Strindberg's Star (41 page)

The books fell in piles from their shelves over in the lounge, and from the mahogany cabinet came the sound of breaking glass. With the next lift, the compartment door began to slide back and forth, in time with the jerky upward movements.

When the car had been lowered again, it was screwed onto the wider axles that fit the railroad tracks in the former Soviet republics. The gauge that had once slowed the Nazis’ weapons transports to Stalingrad and Kursk.

After the wheel change, the journey continued with the monotonous rhythm of the rail joints, and soon Eva and Don fell asleep again. Sleeping, they were carried from Brest, via Baranovichi and Minsk, to the border crossing that lay right between the Belarusian city of Orsha and the Russian forest that had become infamous under the name Katyn.

T
here they stood, in the light of dawn.

The stillness made Don wake up and swing his feet down onto the soft carpet of the sleeping compartment. Behind him, Eva still lay sleeping with one arm stretched out across the warm spot where his body had been resting a moment ago.

He stretched, feeling slightly nauseated after the bumpy journey, and padded in his stocking feet over to the lounge, then sank down in one of the lounge’s easy chairs to gather enough strength to make himself a cup of morning tea.

The railway map was still on the table. The only thing they’d had to go on was the timetable that Hex sent via the Internet, a clock, and a very poorly sharpened pencil. Still, the notes from Germany were written with great confidence.

The first crossed-out place came twelve miles or so before Warsaw, and after that, the journey had gone increasingly jerkily and slowly. Near a small, forgotten village there was a final, resigned mark which consisted of a long row of blunt question marks.

Don looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly quarter to four in the morning. He tried to figure out how far they could have come by this time. The tip of the pen moved uncertainly toward the point where the Dnieper flowed out of Russia, but just as he was about to cross it out he heard violent pounding from the outside of the freight car’s sliding door. After a short silence, the pounding was briskly repeated, as though whoever was standing out there actually expected someone to come open up.

Don sat frozen, with the tip of his pencil pressing right through the dark blue stripe of the Dnieper.

Then he heard quick steps from out in the Masonite hallway, and Eva was standing in the door to the compartment, newly awakened and with red eyes. It looked as though she were silently trying to mime a question, then there was more pounding, and someone pulled on and started tampering with the lock on the sliding door.

D
on managed to get his fingers to release the pencil and got his body to move again, shaking itself out of the muscle lock that his panic had so quickly caused. But when he got up on his feet, he could feel the walls of the lounge closing in on him, in time with all the scraping sounds and bangs coming from outside.

“The outer hidden wall is closed, right?” she whispered. “The panels can’t have slid apart, can they?”

He signaled: I don’t know.

“Should I look?” Eva tried again. “The wall can be locked together again from the inside, right? Maybe it’s just a routine check; maybe they’ll be satisfied with a quick peek.”

Don didn’t have time to give an answer, because now they could hear a voice outside the sliding door hissing in thick Russian:

“We can just …” Don began, before he was once again interrupted by the voice:

Don swallowed a few times, and then he finally got his legs to start moving forward. He was blocked by Eva, who was standing there in front of the compartment door like a human barrier.

“Move,” he said. “We have to open up.”

came the voice.

The attorney didn’t seem to want to give up. She held tight to the edges of the door frame with whitening fingers.

Don broke through Eva’s grip with a bit of force and shoved her aside to get out into the narrow Masonite corridor. He reached the small metal catches near the ceiling, which were still holding the hidden walls in place, closed.

After he’d opened them so that he could see the sliding door ahead of him, Don began to fumble in his pocket to take out the key.

The pounding sounded a lot louder now that the wooden wall had been moved aside. Don sank to his knees and placed the key in the lock of the sliding door. He rotated it two turns and then slowly got up to wait for what would happen.

Someone immediately pulled the sliding door a bit to the side, and the first patch of light streamed in over Don’s face. There was only one person standing outside: a soldier with a sparse beard in a worn grayish green uniform. Alongside the shaft of his boot a German shepherd was prowling around with its ears back. It began to bark immediately, and it didn’t obey the soldier’s hushing noises. But then came a hard tug on the leash, which choked the dog into panting yips.

Sir?”

There was a certain embarrassment in the Russian soldier’s questioning manner.

“Well … what do you want?” Don blinked.

He was glad that he couldn’t see himself, newly awakened up on a freight car in the dawn light.

“Shh …” the soldier hushed again.

Then the Russian quickly looked over his shoulder and nodded toward something that seemed to be hidden under the wagon. When Don bent down he caught sight of a narrow wooden box that was sticking out near the closest axle.

“Package for you.
Have a look.”

Don didn’t really know how he should act, and the only thing he could think of was to ask, “Do you need help?”

The soldier shook his head and adjusted the leather strap of his
Kalashnikov. Then he crouched down and pulled the box out into the light. He heaved it up onto the edge of the car in front of the opening of the Masonite door, where there was just enough room to push it in.

Don stood and watched the spectacle without having any idea what he should say. Finally he managed to mumble a sheepish “Why, thank you.”

The Russian nodded but still seemed nervous. He lingered there in the vicinity of the car and rocked a bit on his boots.

“And … a little something?

After quickly rooting around in his pockets, Don produced a few crumpled bills, which he handed over. The Russian took them and peered up at him with a crooked smile.

“Thank you.