Memoir of a Russian Punk

33

Even though they climbed down off the roof during several of the train's stops and ran along the tracks to warm up, Eddie-baby and Cat are so close to perishing from the cold as they approach Rostov that they have finally decided to jump off the train. All they're waiting for now is for the train to come to a bend and slow down.

"We'll fucking freeze to death!" Cat whispers. "If we don't jump off, we'll croak from the cold. I can't move my fucking hands anymore; they're like iron. My hands are freezing. How about you?"

Kostya at least has gloves, whereas Eddie has stuck his arms behind the ladder and hooked his elbow around one of its rungs. His arm and his joints are shaking painfully, and of course he'll have terrible black-and-blue marks after this little trip, although that's the least of his worries. He and Kostya are freezing, and there isn't any bend in sight. If they try to jump off the train at this speed, they'll be killed for sure.

"It would be stupid to freeze like this when the sun's still out, when it's daylight and we're so near Rostov, where it's warm," Eddie thinks in amazement, no longer able to feel his legs or his body…

They are saved by the sudden opening of the car door. Eddie and Kostya had already tried the door once before, but it was locked, and Kostya even went along the roofs of the other cars to try their doors as well…

Leaning out of the door now is a Georgian girl, one of the train's conductors, and she's yelling to them… The wind carries her words:

"You lunatics! Climb down off of there!… We saw the shadows of two people on the roof a long time ago, but we couldn't believe… that anybody would be crazy enough in this temperature… to climb up there…"

"Oh, sure, we'll climb down… You've probably already got the trashes in there waiting for us!" Kostya squeaks suspiciously.

"What trashes?" yells the Georgian girl.

"The militia," Eddie says.

"Climb down off of there, you fools! There isn't any militia here!" the girl yells back.

Holding the ladder with his stiff hands, Eddie climbs down and squeezes into the car, and then Cat comes down too. After the icy roof, the car is like heaven.

"Suicides!" the girl says to them in a mocking voice, and pulls them into her conductor's compartment. "You'll have tea in a minute."