Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  “Where are you traveling?”

  The question took Wladek by surprise. “Moscow,” he said, holding his breath.

  “So am I,” she said.

  Wladek was already regretting the isolation of the car and the information he had given, meager though it was. “Don’t talk to anyone,” the doctor had warned him. “Remember, trust nobody.”

  To Wladek’s relief the woman asked no more questions. As he began to regain his lost confidence, the ticket collector arrived. Wladek started to sweat, despite the temperature of minus 20 degrees. The collector took the woman’s ticket, tore it, gave it back to her and then turned to Wladek.

  “Ticket, comrade” was all he said in a slow, monotonous tone.

  Wladek was speechless and started thumbing around in his coat pocket for some money.

  “He’s my son,” said the woman firmly.

  The ticket collector looked back at her, once more at Wladek, and then bowed to the woman and left without another word.

  Wladek stared at her. “Thank you,” he breathed, not quite sure what else he could say.

  “I watched you come from under the prisoners’ train,” the woman remarked quietly. Wladek felt sick. “But I shall not give you away. I have a young cousin in one of those terrible camps and all of us who know about them fear that one day we might end up there. What do you have on under your coat?”

  Wladek weighed the relative merits of dashing out of the carriage and of unfastening his coat. If he dashed out, there was no place on the train where he could hide. He unfastened his coat.

  “Not as bad as I had feared,” she said. “What did you do with your prison uniform?”

  “Threw it out of the window.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t find it before you reach Moscow.”

  Wladek said nothing.

  “Do you have anywhere to stay in Moscow?”

  He thought again of the doctor’s advice to trust nobody, but he had to trust her.

  “I have nowhere to go.”

  “Then you can stay with me until you find somewhere to live. My husband is the stationmaster in Moscow, and this carriage is for government officials only,” she explained. “If you ever make that mistake again, you will be taking the train back to Irkutsk.”

  Wladek swallowed. “Should I leave now?”

  “No, not now that the ticket collector has seen you. You will be safe with me for the time being. Do you have any identity papers?”

  “No. What are they?”

  “Since the Revolution every Russian citizen must have identity papers to show who he is, where he lives and where he works; otherwise he ends up in jail until he can produce them. And as he can never produce them once in jail, he stays there forever,” she added matter-of-factly. “You will have to stay close to me once we reach Moscow, and be sure you don’t open your mouth.”

  “You are being very kind to me,” Wladek said suspiciously.

  “Now the Tsar is dead, none of us is safe. I was lucky to be married to the right man,” she added, “but there is not a citizen in Russia, including government officials, who does not live in constant fear of arrest and the camps. What is your name?”

  “Wladek.”

  “Good. Now you sleep, Wladek, because you look exhausted and the journey is long and you are not safe yet.”

  Wladek slept.

  When he awoke, several hours had passed and it was already dark outside. He stared at his protectress and she smiled. Wladek returned her smile, praying that she could be trusted not to tell the officials who he was—or had she already done so? She produced some food from one of her bundles and Wladek ate the offering silently. When they reached the next station, nearly all the passengers got out, some of them permanently and some to stretch stiff limbs, but most to seek what little refreshment was available.

  The middle-aged woman rose and looked at Wladek. “Follow me,” she said.

  He stood up and followed her onto the platform. Was he about to be turned in? She put out her hand and he took it as any thirteen-year-old child accompanying his mother would do. She walked toward a lavatory marked for women. Wladek hesitated. She insisted and once inside she told Wladek to take off his clothes. He obeyed her unquestioningly, as he hadn’t anyone since the death of the Baron. While he undressed she turned on the solitary tap, which with reluctance yielded a trickle of cold brownish water. She was disgusted. But to Wladek it was a vast improvement on the camp water. The woman started to bathe his wounds with a wet rag and attempted hopelessly to wash him. She winced when she saw the vicious wound on his leg. Wladek didn’t murmur from the pain that came with each touch, gentle as she tried to be.

  “When we get you home, I’ll make a better job of those wounds,” she said, “but this will have to do for now.”

  Then she saw the silver band, studied the inscription and looked carefully at Wladek. “Is that yours?” she asked. “Who did you steal it from?”

  Wladek looked offended. “I didn’t steal it. My father gave it to me before he died.”

  She stared at him again and a different look came into her eyes. Was it fear or respect? She bowed her head. “Be careful, Wladek. Men would kill for such a valuable prize.”

  He nodded his agreement and started to dress quickly. They returned to their carriage. A delay of an hour at a station was not unusual and when the train started lurching forward, Wladek was glad to feel the wheels clattering underneath him once again. The train took twelve and a half days to reach Moscow. Whenever a new ticket collector appeared, Wladek and the woman went through the same routine, he unconvincingly trying for the first time in his life to look innocent and young; she a convincing mother. The ticket collectors always bowed respectfully to the middle-aged lady and Wladek began to think that stationmasters must be very important in Russia.

  By the time they had completed the one-thousand-mile journey to Moscow, Wladek had put his trust completely in the woman and was looking forward to seeing her house. It was early afternoon when the train came to its final halt, and despite everything Wladek had been through, he was terrified, once again tasting the fear of the unknown. He had never visited a big city, let alone the capital of all the Russias; he had never seen so many people, all of them rushing around. The woman sensed his apprehension.

  “Follow me, do not speak and don’t take your cap off.”

  Wladek took her bags down from the rack, pulled his cap over his head—now covered in a black stubble—and down to his ears and followed her out onto the platform. A throng of people at the barrier were waiting to go through a tiny exit, the holdup created because everyone had to show identification papers to the guard. As he and the lady approached the barrier, Wladek could hear his heart beating like a soldier’s drum, but when their turn came the fear was over in a moment. The guard only glanced at the woman’s documents.

  “Comrade,” he said, and saluted. He looked at Wladek.

  “My son,” she explained.

  “Of course, comrade.” He saluted again.

  Wladek was in Moscow.

  Despite the trust he had placed in his newfound companion, Wladek’s first instinct was to run, but because 150 rubles were hardly enough to live on, he decided to bide his time—he could always run at some later opportunity. A horse and cart were waiting for them at the station and took the woman and her new son home. The stationmaster was not there when they arrived, so the woman immediately set about making up the spare bed for Wladek. Then she poured water, heated on a stove, into a large tin tub and told him to get in. It was the first bath he had had in more than four years, unless he counted the dip in the stream. She heated some more water and reintroduced him to soap, scrubbing his back. The water began to change color and after twenty minutes it was black. Once Wladek was dry, the woman put some ointment on his arms and legs and bandaged the parts of his body that looked particularly fierce. She stared at his one nipple. He dressed quickly and then joined her in the kitchen. She had already prepared a bowl of hot