by Andy McNab
I smiled. "Narva, Narva?"
"Narva."
"Yes. How much?" I rubbed my fingers together.
She got out a little receipt book and wrote "Narva" and "707." It appeared the cost was 707 hertigrats, or whatever the money was called, not that it left at 7:07.
I handed her a 1000 note. $20 U.S. was going a long way here. She moved away from the glass, rummaged around, came back and dropped my change through the scoop. With it was a slip of paper as thin as tissue. I picked it up, guessing it must be some kind of receipt.
"Narva-ticket?"
She babbled at me gloomily. It was pointless, I didn't have a clue what she was on about. I didn't ask about the platform. I'd find it.
Tallinn station seemed to be the origin for all lines. This wasn't Grand Central Station, though; the platforms outside the hall were lumpy, broken pavement, with ice where the water had puddled and frozen. In places, exposed concrete had crumbled and rusting reinforcement rods protruded. The trains were old Russian monsters with a big Cyclops light; they all seemed to be blue, but it was hard to be sure under all the dirt and grime. Hanging on the front of each locomotive was a wooden destination board, and that was all the help you got.
I walked up and down looking for the word Narva, brushing past other passengers. I found the train, but needed to confirm it with one of my shopping-bag friends.
"Narva, Narva?"
The old man looked at me as if I was an alien, muttering something without taking the cigarette out of his mouth, so the light from the tip bounced up and down. He then just walked away. At least I got a nod as he pointed at the train.
I carried on along the platform, looking for an empty car, to the sound everywhere of the early morning coughing up of phlegm people holding one nostril and snot ting out on the ground, then putting the cigarettes back between their lips.
There didn't seem to be any completely empty cars, so I boarded anyway, taking the first free row of seats I could find. The car floor was nothing more than welded steel plates, and the seats were also made of steel, with two small, thinly padded vinyl sections, one for your back and one for your ass. There were a couple of forty-watt lightbulbs in the ceiling and that was our lot. All very basic, all very functional, yet surprisingly clean compared to the mayhem in the station outside.
And at least it was warm.
* * *
30
The wheels rattled rhythmically over the rails as I gazed out at the darkness. I couldn't see any of the landscape, just lights from what I supposed were factories and from windows of row upon row of prisonlike apartment buildings.
I was sitting by the sliding door at the front end, next to a window, with, thankfully, a heater directly under my seat. According to the travel guide I'd be here for at least the next five hours, which was good news for my jeans. There were a dozen other passengers spread about the car, all of them male, most with shopping bags, and either deep in thought or doing the nodding dog.
The door slid back with a crash and a woman in her mid-forties came in, wearing a man's gray overcoat that was far too big for her. Draped over her arm were a dozen copies of a tabloid. She started jabbering and was clearly asking me something. I waved my hand politely to say no thanks but she became very animated. When I waved my hand again and shook my head with a nice Australian smile, she reached into her coat and out came the same sort of book of receipts that Mrs. Glum had used in the ticket office. I realized she was the ticket collector, who was obviously running a newspaper concession on the side. Like me, she was taking the money where she could find it.
I fished out my slip of paper. She inspected it, grunted, gave it back and swayed with the momentum of the train on to the next passenger, no doubt telling him that the village idiot was on board. Given what I was about to try, she wasn't far wrong.
We began to slow, and finally stopped. Through the darkness I could just see a factory, complete with a series of enormous chimneys. The station didn't have a platform; the factory workers had to disembark directly onto the tracks. Outside, people seemed to wander all over the place, even between cars.
The train set off again, stopping every ten minutes or so to disgorge another group of workers. After each halt the old diesel engine would strain to get up speed again, belching smoke which quickly merged with the junk the factory chimneys were pumping out. The railway system made Britain's look positively space age by comparison, but at least these ran on time, were warm, clean, and affordable. I thought of inviting a few Estonian train managers to the U.K. to show our guys how it should be done.
The train snaked, shuddered, and shook its way through the industrial wasteland. After half an hour the lights started to die out and I was looking into darkness again. I decided to follow the lead of the one other passenger left in the car and get some sleep.
It was shortly after nine thirty and first light had just passed. The sky, in keeping with everything else, was a gloomy gray. Through the grime on the window I saw snow-heavy trees lining the track on each side, a barrier against snowdrifts. Beyond them lay either vast stretches of absolutely flat open ground, covered in virgin white snow, or thick forest that stretched on forever. The electricity and telephone lines following the track were just like the trees, sagging with the weight of the snow and huge icicles that hung from them.
The train was still moving very slowly between stations, maybe because of the weather, maybe because the track was in need of repair.
An hour later, after another couple of stops, the chocolate and meat started to take effect. I hadn't seen any signs for toilets and I wasn't even sure there were any. If not, I'd just have to have a quick dump in the hall and explain it was an old Australian custom.
I walked the length of two cars, bouncing from side to side, until I eventually found one. It was just like the rest of the train, very basic but clean, warm, and it worked.
Ripping hard sheets from the roll I threw them into the bowl until it was more or less blocked. As I pulled down my now dry jeans and sat on the bare ceramic bowl, I had a quick sniff of the denim.
Not that bad, considering; I could always blame it on a tomcat.
Bruises had developed on both thighs now; they'd soon turn black, complementing the ones I already had.
As the chocolate and meat mix started to force its way out I fought to keep control, wanting to catch the insurance policy, wrapped in two condoms and inserted up my ass with the aid of some Helsinki hotel soap.
This was something else I'd learned in reform school. It was the best way to make sure my fifteen pence weekly allowance wasn't stolen. Saran wrap hadn't been as good as these condoms, though.
It was a bit of a smelly affair retrieving it, but once I'd untied the knot in the first condom, pulled out the one inside and washed my hands-there was even soap and water in these toilets-everything was clean and fragrant again. I was still enthusing about Estonian railways when it was suddenly like being back on the King's Lynn-to London line: the flush didn't work.
I stayed a while and treated myself to a wash. Back in the carriage, it was time to study my Narva town map, working out exactly where I'd find Konstantin. According to Lion King there was about an hour to go before we arrived. I sat there feeling rather pleased the chocolate had worked and that I wouldn't have to waste time in Narva waiting for nature to call.
I dry-swallowed another four aspirin and looked out of the window. No wonder people had been getting off before entering this part of the country. This must be the start of the great industrial northeast the Soviets had created during their reign. Gone were the trees and open spaces of the wilderness; instead the view consisted entirely of slag heaps, with massive conveyor belts, and factories that churned out smoke from every corner.
We trundled past forbidding blocks of apartments, with TV aerials hung from every window and sometimes enormous, outdated satellite dishes.
There were no yards or play areas, just two or three cars up on concrete blocks. Even the snow
was gray.
The scenery didn't change much as the stops became more frequent, except that every spare inch of ground along the track was covered with little vegetable patches. Even the spaces under electricity towers were turned into makeshift greenhouses using a patchwork of plastic sheeting. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more depressing, the train shunted past three cars parked at the side of the road, nose to tail. They were riddled with bullet holes and burned out. There was no snow or ice on them and shattered glass lay all over the place. It looked as if they'd only just been hosed down and flash lighted For all I knew there might still be bodies inside. A couple of kids walked past and didn't give them a second look.
The train stopped with a rumble and a loud squeal of brakes. We seemed to be in a rail yard. Fuel tankers and freight cars appeared on either side, all covered with Russian script and caked in oil and ice. I was back in a scene from a Harry Palmer film again, only Michael Caine would have had a suit and trench coat on instead of piss-stained jeans.
The train just seemed to have driven into the yard and stopped, and that was it. Going by the number of doors opening, it was time to get off. Welcome to Narva.
I looked out of the window and saw people jumping down onto the tracks with their shopping bags. The only other remaining passenger in my car was leaving. I did the same, traipsing through the snow across a massive shunting yard, following the others toward an old stone house.
I guessed that it hadn't been built until after 1944, because I'd read that when the Russians "liberated" Estonia from the Germans they flattened the whole town, then rebuilt it from scratch.
I went through gray-painted, metal double doors into the ticket office.
The room was only about twenty by thirty feet, with a few old plastic, classroom-style chairs around the sides. The walls were covered with the same thick shiny gray paint as the doors, onto which graffiti had been scratched. I thought the floor was plain pitted concrete until I noticed the two remaining tiles refusing to leave home.
The ticket office was closed. A large wooden board was fixed to the wall near the sales window, with plastic sliders upon which, in Cyrillic, were the names of various destinations. I looked for anything that resembled the word Tallinn. It seemed that the first train back was at 8:22 each morning, but even if they'd spoken English, there was no one around to confirm it.
I stepped round the obligatory puddle of vomit and came out of the main entrance. Over to my left was what I took to be a bus station. The buses were of 1960s or 1970s vintage, all battered and some even hand painted. People were fighting to get aboard, exactly as they'd done in the capital; the driver was shouting at them and they shouted at each other. Even the snow was exactly the same as in Tallinn: dirty, downtrodden, and viciously icy.
Digging my hands deep into my pockets I cut directly across the potholed road, following the map in my head along Puskini, which seemed to be the main street. It wouldn't be far to Konstantin's address.
Puskini was lined on either side by high buildings. On the left, what looked like a power station loomed behind them and, bizarrely, electricity towers were set into the street and pavements, so pedestrians had to pick their way round them. Russians seemed to have sited all their industrial units as near as possible to the stations that powered them; then, if they had any space left, they'd squeezed in accommodation for the workers, and fuck the people who had to live there. I'd seen enough to tell me this was a miserable, run-down place. The newest buildings looked as if they dated from the 1970s, and even they were falling apart.
I headed up the street, keeping to the right. It was quiet apart from the occasional tractor and one or two Russian-plated articulated lorries surging past. The roads and sidewalks were jet black with grease and grime, with a good coating of slush from passing vehicles.
Christmas hadn't arrived in Narva yet. I wondered if it ever would.
There were no street decorations, lights, or anything remotely festive, even in the windows. I walked past drab storefronts which advertised everything from second-hand washing machines to Arnold Schwarzenegger videos.
Further along, I came to a small food store. It was an old building, but had the brightest lighting I'd yet seen spilling out onto the iced pavement. I couldn't resist it, especially as I hadn't had anything to eat since my chocolate and meat combo, from which I'd long since parted company.
An old man was lying on top of a cardboard box to one side of the main entrance, sheltered by the shop's canopy. His head was wrapped in rags, his hands covered with strips of canvas. The skin on his face was dark with ingrained dirt and he could have grown vegetables in his beard. Beside him was a wooden tomato crate turned upside down, displaying a rusty old screwdriver and a pair of pliers that were clearly up for sale. He didn't bother looking up at me as I passed. I must have looked as though I was all right for rusty tools.
The store was laid out to exactly the same template as a small town corner store in the U.K. It even had some of the same brands Colgate toothpaste, Kellogg's Cornflakes, and Gillette shaving cream but not much else apart from crates of beer and a large cooler that had nothing in it except rows of different sausages, including the risky red ones I hadn't eaten on the ferry, strung out in lines to make the display look more generous.
I picked up a family-sized bag of chips, two packs of sliced, processed cheese, and four cake-type rolls. I didn't bother with a drink as I hoped I'd soon be getting a hot one at Konstantin's. Besides, there wasn't much choice apart from beer and half-bottles of vodka. I couldn't be hassled to get toiler tries or a toothbrush to replace the stuff that had been stolen. All that sort of thing I'd grab if I needed it, but I didn't plan to be in the country that long; and in any case, no one I'd seen so far seemed to give much of a shit about personal hygiene.
As I paid for my goods I helped myself to two shopping bags, putting one pack of cheese and a couple of rolls into one, the rest into the other. Passing the old guy on the way out, I put the smaller bag down beside him. I hadn't bought him any chips because I didn't think his gums could tackle them. I knew what it felt like to spend hours outside in the cold.
With hands back in my jacket pockets, the bag dangling from my right wrist and banging rhythmically against my thigh, I moved on. I skirted an electric pole that was half in the street and half over the wall of a small factory, and more rows of miserable apartments came into view, identical to the ones I'd seen from the train. There were no names on the blocks, just stenciled numbers. At last I'd found one thing that my childhood project had over this place: at least every building there had been named after locations in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The rest of it, though, was much the same rotting wooden window frames and cracks in the panes taped over with packing tape. I remembered why I'd promised myself at the age of nine that I'd get out of shit holes like this as soon as I could.
It was only about one thirty in the afternoon, but already the town could have done with some streetlights on. Unfortunately, there just weren't that many around to help out.
Things started to liven up after another hundred yards or so. I came to a giant parking lot, full of buses and cars. People who seemed to be carrying everything from shopping bags to suitcases were shouting at each other, trying to be heard over the noise of air brakes and engines. It looked like news footage of refugees moving through a checkpoint. The closer I got, the more it started to look like somewhere Han Solo might go to get a spare part for his spacecraft.
There were some strange looking people around.
I realized I was at the border crossing point, the road bridge into, or out of, Russia. Harry Palmer would have been a regular here.
The parking lot was clogged with new Audis, old BMWs, and Ladas of all sorts, shapes, and ages. It was the Ford Sierras that looked strangely out of place. There were fleets of the things. I now knew where all the second-hand ones went when they weren't snapped up by cab drivers.
Money changers plied their trade along the edges of the par
king lot, and kiosks sold all other types of kit as fast as Chad could manufacture it. I walked over to a green-painted garden shed with a small sliding window, dodging the arctic trucks that thundered past as they cleared border control. If you didn't get out of the way, tough.
Camel, Marlboro, and a million different Russian brands were taped to the glass, together with as many different styles of lighters. An old guy who looked like a gypsy, dark-skinned with thick gray curly hair, showed me his list of exchange rates. It seemed I could get about 12 EEK, whatever they were, to the U.S. dollar. I didn't know if that was good or not, just that Duracell batteries were taped up at just a couple of EEKs each, so either it was the bargain of the century or they were duds. I didn't want to show that I had money, so I went and sat on a garbage can behind the kiosk, got a warm $100 dollar bill out of my sock and replaced the boot pretty quickly.
Once he'd carried out about five different checks to make sure it wasn't counterfeit, including smelling it, the old guy was very happy indeed with his hard currency, and so was I with my new EEK wedge. I left the refugee camp behind and headed further up Puskini, toward a traffic circle which, according to the map in my head, led to the road I wanted.
The only buildings that looked at all inviting were near the traffic circle. Flashing neon signs told me these were "komfort baars."
Music blared from loudspeakers rigged up outside. Originally, I supposed, they'd been ordinary bars or shops, but their windows were painted out now. It didn't need much imagination to work out what was on offer the other side of the emulsion, but for the benefit of anyone in doubt, there were pictures of women and Cyrillic stenciling, no doubt defining exactly what was meant by "komfort." The best picture of all was on a blue window, showing the Statue of Liberty with Marilyn Monroe's face, pulling up her robe to reveal an ace of spades between her legs. Underneath, in English, it read, "America. Fuck it here." I wasn't too sure what it all meant, but the Russians who had parked all the trucks along the road obviously didn't have any trouble reading the menu.
