NINE

by Svetlana Alexiyevich

  He said her last name.

  «No. She ain't here! Driving me nuts! Looked for her all morning! She ain't here! They made everyone run in circles! And now another nutcase! Did he escape from the funny farm? Where'd he come from?»

  «Found him roaming around in the walkway,» answered the white coat.

  «Call security,» said the paramedic, and started swearing again.

  «Let me call home,» asked the father. «I remember, I was lying in intensive care on the third floor. I lost my memory. I came here after the explosion on Varshavka.»

  The white coats fell silent. The explosion on Varshavka happened the day before. They took him, barefoot and shaking, to a table with a telephone.

  His wife answered and immediately started to weep.

  «You! You! Where did you get to! Theytookher body… We don't know where! And you're out wandering! And not a kopeck in the house! Not even enough for a taxi! You took it, didn't you?»

  «Yes. I was unconscious, in the hospital, in the emergency room.»

  «Where? Which one?»

  «The same one she's in.»

  «Where is she? Where?» his wife howled.

  «I don't know. I don't know myself. I'm practically naked. Bring me some clothes. I'm standing here barefoot in the morgue. What hospital is this?»

  «What are you doing there? I don't understand any of this,» said his wife, still weeping.

  He gave the phone to the white coat. He gave the address calmly, as if nothing were wrong, then hung up.

  The paramedic brought him a robe and some old, beat up slippers, apparently feeling sorry for this live human being, and sent him to the security post.

  His wife and mother-in-law arrived with sunken, aged faces. They helped him to dress, shoes and all, embraced him and listened to his story with tears of happiness. Then they all sat on a couch to wait, having been told that their girl had made it through the operation and was in intensive care in serious condition.

  In two weeks she was walking again. Her father took her for strolls along the hospital corridors and kept telling her how he'd known she'd been alive after the explosion, that it was just shock. Shock! No one else had noticed, but he knew right away.

  However, he never breathed a word about the raw human heart that he had to eat so that she wouldn't. But, after all, it was in a dream, and dreams don't count…

  MARGARITA SHARAPOVA

  COMFUTURE

  Translated by Jos-Alaniz.

  A 100-car freight train, hauling ten little multi-colored circus cars, was going into its third day stuck in Gnilukha. Day and night they shifted the train from one rail line to another, but never got around to sending it on its way.

  In one of the circus cars, serving in the capacity of escort, rode Alyona — or as everyone called her, Alex. A month before she had picked up lice and shaved her head. A visitor had mistaken her for a boy and called her Alex. The name stuck.

  It was early morning, and Alex lay fast asleep on some bales of hay, rolled up to her neck in a blanket. Nearby, their lips puckered, some horses dozed; pigeons cooed sweetly in their cages; and, leaning on its stout tail as if filling an armchair, a kangaroo snorted and muttered in its enclosure.

  With a bang and clamor, the massive door-wall split open, letting clouds of morning damp and colorless light into the car's stuffy interior. The horses started scraping the floor with their hooves, snorting. The pigeons chirruped, whirling, claws clattering. The kangaroo threw up its tiny front paws, goggle-eyed.

  «Alex, get up! Bad news, Alex!»

  That would be Orest yelling. Animal trainer. Former acrobat. A guy, around 30 years old. Alex didn't answer, so Orest jumped into the car and started shaking the blanket-wrapped body. Alex mumbled:

  «Whassa matter, huh? Lemme alone… All night long they were pushing and pulling these goddamn wagons…»

  «Mollie's dying!»

  In a split second the blanket had unrolled and the shaven-headed girl was wide-awake, screaming out in a broken voice:

  «What, you got your way, you creep!»

  And, shoving him aside, she leapt out of the train car.

  Mollie was a St. Bernard. They'd been given the dog just before the circus went on tour. Right off the bat they had problems. In the circus, dogs are kept in cages, and they're taken for walks inside enclosures, not outside. They're never allowed outdoors. Between cities, they're not even let out of their cages; the animals have to pee on the sawdust right there in the cage. Mollie joined the circus just before the road. She was squeezed into a cage, the cage squeezed in among other cages, where through the bars protruded the barking, howling snouts of every canine breed, and they were all loaded like cargo into the freight train. The St. Bernard alone chose to forego the barking and howling, but her eyes betrayed utter bewilderment: «I don't understand a thing. The world's turned completely upside-down.» By evening of the first day, Alex noticed that the dog had not relieved itself once during the day.

  «She's not used to doing things like a dog. We have to lower her to the ground, let her walk outside, like a person.»

  «A big hulk like that?» Orest said, gloomily. «Forget it. We'll train her right, and straight off, in the spirit of our circus traditions. Our little miss aristocrat won't hack it — she'll have to answer mother nature's call.»

  But mother nature, in fact, did not call, not on the second day, and not on the third.

  All the same, Orest wouldn't budge from his «spirit of circus traditions» edict — he'd meant every word.

  On the fourth day, the dog was half-dead.

  Alex climbed into the dogs' car. The dogs, locked up in tiered cages, started yapping and yelping, but they quieted down immediately when Orest showed up. A prodigious wheeze issued from Mollie's cage.

  «Come on, let's take her outside,» mumbled Orest, meekly. «Maybe it's not too late.»

  «Right on time, to a T,» Alex smiled, viciously. «Fine trainer you are!»

  Orest opened the cage and pulled the dog's bulk onto its feet. Mollie moaned weakly, but finally rose, swayed and took a few steps.

  «Bravo, Mollikins, bravo,» whispered Orest, hauling the dog along by its collar, while Alex pushed the St. Bernard in its behind.

  The dog suddenly seemed to trip and lay down in the passageway.

  «Let's drag her!» Orest panicked, and in a flash they were pulling the dog to the half open door. Orest managed to jump out, and Alex pushed Mollie onto him. The bulky carcass toppled over and crushed the trainer. Alex burst out laughing, quite out of place. Just because.

  «What're you cacklin' about?!» rasped a suffocating Orest. «Help me…»

  Alex jumped down.

  But the dog stood up on its own. Catching a whiff of real earth, even if it was just gravel soaked through with fuel oil, coal dust and soot, revived Mollie. She stretched her nose towards the embankment, took a few cautious steps on shaking paws, finally she squatted and urinated.

  Alex and Orest watched over her, motionless with joy. Once Mollie was done peeing, they high-fived each other, and even embraced.

  Mollie, meanwhile, playfully jumped and gamboled her way to some grass by the side of the road, where she spun like a child's top and squatted again — for some serious business this time.

  «Whew,» Orest wiped his sweaty brow.

  «We've done it this time, eh?» Alex was smiling, sarcastically.

  «You watch that smart mouth 'a yours,» he frowned. «I'm still your boss, an' I can hire you an' fire you…»

  «Uh-huh. Right here, right now.» She stuck her tongue out at him.

  The train, meanwhile, gave a shudder. A wave of motion rolled from its head to its tail, clanging and clattering through every car. And slowly, the whole thing started moving forward.

  «Hey!» Alex had turned to look at the signal light: it was green.

  «Bah!» Orest carelessly waved it off. «It's nothing. They're just switching it over to another line. Just moving 'em around for another day, day numbe
r three here.» He yawned and stretched, joints cracking. «Now we can go grab some shut-eye… Thank God it all worked out!»

  «They're prob'ly switching it over to the fifth line.» Alex was yawning, too. «There's nobody on that one.» And she was stretching just as thoroughly.

  «Not likely. Probably the sixth… Yesterday the trackman was saying number six is the line going' to Spas-Kukuyevsk.» He thought aminute and added, gloomily, «Our line's going there, too.»

  «So, maybe, it's this one, this one leaving? Huh?»

  The last car, a huge cup loaded with coal, lumbered lazily by. The two, standing there, followed it with suspicious stares.

  «We can still catch up to it and jump on,» said Orest, with a sidelong glance at the dog.

  «Sure, nothing to it,» answered Alex, whispering for some reason. They traded conspiratorial looks, but right then Mollie — happy as a clam — buoyantly ran over to them and, leaning her big block of a head to one side, fixed her devoted stare on their worried faces, amicably wagging her fan-like tail.

  Orest snorted, screwed up his eyes and looked into the distance.

  «For sure they'll start moving it back in a second. Look, what'd I say!»

  The train sputtered, an uneven wave rolled over all the cars, but… it didn't stop — on the contrary, it picked up speed and confidence.

  «Light's green,» Alex exhaled in desolation.

  Orest kept nervously ogling the caboose, already difficult to make out in the distance.

  «What're you, trying to hypnotize it?» laughed Alex. «All es we is, plain as day…»

  The rails, polished to a sheen, stretched out endlessly before them, tapering off to the horizon, melting into a vague vista.

  «Let's go to the dispatcher,» Orest scratched the back of his neck. «Find out what's what.»

  «Ri-ight, no money, no papers…»

  «Yeah, but look at the dog we've got with us!»

  «What a sight we are! Like a couple'a bums…»

  They were indeed both dressed like odd-balls: Alex in shorts carelessly cut from some blue-jeans, with one leg barely covering her buttock, the other fringing her knee; and an oversized man's T-shirt, in whose armholes her breasts twinkled in and out of view — she wasn't wearing a bra and her head was shaved to boot; while Orest had arrayed himself in bright pink, with buckskin breeches whose sequins had half-fallen off, and soft-soled ankle boots — his old acrobat's costume. To top it off, by this, their fourth day on the road, they were both pretty ripe.

  The dispatcher's station was housed in a glass box, towering over the railroad yard. At the control panel sat a cozy-looking, unbelievably fat old lady. She kept a sort of running commentary going into a microphone, as if she was peering into a pot in her kitchen, murmuring, «Right, and now some onion, a little carrot, and just a pinch of salt, and now, how about a little pepper…» while her voice echoed over the fancifully intricate interlacings of the rails: «318 to number five… 22814 to number eight… 121 to number one…» Meanwhile, she was pressing buttons and flipping switches, and all this with that same hum-drum everydayness, as if cooking over a stove instead of running some mysterious micro-economy of train cars.

  The woman didn't immediately notice her visitors, so they were free to gawk, through the enclosure's glass walls, at the sprawling panorama: at elongated trains, moving like tentacles or frozen stiff in immobility; at rails, interlaced and branching out in some weird disordered harmony; at traffic lights and signals and posts, and little human figures, scurrying about.

  «Ahh!» the fat old lady screamed suddenly, in a squeaky voice. Mollie was poking her wet snout into the woman's meaty calf. Her incredible girth proved no hindrance; the dispatcher had sprung up onto her chair in the blink of an eye.

  «Don't be afraid,» guffawed Orest.

  Alex grabbed the dog by the collar.

  «She's a good dog.»

  The dispatcher, huffing and puffing, descended from her perch. Orest gallantly offered her a hand.

  «Thank you,» she said, keeping a wary eye on the St. Bernard. «I've only seen bulls like that on the TV.»

  A discord of voices floated out of the microphones: someone was yelling, someone whistling, others cursing. The dispatcher rushed back to the control panel, barked out a «Shush!» — and in the prompt silence, calmly started muttering into the microphone again, with distrustful sidelong glances at the dog and her peculiar visitors.

  When she found a moment she uttered a perfunctory «What can I do for you?» — with no special tenderness.

  Alex at once flashed an ingratiating smile.

  «We're from the circus, we've got these really funny-looking train cars…»

  The dispatcher cracked her own happy grin for a second, then suddenly took alarm:

  «But I just sent you off twenty minutes ago.»

  Alex and Orest looked at each other in despair, all hope lost.

  «You got left behind?» the woman said in sympathy.

  «So it would seem,» Orest pleadingly stared at the dis-patcheress. «But can't you recall the train somehow? Pull the cord, so to speak, and bring it back, eh?»

  The dispatcher, moved by such naivete, shook her head.

  «Run on over to the number six line. To the engine-drivers. They're on their way to Spas-Kukuyevsk too, in a bit. I'll let 'em know to take you,» and she was already intoning over the microphone: «Hey, you slab! You're takin' some passengers aboard… circus folk… what're you sayin'? Ah-ha-ha!!! Watchyer yap.» She turned to her guests. «All set.»

  «Thanks a bunch,» Alex pressed her hand to his heart.

  «By the way,» said the dispatcher, in a confiding tone, «just where were you two coming from?»

  «Oh!» Orest and Alex pointed their hands in opposite directions.

  The dispatcher nodded knowingly.

  «And what's your final destination?»

  Alex and Orest again waved to different points of the compass.

  The dispatcher felt another wave of satisfaction.

  The electric locomotive was of Czech manufacture, the engine-driver's cabin located about two meters off the ground. A steep little metal ladder led up to it.

  Orest could only whistle, looking up. Then he turned to Mollie — and scratched the back of his neck.

  «Come on, boys, let's get a move on!» yelled the engine-driver, sticking his head out of the cabin.

  The pistons in the wheelbase suddenly shot out some thick steam, and Mollie shied back, drawing her tail in between her legs and yelping like a puppy.

  «Come on, boy!» Orest came after her.

  Mollie, in terror, pressed herself against the embankment. A heavy shudder was going through her body.

  «What's the problem, guys?» the engine-driver looked out again, and pushed his cap back from his head, dumbfounded. «Oh-ho, you've got a doggie with you, too…»

  His assistant appeared in the doorway: a freckled, red-faced young man, who immediately burst out laughing:

  «Just look at this beast, so huge and so scary!»

  He quickly ran along a small bridge on the side of the engine and dropped down.

  «What a greenhorn you are!» he said, flicking Alex's shaven head in contempt — when his glance unexpectedly fell on her breasts, twinkling in their T-shirt. «You're a girl?» he said, struck dumb — then looked suspiciously at Orest.

  «Animal trainer Orest Anderlecht,» said Orest, proudly jabbing his chest, then indicated Alex with condescension. «My assistant.»

  «Mikhras, let's go, dammit!» barked the engine-driver.

  Mikhras and Orest dragged the reluctant dog to the locomotive. It took the two of them to set her down on the gangway. Mollie whined and drew her stumpy paws under herself.

  «Hup and at 'em!» the engine-driver pulled the St. Bernard, by the fleshy part of the neck, up onto the little bridge, and triumphantly smacked his palms against one another. «Tha's the way!»

  They went to the cabin after the assistant. Mikhras paused on the t
hreshold, looked round and cast a sly glance at the bald girl. Alex gave him the finger. Mikhras blushed and scampered off into the cabin.

  Something started to roar and rumble in the locomotive's belly, and the train set off.

  The circus performers stood on the little bridge with a metal railing. At their backs they sensed a blazing heat and a thunderous rattle, while the wind pummeled their faces, getting stronger and stronger. Mollie's ears flapped and fluttered, like flags. She screwed up her eyes against the tearing gusts, but, heroically, did not look away.

  The train picked up more and more speed. The roadside trees rushed briskly by, while the more distant vista, an impressive panorama, seemed to indulge in a slow, leisurely swim. The kilometer-long tail of cars flowed out endlessly from behind the engine.

  «This is when you really want to scream, 'My motherland!'» yelled Orest into her ear, for all he was worth. Alex flinched in indignation and, angrily gesticulating, yelled back, but he couldn't hear. Suddenly, she froze in amazement. Orest followed her gaze, and dropped his jaw, dumbly.

  Along a slope, overturned, half-demolished, some freight cars lay in a crooked chain.

  Mikhras ran over to the circus folk and shouted:

  «It derailed last Thursday!»

  «What?!» the circus pair couldn't hear him.

  Mikhras waved them off and ran away.

  Soon the general contours of a station appeared. Mikhras leaned out of the cabin, and with his lips formed the words, «Spas-Kukuyevsk.»

  «What caused that accident?» Orest asked Mikhras, once they'd gotten to the station.

  «Well, it's pretty common,» said the younger man, smiling serenely. «Nowadays they got trains with up to 200 cars, with some of'em loaded down an' heavy-like, an' others they leave empty, and that's a no-no. You get an overfall'a pressure on the rails, deformations and things like that. We went over it in vocational school.»

  «And our train just drove on through that same section?» Alex observed, frowning.

  «Sure, why not,» Mikhras assured her. «Well, I gotta go. Have a good trip! Where you off to now?»