For an archivist, said Korin, and especially for a head-archivist-in-waiting such as him, there were a great many fields to master, but he can tell them one thing, that no archivist, not even a head-archivist-in-waiting, such as, in fact, he was in all but name, was in possession of essential information regarding the practicalities of travel on the buffers car or caboose of freight trains, and that was why, when in deciding that the nature of his permanently fugitive status was such that he couldn’t trust to buses, passenger trains, or even to the exigencies of hitchhiking, for a person committed to “any route that was fixed and might be inspected at any point” was vulnerable to discovery, identification, and easy arrest, he had set out on this veritably terrifying Calvary, and just imagine what it was like, said Korin, for someone who, as they already knew, had been used to restricting his movements to the four fixed points of his personal compass, to wit his apartment, the pub, the archive and, let us say, the nearest shop, and had never — he wasn’t exaggerating — really never, not even for an hour, ventured beyond them, and now suddenly found himself off limits, in the deserted, wholly unfamiliar back end of some railway yard, stumbling over tracks, balancing on crossties, keeping an eye on signals and points, ready to dive into a ditch or behind a bush at the first sight of a train or a rail-yard employee, for that’s how it was, rails, crossties, signals, points, being constantly prepared to throw himself on the ground, and, right from the start, to leap on or off a moving car, while being in a permanent state of anxiety that extended over the whole two hundred and twenty kilometers of the journey, anxiety in case he was spotted by a night watchman, a stationmaster or someone checking the brakes or axles, a terrible experience on the whole, he said, even having got so far, knowing how much was behind him; bad even to think of having undertaken such a journey, for he couldn’t say what was the most exhausting, most embittering part of it, the cold that ate into your bones in the caboose or the fact that he had no idea where he could or dared to sleep, for the space was so narrow that he had no room to stretch his legs and consequently had constantly to be standing up and lying down, then standing up again, a process which naturally drained him, not to mention the other privations, for example having nothing but biscuits, chocolates or coffee at railway cafés for sustenance after two days of which he was permanently nauseous, and so you see, he told the seven children, the whole thing, believe me, was shit-awful, not only the cold and lack of sleep, not just the stiff leg or the nausea, no, for even when they had eased off somewhat and everything was generally fine there remained the perpetual anxiety every time the train departed for whatever perfectly appropriate destination was announced on the boards of the engine, that by the time they passed through it, leaving the town or village behind, be that place Békéscsaba, Mezõberény, Gyoma or Szajol, he immediately lost confidence and that uncertainty grew in him mile by mile so that pretty soon he was on the point of leaping off and boarding a train in the opposite direction, though he hadn’t ever actually done that, for, he said, he would invariably decide that there was more choice at a major stop, and then would immediately regret his decision not to leap when there was still time but to stay on, at which point he would feel utterly lost and have to remain on full alert in case the journey took him into still more dangerous territory where anyone might come along — railway workers, night watchmen, engine-drivers, or whoever — for that would really be the end of everything, and then he would have to leap from the car into any cover that might be on offer, whether that was a ditch, a building or some shrubbery and that was precisely how he came to be here, said Korin, how he arrived, frozen through, desperate for food, for something salty preferably, or actually not too salty, but in any case, if they didn’t mind, he would happily move on now and get into the city center for he urgently needed to find some shelter for the night until the MALÉV airline ticket-office opened the next morning.
It was remarkable that the chosen stone, which was about the size of a child’s fist, had succeeded at the first attempt in shattering one of the windows, so that they could not only hear it over the clattering of the train but see it too, as one of the many speeding panes of glass broke in a fraction of a second into a thousand tiny splinters and shards, for the train had arrived, as they explained the next day, a few minutes late, they said, but they attacked it as soon as it appeared, rushing down the embankment to the prearranged cover, and as soon as the train hove into sight they leapt into action, firing, three of them with slingshots, three with regular ones, one with only his bare hands, but all coordinated in attack formation, firing, peppering the six forty-eight, so that a window in the first carriage was immediately blown to pieces, not that they were satisfied with that alone but launched a second wave of attacks and had only to watch out for the possible shriek of the emergency brakes, though that was something they had to devote intense attention to in order to make an on-the-spot assessment as to whether the brakes had been applied or not, and no, they hadn’t, because there was not a squeal that might signal its possible application, for there was probably overwhelming panic up there by the window where people had been sitting and the whole thing, difficult as it was to figure, they said as they gave a detailed account of the affair in front of the Bingo Bar, was the work of less than a minute, no more perhaps than twenty seconds, or maybe even less, they added, since it’s really tough to be precise about it, though one thing was certain, which was that they were, all of them, on full alert, as they had to be, listening out for the possible application of the emergency brakes, but since there was no evidence of that in that certain twenty seconds or so, they tried a second volley, and they could hear its effect, that it struck the carriages on the side with terrific force, with a loud ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, to show that one of the last volleys had once more reached its target, that another window had been smashed, for they could hear it as the train roared by at terrific speed, making a terrific racket as the glass shattered, though later, when they sized it all up, that is to say once they had withdrawn to a safe distance and, in their own fashion, with ever greater elation, considered the matter in detail, the general feeling was that the second direct hit must have been on the mail car, whereas the first, and their voices broke with excitement at this, was a perfect bull’s-eye, a word they kept repeating, going round and round in circles like a finger tickling a sensitive spot, repeating the words, passing them on, one to the other, so that by the end they were all choking, gagging, gurgling, helplessly rolling on the ground with lunatic laughter, a laughter that, once it had possessed them, would not let go now, and had gripped them in the past, so they kept exclaiming, bull’s-eye! all the while clapping each other on the shoulder and hitting each other, repeating: bull’s-eye! fuck it all! what about that then! what do you say to that, you prick! you prick! you prick! wrestling and pounding each other, crying, bull’s-eye! until they were exhausted, at a safe distance from the scene of the crime, from the surmise that they had actually killed someone, without Korin suspecting any of this of course, for he wasn’t even sure what happened to the seven children once they had suddenly leapt up and disappeared from the bridge, disappeared like camphor, as if they had never been there at all, all seven of them, all seven storming off into eternity, at which point he too took off, not glancing back, simply running in the opposite direction, anywhere to be away from the place, with but one thought pounding through his head, to be away, away, as far as possible from here, his chest shaking with the single urge, his one imperative in his great haste not to miss the route into town, for that was the point after all, to reach central Budapest and find some place where he could shelter for the night, warm himself, and perhaps get a bite to eat, but, failing that, to find some accommodation, some free accommodation, for he couldn’t spare the money not knowing how much the ticket next day would cost him, as he explained at the MALÉV office, for all he wanted was some place where he would be left in peace, that was all he desired when, quite unexpectedly, he found his way free again, the children suddenly having disappeared, without explanation, without a word, while he, with his stiff leg, no longer clutching the wound that had stopped bleeding, seized the unhoped-for chance of escape, running and running until he could run no more, getting ever closer to the denser lights up ahead, slowing to a walk in his exhaustion, utterly drained by the terror he had just endured, so that he no longer cared what people said to him, and frankly he no longer gave a damn whether he ran into his pursuers or not, but stared directly in the eyes of those going the opposite way, confronting them in mid-gaze, seeking the one man that he, in his hungry, spent condition, might find it worth his while to address.