The station was an exquisite art nouveau building on two floors, insignificant compared to New York’s Grand Central, but with a waiting room large enough to accommodate all the frozen passengers. Jack rushed to get ahead of the emigrants in front of him and settled his group on some wooden benches near the ticket office. After stacking the luggage against the wall, he looked around. The station thermometer read twenty below zero. He didn’t need to convert it to Fahrenheit to know that it was an inhuman temperature. Fortunately, the waiting room was clean, and the locals who looked at them with interest wore clothes of obvious quality, attractively made, suggesting they didn’t need to worry too much about thieves. Everything seemed new and well tended, except for the poor souls who had just disembarked. Jack adjusted his threadbare overcoat, missing the deerskin jacket he’d used in the winter in Detroit. Still, when he looked up and saw the rags that covered the Miller children, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. He sucked in air and contemplated their troubled faces. Despite the cold and the hunger, the two youngsters endured in silence. Without saying a word, Jack took off his overcoat and held it out to Mrs. Miller, who, immediately gripping it as if someone were about to snatch it from her, ran to wrap it around her children. Jack answered the woman’s expressions of gratitude with a forced smile, and moved to one end of the bench to plan his entrance into the Soviet Union.
During the voyage, he had seen that two types of emigrants traveled on board the SS Cliffwood: a handful of lucky ones who would arrive in Russia with a contract in their hands, accommodation arranged, and train tickets paid; and those left to their fate, traveling on tourist visas. But the case was different for Walter and Jack. Since their applications had been rushed through, Amtorg had given them only an authorization that they would take to the Council of the People’s Commissariat for Trade and Industry in Moscow to exchange for a proper contract. They had no transportation or hotel; they would have to make their own arrangements. The Danielses and the Millers were among the jobless families that would enter Russia as tourists, so they would travel with them until Leningrad, at least. Jack sighed. It was going to be a long and arduous journey.
He was pondering this when Walter approached to tell him that he had just held a committee meeting with his comrades in arms, as he referred to a group of American emigrants with whom he’d struck up a friendship.
“In the end, we agreed that, given your privileged situation, you could ask Hewitt for favorable treatment for all of us. You should’ve seen their faces, Jack. Even Bob Green, the Wisconsin carpenter who introduced you to his children on the ship, was saying that you were the best thing that had happened to him since they left home. I promised them you wouldn’t let them down.”
Jack swore. First it was the Danielses, then the Millers, and now the Greens. At this rate, soon he’d no longer be Jack the mechanic; he’d be Jack the Moses, leading his flock to the Promised Land.
“Walter, how could you have? You know what our situation is. Hewitt’s an industrialist who looks out for himself. And who knows what kind of arrangement he has with the Soviets?”
“Get outta here, Jack. You saved him. He’s an American like us. He can’t hang them out to dry.”
“He can’t? Like I say, you can bet he has his commitments. In fact, he’s on the way to a hospital now, Christ knows where. When these people boarded the ship, they knew what they were getting into. And anyway, most of them will get work as soon as they arrive. That’s what you’ve always said, isn’t it? That there are jobs falling from the sky. That there’s work for everyone.”
“Oh, come on, man. I’m not saying it’s absolutely necessary, but you know as well as I do that any help will be welcome. We’ll find out where he’s being treated. Hewitt has an obligation to repay you.”
Jack was silent. He looked at Walter and lowered his head. “He already has.”
“What?” Walter took off his glasses to improve his focus, as if wanting to make sure that Jack was saying what he thought he was.
“You heard me. I spoke to him before disembarking, and he offered me an assistant’s position. They were going to send the machinery that was damaged in the storm back to Dearborn, but I persuaded him that I could fix it, and now they’re going to transport it to Gorky.”
“Seriously? Well, that’s fantastic! Why didn’t you say so before? So, did you tell him about us? Did you tell him you’re traveling with two friends who would also be useful to him?”
“Of course I told him.”
“And?”
“I’m sorry, Walter. I tried, but his reply was that the position was just for me.”
“What? Who the hell does he think we are? A bunch of bums? I bet he didn’t know we were traveling with guaranteed jobs. So what did you say? God! I would have given my last dollar to see his face when you turned down his offer.” He gave a proud smile.
Jack fell silent. Then Walter saw that Jack’s face showed the same expression that his boss had adopted when he laid him off from the printer’s.
“Jack? You did turn him down, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have said yes . . .”
“I tried. I insisted he had to make the two of you an offer as well, but he said I had two choices: accept his proposal and start building a promising future for myself, or turn it down and work on an assembly line for the rest of my life.”
“But if we separate, how will Sue and I integrate? You’re the one who knows the language. The one who can help us.” Walter put his spectacles back on with such anger that he almost broke a sidepiece. “What’re we gonna do?”
“I don’t know, Walter. I don’t know how things work here. When it comes to the Soviet Union, you were always the one who had all the answers.”
Jack found a bench outside the waiting room. He felt indebted to Walter and Sue, but he didn’t know how to repay them. The two of them had gone off for a walk. Jack didn’t wish to see anybody. Some passengers who knew he spoke Russian had pestered him to translate leaflets and tickets for them, but he needed time to ponder how he could make amends with his friends. He couldn’t come up with anything, until he thought of the passengers who kept badgering him for translations. Finnish and Swedish were the languages of Finland. Signs at the ticket counter indicated a Russian-speaking and a French-speaking clerk, but none who spoke English.
He stood with purpose and checked the price of international journeys on a nearby information board. After making a few notes, he headed to a group of passengers and started to gather them around. He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse: he would buy their tickets from the Russian-speaking clerk for them, saving them the hassle of communicating in a foreign language, and he would give them a 5 percent discount on the official price for journeys to Leningrad.
“Just like that?” asked a bearded man with a doubtful expression.
“Just like that, friends. Don’t let anyone tell you we Americans don’t help one another,” he said, remembering Walter’s words.
Some were suspicious, but most agreed to it. They gave him the money, and Jack, after handing each emigrant a makeshift receipt, headed to the ticket office where, to his surprise, he saw Elizabeth Hewitt, along with a maidservant, discussing business with two Soviets.