by Val M Karren
“No thanks needed,” and she rested her head on my shoulder again.
It was three-thirty when we saw the first hint of dawn on the eastern horizon. Lara took that as her signal to head for her cabin and get a few hours of sleep. As she stood to leave, she bent over and kissed my lips softly, looked me in the eyes, said nothing more and disappeared below deck. I felt that I would never see her again, and let her go without a protest.
27. Blood in the Water
At five-thirty in the morning the Zhukov chugged into her home port and docked at the Nizhniy Novgorod river front, very near the station house as the berths were mostly empty that morning. As the boat cleared the bluff with the old city perched on top I was on the top deck viewing the river front through the old military binoculars I had bought in Saratov. From my vantage point I could see the lower embankment street fairly well. The only part of the boulevard I couldn’t see was directly behind the river station’s passenger terminal, but, I figured, they wouldn’t park there as it gives no overview of an area. If someone was watching they would want to sit and be able to see the lower promenade where passengers disembark. I saw no black Lada loitering in the morning sun. I saw no duo of thugs hanging about on benches or under lamp posts. The river front seemed rather deserted except for the tourist buses that were pulling in on schedule to carry the boat’s passengers around town that day. I sighed with relief but still kept watching until the boat was tied up to the docks and the turbines shut down.
The first train from Nizhniy to Moscow was at two o’clock that afternoon. The second would be the night train leaving at ten-thirty in the evening. I had hoped to get the two o’clock and then overnight in Moscow wherever I could get a room. By Monday afternoon I planned again to be in the air. As the Zhukov had docked so early I had some time to kill. Breakfast would be at seven o’clock, the tours would start at nine o’clock. If I remembered right, a crew shift should happen at around eleven o’clock. The sailors who had just worked for ten straight days would get ten days off and a new crew would arrive and take over their duties. I would depart the boat at eleven as the young and middle-aged men in working clothes would move as a group to the bus stop and I would blend in with them and walk past any henchman sent to watch the river front for my reappearance. I did not go below deck for breakfast but held my solitary watch, too nervous to eat.
I watched the tourists disembark, mill about on the pier and then be led like sheep by their tour guides from the waterfront into waiting buses. They filed away in an orderly manner and the busses, once full, departed leaving just a plume of diesel fumes. I scanned the street and the cross streets again with my binoculars and still noticed nothing usual; nobody loitering, no police cars on a stakeout up and down the entire water front. Everything was going to plan. I rechecked my bag to make sure my passport, money and plane ticket were still there and easy to reach. I made sure my visa was still tucked safely in the jacket of my passport. Everything was ready. I paced the deck in my track suit and sun glasses and killed another ninety-minutes until I began to see more and more people arriving, being dropped in cars, stepping off the buses and moving toward the boat. Here came the crew change!
Twenty to thirty young men with crew cuts, most wearing track suits, some wearing locally made denim and tee shirts starting milling about on the pier, smoking lazily while they waited for their counterparts to make room for them in the crew quarters and head home for a well-deserved rest. They carried with them clothes and supplies for ten days of sailing in cheaply made plastic carry alls, with zippers that split after three months of use. I slipped downstairs to the boat’s main passenger door and stepped to the shore and mixed with the newcomers. As more exited the boat and walked to the bus stops in small groups I walked in the middle of them wishing them all a good break, wishing them good weather, hoping their girlfriends would treat them well. The little crowd at the bus stop thinned as different buses passed the station coming and going in different directions. It was my turn to step onto the bus headed to the Moscovskiy station and Zarechnaya. I waved my temporary comrades goodbye still in character and boarded my bus. I sat alone, sprawled over two seats with my sunglasses on and a cigarette behind my ear. Nobody paid me any attention. The bus was nearly empty. I watched out the back window for signs of anybody scrambling to a car, running with a message. No cars fell in behind the bus to follow it. I let out a sigh of relief and rested the back of my head against the grimy window behind me. “I could just possibly pull this off!” I said to myself. But then the critical voice in my head made me remember that there had been nobody watching. “You haven’t passed any test yet!” was my own response.
As the bus pulled up to the train station, I could see again that it had not been a busy morning, but that activity was picking up. More people were flowing out of the metro station carrying bags of merchandise to set up a makeshift Sunday bazaar. That was a good sign. The more people around the better; I would have more people to blend in with. I stepped off the bus and stood by the public telephones near the taxi stand and pretended to call somebody. I used the time to scan the area again for anybody else who was standing around, loitering, doing nothing, sitting in a car and going no place. I talked to myself on the telephone which was now giving me the signal tone to hang up the handset and try again. I thought about punching in Yulia’s number, but knew it was too long until the train departed. I had ninety minutes still to kill and didn’t want to alert anybody who was potentially listening to her phone to know that I was nearby. Surely, I would be putting everybody into further danger should I have called her.
I hung up the telephone, collected my bag and sauntered into the station’s hall and up to the ticket window with a walk that told people who may have been watching that I don’t have any place to be, and I don’t give a damn about what you think about me. I had gotten good at the walk and thought I was doing it quite well behind my sunglasses and week-old beard. On the inside, I was shaking like a leaf. I feared if I received any resistance I would crack and start crying a guilty confession. I waited in line impatiently behind two others at the ticket window. Finally, my turn.
“Third class on the afternoon train to Moscow please,” I muttered half eating my words like I had practiced.
There was no response from the ticket window. A small digital sign of greenish number flashed behind the thick plastic barrier. I shoved my money under the window in wads, nothing too neat and tidy and out of character. In return, I got a third-class ticket to Moscow for two o’clock departure that same day. I couldn’t believe my luck! Such a wave of relief went through me that I almost said “thank you” to the woman behind the window, but caught myself and walked away like I was disappointed that I hadn’t been upgraded for free to first class.
It was imperative that I stayed in character as I hadn’t yet had time to scan the passengers' hall for any risks. I loped over to the perimeter of the hall, next to the newsstand and tobacconist kiosk, took off my sunglasses, leaned my back up against the wall and watched those passing by, and those waiting, like me, for a train to go when I realized that I should probably be smoking, not watching everybody like a hawk. I reached for the smoke behind my ear only to find it missing. I cursed under my breath afraid I was missing a vital piece of my disguise. I quickly stepped up to the kiosk next to me to buy a pack of cigarettes for the first time in my life, but before I could even point to what I should have already decided was my favorite brand of smokes, there was Mr. P’s face right in front of me! My heart jumped out of my chest and my mouth turned completely dry. I picked a newspaper from the top of the pile and read the headline above his picture: “Local businessman murdered in Nizhniy Novgorod!”.
“Hey, punk, you gonna pay for that?” bellowed the salesman, “Can you even read?”
I looked up at him and blinked and asked with a blank expression of amazement, “He’s dead?”
“Yes, why? Was he your boss? You here to collect his money for him? Well he’s dead today and I ai
n’t payin’ no more!” the newspaper man continued. I handed the man five hundred rubles and wandered back to the wall where I had been standing and read the article slowly.
The newspaper was short on speculation and told only the facts. What was very clear is that he had been shot at a very close range in the side of his head while sitting in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes. The window had been down, the motor still idling when he was found. He was found on the edge of town on the river bank, but the article didn’t say exactly where. He had not been robbed, therefore the police suspected an underworld liquidation similar to what was going on in Moscow and Vladivostok in recent months.
Reading this news sent electricity through my system, I was almost elated to see his face and death on the front page of the newspaper. Could it be that all my troubles had been resolved in a split- second flash of gunpowder, brass, and lead? The circumstance of Mr. P.’s death, his murder, didn’t concern me even though the gruesomeness, the cold-blooded element should have chilled my blood. The man had ordered his thugs to rob me, beat me as necessary, break in and destroy my home, set fire to my school and if they had caught me again last week I could be the one floating face down in -I needed friends to celebrate with! I needed a pretty girl to kiss! I wanted to cry with the release of my worry and anxiety. I had been given a second chance. What was I going to do with it?
I found my address book in a backpack and quickly stepped outside again to the public pay phones. I found Lara’s telephone number. Yes, she should have been home already. The dial on the phone took an eternity to stop its ticking and clicking to connect us.
“Halloa?” her sweet voice was music to my ears.
“Hello - this is Pyotr!” I said with great anticipation.
“Pyotr? Are you in Moscow already?” she sounded surprisingly relieved.
“No, no. Lara, did you hear the news this morning? Did you read the newspapers?” I couldn’t help but want to shout the news to her.
“No, Pyotr. I just arrived home from the boat. What is happening?” she sounded worried again.
“He’s dead, Lara! He’s dead! Somebody shot him on Friday night,” I was hissing into the telephone with my hand over my mouth and the mouthpiece, unable to contain my excitement.
“Who? Who is dead?” she was understandably confused at my delight at such a horrible crime.
“Him! The one I was running from! The mobster boss!” I reiterated.
“What? Really? Are you serious? How could that happen?” she was taken fully off guard.
“I don’t know, but it’s all over the newspaper,” I reconfirmed slapping my folded-up copy in my hands like an over enthusiastic Bible thumping preacher.
“Pyotr, where are you?” she asked cautiously.
“Moscovskiy station. I am thinking that I might go back to my apartment and carefully slip into my normal life again. Can I come see you tonight?” I was elated at the thought of seeing her again after already reconciling myself that we would never meet again.
“Pyotr, No! Please don’t be foolish and reckless. Go to Moscow and wait there. Call me soon and I will try to keep you informed of the news here locally. Maybe you can work on the Zhukov again with your friends if this is all over, but please don’t go back to your apartment. Remember that they burned down your school. Why couldn’t they throw a Molotov cocktail through your window too?" she pleaded.
“OK, you’re right. I will go to Moscow on the train now and will call you tomorrow from there. Talk soon!” and with that I hung up and moved to the departure platforms to board the train.
In the excitement of the news and the chance I saw of getting my life back to normal, I forgot to act the roll of an apathetic street punk and nearly sprinted across the hall to the platforms with excitement in my smile. As I waited in a short line to have my ticket and documents checked, I looked behind me into the nearly vacant hall and pledged in my thoughts that I would be back again soon and the story about Lara would have a sequel. Perhaps all the pain and worry would pay off for me. I just had to go lay low for another week in Moscow and I could come back quietly in time for the language exams. Maybe I could go back to work on the river for the summer as Lara had suggested.
28. Caged Canary
“Documents!” snapped the officer at the control station.
I handed the blue uniformed agent my train ticket and passport with my student visa and student card. He looked at the photos of me and looked at me again and did a double take. Of course, I had completely changed my appearance in the last week. My hair was short, my beard thicker every day. I was dressed like a street urchin, as Lara called it. I removed my sunglasses so he could see my eyes. The eyes always matter! I smiled. He looked down to his hidden desktop and looked over a secret list that all of us hope and never expect to be on. With nothing more than a grunt, he handed all the papers back to me and waved me through to the platforms with a nod of his head. I tucked my documents away in my backpack and passed through to the waiting train.
The conductors were busy preparing to open the doors of the third-class compartments, checking lists and handing papers back and forth to each other. I stood away from the gathering throngs waiting to board. I had learned that waiting in a line in Russia can be a long wait for usually nothing and so I avoided them as a matter of habit. I stood back and watched the old ladies elbow their way forward to be able to board first. The prerogative of a grandmother I observed. As the carriage doors opened and the conductor’s shrill whistle blew to alert the waiting crowds that their cars were now open, I felt something strike the back of my knees and launch me falling forwards to my knees. I watched my backpack skid out in front of me, sliding quickly from my shoulder to the floor as my hands instinctively moved to brace my fall. As I fell to my hands and knees, just stopping short of planting my face on the station floor, I looked behind me to see the rushing, clumsy traveler who had hit with a baggage cart in the rush to get a seat in the third-class carriage. Expecting to find an old man with thick glasses and a deeply wrinkled face I was surprised to get hit again across the top of my back with a tommy club by a man in a tacky polyester suit. My face hit the concrete floor. I could smell the grime and grease next to my nose. Before I could catch my breath and gather my wits, I had a knee in my back and my arms and hands were being pulled behind me. A hard edge of metal slapped on each wrist that gave way but circled back again to pinch painfully the bones on both arms. Handcuffs!
I was yanked from the floor to my knees, gasping for air with my eyes bulging and searching for the face of my assailant. Before I could turn my head to look at the police officer a black cloth hood was thrown over my head and synched at the neck. I could see only small dots of light through the woven threads but no detail of people or objects in front of me as I was forcefully removed from the train station by two men, each holding me by my shackled wrists and upper arms on each side. A third man was giving orders and opening doors. We exited the platform through a narrow service access door. A hand then pushed my head down and pushed me forward and onto the backseat of a car. I heard the other three men climb into the car as well and all three doors slam closed. The car bounced on its springs. As the motor started up I could hear the faulty muffler with its high-pitched sputtering that was indicative of a Volga sedan. I didn’t speak a word. They had quickly beaten the struggle out of me. I sat still and leaned up against the far-left door with my shoulder, and tried to keep the handcuffs from digging too deep into my wrists. I listened carefully to every word the men spoke to try to understand who they were, which group they were acting for and what was probably waiting for me when we arrived at the mystery destination. I was having trouble controlling my bowels and bladder. I was scared to the most inner part of my organs. How I regretted making that phone call to Lara!
I felt the car head over the bridge to the old city and climb the steep bluff. We must have passed through Minin Square and shot up Bolshaya Percheskaya as I felt the tires of the car slip over the smooth iron st
reet car tracks in the middle of the road. “Oh shit!” I said to myself. “We’re headed to The Monastery”. The regrets of my stupidity in twenty-three short years piled on my heart. I wouldn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to my mother! Tears were streaking down my face as I held in the sobs, trying to maintain some sort of dignity. It simply seemed pointless to beg these guys. They were obviously working on orders and had no sympathy for me. The car was steered roughly around a corner, but it was the wrong direction to go to the Monastery if I was right about our location. That was enough to give me hope! Curiosity dried my tears and I became once again more aware of the entire situation. The men were professionally silent. Nobody was smoking. The car was being driven fast, but the driver seemed to be in good control of the vehicle. The thought started small and grew until I was almost sure that these were professional security officers, not henchmen of the late Mr. P. This offered me some relief and I tried hard to regain my composure. I tried sitting up straight in my seat with some success, but the handcuffs made it difficult. The car stopped abruptly and my covered head and face lunged into the back of the seat in front of me. Three doors opened simultaneously. My door opened with a violent pull. I made it easy to pull me from the back bench but struggled to keep my feet under me as I tripped over a curb and steps leading up to a door. I could feel the sun on my hood before we entered the cavernous dark of a stairwell. I heard the empty echo of a wooden door slamming behind us and the footsteps of their heeled shoes on the rough concrete floor. I smelled the stench of stale cigarette smoke and the urine of drunks. I heard an elevator sliding down its shaft to us. The doors of the same slid open with a stutter. My handlers pushed me face first into the back wall of the narrow elevator cabin. With a jerk, the elevator pulled us up five floors, hesitating and restarting in a slip second as it passed each set of doors on each floor; one, two, three, four, open. Keys were jingled. A door opened, light flooded through the pores of my mask. Door closed. An inlaid wooden floor squeaked under my feet. An apartment? A safe house!