FSF, July 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  Finally the elders showed up, two graybeards wearing boots and embroidered peasant smocks. Both looking like Rasputin. I explained what I needed. Obviously they knew all about Marya, and nodded silently when I promised to attend the proposed meeting anywhere, to come alone, and to carry no weapon.

  They sent for vodka. However poor they are, they always have vodka. We drank, and I got it down without choking, though it was dreadful stuff. Home brew.

  Then back to this house. Hand steady, I wrote out the key to my code, folded it into my journal. Think I'll sit up tonight, don't feel like sleeping. No tears, no prayers. Reread Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich, which has always moved me greatly. It tells about the redemption, not of a hero, but of an ordinary mediocre man, when at last his evasions and pretenses come to an end.

  * * * *

  11 September 1949. A peasant lad guided me to a small patch of woods near Gorodok. I began to comprehend that this village must be the command center of the guerillas. No wonder the priest was burned!

  Two rough-looking fellows confiscated the attaché case I was carrying, stared blankly at the manuscript inside it, then patted me down and led me deeper into the stands of birch and larch trees. The man I'd come to meet was sitting on a log, smoking. I noted that he too favors American cigarettes. Nice of Khrushchev to keep him supplied.

  The Ataman is a small man but wiry and strong. Round head and black, thinning hair. Asiatic eyes.

  "I asked Marya about you a couple of years ago,” he began. “We're both Cossacks, you know. That's why I call myself Ataman, meaning head man. Once I asked her, ‘What's this “good German” of yours really like?’ She answered, ‘He means well, but he's a man from whom truth is hidden.’”

  "What truth?” I asked, feeling like Pontius Pilate.

  "That you can't rid yourself of the guilt of your crimes as long as you continue to profit from them. That was what she told me, anyhow."

  "My profiting is over. You have the sort of device I asked for?"

  "Maybe. Anyway, I know what you're talking about. Things like that have been arriving lately. All the way from America, just like Mickey Mouse. Tell me how you plan to use it."

  I explained about the Heroes’ Farewell. “I'll be in a small chapel with them, the whole bunch of them. The Nazis who corrupted my people and butchered yours. It's a confined space and it'll make a fine gas chamber. When they realize what's happening, they'll rush the door, but it's narrow, so they'll get jammed in the opening. Some may get out, but not many."

  He grunted. “At first I wasn't inclined to help you. We're not supposed to use the stuff for personal vengeance, only for political and military advantage. But if you can wipe out the whole leadership ... well, that's about as political as you can get. This stuff is stronger than the old nerve gases, or so I'm told. About thirty times stronger. It's an American improvement. Americans are always making things better, aren't they? It's compressed into small containers. Open one and it rushes out, howling like one of those new jet planes coming right at you. You know how it kills?"

  "Yes."

  "It's not a pleasant death."

  "No."

  "Why are you doing it? I suppose it's Marya, what they did to her."

  "Yes."

  "All those millions of dead, and the torture of one Cossack woman drives you to this."

  "Yes. You know, she never betrayed me."

  "In The House of the Dead Dostoevsky said, ‘The people know how to suffer.’ She knew how to suffer."

  "Yes. Give me the stuff and let me go."

  He stood up then and kissed me. I've never gotten used to this Russian custom. “May God receive you. I'm a Communist, and I shouldn't say things like that. But what the hell, when you find somebody who's decent, you have to treat him decently. Life isn't a walk across a field for any of us."

  "No. Pozhal'sta, give me the stuff and let me go."

  And so he did—a yellow cylinder about forty centimeters long, easily concealed. Obviously designed for use by terrorists. I have a thermos bottle that'll hold it nicely, if I remove the glass lining. I tried it in my new attaché case, and it fits.

  To make room for it I had to take out this journal. “What's that?” the Ataman asked.

  "Secrets the world may want to know. Or may not, I don't care. I want to make a last entry, about this meeting. It'll take me only a few minutes."

  He nodded, and I sat down on the log beside him and began to write. Once I looked up and he was eyeing me oddly.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Just wondering what you've got to smile about."

  I tried to tell him, but couldn't. To understand, he'd have to be here in this place where my soul stands at last. So close to the end, so close to the beginning.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  The Dinosaur Train by James L. Cambias

  After Jim Cambias's tale of a plucky cargo ship, “Balancing Accounts,” ran in our Feb. 2008 issue, we got a lot of inquiries about when Mr. Cambias would be writing a sequel. He hasn't answered that question yet, but in the meantime, he offers us this one, a very different sort of story that readers of all ages will enjoy. The title, he notes, was inspired by two of his five-year-old son's primary interests.

  Sean Sullivan rode the Dinosaur Train for the last time in the summer of 1980. When the show got to Chicago, his father was waiting at the siding on 114th Street. Sean spotted the beige Chevy copcar sedan parked at the end of the line of local rented trucks. During one of the interminable delays while the railroad crew got the train into place and secured, Sean swung down from the beat-up old Pullman car the Sullivan Show staff rode in and trudged over to say hello.

  "Hi! I thought I'd come help set up. Took the day off.” His dad hugged him a little awkwardly, then looked at the train. “How's your grandpa?"

  "He's okay."

  "Good tour this year?"

  "Pretty good, I think. Grandpa says the whole Olympics thing will help us. For a while it looked like the Anderson campaign might hire one of the dinos to send to Detroit for the Republican convention. You know, because Reagan's an old guy. But Grandpa turned them down."

  "Not like him to pass up free publicity. Jeez, how long are those guys going to take? It must be roasting inside those boxcars by now. Want something to drink?” He reached into the car and handed Sean a can—it was plain white and said COLA in blue letters. It was warm and tasted funny, but he was thirsty and drank it.

  "How's your mother?"

  "She's okay. Another year till she gets her degree."

  "What then?"

  "I don't know. Whatever you do with a Ph.D. in Women's Studies."

  "Teach Women's Studies, I guess. What about you? Have you started picking out colleges?"

  "Yeah, some,” said Sean.

  The train men got the locomotive uncoupled and started to pull away. Barry, the crew chief, jumped down from the Pullman step and blew a long blast on his whistle. The Sullivan Show exploded into action. Roustabouts hustled over to the boxcars and started unlocking the doors and setting up the ramps. The rental trucks pulled up next to the car holding the tents and fencing.

  Sean and his dad joined the trainers getting the animals out. As always, they started with Brenda. Sean's dad shook hands with some of the older crew who remembered him, then they both took up goads and stationed themselves at her flank for the difficult job of backing her up before she could go down the ramp.

  Grandpa was up at her head, holding her bridle and crooning to her in his deepest voice. She was fidgety and uncomfortable after the overnight ride from St. Louis, and it took all his weight on the bridle to keep her from trying to lift her head. Other trainers might handle the other animals, but Brenda was the show's star attraction and Grandpa didn't trust anyone else to manage her properly.

  Getting a seventy-ton sauropod out of a railroad boxcar was a slow and delicate operation. First Grandpa had to lead her forward until the other trainers could nudge her tail out of the open door on her left,
then back her and turn her gently until her head was pointing out the right-hand door. Then he whistled. Sean and his dad poked her with their goads, and Brenda the Brachiosaurus lumbered out into the daylight. Grandpa released the head bridle and Brenda raised her head to her full forty-foot height.

  Only then did Sean's grandfather come over to say hello. “Patrick!” he called out to Sean's father. “I didn't see you back here. Are you going to work the show?"

  "I thought I'd come help with set-up, anyway."

  "Glad to have you. God, what a pit this is,” he said, looking at the grimy industrial landscape around the siding. “I remember when we'd pull right into Union Station downtown and parade to Soldier Field. Now we're in this Godforsaken slum. I had to hire security guards so that decent people wouldn't be afraid to come down."

  The first of the rented trucks trundled out to the show site by Lake Calumet. Brenda stood placidly, enjoying the (relatively) fresh air while the trainers got the hadrosaurs and the styracosaur out of their cars. The forklift dropped off the crate holding Brenda's parade costume and the three Sullivans set to work putting it on her.

  She stood calmly while they raised the ladders and put the harness over her body before attaching the draperies. The row of spines down the center of her back made it hard to get the leather-padded steel cables in place, but once in position they couldn't slide around at all.

  Her caparison was canvas covered with green silk. Letters of gold braid two feet high spelled out “BRENDA: 8th WONDER OF THE WORLD! SULLIVAN'S DINOSAURS” on her vast sides. Sean's grandfather tapped Brenda's foreleg and shouted “Ho!” in his deepest voice. After a moment, she lowered her head so they could get the plumes onto her.

  "Do you still have the electric outfit?” Sean's father asked when Brenda was all rigged out.

  "Yeah,” said Grandpa. “Still works. Changing the bulbs is hell, but she does look good. You'll see it at the opening tonight."

  When all twelve dinos were in costume, Grandpa checked his watch and smiled. “Noon exactly. Just in time for the parade. Let's get moving."

  Sean had seen old films and photos of the Sullivan Show's dinosaur parades in past decades. The greatest was the famous shot of twenty dinosaurs marching up Broadway in 1948—the twin brachiosaurs Brenda and Bob in the lead with a twelve-year-old Patrick Sullivan riding proudly on Brenda's shoulders and a dozen war orphans in the howdah on her back.

  No more howdah, what with the cost of insurance. But Sean pulled on the old green-and-gold uniform which reeked of mothballs and put the horrible old turban on his head before mounting. There was a spot at the base of her neck where three of her back spines were sawed down to make room for a saddle.

  Brenda wasn't really much fun to ride—she was just too damned big. A skilled rider could actually control the hadrosaurs and iguanodons with reins and spurs, but on Brenda's neck Sean was just a passenger, waving at the crowd and grinning while Grandpa steered her by tapping her forelegs with the goad.

  The pickup truck at the back of the line had a loudspeaker mounted on top of the cab. It gave off a blare of static, and then started to play the old Johnny Cash song “Dinosaur Train.” In his scrapbook Grandpa had a photo of Cash posing next to Brenda at Opryland. The inscription read, “To M.S. from J.C.—Keep the Dino Train rolling!” Grandpa took that as legal permission to use the song without paying royalties. So far nobody had complained.

  Led by a Chicago Police cruiser and a truck from the power company, the dinosaur parade headed down the block to 115th, then turned east. A sparse crowd of old white people and young black people watched Sullivan's Dinosaurs go past. Sean noticed that the very oldest and the very youngest watched with unconcealed delight. It was the same in all the cities they'd visited.

  Grandpa got Brenda to lower her head so she could pass under the highway overpass, then the parade entered the show site. It was a former freightyard—a huge expanse of pavement with waist-high weeds growing in the cracks, surrounded by chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

  The temporary corral for the smaller dinos was ready when they arrived, and the trainers led them in. Brenda stayed near the main site gate, right next to the big “SULLIVAN'S DINOSAURS” banner. She'd been the show's best advertisement since she was ten years old, and Grandpa wasn't going to waste that, not with a hundred cars a minute going by on I-94.

  Sean got out of costume and rolled Brenda's drinking trough over to where she stood. The oddly colored water of Lake Calumet lapped at the bottom of the rusty fence, but Grandpa had arranged for a water truck to supply the dinos.

  "Come on, girl, drink it,” Sean called to her. She just stood there, head up, ignoring the water and the pile of hay. “Well, it's here if you want it,” said Sean, and checked her leg shackle. The ankle chain was attached to a block of concrete. Personally Sean doubted it would hold Brenda if she really wanted to go someplace else, but fifty years of habit was harder for her to break.

  Sean's father came over to admire Brenda. “Got all the electricals set up. I keep telling your grandfather he needs to hire some real electricians. Those jerks couldn't change a light bulb without electrocuting themselves. How's my big girl?"

  "She's a little off her feed today. Probably the heat,” said Sean.

  "Are you giving her enough water? Of course you are. Dumb question. Listen, I spoke with the boss and he's willing to let you come have lunch with me tomorrow before the afternoon show."

  Sean hesitated. Visits to his father were always squirmingly uncomfortable affairs—but the chance to eat something that wasn't concession-stand hot dogs or diner take-out was very tempting. And after all, it was just for lunch. “Great,” he said.

  * * * *

  Showtime on the first day was six o'clock. Cars started pulling into the lot at four-thirty. Sean helped direct traffic in the parking area until half past five, then went to the trailer he shared with his grandfather to get into his costume.

  His grandpa was outside the trailer when he got there, cooking something in a big pot over a fire of scrap lumber and newspapers. It smelled vile. Grandpa kept tasting it and tossing in handfuls of leaves from a crumpled paper bag.

  "What's that?” Sean asked.

  "It's a tonic for Brenda. She's been looking droopy."

  "What's in it?"

  "Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Pine balsam, tea leaves, lettuce, lemongrass, burdock, and ten six-packs of Dr. Pepper."

  "Does it work?"

  "Of course it works! I've been using this stuff since the thirties. I got the recipe from Harry Raven for five dollars after we spent a night drinking at McSorley's. Harry was on both of Merian Cooper's expeditions to Tengkorak Island. He said it was the only thing that kept the dinos from getting seasick on the way to San Francisco. This'll settle her stomach."

  Mike Sullivan added another handful of leaves and mopped his forehead. “Let it cook a little longer. Go tell Jackie she's going to be doing the balancing act with Mr. Duckbill instead of Brenda."

  "It's more impressive with Brenda."

  "Tell me something I don't know. Relax—a couple of gallons of this stuff after the show and a good night's sleep and Brenda will be fine. Any TV trucks tonight?"

  "Not a one."

  "God damn them. I sent every TV station in Chicago a set of free tickets and a press packet. They could at least show up."

  Sean tasted the dinosaur medicine and made a face. “Say, Grandpa: there's a bunch of scientists here—at the museums and the colleges and stuff. Maybe you could ask them for advice about Brenda."

  "No! No scientists! They're all like that with those crooks at the Smithsonian.” He waved his crossed fingers in Sean's face. “If they find out Brenda's sick, pretty soon we'll have Wildlife and Fisheries people all over us, checking up on how we're caring for these endangered animals. They've been trying to steal my herd since the sixties."

  "But what if she doesn't get better?"

  "She's gonna be fine. I know more about taking care of
dinos than anyone else on Earth. Especially those pinheads at the Smithsonian. Have you seen Johnnie?"

  "Not today."

  "Go find him and make sure he's awake and in costume. Dumb sonofabitch needs to remember that this is a show and not his private tour of every piece of high-school tail in America."

  Sean blushed at that. Johnnie was a couple of years older than he was, and his ability to talk to girls and persuade them to go back to his trailer inspired Sean's admiration and envy. Sean himself was kind of old-fashioned about girls, and his grandfather's strict curfew was actually something of a relief.

  The show began on time—Sean's grandfather had a horror of starting late, especially on opening night. At the stroke of six the speaker system kicked in with “Dinosaur Train” and the animals began their parade into the floodlit space between the bleachers.

  First came the trikes, Tina and Tony, followed by last year's hatchlings, now three feet high at the shoulder and utterly adorable. Then the three hadrosaurs with streamers fluttering from their crests and girls in leopard-skin bikinis riding on their backs. Then Andrew the ankylosaur, escorted by four trainers with electric prods. Alice the allosaur showing her genuinely terrifying teeth—Grandfather refused to muzzle her for the show, instead making sure to feed her fifty pounds of dog chow and butcher's offal half an hour before showtime; the chief problem was keeping her awake.

  Johnnie the ringmaster announced them as they entered. Then the lights dimmed and the music switched to Also Sprach Zarathustra. “And finally, prepare yourselves to be astonished, prepare to be struck with awe, as the Sullivan Dinosaur Show is proud to present! Our star attraction! The largest creature ever to walk the Earth! The Eighth Wonder of the World! BRENDA the BRACHIOSAURUS!"

  Sean could feel how slowly Brenda was moving. It wasn't even her usual walking gait—Grandpa and the other trainers had to nudge each foot along to keep her going. It seemed to take forever for her to move into the arena. When her front foot hit the spray-painted mark on the concrete, Sean flipped the switch on her caparison and Brenda blazed with a thousand green and white bulbs. The crowd cheered, small children cried, and the show began.