Gone by Nightfall

by Dee Garretson

  “Why don’t you paint your hair red?” Nika suggested. “Then you’d look a lot more like Miles than you do now.”

  I stared at Nika and then picked her up and swung her around. “That’s brilliant!”

  “Paint my hair? Are you serious? That’s not going to work,” Dmitri said.

  I set Nika down, excitement racing through me. “Just wait. You’ll be surprised at what we can do.” I didn’t let him offer up any more objections. “We’ll go to my friend Raisa’s house. She’ll help us. There might be some old paints there, and if there aren’t, I can go find some. Once your hair is painted, we’ll go back to the embassy, get the paperwork, and get on the next train. With any luck, we’ll be gone by nightfall.”

  Nika and Sophie jumped up and down, giggling. I knew they were happy I was no longer angry at them.

  “Don’t argue,” I said to Dmitri. “You won’t win.”

  “I don’t know where you get these ideas,” Dmitri said, “but I suppose I’m willing to try. I know I won’t get you out of here any other way.”

  We headed to Raisa’s house. With every step that took us farther from the train station and away from the safety of the crowd, the more nervous I got, sure someone would stop us or recognize Dmitri.

  When we reached Raisa’s house, she was just getting home. “Charlotte,” she cried, hugging me and then looking at Dmitri and the twins and the kitten in the basket.

  “Can we go inside?” I asked. “We need to get off the street.”

  Once inside I tried to figure out how to explain about Dmitri, but it was so complicated I stuck with something simple. “I wish I had more time to talk, but the situation isn’t good right now. My friend Dmitri needs to get out of Petrograd with us as soon as possible. We need to try to make him look like one of our family, so Nika came up with the brilliant idea that we could paint his hair red and then he’d look more like a Mason. And while we do, we need someplace where no one will look for him. That’s why we came here. Do you have some old watercolors or other paints we could use?”

  Raisa put her hand to her head. “I understood the part about painting your friend’s hair to look like you, but the rest is a bit of a jumble. Promise me that once I bring you the paints, you’ll explain it all again.”

  I nodded, relieved to be safe, at least temporarily. As I had hoped, Raisa did have some old paints, and I set to work on Dmitri’s hair. Raisa helped me mix the paint, and we managed a shade of red, though it wasn’t nearly as vivid as Miles’s hair. I hoped a hat and a scarf would help the illusion. I told myself it was just like a magic trick. We’d have to convince the audience and use a little distraction if necessary.

  I looked at the clock. “We need to hurry if we are going to get to the embassy before it closes,” I said. I gave Raisa a quick hug.

  “Write to me,” she said.

  We nearly ran all the way but we were too late. I could see people inside but the door was locked and no one would open it even after knocking.

  “Do we have to wait until tomorrow to get on the train?” Sophie said.

  “No, I’m done waiting,” I said. Every hour we stayed in the city, Dmitri would be in more and more danger. “We’re going to get some help. We need to go to the Hotel de France.” I remembered Carter telling me he was sleeping on the billiard table at his hotel. I hoped he’d still be there.

  It ended up that I didn’t need to find Carter. He found us. As we approached the hotel, I heard a voice from down the street and then saw Carter jogging toward me, followed by his photographer friend. “Charlotte, Charlotte!” he cried, as if there were some way we hadn’t seen him.

  When he reached us he was all out of breath, so before he could start talking, I explained what we needed, introducing Dmitri as Count Lieven. Both Carter and the photographer, whose name I thought I remembered was Patrick, acted as if they were a bit in awe at meeting a count. That was exactly what I had hoped.

  “Our escape will make a wonderful story for you,” I said to Carter. “And all you have to do is get us into the embassy. We’ll do the rest.”

  “I don’t know,” Carter said slowly. “It would make a wonderful story, but journalists aren’t supposed to help make stories. We just report on them.”

  I couldn’t believe he was having an attack of ethics. “You’re not making the story. You’re just going to get us inside.” I was not going to give up.

  He looked at Dmitri as if he were some sort of specimen. Dmitri scowled.

  “I suppose that’s true, and golly, what a story it is,” Carter said. “Young Russian Count disguises himself to escape certain arrest, helped by beautiful American girl.”

  “What about us?” Nika asked. “Do we get to be in the story too?”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in front of me. “And children caught up in the politics of war, being forced to escape the only country they’ve ever known.”

  “With a kitten!” Sophie said, pulling the kitten out of the basket. It squeaked in protest.

  Carter laughed. “With a kitten. I’ll do it.” He slapped his knee. “I can’t pass this up.”

  “Wonderful!” I said. “Once we get the documents, you can interview us at the train station while we wait.”

  Dmitri’s scowl deepened. “Do you have to use my name?”

  “Yes!” Carter said. “It wouldn’t be newspaper-worthy if I didn’t. It has to have facts!”

  “It’s all right.” I didn’t want a disagreement to ruin things. “The story won’t be published for a while, right? Carter, you said you had trouble getting information out. And it will be published in St. Louis. That’s a long way away,” I said to Dmitri. I wanted to add and no one you know will read it but I was afraid Carter would be insulted.

  “I’ll get the story out one way or the other. And Patrick here can get some pictures.”

  I thought Dmitri might refuse that, but he didn’t say anything, though I knew he wasn’t happy. We walked to the embassy while Carter peppered us with questions.

  When we arrived, Carter knocked on the door so loudly that someone finally answered. The man who opened the door immediately began to tell us to go away and stop knocking, but Carter interrupted him.

  “Say, I know you.” Carter grabbed the man’s hand and pumped it up and down. “I’m Carter Jenkins. We met a few weeks ago. I’m Walter Jenkins’s cousin. Is he here? It’s important.”

  The man looked over at us and at the photographer. “These are my friends,” Carter said. “We do need to see Walter pretty badly.”

  The man opened the door wider. I saw that Dmitri had pulled up the scarf around his mouth and had his hat pulled down low. Enough of the orange hair showed to make him sort of believable as a brother.

  I hoped Walter Jenkins was not the young man we’d seen before, and when a slightly older man appeared, I breathed a sigh of relief. Carter introduced all of us, remembering to refer to Dmitri as Miles and explaining why Dmitri couldn’t talk. “I’ll let Charlotte tell you what she needs.” Dmitri hunched over and coughed a few times.

  I launched into our story. When I was finished, Walter looked at me doubtfully. “This is very, very irregular,” he said. “I’m not sure I have the authority to do this, and the consul is not here. Can you come back tomorrow?”

  “No!” I knew my voice was trembling but I couldn’t help it. “Please help us. Everything has gone so wrong, and I need to get my little sisters out of the country as soon as I can. I don’t know if there will be any more trains after today. Please. We don’t have any other choices.”

  The begging worked, probably helped by the woebegone faces of the twins.

  The man gave several more reasons why he shouldn’t but then said, “All right, I’ll do it, but don’t tell anyone else. Just this once.” He sighed. “I’ll explain to the consul tomorrow and hope I don’t get fired. Everything is in such an uproar. We’re doing the best we can to get Americans out of the country. You certainly qualify as Americans who need
to get out of the country.”

  Once we had the paper in hand, I clung to it. I knew if it got lost, we couldn’t go back a third time.

  “What are you going to do about the exit visa?” Carter asked. “Do you know someone who can help you get it?”

  “I’m going to forge the stamp mark,” I said. “I looked at the one on our other passport. It’s just black ink, and now that I know what it looks like, I can draw the same stamp. No one looks at them that closely. Can we go back to your hotel so I can use a pen there?”

  “This story is getting better and better,” Carter said. “Come on. Patrick, you’ll have to get a picture of her forging the stamp.” Patrick nodded. He had said nothing the whole time.

  “You’ll get your cousin in trouble if you write the story,” Dmitri pointed out.

  Carter stopped in his tracks. “Hmm … that is a problem.” He snapped his fingers. “I won’t say which documents are forged and where you got them. That will work out fine.”

  I hid a smile. Poor Dmitri. Foiled again. He’d just have to accept that his name was going to be in a newspaper.

  By the time we got back to the train station, I was nearly asleep on my feet, and we’d had to carry Sophie, Nika, and the kitten basket the last several blocks. They were all fast asleep. We finally had a rare bit of luck when two trains came in close together near daylight, both returning to Moscow, and we were able to get on the second one, which wasn’t as crowded as I feared. As it left, I waved out the window to Carter and Patrick, feeling a little strange that I was leaving and they were staying behind.

  Dmitri fell asleep right away, but I spent the trip looking out the window trying to memorize everything. I’d seen it before on all the train trips to the dacha, but I’d never paid much attention This trip I felt like I shouldn’t close my eyes for one second or I’d miss something I needed to remember.

  By the time we pulled into the station in Moscow, both the twins and the kitten were famished. I hoped that Miles and Hap still had some of our supplies or we would have to buy food.

  “There’s Miles!” Sophie cried. “Look, he’s got on his fortune-telling robe.”

  I peered out the window to see my brother standing there in the long silk robe. Hap and Stepan stood next to him, all our baggage piled at their feet. I noticed that people had left space around them.

  We climbed off the train. “Why are you dressed like that?” I said to Miles. “You’re drawing too much attention to yourself. And I can’t believe you used space in your bag for a fortune-telling robe.”

  He grinned at us, looking better than he had in days. “I spent a long time practicing my fortune-telling and I’m not giving it up. Who knows, maybe I’ll really join the circus once we get to America. I’d like to see what Elder Red would say about that.”

  Only Miles. I shook my head. Our grandmother was going to be in for enough of a shock as it was with the addition of some extra small children and Dmitri.

  “Now, are you going to tell us why Dmitri Antonovich is here and why he has red hair?” Miles asked. “I hate to say it, Dmitri, but red does not suit you.”

  I’d forgotten they didn’t know. After I explained, Hap and Miles nodded. “Good job. You’re going to like America, Dmitri,” Hap said. “Though I’ll have to add a name to our original paperwork because we can’t have two Mileses. Dmitri, you get to choose a new name.”

  Dmitri started to say something and then stopped.

  “Later,” I said. I turned away, not wanting to see the look in Dmitri’s eyes.

  “Okay. See what we got!” Hap pulled part of the cloth off a basket to reveal a loaf of bread and some hard-boiled eggs.

  “How did you manage that?” I didn’t see anyone selling food.

  Miles sighed. “Lottie, you usually are a little sharper. I’ve been telling fortunes, of course. That’s really why I brought the robe. You’re not the only practical one. No one pays me very much, but I’ve told quite a lot of them. People pay to hear about all the riches they will earn and all the romances they will have. We collected enough money and then went for a walk outside the station to find the food. It cost a lot, but I thought we needed to stock up.”

  “I told him he shouldn’t be taking money from people who can’t afford it,” Stepan said.

  “Giving them a little hope is a good thing,” Miles said. “I’m not going to feel bad.”

  I put my hand on Stepan’s shoulder. “That’s a good thought, and you can remind Miles of that in the future.” I almost said Papa would be proud, but I was afraid that would upset him.

  “We should try to move forward,” Hap said. “The trains have been fairly frequent, but you still have to be quick to get on one going east before it fills up.”

  We didn’t make the first train that arrived because there were too many people in front of us, but once that train left, we were much closer to the front of the platform.

  We had first-class tickets, but when the next train pulled in, there were no blue carriages, which meant no first class. We tried to climb into a second-class one, but they were all packed, and the people inside yelled at us to go away.

  “Third class it is,” Dmitri said. “We’re getting on this car one way or another. Hap, stay close to me, and everyone else, keep right behind us.”

  A man in a uniform made us show him our tickets and then we pushed our way through into a car that was almost full, squeezing in wherever we could find. I was surprised when people got up and moved away from us, giving us enough room to sit all together. One man even left the car, muttering about the bad luck that our red hair would bring to it.

  “See,” I whispered to Dmitri. “You might get used to having red hair if it gets you better seats on trains.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, and some of the red paint flaked off. “I think I’d prefer just to let you get us the seats.”

  I looked around, knowing we’d be in the same car for a long time, days and days. It had the typical woodstove at the opposite end, but the stove wasn’t lit and there was no wood stacked beside it. It was almost as cold inside the car as it was outside.

  “Once a lot of people are in here it will warm up,” I said, trying to sound optimistic.

  “It’s too dark,” Sophie said. “Why aren’t there any lights?”

  “The dynamo must not be working,” Dmitri said. “But in daylight we’ll be able to see just fine.” The car smelled of sunflower seeds, and the floor was covered with their shells. It was clear no one had cleaned the place for a long time.

  Other people kept coming into the carriage, eventually taking up all available space on the floor and even crawling beneath our feet under the benches. In ordinary times the people under the seats were the ones without tickets, called “hares,” and the paying passengers cooperated to hide their presence by placing their luggage and bundles of bedding to block the conductor’s view. If the conductor was in the mood to look for them, he’d pull out the items and order the hares off the train.

  When we’d first come to Russia and Papa had translated the signs for us, we’d been excited, thinking Russia must be full of rabbits if they were even hopping on trains. It had been a disappointment to learn the truth.

  Now no one was bothering to hide since there didn’t seem to be conductors. I felt odd knowing someone was beneath my seat and tried hard not to move my feet backward so I wouldn’t accidentally kick them. I got out the bag with the necklaces in it and put the passport inside, then hung the whole thing around my neck, buttoning it up underneath my shirt. I felt better having the paper close to me.

  The train wouldn’t start for another three hours, but we were afraid to stand up and stretch our legs in case someone else took our seats. Once we were finally underway, I lost track of time, lulled into sleep by the rhythmic noise of the wheels. We made spaces in front of our feet for the twins and Stepan, and they slept curled up, the kitten alternating which child it slept on. Every time we stopped, I’d wake up, hoping no more
people would crowd into our car. It was a useless hope, because they just kept piling in.

  I fell asleep again, dreaming I was somewhere out in the woods with the snow falling, lovely flakes drifting down, and Dmitri was there, his hand reaching up to brush the snow off my face.

  I woke suddenly to find the train coming to a screeching stop. It was daylight, but I had no idea what time it was. Hap stuck his head out the window.

  “There’s a big group of soldiers surrounding the engine,” he said. I looked out in time to see a couple of them climb up into it. The rest of the soldiers spread out, getting into the cars.

  I took hold of Dmitri’s hand. “They’re not after me,” he said. “We’re a long way from Petrograd now.”

  When four men tried to get in our car, a man near the front yelled at them. “There’s no room! Get off!”

  “We’ll find room,” one of them said, shoving the man out of the way. “Now stop complaining or we’ll throw you off. That will make room for us.”

  I relaxed a little, knowing they just wanted a ride.

  Finally after a few more stops the train got so full, there was no room for people to even push their way in through the doors. Thuds sounded from the roof of the carriage as people clambered up the sides of the train to perch there. I didn’t know how they’d stand the cold. It was cold inside the carriage even with all the bodies.

  “When are we going to get there, Lottie?” The twins asked and repeated this several times every day. My answer was always the same.

  “Soon. It’s a long, long way.”

  They did keep occupied much of the time with the kitten, talking to it in their baby language. I was relieved the little animal seemed content to stay with them and ate whatever we fed it, mostly bread softened in water and bits of hard-boiled eggs. I did not want to go on another chase.

  Miles said very little, and I finally realized he was getting a fever. He looked terrible and he had no energy. He sat slumped against Hap, not reading or writing, but just either staring off into space or closing his eyes as if he were sleeping, though I knew he wasn’t.