Trans-Siberian Express (16 page)

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“You must do better. I insist that you drop everything and concentrate on it. It is a matter of grave importance, an emergency.”

“I will do my best, sir.”

Stupid, inefficient telephone system, he thought. A bureaucratic nightmare. He looked around the deserted station. A few derelicts slept on the wooden benches. Out on the platform, passengers huddled around the vendors, stamping their feet in the cold as they made their purchases.

Impatiently, he clicked the telephone cradle, but got no response. He felt a heavy ball growing in his gut as he tried to organize his thoughts. He was not sure how to approach Bulgakov, although, as always, he leaned toward directness. He would say that he was under surveillance and Bulgakov would have to make some response. Grivetsky was confident that whatever Bulgakov said, he would be able to find in it some hint of the truth.

“May I help you, sir?” the operator said, suddenly breaking into the line.

“You must hurry on my Moscow call.”

“I am working on it.”

He forced himself to remain calm, looking at his watch, the minutes ticking away. Then he saw the funny-looking man again, roaming the almost deserted station, slapping his arms around himself, waddling about on his short legs. So they are still watching, he thought. With his free hand he reached inside his jacket and curled a finger under the trigger guard. In the station doorway he saw the train attendant, peering inside, signaling to him. He pressed the telephone cradle again and heard a clicking, but no other sound. He watched the second hand of his watch move relentlessly around and, raising his eyes again, he saw that the crippled man had left the station.

He waited, growing more and more anxious, wondering whether he was doing the right thing. Suddenly he heard ringing at the other end and the voice of the operator. He looked again at his watch. Less than two minutes left.

The train attendant appeared again, beckoning him, making motions of extreme panic. He heard shouting along the platform as the passengers disengaged from the vendors and climbed back on the train. Then, suddenly, startling him, he heard the sleepy cracked voice of Bulgakov coming over the bad Moscow connection.

“Maxim Sergeyevich here,” the General said quickly, breaking into the babble of the operator. “I am at the Sverdlovsk station. I believe I am under the surveillance of the KGB. A trainload of their troops is attached to the Trans-Sib. Can you understand me?”

An unintelligible voice came back to his ear, the sound wavering and fading.

“Can you hear me?” he repeated, then felt an anxious tug on his jacket sleeve.

“You must come.” It was the train attendant.

Looking up, he saw the train begin to move. He dropped the receiver, leaving it hanging in the booth, grabbed Tania’s hand and dashed for the platform. As they reached the train, his breath coming in short gasps, the vapor pouring from his lips, he gripped the handhold of the moving train and, with a mighty effort, lifted himself aboard, pulling the train attendant behind him. They clung to the bottom step as the train picked up speed, moving past the startled faces of the vendors.

When they had caught their breath, they carefully climbed the steps and entered the passage.

“The train never waits,” the train attendant said, as they arrived at the entrance of his compartment.

Grivetsky took the woman’s hand and squeezed it. “You’ve been quite efficient. Over and above the call of duty.”

“Thank you, sir.”

She looked up at him, her cheeks flushed with the exercise and the sudden warmth.

“I might still be in that booth,” he said. “You are quite a woman.”

His admiration made her blush deeply. “You must rest now,” she said gently, “while I make you a nice glass of tea.”

“You’re very kind,” he said, opening the door of the compartment.

Once inside, he removed the revolver from his jacket and placed it under the pillow. Then he began to undress, feeling the ache in his bones as he changed into pajamas. He wondered vaguely if he had not been too precipitous. Falling heavily on the bunk, he slipped beneath the blankets and closed his eyes, his brain numb now, barely able to register thoughts. He was, he knew, on the point of exhaustion and even the opening of the compartment door did not alert him, or cause him to reproach himself for not remembering to throw the latch. Even the cool caress of a woman’s hand on his forehead failed to move him as he faded into a stupor of unconsciousness.

MIKHAIL
slid from the upper bunk, avoiding the steps, bounding instead in one jump to the floor of the compartment. He was hungry, the kind of gnawing, stomach-talking hunger he had felt only during the happiest moments of his life, the years at the University when he and Kishkin would stay up the entire night studying for exams, continually eating sausages and hard-boiled eggs. He had been locked in a deep sleep, and when he opened his eyes to the gray dawn, he had imagined he was in the University dormitory and had just closed his eyes for a moment between studies.

As he felt the cold seep into his bare feet, his sense of time and place slowly came back to him. He ate some sausage and black bread that he had bought from an old woman at the Sverdlovsk station. Turning, he looked at the outstretched form of his wife. She had hardly stirred since they had moved into the compartment, sitting up only once to drink some
kvas
. It did not strike him as odd that she continued to sleep. The trials of the last few months had simply exhausted her.

He was surprised to see her eyes open.

“You’re up, darling! Look.” He held out the sausages and bread. “I bought some delicious treats for us.”

Vera blinked and smiled. He sat down on the edge of the bunk and kissed her forehead. The heat of her skin startled him. He took her cheeks in his hands.

“You feel feverish,” he said.

“It is nothing.”

“Nothing? You’re burning up.”

“I’m so tired, Mikhail,” she said, her voice weak.

My God, he thought, she is sick. He hadn’t banked on that. Pulling a couple of blankets from his own bunk, he covered her and pulled them up to her chin. She smiled thinly.

“Where are we, Mikhail?”

“Somewhere on the way to Omsk. We stopped at Sverdlovsk near midnight last night.”

“How much longer?”

“To Omsk?”

“To Birobidjan.”

“Not long.”

“Really, Mikhail?”

“Only a few short days.” He looked at her thin, childlike face in the whitening light.

“How many exactly?” she said, a note of pleading in her voice.

“Four days,” he said. “Four days and then we are free.”

“So long!” She sighed.

“Not long at all. Look, you’ve already slept through two days.”

“I haven’t been sleeping, Mikhail.”

“You haven’t?”

“I’ve been lying here thinking. Just thinking.”

“You think too much,” he said. “Let me do the thinking for us.”

“I’m sorry, Mikhail.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For everything.”

He wondered what she meant, felt her head again. It was burning. He was becoming frightened now. Opening the door, he looked into the corridor. The old attendant was busy polishing the brass window protector and a little woman with white hair was just leaving the toilet.

“Is there a doctor on the train?” he asked the attendant, who turned a mute bovine face toward him. The gray-haired woman stopped.

“A doctor,” she repeated. The word in Russian was the same as in English.

“My wife is sick,” he said in Russian. The little woman poked her head into their compartment and, seeing Vera’s flushed face, apparently understood. She felt the girl’s head and smiled down at her serenely.

“Poor dear,” she said in English, as Mikhail brushed past her with a cold compress and put it on Vera’s forehead.

“She needs a doctor,” Miss Peterson said in English. Mikhail looked at her blankly. “A doctor,” she repeated, going back to her compartment and returning quickly with a Russian English phrase book.

“Yes,” Mikhail agreed. He had understood the word. The little woman held up her finger and left the compartment.

“I’m sorry, Mikhail,” Vera said.

“Again? About what?”

“I want to go back to Moscow.”

“You can’t, Vera,” he said quickly. “Things were awful in Moscow. They hounded us, persecuted us. Made us feel like lice.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t want to go to Birobidjan.” She paused and lifted a hand to his face. “I love you, dearest, but I can’t do it. I’m not made for such suffering. I haven’t got your constitution.”

“Nonsense. You’re just feeling unwell.”

“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go,” she said gently. “Only that I can’t. I simply can’t do it.”

“You want me to go alone?”

“You mean you want to leave me. Forever.”

“Yes.” Tears slid from under her eyelids and ran down her face.

“I had no idea,” he said. Surely she was hallucinating.

“I’m not Jewish, Mikhail,” she said. “I know that they do terrible things to Jewish people. I understand all that. But I am not Jewish. I can’t bear the suffering of being Jewish. I was not made for it. I haven’t got your ability to cope with it.”

He got up slowly, went to the washroom and resoaked the cloth in cold water. When he returned, she had managed to bring herself to a sitting position. She waved away the compress.

“You must understand this, Mikhail. I am not going with you.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” He was becoming genuinely panicked by her ravings.

“I will get off at the next station and take the train back to Moscow.”

“You’re not fit to travel alone.”

“I’ll be better. You’ll see.” But even the effort of sitting had tired her and she slipped back into a reclining position.

Mikhail could understand her words, but could not believe she meant them. Why now? All of a sudden, after months and months of bearing with him.

A knock on the compartment door startled him, and he jumped up and opened it.

“The doctor,” Miss Peterson said in Russian, pointing to a tall man, his hair uncombed, his eyes still puffy with sleep. He wore slacks and a pajama top.

Without a word, he withdrew a stethoscope from his bag and warmed it in his hand. After a few moments, he thrust a thermometer into her mouth and felt her pulse.

“She seemed all right in Moscow,” Mikhail whispered defensively, although inside himself he had already acknowledged that he was to blame. I should have paid more attention to her, he told himself. I was too busy with my own self-pity. Surely, though, now it was her illness talking. They had been through too much together to quit now.

“How long has she been like this?” Dr. Cousins asked.

“I don’t know,” Mikhail answered. “She has been quietly sleeping.”

“Can I see you outside for a moment?” Without waiting for an answer, the doctor opened the compartment door and moved into the passageway. Mikhail followed.

“Is it serious?”

“She has pneumonia,” Dr. Cousins said. “I can’t tell what kind, specifically. Her temperature is 103. Frankly, I’d recommend hospitalization at the first available opportunity.” He reached into his bag and pulled out two vials of pills. “Give her these. This one is an antibiotic. It will not cure her, only help ward off further infection. And be sure that she takes these. They’re aspirin to control fever.” He looked at his watch. “What’s the next station?”

“Omsk. We should arrive there in a few hours.”

“Good. See that you make hospitalization arrangements.”

“You don’t think she can make the trip if she stays in bed?”

“I didn’t say that,” Dr. Cousins snapped. “Only that I recommend hospitalization. She is rundown, obviously, and apparently not very strong. Why look for trouble?”

“There can be no mistake?”

“In my business there are always mistakes,” Dr. Cousins replied. “I can’t confirm a diagnosis of pneumonia without an X ray. But believe me, it’s a pretty good bet.”

The doctor seemed frank and businesslike and Mikhail, although he tried, could find no reason to doubt his words. Mikhail swallowed deeply and looked into Dr. Cousins’ eyes, measuring them for understanding. The doctor stood watching him, with the beginnings of impatience.

“Doctor—” Mikhail began. He sighed. There was a long pause.

“Yes?”

“She has been saying things,” Mikhail stammered. “Strange, hysterical things. She wants to leave me.” A sob gargled in his throat. He controlled himself. “What I want to know, Doctor”—he hesitated—“is it possible that the illness is making her mind play tricks?”

He watched the doctor search his mind for a proper answer, then interrupted, feeling that more argument was necessary.

“I am a Jew, you see,” Mikhail said, feeling the floodgates open. But he could see that the explanation was not enough for the doctor, who seemed confused. “You are an American. I’m sorry. I know it must be strange. But you see we are having a Jewish problem at the moment in Russia. Because of it, I have lost my job. Then I applied for a visa to Israel and Vera lost her job, although she is not Jewish. Are you following me?”

“Somewhat,” the doctor said. “But I really don’t see, Mr.—?”

“Ginzburg.”

“Mr. Ginzburg. Yes, I can understand your dilemma. If you are asking for medical advice, I’d say that you should get her to a hospital as soon as possible. As for the other, I’m not qualified to make much of a judgment, except that it’s quite a stupid idea of the Russian Government to persecute anybody.” Dr. Cousins turned and started down the passageway.

“And is her illness making her say things that she cannot mean?”

Dr. Cousins stopped, and turned to face Mikhail. “I cannot say for sure.”

“But it is possible?” Mikhail persisted.

“In a fevered, weakened condition anything is possible. But there is no proof. I am not a doctor of the mind, Mr. Ginzburg.”

Mikhail felt a sinking in his heart, a sudden dizziness.

“You must get some rest yourself,” Dr. Cousins said gently, squeezing Mikhail’s arm. “I’ll stop in later,” he said. “And if you need any help in terms of the hospitalization—”