‘Rwoot?’ she called up; then looked round smiling as Pol and Cayle came in and sat down opposite her on Pol’s bunk. ‘Mr Passmore has been informing me,’ she said, ‘of many interesting facts about the American society. It is very complicated.’
Cayle groped out in the dark for the bottle of Osoboya on the table under the window. ‘Has he told you about the new CIA computer?’ he asked: ‘The one that can translate Gone with the Wind into Russian in twenty minutes?’
‘Aw for God’s sake,’ Passmore cried feebly, ‘don’t go bring the CIA into this!’
Cayle watched Galina Valisova’s naked shoulders creep an inch above the sheet. He pulled the cotton plug out of the bottle, took a swallow, and passed it to Pol. ‘Mr Passmore doesn’t like me talking about the CIA, Galina. It’s a very sensitive subject for Americans. It’s the equivalent of the KGB,’ he added, as Pol again belched noisily beside him.
‘Lay off,’ said Passmore. ‘It isn’t the same thing at all. The KGB is for internal security — like the American NSA, the National Security Agency.’
In the darkness Pol made a slow retching noise, while the American went on, like a late-night radio announcer: ‘But the CIA is a highly motivated government-within-a-government. Its budget is more than many small countries’ put together. It’s a force for evil,’ he said, as Pol vomited between his knees.
‘Ah merde!’ he growled, and Cayle felt the bunk lurch upwards as the Frenchman’s weight lifted and he lunged for the door.
Cayle saw Galina’s head duck back under the sheet, and he was just in time to drag the door open and push Pol out into the corridor before he was sick again.
‘Whisky et le champagne,’ he groaned.
‘Followed by vodka,’ Cayle said brutally: ‘Poison.’ He grabbed the Frenchman under the armpits and they began to stumble forward, Pol bouncing off the compartment doors with his head down, hands clasped across his mouth.
The door of the toilet opened into a small room with a kidney-shaped sofa in wine-red velvet and a long gilded mirror under a tasselled lamp. The lavatory was through a second door. Both rooms were unoccupied, and Cayle managed to haul Pol through the two doors and push his head down into the toilet. The Frenchman’s big shiny face had turned the colour of a mushroom, and his spiral of black hair was spread across his egg-shaped head like a damp spider.
Cayle went back and locked the outer door. Pol was now on his knees, grasping the lavatory bowl with both hands. ‘Who’s Passmore?’ Cayle shouted, above the roar of the wheels.
‘Passmore?’ Pol muttered, and his body heaved forward. ‘I don’t know him. He’s just an American — an ordinary American.’ Cayle tore out a paper towel from beside the basin, ran some cold water, and began to sponge the back of Pol’s neck. The Frenchman slowly struggled to his feet, and Cayle guided him to the basin. There were faint blotches of colour on his cheeks, but his eyes were tiny and dilated like dull beads. ‘My stomach,’ he moaned. ‘Ah, my stomach — it is ruined.’
A voice bellowed something in Russian through the outside door, and the handle rattled violently. Cayle yelled, ‘Okay — harasho! Are you feeling better now?’ he said to Pol.
The Frenchman turned and spat into the basin. There now came a heavy pounding on the outer door, followed by a kick. Cayle began to get angry. Pol was being sick again, this time into the basin, and Cayle left him and went through to the outer door. He snapped the lock up, pulled the door open, and had said the first syllable of the only Russian obscenity he knew when he was hit. It was a quick hard blow on the side of his neck, and as he stumbled, a gloved fist smashed into his jaw. He felt his head crack against the door-jamb, and caught a glimpse of two men, thick-set, in dark overcoats and black fur caps. He tried to back away and get the door shut again, but lost consciousness first.
It returned in dull, disjointed waves. The floor was grinding and clanking, then falling away under him: the blue night-lights along the corridor roof came on bright again: he had the sensation of being lifted, dragged, his feet thumping down metal steps: a blast of freezing air and somewhere a voice saying, ‘Fuck, it’s that bastard, Cayle!’
His legs were knee-deep in snow. He saw the train lit up in a long caterpillar of light. A bell was ringing. His arms were held stiff at his sides, and he was being dragged backwards, and the snow felt light and spongy under his feet. A whistle blew, and a voice called, ‘For Christ’s sake, hurry!’
He felt dry leather and a sudden warmth. His trouser legs began dripping melted snow. He was in the back of a car. The engine was running and there was the blast of a fan-heater. Two men got in, one in front and one beside him, and the car sprang forward. A white glare swept across a high bank of snow and the straight black stems of pine-trees. The driver called over his shoulder, ‘Keep a good eye on him. Hit him again if he moves.’ Cayle didn’t move, except to be slung from side to side, bumping up and down as the headlamps flashed across the white-laced trees, plunging down into hollows of darkness. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of the man beside him: his face a dark blur under the fur hat, which had the earflaps hanging loose, swaying with the motion of the car.
From the front seat came a small red glow, as the driver touched the dashboard lighter to a cigarette. He drew on it and the glow lit up his hard lumpy complexion. Like cold porridge, thought
