NINE

MARGARITA SHARAPOVA COMFUTURE

Translated by Jos-Alaniz.

A 100-car freight train, hauling ten little multi-colored circus cars, was going into its third day stuck in Gnilukha. Day and night they shifted the train from one rail line to another, but never got around to sending it on its way.

In one of the circus cars, serving in the capacity of escort, rode Alyona — or as everyone called her, Alex. A month before she had picked up lice and shaved her head. A visitor had mistaken her for a boy and called her Alex. The name stuck.

It was early morning, and Alex lay fast asleep on some bales of hay, rolled up to her neck in a blanket. Nearby, their lips puckered, some horses dozed; pigeons cooed sweetly in their cages; and, leaning on its stout tail as if filling an armchair, a kangaroo snorted and muttered in its enclosure.

With a bang and clamor, the massive door-wall split open, letting clouds of morning damp and colorless light into the car's stuffy interior. The horses started scraping the floor with their hooves, snorting. The pigeons chirruped, whirling, claws clattering. The kangaroo threw up its tiny front paws, goggle-eyed.

«Alex, get up! Bad news, Alex!»

That would be Orest yelling. Animal trainer. Former acrobat. A guy, around 30 years old. Alex didn't answer, so Orest jumped into the car and started shaking the blanket-wrapped body. Alex mumbled:

«Whassa matter, huh? Lemme alone… All night long they were pushing and pulling these goddamn wagons…»

«Mollie's dying!»

In a split second the blanket had unrolled and the shaven-headed girl was wide-awake, screaming out in a broken voice:

«What, you got your way, you creep!»

And, shoving him aside, she leapt out of the train car.

Mollie was a St. Bernard. They'd been given the dog just before the circus went on tour. Right off the bat they had problems. In the circus, dogs are kept in cages, and they're taken for walks inside enclosures, not outside. They're never allowed outdoors. Between cities, they're not even let out of their cages; the animals have to pee on the sawdust right there in the cage. Mollie joined the circus just before the road. She was squeezed into a cage, the cage squeezed in among other cages, where through the bars protruded the barking, howling snouts of every canine breed, and they were all loaded like cargo into the freight train. The St. Bernard alone chose to forego the barking and howling, but her eyes betrayed utter bewilderment: «I don't understand a thing. The world's turned completely upside-down.» By evening of the first day, Alex noticed that the dog had not relieved itself once during the day.

«She's not used to doing things like a dog. We have to lower her to the ground, let her walk outside, like a person.»

«A big hulk like that?» Orest said, gloomily. «Forget it. We'll train her right, and straight off, in the spirit of our circus traditions. Our little miss aristocrat won't hack it — she'll have to answer mother nature's call.»

But mother nature, in fact, did not call, not on the second day, and not on the third.

All the same, Orest wouldn't budge from his «spirit of circus traditions» edict — he'd meant every word.

On the fourth day, the dog was half-dead.

Alex climbed into the dogs' car. The dogs, locked up in tiered cages, started yapping and yelping, but they quieted down immediately when Orest showed up. A prodigious wheeze issued from Mollie's cage.

«Come on, let's take her outside,» mumbled Orest, meekly. «Maybe it's not too late.»

«Right on time, to a T,» Alex smiled, viciously. «Fine trainer you are!»

Orest opened the cage and pulled the dog's bulk onto its feet. Mollie moaned weakly, but finally rose, swayed and took a few steps.

«Bravo, Mollikins, bravo,» whispered Orest, hauling the dog along by its collar, while Alex pushed the St. Bernard in its behind.

The dog suddenly seemed to trip and lay down in the passageway.

«Let's drag her!» Orest panicked, and in a flash they were pulling the dog to the half open door. Orest managed to jump out, and Alex pushed Mollie onto him. The bulky carcass toppled over and crushed the trainer. Alex burst out laughing, quite out of place. Just because.

«What're you cacklin' about?!» rasped a suffocating Orest. «Help me…»

Alex jumped down.

But the dog stood up on its own. Catching a whiff of real earth, even if it was just gravel soaked through with fuel oil, coal dust and soot, revived Mollie. She stretched her nose towards the embankment, took a few cautious steps on shaking paws, finally she squatted and urinated.

Alex and Orest watched over her, motionless with joy. Once Mollie was done peeing, they high-fived each other, and even embraced.

Mollie, meanwhile, playfully jumped and gamboled her way to some grass by the side of the road, where she spun like a child's top and squatted again — for some serious business this time.

«Whew,» Orest wiped his sweaty brow.

«We've done it this time, eh?» Alex was smiling, sarcastically.

«You watch that smart mouth 'a yours,» he frowned. «I'm still your boss, an' I can hire you an' fire you…»

«Uh-huh. Right here, right now.» She stuck her tongue out at him.

The train, meanwhile, gave a shudder. A wave of motion rolled from its head to its tail, clanging and clattering through every car. And slowly, the whole thing started moving forward.

«Hey!» Alex had turned to look at the signal light: it was green.

«Bah!» Orest carelessly waved it off. «It's nothing. They're just switching it over to another line. Just moving 'em around for another day, day number three here.» He yawned and stretched, joints cracking. «Now we can go grab some shut-eye… Thank God it all worked out!»

«They're prob'ly switching it over to the fifth line.» Alex was yawning, too. «There's nobody on that one.» And she was stretching just as thoroughly.

«Not likely. Probably the sixth… Yesterday the trackman was saying number six is the line going' to Spas-Kukuyevsk.» He thought aminute and added, gloomily, «Our line's going there, too.»

«So, maybe, it's this one, this one leaving? Huh?»

The last car, a huge cup loaded with coal, lumbered lazily by. The two, standing there, followed it with suspicious stares.

«We can still catch up to it and jump on,» said Orest, with a sidelong glance at the dog.

«Sure, nothing to it,» answered Alex, whispering for some reason. They traded conspiratorial looks, but right then Mollie — happy as a clam — buoyantly ran over to them and, leaning her big block of a head to one side, fixed her devoted stare on their worried faces, amicably wagging her fan-like tail.

Orest snorted, screwed up his eyes and looked into the distance.

«For sure they'll start moving it back in a second. Look, what'd I say!»

The train sputtered, an uneven wave rolled over all the cars, but… it didn't stop — on the contrary, it picked up speed and confidence.

«Light's green,» Alex exhaled in desolation.

Orest kept nervously ogling the caboose, already difficult to make out in the distance.

«What're you, trying to hypnotize it?» laughed Alex. «All es we is, plain as day…»

The rails, polished to a sheen, stretched out endlessly before them, tapering off to the horizon, melting into a vague vista.

«Let's go to the dispatcher,» Orest scratched the back of his neck. «Find out what's what.»

«Ri-ight, no money, no papers…»

«Yeah, but look at the dog we've got with us!»

«What a sight we are! Like a couple'a bums…»

They were indeed both dressed like odd-balls: Alex in shorts carelessly cut from some blue-jeans, with one leg barely covering her buttock, the other fringing her knee; and an oversized man's T-shirt, in whose armholes her breasts twinkled in and out of view — she wasn't wearing a bra and her head was shaved to boot; while Orest had arrayed himself in bright pink, with buckskin breeches whose sequins had half-fallen off, and soft-soled ankle boots — his old acrobat's costume. To top it off, by this, their fourth day on the road, they were both pretty ripe.

The dispatcher's station was housed in a glass box, towering over the railroad yard. At the control panel sat a cozy-looking, unbelievably fat old lady. She kept a sort of running commentary going into a microphone, as if she was peering into a pot in her kitchen, murmuring, «Right, and now some onion, a little carrot, and just a pinch of salt, and now, how about a little pepper…» while her voice echoed over the fancifully intricate interlacings of the rails: «318 to number five… 22814 to number eight… 121 to number one…» Meanwhile, she was pressing buttons and flipping switches, and all this with that same hum-drum everydayness, as if cooking over a stove instead of running some mysterious micro-economy of train cars.

The woman didn't immediately notice her visitors, so they were free to gawk, through the enclosure's glass walls, at the sprawling panorama: at elongated trains, moving like tentacles or frozen stiff in immobility; at rails, interlaced and branching out in some weird disordered harmony; at traffic lights and signals and posts, and little human figures, scurrying about.

«Ahh!» the fat old lady screamed suddenly, in a squeaky voice. Mollie was poking her wet snout into the woman's meaty calf. Her incredible girth proved no hindrance; the dispatcher had sprung up onto her chair in the blink of an eye.

«Don't be afraid,» guffawed Orest.

Alex grabbed the dog by the collar.

«She's a good dog.»

The dispatcher, huffing and puffing, descended from her perch. Orest gallantly offered her a hand.

«Thank you,» she said, keeping a wary eye on the St. Bernard. «I've only seen bulls like that on the TV.»

A discord of voices floated out of the microphones: someone was yelling, someone whistling, others cursing. The dispatcher rushed back to the control panel, barked out a «Shush!» — and in the prompt silence, calmly started muttering into the microphone again, with distrustful sidelong glances at the dog and her peculiar visitors.

When she found a moment she uttered a perfunctory «What can I do for you?» — with no special tenderness.

Alex at once flashed an ingratiating smile.

«We're from the circus, we've got these really funny-looking train cars…»

The dispatcher cracked her own happy grin for a second, then suddenly took alarm:

«But I just sent you off twenty minutes ago.»

Alex and Orest looked at each other in despair, all hope lost.

«You got left behind?» the woman said in sympathy.

«So it would seem,» Orest pleadingly stared at the dis-patcheress. «But can't you recall the train somehow? Pull the cord, so to speak, and bring it back, eh?»

The dispatcher, moved by such naivete, shook her head.

«Run on over to the number six line. To the engine-drivers. They're on their way to Spas-Kukuyevsk too, in a bit. I'll let 'em know to take you,» and she was already intoning over the microphone: «Hey, you slab! You're takin' some passengers aboard… circus folk… what're you sayin'? Ah-ha-ha!!! Watchyer yap.» She turned to her guests. «All set.»

«Thanks a bunch,» Alex pressed her hand to his heart.

«By the way,» said the dispatcher, in a confiding tone, «just where were you two coming from?»

«Oh!» Orest and Alex pointed their hands in opposite directions.

The dispatcher nodded knowingly.

«And what's your final destination?»

Alex and Orest again waved to different points of the compass.

The dispatcher felt another wave of satisfaction.

The electric locomotive was of Czech manufacture, the engine-driver's cabin located about two meters off the ground. A steep little metal ladder led up to it.

Orest could only whistle, looking up. Then he turned to Mollie — and scratched the back of his neck.

«Come on, boys, let's get a move on!» yelled the engine-driver, sticking his head out of the cabin.

The pistons in the wheelbase suddenly shot out some thick steam, and Mollie shied back, drawing her tail in between her legs and yelping like a puppy.

«Come on, boy!» Orest came after her.

Mollie, in terror, pressed herself against the embankment. A heavy shudder was going through her body.

«What's the problem, guys?» the engine-driver looked out again, and pushed his cap back from his head, dumbfounded. «Oh-ho, you've got a doggie with you, too…»

His assistant appeared in the doorway: a freckled, red-faced young man, who immediately burst out laughing:

«Just look at this beast, so huge and so scary!»

He quickly ran along a small bridge on the side of the engine and dropped down.

«What a greenhorn you are!» he said, flicking Alex's shaven head in contempt — when his glance unexpectedly fell on her breasts, twinkling in their T-shirt. «You're a girl?» he said, struck dumb — then looked suspiciously at Orest.

«Animal trainer Orest Anderlecht,» said Orest, proudly jabbing his chest, then indicated Alex with condescension. «My assistant.»

«Mikhras, let's go, dammit!» barked the engine-driver.

Mikhras and Orest dragged the reluctant dog to the locomotive. It took the two of them to set her down on the gangway. Mollie whined and drew her stumpy paws under herself.

«Hup and at 'em!» the engine-driver pulled the St. Bernard, by the fleshy part of the neck, up onto the little bridge, and triumphantly smacked his palms against one another. «Tha's the way!»

They went to the cabin after the assistant. Mikhras paused on the threshold, looked round and cast a sly glance at the bald girl. Alex gave him the finger. Mikhras blushed and scampered off into the cabin.

Something started to roar and rumble in the locomotive's belly, and the train set off.

The circus performers stood on the little bridge with a metal railing. At their backs they sensed a blazing heat and a thunderous rattle, while the wind pummeled their faces, getting stronger and stronger. Mollie's ears flapped and fluttered, like flags. She screwed up her eyes against the tearing gusts, but, heroically, did not look away.

The train picked up more and more speed. The roadside trees rushed briskly by, while the more distant vista, an impressive panorama, seemed to indulge in a slow, leisurely swim. The kilometer-long tail of cars flowed out endlessly from behind the engine.

«This is when you really want to scream, 'My motherland!'» yelled Orest into her ear, for all he was worth. Alex flinched in indignation and, angrily gesticulating, yelled back, but he couldn't hear. Suddenly, she froze in amazement. Orest followed her gaze, and dropped his jaw, dumbly.

Along a slope, overturned, half-demolished, some freight cars lay in a crooked chain.

Mikhras ran over to the circus folk and shouted:

«It derailed last Thursday!»

«What?!» the circus pair couldn't hear him.

Mikhras waved them off and ran away.

Soon the general contours of a station appeared. Mikhras leaned out of the cabin, and with his lips formed the words, «Spas-Kukuyevsk.»

«What caused that accident?» Orest asked Mikhras, once they'd gotten to the station.

«Well, it's pretty common,» said the younger man, smiling serenely. «Nowadays they got trains with up to 200 cars, with some of'em loaded down an' heavy-like, an' others they leave empty, and that's a no-no. You get an overfall'a pressure on the rails, deformations and things like that. We went over it in vocational school.»

«And our train just drove on through that same section?» Alex observed, frowning.

«Sure, why not,» Mikhras assured her. «Well, I gotta go. Have a good trip! Where you off to now?»

«Onward,» Orest nodded toward the rails.

«Ah…» Mikhras pulled up his pants and ran off.

«All the best!» Orest yelled after him, and turned to Alex. «So, where're those train cars of ours?»

«There's the switcher's booth over there. Let's ask.»

They approached the booth. Before the door, which was open a crack, a tiny man was crawling on all fours and looking through the slit with some field binoculars.

«Excuse me,» Alex cleared her throat.

«Hold on!» the man shook his finger at them. «Just a sec…»

They waited. Finally, tittering and rubbing his palms together, he got to his feet: a little old man in a bulky service cap, pulled down over his ears, with sideburns like clumps of soap foam. His pinkish face glimmered with sweat. Rapture shone in his celestial little orbs. He removed the blocky binoculars from around his neck and handed them to Orest.

«Here ya go. Go ahead, have yourself a look… She's under the table, on top of the coat, heh-heh.»

Orest shrugged and stuck the binoculars into the doors' slit. The old timer whispered to Alex, excitedly:

«Show us yer titties!»

Alex recoiled. The old timer laughed, soundlessly.

Orest turned back to them, dismayed.

«A cat… having kittens…»

«Again?» asked the oldster, snatching back the binoculars. He dropped down once more in front of the crack, but immediately pulled back, disappointed. «Naw, that's just her getting ready.» He focused the binoculars on Mollie. «And is this a bitch?»

«She's a girl,» answered Alex, stubbornly.

The old timer turned the binoculars on her chest. Orest stepped in front of the lenses.

«Do you really need binoculars to deliver some kittens?» he asked.

«It wouldn't make no sense without 'em,» said the geezer, plainly distressed. «Murka's shy, she hides, an' how much detail can you make out from far away? So I thought'a this… You can see everythin' plain, like the back'a my hand.» He scrunched up his face into a blissful squint. «It splits open… that thing'a hers… and this little piece 'a little'un falls out, plumps down,» he said, staring at Orest. «You ever seen a woman deliver?»

«B-but a cat isn't a woman,» Orest babbled.

«This is idiotic,» Alex hmphed.

«And who're you?» asked the geezer, slitting his eyes suspiciously. «Whadda you 'gentlemen' call yerselves, eh? Bums? And with a bitch, too! Just look at you!»

«Pardon us,» Orest shoved Alex aside. «We're not gentlemen, and we're not vagrants. We're circus people, left behind by our train. We've come all the way from Gnilukha. Where around here do you think our cars would be, would you be so kind as to tell us?»

«Kuzkin knows everything,» replied the geezer, placing one arm importantly akimbo, the other into his jacket, after Napoleon. «Your cars're gone, poof.»

«What do you mean, 'poof'?!»

«Just that, 'poof.' Simple. I switched the points over to the Zheltokrysino line myself.»

«Damn!» Orest pounded his sides.

«Over there's an empty car setting off that way. Go catch it,» the switcher said, sneeringly, pointing into the distance.

Five, six rail lines away, near a small grove, some train cars sprinkled with something white were slowly on the move, their side doors wide open on both sides. The chain of cars stretched out unevenly, to the left and right.

The circus folk quickly set off for it.

«Don't fall in the switches, you'll cripple yerselves!» the geezer said in parting.

«We know!»

«Does the bitch know?» he chortled.

As they came alongside the train, Orest yelled out:

«Let's grab Mollie!»

They caught up the dog and, when an opening floated by, threw her into the car.

Just at that moment Mollie kicked her hind legs, inadvertently making their task easier. A column of white dust sprang up from the patch of floor where the dog plopped down. The others jumped in — and all three immediately started sneezing.

«My throat's sore,» Orest got out, hoarsely.

«What were they carrying in here? Cement?» Alex rasped. «Wish I could drink something…»

A billowing white blizzard whirled about the train cars, streaming after them as the engine gained speed.

The train stopped at a small station. A trackman, wielding an iron hook and long-nosed funnel, walked along the cars, checking lubricant in the axle boxes. He would open a box's lid with the hook and, ifneeded, pour in some grease.

«Zheltokrysino?» asked Alex.

«No,» the trackman looked warily at the bald-headed creature. «Skumbak's.»

«What was that for?» said Alex, offended, not having heard quite right.

«Formerly this place was called Lenin's Ten Commandments, and now it's just Skumbak's.»

«Oh, well, in that case…» Alex calmed down. «That's a pretty name.»

«They named it after the first Russian new rich to come live here. Vovan.»

«Uh-huh… Do you happen to know if the circus went by here?»

«It took off a while back.»

«And when are we gonna get going again?»

«See Ivanov over there?» the trackman was nodding at a fellow worker checking boxes at the other end of the train, moving in towards them. «Once he and I meet up, somewhere in the middle.»

«Where can I get a drink of water?»

«Why don't you ask the Turkmen over there.» He indicated a rail line nearby. Some train cars stood there, broadcasting bleating and shuffling noises non-stop.

«Come on, Alex, give it a shot!» ordered Orest.

«But I'm a girl…»

«We're not in the sack,» he caustically noted, getting upset. «We're on duty…»

Alex harrumphed, but jumped onto the embankment. She looked into the Turkmen's car. To both sides, fenced in by boards, sheep were crowded together; in the center, half-lying on some strewn hay, were two elderly Turkmen, a man and woman, brown-skinned, wrinkly, heads propped on their hands, elbows braced on soft sacks stuffed full of something. Their thoroughly baked faces looked stiffened in deep thought. They were both smoking cigarettes rolled from newspapers. A backgammon board and pieces were laid out between them.

«Would you nice people let me have a drink?» said Alex, holding her hand out like a beggar.

The geezers made no response.

«Gimme some water!» she bellowed.

The old man moved one of the pieces on the board, got up and, without looking at his petitioner, scooped a glass jar in a barrel of water and handed it to her. Alex drank it all up and asked for more. The Turkmen just as apathetically scooped up more water, and only now cast a glance at the girl.

«Refugees?» asked Alex, trying to be polite.

«We live here,» the old man drawled.

«What do you mean?»

«A long time ago… At first we were taking some sheep, in three train cars, to an exhibition in the Soviet Union, it was still around back then… On the way there, the Soviet Union disappeared, and they didn't let us into Russia… We headed back to our collective farm, but it had disappeared, too… We've been on the move so many years, we've gotten used to it… The sheep multiply, we sell meat, wool, we pay rent on the car, we live on as best we can.»

Alex's train gave a shudder.

«Oh!» she roused herself. «Can I take a little water for my friend?»

The Turkmen thought it over. Alex jumped into the sheep's car, grabbed the jar from the Turkmen, scooped out some water and jumped out, running after her train. She hopped onto the footboard and was about to step into the car, when the train started up with a jerk and she broke loose. She didn't drop down, though, but hung there, her shorts caught on a hook in the car paneling. She didn't spill the water, even when her belt carved into her stomach and squeezed it so tight it cut off her breathing. She couldn't get a word out from the pain, and managed only to thrash her legs about in the air. The Turkmen stolidly watched from his car. Alex floated by him.

«When do we get our jar back,» he uttered, without emotion.

Orest looked out his car and bowed to the Turkmen. Then he noticed Alex:

«Hey, you're back. Why don't you come in?»

Alex wordlessly goggled at him. He took the jar from her and drank with relish. Alex moaned. Orest looked at her more closely, out of curiosity. Tortured agony streamed out of her eyes. He saw the problem, started fussing about:

«How on earth did you get into this? Jump up, you'll come loose… Hurry, before we pick up too much speed!»

Alex, in a half-swoon, screwed up her eyes in pain and went limp.

«Just a sec, I'll help you,» said a panicked Orest, shoving her with his foot. There was a crackle of fabric tearing loose, and Alex fell like a sack onto the embankment, went head over heels and came up again. She rushed after the moving train, wailing:

«What're you, outta your mind?! You want to see me dead?!»

She caught on to Orest's outstretched hand; he drew her in.

And forthwith he went on the attack:

«Why didn't you say something?»

He took greedy gulps from the jar. Alex took it away.

«You bastard, leave Mollie some!»

«She'll get by without it, it's bad for her,» Orest sulked.

The St. Bernard's snout wouldn't fit in the jar, so Orest formed a cup with his palms. Alex poured some water in it. Mollie lapped it up at one go, down to the last drop.

«We're just gonna have to lump it,» Orest patted Mollie's ear and offered his human companion an ingratiating smile. «Right, Alex?»

She was silently scrawling something on the cement-sprinkled floor. Through the floorboard cracks, she could see flashes of the madly spinning wheels and the crossties, rushing by.

«Hey, don't get mad. Everything worked out okay.»

«Yeah, right. So far…»

Suddenly, a rucksack sailed into the car, and after it a young man deftly sprang in. Catching sight of the exotic pair, he spread his arms and smiled radiantly:

«Well, well, well!!! Stupendous! Colossal! Magnifique!»

His cheeks burned beet-red, his eyes shone with boundless joy. He was dressed in the most incongruous and disparate garb: an absolutely new — the label still attached — cowboy hat; an elegant silvery raincoat; a sailor's worn striped vest; camouflage army pants and rubber bedroom slippers.

«Quo, so to speak, vadis?» the stranger ardently declared, and caring not a fig about the raincoat, plopped down onto the whitened floor. He raised his hat, revealing a shaved head, and winked at Alex: «Colleagues!»

He whistled to Mollie and dug into his rucksack. He produced a hefty stick of smoked sausage, viciously bit off a piece and tossed the rest to the dog, who eagerly got down to business devouring the meat. Meanwhile the stranger extracted a newspaper from his pocket, spread it out on the floor and poured out the contents of his bag onto it: a half-loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, some unripe apples and a jar of squid, which he wasted no time in unsealing with what looked like a pirate's knife.

«Take a load off!» he said, remembering himself, and invited the others to a bite. «Won't you join me?»

Orest and Alex charily sat down.

«So, where you headed?» the stranger asked merrily, pulling a bottle of vodka out of his breast pocket.

«Straight ahead,» said Orest.

«Fellow travelers!» he replied, overjoyed, and handed Alex an apple. She distrustfully wiped it on her shirt, bit into it, and made a wry face:

«Poison…»

«It's only good with vodka! Have some, quick!»

«No, I don't like it.»

«Can it be? Well, fancy that… I'm captivated!» To prove it, the young man took a long swig from the bottle and extended it to Orest. «My compliments, you lucked out! I've never had girlfriends that didn't drink…»

Orest wavered, but all the same had a sip. He winced and quickly pinched off a piece of bread, sniffed it and chewed it up.

«Why so little?» their host said in disappointment. «The vodka's fresh!»

«We're circus people,» explained Orest. «We work closely with animals, and they really don't like the smell of liquor. So don't take it the wrong way.»

The young man wasn't offended. He stuck the bottle in his mouth and guzzled the entire contents. Alex even gasped.

«Oh, that's nothing!» said the young man with pride. «I can drink a champagne bubble down in one gulp without coughing!»

«I doubt that,» replied Alex. «It's pressurized. Your stomach would rip apart.»

«We should believe what people tell us… By the way, I'm Berg. At your service!»

«Orest. Animal trainer, and this is my assistant, Alex.»

«Alyona,» she sullenly corrected him. «Berg — is that a first or last name?»

«It's a title,» he quickly responded, and pricked up his ears, looking out the car. The train ground to a halt. But there was no station nearby. To one side lay fields, to the other a chicken yard with a banner on the roof declaring, «Zhirinovsky's Cock Poultry Farm.»

«They must be lettin' a passenger train go by,» Orest suggested.

«Most likely so,» answered Berg, and burst out laughing. «Chickens! Sandgrouse! But not a hen maiden in sight… Come on!»

«Where to? What for?» said Alex, perplexed.

«Such clerical questions!» answered Berg, exasperated, adding, «On the other hand, the ladies are welcome to stay. Communists, onward!»

And he leaped down to the embankment. Mollie rushed after him.

«Stop!» Orest chased after the dog, but she was already galloping after Berg on the other side of a wire netting.

«Oooh, you!» Alex went after them.

Berg stopped in front of a wicket gate and had a look around:

«What about chickens — you ever tried to train them?»

Mollie ran into him. Orest into the dog. Alex into Orest. Berg punched the gate and flew inside, Mollie at his heels. At top speed, she rushed into a roiling chicken sea, joyfully pouring forth a stream of barks. The birds scurried about, clucking. Mollie, out of her mind, flung herself from side to side, chomping her jaws nonstop.

«Mollie! Mollie!» Orest and Alex chased after the dog. «Stop! No! Bad girl!»

The bitch flew into a rage and paid them no heed. Uproar, feathers flying. Those caught up in this jumble could hardly move about. Berg roared with laughter.

«What're you laughing at, you bald idiot?» Alex yelled.

But Berg yukked it up harder than ever.

Mollie ran into the building, giving chase to some chickens that had fled there. All three sped after her.

They found the dog standing over a half-crushed hen. Mollie was breathing heavily, licking her bloodied snout with feathers stuck to it.

A nearby door swung open, a kind-looking woman in a snow-white smock and kerchief looked out from it. Beyond her they spied a room filled with identical snow-white women, seated in orderly rows and gazing attentively at a stage, where someone was delivering a lecture from the rostrum.

«Vote for candidate Kuroschupov, the director of our poultry complex, the most liberal, democratically-minded and patriotic official in the district!»

In the course of his talk, the speaker indicated a little old coot, modestly seated on the edge of a stool, round as an egg and completely embarrassed.

Berg roared with a new round of laughter. All the snow-white kerchiefs turned to look at him, and the one standing at the doorway asked in confusion:

«Who are you, citizen?»

She saw two chickens in each of Berg's hands, and rejoiced:

«You're here to trade?»

«No,» he bawled, «ra-a-i-d!» and ran off down a long corridor, Mollie in hot pursuit. Alex and Orest scuttled, too.

Dashing out of the building, they found themselves on the side opposite the railroad. They could see the freight train beyond a hen house.

«No problem,» said Berg. «We'll make it.»

And they double-timed it around the intervening structures.

Along the way they passed a calf tied to a peg.

«How about we raise some cattle?» declared Berg, handing the chickens to Orest and untying the calf.

«Reapers!» screamed Alex.

Some distance off, bearded peasants were waving their scythes. Noticing something amiss around the calf, they whooped and flung up their scythes, making tracks for the thieves.

«Now this is serious,» Berg picked up the flaps of his silvery raincoat and did his best impression of a sprinter, bound for the railroad. Mollie, on the other hand, made a run for the peasants, who froze in their tracks. Thereupon she looked around, saw her friends bolting headlong in the opposite direction; she visibly drooped, tucked in her tail and trotted after the others.

One by one, the luckless thieves jumped into the first train car they happened on. Mollie adroitly leaped in without any help. Berg hastily got to sealing shut the heavy doors, plunging the car's interior into twilight.

Blows resounded on the outer paneling, embankment stones rained in through the open hatch.

«Open up, you crooks,» their many-voiced pursuers called out to them. «We're a'gonna get in anyway! Open up or we'll smoke ya out! Climb through the window, Semyon!»

Orest elbowed Alex.

«Get up on my shoulders, batten down that hatch!»

Alex clambered on top of him. In quick order the train car was submerged in pitch darkness. But closing the hatch only increased the peasants' rage.

«Well, burn 'em down, then!» They heard the striking of matches.

«Going by statistics, a train car will burn down in four minutes,» sighed Berg in the dark.

From somewhere far off they could hear women's voices approaching.

«The brood-hens are in on it, too,» Berg chuckled. «This is definitely curtains.»

The train gave a sudden quiver and slowly started to move.

«Hu-u-r-ra-ah!» the trio howled, but then the train stopped.

«We jinxed it,» Berg groaned.

Outside they started thrashing the car with greater fury; a dislodged board crashed down to the floor. In the breach appeared the irate faces of peasants and snow-white kerchiefs. And just then, the train once more trembled and set off.

«Come on, come on!» Alex got on her knees.

Berg threw up his hands, calling for silence, and froze in an awkward pose.

The train confidently gathered speed.

«We're off,» Berg determined with relief.

Several people were still running along the embankment. Berg opened the door and whistled at them. A rock hit him in the forehead, and he sat down on the floor.

An «Ah!» resounded from a corner they thought held only Mollie.

Alarmed, the company looked in the sound's direction. In the corner stood a young woman in a calico peasant dress. Berg, covering the bump on his head, whispered:

«Good God, how beautiful you are, mademoiselle, madam, panna, miss!»

He crept over to her, but she waved her hands in protest.

«I'm afraid of you.»

«Oh, please don't be! We're actors, servants of Melpomene's circus,» Berg babbled. «That is, culturally educated people, and those two are circus stars.»

The woman began clapping her hands.

«Really? I just worship the circus, but I've never been.»

«I myself have only seen it on televi…» Berg cut himself off. Then he noticed that Mollie was lying atop a dead chicken. He tore the bird away and offered it up to the woman like a bouquet.

«You can boil up some boullion for your husband back home.»

«Would that I had a husband,» she said, embarrassed.

«Would that I had a home,» he dreamily countered.

«I'm so tired of chickens on that farm…»

Berg chucked the fryer away with a grand gesture:

«Fly thee hence, winged one!»

«What about you? Don't you have any place to live?» asked the woman — almost hopefully, it seemed.

«Wheresoever I'm obliged to live, I have no wish to go there.»

«A mean wife?»

«Brothers, actually. But never mind. You're from that poultry farm, eh?»

«Uh-huh. I take the night train home. I live in Zheltokrysino, twelve kilometers off. I had a flat tire on my bike, so here I am, taking the freight train…»

«Is the pay any good?»

«They pay us in eggs and carcasses.»

«Convenient.»

All along Berg had been crawling up to the woman, and now his face had come level with her knee. She blushed and squatted down. They silently stared into each other's eyes.

«If you don't have a place to live, why don't you settle down with me and my mother,» said the woman. «She'll be so happy. It's been ages since we had a man in the house.»

Alex and Orest, in the meantime, had been sitting on the floor, letting their legs dangle over the side of the doorway in the open air, surveying the streaming landscape. An exhausted Mollie lay next to them, fast asleep.

«One of them manages to get out of his cage all of a sudden, with the car wide open — they'll fall out,» muttered Orest. «Or else catch cold, God forbid.»

«And they're all hungry,» Alex took up the theme. «But, come on, one of our guys has to look in on them sometime during the trip. They're always stepping out during stops.»

«Mollie's here sleeping like a baby, no skin off her back!» said Orest. «It's all her fault we're in this mess…»

Mollie slightly opened her eyes, looking at him in silent reproach.

«Zheltokrysino,» the woman announced in a happy voice. Berg, no less delighted, embraced her about the shoulders.

The train braked to a halt and all four disembarked, Berg gallantly offering a hand to his new acquaintance, and then taking her by the elbow.

Alex tossed them a «See ya!»

«Uh-huh,» answered Berg, peremptorily. For him, only the poultry farm woman in the calico dress existed. The two lovebirds paused in a small square near the station, by a fountain. Mollie went with them and jumped in the fountain, greedily lapping up some water.

«Let her drink her fill,» Alex and Orest kept an eye on her from a distance.

Her thirst quenched, Mollie decided to have a bath.

Alex noticed a policeman walking along the platform and ran to the fountain.

«Come on now, climb out of there!»

The command only egged Mollie on: she frolicked with greater abandon.

Orest hastened over to them.

«Double time outta here! Come with me!»

Mollie, splashing up a storm without let-up, poured forth some joyous barking.

Berg and the poultry woman were engaged in an ecstatic kiss.

«Second Lieutenant Bruskov,» uttered a dry, officious voice. There he was already, the policeman, plain as day.

«May I see your documents, citizens?»

«Hi, Uncle Slava,» the poultry woman turned. She was glowing a scalded red, her eyes gleamed insanely, and her chest bobbed up and down, as if she were asphyxiating.

«Nastya, is that you?!» said the amazed lieutenant. «Hmm. I didn't recognize you. Guess you'll be rich someday, like that superstition says.»

«I've already found my treasure,» Nastya leaned against Berg's shoulder. «Has your Zorka calved yet?»

«I wish! She can't seem to get it over and done with. Bad enough she's not delivering in winter, like a normal cow, but only in summer does she get it into her head. And even then, she can't do it! By the way, who're these folks with you?»

«Circus people,» Nastya tenderly caressed Berg. «They got left behind by their train.»

Bruskov penetrated the newcomers with a Sherlock-Holmeslike stare, and nodded to the sweetly smiling Berg:

«The other day someone stole a hat just like yours from the Skumbak's country store. It was American humanitarian aid. Where did you get yours?»

«On tour in America.»

«Oh really? From America?»

«From the state of Amazonka.»

«A-ah… And a long-skirted silvery raincoat…» The lieutenant produced a small notebook and buried his head in it: «Also some Finnish smoked sausage, half a kilo of 'Yeltsin's Golden Dawn' apples, 200 grams of cheese, a pair of rubber slippers, size 42…» Bruskov lifted his gaze up to Berg, who was already without his cowboy hat, raincoat and rubber slippers. «Haven't I seen you somewhere before?»

«In the arena!» Berg blurted out.

«And just how did you get left behind, if your train is ri-i-ight over there?» he was pointing to precisely where the train stood.

«Well, we're off then!» Berg tiptoed on his bare feet.

Alex and Orest were already starting to take off, but they ran into another policeman — a broad one, enormously tall.

«What's the problem?» he grabbed the would-be escapees by the scruff of their necks, like kittens.

«Well, here's the deal,» the lieutenant reported quite merrily. «They say they got left behind by the circus, but what do you know: the circus is right over there!»

The bull stood the fugitives on their feet and said in a deep, grave tone:

«Confess everything.»

At that moment Mollie climbed out of the fountain's bowl, ran over to the guardians of order and shook herself dry. A torrent of spray rained down on their gray tunics. Alex and Orest had managed to take cover behind the square-shaped policeman.

«Let's bring them in to Gorlogryzov, Pasha,» mumbled the one who resembled a tower, wiping his eyes. «Let him figure it out.»

«To Gorlogr… gr… gryzov… But what for?» Berg babbled out in anguish, rubbing his Adam's apple.

«Come on, citizens, let's go!» Lieutenant Bruskov raised his voice, and elbowed his partner in the buttock, since he couldn't reach any higher. «Should we take Nastya too?»

«I'm not going anywhere without Heinrich!» she said, latching on to Berg.

«Our train cars are leaving,» muttered Alex, as in a dream.

«Listen up, you!» Orest craned his head up at the uniformed giant. «I don't see your badges… Our cars are taking off. We've got valuable animals in there!»

Nastya weighed in, moaning, «Heinrich is kind, he loves birds…»

By the station entrance there hung a glass case, declaring, «Wanted by the Police.» Two sheets were stuck over the glass: «Vote for Gorlogryzov» and «Vote for Kuroschupov.» Lieutenant Bruskov angrily tore off Kuroschupov's poster, indignantly crumpled it up and tossed it into a trashcan. From underneath the glass, a badly-printed photograph of Berg stared out at them: «Wanted: Especially Dangerous Criminal.» Berg darted off to the side, jumped from the platform and onto the rails, and bolted across the lines. The policemen, coming to their senses, yelled out, «Stop! Stop!» and ran up to the edge of the platform. But here they stopped, as if rooted to the spot. Bruskov, in the heat of the moment, started to put one leg down, but abruptly drew it back, as if out of a cold river.

«Potapov,» he said to his hale partner, «you go after him, I'll handle the accomplices.»

Potapov held onto his paunch and squatted down, gathering himself to jump, but in the end couldn't manage such a feat.

Meanwhile the track-layers working the lines, strapping women in orange vests, with crowbars in their grease-smeared mittens, shrilly screamed, «Hey, we'll drop him!» and flung their crowbars at the barefoot man without a second thought, striking home on the first try. The bars mowed Berg down on the spot. The track-layers seized up the body, like a crosstie, and delivered it up to the platform at Potapov's feet.

«Carry him in to the station,» he ordered Alex and Orest.

Once they'd dragged the unconscious Berg into a cell, the circus performers were immediately sent in to see Major Gorlogryzov, the station chief.

Gorlogryzov sat monolithically behind a double-posted desk, under a portrait of Bill Clinton (the work of a local painter), austerely working his furry eyebrows. After five minutes of silence, he sharply demanded:

«How long have you known Tsarapkin?»

«Who's that?» Orest shuddered in surprise.

«Your companion,» Gorlogryzov venomously screwed up his eyes.

«Berg?» mumbled Alex.

«Oh, so he's also Berg, is he? Mm-hm, mm-hm, well, he's been Luciferov, he's been Hellkin, he's been Trolleybusov… but, if we go by his given name, he's Yuri Andreyevich Tsarapkin, born 1962, escaped from prison one month ago. Do you know Potma?»

The circus folk shook their heads.

«I was born there,» Gorlogryzov revealed, dreamily, then frowned. «But not in the prison zone, of course. Meaning in those parts.»

«Excuse me,» Alex said, tiredly. «We couldn't care less… We're circus performers, left behind by our train. We've been trying to catch up with it, by relay, all the way from Gnilukha. We met up with this Tsarapkin of yours, or Berg, on the road. It's all elementary…»

«No, it's not elementary,» answered Gorlogryzov, in an offended tone. «Do you have your documents on you?»

«What damn documents?!» Alex was on the verge of tears.

«We haven't got any documents, or any money, we don't have a goddamn thing on us!»

«You watch your mouth,» the major suddenly looked at Clinton's portrait. «We're people of faith here, and you go off invoking unclean spirits.»

«Comrade station chief, let us go,» moaned Alex. «For the love of Christ!»

«But how am I supposed to believe you without documents?» Gorlogryzov asked, growing pensive.

«How?» Orest gruffly answered, and all of a sudden started twirling about the room in a circle, performed a somersault and wound up in a handstand right on top of the astonished major's desk. «That's how!»

«Mm-hmm,» said Gorlogryzov inimically staring at Orest's inverted face. «Very nice. Stand up straight.»

Orest resumed a normal, two-footed stance.

«Bruskov,» said Gorlogryzov, «did any circus pass through here?»

«Yessir!» the lieutenant replied. «Just now a train set off for Communist Future.»

«So why,» smiled Gorlogryzov, «didn't you skedaddle out of here on that?»

«You arrested us, that's why!» yelled Alex.

«We detained you,» the policemen corrected her, in unison.

«But now how are we gonna get to this Future of yours?»

«Don't you be laying some other strange Futures on us,» pronounced Gorlogryzov, menacingly. «And anyway, for a long time now this ComFuture hasn't been ComFuture; it's now CapProspects — Capitalist Prospects.»

An excited Policeman Potapov burst into the office, crumpling sheets of paper.

«We caught us another Kuroschupov follower. Right in our john, making use of enemy pamphlets! Here's proof!»

«I had to pee,» came a heart-rending cry from the corridor. «That's why I was in there! I had to pee-e-e!»

Gorlogryzov jumped up and pounded on the table with his fist.

«Give 'im fifteen days! For disturbing the peace!»

His gaze fell on the unfortunate Alex and Orest.

«What, you're still here! You're free, I believe you for some reason.»

«Ha!» Orest squeaked. «Thanks a bunch! But where do we go now?»

The station chief was taken aback, but didn't come up with anything.

«Bruskov, see to the sending-off of our comrade actors.»

«Yessir!» the lieutenant clicked his heels. But soon enough, on the platform, he said to his charges, «Now what am I gonna do with you? Aha! Thisaway!»

Nastya was standing by the wanted poster display case, crying bitter tears, gazing at Berg's photo as if in supplication.

«I'll wait for you, Heinrich. I will. As long as it takes. I'll wait all my life, I will.»

Bruskov led the circus folk to the railroad yard, tarrying next to a train car with a little tablet on it that read, «Glass hauler.»

«Open up!» he demanded, rapping on the wall.

«Go to hell, you alkie!» echoed a voice from inside, in an Eastern accent.

«Police,» Bruskov clarified.

A dark, shaggy, unshaven head showed itself through a tiny window under the roof, disappeared, and bolts started banging within. The door slid open with a rumble.

«Everything is in order, chief, yes,» an Armenian stood in the doorway.

«Oh, yeah? Drugs, weapons?»

«They checked it out just yesterday. Took two bottles of brandy for inspection, yes.»

«We're gonna make you lose sleep. Another inspection.»

«Why lose sleep? I am as calm as Mount Ararat, yes.»

«Really? By the way, you'll be giving these fellas here a lift to Communist Future.»

«I do not get it, chief.»

«You know, it's going by Capitalist Prospects now.»

«You mean we will be sticking around there after all, yes?»

«More'n likely you'll just tear on through, but who knows…»

«Yes,» nodded the Armenian.

«Yes, indeedy,» sighed the policeman.

Alex and Orest picked up Mollie. Bruskov started to help, but the dog thwacked him in the face with a grimy paw. With a muttered «Bon voyage!» he pushed off for home.

Inside the car, wooden crates of brandy bottles towered from floor to ceiling.

«I am hauling them from Armenia,» said their escort. «Abroad. To Moscow.» He added, indifferently: «Hamlet.»

«The Danish prince,» Alex let out.

«Shakespeare,» Orest assented.

«Name is Hamlet. Please, joinme at table, yes.»

The table was a structure of overturned plank crates in the corner of the car. They sat on matching overturned crates. With a stately gesture Hamlet produced, out of a large box, a huge ripe tomato, followed by a pimply cucumber, some greens, and some sort of flowery root. He lovingly set all these things on a plate and carefully sliced them. Alex and Orest looked on as if hypnotized. For a finale he took out a bottle ofbrandy, looked it over delightedly from all sides, raising it slightly overhead, uncorked it and poured a little into each glass.

«We don't drink,» Alex hastily mentioned.

«What do you mean, 'don't drink'?!» Hamlet flew into a rage. «Cognac like this, yes? Even if they are calling it 'brandy' now, it is primo stuff! Yes?!»

«Alright, alright,» said Alex, getting embarrassed. She took the glass, put it to her lips. «Mmm, what a wonderful flavor! Really, very nice, mmm…»

Hamlet calmed down and handed a glass to Orest.

Someone unexpectedly stirred in the corner, someone lying on a straw mattress. The figure rose with a wheeze. A boy. He grew shy and hid himself behind Hamlet, who drew him out for a look.

«My youngest. He is Hamlet, too. I brought him with me. To show him Russia. What if he never gets another chance, yes.»

«Do you like Russia?» lisped Orest.

«No,» the boy shot back, unperturbed. «Dirty.»

Hamlet smoothed the child's hair.

«But the people are kind.»

Outside, someone frenziedly banged on the car paneling; some «kind soul» clamored:

«'Ey, ya foreign piece'a crap, hand over the vodka!»

Hamlet gloomily sighed:

«There is no vodka, yes.»

And he quietly added:

«All along the rail line, the alcoholics know that if the car has 'Glass hauler' written on it, it must be carrying liquor, yes.»

«You shouldn't have a sign, then,» Alex suggested.

«If I do not, when the train cars are being sorted they will let this one slide down from the hillock at top speed, like all the others — everything will be smashed. But with the sign they will take care and lower me with a locomotive, yes.»

«Open up, ya turd, I'm dyin' out here!» someone beat on the door as before.

«Just a minute,» said Orest, and, after leading Mollie to the door, opened it a crack. The dog stuck its head in the opening and growled, but this didn't frighten the caller, who had already squeezed himself halfway into the car.

«What do you open up for, yes?» frowned Hamlet and, resigned to his fate, carried a brandy bottle over to the exit. The glaucousnosed customer held out some cash in his trembling hands. Hamlet counted the money by sight, took it and gave up the bottle. Like one blessed with a great bounty, the man stumbled out at once. His retreating steps crackled on the gravel.

«But how are you going to settle up your accounts later on?» asked Alex.

«Write it off as breakage,» Hamlet nodded to some crates of bottle fragments. «Already in Yerevan they were pinching, yes.»

The cars shook, somewhere far away the engine pipe whistled, and the train set off. The boy sat by the open door. The grown-ups ate at table.

«Where are you headed?» Hamlet raised his glass, inviting the others to clink.

«Along ways yet,» clinked Orest. Alex nodded with a sigh and joined in with her glass.

Hamlet went off to smoke by the door, while Alex started to doze off. Her head fell, awkwardly dangling to the side. Orest discreetly embraced the girl and soon fell asleep, too.

«Communist Future!» the silence shattered.

«Whaffor?!» cried out Alex, startled, half awake.

«The station,» smiled Hamlet. «Capitalist Prospects.»

«Yeah?» Alex settled down, and elbowed Orest. «Wake up! You don't wanna sleep through capitalism!»

Orest, his eyes at a loss, scrunched up his face into a frown:

«Aw, shoot! Here I thought this whole disaster was just a dream.»

«Here is the hillock,» announced Hamlet. «They sort the cars along this slope, yes.»

Alex and Orest went up to the door. The train had stopped on an incline. The rails stretched out far below, and there branched out into a myriad of shoots. At the summit the train was being split up into separate cars, which were then pushed downhill by a rammer-locomotive. The cars would gather speed and, split up by automated switchers, rush on along different lines, where they slid into new train formations. Past the railway switch they were caught by the shoers — always drunk but quite sharp — who brandished long poles with hooks used to pick up pieces of braking shoes strewn along the lines, and wedge them in under the wheels of madly rushing trains to arrest their speed. The shoers dashed here and there in a frenzy — the cars were flying towards them, like kernels in a popcorn popper — but all the same, from time to time, they'd let one marked «propane-butane» slip past: a tank of highly explosive fuel, illegal to let slide down the hill. They watched its course with interest, to see if it would blow up on impact with the other cars.

«Glass hauler!» Hamlet yelled to those uncoupling the train cars. «Do not let us slide down the hill! It is written right there, yes! I am carrying Armenian brandy!»

The uncouplers looked at him in irritation. One angrily growled:

«I was starting to move up the waiting list for an apartment, and they wound up giving it to one'a you refugees… Give 'im a good shove, Sergei, like ya really mean it!»

And the rammer-engine, building up speed, slammed into the train car. Sparks splattered out from under the wheels, the bottles started jingling — the car shot down the hill like a missile. The shoers thought it best not even to try bothering with this car, which streaked by with knock-you-off-your-feet velocity. One of the shoers, standing too close to the rails, even lost his cap.

The initial blow sent everyone tumbling inside the car. Crates rained down to the floor, bottles shattered, their precious contents flowed in a river. The car smashed into another train sitting on the rails, producing a ghastly quake; it lurched back, took aim, did it again. Everything that had survived the first collision was destroyed in the second. The car came to a stop. Mollie was the first to come to; whimpering, she worked her way to the exit and jumped out. Alex and Orest groaned, helping each other scramble out from under the crates. Some glass had sliced into the palm of Orest's hand; he was sucking on the wound. Hamlet raised up his son, who was trembling and weeping noiselessly, from the floor, himself sobbing: «We survived Spitak, a horrible earthquake… Just to make it this far, to Communist Future and its Capitalist Prospects…»

«Forgive us, goodbye,» Alex babbled, too low to be heard. Orest tugged on her and nodded at the door.

They jumped out and walked off, hanging their heads. Mollie, sporting a limp, trudged along after them.

«What line're the circus cars on?» Alex sullenly addressed a worker they met along the way.

«It left already,» he noted, indifferently. «For Zaschekino.»

«I give up,» said Alex, sitting on a rail. Orest dropped down next to her.

«There's a train taking off soon from the first line, get on over there,» advised the laborer.

The circus folk mechanically stood up and started shuffling off like automatons, in no particular direction.

«Not that way!» yelled the worker and waved them onto the opposite path. «Thataway!»

Robot-like, the circus performers spun round and set off along the indicated course.

A train ready for departure stood on the first line. The brake sleeves between the car couplings hissed like snakes, venting air.

«I don't see a car we could get in,» noted Alex.

«Halt, or I'll shoot!» suddenly echoed a squeaky little voice. Their way was barred by a rifle — in the tiny, gaunt hands, all atremble, of a young soldier.

«Fire away!» Alex pulled down her T-shirt.

The little soldier flushed crimson and turned away. Mollie ran up to him, grabbed onto the rifle with her teeth and playfully started pulling on it like a toy. The little infantryman dropped his weapon and ran off:

«Ooh, that pooch's packin' heat now!»

Orest wrested the rifle from Mollie and handed it to the warrior.

The little soldier was guarding a train car platform, over which towered something big and sharp-cornered, concealed by a tarpaulin. A second soldier emerged from underneath the platform — a Tartar from the look of him, who commanded with rapid-fire diction:

«Go back, back, go around, you can't come throughhere!»

Another soldier popped out of the train car, which was coupled next to the platform. He was disheveled, dressed in rags, with a face so red it looked like it'd been ground down with abrasive powder. He started shouting:

«Aw, c'mon, let 'em through, Orlyankin! 'Ey, Kilmandeyev! What's with this, it's all a crock! Come on through here, you guys!»

Orlyankin and Kilmandeyev stood at attention, as if they'd received the command.

Their superior, meanwhile, was clearly drunk as a skunk.

Alex and Orest warily approached the car's footboard.

«Would you get us to Zaschekino?» asked Orest, politely.

«You'll 'get' something from me, awright!» hiccuped the soldier.

«As far as the station at Zaschekino,» Orest cleared his throat. «You're going that way, aren't you?»

«Not exactly,» craftily answered the soldier, snickering. «We're headed for Lysogonovo — by way of Zaschekino.»

«So, can you give us a ride?»

«Sure. I personally keep no secrets from the people. C'mon up!»

The circus folk climbed aboard.

«So, what are you transporting?» asked Alex, naively.

«Some crap or other. Hell if we know what they packed up here. I'd like to have a look-see m'self, sometime. Ugh! Is this brown bear with you, or has maestro Delirium Tremens honored us with a gift?»

«She's our doggie,» Alex scratched Mollie behind the ear.

«Right. It's usually on the fourth day that I start seein' things. Today's only the third,» said the soldier, loudly tapping on his throat.

It was a customized train car, with separate compartments. One of them held a kind of laboratory, where two women were agitating something in test tubes. They looked fearfully at Redface as he walked by. «Keep working!» he sternly commanded the ladies, and shut the door. He loudly added:

«Imbeciles! They wouldn't put out… They've got husbands, see… Well, so what? I'm a family man m'self, so what'd we come on this trip for?»

He waved his hand dismissively and, swaying heavily, bumping into the walls, he walked on, but suddenly fell. Alex and Orest were busy picking him up when he asked:

«Who're you? What're you doin' in a secret location?»

«You let us in yourself,» replied Alex, at a loss.

«Where's Vznuzdov?»

«We don't know,» they answered, with a sinking feeling.

The soldier stared at them with a dulled look and broke into a grin, catching sight of Alex's breasts under her T-shirt.

«T-t-t-t-titties… here comes the horned billy goat after the kiddies… butt-butt-butt…»

Alex pulled away from the soldier's eager claws. He snatched at the air, brought his fist up to his face, opened it, contemplated it, sighed in disappointment and walked on. He tumbled into somebody's compartment; the circus folk stopped short at the threshold. Stale, stuffy air slammed into their nostrils. The compartment was a complete disaster area. On the little table lay leftovers and stubs of things, filthy glasses, half-empty bottles. The floor was more of the same, with the addition of socks and boots thrown about. The bedding was all in a lump. On one of the bunks a soldier lay on his stomach; evidently this was Vznuzdov. His gray-haired crown, grown hoary with age, drooped down from the edge of the bed, over a vomit-splattered floor.

«Make yerselves at home!» Redface winked at them, after which his eye stuck closed. In case his guests wanted any, he poured vodka into some glasses straight off. «Drink yer fill!»

Alex and Orest sat together on the edge of a seat, but refused to drink.

«Great! That'll leave more for me. Otherwise, no way I'll ever whip myself into shape.»

He polished off a glass and gave the order:

«Let's go! Qui-i-ck, 'arch!»

Just then the train started. Redface knocked the back of his head on the wall, and it dawned on him all of a sudden:

«Hey, maybe we should blow 'er up, eh?»

«Who?» the circus folk looked over to Mollie, quietly lying in the corridor.

«You know, that secret thingamawhatzit under the tarp. Let's arrange for a conversion, eh? Generally speaking, I'm against war. Gimme disarmament! I want peace! Love! Broads!» He stared at Alex, eyes dull as glass. «Let's go. There's a free compartment next door here. While I still can…»

«She promised me the next dance,» Orest uttered gloomily.

«'Scuse me, buddy, I didn't see ya,» Redface bowed and scraped, and sat back down. «Where'd that Vznuzdov disappear to?»

«Well, there's somebody in bed over there,» Orest mentioned, good-naturedly.

«Is that 'somebody' Vznuzdov?!» Redface howled.

The gray-haired man started mumbling and smacking his lips in his sleep.

Redface put a finger to his large lips, and whispered:

«He and I'd be drinking together, back when we was cadets, wet 'hind the ears, hauling bombs along the Volga. Under the barges… If once in a while you saw barges going by real slow on the river, real careful-like, especially at night, and the barges themselves looked empty… That means they're transporting either a li'l ole submarine or a li'l ole bomb. But wait a mi… What're you asking so many questions for?!»

«We're not asking any questions,» answered a tired Alex. «You're going on and on all by yourself.»

«Well, I don't give a damn about that! 'Cuz I'm sick'a everything… What do we have wars for? Hah? Because they've got us, the military!» he slammed his fist to his chest — it rang like a bell. «I'm the military! Down with all the armies of the world, the planet, the universe!!!»

Suddenly he made out through the window, on the next track, an oncoming military transport train, with buck privates sitting and standing in the openings. Redface flung himself into the gangway. From the threshold he yelled out with all his might:

«Give us demobilization!»

And the conscripts all began roaring with laughter. They waved their hands and forage caps in the air: «Demobilize! Demobilize!»

Redface ecstatically tore off his shoulder straps and hurled them under the train wheels, to stormy applause.

The sleeping Vznuzdov came to, reluctantly tore his gray head from the trestle bed, screwed up his eyes, got up, stretched out towards a glass, drank and — only then — sat down with a grunt.

«What's your business here, comrades?» he asked, seeing Alex and Orest.

«Your colleague invited us aboard,» Alex elucidated. «The one you used to transport bombs with on the Volga…»

The gray-haired man opened his eyes wide at her.

«Beat the swords into ploughshares!» was heard coming from the gangway.

«Understood,» Gray Head heavily raised himself and strode off into the corridor.

Redface was swinging from the footboard somewhere, bawling out:

«Peace for the cottages, women for the soldiers! Hip-hip-hurray!!!»

But by now only empty fields, as far as the eye could see, were rolling by.

«I'll show you swords and ploughshares,» said Gray Head. He yanked Redface into the train car and boxed his ear. «Lost your head, huh, Blyakhin?»

Blyakhin crawled over to the compartment on all fours, sniveling:

«That's it — I whipped myself inna shape. Must not be the third day after all. Must'a made it to the fourth long time ago…»

Gray Head showed the circus folk the door.

«Get out!»

Resigned, they walked out to the hallway.

«I said out! Off the train! Civilians don't belong here.»

«We can't just jump off with the train moving,» grumbled Alex.

Gray Head shut the door. They could hear dull blows and muffled whimpering from inside the compartment.

«That's our train!» Alex cried out.

A train pulling circus cars was rolling along the next track, parallel to them. But the train hauling military equipment soon overtook it.

The sun, sinking behind the horizon, burst forth from the other side of the circus cars' locomotive, dazzling Orest and Alex.

They made it to Zaschekino that night. The rail yard was lit up with powerful lamps mounted on masts high overhead; it seemed brighter than in daytime. Alex and Orest stretched out on some stunted grass between the lines. Mollie lay next to them.

«It's as bright as the circus ring, under the big top,» smiled Orest.

«Wish I could have something to drink,» Alex sighed.

«I'll run over and get us something,» Orest answered instantly, and dashed off.

Alex hmphed, stroking the dog.

«He can be trained too, huh?»

Mollie gave a wide yawn, seasoned with a slight whimper.

Orest brought back a plastic bottle of Coca Cola.

«We lucked out. Some guys were ripping off a container back there, so I went to the trouble of getting us a little something… Drink up, Alyona!»

Alex looked him over and laughed. She took the bottle, twisted it open and drank.

Echoing voices from the loudspeakers mingled with engine whistles and the rumble of wheels.

Some sort of freight train arrived. It sailed past and ground to a halt in the distance, with a sigh. Out of a navy freezer car emerged the sleepy figure of what could have been a man or a woman.

«Where's the water tower here?»

«Don't know,» answered Orest.

The trackman showed up. The freezer man turned to him:

«Hey, buddy, can you move us under the water? Our refrigerators are defrosting.»

«Tomorrow.»

«We've got highly perishable products onboard. We're haulin' poultry to Svobodino. We're supposed to be there by tomorrow.»

«Can't do it. We don't have any engines. We'll send you off day after tomorrow.»

«Well, isn't that an engine I see puffin' away over there, or what?»

A locomotive was creeping backwards and forwards on some empty rails.

«That's for the circus. They're supposed to get here soon. They had an elephant go wild on 'em. Hell if we're gonna be keeping 'em here!»

Orest jumped over to them.

«What do you mean, an elephant went wild? Can't leave them alone for a minute!»

«They're coming!» Alex clamored.

The multi-colored little cars appeared at last. In the leading car's entrance stood the old codger, Gordey, smoking a pipe. When he saw Alex, he started waving his crutch.

«How come ya didn't water the pigeons?»

«We got left behind, Gordey, for Pete's sake. Way back in Gnilukha, what're you talkin' about?!»

«Huh? Ya mean ya didn't even feed the horses, for a whole day? Orest, wilya gettaload'a that!»

Meanwhile, another car slowly rolled over. Inside, a curly-haired lad was peeling potatoes. He hopped over to the door.

«Ou-la la! How'd you all get here so fast?»

«What, you're telling me nobody back there noticed a thing? At all?»

Alex turned to Orest with a flabbergasted look, and screamed, «WE-GOT-LEFT-BEHIND!!!» into the ether.

Orest, meanwhile, ran over to the car with a painted elephant on its side, and clambered up onto its footboard. In its entryway stood a red-haired, freckled fat woman holding a monkey.

«What happened to the elephant?!» Orest blurted out.

The fat lady cracked up:

«Nothing. We cooked up the story way back in Zheltokrysino, that he'd gone berserk on us and that he might break up the whole station. They sure sent us on our way a lot faster. And then farther on they alerted everybody up ahead about the 'wild elephant.' So we had us green lights all the way to the end of the line.»

The train braked to a halt. The engine expecting the circus cars pulled back to allow their uncoupled locomotive to pass, then promptly got down to hooking itself up in the old engine's place.

«Hey!» they called out to Alex from the next circus car, as if nothing had happened. «So, you decided to walk the dog here after all, huh?»

«Sure,» smiled Alex. «It's nice to breathe fresh air once in a while…»

And, whistling Mollie over, she scurried to her car.