Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

It was good for her to remember that Sergei, she thought. Especially now, as part of the pack chasing the one he’d become.

For all the holding back she’d done, her affection for him had been real. If there hadn’t been the passion she’d felt for Jack, there had been liking, and there had been desire. The sex had always been good with the old Sergei. There had been an innocence about him that was truly touching; he had taken such joy in giving pleasure to her that she could hardly feel otherwise.

What had become of that man? He was in there somewhere, trapped in his desperate successor, occasionally breaking out to leave Pushkin verses on pillows. She missed that man. That friend.

The train left Ruzayevka Junctionlate the following afternoon and, for the rest of the day and night, meandered at not much better than walking pace through wooded hill country. Troops were frequently in evidence, milling at the small stations, camped in farmyards and fields, but only one burning building, glimpsed at the distant end of a valley, suggested that the Antonov rebellion was still alive.

In midmorning their train reached Batraki, where an armored cousin simmered on the adjacent track. With the latter leading, they left in tandem, emerging from the uplands to drum their way across the iron bridge which spanned the mile-wide Volga. With the hills receding on the western horizon, a straight run across flat farming country brought them back alongside the river in the outskirts of Samara. The sky was rapidly darkening, and as the train pulled into the city station, rain began falling in sheets.

Komarov and Maslov went in search of the Transport Cheka office, fighting their way through would-be passengers huddled in the shelter of the platform canopy. A report on Brady was waiting for them.

Komarov half-sat on the edge of the table to read it through. “Information gathered from Vecheka files and American comrade Michael Kelly, now teaching at Petrograd State University,” the cable began. “Aidan Brady, age around forty. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Union activist (American Industrial Workers of the World union) in years before war, served short prison terms in Oregon, Illinois, and New Jersey for related activities. Also active in Irish republican politics, in both USA and Ireland. Broke with IWW in early 1918 over leadership’s refusal to sanction armed resistance. Arrived in Russia soon after. Served with Red Army on Volga front that summer and later transferred to Samara Cheka. In Ukraine 1919–20, position and duties unknown due to loss of records. Left Russia toward the end of 1920, with the stated intent of fighting for the republicans in Ireland’s War of Independence. Return to Russia unrecorded but probably in May of this year. Entered politics as a socialist and has subsequently shifted his position further to the left, with links to anarchist and utopian communist groups. During civil war proved intelligent, courageous, and popular with fellow soldiers. Carries an American revolver, which he usually wears tucked into the back of his belt. Family circumstances unknown. No record of marriage in Russia.”

Komarov sighed and passed the cable to Maslov. Lots of facts, but nothing that really helped. The Brady described sounded decidedly forthright, but Komarov’s own abiding impression, gathered at their only previous meeting three years before, had been of a man held well inside himself, forever calculating, with more than a hint of slyness. He might have misread Brady, but Komarov doubted it. The biography in the cable sounded more like agitprop than real life.

When you boiled it down, a solitary truth remained—the man was a classic renegade.

Komarov turned to the local Chekist who was hovering anxiously by his side. “When did the last train leave for Tashkent, and when will it arrive?” Komarov asked.

The man scurried off to find out, returning five minutes later. “It left six days ago and should arrive sometime in the next three.”

Komarov thought for a moment. “Chances are they know someone there,” he muttered.

“Other anarchists?” Maslov suggested.

“You may be right, Pavel Tarasovich,” Komarov said as thunder rolled in the distance. He turned to the local man. “I want to send a message to the Tashkent Cheka.”

Returning to the train some twenty minutes later, Komarov noticed that the man he still thought of as Davydov was farther up the platform, chatting with the locomotive crew. During the first few days of their journey, Komarov had not seen anything in the man’s or Piatakova’s behavior to suggest a previous relationship, but if they had known each other for years, they would both be doing their best to disguise that fact. They certainly seemed to be enjoying each other’s company, but that was hardly suspicious in itself. He himself had thrown them together, and traveling in the Cheka section of the train didn’t invite interaction with other passengers.

It was barely morning whenMcColl climbed from his bed, the dim dawn light filtering through the shutters on the window. He rolled them aside and leaned his head out. They were still ascending the Samara valley, the line twisting to follow the river, the locomotives straining at the incline. The hills that rose to the south were wrapped in amber light.

He went out into the corridor to watch the eastern sky lighten, the crest of the hills slowly sharpening as the sun rose up behind them. And as the light grew, he became aware of movement and color by the side of the tracks. People. Some walking, some lying prone. And the latter were clearly not sleeping—they’d succumbed to exhaustion, hunger, or both.

The fact that some parts of Russia were suffering serious food shortages had been mentioned in the Moscow press, but the extent of the shortages had been left rather vague. Well, here they were, McColl thought, and it looked very much like a famine.

The sun climbed over the hilltops, flooding the valley with yellow light, laying bare the horror. Corpses were strewn on both sides of the line, young and old, male and female, each with its cloud of hungry flies. Those people still moving, stumbling northward, showed little interest in the train that was rumbling past them or the bodies that littered their passage. Each emaciated face seemed set in the same mold of utter resignation.

In the sky above, black shapes hovered, flapping their wings in anticipation.

McColl stood at the window, arms outstretched, unable to turn his eyes away. He asked himself why they weren’t stopping to help, but already knew the answer: the food they had on board would feed only a few for less than a day, and hold up the train without making any real difference.

How had famine blighted a land rich as this one? Was this a consequence of the revolution, of turning everything upside down, of the bitter war between party and peasants? But then what did that matter to these figures below, trudging northward in sheer desperation?

He suddenly became aware that the young officer Krasilnikov was standing at another window only a few feet away, absorbed by the same sights as he was. And that the officer was silently weeping, tears coursing down either cheek.

On the other side ofthe train, Komarov watched as the mural of pain unrolled. He had known there was a famine in the Volga region, and here it was. An emotional response would be self-indulgent and of no help to anyone but himself. The NEP would right the situation in the months to come; these poor people were simply paying one retrospective price of the civil war. The leadership in Moscow was already doing all that could be done.

The prospect of eating made him feel sick, which was all the more reason to set an example. He finished dressing and headed for the dining car, two trembling hands concealed in his pockets.