once again.

“Korolyov,” he said after examining my papers. “Sounds familiar. How'd you get in here? How'd you get pass the security guard?”

“Dunno,” I answered. “I missed my train, so I hopped on this one. It was dark.”

“Sure, sure,” he said without believing a word I was saying. “And you came here on business?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, maybe you want something from me?”

“Nope, not a thing.”

“Yeah? Everybody always wants something from me.”

“Nah,” I tried my best to sound reassuring, “I don't need anything from you, not one thing.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“You bet.”

“It's a good thing I wasn't asleep,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “If
I had been, they would have thrown you right off the train without waiting for a stop. You know, I just can't seem to fall asleep while I'm out here,” he complained. “I don't like this place. Where do you live, Herman?”

“Not too far from here.”

“You're a local?”

“Yep, you could say that.”

“Why haven't you gotten the hell out of here yet?”

“Why should I?”

“So you could get a good night's sleep,” he said.

“I sleep just fine. Slept the whole night through in the next car. And I own my own business out here now. Kinda stuck here.”

“You own your own business?” he asked, suspicious. “That's good. It's nice to have something that belongs to you. But . . . are you positive you don't need anything from me?”

“I'm positive.”

“Wanna have a drink?” he suggested out of the blue.

“Yeah, sure.”

He slid off his stool and went behind the bar. The selection was a bit weak—the bar evidently wasn't used all that often. The bottles stood in sparse ranks, some vodka, wine, and one bottle of cognac, which was what he grabbed. He took out two glasses originally meant for serving tea on passenger trains, tossed their spoons off to the side, and poured us a round.

“Haven't had time to restock the bar,” he said, handing me a glass. “Every time I come back I promise myself I'll get a good bartender and buy some decent booze on the walls— ith adults— me.w . . .ure. Not that this couldn's--but es, I think they
do--remember fy its purpose?ues ...d prob. Too busy,” he said, downing his drink.

I followed suit, not knowing how to answer. There he was, pouring me drinks like a bartender, but that didn't make the slightest difference—it was still his cognac, and he wasn't being hospitable for its own sake. The scornful way he was looking at me kept me uneasy.

“Do a lot of folks take this train?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Just wondering? I'm the only one who takes this train. Well, me and the security guards. I don't even have a bartender, see?”

“And you don't have any car attendants either?”

“Nope, no car attendants either.”

“Who checks the tickets then?”

“Herman, this is my train, so
I
check all of the tickets.”

“It's your train,” I said, a bit surprised. “So, you're like Trotsky—you've got your own train and all.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Where are you going?”

“Where am I going?” he parroted, thinking for a bit. Maybe he was deciding whether or not he should tell me. “Nowhere really. I'm just checking my sites.”

“But how do they let your train through? I mean, how do they announce you at all the stations? Do you have a train number?”

“Do you even know where we are right now?” he asked.

I looked out the window. A strand of pink light was warming the fog; it was impossible to make anything out.

“Nah,” I said, “I haven't been here before.”

“You sure haven't. These tracks lead to a dead-end. They were built in case a war broke out, to move the factories east. Down there,” he said, pointing somewhere into the fog, “the tracks just stop. So, I'm the only one who takes this route.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Uh-huh. This is a strange area. I really don't like coming down here. It's just kinda empty. You're going, going, going, and there's nobody in sight. Just cornfields. You don't actually like it around here, do you?”

“What do you mean by ‘around here'?”

“In your hometown.”

“Yeah, I like my hometown.”

“You guys are an odd bunch,” he said, pouring another round. “You're happy to keep jerking me around forever, but you never really want to find common ground. You can't even imagine how many problems I've had. Somebody always wants to screw me over, or stiff me. This one guy, a local, was so damn stubborn—he just wouldn't fuckin' budge.”

“Maybe you were part of the problem?”

“Maybe, maybe. Let me tell you, Herman. I think the whole reason you guys have to deal with so much shit is because you're too attached to this place. You've got this crazy idea in your heads that the most important thing is to stay here, not give an inch—you're clinging to your emptiness. There's not a fuckin' thing here! Not a single fuckin' thing. There's nothing to cling on to—how come you can't see that? You'd be better off looking for a better place to live. You'd save me a lot of hassle. But no. You're hunkered
down in your foxholes and there's no getting rid of you. And you're always causing trouble!”

“I don't see what the problem is.”

“The problem is that you underestimate the power of big capital. You all think that just because you were born here you automatically have the right to stay living here.”

“Don't we?”

“Nope, you fuckin' don't, Herman,” he said, pouring us another round. “If you wanna get by, learn how to do business the right way. It's really not that hard. Just try to understand that you're not the only ones who have the right to be here, got that?”

“Got it.”

“You have to be able to compromise and give something up to get something back in return.”

“Obviously.”

“And you shouldn't be so damn stubborn. Especially when someone makes you a really good offer, you got that?”

“Yeah.”

“All right then,” he said, downing his cognac and calming down. “
You
get that, but they don't,” he motioned out toward the fog. “They don't fuckin' get anything. They're always causing me trouble!”

“Well, I don't know,” I said. “Maybe part of the problem is that you don't give them much of a choice?”

He looked even more scornful.

“Herman, I do give them a choice,” he said. “I give them tons of choices. You think I like putting people in body bags? You're all just fuckin' crazy—it seems like time has stopped for you guys.
You're stuck in the past, hanging on for dear life, and there's no dragging you back to reality. Ah, what's the point in lecturing you, anyway?”

The door to the sleeper car opened and the bearded man stepped in and stood silently by the door.

“What's up Nick?” the boss asked him, already sounding a bit tipsy.

“You asked me to remind you about breakfast.”

“Oh,” Mr. Slick said, “you see, we don't have any bartenders, cooks, or car attendants. Okay, let's go.”

He headed down the corridor, swaggering like a sailor. Nick let him by, then let me by, and closed the door behind us.

Something had changed since the start of our conversation; the air had become hot and turned the color of death—an intense, hopeless color. We were walking along the aisle when I heard some strange sounds coming from some of the locked compartments. I heard some chirping and some animals breathing apprehensively, sensing that there were monsters out in the corridor. Mr. Slick was banging his fist on the doors as he passed, and I could sense the bodies behind the walls, quivering and sighing in reply. The security guard was waiting for us at the end of the car. He was surprised to see me, but didn't say anything, making it seem as though everything was just fine.