Читать книгу The Lieutenant’s Lover - Harry Bingham - Страница 19

Tonya told Misha of Rodyon’s visit. She didn’t tell him about the first part of what he’d had to say, nor the last part either. But she told him about the decrees, the awful fact of impending banishment.

Misha had listened in silence, then nodded thoughtfully.

‘I’d expected something like that,’ he said, ‘only I’d hoped it wouldn’t come so soon. All the same, there’s no reason to change plans. We’ll just have to work a little faster.’

And work they did. Misha barely slept for working. He finished building a false wall into the back of one of the grain hoppers and got three of the six wagons workable. He couldn’t do more.

Nor was Tonya idle.

It was one thing to build a false wall onto the back of a freight car, it was quite another thing to get that freight car onto the right train on the right line at the right time. After consulting intensively together, Misha and Tonya agreed that it was essential to take Kiryl at least partly into their confidence. The old man was utterly untrustworthy in most respects, but there was little he wouldn’t do for vodka, and Tonya promised him enough to swim in. Somehow, Kiryl used his railway contacts to attach the wagon to a train bound for Finland. A date was set – then postponed – then set again.

And finally, things were ready. The train would leave at first light, which meant that it would be loaded overnight. Emma, Yevgeny, Tonya and Misha stood in the corner of the freight yard, watching the process.

A locomotive stood at the head of a long line of grain hoppers, moving the wagons forward in short eight-yard bursts, letting each one fill with grain from the loading chute. It was past midnight and the process was accompanied by flares of lamplight, whistles, and the occasional thundering curse. The short season of white nights had passed. The night was dark.

Misha’s wagon was near the back of the line, but the line kept moving forwards. It was time.

‘Well then,’ said Emma.

‘You’ve got the blankets?’

‘Yes. And the cushions are already inside.’

‘Good.’

Emma had a basket in her hands: food and water enough for three days, plenty of soft wax for earplugs, a candle stub and matches, enough jewellery to bribe any number of border guards. The crucial bank documents, which represented the family’s future worth in the new world, were sewn into the lining of Emma’s travelling jacket. Yevgeny, absurdly dressed in a neat blue sailor suit, stood wide-eyed with tiredness, looking at each of the three adults in turn.

Up ahead the locomotive jolted forwards. Misha reached out instinctively to pull Yevgeny away from the moving train, then kept his arm around him as they walked the eight yards on to their wagon. The sound of the grain chute was louder now. The farewells could no longer be put off.

Misha climbed into the wagon first, hoisted Yevgeny after him, then watched Emma and Tonya climb in as well. Though from the outside the wagon looked the same as all the rest, and would do even in full daylight, the inside was different. Alone in the repairs yard, working mostly by night, Misha had welded a compartment that lay up against the sloping rear of the wagon. Access into the little space was via a sliding panel which would be completely concealed when the grain was loaded. At the top of the compartment Misha had fixed a grating to provide air, but a plate had been fixed so that nobody could look down through the grating to what lay beneath. The whole thing had been made to took like a permanent feature, inconspicuous. The compartment would be cramped, noisy, sweaty, dirty and uncomfortable. But it would be roomy enough for two people to get from Petrograd to Finland in safety.

Misha slid back the steel panel. It clanked loudly, but the night air was full of clanks and bangs. No one was around, either to notice or care. The compartment yawned darkly open in the lantern’s light. The only minuscule concessions to comfort were two low metal benches, little more than sixteen inches wide, and a metal bucket with drainage holes drilled through to the bottom of the wagon. The bucket would be their toilet for the duration of the journey.

‘Very well then,’ said Emma, rubbing her hands together as though needing to keep warm. ‘Right then.’

To Misha’s surprise, the prospect of escape had revitalised his mother’s long dormant practical streak. It had been she who, without prompting, had opened the lining of her jacket to take the documents that Misha had given her. She had been surprisingly astute and accurate in understanding and assessing the value of the various bonds and stock certificates. She had been brisk and matter of fact about provisioning herself for the coming journey. She had even, to Misha’s delight, allowed herself to acknowledge Tonya for what she was – her son’s beloved – and had made her feel welcome in their apartment, with a kind of courtly, dilapidated grace.

Misha nodded. ‘Right then,’ he smiled.

He embraced his mother. He felt a surge of love for her. He felt himself, every inch, his mother’s child. He bent his head down and let her cradle it against her shoulder as she had done years ago. Then they embraced again in the normal way. Her eyes and his were blurry with tears.

‘Take care, Mother.’

‘I will.’

‘I know.’

‘Come with us, Misha. You still can.’

Misha smiled and shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine.’ Behind him he felt pressure from Tonya’s hand on his back. ‘Go,’ she whispered. He could hardly hear her over the noise of the grain chute, closer now than ever. He didn’t even bother to shake his head. Picking up Yevgeny, he hugged him once, then eased him through the open panel into the claustrophobic metal compartment.

‘Farewell, little man.’

The boy nodded, but was too overcome to say or do anything more.

‘Mother.’

Emma was about to make a movement, when the train jerked forward again, and they all steadied themselves until it stopped. Then Emma simply smiled and kissed Misha on the lips. ‘You are a good boy.’ She climbed into the compartment, her basket on her lap, and began to arrange their blankets and cushions for Yevgeny’s comfort.

Tonya came close to Misha.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘I’ll follow when I can.’

It wasn’t a new suggestion. Since Rodyon’s visit to her apartment, she’d felt more strongly with each passing day that Misha needed to leave. The country wasn’t safe for Misha, and was getting less safe with every month. He ought to go. She felt it in her bones. But though she’d argued with him, pleaded with him, stormed at him, cajoled him, he’d been as stubborn as a rock. ‘Things’ll get better,’ he said. ‘Look at the French Revolution. That was bad for a few years, then it blew itself out. It’ll be the same here. It’s only a question of waiting and being careful.’

Tonya knew he was wrong. What did he know of such things? All his life, he’d been rich, privileged, cocooned, lucky. She hadn’t. She knew about hardship. She had seen her mother die, and her brother Pavel almost die, from typhus. She knew things didn’t always turn out for the best; that for the unlucky ones at the bottom of the pile, they hardly ever did.

‘Go,’ she said again. ‘Please. I’ll follow when I can. Babba won’t be around for ever. Pavel is growing up. I can’t leave them now, but…’

He shook his head. This was a dispute they’d had a dozen times over the last week. Their positions had become locked and irreconcilable. It was the closest they’d yet come to a proper argument. The two of them waited together in unhappy silence while his mother arranged herself in the little metal compartment. Then Emma smiled, took Yevgeny onto her lap, and signalled that she was ready.

‘Good luck, Mother.’

‘Good luck yourself.’

Misha reached in, clasped her hand, then stood back and slid the panel closed. The compartment already looked like nothing now: part of the wagon, nothing more. Tonya said something to Emma from outside, but no answer was audible.

The train moved forwards once more. It was about twenty-five or thirty wagons long, and the first dozen or so were already filled. The grain chute itself was lit up and there was a man in the wooden observation kiosk under the chute itself. Misha and Tonya kept back to avoid being seen, but waited long enough to see that their wagon was filled like all the rest. They saw the grain, grey and colourless in the poor light, flood the wagon, then stop. Nobody noticed anything. The train moved on.

Right or wrong, there was no going back.