Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  He ate, he slept, he dreamed. And finally, after five nights and four days, the train chugged into the terminal at Odessa. The same check at the ticket barrier, but his papers were all in order and the guard barely gave Wladek a second look. Now he was on his own. He still had 150 rubles in the lining of his sleeve, and no intention of wasting any of them.

  Wladek spent the rest of the day walking around the town trying to familiarize himself with its geography, but he found he was continually distracted by sights he had never seen before: big town houses, shops with windows, hawkers selling their colorful trinkets on the street, gaslights, and even a monkey on a stick. Wladek walked on until he reached the harbor and the open sea beyond it. Yes, there it was—what the Baron had called a sea. Wladek gazed longingly into the blue expanse: that way lay freedom and escape from Russia. The city must have seen its fair share of fighting: burned-out houses and squalor were all too evident, grotesque in the mild, flower-scented sea air. Wladek wondered whether the city was still at war. There was no one he could ask. As the sun disappeared behind the high buildings, he began to look for somewhere to spend the night. Wladek took a side road and kept walking; he must have seemed a strange sight with his sheepskin coat practically dragging along the ground and the brown paper parcel under his arm. Nothing looked safe to him until he came across a railway siding in which a solitary old railroad car stood in isolation. He stared into it cautiously: darkness and silence; no one was there. He threw his paper parcel into the carriage, raised his tired body up onto the boards, crawled into a corner and lay down to sleep. As his head touched the wooden floor, a body leaped on top of him and two hands were quickly around his throat. He could barely breathe.

  “Who are you?” growled the voice of a boy who, in the darkness, sounded no older than himself.

  “Wladek Koskiewicz.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Moscow.” Slonim had been on the tip of Wladek’s tongue.

  “Well, you’re not sleeping in my carriage, Muscovite,” said the voice.

  “Sorry,” said Wladek. “I didn’t know.”

  “Got any money?” His thumbs pressed into Wladek’s throat.

  “A little,” said Wladek.

  “How much?”

  “Seven rubles.”

  “Hand it over.”

  Wladek rummaged in the pocket of his overcoat, while the boy also pushed one hand firmly into it, releasing the pressure on Wladek’s throat.

  In one moment, Wladek brought his knee into the boy’s crotch with every ounce of force he could muster. His attacker flew back in agony, clutching his groin. Wladek leaped on him, hitting out at him fiercely. The advantage had suddenly changed. He was no competition for Wladek; sleeping in a derelict railroad car was five-star luxury compared to living in the dungeons and a Russian labor camp.

  Wladek stopped only when his adversary was pinned to the car floor, helpless. The boy pleaded with Wladek.

  “Go to the far end of the car and stay there,” said Wladek. “If you so much as move a muscle, I’ll kill you.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the boy, scrambling away.

  Wladek heard him hit the far end of the car. He sat still and listened for a few moments—no movement—then he lowered his head once more to the floor and in moments he was sleeping soundly.

  When he awoke, the sun was already shining through between the boards of the car. He turned over and glanced at his adversary of the previous night for the first time. He was lying in a fetal position, still asleep at the other end of the car.

  “Come here,” commanded Wladek.

  The boy awakened slowly.

  “Come here,” repeated Wladek, a little more loudly.

  The boy obeyed immediately. It was the first chance Wladek had had to look at him properly. They were about the same age, but the boy was a clear foot taller, with a younger-looking face and fair scruffy hair.

  “First things first,” said Wladek. “How does one get something to eat?”

  “Follow me,” said the boy, and he leaped out of the car. Wladek limped after him, following him up the hill into the town, where the morning market was being set up. He had not seen so much wholesome food since those magnificent dinners with the Baron. Row upon row of stalls with fruit, vegetables, greens and even his favorite nuts. The boy could see that Wladek was overwhelmed by the sight.

  “Now I’ll tell you what we do,” the boy said, sounding confident for the first time. “I will go over to the corner stall and steal an orange and then make a run for it. You will shout at the top of your voice ‘Stop thief!’ The stallkeeper will chase me and when he does, you move in and fill your pockets. Don’t be greedy; enough for one meal. Then you return here. Got it?”

  “Yes, I think so,” said Wladek.

  “Let’s see if you’re up to it, Muscovite.” The boy looked at him, snarled and was gone. Wladek watched him in admiration as he swaggered to the corner of the first market stall, removed an orange from the top of a pyramid, made a short unheard remark to the stallkeeper and started to run slowly. He glanced back at Wladek, who had entirely forgotten to shout “Stop thief,” but then the stall owner looked up and began to chase the boy. While everyone’s eyes were on Wladek’s accomplice, he moved in quickly and managed to take three oranges, an apple and a potato and put them in the large pockets of his overcoat. When the stallkeeper looked as if he was about to catch Wladek’s accomplice, the boy lobbed the orange back at him. The man stopped to pick it up and swore at him, waving his fist, complaining vociferously to the other merchants as he returned to his stall.

  Wladek was shaking with mirth as he took in the scene when a hand was placed firmly on his shoulder. He turned around in the horror of having been caught.

  “Did you get anything, Muscovite, or are you only here as a sightseer?”

  Wladek burst out laughing with relief and produced the three oranges, the apple and the potato. The boy joined in the laughter.

  “What’s your name?” said Wladek.

  “Stefan.”

  “Let’s do it again, Stefan.”

  “Hold on, Muscovite; don’t you start getting too clever. If we do it again, we’ll have to go to the other end of the market and wait for at least an hour. You’re working with a professional, but don’t imagine you won’t get caught occasionally.”

  The two boys went quietly through to the other end of the market, Stefan walking with a swagger for which Wladek would have traded the three oranges, the apple, the potato and the 150 rubles. They mingled with the morning shoppers and when Stefan decided the time was right, they repeated the trick twice. Satisfied with the results, they returned to the railway car to enjoy their captured spoils: six oranges, five apples, three potatoes, a pear, several varieties of nuts and the special prize, a melon. In the past, Stefan had never had pockets big enough to hold a melon. Wladek’s greatcoat took care of that.

  “Not bad,” said Wladek as he dug his teeth into a potato.

  “Do you eat the skins as well?” asked Stefan, horrified.

  “I’ve been places where the skins are a luxury,” replied Wladek.

  Stefan looked at him with admiration.

  “Next problem is, How do we get some money?” said Wladek.

  “You want everything in one day, don’t you, oh master?” said Stefan. “Chain gang on the waterfront is the best bet, if you think you’re up to some real work, Muscovite.”

  “Show me,” said Wladek.

  After they had eaten half the fruit and hidden the rest under the straw in the corner of the railway car, Stefan took Wladek down the steps to the harbor and showed him the many ships. Wladek couldn’t believe his eyes. He had been told by the Baron of the great ships that crossed the high seas delivering their cargoes to foreign lands, but these were so much bigger than he had ever imagined, and they stood in a line as far as the eye could see.

  Stefan interrupted his thoughts. “See that one over there, the big green one? Well, what you have to do