Stamboul Train

by Graham Greene

  ‘You mean there’s a speed limit?’

  ‘No, no. These damned soldiers if they see a good car, they commandeer it. Same with the horses.’ He pointed at the fields through the driving snow. ‘The peasants, they are all starving. I worked here once, but I thought: no, the city for me. The country’s dead, anyway.’ He nodded towards the line which disappeared into the storm. ‘One or two trains a day, that’s all. You can’t blame the Reds for making trouble.’

  ‘Has there been trouble?’

  ‘Trouble? You should have seen it. The goods-yard all in flames; the post office smashed to bits. The police were scared. There’s martial law in Belgrade.’

  ‘I wanted to send a telegram from there. Will it get through?’ The car panted its way in second gear up a small hill and came into a street of dingy brick houses plastered with advertisements. ‘If you want to send a telegram,’ the driver said, ‘I should send it from here. There are queues of newspaper men at Belgrade, and the post office is smashed and they’ve had to commandeer old Nikola’s restaurant. You know what that means; but you don’t because you are a foreigner. It’s not the bugs, nobody minds a few bugs, it’s healthy, but the smells—’

  ‘Have I got time to send a telegram here and catch the train?’

  ‘That train,’ the driver said, ‘won’t go for hours and hours. They’ve sent for a new engine, but nobody’s going to pay any attention to them in the city. You should see the station, the mess—You had better let me drive you into Belgrade. I’ll show you the sights, too. I know all the best houses.’

  Myatt interrupted him, ‘I’ll go to the post office first. And then we’ll try the hotels for the lady.’

  ‘There’s only one.’

  ‘And then the station.’

  The sending of the telegram took some time, first he had to write the message to Joyce in such a way that no action for libel could be brought by Mr Eckman. He decided at last on: ‘Eckman granted a month’s holiday to start immediately. Please take charge at once. Arriving tomorrow.’ That ought to convey what he wanted, but it then had to be put into the office code, and when the coded telegram was handed across the counter, the clerk refused to accept it. All telegrams were liable to censorship, and no coded messages could be transmitted. At last he got away, only to find that nothing was known of Coral at the hotel, which smelt of dried plants and insect powder. She must be still at the station, he thought. He left the car a hundred yards down the road in order to get rid of the driver who was proving too talkative and too helpful and pushed forward alone through the wind and snow.

  He passed two sentries outside a building and asked them the way to the waiting-room. One of them said that there was no waiting-room now.

  ‘Where can I make inquiries?’

  The tallest of the guards suggested the station-master. ‘And where is his office?’ The man pointed to a second building, but added gently that the station-master was away; he was in Belgrade. Myatt checked his impatience, the man was so obviously good-natured. His companion spat to show his contempt and muttered remarks about Jews under his breath. ‘Where can I go then to make inquiries?’

  ‘There’s the major,’ the man said doubtfully, ‘or there’s the station-master’s clerk.’

  ‘You can’t see the major. He’s gone to the barracks,’ the other guard said. Myatt absent-mindedly drew a little nearer to the door; he could hear low voices inside. The surly guard became suddenly angry and brutal; he struck at Myatt’s legs with the butt of his rifle. ‘Go away. We don’t want spies round here. Go away, you Jew.’ With the calm of his race Myatt drew away; it was a superficial calm carried unconsciously like an inherited feature; beneath it he felt the resentment of a young man aware of his own importance. He leant towards the soldier with the intention of lodging in the flushed animal face some barb of speech, but he stopped in time, aware with amazement and horror of the presence of danger; in the small hungry eyes shone hatred and a desire to kill; it was as if all the oppressions, the pogroms, the chains, and the envy and superstition which caused them, had been herded into a dark cup of the earth and now he stared down at them from the rim. He moved back with his eyes on the soldier while the man’s fingers felt round the trigger. ‘I’ll see the station-master’s clerk,’ he said, but his instinct told him to walk quickly back to his car and rejoin the train.

  ‘That’s not the way,’ the friendly guard called after him. ‘Over there. Across the line.’ Myatt was thankful for the storm that roared along the line and blew gustily between him and the soldiers. Where he stood there was no prevailing wind, for it was trapped in the alleys between the buildings and sent swirling round the corners in contrary directions. He wondered at his own persistence in staying in the empty dangerous station; he told himself that he owed the girl nothing, and he knew that she would agree with him. ‘We’re quits,’ she would say. ‘You’ve given me the ticket, and I’ve given you a nice time.’ But he was tied by her agreement, by her refusal to make any claim. Before so complete a humility one could be nothing else but generous. He picked his way across the line and pushed open a door. A tousled man sat at a desk drinking wine. His back was turned, and Myatt said in what he hoped was an intimidating authoritative tone, ‘I want to make an inquiry.’ He had no reason to be afraid of a civilian, but when the man turned and he saw the eyes grow cunning and insolent at the sight of him, he despaired. A mirror hung above the desk, and in it Myatt saw the reflection of himself quite clearly for a moment, short and stout and nasal in his heavy fur coat, and it occurred to him that perhaps these people hated him not only because he was a Jew but because he carried the traces of money into their resigned surroundings. ‘Well?’ said the clerk.

  ‘I want to make an inquiry,’ Myatt said, ‘about a girl who was left behind here from the Orient Express this morning.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the clerk asked insolently. ‘If anybody leaves the train, they leave it. They aren’t left behind. Why, the train was waiting here this morning for more than half an hour.’

  ‘Well, then, did a girl get out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you just examine your tickets and check that?’

  ‘No. I said no one got out, didn’t I? What are you waiting here for? I’m a busy man.’

  Myatt knew suddenly that he would not be sorry to accept the clerk’s word and end his search; he would have done all that lay in his power, and he would be free. He thought of Coral for a moment as a small alley, enticing a man’s footsteps, but blind at the end with a windowless wall; there were others, and he thought for a moment of Janet Pardoe, who were like streets lined with shops full of glitter and warmth, streets which led somewhere. He was reaching an age when he wanted to marry and have children, set up his tent and increase his tribe. But his thoughts had been too precise; they roused his conscience on behalf of someone who had not shown the slightest hope of marriage but had been intent only on honest payment and her own affection. It came to him again as a strange and unexpected cry, her exclamation, ‘I love you.’ He returned from the doorway to the clerk’s desk determined to do all that he could do, to scamp no effort; she might now be somewhere in discomfort, stranded without money, possibly afraid. ‘She was seen to leave the train.’

  The clerk groaned at him: ‘What do you want me to do? Come out in the snow looking for her? I tell you I don’t know a thing about her. I haven’t seen any girl.’ His voice trailed off as he watched Myatt take out his note-case. Myatt removed a five-dina note and smoothed it between his fingers. ‘If you can tell me where she is, you can have two of these.’ The clerk stammered a little, tears came to his eyes, and he said with poignant regret: ‘If I could, if I only could. I am sure I should be glad to help.’ His face lit up and he suggested hopefully, ‘You ought to try the hotel.’ Myatt put the case back in his pocket; he had done all that he could do, and he went out to find his car.

  For the last few hours the sun had been obscured, but its presence had been shown in the glitter of
the falling snow, in the whiteness of the drifts; now it was sinking and the snow was absorbing the greyness of the sky; he would not get back to the train before dark. But even the hope of catching the train became faint, for he found when he reached his car that the engine had frozen, in spite of the rugs spread across the radiator.

  IV

  Josef Grünlich said: ‘It is all very well to sing.’ Although he complained of their inanition his eyes were red with weeping, and it was with an effort that he put away from him the little match girls and the princesses with hearts of ice. ‘They will not catch me so easily.’ He began to walk round the walls of the waiting-room pressing a wet thumb to the woodwork. ‘Never have I been imprisoned. It may surprise you, but it is true. At my time of life one cannot start something like that. And they are sending me back to Austria.’

  ‘Are you wanted there?’

  Josef Grünlich pulled down his waistcoat and set the little silver cross shaking. ‘I do not mind telling you. We are all together, eh?’ He twisted his neck a little in a sudden access of modesty. ‘I have slaughtered a man at Vienna.’

  Coral said with horror, ‘Do you mean that you are a murderer?’ Josef Grünlich thought: I should like to tell them. It’s too good to be a secret. Quickness? Why—‘Look over there, Herr Kolber,’ flick of the string, aim, fire twice, wriggle, man dead, all in two seconds; but better not. He encouraged himself with the cautious motto of his profession, the poker-work injunction to keep pride in bounds—‘One never knows.’ He ran his finger inside his collar and said airily: ‘I had to. It was an affair of honour.’ His hesitation was infinitesimal. ‘He had—how do you say it?—made my daughter big.’ With difficulty he prevented himself laughing as he thought of Herr Kolber, small and dry, and of his petulant exclamation, ‘This is a pretty kettle of fish.’

  ‘You mean you killed him,’ Coral asked with amazement, ‘just because he’d played around with your daughter?’

  Josef Grünlich raised his hands, absent-mindedly, his eyes straying to the window and measuring its height from the ground, ‘What could I do? Her honour, my honour . . .’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Coral, ‘I’m glad I haven’t a father.’

  Josef Grünlich said suddenly, ‘A hairpin perhaps.’

  ‘What do you mean, a hairpin?’

  ‘Or a pocket knife?’

  ‘I haven’t got any hairpins. What would I want hairpins for?’

  ‘I have a paper-cutter,’ Dr Czinner said. As he handed it over, he said, ‘My watch has stopped. Could you tell me how long we have been here?’

  ‘An hour,’ said Josef.

  ‘Two hours more then,’ Dr Czinner remarked thoughtfully. Neither of the others heard him. Josef tiptoed to the door, paper-cutter in hand, and Coral watched him. ‘Come here, Fraülein,’ Josef said, and when she was beside him he whispered to her, ‘Have you some grease?’ She gave him a pot of cold cream from her bag and he spread the cream thickly over the lock of the door, leaving a little space clear. He began to laugh gently to himself, bent almost double with his eye to the lock. ‘Such a lock,’ he whispered jubilantly, ‘such a lock.’

  ‘What do you want the cream for?’

  ‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘It will make what I do quieter.’

  He came back to the cold stove and waved them together. ‘That lock,’ he told them in an undertone, ‘is nothing. If we could send one guard away we could run.’

  ‘You’ll be shot,’ Dr Czinner said.

  ‘They cannot shoot all three at once,’ Grünlich said. He dropped two suggestions into their silence: ‘The dark. The snow,’ and then stood back, waiting for their decision. His own mind worked smoothly. He would be the first out of the door, the first away; he could run faster than an old man and a girl; the guard would fire at the nearest fugitive.

  ‘I should advise you to stay,’ Dr Czinner said to Coral. ‘You aren’t in any danger here.’

  Grünlich opened his mouth to protest, but he said nothing. They all three watched the window and the passing of one of the guards, rifle slung across his shoulder. ‘How long will it take you to open the door?’ Dr Czinner asked.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Get to work then.’ Dr Czinner tapped on the window and the other guard came. His large friendly eyes were pressed close to the glass and he stared into the waiting-room. The room was darker than the open air and he could see nothing but dim shapes moving restlessly here and there for warmth. Dr Czinner put his mouth close to the glass and spoke to him in his own tongue. ‘What is your name?’ Scratch, scratch, scratch went the paper knife, but when it slipped the whine was hushed by the layer of cream.

  ‘Ninitch,’ said the ghost of a voice through the glass.

  ‘Ninitch,’ Dr Czinner repeated slowly. ‘Ninitch. I used to know your father, I think, in Belgrade.’ Ninitch showed no doubt of the easy lie, flattening his nose against the window, but all his view of the waiting-room was cut off by the doctor’s features. ‘He died six years ago,’ he said.

  Dr Czinner took what was only a small risk to one acquainted with the poor in Belgrade and of the food they eat. ‘Yes. He was ill when I knew him. Cancer of the stomach.’

  ‘Cancer?’

  ‘Pains.’

  ‘Yes, yes, in the belly. That was him. They came on at night, and he would get very hot in the face. My mother used to lie beside him with a cloth to dry his skin. Fancy you knowing him, your honour. Shall I open the window so that we can talk better?’ Grünlich’s knife scratched and scratched and scratched; a screw came out and tinkled like a needle on the floor.

  ‘No,’ Dr Czinner said. ‘Your companion might not like it.’

  ‘He’s gone up to the town to the barracks to see the major. There’s a foreigner been here making inquiries. He thinks there’s something wrong.’

  ‘A foreigner?’ Dr Czinner asked. His mouth had gone dry with hope. ‘Has he gone?’

  ‘He’s just gone back to his car, down the road.’ The waiting-room was full of shadows. Dr Czinner turned for a moment from the window and asked softly, ‘How is it going? Can you be quick?’

  ‘Two minutes more,’ Grünlich said.

  ‘There’s a foreigner with a car down the road. He’s been making inquiries.’

  Coral put her hands together and said softly, ‘He’s come back for me. You see. You said he wouldn’t.’ She began to laugh gently, and when Dr Czinner whispered to her to keep calm, she said, ‘I’m not hysterical. I’m just happy,’ for it had occurred to her that this frightening adventure had been, after all, for the best; it had shown that he was fond of her, otherwise he would never have troubled to come back. He must have missed the train, she thought and we shall have to spend the night together in Belgrade, perhaps two nights, and she began to dream of smart hotels, and dinners, and his hand on her arm.

  Dr Czinner turned back to the window. ‘We are very thirsty,’ he said. ‘Have you any wine?’

  Ninitch shook his head. ‘No.’ He added doubtfully, ‘Lukitch has a bottle of rakia across the way.’ Dusk had already made the way longer; there was no moon to light the steel of the rails and the lamp in the station-master’s office might have been a hundred yards away and not a hundred feet.

  ‘Be a good fellow and get us a drink.’

  He shook his head. ‘I mustn’t leave the door.’

  Dr Czinner did not offer him money; instead he called through the glass that he had attended Ninitch’s father. ‘I gave him tablets to take when the pain was too bad.’

  ‘Little round tablets?’ Ninitch asked.

  ‘Yes. Morphia tablets.’

  Ninitch with his face pressed against the glass considered. It was possible to see the thoughts moving like fish in the translucent eyes. He said, ‘Fancy your giving him those tablets. He used to take one whenever the pain came, and one at night too. It made him sleep.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What a lot I shall have to tell my wife.’

  ‘The drink,’ Dr Czinner prompted him.
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  Ninitch said slowly, ‘If you tried to escape while I was gone, I should get into trouble.’ Dr Czinner said, ‘How could we escape? The door’s locked and the window is too small.’

  ‘Very well, then.’

  Dr Czinner saw him go and turned with a sigh of unhappiness to the others. ‘Now,’ he said. His sigh was for the loss of his security. The struggle was renewed. It was his distasteful duty to escape if he could.

  ‘One moment,’ Grünlich said, scratching at the door.

  ‘There’s no one outside. The guard’s the other side of the line. When you come out of the door turn to the left and turn to the left again between the buildings. The car’s down the road.’

  ‘I know all that,’ said Grünlich, and another screw tinkled to the floor. ‘Ready.’

  ‘I should stay here,’ Dr Czinner said to Coral.

  ‘But I couldn’t. My friend’s just down the road.’

  ‘Ready,’ Grünlich said again, scowling at them. They gathered at the door. ‘If they fire,’ Dr Czinner said, ‘run crookedly.’ Grünlich pulled the door open and the snow blew in. It was not so dark outside as it had been in the room; the station-master’s lamp across the rails lit up the figure of the guard in the window. Grünlich dived first into the storm; with head bent almost to his knees he bounced forward like a ball. The others followed. It was not easy to run. The wind and snow were enemies allied to drive them back: the wind broke their speed and the snow blinded them. Coral gasped with pain as she ran into a tall iron pillar with a trunk like an elephant’s used for watering engines. Grünlich was far ahead of her; Dr Czinner was a little behind; she could hear the painful effort of his lungs. Their footsteps made no sound in the snow, and they dared not shout to the driver of the car.

  Before Grünlich had reached the gap between the buildings, a door slammed, someone called, and a rifle was fired. Grünlich’s first effort had exhausted him. The distance between him and Coral lessened. The guard fired twice, and Coral could hear the buzz of the bullets far overhead. She wondered whether he was deliberately aiming high. Ten seconds more and they would pass the corner out of his sight and be visible from the car. She heard a door open again, a bullet whipped up the snow beside her and she ran the faster. She was almost side by side with Grünlich when they reached the corner. Dr Czinner exclaimed behind her and she thought he was urging her to run faster, but before she turned the corner she looked back and saw that he was hugging the wall with both hands. She stopped and called out, ‘Herr Grünlich,’ but he paid no attention, bundling round the building and out of sight.