by Mick McCoy
Outside there was a flat, treeless field, maybe forty yards wide, and then a narrow road separating them from more fields. A car was parked by the side of the road, adjacent to the train. It was a pale grey Moskvich of a similar vintage to his father’s. All government cars were pale grey. It hadn’t been there when the train stopped a few hours ago. He’d have noticed it. Why would a government car be parked by the side of an empty road, with no shops or even farmhouses in sight, coincidently where the train had broken down? Was the train broken down? Please don’t let it be broken down. He checked his watch. Almost midday.
He pulled the Leica from his bag and focused the lens on the car. Its boot was open. Two men wearing suits, one black, one brown, sat in deck chairs on the roadside, drinking cans of beer, as if on the beach at Odessa.
He should see about the lift they’d offered. He didn’t have much time. It was important to spread Peter’s ashes the next day. But what was he thinking? Him on a broken train in an empty field thirty miles south of Kiev, no family, no Valentin, and these two KGB who the night before had questioned him about a dead man.
Alex returned the camera to his bag, shouldered it and walked to the end of the carriage. He opened the door and stepped outside, standing on the walkway between carriages. He held the door, unsure whether it would lock him out if it closed. He tried the door to the adjoining carriage. It opened. He closed them both and held onto the handrails, gazing out across the open field to Sasha and Valery drinking beer in their deckchairs. They were staring at the train. Valery lifted field glasses, pointed his finger. Sasha waved.
It was three feet, maybe four, to the ground. He could jump down and walk across the field and get that lift to Odessa like they’d offered. He opened the carriage door and made his way back to his seat.
People slept, their books and newspapers discarded, their talking and jokes dried up. Alex read and played solitaire. He checked on Sasha and Valery out the window every chapter, every game, every memory of his brother. At half-past four, six hours after they’d stopped, they were still three hundred miles from Odessa. If they sat on fifty miles an hour in the Moskvich, it would take another six hours. If they left now, they’d arrive at ten-thirty. There’d probably be more vodka and questions, but he’d be asleep by midnight.
They didn’t seem surprised when he appeared out of the early dark. ‘Aleks, moy drug. Alex, my friend.’ It was Valery talking, for once, his sarcasm as cold as the weather. He didn’t wait for any more conversation, folding his chair and throwing it in the boot.
‘Mne bylo interesno, chto lift v Odessu. I was wondering about that lift to Odessa.’
‘No,’ Sasha said. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘It was last night.’
‘He was drunk,’ Valery said, while Sasha stowed his chair in the boot.
‘I was,’ Sasha said. ‘But we can take you back to Kiev. That’s where we’re going.’
‘I don’t want to go to Kiev.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Sasha said. He climbed into the front seat, Valery fired up the engine and they drove away.
Alex stood by the side of the road, watching the taillights disappear, when the train lurched into life, the carriage couplings pulling tight with a chorus of heavy metallic clanks and groans. He ran across the darkening field. If he kept this pace he’d easily meet the rear carriage. But how would he climb up? He fell, stumbling across a knot of turf, the bag flying from his shoulder. Scrambling to his feet, he reached for the bag. The zip was open. He ran for the train, but what had seemed easy to catch a moment before was disappearing more quickly down the tracks. He stopped running. The bag felt too light. His camera and Peter’s ashes were gone.
Darkness had fallen cloudy, starless. There were no electric lights, no farmhouses. A car hissed down the road at his back, giving him a sense of where to retrace his steps through the clumps of dirt and mottled shades of black. He took short, tentative steps, feeling his way forward, his arms outstretched even though there was nothing to bump into.
Fuck.
He found his camera, undamaged other than mud and dirt to wipe away. Peter’s ashes should be there too, where the camera fell. On his hands and knees he crawled away from where he imagined the train tracks were, towards where the road might be. He lifted the left knee twenty times, the right knee twenty times, inching forward, hands searching in the mud. The horizon began to appear in faint shades of black. Twenty left and twenty right, hands in the mud. He was on his eleventh pass when he found the container. It was unlatched. He’d never put his hand inside but he didn’t hesitate. Dry granules of Peter’s bone, gritty like coarse sand or peppercorns, and a fine mist he could feel rising to his nose. He scooped up a fistful. How much should there be?
Fuck.
He shivered in the cold, closed and latched the lid, and stowed the container inside his bag. He pulled out his fur-lined hat and zipped up the bag, tight, resting it on the earth where Peter’s ashes had spilt. It would be his marker for morning so he could scoop up what the light revealed.
On the road’s muddy shoulder he buttoned his coat, pulled his hat down low and walked. One hundred steps towards Kiev, turn, one hundred steps towards Odessa, turn. Again and again.
Half an hour in, a car pulled over. ‘Vam nuzhen lift? Do you need a lift?’
‘Nyet,’ Alex said. ‘Spasibo. Thank you.’
‘Are you waiting for someone?’ The driver laughed at Alex, not unfriendly, just bemused.
‘Morning,’ Alex said. ‘I dropped something in the field and I need to wait so I can find it.’
‘I can point my headlights.’
‘That won’t work. I’m sorry, I lost something very valuable.’ He knew straight away he shouldn’t have said that.
Idiot.
‘Why are you here in the middle of nowhere?’
‘It’s okay,’ Alex said. ‘Thanks for stopping.’
‘I can take you to Kiev,’ he said. ‘Fifteen roubles.’
‘No, I’m headed the other way. I’ll be fine.’ Alex walked away.
‘Where are you from?’
Alex waved over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine.’
The car idled a while in the darkness then drove off. Fifteen roubles. Fuck off. And in the wrong direction.
He crossed the road and made his way back to the train tracks, careful not to kick his bag in the dark. He didn’t see it. Was it there? Had someone stolen it? He stopped, listening for a car, for footsteps.
He’d do his hundred steps by the tracks rather than the road. No one would see him there. No passing cars. What if he could catch the night train? Was there one? But what would be the point without Peter’s ashes? And it wasn’t going to stop for him. How would he catch it?
Idiot.
He walked up the track and back. Up and back. It was cold. Up and back. What time would the train come? He walked up the track and back. Up and back. He noticed a light in the distance and thought about stepping in between the rails and waiting. Standing there. The train was still only a faraway light in the dark when he stepped well back from the tracks and watched it pass.
One hundred steps towards Odessa, one hundred steps towards Kiev, again and again. No sleep. The third night.
It grew even colder at dawn on 7 November. No sun. Too many heavy grey clouds. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. This was the day. He’d killed Peter a year ago. He had to be on that pier, three hundred miles distant, that day. He walked away from the tracks into the field and found his bag. Down on his hands and knees in the mud and dirt, he searched for traces of his brother. He pushed aside knots of grass, wiping his damp hands against his trousers, craning his neck at the grey sky, pleading for light and warmth. He crawled forward, picking up handfuls of dirt, feeling it, bringing it close to his face, sniffing it. He unzipped his bag, unlatched the container and examined Peter’s ashes, their colour and texture and size. How much should there be? In his fingers the ashes were dry and coarse. The mud and dirt was cold and damp
and claggy. He knelt in the field, knees aching. He packed up his bag and rose stiffly, walked to the road and crossed to the other side to wait for south-bound traffic.
Money would be a problem. He’d need every one of those fifty kopeks he’d used to tip the hotel worker in Kiev for Sasha and Valery’s dinner. He’d only brought enough for a return train ticket and a few cheap meals. Not for extra train tickets. Not for hitchhiking. Maybe a lift to the next town and then the train. And time. Time was another problem. Six hours’ driving. How many hours to hitch a lift? How many lifts? A car approached. He stuck out a thumb.
‘Kuda ty napravlyayesh’sya? Where are you headed?’
‘Odessu. Odessa. But anywhere else on the train line would be fine. Say Zhmerynka?’
‘I can take you to Uman. Twenty roubles. Hop in.’
‘I can’t afford it.’
‘Where are you from?’
Alex walked away, waited until the car drove off and stuck out his thumb. The second one would take him to Zhmerynka for thirty roubles. Too much. The third to Uman. The fourth all the way to Odessa, for free, for one so young. Alex walked for a half-hour. He knew it was pointless but he did it anyway. He stopped and sat beside the quiet road. Midday came and went. He got up and walked. The fifth and sixth drivers who stopped were no good. Late in the afternoon on the anniversary of Peter’s death, three hundred miles from the pier at Odessa, the seventh driver could take him all the way for eight roubles. To Kiev.
He arrived well past dark, ate from a street vendor’s cart and lay down on a bench at the train station. I have become Gregory, homeless, bondless. The thought wouldn’t leave him.
The following morning he boarded the train for Oryol, arriving on Tuesday evening after the overnight train swap at Kharkiv. The train to Moscow got into Kursky station at three the next morning, then the first train out of Kurskaya Metro was at five, which he took as far as the circle line, switched across to Oktyabraskaya, travelled two more stops outbound to Leninski Prospekt, walked the quarter-mile home, climbed the stairs and unlocked the door to his flat.
They’d been back. He kicked the newly planted Stuyvesant butt across the living room floor and went to bed without searching for other signs of their visit.
The stupor of fatigue he’d brought home came with a simmering fever. It engulfed his brain and body; his sheets became damp from days of sweat and possibly urine. He couldn’t remember getting out of bed for the toilet. His throat felt like it had been grated and he was so congested he couldn’t eat and breathe at the same time. For four days he lived on rye bread soaked in black tea. His last decent meal had been in Kiev, bought by Sasha and Valery. How long ago was that? Six days? He couldn’t remember.
He was still in bed on Sunday evening when Valentin and Galina came for dinner.
‘Chto ty sdetal soboy? What have you done to yourself?’ Galina said when Alex opened the front door.
‘Ya bolen. I’m sick.’
‘The last time I heard a pair of lungs that bad was on your father,’ Valentin said. ‘Maybe we should leave you to rest?’
‘Are you stupid?’ Galina said. ‘You can see the boy. He needs care.’
She wrapped an arm around him and guided him back towards his bedroom. She wrote a list of food and medicine and sent Valentin out into the night. She changed his sheets, made his bed, boiled the kettle and drank tea with him. When Valentin returned, she cooked kolbasa sausage, rice and fried onions. There was Cadbury chocolate for dessert, from Valentin’s personal stash. She left cabbage soup, kefir, stewed dried fruit kompot, more rye bread and cheese. She made him mustard seed tea because they couldn’t get aspirin and there was a chance it might have been better than nothing. And then they left him to rest.
Galina and Valentin came back on Tuesday night, after her shift at the hospital. They brought back the washing she’d taken on Sunday, and more kefir and chocolate. There was only one other visitor for the rest of that week and he didn’t knock. Late on Thursday morning, a well-dressed spiv used a key to unlock the front door.
Alex was sitting at the table, reading. ‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You smoke Stuyvesants.’
The spiv said nothing before he left. Alex went back to his reading, encouraged rather than shaken, because the bugging devices in the flat mustn’t work so well or weren’t being listened to, otherwise they’d have known he was there. Maybe there were no devices.
By the following Sunday, he was beginning to recover. He’d missed two weeks of university, three weeks of work at Mosfilm. He had very little money. Nevertheless, he shopped on Friday so he had something to cook for Valentin and Galina. He lashed out and bought fresh poultry, sweet potatoes and greens. He’d saved the chocolate Galina had brought on Tuesday. Over dinner he told them about the trains he’d shared with farm animals and men in dark suits from the KGB, the recorded interrogation in the hotel room in Kiev, the spilt ashes, the attempts to hitch a ride, the lack of sleep. The failure.
He told them about his Thursday-morning visitor.
‘Maybe I should go home,’ he said.
Valentin had been silent throughout. ‘Maybe you should.’
RUBY
She heard the knock at the front door from the kitchen. ‘Can you get that?’ she called.
It was a weakness in her, a vanity. She wanted Conrad to answer the door and bring Alex to her. She was the end of her son’s journey. It wasn’t just from Moscow to Melbourne, or even to her door, but right to her side. Especially since he’d found reason not to stay with them, hiding with his Uncle Curtis a mile down the road. Especially after that letter he’d left her with to read on the aeroplane and his refusal to reply to anything she’d sent him this whole past year. She was adamant he should present himself to her properly to finish the journey.
‘Hello, Dad,’ she heard Alex say. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Conrad said, after which there was a silence. They must have hugged.
‘Are you okay?’ Alex said. ‘I’d like to tell you how good you look, but I can’t.’
‘I am okay,’ Conrad said, coughing out a laugh. ‘But you’ve learned too much of Valentin’s honesty.’
‘I’ve learned more than that from Valentin.’
‘I’m sure.’ There was another pause, or was that whispering? Then bumps against the carpeted floor as Conrad wrestled his frame away from the door. Everything took so long for him.
‘Can I do that?’ Alex said. ‘Do you want to take my hand?’
‘No, no. Come to the kitchen. Your mother is waiting for you in there.’
After more bumping and wrung-out breathing, Alex appeared beside Conrad in the kitchen doorway. ‘What’s on the menu?’
Ruby threw her hands around her son’s neck and kissed his cheek. ‘You’ll forgive your mother if she cries at Christmas, won’t you? I’m just so glad you’re here.’
‘Well, I’m glad to be here too,’ he said. ‘And tears are fine, but I hope your sticky hands haven’t been inside a turkey.’
She cupped his cheeks in her palms. ‘Up to the elbows.’
Alex grinned. ‘Merry Christmas, Mum.’ He seemed to have aged five years in the passage of one. A shadow of whiskers spread across his chin, and the puffy dark circles under his eyes rivalled Conrad’s.
‘Chicken, not turkey,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine trying to get a decent-sized bird in there?’ She waved a dismissive hand at the oven. ‘The flat in Moscow had a bigger oven.’
‘This flat looks great, though,’ he said.
‘There’s a spare room, too,’ she said. ‘The bed is all made up.’ His face told her he wasn’t ready for that.
‘Would you like some champagne?’ Conrad said, still in the doorway.
‘Thanks, Dad. Mind you, a glass or two and I’ll be on my ear. My body thinks it’s still the middle of the night.’
‘Don’t forget the cook!’ Ruby called out, as Conrad trundled his frame back to the dining room.
The
kitchen was no bigger than the alcove in the Moscow flat. A small semicircular table was hinged to the wall, a chair either side, the refrigerator in the corner only accessible if no one sat in them. ‘Once I get the chook on, we can move to the living room,’ she said. ‘But I want you to stay here with me now.’
‘Okay.’ He smiled, backing himself into the chair by the fridge.
‘Your father has slowed down terribly these last two months,’ she said quietly, ‘although he doesn’t like me to say. I’m hoping you’ll perk him up.’
‘I’ll try.’
Conrad reappeared with three champagne glasses, their stems resting across the soft padding at the top of his frame and their fluted bowls sprouting from between the webbing of his fingers. ‘I’ve been practicing this,’ he said. He left his walking frame at the door and reached for the table top as he lowered himself into a chair.
‘The champagne is in the fridge,’ he said.
‘Let’s talk about your letter first,’ Ruby said.
‘The recent one?’
‘Yes. The other one’s old news.’
Conrad popped the cork. Glasses filled, he sat, panting more than usual. ‘I don’t think either of you appreciate the achievement of opening that bottle,’ he said. ‘The strength required in the wrists and fingers.’
Alex took the other chair. ‘Congratulations, Dad.’
‘Merry Christmas,’ Conrad said.
Ruby leaned in to touch glasses. ‘Merry Christmas.’ After sipping her champagne she continued. ‘I’ve written a letter to Sheila Cain’s people in Warrnambool. Well, I assume they’re her people. There’s only one Cain in Warrnambool.’
‘Okay,’ Alex said. ‘When was that?’
‘A month ago. I think it was a week after we got your letter.’
‘What about the father? Eric Johnson?’
The father was telling. Not my father. You’d say that about someone else’s father, not your own. ‘I don’t think he went back there,’ she said.