Heart of Iron (25 page)

“It’s a bad sprain,” the doctor reassured me after he contented himself with what felt like many interminable hours of poking, prodding, and twisting of the tender flesh. “It’ll heal — just stay off it, keep some ice on it, keep your boot off and your leg elevated — you don’t want blood pooling in there. You do seem to have a fever, but I suspect that it is unrelated.”

The moment the word “fever” touched my tympanic membranes, the carriage around me tilted and swam, as if the doctor’s words allowed something I had kept away from my consciousness with a sheer act of will to coalesce and take shape, to fill my ears with sticky cotton so that the din of the carriage became subdued and remote as the tide of my own blood pounded at my ears like waves of the Pacific, toward which I had been moving so slowly, so unavoidably. I leaned into the back of the bench, and felt cold sweat slithering under my uniform. The sensation of these chill, somehow greasy drops, made me want to cry about everything I had lost that day — Jack, the documents he carried, my letter, Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi, my ankle… that would be regained, of course, but still. Instead of crying, I eased into the hard wooden bench and hugged my satchel to my chest, terrified of losing anything else. I heard the rotmistr’s soft voice ordering the cornets around, and after a short pause there was a scratchy woolen blanket over me and a pillow that smelled like wet feathers thrust under my head. Large calloused hands eased me into the corner so my head rested against the pillow wedged between my cheek and the wall of the train, by the window. I felt the light diminish outside, and then it was night. The darkness brought an intensified fever and wild imaginings — there were stars exploding across my closed eyelids and I heard voices — not the hussars in the carriage but menacing voices that whispered on the very edge of my hearing in a language I could not understand but sounded unmistakably hostile. It felt as if I strained just a bit more I would understand their vague threats, but I avoided it. I dreamt and hallucinated and was buoyed by the waves of fever, until the morning came and there was weakness and drenching sweat, and a slow rumble of the moving wheels.

I slept and dreamt, and woke up to a steaming glass of tea, my fingers slipping on its sides. I drank my tea and slept again. Then I woke again and had someone help me walk to the end of the carriage, where the tiny privy (much smellier and considerably less comfortable than the one in the couchette carriage of the Trans-Siberian train) offered necessary relief. Three days had passed, and we arrived at Novonikolaevsk before I was ever cognizant enough to realize that without thinking of it much, I had left Jack behind and it was too late now to go back.

In my defense, the fever I contracted in Yekaterinburg had bound me in a delirious dream from the moment I snuggled into the blanket provided by the very thoughtful rotmistr. The rattling of wheels had separated from its meaning, from signaling movement east, and only resonated in my ears as mindless percussion, as metronome beats.

The sleep was constant and yet uneven — I was often startled from it by laughter and voices, but even those remained meaningless, inconsequential, as if mere music and not the indication of a train full of hussars. Even the neighing of the caged horses in their wooden prison right behind my carriage did not jolt me to reality. One night I thought I heard thunder but then heard the rotmistr and others talking about horses’ hooves shattering a slatted wall and two of them jumping off, breaking their legs as the train kept speeding along. I did not know whether the story was just a dream or a real memory.

In the end, I woke up three days later, when the train had stopped by a snow-covered platform, everything around us pristine and white, and for a moment I thought I was still dreaming, of some quintessentially Russian heaven. My face pressed against the window felt cold and numb — I must have been sitting like that for a while, but did not realize it until just now. The cessation of movement and sound must’ve jolted me to awareness.

Silence was too profound not to notice and I lingered in the same position, fearful of shattering it with a careless movement, with a clinking of an empty tea glass resting on the bench by my hand, ready to be sent tumbling onto the floor and splintering into shards… the image of the breaking glass was so clear in my mind, I jerked my hand away from it, to prevent it from coming true.

“Menshov,” someone said behind me. “You’re awake?”

“Yes.” Silence ruined, I sat up and rubbed my eyes with my fists. The carriage was empty, save for Cornet Volzhenko stretched on the bench behind mine, reading a volume of Pushkin’s newest poems (I disliked his newer ones, finding that the poet was growing sentimental in his advancing years.) “Where is everyone?”

“Novonikolaevsk,” the cornet replied. “Heart of Siberia. Everyone’s probably buying vodka and food off the local Buryats. The rotmistr told me to stay here, keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you,” I said. Then, “Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? It’s no bother. I’d rather stay here, in the warmth and quiet. They’ll bring us something to eat tonight, after they’re done painting the town.” He thought a bit, looking at me as if wanting to ask something.

“I have been ill,” I said. “When the rotmistr gets back, will you ask him to speak to me? I need to find out what happened in Yekaterinburg… where my friend Mr. Bartram went.”

He nodded. “Don’t you remember, Menshov? You sprained your ankle and decided to come along with us to Krasnoyarsk. You collapsed as soon as you sat down, and there was no waking you or talking to you.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind. It is going to sound strange, but with the fever I am not sure I made the decision myself.”

“God has a way of guiding us sometimes,” he said with a serious, deep conviction.

I felt disinclined to speculate about God’s designs, so I changed the subject. “Is there somewhere to send a letter from?”

Cornet Volzhenko shrugged. “I reckon there is a post office nearby. Novonikolaevsk is a new city still, but it has everything a city needs, although God help me if I know why the emperor decided to build it here. Then again, he named it after his brother, suitably enough.”

I couldn’t help but snicker. “You don’t care for Prince Nicholas?”

The cornet shook his head. “My father was at the Senate Square in 1825,” he said. “And he always told me it wasn’t so much that they were keen on Constantine, but rather that they were terrified of Nicholas becoming tsar-emperor. Can you even imagine such a thing?” His dark eyes opened wide and rounded in exaggerated fear. “At least now, all he has is this city named after him, frozen in winter and a stinking, mosquito-filled swamp in the summer.”

“And the Nikolashki,” I added. “His secret police — he has those too.”

“And they are not too keen on the Chinamen. Is that why you’re going to China? Spying for the emperor?”

I shook my head, relieved I did not have to lie in this instant. “Nothing like that, I assure you.”

“But you have a reason to go there, and a reason why you’re upset the Englishman is not here, with you. And why all the other English are chasing you, as they were in Moscow. And now your friend is nowhere to be found.”

“There are reasons for everything,” I said. “But we are neither spies nor traitors.”

He pinched his upper lip, the vegetation decorating it as wispy and scarce as mine, pulled on it as if testing its resilience. “I believe you, Menshov. The rotmistr seems to have taken a shine to you, and that’s good enough for me. He’s like a father to Petrovsky and myself, yeah? So he likes you — I like you, I even play nanny to you if he tells me to. But understand this: if you betray his trust, you’re dead. Boom!” His fist smashed against the wooden bench. “Nothing left but a wet spot, like a bug.”

“I see what you mean,” I said, and eyed his young but knobby fist respectfully. “Don’t worry, I hold the rotmistr in high esteem and am indebted to him for his kindnesses.”

“Damn right.” Volzhenko nodded and grinned, visibly relieved to get his worries off his chest. “Now that you’re awake, want to test that foot of yours?”

My right ankle was indeed much better; it only produced a dull ache when I put my weight on it. I was able to sew the upper of my boot back together with some string and an awl Aunt Eugenia had thoughtfully packed in my satchel — which I still held against my bosom. I wondered if the hussars had noticed how desperately I had continued to clutch it, and whether they thought there was something exceedingly valuable in it other than a couple of clean shirts and a letter written in Chinese on the back of a theatrical bill.

If there were anything I could wish for besides finding Jack or returning home, it would be some clothing designed for the Siberian winter. The moment I stepped foot outside, I realized that even though I had been cold before in my life, I had never been cold like this. Twiggy icy fingers grabbed my very heart and froze even the insides of my bones; my teeth chattered and I shook as if in St. Vitus’ dance.

“You need something more than your uniform,” Volzhenko, who stood on the platform next to me, draped in a thick shearling coat, said. “Pelisses are suitable for winter most places, but here… ”

“Where… can I get a coat?” I stammered between my teeth that did a little tap-dance of their own.

“There’s a furrier near the station,” Volzhenko said. “Come, you’ll feel better once we’re walking.”

He was right to an extent — walking indeed sent blood coursing through my legs but only to remind me bitterly that I had toes, albeit numb, which would be ripe for frostbite. Not to mention the low fever that made my forehead burn, and the disparity made the rest of me even colder, if that was at all possible.

I did not ask where the rotmistr and the rest of their regiment went. I assumed they had better things to do than pass an entire day on the train, and I did not blame them.

It was indeed a new city, although the appellation of
city
was rather generous, considering its wide, empty streets lined with a few sparse, single-storied cottages. The dwellings themselves seemed aware of their own insufficient number and volume to create a proper street. The trees around the houses were cleared in fits and starts. While some blocks had a white and deserted appearance, others looked as if they were about to be swallowed by a dark-green wall of spruces and furs, sneaking up from behind. There were a few stores that appeared to be closed, and we passed a tavern that exhaled clouds of smoke from its chimney, and clouds of steam from its open door along with gusts of great laughter.

“We can stop by there if you want,” I said to Volzhenko as I noticed his long, forlorn look toward the tavern’s door.

“As soon as we get you dressed,” he agreed. “Or the rotmistr will kill me — he thinks you’ve fallen ill because of the cold and the wind.”

“And stop by the post office,” I reminded. I had already written a worried letter for Jack, and copied it several times to send to every city between Novonikolaevsk and Yekaterinburg.

“Of course. It’s by the furrier’s store.” Volzhenko pointed toward an especially dense stand of trees, before which the street stopped rather abruptly, like a small child who had run against a glass door and now stood disoriented and puzzled, ready to cry. “Both right over here.”

The furrier’s shop pressed against the tall skinny trunks of three black spruces, as if too shy to step away from their protective skirts. Trubkozub and Son announced the hand-painted sign. I studied it, momentarily forgetting the cold, puzzling at such an exotic name in such harsh environs — mysterious, like its namesake creature. It was rather strange to find a shop in Siberia owned by a man named after an African mammal; I tried to remember its name in English, so I could tell Jack later.
Aardvark
. A furrier shop named
Aardvark and Son
. I snorted and entered, followed closely by puzzled-looking Volzhenko.

What the shop lacked in stature and location, it made up in selection. There were skins, furs, and pelts from every animal that ever had the misfortune of meeting man, some already arranged into coats and hats, others were flattened caricatures of their former owners.

The man sitting on the counter, his thick legs folded under him, didn’t look up from his sewing — a curved needle in his fingers moved with the fluid grace of a boat as he made small careful stitches, joining forever two thick Arctic fox pelts, so smoky-gray they seemed blue in this light. I almost had to slap my own face to remind myself that I was Poruchik Menshov, a military young man from a military family, and it would not suit him to walk around in a coat clearly meant for a woman.

“He needs a coat,” Volzhenko said by the way of greeting. “Shearling coat and a hat — muskrat, or rabbit, or whatever you have.”

The man on the counter — whom I guessed to be Trubkozub the elder — looked up with his small beady eyes, which clearly longed to be together, but were prevented from achieving unity only by Trubkozub’s large bulbous nose of strangely beautiful lilac hue. “Can help you with that,” he said. And yelled, addressing someone hidden behind the curtain of tails, paws, and snouts with glass eyes, “Hey, Petro! Take your thumbs out of your ass, and come help the customer.” He gave me an apologetic, yet tender smile. “Kids. You know how they are.”

I nodded, hoping that his supposition regarding Trubkozub Junior’s thumbs’ whereabouts was nothing more than speculation, and feeling otherwise ignorant of ways of furriers’ children.

Thankfully, Petro appeared — a small, square boy of maybe fourteen, and seemingly Trubkozub to the bone: he did not waste words but indicated with a brief toss of his flaxen curls that I was to follow him to the back of the shop, where, behind the curtain of various pelts and half-finished hats, there hung a few shearling coats, short and long, as well as some especially warm looking boots, mittens, and hats — all tailored with the fur in, and all originating from sheep rather some more exotic and adorable creatures. Then again, those were probably reserved for women, and I sighed, appalled at my loss of femininity anew.