Over the minutes the earth began shaking under my feet and I saw the great length of the train cutting into the snowscape, its lights brightening until I could make out the separate carriages. When I turned round I saw that two of the flares had burned out and a third was guttering, but the signal was still at red and for a moment I watched it, and then looked back at the train as it began slowing.
It was already nearing the bridge and I heard the steam shutting down and the brake-shoes clamping against the wheels as a short blast came from the whistle. Ten seconds later the locomotive passed me and I turned my back on the wave of air and smoke as it swept the surface snow from the bridge and whirled it away in clouds. I couldn’t see the signal any more but the brakes were still on and the carriages passing so slowly now that I could see people’s faces in the dim yellowish light. The guard’s van was across the bridge and I stayed in cover, seeing one of the army trucks coming back along the service road, its headlamps dipping and lifting over the bumps. The signal was still at red and a minute later the train rolled to a stop, with faces coming to the windows to peer at the flares.
A guard swung down from the rear van, bringing a lantern, and from farther along the train a man called to him. In the headlights of an army truck I could see one of the locomotive crew coming down from the foot plate He went forward along the track, looking around him and then turning back as an officer shouted to him. I couldn’t hear what was said.
I began looking for Gorodok.
Two more transports were moving back in this direction, their headlights making a glare below the embankment, and I moved deeper into the cover of the bridge. Two people were dropping from the train about half-way along, to stand looking around them. There were only three flares still burning now, and the signal was still at red. More passengers were getting down to see what was happening: from Tashkent to Yelingrad is a thousand miles and there are only two stops, at Frunze and Alma Ata; passengers are glad enough to get out and stretch their legs, even at the risk of freezing. A score of people were wandering along the edge of the track, clumping their feet in the snow and pointing to the military convoy below them.
I moved to the other side of the bridge: Gorodok would have a better chance to break for cover there, unless he decided to mingle with the passengers and soldiers before melting into the half-dark. I could see a dozen people on this side, two of them walking at a distance from the train before a guard called them back.
There was nothing I could do for the courier: I couldn’t recognize him and I couldn’t break cover to go and meet him. The rdv was for the south end of the Litsky Bridge and this was where he had to come. A group of passengers had started walking alongside the train, three or four of them stooping to make snowballs and throwing them at the others: they looked like a party of young people, and a guard was going along to bring them back. Two soldiers were on this side now, with an officer, and the guard went up and spoke to him, gesturing at the passengers who were wandering about.
I watched for Gorodok, for one man on the move by himself.
There was no one.
It was the guard at the rear who saw the signal change to green, and he at once blew his whistle, climbing to the step of the van and swinging his lantern. Shouting started along the train and another whistle blew. Some of the groups broke up and began hurrying in a single line alongside the carriages and it was then that I saw a man move away from the people on the service-road side of the train and duck below it, coming out on the other side and beginning to hurry. Someone shouted — one of the soldiers, I thought at first — but he didn’t stop or turn round. A transport still had its lights on and there was a glare below the train, with silhouettes and shadows intermingling, so that I couldn’t see clearly what was going on.
Farther to the right of the bridge was a mass of low scrub, humped under the snow, and the man seemed to be heading for it now as he passed a group of passengers and veered to his left, breaking into a trot. There was another shout but I couldn’t tell where it came from: the guards were trying to get everyone back on board and their whistles were still blowing. The last flare had gone out and the signal was still at green.
The man broke away now and began running harder, stumbling through the snow and falling once, then getting up and going on until the first shot cracked and the whole scene froze, with people standing perfectly still, their heads turned to watch the running man. The shot had only checked him and he was going hard now with his legs splaying out as he tried to keep his footing on the snow, his coat open and napping and his hands out in case he went down. When the second shot came I saw who was firing: a man in a dark coat hanging on to a rail at the side of the train, aiming his pistol high and shouting to Gorodok before he fired again.
Two other men were breaking away from the train and going in pursuit, shouting for the fugitive to stop, but they hadn’t gone very far before I saw a rifle swing up and bang out a shot aimed low at Gorodok — and now I could see what was happening, and what was going to happen: the civilian in the dark coat was either an escort or a surveillance agent and he knew who the running man was. The soldier was some peasant trained to handle firearms and he’d decided to get himself a tin medal and feel the thrill of taking a life, and when a second soldier brought his rifle up and loosed off a round it was because he was excited: there were officials shouting and the hunt was up and they couldn’t get their prey and the military was here and must not be found unequal to its proud duty, so forth, and there was nothing anyone could do about it now because it was like a fire taking hold as three more soldiers jostled into line and went down on one knee and brought their rifles to the aim and put out a fusillade of shots and reloaded, taking their time.
Smith, Jones, Robinson, Brown, his name didn’t matter: he was a man running in the night, one of the countless men who must one day, for their own reasons, run from what they have done or from what they have been or from the life they have made for themselves, and made badly, so that eventually it will turn on them and hound them to their death.
Another fusillade and he pitched over with his coat flapping like a wing and one hand going up as if he wanted to signal something to us all as he fell and the snow covered him.
Chapter Fifteen: KIRINSKI
The little man stood at the top of the monument with snow on his head and his mouth in a shout and his fist raised, for a moment bearing aloft the great red disc of the sun as it travelled through the noon, low in the south. The early fog still lay across the city, half covering the nearer buildings and making them look insubstantial, as if the little man were shouting that the show was over and the scenery must go.
There was nobody else in the park.
Ten minutes ago a dog had come racing through the lean dark trunks of the trees, following some scent and then losing it and looking around in frustration before it pissed against a tree and trotted along the soot-black railings and disappeared, a clown too late for an audience. A clock chimed, then another, their notes muffled in the chill. The scene was a steel engraving, snow-white and frost-grey and silvered by the light in the sky, with only the deep red sun for colour. Everything was frozen: the trees were made of ice and looked as if they’d snap off if you shook them.
He came punctually and I moved my head to watch the three entrances to the park where the open gates made gaps I in the railings and the hedge. The streets were hidden except in these three places; I couldn’t see any vehicles out there, or anyone walking. Twice in the last half hour I’d heard a bus go past on the other side of the long north fence, the second one stopping not far from where I was standing now. This was a few minutes before he’d come into the park, his black fur hat set straight on his head and his hands dug into the pockets of his short paramilitary jacket. He walked fast, leaning backwards slightly with his black knee-boots kicking up the snow, his thin pointed face turning to left and right as if, like the dog, he’d lost his way.