“I don’t feel I slept at all,” I say, “but I must have, I suppose. I remember dreams.”
We step down out of the train. On the platform is a row of old-fashioned metal streetlamps, the globes of light seemingly suspended in a dense and swirling darkness. The station is a low white building, with ARKHANGELSK spelled out in giant dilapidated letters on the roof. Of Sergei and Konstantin there is no sign. These people you see once, and never again.
Since it’s still so early, just after seven, Yevgeny suggests we share a taxi. In front of the station he approaches a driver and negotiates a price, then we climb in. I ask to be dropped at the Pur Navolok hotel.
As we set off down a wide bleak avenue, tires crackling on the snow, Yevgeny gives me a puzzled look. “I thought you were staying with your father’s friend.”
“He was called away unexpectedly,” I say, “on business. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
Turning to face the window, I wipe a hole in the condensation. Sheer apartment blocks, low-voltage neon signs.
When we reach the Pur Navolok I try to say goodbye inside the taxi but Yevgeny climbs out and leans on the open door, gripping the top edge with his gloved hands.
“I’m probably a little old for you, but I’d like to give you my number.” He removes his right glove and fumbles in his pocket for a pen and paper. In shaky handwriting he jots his number down. “If you need a companion or if you’d like someone to show you the city.” He pauses. “Or if you’re in trouble.”
“That’s very kind,” I say. “Thank you.”
He glances up at the hotel’s modern blue-and-white facade. “It’s a good place. Expensive, though.”
We say goodbye and Yevgeny lowers himself back into the taxi. I wait until the car has turned the corner, then I consult the map Vladimir printed out for me on my second night in Moscow. I have lied to Yevgeny from the beginning. I won’t be staying with my father’s friend, since he doesn’t have a friend, and I won’t be staying at the Pur Navolok either. I have booked a room at the Best Eastern Dvina, which is cheaper and just as central.
The Pur Navolok overlooks the river, but all that shows in the darkness is a strip of snow-dusted beach and a pinpoint of green light in the distance. I follow the promenade for half a mile, a cold wind blowing off the water, then I turn inland. In twenty minutes I reach the Dvina, a huge pale-pink block set back from the road. The blonde woman on reception — Olga — speaks a little English. After the long train journey I feel like a swim, but when I ask if there’s a pool she laughs.
“We can build perhaps,” she says.
In my room on the fifth floor I part the net curtains. Below are a few parked cars. Off to the right is a supermarket with a red neon sign on top. I turn from the window. Yellow walls, a thirteen-inch TV. A small bland painting of a coffee cup. I could be anywhere in Russia — or anywhere at all. I arrange my Richter postcards on the mirror above the desk, wedging them between the glass and the frame, then I go downstairs again. In the shopping mall across the street I buy myself an Arctic parka and a scarf.
Later, when it’s light, I walk along the river, back towards the Pur Navolok. On the long grand esplanade is a stone-and-metal monument that reminds me of the prow of a fighting ship from the Dark Ages. The beach below is wide and flat. Pieces of driftwood lie about on sand that has frozen hard as concrete. Somehow I never imagined sand could freeze. The sky is vast and overarching, a limitless dreamlike mauve blue. In its upper reaches are the strangest clouds I have ever seen — identical soft-edged cubes of white which fit together in a loose mosaic.
/
Back in my room I switch on the desk lamp and look at the scrap of paper Yevgeny gave me. It’s odd how closely it resembles the messages I came across earlier in the year, messages that were either misleading or irrelevant, meant for somebody else or no one at all. Though the scribbled number seems to be prompting me to pick up the phone, I know I will do nothing of the kind. I don’t need any guidance or comfort. That stage is over.
I tear Yevgeny’s number into pieces — quickly, without thinking, the way you swallow medicine — then walk to the window and turn the handle. Cold air knifes into the room. I reach out with my fist and open my fingers. The bits of torn paper are sucked sideways into the dark. For a moment I see them as plasma. Blood draining from my body. Life leaving. I pull the window shut and lie down on the bed. Just the pyramid of lamplight on the desk. Arkhangel’sk. My heart starts beating faster, as if I’m waiting for a lover. I have come so far.
In my mind I track the fragments as they whirl off into the bitter Russian night. I picture a boy out walking, hood up, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. When he glances up and sees the scraps of paper he knows what he must do. He must collect each and every one of them or something terrible will happen. He’s an only child. He’s always playing games like that. If he kicks a stone and it doesn’t stay on the pavement his father will lose his job. If he’s on his bike and the traffic light turns red before he reaches it his parents will separate, or die. How can he hope to pick up all the pieces though? They scarcely show up against the snow, and there must be at least a dozen of them. My thoughts are dogs, he tells himself. Keep them on a tight leash. One piece at a time. He’s methodical, obsessive. Even though it’s close to freezing. Some of the bits of paper he finds do not belong. They’re part of another puzzle, a different challenge. His hands go numb. He doesn’t care. And finally, when he has gathered them all, every last one, he takes them home and shuts himself in his bedroom and fits them back together. Only then does he realize it’s a phone number. He waits until his parents are asleep — they’re still alive, still married — then he tiptoes to the phone and dials.
A man answers. “Who’s speaking, please?” The man sounds old.
The boy says his name.
“Do I know you?” the old man says.
“No.”
The old man lowers himself onto a chair and stares out across the room. On the wall above the phone is a calendar showing the rooftops of Oxford. “How did you get my number?”
The boy describes how he saw the little bits of paper flutter from the window of a tall building in the city center, and how he chased them down until he had them all.
“Which tall building?” the old man asks.
“The Dvina.”
“That’s a hotel — near the river.”
“Yes.”
The old man falls quiet, thinking. Then he says, “Ah yes. I see.”
“I stuck the pieces together,” the boy says. “Like a jigsaw. It took me ages.”
The old man smiles. He tells the boy that he has enjoyed talking to him and thanks him for calling and then hangs up. The smile drains from his face like water sinking into sand. He remains on his chair, staring out across the room.
“Yevgeny,” he says, “what were you thinking?” And then, a few moments later, “Stupid old man.”
Lying on my bed, I feel bad. My imagination has become my conscience.
What does the boy do? He puts the piece of paper in a safe place, along with his other treasures. It’s proof of something — of what he isn’t entirely sure. His urge to make sense of things, perhaps. His tenacity. At some point in the future, when he has grown up, he will come across the piece of paper and stare at it. He will remember the old man’s voice and he will call the number again. Will the old man answer? Or will the number ring and ring?
My imagination might be acting as my conscience but it’s also a thread that reaches all the way back to the beginning of the journey. It’s my only contact with the world I’ve left behind.