Trans-Siberian Express (32 page)

“Where is he?”

“We brought him back to his compartment. He is unconscious.”

“Ass!” Zeldovich snapped, running toward the train now. He noticed that a new engine had been hooked up, a huge yellow diesel. The information passed in and out of his consciousness as he gripped the handrail and lifted himself up the stairs. The train began to move as he opened the door to the passageway.

MIKHAIL
Moiseyevich lay on the unfamiliar bunk and stared at the ceiling. He had been lying there for hours, nursing his humiliation. Only yesterday he had sat in the other compartment, the body of Vera peaceful and quiet below him, and had vowed to himself that nothing they could do would ever move him again. He would feel no pain. No anger. No joy. Nothing. If they wanted to hate Jews, let them. Whatever was to confront him in Birobidjan, he would not let it make a dent on his inner life. Perhaps Vera was right. There was no physical escape from them. Geography alone was not enough. He must withdraw from them mentally. The incident at Irkutsk had confirmed it. Vera knew. The final escape was death. Short of that, he was determined to try his own method. He would never let them glimpse his inner life. They had taught him what he had long denied, that his Jewishness was important.

But while he vowed to live only within his mind, he was having considerable trouble following the plan. It was not easy to learn to be pliable. The train had barely left Irkutsk when the attendant, the younger one, had knocked at the compartment door.

“You are being transferred to another compartment,” she had said.

He had wanted to protest, feeling the anger begin again inside him. Then, remembering, he replied politely. “Of course,” he had said, forcing a smile. He quickly gathered up his baggage and put it into the passageway. The attendant picked up the bags and proceeded down the passageway, stopping in front of a compartment and knocking. Hearing no response she turned the handle and slid open the door. Mikhail recognized the squat man who had been at the Yaroslav station. He was stretched flat on the lower bunk, eyes open, ignoring them as they arranged the suitcases in the place set aside below the bunk. The attendant looked at him, shrugged, and left the compartment.

It was strange being at such close quarters with another man. Mikhail climbed to the upper bunk and lay down. The man below him groaned. At first, Mikhail ignored him. Under his new method he did not have to pay attention to anyone else’s pain.

The man groaned again, moved, then sat up. Mikhail lay still, watching the ceiling and listening. Suddenly the man stood up, gripped the edges of the upper bunk and hissed with pain. Then he sat down on his bunk again. Mikhail could hear him breathe heavily, then groan again.

What did that man’s pain matter to him? Mikhail thought. He was surprised at his own reactions. He felt unburdened, set free. Vera’s absence, far from filling him with remorse, was a relief. He had felt her presence during those two days that her lifeless body lay still on the bunk. He had sat beside her and patted her hand, although her skin felt cold and clammy to his touch. In the end he had forgiven her the denial of her Jewishness. It was true, he had told her, that she had not been born a Jewess. But heredity and blood were not all. Through her marriage, she had cast in her lot with the idea of Jewishness. What was it, after all, except an idea? The idea of being a Jew was based upon the assumption that someone must be blamed. How could anyone possibly exist on this earth, especially in the Soviet Union, without having someone to blame? It was a law of man. It was a privilege, if one thought about it. If people were in misery and pain, starving, suffering, unhappy, diseased, they could feel hope in having someone to blame. The worst possible thing would be if people blamed themselves. Thus, he had told her, the Jews had to be invented to be blamed. The reason that Vera had not been able to bear it was that she had not been conditioned, as he had, to take that blame.

He had never experienced such clarity of thought as when he had sat beside her still body on the bunk, explaining to her what it meant to be a Jew. It was the reason he felt unburdened now, freed by his own eloquence. Now, lying on the upper bunk, staring at the ceiling of the bouncing train, he felt the need to share this knowledge with others. He heard the man below him groan in pain.

“I am a Jew,” Mikhail said suddenly, quite pleasantly he thought. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at the sweating face of the man below him.

“I am a Jew,” he repeated.

The man stopped groaning for a moment, looked up, and shuddered.

“I am a Jew,” Mikhail repeated. Was it possible he wasn’t being amiable enough? The man looked up finally and grunted.

I will give him time to understand the consequences of what he has just learned, Mikhail thought. The compartment suddenly brightened as the sun burst through the clouds. In the distance he could see water, incredibly blue against the whiteness. The man below him sat up on the edge of the bunk.

“You up there,” he said suddenly. Mikhail shook himself alert.

“Me?”

“You are a Jew?”

“Yes.”

There was a long pause, a groan and a restless movement as the man thrashed around in his bunk.

“I am a murderer,” the voice said from below. The voice sounded cracked, the words spoken with a great effort. Mikhail felt his heart pound.

“A murderer?”

“What do you think I said, you idiot?”

“I’m sorry,” Mikhail said. It was part of his new plan to apologize at all times. “I was not prepared for such a revelation.”

“Well then, prepare yourself,” the voice said. “I am a murderer. Actually, I am sure I murdered a woman, a damned prostitute. But I’m not as sure about Shmiot. Frankly, I hope he is still alive. It would be a pity if he is dead.”

“Why?”

“Because dead is dead.”

“There is no question about that.” Mikhail was trying to be pleasant.

“If he is alive, he will know what pain means.”

“Yes, that’s undoubtedly true.

“He was an excellent teacher,” the voice said.

“A teacher?”

“He taught me how to endure pain.”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean ‘yes’? That’s a stupid answer.”

“I meant I understood.”

“How could you understand?”

“Because I’m a Jew.”

“What has that got to do with it?”

“You don’t know?”

“And I don’t care.”

The man thrashed about some more, then sat up again. Mikhail delicately turned his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t think that the man would want him to see his face.

“My wife is dead,” Mikhail said.

There was a long pause.

“Did you kill her?”

“Kill her?” It was an interesting concept, Mikhail thought. He could feel the man’s intensity.

“Did you kill her?” the man repeated urgently.

Mikhail did not wish to be hurried; he wanted to think about the proper answer.

“Perhaps,” he said at last.

“You don’t know?”

Why was he pressing him so hard? Mikhail thought. He wanted to ask the man to define murder, but felt that might be presumptuous. And yet he did not want to avoid answering the question. It warmed him to imagine a kinship with the strange man writhing in pain below him.

“In a way,” he answered finally.

The fact was, Mikhail wanted to say, that Vera had died because she was not programed for endurance as he was. And he had, after all, forced her, by marriage, to accept conditions intolerable to her makeup.

“Yes,” he said to the man.

“Yes, what?”

“I am guilty. Of murder.”

The man lifted himself upright beside his bunk and looked at Mikhail. Mikhail saw the thick features, glazed eyes, the low forehead and short cropped hair. It was the kind of face that threw fear into the hearts of every Jew in the Soviet Union, a reminder of Stalin, the promulgator of modern, more subtle pogroms.

“I thought so,” the man said.

“You did?”

The man squinted into Mikhail’s face, his eyes two glistening coals of hatred.

“You are just as guilty as I am.”

I just admitted that, Mikhail thought. It was obvious that the man was looking through him, through the steel walls of the moving train, into the heart of the Siberian waste, seeing what was only visible to himself.

“I was innocent,” the man said. “Totally innocent. I am sure of that, dead certain. I shouted it at them. I am innocent, I cried. You are guilty, they assured me. When they tell you this over and over again, your resolve cracks and the knowledge of your innocence becomes unsure. Innocent of what? Guilty of what? You can hardly distinguish between them. In that train, I tried to protect my innocence. I didn’t really care about the suit or any of those silly possessions. I was trying to protect my innocence.”

The man groaned again and slipped into a kind of trance.

“Shmiot had no right to take away my innocence,” he cried. “No right.”

Mikhail had no doubt that he was listening to some sort of confession and he tried to look sympathetic. At some point the man was sure to come to himself, and it would not do for Mikhail to look hostile, not after receiving such information. Mikhail was, after all, judging his own act philosophically. The murder of Vera was not a crime against society, not punishable by the laws of man. The threat of retribution was not to his person, only to his soul. But this man was a self-admitted criminal in the traditional sense, and the punishment for his crime was confinement in their unspeakable prisons. He shivered, feeling a cold chill ripple through him.

“I had every intention of killing him,” the man below said, breaking the long pause. “But the idea that the man had no memory of what he had done made it suddenly important that he stay alive as long as possible in a condition that might bring back the old memory.”

Mikhail bent over the bunk. The man’s eyes opened wide. He shook his head and looked at Mikhail as if he knew him.

“In the case of the prostitute,” the man said. “There was no justification whatsoever. I killed her out of pique, sheer anger. Did I think she would make me a miracle? It was a physical impossibility—a lost cause. I felt no pity for her. No remorse. Nothing. In fact, I rarely thought about it. Besides, if you are finally convinced of your own guilt, what does anything matter? You might as well be guilty of the most unspeakable crimes. Guilt is guilt. There is no such thing as guiltiest.”

Yes, Mikhail told himself, he could understand that. He could also understand why the man should choose to unburden himself suddenly to a complete stranger. He felt the bunk shake below him and, looking over the top, he saw that the man had turned over on his stomach and his shoulders were heaving with deep sobs. Mikhail watched him for a long time, then reached down and touched the man’s back, feeling the wracked body heaving. The man’s shoulders quieted. Mikhail looked about him, searching for Vera’s approval. It did not take him long to realize that it was futile. Vera was gone. All that was left of her was a mutilated body in the dark baggage car. He was suddenly disgusted with her for not having had the will to survive, and he felt his grip tighten on the man below him.

AS
Alex lay warm and secure in his own thoughts, the memory of Irkutsk station began to intrude. He had been trying to contact someone, the American ambassador, anyone. He thought of Dimitrov as he had first seen him, his first words.

“This indisposition is an absurd joke.”

“Believe me, it is no joke,” Alex said.

“We will attack and destroy it. I will do exactly as you ask,” Dimitrov had said.

“It is between us. Live or die.”

“Of course.”

“You must pledge me.”

“How does one do that?”

“By your word. There is nothing more important than one’s word.”

Alex opened his eyes. Faces were watching him. Anna Petrovna was dressed in a blue skirt and white turtleneck sweater, her blonde hair hanging loose to the shoulders. The light was failing, but the color of her eyes shone clearly—a royal blue with flashes of yellow. She was sitting on the chair and Zeldovich was sitting at the foot of the bunk. She must have seen Alex’s eyes flutter open. She leaned over and squeezed his hand.

“Alex,” she said.

“How do you feel, Dr. Cousins?” Zeldovich asked.

He lifted his head, felt the pain where the blow had struck, and rubbed his palm on the bump.

“Was this really necessary?”

“I can only offer my apologies. They were overeager.” He stood up. “But then, so were you.”

Alex could feel Anna Petrovna’s eyes on him, but even though he still clutched her hand, he didn’t turn toward her.

“Why am I being detained?” he asked stupidly.

“You know why.”

“Are you planning to keep me bottled up here forever, riding back and forth on the Trans-Siberian Railroad?”

Alex let go of Anna Petrovna’s hand and stood up, feeling dizzy and weak in the knees. Slight concussion, he told himself. Walking shakily, leaning on the walls for support, he went into the washroom and slapped icy water on his face. Dipping a towel in the water, he pressed it against the back of his head. It did not show any blood.

With the towel against his head, he walked back into the compartment.

“Would you like some tea?” Anna Petrovna asked gently.

“The Russian panacea,” he answered, nodding, watching her press the button for the attendant.

In a moment the younger attendant came in. Anna Petrovna ordered three glasses of tea.

When the attendant had gone, Zeldovich said, “Mrs. Valentinov told me that she had explained to you the importance of the information you possess.”

Alex looked quickly at Anna Petrovna, who lowered her eyes in embarrassment. He imagined her suffering, the conflicting emotions churning inside of her. Yet he could sense the bond of alliance between her and Zeldovich. Be cautious, Kuznetsov, he told himself.

“She also has that information,” Alex said, watching Anna Petrovna twist and untwist her fingers. “The General Secretary’s health is stable. The leukemia is in a state of apparent remission. Beyond that, there is no predicting how long he will stay that way.”