Kane and Abel Read online

  One of the gamblers, who had lost a considerable amount of money, cursed and left the game when his money ran out. Wladek could feel the warmth of the man’s thick sheepskin coat as he sat down beside him.

  ‘The luck wasn’t with you,’ said Wladek.

  ‘Ah, it’s not luck,’ the gambler said. ‘Most days I could beat that lot of peasants, but I’ve run out of money.’

  ‘Do you want to sell your coat?’

  The gambler stared at Wladek.

  ‘You couldn’t afford it, boy.’ Wladek could tell from the man’s voice that he hoped he could. ‘I wouldn’t take less than seventy-five roubles.’

  ‘I’ll give you forty,’ said Wladek.

  ‘Sixty,’ said the gambler.

  ‘Fifty,’ said Wladek.

  ‘No. Sixty is the least I’d let it go for; it cost over a hundred.’

  ‘That must have been a long time ago,’ said Wladek. He didn’t want to risk taking more money from the envelope inside his sleeve, as that would draw attention to himself. He touched the collar of the coat and said, with considerable disdain, ‘You paid too much for it, my friend. Fifty roubles, not a kopeck more.’ Wladek rose as if to leave.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ said the gambler. ‘All right, I’ll let you have it for fifty.’

  Wladek took the grimy red 50-rouble note out of his pocket and exchanged it for the coat. It was far too big for him, nearly touching the ground, but it was exactly what he needed to cover his ill-fitting and conspicuous suit. For a few moments he watched the gambler, back in the game, once again losing. He had learned two lessons: never gamble when the odds are tipped against you; and always be ready to walk away from a deal once you have reached your limit.

  Wladek left the carriage, feeling a little safer, protected by his new-old coat, and began to examine the layout of the train. The carriages seemed to be in two classes, general ones in which passengers stood, or sat on wooden benches, and special ones with upholstered seats. All the carriages were packed except one of the special ones, in which, inexplicably, there sat a solitary woman. She was middle-aged and dressed more smartly than most of the other passengers. She wore a dark blue dress, and a scarf was drawn over her head. As he stood watching her hesitantly, she smiled at him, giving him the confidence to enter the compartment.

  ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Please do,’ said the woman, looking at him carefully.

  Wladek did not speak again, but when he could he studied the woman and her belongings. She had a sallow skin covered with tired lines, was a little overweight - the little one could be on Russian food. Her short black hair and brown eyes suggested she might have once been attractive. There were two large cloth bags on the overhead rack, and a small valise by her side. Despite the danger of his position, Wladek was suddenly aware of feeling desperately tired. He was just wondering if he dared to sleep, when the woman spoke.

  ‘Where are you travelling?’

  The question took him by surprise. ‘Moscow.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said.

  Wladek was already regretting the information he had given, meagre though it was. ‘Don’t talk to anyone,’ the doctor had warned him. ‘Remember, trust nobody. Everyone in Russia is a spy.’

  To Wladek’s relief the woman asked no more questions. But just as he began to regain his confidence, the ticket collector appeared. Wladek started to sweat, despite a temperature of minus 5 degrees. The collector took the woman’s ticket, clipped it, gave it back to her then turned to Wladek.

  ‘Ticket, comrade,’ he said in a slow monotone.

  Wladek started fumbling helplessly around in his coat pocket.

  ‘He’s my son,’ said the woman firmly.

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

  Wladek stared at her. ‘Thank you,’ he stammered, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘I saw you crawl from under the prisoners’ train,’ the woman remarked quietly. Wladek felt sick. ‘But don’t worry, I won’t give you away. I have a young cousin in one of those evil camps, and all of us fear that one day we might end up there.’ She looked at Wladek for some time before asking, ‘What do you have on under the coat?’

  Wladek weighed the relative merits of dashing out of the carriage or unfastening his coat. If he dashed out, there was nowhere on the train where he could hide. He unfastened his coat.

  ‘Not as bad as I feared,’ she said. ‘What did you do with your prison uniform?’

  ‘Threw it out of the window.’

  ‘Let’s hope they don’t come across it before we reach Moscow.’ Wladek said nothing. ‘Do you have anywhere to stay in Moscow?’

  He thought again about 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. 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 next train back to Irkutsk.’

  Wladek swallowed. ‘Should I leave now?’

  ‘No, not now 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 carry 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 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, no one is safe. I am lucky to be married to the right man. 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 sleep, Wladek, because you look exhausted, and the journey is long and you are not safe yet.’

  Wladek slept.

  14

  IT WAS ON a Monday in October, the weekend after they had celebrated their second wedding anniversary, that Anne started receiving the letters from an unsigned ‘friend’, informing her that Henry had been seen escorting other women around Boston, and one lady in particular, whom the writer didn’t care to name.

  To begin with, Anne burned the letters, and although they worried her, she never mentioned them to Henry, praying that each would be the last. She couldn’t even summon up the courage to raise the matter with him when he asked her to part with her last $150,000.

  ‘I’m going to lose the whole deal if I don’t have that money right away, Anne.’

  ‘But it’s all I have, Henry. If I give you any more money, I’ll be left with nothing.’

  ‘This house alone must be worth over two hundred thousand. You could mortgage it tomorrow.’

  ‘The house belongs to William.’

  ‘William, William, William. It’s always William who gets in the way of my success,’ shouted Henry as he stormed out of the room.

  He returned home after midnight, contrite, and told her he would rather she kept her money and he went under. At least that way they would still have each other. Anne was comforted by his words, and later they made love. She signed a cheque for $150,000 the next morning, trying to forget that it would leave her penniless until Henry pulled off his deal of a lifetime. She couldn’t help wondering if it was more than a coincidence that he had asked for the exact amount that remained of her inheritance.

  The following month Anne missed her period.

  Dr MacKenzie was anxious, but tried not to show it; the grandmothers were horrified, and did; Henry was delighted and assured Anne it was the most wonderful thing that had happened to him in his whole life. He even agreed to build the new children’s wing for the hospital, which Rich