Katherine Carlyle

by Rupert Thomson

  I stop for a bowl of soup in a café run by a family from Uzbekistan. Later, I cut through a park. Thin clouds veil the sky; the sun is weakening. Some distance from the footpath an old couple are picnicking on the trunk of a fallen tree, their shoulders touching. Their laughter reaches me. As I walk on, the man lifts a hand and waves. It’s only among strangers that I’m seen, only among strangers that I exist.

  /

  The following morning I meet Yevgeny at Yaroslavsky station, as agreed. Though he has booked us into separate sleeping compartments — an example of his tact — we sit together for the first leg of the journey, sipping the black tea he buys from a conductor. As Moscow recedes, the outskirts giving way to countryside, I ask Yevgeny about his mother. She’s ninety-four, he says, and he has spent the last three weeks trying to persuade her to move house. You should live near me, he tells her. Why? she says. So I can do your washing? He smiles, the lines deepening around his mouth, then he takes off his cap and ruffles his white hair. She’s so stubborn, he says. Tough as old shoe leather. During the Second World War she flew with the Russian air force. She was one of a handful of female pilots known as “night witches” who dropped bombs on the advancing German army. She was shot down twice, but made it through unscathed. She has received numerous medals and decorations from the state, though she lives modestly, in an apartment in the suburbs. He has the feeling she will outlast him. It’s possible that she’s immortal. He sees the look on my face. He’s joking, he says. Then, abruptly, he tells me he would like to rest his eyes. Even talking about her makes him tired.

  I take my tea next door, to my compartment. That afternoon, as I sit beside the window, endless birch trees flashing by, I return to the InterContinental. Though two days have passed in my world, only an hour has gone by for my father and Lydia, enough time for them to have made love again and drifted off to sleep.

  My father wakes suddenly, one hand grasping at the air. He has had a bad dream. The curtains have yet to be drawn; the windows are black. Light spills from the half-open bathroom door but doesn’t reach the corners of the room. Does he know where he is? Not right away. Then he notices the sheet of paper on the floor, my handwriting visible. Of course. Berlin.

  And he has a lead.

  Oswald.

  Lydia stirs beside him and reaches for his hand. “David? What will you do?”

  “I don’t know.” Sitting up, he stares at the tall vase of exotic twigs and grasses opposite the bed. “I really don’t know.”

  “I should leave,” she says.

  She crosses the room in the half-dark, pinning her hair up as she goes. He is struck by how at ease with her nakedness she is. His mind jams. She shuts the bathroom door and switches on the shower.

  The train jerks, then speeds up. The sky has lowered, and rain streaks diagonally across the window. My imagination keeps racing ahead, and I have to remind myself that the Café Einstein rendezvous is still five days away. My father won’t have left Rome yet but he ought to have received my first letter. Though short, it will have been a comfort to him. Scenarios that might have crossed his mind — abduction, murder — can be ruled out. He still has a decision to make, however. What will he do?

  A station slides into view. Sheets of water on the platform reflect its green facade. One of the buildings has a spire with a cross on top. The door swings open, and I glimpse lighted candles and a wall hung with icons.

  I see Pavlo briefly, in his immaculate white T-shirt, accompanied by the seductive whir and hum of a spin drier, then I go back to thinking about my father. Despite myself, I have left clues as to my whereabouts, my movements — the hotel stationery, the photograph of Oswald … As my father travels from the airport into the city he studies the photo, trying to memorize the young man’s unmemorable face. He needs to be able to recognize Oswald if he comes across him. But what’s the likelihood of that?

  I remember how Lydia stood by our table and listened to Oswald gossiping about his supervisor at KaDeWe. If Lydia recalls the stories and repeats them to my father he will have no trouble tracking Oswald down — and Oswald has valuable intelligence, for it was he who saw me at the station, on a train bound for Moscow …

  My father might fly to Russia — or perhaps he will follow my example and take a train, arriving at Byelorusskaya station in the middle of the night. It’s October in Moscow. Dressed in an open-necked shirt and a pair of chinos, he has dark smears beneath his eyes, like the stains water leaves on bath enamel. Other travelers give him suspicious glances and push past, intent on journeys of their own. His finishes right there, though, under the mint-green sign that glows on the roof of the main station building. He could go to the police, but Russia, as he knows, is a profoundly bureaucratic country, impenetrable and vast, and I’m just another foreign girl. Though he is accustomed to difficult predicaments, he looks out of place, and his mouth is trembling, uncertain. I would like to be able to walk up to him and give him a hug. I’d like to say, You’ve done all you can do, Dad. Stop worrying. Go home. And he’d say, Honestly? Is that what you want? And I’d say, Yes, it’s what I want. I’d kiss him on the cheek and tell him that I love him. He’d say, I love you too, Kit. I always have. He’d pause, and then he’d say it again. I always have. He’d be holding me, looking down into my face. I need him to repeat those words. Some things you can’t hear enough.

  /

  As afternoon shades into evening I drop in on Yevgeny. He orders more black tea, then asks me about university. When I mention Oxford, his face opens in astonishment. He visited the city once, he says, when he was a professor, and then a second time, not long after he retired. In a garden next to Christ Church he saw a tree whose bright-yellow star-shaped leaves were thrown into relief by the dark stone of the wall behind them. He doesn’t know what kind of tree it was — it looked oriental somehow — but he has never forgotten the way it stood out against that wall. He also went to a museum filled with weapons, tribal masks, and musical instruments. The place was so dimly lit that a curator handed him a special windup flashlight. He could live in Oxford, he says. The air itself seemed educated, busy with knowledge. You could learn things simply by breathing. He laughs and then falls quiet. We rattle across a river. Low in the sky, on the horizon, is an orange vent, the first sun we have seen all day. Then more bare trees, more soggy rumpled land. Yevgeny’s reminiscences prompt no regrets in me, no nostalgia for the life I have rejected, only the wish that I could trade in my scholarship and send him to Oxford in my place.

  At seven o’clock we pull into a large station with an elaborate red-and-white facade.

  “Vologda,” Yevgeny says.

  In the corridor Russian men are already dressed for bed, in shorts and flip-flops. I edge past them and jump down onto the platform. Some new passengers are hurrying to climb on board, struggling with heavy bags. Others stand about, talking and smoking. Three army women in green uniforms and fur hats pose for a photo under the harsh lights. Steam lifts from the wheels of the train, and the sides of the carriages are ridged, gleaming, and faintly dented, like old-fashioned biscuit tins. The night feels brash, dramatic. Nickel-plated.

  I return to Yevgeny’s compartment and he holds out a bag of pirozhki. As I take one, his gaze falls on my bruised wrist.

  “Your arm,” he says.

  I pull my sleeve down. “It’s nothing.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was an accident. I tripped over my suitcase. In my hotel room.”

  His eyes drift past me, to the window. He senses that I’m lying. At the same time, I don’t imagine he would want to hear the truth. I change the subject by asking about Arkhangel’sk. Relieved perhaps, he responds enthusiastically. The region’s earliest inhabitants were hunters and fishermen who lived fourteen thousand years ago, he says. Mysterious legendary tribes such as the white-eyed Chudi. Arkhangel’sk itself was founded by Ivan the Terrible in 1584. A wooden city sprang up within a year and became Russia’s first major commercial port. Surrounded b
y forest, the economy was driven by timber, not just shipbuilding, but paper mills, pulp factories. The university is excellent. He taught engineering there for many years. There’s also a medical school. Mikhail Lomonosov, an eighteenth-century scientist and writer, is one of the city’s celebrated sons. He discovered the atmosphere of Venus. His fame is such, Yevgeny says with a wry smile, that a local potato is named after him.

  At half past nine his cough returns.

  “I’ve talked enough,” he says. “I think I’ll sleep.”

  I wish him a restful night.

  Back in my own compartment, I suddenly feel hungry and unpack the provisions I brought along — black bread, cured meat, gherkins, vodka. I’m trying to prize the top off the bottle when a train official knocks on my door. She’s holding a wicker basket of items for the journey — crackers, tissues, chewing gum. I gesture at the bottle and say the Russian word for “open.”

  “It’s forbidden,” she tells me.

  “Vodka’s forbidden?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this is Russia …”

  She smiles. “It’s the regulations,” she says, then moves on down the carriage.

  Putting the bottle on the table by the window, I unscrew the lid on the jar of gherkins and have just begun to eat when the door to my compartment opens again and two men appear. One of them is huge, with blond hair cut close to his skull and the smooth round face of a baby. He sits opposite me and starts foraging in a sports bag. The other man, who is smaller and darker, climbs up onto one of the top bunks and lies down, facing the wall. The huge man looks at me steadily, his eyes the color of antifreeze. He goes by the name of Sergei, he says. His friend is Konstantin. Using sign language and basic Russian, I ask Sergei if he would like to share my food. He thanks me and takes a slice of bread and ham. Then he notices the vodka.

  “It’s forbidden,” I say.

  “Yes.” He shrugs.

  He twists off the top and pours us half a glass each, then he reaches into his sports bag and lifts out some apples. They come from his garden, in Tutayev. Next he produces a jar and unscrews the lid. It seems to be some kind of chutney. Made from tomato and garlic, he says. Excellent with meat. While we eat and drink I ask Sergei what he does for a living. He works in a sheet-metal factory, he tells me, as does his friend. I ask about his family. He has a wife, three children. Though Konstantin has his back to me I sense that he’s still awake. I help myself to one of Sergei’s apples.

  “You travel alone?” he asks.

  I think about mentioning Yevgeny but decide against it. After all, we will only be together for the duration of the train journey. “Yes. I’m alone.”

  “You don’t have to worry.” Sergei places a massive, scarred hand over his heart. “We’re good people.”

  I pour him another vodka.

  In the window birch trees flash past, white lines suspended upright in the darkness.

  Sergei takes out his mobile phone, an ancient Nokia, and offers to play me some of his songs. I’m worried they’ll be terrible, like karaoke, and that I’ll have to be diplomatic, but his voice, which is unaccompanied, is haunting and tender.

  “This is you?” I say.

  “My songs. I wrote them.” He batters at his chest with both palms. “In your soul you must have the whole world.”

  The vodka bottle is almost empty.

  I go to the bathroom. On my way back I look in on Yevgeny, thinking to say good night, but he’s already lying down with his eyes shut. Returning to my compartment, I tell Sergei that I need to sleep.

  “Kharashó,” he says. That’s fine.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see him drain the contents of two glasses, one after the other. Did he finish my drink as well? No, I still have mine. Looking more closely, I realize the second glass is actually a jar. He must have drunk the liquid the gherkins came in.

  “Spakoinai nochi,” he says. Good night.

  I thought the men would sleep in the top two bunks. Instead, Konstantin climbs down, and without speaking again the two men leave the compartment. I switch off the light and stretch out on my bed.

  Some time later, when I open my eyes, I make out several round shapes on the table by the window. Sergei forgot his apples.

  /

  I’m walking through Trastevere with my parents. They’re in their twenties, and in love. Though this is before they had me, I’m there between them, a child of seven or eight. The night is warm. The facades of churches lit up, shop windows glowing. I feel light but anchored, like a balloon on the end of a long string.

  We enter a piazza filled with stalls and people. It feels like the Festa de’ Noantri, which happens in July. We pause by a boxing ring. A man in green trunks slumps against the ropes, his eyes glazed and watery. The other man holds his arms above his head, his gloved hands dark red and shiny, like giant cherries. My father gazes up into the ring. My mother rests her head against his shoulder. He puts an arm round her, and they walk on. I have to run to catch up.

  Later, we eat at a local pizzeria nicknamed L’Obitorio — The Morgue — because all its tables are topped with marble slabs. We sit outside, next to the road. Suddenly my father points. Look! A truck crawls past in low gear. Dangling from a winch at the back is a naked woman, her hair and body painted gold. Since the cord or wire that holds her isn’t visible she appears to be floating in midair, halfway between the truck and the overhanging trees.

  I wake with a feeling of elation, still in that imaginary, timeless world, the trouble that awaits our family out of sight or even sidestepped altogether, our happiness untouchable.

  The rhythmic clatter of the train. I turn in my bed and peer out of the window.

  Endless woods, no moon.

  /

  A guard flicks on the light and makes an announcement I don’t understand. I glance at my watch. Twenty-five past six. Half an hour to Arkhangel’sk. When I part the curtain my breath catches in my throat. The loose stone chippings next to the rails are sprinkled with snow.

  A few minutes before we arrive Yevgeny appears in a clean shirt. He asks me how I slept.

  “I don’t feel I slept at all,” I say, “but I must have, I suppose. I remember dreams.”

  We step down out of the train. On the platform is a row of old-fashioned metal streetlamps, the globes of light seemingly suspended in a dense and swirling darkness. The station is a low white building, with ARKHANGELSK spelled out in giant dilapidated letters on the roof. Of Sergei and Konstantin there is no sign. These people you see once, and never again.

  Since it’s still so early, just after seven, Yevgeny suggests we share a taxi. In front of the station he approaches a driver and negotiates a price, then we climb in. I ask to be dropped at the Pur Navolok hotel.

  As we set off down a wide bleak avenue, tires crackling on the snow, Yevgeny gives me a puzzled look. “I thought you were staying with your father’s friend.”

  “He was called away unexpectedly,” I say, “on business. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Turning to face the window, I wipe a hole in the condensation. Sheer apartment blocks, low-voltage neon signs.

  When we reach the Pur Navolok I try to say goodbye inside the taxi but Yevgeny climbs out and leans on the open door, gripping the top edge with his gloved hands.

  “I’m probably a little old for you, but I’d like to give you my number.” He removes his right glove and fumbles in his pocket for a pen and paper. In shaky handwriting he jots his number down. “If you need a companion or if you’d like someone to show you the city.” He pauses. “Or if you’re in trouble.”

  “That’s very kind,” I say. “Thank you.”

  He glances up at the hotel’s modern blue-and-white facade. “It’s a good place. Expensive, though.”

  We say goodbye and Yevgeny lowers himself back into the taxi. I wait until the car has turned the corner, then I consult the map Vladimir printed out for me on my second night in Moscow. I have lied to Yevgeny from the beginning.
I won’t be staying with my father’s friend, since he doesn’t have a friend, and I won’t be staying at the Pur Navolok either. I have booked a room at the Best Eastern Dvina, which is cheaper and just as central.

  The Pur Navolok overlooks the river, but all that shows in the darkness is a strip of snow-dusted beach and a pinpoint of green light in the distance. I follow the promenade for half a mile, a cold wind blowing off the water, then I turn inland. In twenty minutes I reach the Dvina, a huge pale-pink block set back from the road. The blonde woman on reception — Olga — speaks a little English. After the long train journey I feel like a swim, but when I ask if there’s a pool she laughs.

  “We can build perhaps,” she says.

  In my room on the fifth floor I part the net curtains. Below are a few parked cars. Off to the right is a supermarket with a red neon sign on top. I turn from the window. Yellow walls, a thirteen-inch TV. A small bland painting of a coffee cup. I could be anywhere in Russia — or anywhere at all. I arrange my Richter postcards on the mirror above the desk, wedging them between the glass and the frame, then I go downstairs again. In the shopping mall across the street I buy myself an Arctic parka and a scarf.

  Later, when it’s light, I walk along the river, back towards the Pur Navolok. On the long grand esplanade is a stone-and-metal monument that reminds me of the prow of a fighting ship from the Dark Ages. The beach below is wide and flat. Pieces of driftwood lie about on sand that has frozen hard as concrete. Somehow I never imagined sand could freeze. The sky is vast and overarching, a limitless dreamlike mauve blue. In its upper reaches are the strangest clouds I have ever seen — identical soft-edged cubes of white which fit together in a loose mosaic.

  /

  Back in my room I switch on the desk lamp and look at the scrap of paper Yevgeny gave me. It’s odd how closely it resembles the messages I came across earlier in the year, messages that were either misleading or irrelevant, meant for somebody else or no one at all. Though the scribbled number seems to be prompting me to pick up the phone, I know I will do nothing of the kind. I don’t need any guidance or comfort. That stage is over.