Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar

Ho fatto venti kili!

Io ho fatto nelle grande steppe…

Vassily applauded and joined with me in Russian. We stood in the dining car, singing our duet, drinking between verses.

Compagna Tatyana,

Hai fatto un' putana?

Si, Bonanno!

Ho fatto per un' anno,

Io ho fatto nelle grande steppe…

'Merry Christmas,' I said when the fourth bottle appeared. Vassily was smiling and nodding and chuckling hoarsely. He showed me a sheaf of restaurant bills he had been adding up. He shook them and then threw them into the air: 'Wheel' We sat down again, and Vassily, too drunk to remember that I couldn't speak Russian, harangued me for fifteen minutes. I suppose he was saying, 'Look at me. Fifty-five years old and I'm running this crummy dining car. Urp. Back and forth, every two weeks, from Moscow to Vladivostok, sleeping in Hard Class, too busy to take a piss, everyone giving me lip. Urp. You call that a life?' Towards the end of his harangue his head grew heavy, his eyelids drooped, and his speech became thick. He put his head down on the table, and, still holding tight to the bottle, he went to sleep.

'Merry Christmas.'

I finished my drink and went back to my compartment through the bouncing train.

The next morning, Christmas, I woke and looked over at the zombie sleeping with his arms folded on his chest like a mummy's. The provodnik told me it was six o'clock Moscow time. My watch said eight. I put it back two hours and waited for dawn, surprised that so many people in the car had decided to do the same thing. In darkness we stood at the windows, watching our reflections. Shortly afterwards I saw why they were there. We entered the outskirts of Yaroslavl and I heard the others whispering to themselves. The old lady in the frilly nightgown, the Goldi man and his wife and child, the domino-playing drunks, even the zombie who had been monkeying with my radio: they pressed their faces against the windows as we began rattling across a long bridge. Beneath us, half-frozen, very black, and in places reflecting the flames of Yaroslavl's chimneys, was the Volga.

… Royal David's city, Stood a lowly cattle shed…

What was that? Sweet voices, as clear as organ tones, drifted from my compartment. I froze and listened. The Russians, awestruck by the sight of the Volga, had fallen silent; they were hunched, staring down at the water. But the holy music, fragrant and slight, moved through the air, warming it like an aroma.

Where a mother laid her baby In a manger, for his bed…

The hymn wavered, but the silent reverence of the Russians and the slowness of the train allowed the soft children's voices to perfume the corridor. My listening became a meditation of almost unbearable sadness, as if joy's highest refinement was borne on a needlepoint of pain.

Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ, her little child…

I went into the compartment and held the radio to my ear until the broadcast ended, a programme of Christmas music from the BBC. Dawn never came that day. We travelled in thick fog and through whorls of brown blowing mist, which made the woods ghostly. It was not cold outside: some snow had melted, and the roads -more frequent now – were rutted and muddy. All morning the tree trunks, black with dampness, were silhouettes in the fog, and the pine groves at the very limit of visibility in the mist took on the appearance of cathedrals with dark spires. In places the trees were so dim, they were like an after-image on the eye. I had never felt close to the country, but the fog distanced me even more, and I felt, after 6,000 miles and all those days in the train, only a great remoteness; every reminder of Russia – the women in orange canvas jackets working on the line with shovels, the sight of a Lenin statue, the station signboards stuck in yellow ice, and the startled magpies croaking in Russian at the gliding train – all this annoyed me. I resented Russia's size; I wanted to be home.

The dining car was locked at nine. I tried again at ten and found it empty. Vassily explained that, as we would be in Moscow soon, the dining car was closed. I swore at him, surprising myself with my own anger. Under protest he made me an omelette; he handed it to me with a slice of bread and a glass of tea. While I was eating, a woman came in. She wore a black coat and had a Soviet Railway badge pinned to her black hat. She spoke to Vassily: 'Kleb* (bread). Vassily waved her away: 'Nyet klebV She pointed at my meal and repeated her request for bread. Vassily shouted at her. She stood her ground and got an almighty shove from Vassily, who smiled at me apologetically as he delivered the blow. The woman came back and put out her hand and screamed loudly at him. This infuriated Vassily. His eyes became small, and he threw himself on her, beating her with his fists. He twisted her arm behind her back and kicked her hard. The woman howled and was gone.

Vassily said to me, 'Nikarasho!' The fight had left him breathless. He smiled his idiotic smile. I was ashamed of myself for not helping the woman. I pushed my food away.

'Pavel?' Vassily blinked at me.

'You are a fucking monkey.'

'Pozhal'sta,' said Vassily, in glad welcome.

The train was going at half-speed for the approach to Moscow. I walked down the corridors of Hard Class to my compartment, to pack my belongings. The other passengers were already packed. They stood in their arrival suits, smoking by the windows. I passed each one, seeing criminality and fraud in their faces, brutish-ness in their little eyes, fists protruding from unusually long sleeves.

'Monkey,' I said, squeezing through a group of soldiers.

A man stroking his fur hat blocked my way. I went up to him. He agitated his enormous jaw with a yawn.

'Monkey!' He moved aside.

Monkey to the provodnik, monkey to the man at the samovar, monkey to the army officer in Soft Class; and, still muttering, I found the zombie sitting by the window in an overcoat, his jam-flecked thumb on Mockba. 'Monkey!' I wished him a Merry Christmas and gave him two pipe cleaners, a can of Japanese sardines, and a ballpoint pen that would run out of ink as soon as he wrote his name.

That was the end of my trip, but it was not the end of my journey. I still had a ticket to London, and, hoping to catch the next train west, I cancelled my hotel reservation and spent the afternoon arranging for a de luxe berth on the train to the Hook of Holland, via Warsaw and Berlin. I was packed and ready, and I arrived at the station on Christmas night with an hour to spare. The Intourist guide brought me to the barrier and said goodbye. I stood for forty-five minutes on the platform, waiting to be shown to my compartment.

It was not a porter who inquired about my destination, but an immigration official. He leafed through my passport, rattling the pages. He shook his head.

'Polish visa?'

'I'm not stopping in Poland,' I said. 'I'm just passing through.'

'Transit visa,' he said.

'What do you mean?' I said. 'Hey, this train's going to leave!'

'You must have Polish transit visa.'

'I'll get it at the border.'

'Impossible. They will send you back.'

'Look' – the whistle blew – 'I've got to get on this train. Please – it's going to leave without me!' I picked up my suitcase. The man held me by the arm. A signalman passed by, motioning with his green flag. The train began to move.

'I can't stay here!' But I let the man hold on to my sleeve and watched the Holland-bound express tooting its way out of the station: frseeeeeeeeefronnng. There were travellers' faces at the windows. They were happy, safely leaving. It's Christmas, darling, they were saying, and we're off. It was the end, I thought, as I saw the train receding, taking my heart with it. It's the end: duffilled!