The forest had come as a welcome refuge. They had fallen into its shadowy world with relief and trekked along its animal trails for two days. The temperature dropped abruptly and fat lazy flakes of snow started to drift down, covering their tracks. Several times they saw other pale figures flitting between the trees like ghosts in the distance, but no one trusted anyone any more. No one approached. Strangers had become dangerous in Russia. If a person wasn’t your friend, he was your enemy. She told Jens at last about her parents, how they had been condemned by a Bolshevik tribunal, and he held her in his arms, kissed her tears.
They camped among the trees at the bend of the river, wrapped in their blanket and coats, not risking a fire except briefly to heat water for tea. They watched the railway line. Hour after hour, day after day. The silver tracks carved a route through their minds to the future.
VALENTINA LAY CURLED UP WITH JENS INSIDE HIS COAT. Dawn was not far away, a thin hairline crack of silver on the horizon. Beside them Lydia slept the sleep of the very young, wrapped in her cocoon of blanket. Valentina brushed her lips along her husband’s smooth jaw. He had bathed and shaved in the river. She felt him smile in the darkness, eyes still closed, and she nestled her head in the crook of his neck. He smelled of pine needles.
“Jens?”
He kissed her hair.
“Jens, there’s something I want to say.” She spoke softly, but nevertheless she felt his limbs tense.
“There is no need to say anything.” He lifted a hand and placed it over her mouth.
She let it lie there for a full minute, then shifted her head. “Jens, the journey we’re on is dangerous. At any time we may get”-killed, we may get killed-“we may get separated.”
He tightened his grip on her. “No. That won’t happen.”
“But if it does, promise me you’ll take good care of our daughter.”
He released a breath. “I do not need to promise.”
“But promise me all the same. Please.”
“Very well, my love, if it makes you happy. I promise I will take good care of Lydia.” He turned his head, a black shadow in the darkness, his lips on her skin. “And you must promise me the same.”
“I promise. I will care for her with my life.”
“Satisfied?”
“No.” Her lips found his and she felt the familiar and unquenchable ache for him. They made love under a clear night sky, beneath the stars. And though there was no sleigh and no fur rug like on the night of the Anichkov ball, there was no cart to interrupt them, no Arkin with his rifle to tear their world apart.
IT’S COMING!” LYDIA CALLED.
Smoke belched up into the blue sky, and the noise of the engine echoed through the crisp air. The river and the railway line ran in parallel tracks, and ice sparkled like new-cut diamonds between them. Fields and forest stretched as far as the eye could see, the perfect day for train hopping.
“Get ready,” Jens said.
Valentina nodded but her heart was pounding. Lydia was on Jens’s back, arms tight around his neck. His hand was gripping Valentina’s. She gave her husband and daughter a tense smile. “I’m ready.” Her breath curled between them like an icy curtain, and she clutched his fingers.
The train came. Only three freight wagons behind the engine. As it reached the bend in the river it slowed, just as the man in the tunnel had promised it would. The wagons bucked and rattled, lurching to one side, and Jens began to run alongside the track. Valentina matched him stride for stride, but his legs were longer and she had to struggle. The engine growled at their shoulders. Valentina glanced across at the driver and saw that he was shaking a stick at them, as if he would beat them off the train. At the front of the first wagon a metal ladder was fixed on its outside wall, and Jens reached out with his free hand as it passed him, seizing it effortlessly. Instantly he was whisked off his feet. For one split second he hung by one hand, with Lydia on his back and his pack, as well as Valentina’s, slung over his shoulder. His other hand still held tight to his wife.
“Jump!” he screamed.
But her legs were at full stretch. She jumped. Stumbled, lost her footing. Felt her arm almost wrench from its socket. She was being dragged at full speed along the ground. Ripping, tearing, battering.
She let go. She felt her fingers slide out of his, felt her life slide from her grasp. She lay on the ice-covered ground and watched everything she loved in this life surge away from her. As the track straightened the engine gathered speed, pistons pumping, and bellowed its annoyance. The figures of Jens and Lydia disappeared.
She pulled herself to her feet to watch the train until the last possible moment, before it vanished from sight, unaware that she was trembling or that the skin of her legs was torn to shreds.
“Jens!” she screamed. “Lydia!”
She tried to breathe. Couldn’t begin to. She’d lost everything. After all it had cost her to get this far, now when her life was ready to start again, she had lost it all. Automatically, she began to run. She would damn well run all the way to China if she had to. Her feet pounding on the ground, she stumbled again, but she caught herself and this time kept going. Thoughts rushed through her head. They had each other. Jens and Lydia. They’d be together. Together forever. Safe.
Her lungs began to hurt and she became aware of where she was, alone in the middle of nowhere. She had nothing except the certain knowledge: that Jens and Lydia were together, that they would take care of each other. It held her on her feet.
But the pain of being without them was killing her. Still she ran and ran and ran, and just when a ragged black shadow began to slide in around the edges of her vision, she saw in the distance the end of the train again. She blinked. It was still there, not moving on the line, gray smoke belching once more into the sky.
She ran. It came closer, closer, her heart thundering in her chest. She reached the end wagon, but still it didn’t move, shuddering impatiently on the track. She reached the second wagon, lungs bursting, the first. Then the ladder. She grasped it tight. Nothing happened; the train remained still. Tentatively, she slid herself farther along until she made a sudden dash to the engine itself.
Standing there, with a gun to the head of the driver, was Jens. He smiled at her. “You took your time getting here,” he said.
Kate Furnivall
