Death of a Tyrant

by Christopher Nicole

  “Andrew Morgan.” He shook hands.

  “It is unusual to meet another Englishman going to Russia,” Smith remarked. “Business?”

  “Only in a manner of speaking. I’m researching a book.”

  “Is that a fact. You want to be careful just what you research. The Soviets like to keep their secrets.”

  “I don’t intend to tread on any corns. Have you been on board all the way from the Hook?” He found it strange that he hadn’t seen him before.

  “No. I joined last night, in Berlin.” Smith grinned. “Had rather a heavy night, with my associates, so I’ve only just got out of bed.”

  “And you’re going to Russia on business?”

  “That’s right. Typewriters. They’re in short supply in Russia. I suppose you know all about typewriters, being a writer?”

  “I have one,” Morgan conceded.

  “What make?”

  “A Remington.”

  “Oh, good lord. Old hat, if you don’t mind my saying so. What you need is a PinPointer.”

  “Never heard of it,” Andrew confessed.

  “I have a demonstration model in my compartment. Would you like to see it?”

  Andrew considered. He didn’t really want to get too close to this man, or any man, for that matter; he knew there was a lot of clandestine movement of both people and material in and out of the Soviet Union, and it was his business to keep his nose absolutely clean until he had got what he had come for. And even more, afterwards. But he didn’t want to offend this fellow. “If you wish to show it to me,” he agreed. “However, I must warn you that I am not in the market.” He grinned. “I haven’t the money.”

  “But you will have, when you have written this story,” Smith said. “Whatever it is.”

  *

  Smith enthusiastically demonstrated the workings of his machine, which had several new features, some of them quite interesting. It was late afternoon before Andrew managed to escape him, and obtain a cup of tea from the guard, who as always was sitting next to his samovar at the door to the carriage. “When do we reach the border?” he asked.

  “Tonight,” the guard said. “Late. Do not worry, they will disturb you as little as possible.”

  But they will still disturb me, Andrew thought, and returned to his compartment and his book. He was determined to keep his mind in limbo until he actually reached Moscow. To his surprise, and relief, John Smith did not appear at dinner. Maybe his hangover had returned. Andrew ate well, drank the invariable carafe of vodka that was placed on his table, and retired to bed. He was asleep in minutes; the movement of the train added to the vodka in his system was soporific. But when the light was switched on he was awake instantly, his mind quite clear.

  There were three people in the compartment, which meant that it was very crowded. The conductor and the frontier guard were normal; the conductor held Andrew’s passport, and the guard was comparing the photo with Andrew’s face, and nodding, reassuringly. It was the third person who took Andrew’s attention. This was a young woman, he put her in her middle twenties, no older, and who was, in her own fashion, quite as beautiful as Priscilla Bolugayevska-Cromb. In fact, it was almost possible to detect a certain resemblance between the two.

  But that was impossible. In any event, this girl was dark, where the Princess had been utterly fair. She wore no hat, and her hair was the colour of midnight, straight and very long, descending past her shoulders to her waist. The features were flawless; they might have been carved in marble by a master sculptor. And the rest of her…she wore no uniform, but a loose blouse and a pair of pants, which also seemed loose-fitting. But he didn’t doubt what lay beneath was as perfect as the face and the hair. She had been studying his ticket. Now she raised her head. “This is not correct,” she said, to his amazement, in perfect English.

  “Eh?” He hated to sound dim, but she had taken him by surprise.

  “This ticket is from London to Brest-Litovsk. You must leave the train here.”

  “But that is ridiculous. I am booked through to Moscow.”

  The girl gazed at him. One eyebrow twitched. “You wish to go to Moscow?”

  “Yes. I have business there.” Andrew looked at the conductor. “Tell this lady I am going to Moscow,” he said in Russian.

  “That is what he said, Comrade,” the conductor explained.

  To Andrew’s relief, the guard handed the passport back to the conductor, saluted, and left the compartment. He felt it would be more possible to carry on a reasonable conversation without the presence of a sub-machine-gun. “Then the ticket needs to be changed,” the woman said. “You will come with me, please.”

  “Come with you?” At any other time it would have been a pleasure. “Where?”

  “To the ticket office in the station.” She might have been speaking to a small child.

  “You mean…leave the train?”

  The woman gave a brief smile. “The train will be here for more than an hour. The tracks must be changed, you see, from the European broad gauge to the Russian narrow gauge. The train will be put on a turntable to do this, then it will return here. But we must hurry.”

  “Oh. Right-ho.” When I get back to London, he thought, 1 am going to strangle that ticketing clerk. On the other hand… “Just give me a minute to get dressed.”

  “There is no time. Come now.”

  “Ah. You see…” All she could see was his pyjama jacket. Now he slightly moved the covers to reveal a naked thigh. “I must get dressed. Or I’ll be arrested for indecent exposure.”

  The woman regarded his thigh. “Put on a pair of pants,” she recommended, and stepped into the corridor.

  Andrew looked at the conductor, who shrugged, and also left. The woman was just outside, and the door remained open. Andrew rolled out of the bunk, grabbed his pants and pulled them on, thrust his feet into his slippers, straightened, and found the woman standing in the doorway, looking at him. How long had she been doing that? The idea was quite a turn on. “Come,” she said.

  He pulled on his dressing gown and followed her. There were quite a few people in the corridor, who regarded him with varying degrees of surprise. Once again, to his utter relief, Smith was not to be seen, the door of his compartment firmly shut. Obviously there was nothing the matter with his ticket.

  The spring air was far colder than he had anticipated; it cut through his robe like a knife. But when he followed the woman across the platform and into the station itself, it was as warm as toast. The station interior, however, was also packed with people. They showed only the slightest interest in a man who had clearly just been dragged from his bed, but to his dismay he saw that the line in front of the one ticket window was at least forty people deep. They waited patiently, and moved very slowly — it required only the simplest arithmetic to deduce that it would be over an hour before he reached the window. He had reckoned without his escort. The young woman marched forward, announcing, “Intourist. Intourist. Step aside.” And everyone stepped aside.

  Feeling acutely embarrassed, Andrew found himself standing before the window, while his ticket was suitably altered. He hadn’t actually had an opportunity to examine the ticket since being told it was incorrect, as the woman had kept it in her possession. He was sure he had checked it before leaving London, and found nothing wrong with it. Now too he could not see what was being done to it, save that a piece of paper was being pasted across his destination. “There we are,” the woman said, reverting to Russian. “Now there will be no more problems, eh?”

  “Thank you very much,” Andrew said. “You are an Intourist guide?”

  “I work for Intourist, yes,” she said.

  “I should like to know your name.”

  “My name is not relevant to you, Mr Morgan. Come.” She led him back into the body of the hall. Here there were several benches, all full. “Make space there,” she commanded, and an elderly couple got up and joined those standing. “You sit here.”

  “I can stand,” he
protested.

  “No, no. Of course you must sit. You are a guest in our country.”

  Andrew sat down. “Will you stay with me?”

  She smiled. “I have things to do. The train will soon be here. But remember, it will only stop for a few minutes. As soon as it comes, you must get in.”

  “I’ll remember. And thanks again.”

  She gave another smile, and disappeared into the throng, leaving him more embarrassed than ever, and not a little nervous; these were the people who had been forced to step aside to let him be served. But there was no hostility in any of the glances directed at him, only curiosity. Well, he thought, quite an eventful day. He could not remember having been so immediately turned on by any woman. Not even the Princess. Of course, the Princess had not been accessible. Not only was she old enough to be his mother, but she lived up there in the sky, where he was firmly rooted to the earth.

  But so, he estimated, was this girl. Not that she had shown the slightest interest in him; she had refused even to give him her name. Equally, he was not likely ever to see her again in his life. But she was excellent material for a few dreams. He became so absorbed in thinking about her that he nodded off, awoke with a start as all around him there was a gigantic rustle. People were moving towards the door. Andrew leapt to his feet and joined them. Now there was no idea of a queue; it was push and shove to get into the open air and gain the train, standing at the platform and hissing and puffing, while the various conductors waved their flags and shouted, “Hurry up!”

  Andrew looked left and right. He had been so besotted with his charming companion he had forgotten to make a note of exactly where the first-class carriage was located, and at the moment he certainly couldn’t see anything that looked like it. And the train was starting to move: he was about to be abandoned on a freezing platform in Brest-Litovsk, with no clothes, no money, no passport, and a ticket for a train that had long departed.

  Desperately he ran forward, grasped the first door that came to hand, wrenched it open, and tumbled into the train, landing on his hands and knees. The door slammed behind him. “You left it late, Comrade,” a man said.

  Andrew got to his feet, looked at a man and a woman, both quite young, and four children, not one over ten. “I apologise for coming in like this,” he said.

  “It is better not to miss the train,” the man said. “You are going to Moscow? We are going to Moscow.” He was proud of that.

  “Yes,” Andrew said. “I am going to Moscow. Now I must get to my compartment.”

  “You are welcome to share ours,” the man said.

  Andrew looked around himself, and gulped. There was nothing in the compartment save for four bunks, two upper and two lower, one on each side. The bunks consisted of bare boards, with not a mattress in sight, there was no washbasin, no let-down table…he licked his lips. “You are very generous,” he said. “But I have a compartment. A few carriages along. I must return there.”

  “You cannot change carriages, Comrade,” the woman said.

  “I am not changing carriages,” Andrew explained. “I am returning to my compartment. Good morning to you.” He opened the door and stepped into the corridor; they made no further effort to stop him. He was sure the first-class carriage was nearer the front of the train, and so turned to his left.

  He passed a succession of compartments, each as crowded and uncomfortable as the one he had just left, reached the end of the corridor, looked through the glass of the door to the sign, ‘Second-Class’, on the next door. But this door was locked. On the other hand, there was a conductor, seated in the corridor by his samovar, just as in first-class, reading a newspaper. Andrew banged on the glass, and again.

  The man raised his head, frowned at him, and resumed reading his paper. Andrew banged again. This time the man glared at him, then got up and unlocked the door. “What do you want, Comrade?”

  “To return to my compartment, Comrade. It is in first-class.”

  “You are in third-class,” the conductor pointed out.

  “But my compartment is in first,” Andrew explained, resisting the desire to shout. “I had to leave the train at Brest, and when I got back on, it was into the wrong carriage. Now I wish to return to my own compartment. Here is my ticket. First-class.”

  “You cannot leave third-class,” the conductor said, ignoring the ticket. “No one can leave third-class.”

  Andrew felt like hitting him. “I cannot stay here, all the way to Moscow!” he shouted.

  The conductor shrugged and turned away, closing the door. Andrew stared at it, and him, in impotent fury. He just could not contemplate the next forty-eight hours. He wasn’t even sure he could survive them.

  He banged on the glass again, but the man ignored him. Then he looked past the conductor, along the corridor…and saw the Intourist agent coming towards him.

  *

  “I saw you on the platform,” Tatiana said, as she escorted Andrew the length of the second-class carriage. “I knew you had got into the wrong carriage.”

  “So you came to my rescue,” Andrew said. “May I say that I have never seen a more beautiful sight? But I would have said that anyway.”

  He was feeling quite light-headed with relief, but she did not take offence. Instead she smiled. “It is very kind of you to say so.” They reached the end of the corridor, and encountered another locked door. But a word from Tatiana and it was opened for them, the conductor, his conductor, Andrew thought, touching his cap to them. “He wishes your ticket,” Tatiana said.

  “There you are,” Andrew said. “All correct now, eh?”

  The conductor nodded. “You know where your compartment is, now,” Tatiana said.

  “But…won’t you at least have a cup of tea with me? The night’s all but gone anyway.”

  Tatiana appeared to consider, then nodded. “All right. As I suppose I was partly responsible for your predicament. Two cups, Ivan,” she said.

  Andrew held the door for her. “I didn’t even know you were on the train,” he said.

  “It is my business to be everywhere I am needed,” Tatiana said, enigmatically. She sat on the bunk.

  “It’s a little untidy, I’m afraid.” Andrew sat beside her. “It was all rather sudden.”

  “I have apologised,” she pointed out.

  Ivan arrived with the tea, and left. Andrew closed the door again. Tatiana made no comment. “Perhaps you’ll now at least tell me your name?” he suggested.

  “My name is Tatiana Gosykinya,” she said, watching him carefully.

  “Tatiana! What a splendid name. Very Russian.”

  “Thank you.” She sipped her tea from the long glass cup contained in a pewter mug. “Is this your first visit to Russia?”

  “Yes. I’m a journalist.”

  Tatiana frowned. “You have not come to write bad things about us, I hope?”

  “No, no,” Andrew protested. “I’m actually researching the death of my father. He was killed here, in Russia, you see, in 1917. Ah…” he realised he might be getting himself into deep water: this girl was an employee of the Soviet Government and was therefore presumably a loyal Communist.

  “In the First Great War?” Tatiana was sympathetic. “It was a good time to die. But a better time to live.” Andrew gave a sigh of relief. She was not going to probe into exactly how his father had died, or for whom he had been fighting. “And you are going to Moscow? Is that where your father died, in Moscow?”

  “No, he died in the south. I am going to Moscow because…” more deep water. “I have a letter of introduction to someone there who knew my father.”

  “All those years ago,” Tatiana said thoughtfully. “Tell me of this person. I may know him.”

  “It’s actually a her. Her name is…” Andrew opened his notebook, and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The name had sounded familiar when she had said it, but what with everything else that had happened tonight it hadn’t registered, but the entry for Jennie Ligachevna contained the not
e, née Gosykinya, née Cromb. “My God!”

  “We do not use such expressions in Russia,” Tatiana said. “Is there something wrong?”

  “This woman…she once had the same name as you.”

  Tatiana looked suitably amazed. “And you say she knew your father? How odd. What is this woman’s first name?”

  “Jennifer. She’s actually English, but she married a Russian.”

  “Jennifer Gosykinya is my mother,” Tatiana said. “Is that not the strangest coincidence in the world, Mr Morgan.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It is.” But he wasn’t interested in coincidences at that moment; could it possibly be that he was going to be able to see more of this gorgeous creature? “Well, I think in all the circumstances, that you should call me Andrew.”

  “And you will call me Tatiana,” she said. “And I think, in all the circumstances, that I should give you a proper Russian greeting.” She held his shoulders, and kissed him on the lips.

  *

  “You will be coming, Alex?” Elaine Bolugayevski demanded of her husband. “They will be most disappointed if you are not there.”

  “If it’s humanly possible, darling,” Alexei Bolugayevski said into the phone. “Believe me.”

  “I shall be expecting you,” Elaine said, and hung up.

  Dr Bolugayevski grinned at his staff sister. “Women never understand that there may be more important things in life than their agenda. And my wife was once a doctor herself, you know.”

  “Is it urgent?” the sister inquired.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking. My parents are returning from England, on the Queen Mary. They land tomorrow, in New York. And naturally they expect me to be there to meet them. Parents also have their own agendas. I happen to be on duty tomorrow.”