The Einstein Equation

1 Misha’s Prank

The three-star Kazlova Hotel was barely active, apart from a stag party from Minsk and some transient guests on their way to St. Petersburg. It was a terrible time of year for business, with summer gone and most tourists being mature in age, reluctant spenders who came to see the historical sites. Just after 6pm, Misha showed up to the two-story inn with his Volkswagen Kombi and his lines rehearsed well.

He checked his watch in the looming draw of shadows. Overhead, the cement and brick facade of the hotel lurched in quiet reprimand for his wayward methods. The Kazlova was one of the original buildings of the town as was evident by its turn of the Century architecture. Since Misha was a small boy his mother told him to steer clear of the old place, but he never heeded her drunken mumblings. In fact, he did not even listen to her when she told him she was dying, a small regret on his part. Since then, the teenage scoundrel had been cheating and hustling his way through what he deemed his final attempt at redeeming his abject existence — a small college course in basic physics and geometry.

He loathed the subject, but around Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus this was the way to a respectable job. It was the one piece of advice Misha took from his late mother, after she told him that his late father was a physicist from Dolgoprudny’s Institute of Physics and Technology. It was in Misha’s blood, she said, but he shrugged it off as a parental mindfuck at first. Amazing, the way in which a short stint in juvenile detention could change a young man’s need for direction. However, with no money and no job, Misha had to resort to street smarts and cunning. Since most Eastern Europeans were conditioned to see through bullshit, he had to change his target marks to unassuming foreigners, and Americans were his favorites.

Their naturally exuberant manner and mostly liberal stances made them very forthcoming toward the struggling Third World stories Misha told them. His American clients, as he called them, tipped the best and were delightfully gullible of the ‘extras’ his guided tours offered. As long as he could evade the authorities who asked for permits and tour guide registration, he would do alright. This was to be one of those nights where the extra money would come in for Misha and his fellow scamps. Misha had already baited the fat cowboy, one Mr. Henry Brown III from Fort Worth.

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Misha grinned as the small group exited the front doors of the Kazlova. Through the recently buffed windows of his van, he scrutinized the tourists eagerly. Two older ladies, one being Mrs. Brown, were chatting profusely in high-pitched voices. Henry Brown was dressed in jeans and a long sleeved shirt, hidden in part by his sleeveless vest jacket that reminded Misha of Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future — four sizes larger. Defying expectation, the rich American opted for a baseball cap instead of a ten-gallon hat.

“Evenin’ son!” Mr. Brown hollered loudly as they approached the old minivan. “Hope we’re not late.”

“No, sir,” Misha smiled, hopping out of his vehicle to open the sliding door for the ladies as Henry Brown rocked the shotgun seat. “My next group is only at nine o’clock.” Misha lied, of course. It was a necessary fib to feed the ruse of his services being sought after by many, thus increasing the chance of obtaining a higher fee when the bullshit is presented in the trough.

“Better get a move on, then,” the fetching young lady, presumed to be Brown’s daughter, rolled her eyes. Misha tried not to reveal his attraction to the spoiled blond teenager, but he found her virtually irresistible. He relished the idea of playing hero tonight, when she would doubtless be terrified of what he and his comrades had planned. As they drove to the park and its World War II memorial stones, Misha started applying his charm.

“Pity you will not be seeing the station. It is also rich with history,” Misha remarked as they pulled into the park lane. “But I suppose its reputation scares off a lot of visitors. I mean, even my nine o’clock group backed out from the night tour.”

“What reputation?” the young Miss Brown enquired hastily.

‘Hooked,’ Misha thought.

He shrugged, “Well, it has a reputation of,” he applied dramatic pause, “being haunted.”

“By what?” Miss Brown pushed, amusing her grinning father.

“Damn it, Carly, he is just messin’ with ya, honeh,” Henry chuckled, keeping an eye on the two women taking pictures. Their incessant yapping dwindled as far as they walked away from Henry, and the distance soothed his ears.

Misha smiled, “It’s not an empty line, sir. Locals have been reporting sightings for years, but we keep it to ourselves, mostly. Look, no worries, I understand that most people are not brave enough to come out to the station at night. It is natural to be scared.”

“Daddy,” Miss Brown urged in a whispered, jerking her father’s sleeve.

“Come on, you are not seriously falling for this,” Henry smirked.

“Daddy, everything I have seen so far since we left Poland has bored the crap out of me. Can’t we just do this one thing for me?” she persisted. “Please?”

Henry, a seasoned businessman, cast the young man a glimmering leer. “How much?”

“Don’t feel pressured now, Mr. Brown,” Misha replied, trying not to meet eyes with the young lady at her father’s side. “Those tours are a bit steep for most people, due to the danger involved.”

“Oh my gawd, Daddy, you have to take us!” she wailed excitedly. Miss Brown swung around to Misha. “I just, like, love dangerous stuff. Ask my dad. I am such an adventurous person…”

‘I bet you are,’ Misha’s inner voice agreed lustfully as his eyes studied the smooth marble skin between her scarf and the seam of her open collar.

“Carly, there is no such thing as a haunted train station. It is all part of the show, isn’t it, Misha?” Henry roared cheerfully. Again, he leaned forward to Misha. “How much?”

‘…line and sinker!’ Misha shouted inside the confines of his scheming mind.

Carly rushed to call her mother and aunt back to the van as the sun kissed the horizon goodbye. The mellow breeze rapidly became a chilly breath as the darkness descended over the park. Shaking his head at his weakness for his daughter’s imploring, Henry struggled to fix the seat belt around his belly as Misha started the VW Kombi.

“Is this going to take long?” the aunt asked. Misha hated her. Even her resting expression reminded him of someone smelling something rotten.

“Would you like me to drop you off at the hotel first, ma’am?” Misha stirred deliberately.

“No, no, can we just go to the train station and get the tour over with?” Henry said, masking his firm resolution as a request to sound considerate.

Misha hoped his friends would be ready this time. There could be no glitches this time, especially a urinating ghost caught on the tracks. He was relieved to find the eerie deserted station as planned — solitary, dark and miserable. Across the overgrown tracks, the wind swept the autumn leaves, bending the stems of weeds in the Minsk night.

“Now, the story goes that, if you stand on Platform 6 of the Dudko Railroad Station at night, you will hear the whistle of the old locomotive that carried condemned prisoners-of-war to Stalag 342,” Misha recounted the fabricated details to his clients. “And then you see the station master, looking for his head after the NKVD beheaded him during an interrogation.”

“What is Stalag 342?” Carly Brown asked. Her father looked a bit less cheerful by now, as the details sounded a bit too realistic to be a scam, and he answered her with a solemn tone.

“It was a prison camp for Soviet soldiers, hun,” he said.

They strolled in a tight scrum, reluctantly traversing Platform 6. The only light on the morose building came from the beams of the Volkswagen van a few meters away.

“Who is the NK… what again?” Carly asked.

“Soviet Secret Police,” Misha bragged to make his story more believable.

He took great delight in watching the women shiver, their eyes like saucers as they waited to see the spectral form of the stationmaster.

‘Come on, Viktor,’ Misha prayed that his friends would pull through. At once, a forlorn train whistle echoed from somewhere down the tracks, ferried by the icy northwestern gale.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” Mr. Brown’s wife shrieked, but her husband was skeptical.

“Not real, Polly,” Henry reminded her. “Probably have a group of people working with him.”

Misha paid no attention to Henry. He knew what was coming. Another louder wail whistled closer to them. Desperate to smile, Misha was most impressed by the efforts of his accomplices when a faint cyclops glare emanated from the darkness on the tracks.

“Look! Holy shit! There he is!” Carly whispered in panic, pointing across the sunken rails to the other side, where Mikel’s slender frame came into view. Her knees buckled, but the other frightened women barely supported her in their own hysteria. Misha did not smile, maintaining his ruse. He looked at Henry, who just watched the shaky movements of the towering Mikel doing his headless station master act.

“Do you see that?” Henry’s wife whined, but the cowboy said nothing. Suddenly his eye was on the approaching light of the screaming locomotive, puffing like a leviathan dragon as it tore towards the station. The fat cowboy’s face drained of blood as the vintage steam engine emerged from the night, gliding towards them with pulsing thunder.

Misha frowned. All of it was a bit too well done. There was not supposed to be an actual train, yet, there it was in plain sight, hurtling toward them. No matter how he wracked his brain, the attractive young charlatan could not fathom the events present.

Mikel, under the impression that Viktor was responsible for the whistle, stumbled onto the tracks to cross and put a decent scare into the tourists. His feet felt their way across the iron bars and loose stones. Under the cover of his coat, his hidden face was snickering with glee at the terror of the women.

“Mikel!” Misha shouted. “No! No! Go back!”

But Mikel stepped over the tracks, onwards to where he heard the gasps. His sight was obscured by the cloth fabric that covered his head to effectively resemble a headless man. Viktor stepped out from the deserted ticket office and raced towards the group. At the sight of another silhouette, the whole family scampered, screaming, for the safety of the VW. Viktor was in fact trying to alert his two friends that he was not responsible for what was happening. He leapt onto the tracks to push the unsuspecting Mikel to the other side, but he misjudged the velocity of the anomalous manifestation.

Misha watched in horror as the locomotive crushed his friends, killing them instantly and leaving nothing behind but a sickening scarlet mess of bone and flesh. His large blue eyes froze in place, as did his gaping jaw. Shocked beyond cogency, he beheld the train dissipate into thin air. Only the screams of the American women rivaled the fading whistle of the murderous machine, as Misha’s mind took leave of its senses.