At seven o’clock we pull into a large station with an elaborate red-and-white facade.
“Vologda,” Yevgeny says.
In the corridor Russian men are already dressed for bed, in shorts and flip-flops. I edge past them and jump down onto the platform. Some new passengers are hurrying to climb on board, struggling with heavy bags. Others stand about, talking and smoking. Three army women in green uniforms and fur hats pose for a photo under the harsh lights. Steam lifts from the wheels of the train, and the sides of the carriages are ridged, gleaming, and faintly dented, like old-fashioned biscuit tins. The night feels brash, dramatic. Nickel-plated.
I return to Yevgeny’s compartment and he holds out a bag of pirozhki. As I take one, his gaze falls on my bruised wrist.
“Your arm,” he says.
I pull my sleeve down. “It’s nothing.”
“What happened?”
“It was an accident. I tripped over my suitcase. In my hotel room.”
His eyes drift past me, to the window. He senses that I’m lying. At the same time, I don’t imagine he would want to hear the truth. I change the subject by asking about Arkhangel’sk. Relieved perhaps, he responds enthusiastically. The region’s earliest inhabitants were hunters and fishermen who lived fourteen thousand years ago, he says. Mysterious legendary tribes such as the white-eyed Chudi. Arkhangel’sk itself was founded by Ivan the Terrible in 1584. A wooden city sprang up within a year and became Russia’s first major commercial port. Surrounded by forest, the economy was driven by timber, not just shipbuilding, but paper mills, pulp factories. The university is excellent. He taught engineering there for many years. There’s also a medical school. Mikhail Lomonosov, an eighteenth-century scientist and writer, is one of the city’s celebrated sons. He discovered the atmosphere of Venus. His fame is such, Yevgeny says with a wry smile, that a local potato is named after him.
At half past nine his cough returns.
“I’ve talked enough,” he says. “I think I’ll sleep.”
I wish him a restful night.
Back in my own compartment, I suddenly feel hungry and unpack the provisions I brought along — black bread, cured meat, gherkins, vodka. I’m trying to prize the top off the bottle when a train official knocks on my door. She’s holding a wicker basket of items for the journey — crackers, tissues, chewing gum. I gesture at the bottle and say the Russian word for “open.”
“It’s forbidden,” she tells me.
“Vodka’s forbidden?”
“Yes.”
“But this is Russia …”
She smiles. “It’s the regulations,” she says, then moves on down the carriage.
Putting the bottle on the table by the window, I unscrew the lid on the jar of gherkins and have just begun to eat when the door to my compartment opens again and two men appear. One of them is huge, with blond hair cut close to his skull and the smooth round face of a baby. He sits opposite me and starts foraging in a sports bag. The other man, who is smaller and darker, climbs up onto one of the top bunks and lies down, facing the wall. The huge man looks at me steadily, his eyes the color of antifreeze. He goes by the name of Sergei, he says. His friend is Konstantin. Using sign language and basic Russian, I ask Sergei if he would like to share my food. He thanks me and takes a slice of bread and ham. Then he notices the vodka.
“It’s forbidden,” I say.
“Yes.” He shrugs.
He twists off the top and pours us half a glass each, then he reaches into his sports bag and lifts out some apples. They come from his garden, in Tutayev. Next he produces a jar and unscrews the lid. It seems to be some kind of chutney. Made from tomato and garlic, he says. Excellent with meat. While we eat and drink I ask Sergei what he does for a living. He works in a sheet-metal factory, he tells me, as does his friend. I ask about his family. He has a wife, three children. Though Konstantin has his back to me I sense that he’s still awake. I help myself to one of Sergei’s apples.
“You travel alone?” he asks.
I think about mentioning Yevgeny but decide against it. After all, we will only be together for the duration of the train journey. “Yes. I’m alone.”
“You don’t have to worry.” Sergei places a massive, scarred hand over his heart. “We’re good people.”
I pour him another vodka.
In the window birch trees flash past, white lines suspended upright in the darkness.
Sergei takes out his mobile phone, an ancient Nokia, and offers to play me some of his songs. I’m worried they’ll be terrible, like karaoke, and that I’ll have to be diplomatic, but his voice, which is unaccompanied, is haunting and tender.
“This is you?” I say.
“My songs. I wrote them.” He batters at his chest with both palms. “In your soul you must have the whole world.”
The vodka bottle is almost empty.
I go to the bathroom. On my way back I look in on Yevgeny, thinking to say good night, but he’s already lying down with his eyes shut. Returning to my compartment, I tell Sergei that I need to sleep.
“Kharashó,” he says. That’s fine.
Out of the corner of my eye I see him drain the contents of two glasses, one after the other. Did he finish my drink as well? No, I still have mine. Looking more closely, I realize the second glass is actually a jar. He must have drunk the liquid the gherkins came in.
“Spakoinai nochi,” he says. Good night.
I thought the men would sleep in the top two bunks. Instead, Konstantin climbs down, and without speaking again the two men leave the compartment. I switch off the light and stretch out on my bed.
Some time later, when I open my eyes, I make out several round shapes on the table by the window. Sergei forgot his apples.
/
I’m walking through Trastevere with my parents. They’re in their twenties, and in love. Though this is before they had me, I’m there between them, a child of seven or eight. The night is warm. The facades of churches lit up, shop windows glowing. I feel light but anchored, like a balloon on the end of a long string.
We enter a piazza filled with stalls and people. It feels like the Festa de’ Noantri, which happens in July. We pause by a boxing ring. A man in green trunks slumps against the ropes, his eyes glazed and watery. The other man holds his arms above his head, his gloved hands dark red and shiny, like giant cherries. My father gazes up into the ring. My mother rests her head against his shoulder. He puts an arm round her, and they walk on. I have to run to catch up.
Later, we eat at a local pizzeria nicknamed L’Obitorio — The Morgue — because all its tables are topped with marble slabs. We sit outside, next to the road. Suddenly my father points. Look! A truck crawls past in low gear. Dangling from a winch at the back is a naked woman, her hair and body painted gold. Since the cord or wire that holds her isn’t visible she appears to be floating in midair, halfway between the truck and the overhanging trees.
I wake with a feeling of elation, still in that imaginary, timeless world, the trouble that awaits our family out of sight or even sidestepped altogether, our happiness untouchable.
The rhythmic clatter of the train. I turn in my bed and peer out of the window.
Endless woods, no moon.
/
A guard flicks on the light and makes an announcement I don’t understand. I glance at my watch. Twenty-five past six. Half an hour to Arkhangel’sk. When I part the curtain my breath catches in my throat. The loose stone chippings next to the rails are sprinkled with snow.
A few minutes before we arrive Yevgeny appears in a clean shirt. He asks me how I slept.