Alan Furst - Dark Star

“Please, your baggage,” the conductor said.

Szara snatched the handles and followed the man down the corridor to the end of the car. A chief conductor awaited him there. “I am sorry, Herr Szara, but you must leave the train here.”

Szara stiffened. “I will not,” he said.

“Please,” said the man nervously.

Szara stared at him for a moment, utterly confounded. There was nothing outside the open door but dark fields. “I demand an explanation,” he said.

The man peered over Szara’s shoulder and Szara turned his head. Two men in suits stood at the end of the corridor. Szara said, “Am I to walk to Berlin? ” He laughed, inviting them to consider the absurdity of the situation, but it sounded false and shrill. The supervisor placed a tentative hand above his elbow; Szara jerked away from him. “Take your hands off me,” he said.

The conductor was now very formal. “You must leave.”

He realized he was going to be thrown off if he didn’t move, so he took his baggage and descended the iron stairway to the cinderbed on which the rails lay. The conductor leaned out, was handed a red lantern from within, and swung it twice toward the engine. Szara stepped away from the train as it jerked into motion. He watched it gather momentum as it rolled past him-a series of white faces framed by windows-then saw it off into the distance, two red lamps at the back of the caboose fading slowly, then blackness.

The change was sudden, and complete. Civilization had simply vanished. He felt a light wind against his face, the faint rime of frost on a furrowed field sparkled in the light of the quarter moon, and the silence was punctuated by the sound of a night bird, a high-low call that seemed very far away. He stood quietly for a time, watched the slice of moon that dimmed and sharpened as haze banks drifted across it in a starless sky. Then, from the woodland at the near horizon, a pair of headlights moved very slowly toward a point some fifty yards up the track. He could see strands of ground mist rising into the illumination of the beams.

Ah. With a sigh Szara hefted the two bags and trudged toward the lights, discovering, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, a narrow country lane that crossed the railroad tracks. General Bloch, he thought. Doing tricks with the German rail system.

The car reached the crossing before he did and rolled gently to a stop. Somehow, he’d missed a signal-this meeting had the distinct feel of an improvised fallback. He was, on balance, relieved. The heart of the apparat had skipped a beat but now returned to form and required the parcel from Prague. Well, thank God he had it. As he approached the car, its outline took shape in the ambient glow of the headlamps. It was not the same Grosser Mercedes that had carried General Bloch away from the station at Ulm, but the monarchs of the apparat changed cars about as casually as they changed mistresses and tonight had selected something small and anonymous for the treff, clandestine meeting, in a German beet field.

The middle-age sisters in the train compartment that Szara had recently occupied were amused, rather sentimentally amused, at the argument that now began between the two students returning from their mountain-climbing exertions in the Tatra. Sentiment was inspired by the recollection of their own sons; wholesome, Nordic youths quite like these who had, from time to time, gone absolutely mulish over some foolery or other, as boys will, and come nearly to blows over it. The sisters could barely keep from smiling. The dispute began genially enough-a discussion of the quality of Czech matches made for woodcutters and others who needed to make outdoor fires. One of the lads was quite delighted with the brand they’d purchased, the other had reservations. Yes, he’d agree that they struck consistently, even when wet, but they burned for only a few seconds and then went out: with damp kindling, clearly a liability. The other boy was robust in defense. Was his friend blind and senseless? The matches burned for a long time. No, they didn’t. Yes, they did. Just like miniature versions of their papas, weren’t they, disputing some point in politics or machinery or dogs.

As the train approached the tiny station at Feldhausen, where the track crosses a bridge and then swings away from the river Elster, a bet of a few groschen was struck and an experiment undertaken. The defender of the matches lit one and held it high while the other boy counted out the seconds. The sisters pretended not to notice, but they’d been drawn inexorably into the argument and silently counted right along.

The first boy was an easy winner and the groschen were duly handed over-offered cheerfully and accepted humbly, the sisters noted with approval. The match had burned for more than thirty-eight seconds, from a point just outside Feldhausen to the other end of the station platform and even a little way out into the countryside. The point was made: those were excellent matches, just the thing for woodsmen, mountain climbers, and any others who might need to light a fire.

As Szara approached the car, the man next to the driver climbed out, held the back door open and said, “Change of travel plans,” with a smile of regret.

His Russian was elementary but clear, phrased in the slow cadence characteristic of the southeastern reaches of the country, near the Turkish border. “It won’t be so inconvenient.” He was a dark man with a great belly; Szara could make out a whitening mustache and thinning gray hair spread carefully over a bald head. The driver was young-a relative, perhaps even a son of the passenger. For the moment he was bulky and thick, the extra chin just beginning, the hair at the crown of his head growing sparse.

Szara settled himself in the back seat and the car moved forward cautiously through the night mist. “You tried to contact me in Prague?” he asked.

“Couldn’t get your attention, but no matter. Which one do we want? “

Szara handed the satchel over the seat.

“Handsome old thing, isn’t it,” said the man, running an appreciative hand over the pebbled hide.

“Yes,” Szara said.

“All here? “

“Except for a pistol. That I dared not take through German border control. It’s at the bottom of the river.”

“No matter. It’s not pistols we need.”

Szara relaxed. Wondered where and how he’d be put back on his way to Berlin, knew enough about such treffs not to bother asking. The Great Hand moved everyone about as it would.

“Must keep to form,” said the man, reaching inside his coat. He brought out a pair of handcuffs and held them out to Szara over the back of the seat. The car entered a farming village, every window dark, thatched-roof stone barns, then they were again among the fields.

Szara’s heart pumped hard; he willed his hand not to rise and press against his chest.

“What?” he said.

“Rules, rules,” said the fat man disconsolately. Then, a bit annoyed: “Always something.” He shook the handcuffs impatiently. “Come, then …”

“For what?” Za chto?

“It isn’t for anything, comrade.” The man made a sucking noise against his tooth. He tossed the handcuffs into Szara’s lap. “Now don’t make me irritable.”

Szara held the cuffs in his hand. The metal was unpolished, faintly oily.

“You better do what we say,” the young driver threatened, his voice uncertain, querulous. Clearly he wanted to give orders but was afraid that nobody would obey him.

“Am I arrested? “

“Arrested? Arrested?” The fat man had a big laugh. “He thinks we’re arresting him!” The driver tried to laugh like the other man but he didn’t have the voice for it.