They're silent for a while as they huddle in the wind. It's very cold – not really the season for a journey of this kind. In the summertime it's nice on the roof of a train. Now, however, the kids have to keep crawling up and down the ladder, have to keep moving around in order to stay warm.
Their shared misfortune has in a way brought them together, and Eddie decides to tell Kostya about what's bothering him most – about Svetka.
"You know, Cat, last night was the first time I ever fucked Svetka. I never had before that," he says, and then stops.
"I figured as much," Kostya says.
"Tell me, Cat," Eddie asks tentatively, "did you ever hear that Svetka hasn't been cherry for a long time?"
"Yes," Cat says from up above. "All the kids knew about it, but nobody told you, since you were so in love with her. You really doted on her, and for nothing… Women like men who don't dote on them," Kostya says in a sadly philosophical tone. And then he adds, "She's been fucking for a long time. She's even fucked your Red Sanya -"
"Sanya?" Eddie asks, thunderstruck.
Even though he realizes that he has said a bit too much, Cat confirms his words. "Yes, but only once, and that was because he raped her." And then he falls silent.
Eddie is silent too. It seems to him that he's suddenly grown very old and very tired.
"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu," go the wheels of the train.
"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu – Eddie'll do, and Cat will too," Eddie rhymes mindlessly. He doesn't have any idea what he'll do or what will be. Just that something will.
33
Even though they climbed down off the roof during several of the train's stops and ran along the tracks to warm up, Eddie-baby and Cat are so close to perishing from the cold as they approach Rostov that they have finally decided to jump off the train. All they're waiting for now is for the train to come to a bend and slow down.
"We'll fucking freeze to death!" Cat whispers. "If we don't jump off, we'll croak from the cold. I can't move my fucking hands anymore; they're like iron. My hands are freezing. How about you?"
Kostya at least has gloves, whereas Eddie has stuck his arms behind the ladder and hooked his elbow around one of its rungs. His arm and his joints are shaking painfully, and of course he'll have terrible black-and-blue marks after this little trip, although that's the least of his worries. He and Kostya are freezing, and there isn't any bend in sight. If they try to jump off the train at this speed, they'll be killed for sure.
"It would be stupid to freeze like this when the sun's still out, when it's daylight and we're so near Rostov, where it's warm," Eddie thinks in amazement, no longer able to feel his legs or his body…
They are saved by the sudden opening of the car door. Eddie and Kostya had already tried the door once before, but it was locked, and Kostya even went along the roofs of the other cars to try their doors as well…
Leaning out of the door now is a Georgian girl, one of the train's conductors, and she's yelling to them… The wind carries her words:
"You lunatics! Climb down off of there!… We saw the shadows of two people on the roof a long time ago, but we couldn't believe… that anybody would be crazy enough in this temperature… to climb up there…"
"Oh, sure, we'll climb down… You've probably already got the trashes in there waiting for us!" Kostya squeaks suspiciously.
"What trashes?" yells the Georgian girl.
"The militia," Eddie says.
"Climb down off of there, you fools! There isn't any militia here!" the girl yells back.
Holding the ladder with his stiff hands, Eddie climbs down and squeezes into the car, and then Cat comes down too. After the icy roof, the car is like heaven.
"Suicides!" the girl says to them in a mocking voice, and pulls them into her conductor's compartment. "You'll have tea in a minute."
34
An hour later, warmed by the tea, Eddie is sitting in the conductor's compartment looking out the window. Kostya is asleep in the upper berth, or at least is pretending to sleep. Sitting across from Eddie is a fat Georgian cook from the restaurant car. Selecting the Russian words with difficulty, the latter is telling Eddie about his first impressions of Russia in the winter, since this is the first time he has ever left Georgia, even though he's already around fifty.
"I look out window," the naive cook says, "and I see that all trees is dead. All dead."
Eddie smiles.
"Your have smiling," the cook says, "but I not know. I have never leave Georgia. 'Why Russian not cut down dead trees?' I ask vaiter. Vaiter…"
"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu," go the wheels.
"Eddie'll do, and Cat will too," Eddie rhymes sadly. What he'll do and what will be, he still doesn't know.
Epilogue
And so it was… In 1962 the Kharkov District Court sentenced Eddie-baby's friends Kostya Bondarenko, Yurka Bembel, and Slavka, nicknamed the "Suvorovian," to the ultimate punishment – execution. After several months, during which Kostya turned gray and, strangely enough, suddenly grew, his and Slavka's sentences were commuted to lengthy prison terms. The oldest of the three, Yurka, was executed. It was only by accident that Eddie wasn't with his friends that fateful night. Lucky Eddie…
Upon learning about Kostya's arrest, Grishka Primak's deaf and dumb mother managed to utter the garbled sentence, "They put Kostya in jail and Edink skipped away abroad." She could speak a little, Grishka's mother, and obviously she could also predict the future… Then – in 1962 – her words didn't make any sense to Eddie. It was only in 1974, when unexpectedly even for him he really did "skip away abroad" and Kostya was exiled in Kolyma after serving twelve years in prison there, that Eddie finally understood what Grishka's mother meant.
What happened to the others? Vitka Golovashov and Lyonka Korovin graduated from a school for tank commanders, and now both hold the rank of major. Rumor has it they're stationed in central Asia.
The insane, valiant Antonina Sergeevna passed away – may she rest in peace. Obviously she was in no way responsible for the erotic fantasies of the young Eddie-baby.
Eddie ran into Borka Churilov in Paris in 1980. A Soviet citizen well known in his own country as a skilled craftsman, Churilov came to Paris for an exhibition of his birch bark prints at UNESCO. Borka's churches and images of saints had finally proved profitable to the Soviet state. Borka and Eddie drank. The two Saltovkans met once more in Paris in 1982 and drank vodka again. Borka has a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter. Borka's life-loving mother died recently, and as her last will and testament she enjoined her son always to work and to be happy and independent…
Svetka, they say, married a shop superintendent and has two children.
Grishka, having dreamed about murder, became an engineer, although his true passion is solitaire. He's a professional gambler.
Sashka Tishchenko works as a foreman in a factory.
Of the rest nothing is known. A quarter of a century has passed since that time.