Dawn was breaking, and through the misted windows, Jack could make out the snowy fields of the former Saint Petersburg. When he wiped the glass, he discovered that the landscape was much like his father had described it to him as a child: clean, virgin countryside, as if freshly painted white, dotted with the occasional dacha, its little garden populated with fir trees, its chimney speckling the sky with smoke. Yet, as the train approached Finlyandsky Station, dark concrete buildings began to appear, one after the other. Konstantin called them the workers’ beehives.
“And soon you’ll be the bees that live in them.”
10
On the platform of Leningrad’s Finlyandsky Station, the passengers said their first farewells. Some of the Americans traveling with contracts with the Leningradsky Metallichesky Zavod had spread the rumor that the giant foundry on the banks of the Neva needed extra manpower, and the Millers had decided to end their journey here and try their luck in the former Saint Petersburg. Walter and Sue wished them well. Jack, shivering with cold and busy trying to find the fastest and cheapest way to travel to Moscow, waved to them from a distance.
On the way to the ticket office, he noted the two impressive banners hanging from the station fa?ade, depicting Stalin and Lenin as mythological heroes. They made quite a contrast with the cracked walls, which, like the rest of the building, seemed to be falling to pieces. Yet what worried him most were the dozens of ragged peasants roaming around and looking lost, some with bare feet covered in filth so caked on, it was impossible to guess the true color of their skin.
Jack was finding it difficult to believe that the Soviet Union, proclaiming itself to be the nation of plenty, where there was no shortage of bread or work, was the same country he saw in front of him, like an old photograph yellowed by time. He turned his head to take in the beggars, workers, and peasants who milled around outside. He didn’t see a single taxi or motor vehicle of any kind. Not even a motorcycle. Nothing that might be associated with progress. Just people on foot, an old tram, and horse-drawn carriages on the snow-covered paving.
He was about to inquire about tickets, when someone grabbed his arm. Turning, he found Konstantin, visibly panicked.
“Have you seen my son Nikolai?” he asked frantically.
“No, I haven’t. The last time I saw him was with you on the platform. What is it?”
“The little devil! He disappeared when we were unloading the chickens, and now we can’t find him.”
Jack looked around. In a corner, he saw a uniformed man standing guard. “Have you asked that policeman?”
“Ask a member of the OGPU for help?” He spat in disgust. “That guy would grill me with a thousand questions before moving a muscle. You have no idea how things work here, do you? A life’s worth nothing here. If anything happens to Nikolai . . .”
Jack felt for the peasant farmer. He still didn’t understand why Konstantin wouldn’t ask the police for assistance, but he offered to help anyway.
“Let’s separate,” Konstantin suggested. “You stay with Olga and search the station, and I’ll go outside to check the surrounding area. We will meet up in fifteen minutes by the carriages.”
Jack nodded, and the Russian rushed outside. Then Jack informed Walter of his intentions and suggested to Olga that she watch the concourse while he searched the platforms.
He climbed onto several stationary trains, running down their corridors in case the little boy was trying to return to the compartment in which they’d arrived, but inside he found only workers and peasants. He ran back to the platform and searched under the railcars, then checked the public restroom, the cafeteria, and the barbershop.
He stopped to get his breath. There was no sign of Nikolai. It was as if the earth had swallowed him up and filled the hole with concrete.
He was about to return to the concourse, when he glimpsed a small child, crouching over a man laid out on the ground, half hidden near the freight platform. The boy was Nikolai. Jack’s heart raced. He headed toward the youngster, seeing his hands dip into the man’s overcoat and extract something that he stuffed into his little leather bag. Jack quickened his pace, not knowing what was happening. He stumbled across the tangle of tracks, yelling Nikolai’s name. He was one track from reaching him when from behind a car emerged the policeman he’d seen on the concourse. In a flash, the officer grabbed Nikolai and pulled him away from the man on the ground.
He prayed that the little boy was unharmed. However, as he approached the policeman, he was shocked to realize that the man on the ground was in fact a frozen corpse.
He was going to thank the policeman for his help, when the officer aimed a pistol at him.
“Are you this boy’s father?” he yelled.
“Relax. Please, lower your weapon. I’m a friend of the family. I was actually—”
Without letting him finish, the OGPU officer grabbed the leather bag hanging from Nikolai’s neck, tugged it off, and pulled out a document.
“The boy was stealing from a dead body, and he’ll be arrested,” he said, looking at the child without pity.
Jack was perplexed. He didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t understand how, rather than investigating the circumstances around the man’s death, the policeman was more concerned with arresting a child. He looked at Nikolai’s contrite expression. The officer was holding him in his arms like a trophy. He was about to object to the policeman’s behavior, when he noticed Konstantin, hidden behind a pillar. He had no idea why he was hiding, but he guessed there must be a powerful reason. He tried to improvise. “Officer, I don’t mean to question what you’re saying, but how can you be so sure that the boy was robbing that poor man? I was at the same distance as you, and to me it looked like he was feeling the heart to see if there was a pulse.”
The policeman put Nikolai down and holstered his gun, but when the boy tried to run toward Jack, he grabbed him by the arm, shaking him like a doll. “Oh, sure. So I suppose this ration book in the name of”—he took out the document from Nikolai’s bag, read it, and showed it to Jack—“Leonard Kerensky, I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s a death certificate issued by the kid, eh?”
Jack contemplated the document while the officer bragged about his successes catching petty thieves specializing in ration books stolen from the starved or the frozen-to-death. It became clear that it might not have been the first time Nikolai had done something similar. At any rate, his chances of proving the police officer wrong had been reduced to zero. Jack pursed his lips. He looked back at Konstantin, but the Russian was motionless behind the pillar, like a startled deer. He was about to give up trying to defend Nikolai, when an idea came to him. He fixed his eyes on the policeman’s and hardened his expression.
“The dead man’s not Leonard Kerensky. I’m Leonard Kerensky. The boy must have taken my ration book to play with.”
The police officer looked at him with disbelief. Jack’s American clothes, not to mention his foreign accent, wouldn’t have fooled a blind man.
“Kerensky . . . You’re Leonard Kerensky, you say.” He looked at the ration book again, then at the frozen dead body at his feet.
“That’s right.”