back on her and kept walking, and she was furious for showing she cared.
She woke with a start as the train juddered to a halt, her mouth dry, her neck stiff. It was dark and her neighbours were still dozing, blankets pulled up to their chins. She examined her dim reflection in the window, discreetly tidying loose strands of hair. She felt dirty and cold and would have given almost anything for a bath and a comfortable bed. Elizavetgrad was only a little further and it was there she had arranged to rendezvous with Goldenberg and a portmanteau of dynamite. With the bag on the rack above them, she would have to be on her mettle for the rest of the journey. The old soldier opposite was awake and eyeing her intently. She ignored him and gazed out into the November night as the train began to gather speed, wisps of steam whisking past the window like spirits at a witch’s dance. And soon she could see the yellow twinkle of Elizavetgrad and the train began to slow. The plump clerk beside her, who had grunted and snuffled in his sleep for most of the journey, stirred as if an unseen hand was shaking him roughly to give notice the city was only minutes away. Placing his hands on his knees, he hoisted himself groggily to his feet and reached up for his trunk. Most of the passengers were preparing to leave the carriage. It would make it easier for her to pass unnoticed on the platform.
From the edge of the platform, Captain Alexander Zabirov could hear the rails singing and knew the train was only minutes from the station. He glanced at the waiting-room door then a little way beyond it to where he knew his men were waiting in the darkness beneath the canopy for his signal.
‘You’re sure he’s in there, Turchin?’ he said, turning to the sergeant at his side.
‘Quite sure, sir. He’s not going far with that trunk.’
‘Very good.’
It was Turchin who had noticed the Jew struggling along the platform with a heavy portmanteau. A small man with wispy red hair and a goatee beard, dressed in an old student coat, he had stepped off the Odessa train at a little before six o’clock that evening and taken refuge at once from the bitter chill. Ordinarily, Turchin would have presumed he was on his way to a university in Moscow or Kiev, but he had been briefed every day for a fortnight to be on the lookout for nihilist conspirators at the station. Names and descriptions and even a few photographs had been sent by the Third Section to every gendarmerie in the empire: almost at the top of the list was the man pressed into a corner of the waiting room. Turchin had not been able to remember his name but he knew he was wanted for murder and he was too long in the tooth to risk tackling him alone.
‘Where is the next train to, Sergeant?’ asked Captain Zabirov.
‘Kiev, sir.’
‘He may take this one. He’s from Kiev.’
Word of the approaching train must have reached the waiting room because the door opened and people began drifting out and along the platform.
‘He’ll be armed,’ Zabirov muttered to himself. Then to the sergeant: ‘All right, let’s take a look.’
They moved towards the waiting room, but after only a few steps they saw their man through the lighted window. He bent down and a moment later a battered leather trunk appeared in the half open doorway. He was pushing it with his foot. How fortunate that he is going to have his hands full carrying his luggage, the captain thought with a wry smile. He touched the sergeant’s sleeve and whispered: ‘Stop. We’ll let him drag that thing to us.’
The end of the platform was almost lost in a hissing cloud as the train rumbled into the station. As the steam began to clear Anna leant closer to the window in the hope of catching a glimpse of Goldenberg’s diminutive figure.
‘You got someone meeting you?’ It was the nosy veteran with his twinkling little eyes. His voice was husky with age and he spoke with a hard ‘e’ that suggested he had spent a good deal of time in the Caucasus.
‘Yes.’
‘A friend?’
‘Yes. A friend.’
‘You from these parts?’
‘No.’
‘Here, let me carry your bag.’ He reached down for the small leather suitcase at her feet.
‘No. No, thank you,’ she said firmly, leaning down quickly to lift it from the carriage floor. Turning to join the queue for the door, she could sense his hard inquisitive eyes boring into her back.
The train drew to a halt, the carriage door opened and the Greek shopkeeper in front of her began coaxing his sleepy-looking children down the steps on to the platform. In the dim yellow gaslight, friends and family waited, warmly wrapped against the cold of the November night, their faces lost in clouds of freezing vapour.
As she edged closer to the door Anna was surprised to see their attention was fixed not on the travellers decanting from the carriages but on the smoking head of the train. There was a murmur of excitement and one of the porters climbed on his trolley for a view over the press. Seconds later a gendarme and one of his men pushed carelessly past.
‘Bit of trouble.’ It was the voice of the old soldier. Ignoring him, Anna stepped off the train and began to shuffle through the throng towards the commotion. She caught words and snatches of conversation between those tall enough to see what was happening: the gendarmes had arrested someone. There had been a struggle. Who was he? A thief or a murderer?
She had to be sure. The attention of those waiting on the platform began to turn to the friends they were meeting from the train. The entertainment was over and the porters were in search of custom again, the train guards shutting carriage doors for departure, the travellers gathering their bags and drifting towards the station hall. As the platform cleared she saw a squad of gendarmes in their sky-blue coats at the door of a waiting room. Close by, the steaming black engine, its driver and the fireman smoking and chatting on the platform, intrigued by the little scene unfolding before them. The shrill blast of a whistle, then another, and they hauled themselves back into the cab. A moment later there was a whoosh of steam and soot and the driving rods began to turn.
It was madness. She was taking too much of a risk. If they had taken him it was too late. No purpose would be served by a second sacrifice. As the train began to pick up speed, she turned away, preparing to retrace her steps to the station hall with the last of the passengers. The guard’s van cleared the platform edge and rumbled into the night. A moment later she heard shouted commands and, glancing over her shoulder, she could see the waiting-room door was open, the gendarmes standing in close order to receive the prisoner. A second later it was beyond doubt: almost lost between two burly military policemen, half marched, half dragged — Grigory Davidovich Goldenberg.
She forced herself to stop and stare as everyone about her was doing. He would be escorted past her and she would look at him and hope that he might draw strength from her love and trust. A careless glance, a foolish word or gesture, and he would give her away, but she wanted him to know that she trusted him implicitly.
‘I thought I saw you here.’
Anna turned angrily. The old soldier from the train had sidled up like the serpent in the garden. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’
He shrugged non-committally: ‘Filthy Jew.’ And she saw his sharp little eyes turn to Goldenberg. ‘Probably one of those terrorists.’
The gendarmes’ boots crunched on the packed cinder surface of the platform in time, as if to demonstrate their power to grind men like Goldenberg into submission. His head was bent, his hair falling about his face, and she could see by the yellow station light that he must have put up a fight because his coat was torn in two places and dirty. She would offer him comfort if he saw her, offer with her eyes the love and reassurance he always sought. As they approached, she stared intently at his bent head, willing him, silently begging him, to look up.
And he did look up, with frightened eyes. But only as he was on the point of passing did he find her. He gave her a fleeting smile of recognition before turning his head away. Behind him, two gendarmes were carrying the portmanteau between them.
‘He smiled at you, didn’t he? I saw him smile.’
Anna turned quickly to look at the old soldier at her side. He was smiling at her too but it was not a pleasant smile.
‘I don’t know who he was smiling at,’ she snapped. ‘Perhaps he was smiling at you. Now why don’t you leave me alone?’ And without waiting for a reply, she began walking briskly towards the station hall.
