“Excellent. In that case, tell me, how is it possible that your ration book states that you’re seventy-five years old?” He smiled.
Jack cleared his throat. But he was prepared. “Because that’s my age,” he assured the officer. “And here’s the document that proves it.” He dipped a hand into his jacket’s inside pocket, rummaged around, and finally held out an envelope containing the letter of recommendation from Amtorg.
“Oh! American . . . ,” said the policeman, feigning surprise, and he unfolded the letter that Jack had just handed him. “Recommended by the Soviet agency to perform essential work at the Gorky manufacturing plant,” he read.
Jack hoped the information would make the policeman have second thoughts. Suddenly, the officer raised an eyebrow. In the envelope, under the letter, was a ten-dollar bill.
“Do you know the penalty for trying to corrupt a police officer?”
“I’d rather not find out.” At that, Jack took out another ten dollars and inserted the bill under the letter that the policeman was holding. “It’s very cold out here.” He looked at the frost-covered tracks. “You could buy yourself a new pair of boots with that,” he added, pointing at the worn regulation footwear out of which the policeman’s toes were poking.
The officer looked from side to side, took Jack’s money, and stuffed it in his jacket.
“What did you say your relationship was to this little piece of work?” asked the policeman as he looked Jack up and down.
“Friend of the family,” he repeated.
“Well, that family should teach the boy that using illegal ration books is considered a crime against state property, and it’s punishable with ten years’ hard labor.”
“Of course. However, you’ll agree that the kid hasn’t used the book illegally. All he did was pick it up, in all likelihood to return it to the authorities.”
The policeman fixed his eyes on Jack again, before finally nodding his head. He was about to go when, without warning, he stopped.
“Take them off,” the officer ordered.
“What?” Jack didn’t understand.
“Your shoes. It’s true. It’s very cold out here.”
Jack obeyed. He took off the pair of shoes that his father had made for him shortly before his death, and handed them to the policeman. He felt the stones freezing his feet. Fortunately, the police officer took off what remained of his own boots and gave them to Jack.
“One more thing.”
“Yes?” asked Jack as he pulled on the tattered boots.
“Don’t try that trick on anyone else.” He patted the place where he’d stashed the dollars. “You’ll probably be shot.”
Konstantin embraced Jack again and again, nearly asphyxiating him.
“Leave something for Nikolai,” the American said with a smile.
On the way back to the concourse, Konstantin confessed to him that some time ago he had been involved in a serious altercation with the same corrupt officer. “A real son of a bitch,” he spat out. “He was a miner before joining the party and working for the OGPU, the government’s secret police. They assigned him to the public market, where the Organization paid him a bribe to turn a blind eye to their backstairs activities.”
“The Organization?”
“You know . . . friends who help one another mutually. You don’t think a smuggler could survive in a country like this operating alone, do you? Here, without blat, you have nothing to fall back on,” he clarified. Konstantin explained that the Organization had provided him with the false passports that he and his family used to cross the border from time to time. “We say we’re visiting sick relatives so we can arrange for the goods to be sent. Thanks to blat, we can cross the border no problem,” he added.
“And what were you saying about the corrupt policeman?”
“Ah yes! That bastard started demanding bigger and bigger bribes, without realizing that the Organization also had his immediate superior on the payroll. One day they demoted him without explanation and sent him to patrol this station. I’d already had an altercation with him at the market, and he blamed me for what happened. If I’d intervened when he caught Nikolai, he would’ve arrested me and jeopardized the Organization’s entire distribution system.”
“But he was your son—”
“Of course. And I promise you that if you hadn’t resolved it, I would have stepped in.” He opened his overcoat, and Jack saw a knife.
Olga burst into tears when she saw her son run toward her and leap into her arms. The tears stopped her seeing Jack saying good-bye.
“I’ll never forget what you’ve done for Nikolai,” Konstantin vowed, shaking his hand. “I heard that bastard say that you’re going to Gorky. Here.” He handed Jack a piece of paper. “Now you have blat, too. And one more thing: never trust anybody. In Russia, there’s no such thing as a friend.”
11
The Moscow-bound train departed from Moskovsky Station, located on the other bank of the River Neva, so Jack and the rest of the Americans had to drag their bags across central Leningrad from one station to the other. The inhuman cold prevented Jack from paying much attention to the impressive French-style palaces and Orthodox churches, which, crowned by gold domes, festooned the city with their exotic onion forms. However, he noticed again that not a single automobile circulated on the streets, as if the inhabitants wanted to preserve the city’s old-world charm. Very occasionally, a train of horse-drawn carriages would interrupt the silence with their clatter of hooves on the paving. Yet, aside from that, the city of the tsars seemed to be inhabited entirely by a plague of impoverished vagrants whose rags would have been an embarrassment even to the jobless Americans who begged in the soup lines.
Fortunately, Jack and his friends were heading to Moscow, the capital, which, according to Walter, was a byword for Soviet progress.
The provodnik who showed them to their third-class seats apologized for the modest amenities aboard the Moscow-bound train, but assured them proudly that when the Red Arrow first took up its route, not only did it cover the distance between the two major cities in less than eight hours, but it was also possible to telephone any part of the world from its restaurant car.
Jack thanked him for the information as he spread the mattress that he’d just rented from him out on the wooden bench. The freight train’s fifteen-hour journey time didn’t seem so bad to him, especially considering that most of the trip would be at night and he’d be sleeping.