Jody Shields - The Winter Station

How could such a concentration of information be deciphered from small black lines? The Baron’s focus wandered. He recollected a singing lesson when he was a child in which his music teacher instructed him by using metaphor after metaphor. Sing as if your lips were soft as a cushion . Weightless. First, think the sound, because once it leaves your throat it’s too late . After a moment of hesitation, the Baron loaded the brush with ink. How simple to hold a brush. Not simple.

A brushstroke must be simultaneously spontaneous and deliberate. His awareness became joined to the movement of his hand wielding the brush as he wrote the first character, then another. He completed a line. He squinted at the brushstrokes he’d just made on the paper. Xiansheng made the slightest gesture of approval.

The intensity and anxiety of the lessons sometimes left the Baron exhausted. Occasionally, he felt a lightness, a growing exhilaration, but suspected even this state wouldn’t have met with Xiansheng’s approval. His teacher wanted something indefinable and elusive, and the Baron failed to understand this mysterious demand.

Sometimes the Baron believed that he created meaning with his hands as a healer. Brought peace to others as he desired it himself. He remembered a dream. He had stood next to a painted Chinese character—he couldn’t read it—enlarged to the size of his own body, standing upright, solid as a statue, although flat and without depth. He had walked around this huge black character and had instantly understood the brushstrokes that created it as if some mechanical thing had been taken apart to reveal its workings. It was as clear and simple as the gesture of a blade, the movement of cloth in wind.

On the second floor of Central Station, Alexeievich Nikolaevich Nestorov, stationmaster of the CER, welcomed his visitor. The Baron introduced himself, squinting at Nestorov silhouetted against the wide windows overlooking the snow-whitened rail yards behind him.

“An honor, Baron. What brings you here? A quest for train tickets?” Nestorov was a large man with a reddened face and pale dry hair, evidence of long days exposed to the sun.

“No. Although perhaps I’ll need your help later. Do you anticipate any travel difficulties in the near future? This winter?” He caught Nestorov’s hesitation, quick as the dilation of the pupil.

“Only if something unexpected happens.”

“Such as?”

“The whims of men. Of passengers. Crowding, yes, a lack of seats can be a problem in the winter, and trains suffer delays because of the snow. But you’re with the Russian hospital. You’ll always be accommodated. Others must wait.”

“I had the pleasure of meeting your mother, Polixena Nestorovna, and her sister Agrafena at St. Nikolas Cathedral. We spoke about your travels in Manchuria.”

Nestorov was delighted to discover a thread between them. “I believe the sisters were jealous that they couldn’t join my expedition. But please be seated.” He enthusiastically called for tea and beckoned at a leather armchair draped with a tiger-skin rug. The floors were also covered with animal skins, many boldly patterned, and the walls were filled with mounted heads of wild boar, black bear, and roe deer.

“I tell you, Manchuria is a Garden of Eden. I saw meadows of blue gentian. Orange lilies high as your shoulder. Rhododendron. Campanula and peonies. Fields of bluebells where no man has ever walked.”

“You seem to be a hunter rather than a plant collector.” The Baron’s curious fingers had found the teeth on the tiger skin slung over his chair.

“We ate what we shot. Pheasant, pintail snipe, boar. They were practically tame, as they’d never encountered hunters. We also spotted the kingfisher and the rare oriental roller, Eurystomus calonyx, with its extraordinary green and blue plumage. I fancy myself something of an expert taxidermist. I prepared bird skins in the field, although rain made it almost impossible to keep the bodies from rotting.” His hand waved at the stuffed birds arranged behind the glass doors of a case.

“I admire your spirit of adventure. You traveled far north as Manchouli, yes? When did you return?”

Nestorov lunged across his desk and yanked a stained journal from a shelf. “August. End of August. Or early September.” His thick fingers tapped the book, and a heavy gold ring flashed.

A uniformed young clerk silently entered, balancing cups and a teapot on a tray. Nestorov quickly drank his tea with a sugar cube clenched between his teeth.

“Surely you had a guide in that wilderness?” The Baron worked toward his target.

“Father Jartoux. A Jesuit explorer. He’d crossed the territory years ago. Prayed as he hiked. Tiresome. But good to walk with a holy man.” Nestorov abruptly dug under the files on his desk, pulled out a paper fan, and used it even though there was a strong draft from the unusually large windows behind him. “Now, if you wish to see something beautiful, I recommend Laolongwan Lake in the Pai Shan Mountains. You climb for two hours and at the top, there’s a completely transparent lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. Water like crystal. There are seventy-two of these dragon pits, the longwan, in the area.” His eyes narrowed with pleasure. “Why are you so interested in my travels?”

“I’m considering an expedition to Manchuria myself. Andreev, an acquaintance, described outfitting your expedition.”

“Andreev? Has he been arrested?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Nestorov seemed disappointed. “He’s a well-known smuggler, you know. Black marketeer. Appears and disappears. Reliable when it suits him.”

“Your dealings with him were unsatisfactory?”

The stationmaster broke eye contact. “He always remembers certain people, his sources, with gifts.”

Clearly there was something between Nestorov and Andreev. The Baron shifted in his chair, smoothing the tiger skin under his legs so he wouldn’t crush it. “Andreev is a useful contact these days. But so are you, with the railroad under your command.”

“Yes. If you plan to travel. Or escape.” A nervous chuckle from Nestorov. “Andreev always told me he was in the business of selling animals to animals. His joke. He sold sable and tarbagan pelts, horn and bone. Bear paws. Live tiger and fox cubs. Perhaps the creatures were to be raised as pets in a brothel.” He blushed. “I’ve heard of such practices.”

“Your mother mentioned that you’d stayed with a native tribe?”

“The Buryat. They treated me very well. I’ve never felt so safe. Slept like a child.”

The Baron ignored this and moved toward his target. “I heard there was an illness among the Buryat.”

Nestorov’s hesitation spanned a blink. “Father Jartoux, who spoke their language, was told about an illness that periodically returns.” He was sweating profusely and the high collar of his jacket was ringed with a dark irregular line. He rubbed a handkerchief over his face and neck, studying the Baron in calculation. “You’re a doctor at the Russian hospital?”

The Baron felt a prickle of fear, as if he were responding to a threat. He was surrounded by an aura of disinfectant, a warning to others. A death stink.

Nestorov fumbled in the drawer of his desk. “I met no one who was ill. No one.”

“You lie.”

A dry mechanical click and Nestorov’s hand swept up holding a gun. “I knew I’d be tracked here. Did you come to arrest me, Doctor? I’m not sick. I won’t be quarantined. Don’t worry, I won’t shoot you. The pistol is for my head.”

The Baron sprang at the desk, knocked Nestorov’s arm sideways. The gun thudded onto the floor.

Nestorov began to weep noisily, cheeks scarlet with tears.