Last Gasp полностью

The train left Moscow at four o'clock on a rainy afternoon and arrived in Riga at eleven-fifteen the following morning, having been delayed at Ludza on the Latvian border for almost three hours. No one had bothered to explain why, and for Boris and Nina it was the one bad moment of the journey. Boris had carefully rehearsed the reason why they were traveling to the Baltic port and had made sure their papers were in order, though the explanation lacked plausibility even to his own ears. The Gulf of Riga was not noted as a vacation spot--certainly not a kurort, or health spa, so popular with Russian vacationers--and the capital itself was hardly a tourist attraction, with its shipping and textiles and telecommunications industries.

Thankfully the stop at the border hadn't been to check papers. At least they assumed so, because they hadn't seen any police, and the guards on the train didn't interrupt their naps, as if the delay were a routine occurrence.

Boris sat gripping his wife's hand and staring out at the ethereal dawn landscape, which consisted of trees in endlessly regimented rows marching down the hillside. In a way he was glad they hadn't been able to get a sleeper (reserved for party officials and petty bureaucrats) because it meant they could stay close together instead of being in separate bunks. At long last the train moved on; they breathed easily again, and had a nip of brandy from Boris's flask to celebrate and take the chill from their bones.

In Riga they took a taxi to a small boardinghouse overlooking the river Dvina where a room had been booked for them by somebody in the underground organization; they were to remain here until contacted. Boris had no idea whether they would have to wait hours or days, no clue as to what was to happen next or where they would be sent. The extent of his knowledge was confined to this shabby cheerless house in a city he had never visited before and where he didn't know a solitary soul.

He had taken everything on trust, as he had to, praying that these people knew what they were doing and wouldn't let them down. It was only now he realized what a blind, foolhardy gamble it all was: entrusting their lives, his and Nina's, to an organization he knew nothing about. Actually not even an organization but just one person--Andrei Dunayev, a student of his from the old university days who years ago had happened to mention that he knew of ways to get dissidents out of the country. Boris had lost touch with his ex-student and then quite by chance had run across him in, of all places, the furnishings department of GUM, Moscow's mammoth department store. They had chatted for a while and Boris had learned that Dunayev was working as a cleaner on the railways.

"What, with your qualifications?" Boris had said, amazed. Dunayev had been one of his best students and had graduated with honors.

"I ran afoul of the nachalstvo," the young man confessed, referring to the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats who wielded power in the state; displease them and you soon found yourself humping bricks on a building site or cleaning railway carriages, degree or no degree. "A few friends and myself printed and circulated a magazine and it didn't go down too well. You know how it is."

Boris knew, though not from personal experience, how it was. He felt sorry for young Dunayev, thinking it a sad waste of a keen intelligence.

After that they kept in touch, meeting occasionally for a drink in the evenings, and it struck Boris that for someone in a badly paid job Dunayev always seemed to have plenty of money to spend. The reason became clear when Boris once complained of not being able to buy a decent pair of shoes, and the next time they met Dunayev showed up with a pair of genuine English tan brogues, spanking new. He was na levo, he explained--literally "on the left"--which meant that he dealt unofficially in all kinds of goods and services, from prime cuts of meat to the best seats at the Bolshoi. The system had rejected him and therefore he was out to beat the system--on his terms.

When Boris made the decision to defect, it was naturally to Andrei Dunayev that he turned for help. It had been very simple. A phone call, a meeting in the park, and everything, according to Dunayev, would be arranged. Boris and his wife were to get their hands on as much money as they could, in cash, pack two suitcases (as if they were indeed going on a short vacation), and be ready at twenty-four hours notice to leave.

The word came. They were to take the overnight train to Riga where accommodations had been booked for them. They were to travel under their own name until out of the country. False papers would be supplied. Of course he trusted Dunayev, Boris kept telling himself, yet now that they were here, had taken that crucial and dangerous first step, he was beginning to have qualms.