Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

“I heard,” Komarov said. He was examining the map, remembering that Peters had mentioned how slow the boat was.

“It left at dawn,” Maslov confirmed, “but our men were not on board.”

Komarov grunted. “Ask them when it’s due to reach Kerki.”

Three or four days was the answer.

“Right. Get Chechevichkin in here.”

The grains of rice that clung to his beard indicated the local chairman had been eating his breakfast. “Yes, comrade?”

Komarov passed on the new information. “I must get to Kerki in three days,” he added, studying the map once more.

“I don’t see how—”

“That’s exactly what you must do. Look, here. This road—is it passable for automobiles?”

Chechevichkin considered. “Well…”

“There is a garrison at Karshi, isn’t there?”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?”

“Half of them are down with fever.”

“Then half of them are not.”

They drove out of Samarkandsoon after noon, cruising along a surprisingly smooth road toward the distant mountains. But not for long. As they left the last habitations behind, the road threw aside any need to keep up appearances, and swiftly degenerated into a jarring duet of potholes and ruts. The first tire burst after about ten miles, the second two miles farther on, making McColl understand why they’d bought eight spares for the two vehicles.

While the drivers busied themselves with the second wheel change, he walked forward along the road, which ran up a wide, dry valley before disappearing between the yellow rock walls of a gorge. Behind him the sand dunes stretched back to the distant line of green that marked the course of the Zeravshan River. Caitlin was sitting on the running board of one car staring thoughtfully into space. Komarov was pacing up and down, his grey hairs glinting in the sun beneath the edge of his cap. Maslov was arguing with the two drivers, probably about their productivity.

They had passed two camel caravans soon after leaving the city, but now seemed alone in the middle of a very large universe. Or almost. A large scorpion emerged from between two boulders not a yard from McColl’s feet, its upflung tail swaying gently as it advanced. He flicked some dust with his boot and watched it scuttle back into the shadows. Like a spy, he thought sourly. Why had Komarov brought him on this last leg?

Maslov was waving everyone back to the cars, and soon they were driving on toward the next blowout. It occurred high in a mountain pass and was swiftly succeeded by another, but then either the road or their luck improved, and they motored safely down into another wide valley, the ancient town of Shahrisabz a growing splotch of green in the distance. Darkness was falling as they entered the main street, pursued by a crowd of children and watched by the curious eyes of the older inhabitants. The local party official had apparently been warned that they were coming; he suddenly appeared in front of them waving a large red flag. McColl wondered if the man intended to walk ahead of the cars all the way to Karshi.

McColl climbed out to interpret, but the Uzbek’s Russian was up to the task of explaining the arrangements for their overnight stay. The drivers were sent off to find spares for the spares; the rest of them were led up onto a spacious roof where food was already being prepared. A large, black, semispherical iron bowl was sitting on a circle of bricks above a wood fire; inside it McColl could see and smell pieces of mutton, onion, carrot, and tomato sizzling in the fat—the beginnings of a pilaf. Cups of water, sliced peppers, and rice were arrayed on a tray beside the fire, ready for adding when the time was right.

He sat himself down, suddenly feeling ravenous. Komarov was talking to the party official; Maslov and Caitlin had disappeared. The street below was still full of children, many gazing up at the roof with disappointed faces, as if shortchanged on a promised entertainment. Most of the town was visible, or would have been half an hour earlier. Now only the higher slopes of the surrounding ridges were bathed in violet light, and as McColl watched, the stars grew sharper above the jagged mountains to the south.

Caitlin came out onto the roof with an Uzbek woman, having let down her hair and changed into a multicolored dress and shawl. She threw him a smile as she and their hostess sat down on the other side of the fire.

The meal was ready in about an hour, although it seemed three to McColl and his stomach. The food was delicious and, by some miracle of local requisitioning, came with a liberal supply of wine. A quintet of Uzbek musicians appeared to serenade them, three playing a stringed instrument that McColl didn’t recognize, the other two beating out rhythms on tabla and tambourine. With the stars bright above, his head full of wine and music, McColl felt a rare sense of contentment spreading through his being. If he was living on borrowed time, all the more reason to enjoy it.

Every now and then, his and Caitlin’s eyes would meet across the fire, and they’d been lovers long enough for him to recognize her look. He knew they shouldn’t, that sleeping with him again might even prove fatal for her, so he tore himself away from the eyes and the fire, and announced that he was having an early night.

She had other ideas, catching up with him as he reached his door and putting her arms around his neck.

“This is too public,” she said after a long, intention-sapping kiss.

“It’s too dangerous,” he told her, resisting her gentle tug on his arm.

“I know,” she said. “But if making love with you makes me an enemy of the revolution, then it’s not the revolution I chose to serve. Now come.”

He went.

Later, as they lay in each other’s arms, she ran a finger across his chest. “Sometimes I think that we’re the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to understand.”

“I know. And yet sometimes—like now—it seems so… self-explanatory.”

She propped up her head on an arm and looked into his face. “So are you still in love with me?”

“I’m afraid I am,” he answered with a lightness he didn’t feel.

“I’m not,” she said, laying her head back onto his shoulder.

An hour later, he left her asleep and padded silently back to his own room, hoping to maximize any thin chance of concealing their liaison. Still feeling wide awake, he went out onto the creaking balcony and watched a pair of scrawny dogs prowling the empty street.

Had he left it too late to escape? He probably had. If he took off now in one of the cars parked below, he’d either die in the desert or find the Cheka waiting in the first town he reached. And if the party ever reached Kerki, he doubted that Komarov would leave him untended again. The die seemed cast.

Perhaps it always had been. He’d left it too late to leave because this was where he wanted to be.

Two hundred miles to thewest, the anchored Red Turkestan rolled gently in the smooth current of the Amu Dar’ya. Red lights shone at either end of the superstructure, though what purpose they served was beyond Piatakov; no boat would be moving on such a treacherous river at night.

They had run aground about half a dozen times that day, and both passengers and crew had been forced to take to the shallow water and bodily heave the boat off the sandbanks. The civilian passengers had taken less kindly to this unwelcome exercise than they had to the news that their boat had been hijacked. That minor detail had been accepted with a stoicism that bordered on masochism. The boat was still headed in the right direction, so why worry about who was in control? Better to shrug and enjoy what shade you could find. It was Russia writ small.