NINE

by Svetlana Alexiyevich

«Write it off as breakage,» Hamlet nodded to some crates of bottle fragments. «Already in Yerevan they were pinching, yes.»

  The cars shook, somewhere far away the engine pipe whistled, and the train set off. The boy sat by the open door. The grown-ups ate at table.

  «Where are you headed?» Hamlet raised his glass, inviting the others to clink.

  «Along ways yet,» clinked Orest. Alex nodded with a sigh and joined in with her glass.

  Hamlet went off to smoke by the door, while Alex started to doze off. Her head fell, awkwardly dangling to the side. Orest discreetly embraced the girl and soon fell asleep, too.

  «Communist Future!» the silence shattered.

  «Whaffor?!» cried out Alex, startled, half awake.

  «The station,» smiled Hamlet. «Capitalist Prospects.»

  «Yeah?» Alex settled down, and elbowed Orest. «Wake up! You don't wanna sleep through capitalism!»

  Orest, his eyes at a loss, scrunched up his face into a frown:

  «Aw, shoot! Here I thought this whole disaster was just a dream.»

  «Here is the hillock,» announced Hamlet. «They sort the cars along this slope, yes.»

  Alex and Orest went up to the door. The train had stopped on an incline. The rails stretched out far below, and there branched out into a myriad of shoots. At the summit the train was being split up into separate cars, which were then pushed downhill by a rammer-locomotive. The cars would gather speed and, split up by automated switchers, rush on along different lines, where they slid into new train formations. Past the railway switch they were caught by the shoers — always drunk but quite sharp — who brandished long poles with hooks used to pick up pieces of braking shoes strewn along the lines, and wedge them in under the wheels of madly rushing trains to arrest their speed. The shoers dashed here and there in a frenzy — the cars were flying towards them, like kernels in a popcorn popper — but all the same, from time to time, they'd let one marked «propane-butane» slip past: a tank of highly explosive fuel, illegal to let slide down the hill. They watched its course with interest, to see if it would blow up on impact with the other cars.

  «Glass hauler!» Hamlet yelled to those uncoupling the train cars. «Do not let us slide down the hill! It is written right there, yes! I am carrying Armenian brandy!»

  The uncouplers looked at him in irritation. One angrily growled:

  «I was starting to move up the waiting list for an apartment, and they wound up giving it to one'a you refugees… Give 'im a good shove, Sergei, like ya really mean it!»

  And the rammer-engine, building up speed, slammed into the train car. Sparks splattered out from under the wheels, the bottles started jingling — the car shot down the hill like a missile. The shoers thought it best not even to try bothering with this car, which streaked by with knock-you-off-your-feet velocity. One of the shoers, standing too close to the rails, even lost his cap.

  The initial blow sent everyone tumbling inside the car. Crates rained down to the floor, bottles shattered, their precious contents flowed in a river. The car smashed into another train sitting on the rails, producing a ghastly quake; it lurched back, took aim, did it again. Everything that had survived the first collision was destroyed in the second. The car came to a stop. Mollie was the first to come to; whimpering, she worked her way to the exit and jumped out. Alex and Orest groaned, helping each other scramble out from under the crates. Some glass had sliced into the palm of Orest's hand; he was sucking on the wound. Hamlet raised up his son, who was trembling and weeping noiselessly, from the floor, himself sobbing: «We survived Spitak, a horrible earthquake… Just to make it this far, to Communist Future and its Capitalist Prospects…»

  «Forgive us, goodbye,» Alex babbled, too low to be heard. Orest tugged on her and nodded at the door.

  They jumped out and walked off, hanging their heads. Mollie, sporting a limp, trudged along after them.

  «What line're the circus cars on?» Alex sullenly addressed a worker they met along the way.

  «It left already,» he noted, indifferently. «For Zaschekino.»

  «I give up,» said Alex, sitting on a rail. Orest dropped down next to her.

  «There's a train taking off soon from the first line, get on over there,» advised the laborer.

  The circus folk mechanically stood up and started shuffling off like automatons, in no particular direction.

  «Not that way!» yelled the worker and waved them onto the opposite path. «Thataway!»

  Robot-like, the circus performers spun round and set off along the indicated course.

  A train ready for departure stood on the first line. The brake sleeves between the car couplings hissed like snakes, venting air.

  «I don't see a car we could get in,» noted Alex.

  «Halt, or I'll shoot!» suddenly echoed a squeaky little voice. Their way was barred by a rifle — in the tiny, gaunt hands, all atremble, of a young soldier.

  «Fire away!» Alex pulled down her T-shirt.

  The little soldier flushed crimson and turned away. Mollie ran up to him, grabbed onto the rifle with her teeth and playfully started pulling on it like a toy. The little infantryman dropped his weapon and ran off:

  «Ooh, that pooch's packin' heat now!»

  Orest wrested the rifle from Mollie and handed it to the warrior.

  The little soldier was guarding a train car platform, over which towered something big and sharp-cornered, concealed by a tarpaulin. A second soldier emerged from underneath the platform — a Tartar from the look of him, who commanded with rapid-fire diction:

  «Go back, back, go around, you can't come throughhere!»

  Another soldier popped out of the train car, which was coupled next to the platform. He was disheveled, dressed in rags, with a face so red it looked like it'd been ground down with abrasive powder. He started shouting:

  «Aw, c'mon, let 'em through, Orlyankin! 'Ey, Kilmandeyev! What's with this, it's all a crock! Come on through here, you guys!»

  Orlyankin and Kilmandeyev stood at attention, as if they'd received the command.

  Their superior, meanwhile, was clearly drunk as a skunk.

  Alex and Orest warily approached the car's footboard.

  «Would you get us to Zaschekino?» asked Orest, politely.

  «You'll 'get' something from me, awright!» hiccuped the soldier.

  «As far as the station at Zaschekino,» Orest cleared his throat. «You're going that way, aren't you?»

  «Not exactly,» craftily answered the soldier, snickering. «We're headed for Lysogonovo — by way of Zaschekino.»

  «So, can you give us a ride?»

  «Sure. I personally keep no secrets from the people. C'mon up!»

  The circus folk climbed aboard.

  «So, what are you transporting?» asked Alex, naively.

  «Some crap or other. Hell if we know what they packed up here. I'd like to have a look-see m'self, sometime. Ugh! Is this brown bear with you, or has maestro Delirium Tremens honored us with a gift?»

  «She's our doggie,» Alex scratched Mollie behind the ear.

  «Right. It's usually on the fourth day that I start seein' things. Today's only the third,» said the soldier, loudly tapping on his throat.

  It was a customized train car, with separate compartments. One of them held a kind of laboratory, where two women were agitating something in test tubes. They looked fearfully at Redface as he walked by. «Keep working!» he sternly commanded the ladies, and shut the door. He loudly added:

  «Imbeciles! They wouldn't put out… They've got husbands, see… Well, so what? I'm a family man m'self, so what'd we come on this trip for?»

  He waved his hand dismissively and, swaying heavily, bumping into the walls, he walked on, but suddenly fell. Alex and Orest were busy picking him up when he asked:

  «Who're you? What're you doin' in a secret location?»

  «You let us in yourself,» replied Alex, at a loss.

  «Where's Vznuzdov?»

  «We don't know
,» they answered, with a sinking feeling.

  The soldier stared at them with a dulled look and broke into a grin, catching sight of Alex's breasts under her T-shirt.

  «T-t-t-t-titties… here comes the horned billy goat after the kiddies… butt-butt-butt…»

  Alex pulled away from the soldier's eager claws. He snatched at the air, brought his fist up to his face, opened it, contemplated it, sighed in disappointment and walked on. He tumbled into somebody's compartment; the circus folk stopped short at the threshold. Stale, stuffy air slammed into their nostrils. The compartment was a complete disaster area. On the little table lay leftovers and stubs of things, filthy glasses, half-empty bottles. The floor was more of the same, with the addition of socks and boots thrown about. The bedding was all in a lump. On one of the bunks a soldier lay on his stomach; evidently this was Vznuzdov. His gray-haired crown, grown hoary with age, drooped down from the edge of the bed, over a vomit-splattered floor.

  «Make yerselves at home!» Redface winked at them, after which his eye stuck closed. In case his guests wanted any, he poured vodka into some glasses straight off. «Drink yer fill!»

  Alex and Orest sat together on the edge of a seat, but refused to drink.

  «Great! That'll leave more for me. Otherwise, no way I'll ever whip myself into shape.»

  He polished off a glass and gave the order:

  «Let's go! Qui-i-ck, 'arch!»

  Just then the train started. Redface knocked the back of his head on the wall, and it dawned on him all of a sudden:

  «Hey, maybe we should blow 'er up, eh?»

  «Who?» the circus folk looked over to Mollie, quietly lying in the corridor.

  «You know, that secret thingamawhatzit under the tarp. Let's arrange for a conversion, eh? Generally speaking, I'm against war. Gimme disarmament! I want peace! Love! Broads!» He stared at Alex, eyes dull as glass. «Let's go. There's a free compartment next door here. While I still can…»

  «She promised me the next dance,» Orest uttered gloomily.

  «'Scuse me, buddy, I didn't see ya,» Redface bowed and scraped, and sat back down. «Where'd that Vznuzdov disappear to?»

  «Well, there's somebody in bed over there,» Orest mentioned, good-naturedly.

  «Is that 'somebody' Vznuzdov?!» Redface howled.

  The gray-haired man started mumbling and smacking his lips in his sleep.

  Redface put a finger to his large lips, and whispered:

  «He and I'd be drinking together, back when we was cadets, wet 'hind the ears, hauling bombs along the Volga. Under the barges… If once in a while you saw barges going by real slow on the river, real careful-like, especially at night, and the barges themselves looked empty… That means they're transporting either a li'l ole submarine or a li'l ole bomb. But wait a mi… What're you asking so many questions for?!»

  «We're not asking any questions,» answered a tired Alex. «You're going on and on all by yourself.»

  «Well, I don't give a damn about that! 'Cuz I'm sick'a everything… What do we have wars for? Hah? Because they've got us, the military!» he slammed his fist to his chest — it rang like a bell. «I'm the military! Down with all the armies of the world, the planet, the universe!!!»

  Suddenly he made out through the window, on the next track, an oncoming military transport train, with buck privates sitting and standing in the openings. Redface flung himself into the gangway. From the threshold he yelled out with all his might:

  «Give us demobilization!»

  And the conscripts all began roaring with laughter. They waved their hands and forage caps in the air: «Demobilize! Demobilize!»

  Redface ecstatically tore off his shoulder straps and hurled them under the train wheels, to stormy applause.

  The sleeping Vznuzdov came to, reluctantly tore his gray head from the trestle bed, screwed up his eyes, got up, stretched out towards a glass, drank and — only then — sat down with a grunt.

  «What's your business here, comrades?» he asked, seeing Alex and Orest.

  «Your colleague invited us aboard,» Alex elucidated. «The one you used to transport bombs with on the Volga…»

  The gray-haired man opened his eyes wide at her.

  «Beat the swords into ploughshares!» was heard coming from the gangway.

  «Understood,» Gray Head heavily raised himself and strode off into the corridor.

  Redface was swinging from the footboard somewhere, bawling out:

  «Peace for the cottages, women for the soldiers! Hip-hip-hurray!!!»

  But by now only empty fields, as far as the eye could see, were rolling by.

  «I'll show you swords and ploughshares,» said Gray Head. He yanked Redface into the train car and boxed his ear. «Lost your head, huh, Blyakhin?»

  Blyakhin crawled over to the compartment on all fours, sniveling:

  «That's it — I whipped myself inna shape. Must not be the third day after all. Must'a made it to the fourth long time ago…»

  Gray Head showed the circus folk the door.

  «Get out!»

  Resigned, they walked out to the hallway.

  «I said out! Off the train! Civilians don't belong here.»

  «We can't just jump off with the train moving,» grumbled Alex.

  Gray Head shut the door. They could hear dull blows and muffled whimpering from inside the compartment.

  «That's our train!» Alex cried out.

  A train pulling circus cars was rolling along the next track, parallel to them. But the train hauling military equipment soon overtook it.

  The sun, sinking behind the horizon, burst forth from the other side of the circus cars' locomotive, dazzling Orest and Alex.

  They made it to Zaschekino that night. The rail yard was lit up with powerful lamps mounted on masts high overhead; it seemed brighter than in daytime. Alex and Orest stretched out on some stunted grass between the lines. Mollie lay next to them.

  «It's as bright as the circus ring, under the big top,» smiled Orest.

  «Wish I could have something to drink,» Alex sighed.

  «I'll run over and get us something,» Orest answered instantly, and dashed off.

  Alex hmphed, stroking the dog.

  «He can be trained too, huh?»

  Mollie gave a wide yawn, seasoned with a slight whimper.

  Orest brought back a plastic bottle of Coca Cola.

  «We lucked out. Some guys were ripping off a container back there, so I went to the trouble of getting us a little something… Drink up, Alyona!»

  Alex looked him over and laughed. She took the bottle, twisted it open and drank.

  Echoing voices from the loudspeakers mingled with engine whistles and the rumble of wheels.

  Some sort of freight train arrived. It sailed past and ground to a halt in the distance, with a sigh. Out of a navy freezer car emerged the sleepy figure of what could have been a man or a woman.

  «Where's the water tower here?»

  «Don't know,» answered Orest.

  The trackman showed up. The freezer man turned to him:

  «Hey, buddy, can you move us under the water? Our refrigerators are defrosting.»

  «Tomorrow.»

  «We've got highly perishable products onboard. We're haulin' poultry to Svobodino. We're supposed to be there by tomorrow.»

  «Can't do it. We don't have any engines. We'll send you off day after tomorrow.»

  «Well, isn't that an engine I see puffin' away over there, or what?»

  A locomotive was creeping backwards and forwards on some empty rails.

  «That's for the circus. They're supposed to get here soon. They had an elephant go wild on 'em. Hell if we're gonna be keeping 'em here!»

  Orest jumped over to them.

  «What do you mean, an elephant went wild? Can't leave them alone for a minute!»

  «They're coming!» Alex clamored.

  The multi-colored little cars appeared at last. In the leading car's entrance stood the old codger, Gordey, smoking a
pipe. When he saw Alex, he started waving his crutch.

  «How come ya didn't water the pigeons?»

  «We got left behind, Gordey, for Pete's sake. Way back in Gnilukha, what're you talkin' about?!»

  «Huh? Ya mean ya didn't even feed the horses, for a whole day? Orest, wilya gettaload'a that!»

  Meanwhile, another car slowly rolled over. Inside, a curly-haired lad was peeling potatoes. He hopped over to the door.

  «Ou-la la! How'd you all get here so fast?»

  «What, you're telling me nobody back there noticed a thing? At all?»

  Alex turned to Orest with a flabbergasted look, and screamed, «WE-GOT-LEFT-BEHIND!!!» into the ether.

  Orest, meanwhile, ran over to the car with a painted elephant on its side, and clambered up onto its footboard. In its entryway stood a red-haired, freckled fat woman holding a monkey.

  «What happened to the elephant?!» Orest blurted out.

  The fat lady cracked up:

  «Nothing. We cooked up the story way back in Zheltokrysino, that he'd gone berserk on us and that he might break up the whole station. They sure sent us on our way a lot faster. And then farther on they alerted everybody up ahead about the 'wild elephant.' So we had us green lights all the way to the end of the line.»

  The train braked to a halt. The engine expecting the circus cars pulled back to allow their uncoupled locomotive to pass, then promptly got down to hooking itself up in the old engine's place.

  «Hey!» they called out to Alex from the next circus car, as if nothing had happened. «So, you decided to walk the dog here after all, huh?»

  «Sure,» smiled Alex. «It's nice to breathe fresh air once in a while…»

  And, whistling Mollie over, she scurried to her car.

  OLGA SLAVNIKOVA

  KRYLOV'S CHILDHOOD

  Translated by Marian Schwartz.

  On a relief globe, the Urals look like an old, stretched out scar. There used to be a globe like that at the local history museum; its hollow bumps resembled a cardboard mask. A clumsy contraption caged inside four wooden ribs, you could spin it, and if you rubbed the globe's rough side it would make three or four turns with a plaintive creak, tumble across its own axis for the last time, and land with South America on the bottom. There, underneath, some irritating little piece of it would take a while to settle down. Young Krylov's mother, although in those days a thirty-year-old woman in high heels, had an old woman's job at the museum. She sat on an ordinary chair among the museum's marvels and kept people from touching the skeleton of the brown antediluvian mammoth, whose sole tusk looked like a broken ski with a splint jutting out in front.