Kane & Abel (1979) (19 page)

W
LADEK FOUND
a seat in the workers’ carriage.

The first thing he did once the train was under way was to untie the parcel the woman had thrust into his hands. He started rummaging through the contents: apples, bread, nuts, a shirt, a pair of trousers and a pair of shoes. He changed into the new clothes in the nearest lavatory, retaining only his warm 50-rouble coat. After he had returned to his seat, he bit into an apple and smiled. He would save the rest of the food for the long journey to Odessa. Once he had finished the apple, including the core, he turned his attention to the doctor’s map.

Odessa was not quite as far from Moscow as Irkutsk, about a thumb’s length on the doctor’s sketch, 700 miles in reality. As Wladek was studying the rudimentary map, he became distracted by another game of pitch-and-toss that was taking place in the carriage. He folded the parchment, replaced it safely in his pocket and began taking a closer interest in the game. The same routine was being carried out, with only one player consistently winning, while the others lost. Clearly a well organized gang was working the trains. Wladek decided to take advantage of his new-found knowledge.

He edged forward and made a place for himself in the circle of gamblers. Every time the cheat had lost twice in a row, Wladek backed him with one rouble, doubling his stake until he won. The cheat never even glanced in his direction. By the time they reached the next station, Wladek had won fourteen roubles, two of which he used to buy himself another apple and a cup of hot soup. He had won enough to last the entire journey to Odessa, and he smiled at the thought of rejoining the game as he climbed back into the train.

As his foot touched the top step, a fist landed on the side of his head and he was knocked flying into the corridor. His arm was jerked painfully behind his back and his face was pressed hard against the carriage window. His nose was bleeding, and he could feel the point of a knife touching his ear lobe. ‘Do you hear me, boy?’

‘Yes,’ said Wladek, petrified.

‘If you go back to my carriage again, I’ll cut this ear off. Then you won’t be able to hear me, will you?’

‘No, sir,’ said Wladek.

Wladek felt the knife break the surface of the skin behind his ear and blood began trickling down his neck.

‘Let that be a warning to you, boy.’

A knee suddenly came up into his kidneys with so much force that Wladek collapsed to the floor. A hand rummaged inside his coat pockets and removed his recently acquired roubles.

‘Mine, I think,’ the voice said.

Blood was still pouring from Wladek’s nose and from behind his ear. When he summoned the courage to look up, he was alone; there was no sign of the gambler, and the other passengers kept their distance. He tried to stand up, but his body refused to obey the order from his brain, so he remained slumped in the corridor for several minutes. Eventually, when he was able to get to his feet, he walked slowly to the other end of the train, as far away from the gambler’s carriage as possible, his limp grotesquely exaggerated. He took a seat in a carriage occupied mostly by women and children, and fell into a deep sleep.

At the next stop, Wladek didn’t leave the train, and when it moved off he fell asleep again. He ate, he slept, he dreamed. Finally, after four days and five nights, the train chugged into the terminal at Odessa. The same check at the ticket barrier, but his papers were all in order, so the guard barely gave him a second look. Wladek was now on his own. He still had 150 roubles in the lining of his sleeve, and he didn’t intend to waste a single one of them.

He spent the rest of the day walking around the town trying to familiarize himself with its layout, but he was continually distracted by sights he had never seen before: large town houses, shops with plate-glass windows, hawkers selling their colourful trinkets on the streets, gaslights, even a monkey on a stick. He walked on until he reached the harbour. Yes, there it was - the sea. Wladek gazed longingly into the blue expanse: that way lay freedom and escape from Russia. The Baron had told him about the great ships that crossed the high seas delivering their cargoes to foreign lands, but now he was seeing them for the first time. They were much larger than he had imagined, and they stood in a line as far as the eye could see.

As the sun disappeared behind the tall buildings, he decided to look for somewhere to spend the night. The city must have suffered from many invaders, because dilapidated houses were everywhere to be seen. He took a side road and kept walking; he must have been a strange sight, with his sheepskin coat almost touching the ground and the brown paper parcel under his arm. Nowhere looked safe to him until he came across a railway siding in which a solitary burned-out railway carriage stood. He peered inside it cautiously: darkness and silence, no one to be seen. He threw his paper parcel into the carriage, raised his tired body up onto the boards, crawled into a corner and quickly fell asleep.

He woke with a start to find a body was on top of him and two hands around his throat. He could barely breathe.

‘Who are you?’ growled the voice of a boy who in the darkness sounded no older than himself.

‘Wladek Koskiewicz.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Moscow.’

‘Well, you’re not sleeping in my carriage, Muscovite,’ said the voice.

‘Sorry,’ gasped Wladek. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Got any money?’ The thumbs pressed into Wladek’s throat.

‘A little.’

‘How much?’

‘Seven roubles.’

‘Hand it over.’

Wladek rummaged in an empty pocket of his overcoat. The boy also stuck a hand inside, reducing the pressure on Wladek’s throat.

Wladek immediately jerked his knee into the boy’s crotch. His attacker fell back in agony, clutching his groin. Wladek leapt on him, hitting out fiercely. The boy from Odessa was no match for Wladek - sleeping in a derelict railway carriage was five-star luxury compared to living in the dungeons and a Russian labour camp. Wladek stopped only when his adversary was pinned to the floor.

‘Get back to the other end of the carriage and stay there,’ said Wladek. ‘If you so much as move a muscle, I’ll kill you.’

The boy scrambled away.

Wladek sat still and listened for a few moments - no movement - then he lay down and was soon sleeping soundly.

When he woke, the sun was shining through the gaps in the roof. He turned over and glanced at his adversary of the previous night. He was lying in a foetal position, staring at him from the other end of the car.

‘Come here,’ commanded Wladek.

The boy didn’t move.

‘Come here,’ repeated Wladek, a little more sharply.

The boy stood up. It was the first chance Wladek had to look at him properly. They were about the same age, but the other boy must have been a foot taller, with a fresh face and scruffy fair hair.

‘First things first,’ said Wladek. ‘Where do we find something to eat?’

‘Follow me,’ said the boy, and leapt out of the carriage without another word. Wladek limped after him and up the hill to the town square, where the morning market was being set up. He had not seen such a variety of food since those magnificent banquets in the Baron’s castle: row upon row of stalls laden with fruit, vegetables, greens and even his favourite nuts. The other boy could see that Wladek was overwhelmed by the sight.

‘Now I’ll tell you what we do,’ he said. ‘I’ll go over to the corner stall and steal an orange and then make a run for it. You shout at the top of your voice, “Stop thief!” The stall keeper will chase me, and when he does, you move in and fill your pockets. Don’t be greedy - just enough for one meal. I’ll see you back here. Got it?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Wladek, trying to sound as confident.

‘Right, let’s see if you’re up to it, Muscovite.’ The boy looked at him and sneered, before swaggering towards the corner stall, removing an orange from the top of a pyramid, making some remark to the stall keeper before starting to run slowly. He glanced back at Wladek, who had entirely forgotten to shout ‘Stop thief’, but the stall owner began to chase him anyway. While everyone’s eyes were on his accomplice, Wladek moved in quickly. When the stall keeper looked as if he was about to catch the boy, he lobbed the orange back at him. The man stopped to pick it up, swore, shook his fist and returned to his stall, complaining vociferously to the other merchants on the way.

Wladek was shaking with mirth when a hand was placed firmly on his shoulder. He turned around, horrified at having been caught.

‘Did you get anything, Muscovite, or are you only here as a sightseer?’

Wladek burst out laughing with relief and produced three oranges, an apple and a potato from the deep pockets of his coat. The boy smiled.

‘What’s your name?’ said Wladek.

‘Stefan.’

‘Let’s do it again, Stefan.’

‘Hold on, Muscovite; don’t get too clever. If we do it again, we’ll have to go to the other end of the market and wait for at least an hour. You’re working with a professional, but don’t imagine you won’t get caught occasionally.’

The two boys walked slowly to the other end of the market, Stefan moving with a swagger for which Wladek would have traded the three oranges, the apple, the potato and even his 150 roubles, while he limped behind. They mingled with the morning shoppers, and when Stefan decided the time was right, they repeated the escapade. They then returned to the railway carriage to enjoy their captured spoils: six oranges, five apples, three potatoes, a pear, several varieties of nuts, and the special prize, a melon. Stefan had never had pockets big enough to hold a melon.

‘Not bad,’ said Wladek as he dug his teeth into a potato.

‘You eat the skins as well?’ asked his new companion.

‘I’ve been places where a potato skin’s a luxury,’ replied Wladek.

Stefan looked at him with admiration.

‘Next problem is, how do we get some money?’ said Wladek.

‘You expect everything on your first day, don’t you?’ said Stefan. ‘Chain gang on the waterfront will be our best bet. That is, if you’re up to some real work, Muscovite.’

‘Show me,’ said Wladek.

Once they had eaten half the fruit and hidden the rest under the straw in the corner of the carriage, Stefan led Wladek back down to the harbour.

‘See that ship over there, the big green one?’ said Stefan. ‘It’s only just docked, so what we’ll do is pick up a basket, fill it with grain, climb up the gangplank and then drop the load into the hold. You get a rouble for every four trips you make. Be sure you keep count, Muscovite, because the bastard in charge of the gang will swindle you as soon as look at you and pocket the money for himself.’

The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon humping grain up the gangplank and dropping it into the hold. They made twenty-six roubles between them. After a dinner of stolen nuts, bread and an onion they hadn’t intended to take, they slept happily at the same end of the railway carriage.

When Stefan woke the next morning, he found Wladek studying his map.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a map showing me how to escape from Russia.’

‘Why do you want to leave Russia, when you can stay here and team up with me?’ said Stefan. ‘We could be partners.’

‘No, I have to get to Turkey, where I’ll be a free man. Why don’t you come with me, Stefan?’

‘I could never leave Odessa. This is my home, and these are the people I’ve known all my life. It’s not so good, but it might be even worse in Turkey. But if that’s what you want, perhaps I can help you.’

‘How do I find a ship that’s sailing to Turkey?’ asked Wladek.

‘Easy - I know how to find out where every ship is going. We’ll ask One Tooth Joe, who lives at the end of the pier. But you’ll have to give him a rouble.’

‘I bet he splits the money with you.’

‘Fifty-fifty,’ said Stefan. ‘You’re learning fast, Muscovite,’ he added as he leapt out of the carriage.

Wladek followed him, again conscious of how easily other boys moved while he limped. When they reached the end of the pier, Stefan led him into a small room full of dust-covered books and old timetables. Wladek couldn’t see anyone, but then he heard a voice from behind a large pile of books. ‘What do you want, urchin? I don’t have time to waste on you.’

‘Some information for my companion, Joe. When is the next luxury cruise to Turkey?’

‘Money up front,’ said an old man whose head appeared from behind the books, a lined, weather-beaten face below a seaman’s cap. His black eyes were studying Wladek.

‘One Tooth used to be a great sea dog,’ said Stefan in a whisper loud enough for Joe to hear.

‘None of your cheek, boy. Where’s the rouble?’

‘My friend carries my purse,’ said Stefan. ‘Show him the rouble, Wladek.’

Wladek handed over a coin. Joe bit it with his one remaining tooth, shuffled over to the bookcase and pulled out a large green ledger. Dust flew everywhere. He started coughing as he thumbed through the dirty pages, moving a short, stubby, calloused finger down the long columns of names.

‘On Thursday the
Renaska
is coming in to pick up coal - probably returning to Constantinople on Saturday. If she can load quickly enough, she may even sail on the Friday night and save herself extra berthing tariffs. She’ll dock at Berth Seventeen.’