Tsarina

by Patrick, J. Nelle

  “Now what?” Leo asked.

  “Now we get on the train,” I said, walked out onto the platform. The cars here were freight cars, and there weren’t many at that. Up the tracks, where the main station was, we could still hear the dull sound of the angry crowd. But back here? It was strangely silent. I turned to Emilia, who looked less enthusiastic when she saw the empty freight car before her.

  “We should get in that one,” Leo said, nodding to the second-to-last car. “People will be trying to hop on the last one, if the station’s any indication.” He walked forward and heaved the rolling metal door open.

  There were several chained up wooden crates inside labeled Thirteen-Inch Gaslight Mantles; I hesitated in the doorway until Leo walked around to the far side and confirmed no one was lurking behind them. Other than that, the boxcar was exactly what one would expect a metal box to be—loud, cold, and smelling slightly of fish. Far ahead, the train whistle blew—we’d be moving soon. The floor rumbled as the engines fired up. Leo moved to slide the door shut.

  “Wait!” I shouted; my voice echoed a thousand times over, startling all three of us.

  “It’ll only be dark for a minute,” he said impatiently. “We’ll open it back up once we’re out of Saint Petersburg.”

  “No, we won’t,” I said. “These things don’t open from the inside.”

  “How would you know?”

  “When I was seven, my father had a pony shipped to me when we lived in Odessa,” I explained. “This little white horse. I ran into the car to see it while he signed the papers and the train lurched—the car slid shut with me in it. I had to wait for someone to come let me out.”

  Leo raised his eyebrows. “Oh.” Emilia clutched her chest, horrified at coming so close to being locked inside.

  The train began to ease forward. The tsar’s platform disappeared, we passed by rocks and stray patches of grass, then the main platform in a whirl of gold and shouting. I saw surprised eyes catch the cracked boxcar door as we rolled past, but none were fast enough to do anything more than look alarmed. Leo was right—people screamed behind us, rushed for the final car. It was impossible to tell if anyone made it over the roar of the track under our feet, rising up through the crack in the door. And then we were suddenly out of the city. Buildings turned to trees, streets to smooth snow, shouts to the whistle of air.

  I sat down beside Emilia across from the crates. “Don’t worry,” I whispered in her ear, confident Leo couldn’t hear me over the noise. “It’s a one-day trip. One day until we’re in Moscow. Does your uncle still patrol the square, by the Kremlin? He talked my ear off about it at the last ball.” I tried to make the last bit sound playful, the gossipy sort of tone Emilia usually loved.

  “He does,” Emilia said faintly. I could tell the realization that we were about to traverse the Russian countryside in a boxcar was just hitting her. Her eyes were wide, her face pale, and every time the car jolted, she cringed.

  “We’ll lead Leo straight to the square then. We’ll find your uncle—he’ll arrest Leo, we’ll go get the Constellation Egg from the Babushka, and the Romanovs will have Russia forever.”

  “And Paris,” Emilia said dreamily, and I got the impression that this, this idea, this place to go, was the only thing keeping her from tears. “Paris.”

  I nodded, but truthfully, I was more focused on Russia.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The longest train ride I’d ever taken was to visit a cousin who lived on the edge of Siberia. I was in a luxury car, one with its own butler, and there was tea and coffee and the perfect, beautiful Ural countryside to take in, all rocky crests and trees and snowdrifts. The sun would break across the horizon in the morning and light the land up, and we would see wolf packs running among the trees, in a dance with one another and the cedar forests. It was a nine-day trip, but when I got off the train, it felt like it had been a single day at the most.

  It had only been a day and a half on this train, however, and it already felt like a month. My body was numb, like all my corners had been filed down by the constant vibrations, and it felt like I had a permanent layer of silt and dust caked on top of my skin. We were moving slower than expected, creeping along at times, to the point that every so often, we debated the merits of getting out and walking alongside the train. So far, fear that the train would suddenly pick up speed and leave us stranded in the wilderness outweighed our desire to escape, but by the second day, I wasn’t sure how much longer we could go without breaking—my head ached, and I was starving, hollow with the feeling of nothing but freezing air in my torso.

  The sky was blue, crisp, and clear; we could see leafless trees that stretched out like wooden skeletons for miles. When the afternoon sun was just setting, we pulled the door open far as it would go to let a beam of golden sunlight in. If we sat three abreast on the wall opposite the door, each of us could sit in the light and warm up, if only the tiniest bit. Even in the sun, I felt cold to my core, like my bones had been turned to metal rods in my skin. Every jolt, every bump sent pain rippling up through my body, and my teeth ached from being rattled together for so long.

  “Remember that time . . .” Emilia began as she slumped down on the wall between me and Leo. She stopped speaking, closed her eyes, and the sun made her lashes sparkle, like the memory of warmth. I got the impression that as cold and miserable as I was, she was colder—it worried me, to say the least. After a deep breath, one that reemerged as a puff of cold air from her lips, she continued, “That we traveled to Moscow in a boxcar, Natalya? And we were stranded in the country for weeks and weeks?”

  “I seem to recall it,” I answered, tilting my head down to rest it on her shoulder even though it made my neck stiff. My throat was raspy, protested conversation, and my lips were so chapped that speaking made them crack and bleed.

  “They must be checking the tracks,” Leo said hoarsely, staring straight ahead. There were dark circles under his eyes. “Making sure no one tore them up to slow down the Reds. Or the Whites. Or whomever. I don’t even know anymore.”

  “I’m hungry, Natalya,” Emilia said. Her voice sounded almost feverish.

  “Me too,” Leo said. “If we’d stop, I could get off, maybe find . . . something.”

  “Like what? Ice?” I asked disparagingly.

  “Roots. Plants. I’d eat a rabbit raw at this point, if I could catch one,” he said, and I hated to nod in agreement.

  “When we get out of all this,” Emilia said, “we’re going to have an incredible story. Can you imagine sharing this with Paris society? We’ll sound like . . . like Amazons.”

  “Amazons in a train car,” I said, though her words worried me. After all—the Babushka foretold Alexei and I would be together. All she foretold for Emilia was a train ride, this train ride. From the faint blue of Emilia’s lips, I worried it was because she had little future after this.

  I scraped my fingers on the rough side of the boxcar as I rose, then walked to the train door and peered at the ground racing by below. It became a blur of rocks, with thick icicles hanging down underneath our car. There was a lake ahead, and a bridge to carry us over it, pale green steel that crisscrossed itself a thousand times like a card tower being stacked in the sky. The train began to squeal, slow down again. I grabbed hold of the doorframe to steady myself as we rolled to a crawl.

  Leo cursed. “Enough.” He rose, pausing to steady Emilia, who was looking faint, then walked to the chained up crates of gaslight mantles. He bounced back and forth on his toes a few times then ran forward, kicked one solidly right by its edge.

  The crate rocked gently, but other than that hardly moved. Leo, however, fell back, grabbed his leg in pain. His voice ricocheted off the walls of the boxcar, and his writhing upset the injury to his ribs, which made him howl even louder. Emilia clamped her hands over her ears.

  “Are you trying to fight a piece of timber?” I snapped. “Sit do
wn! I’m not setting any more bones.”

  “I’m not trying to fight anything,” Leo said through gritted teeth. He winced and used the back wall to climb to his feet. “I’m breaking apart the wood to burn for a fire. Maybe they even pack the oil with the gaslight pieces . . .”

  “We’re building a fire in a train car?”

  “I’ll starve to death or freeze to death, but not both,” Leo said. “I’ve got a few matches from that girl in the market. This stuff would burn easily.”

  “Someone will see the smoke,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re going to get caught.”

  “Freeze or starve, Miss Kutepova,” he said, grimacing, and ran at the crate again.

  “Or I could help,” Emilia said gently. Leo skidded to a stop at her words, this time crashing into the side of the crate with his bad arm. He winced, clutched the arm, and hobbled back to the patch of sunlight in defeat. Emilia’s shadow stretched over the car as she walked up to the crate and drew the pins from her messily done hair. She slid them into the lock; it took her longer this time, I suspected because her fingers were so numb. Eventually, the lock fell, a loud clunk that reverberated across the floor. The chain unraveled, clinking along like heavy coins falling, then crashed to the floor as well. Leo rose, gave Emilia a grateful, somewhat embarrassed look, then easily pulled the front panel of wood down.

  “Oh my God,” Emilia whispered, voice barely audible above the rackling sound of the train. “Am I hallucinating?”

  “The crate says it’s gaslight mantles,” Leo said, shaking his head like he too thought he might be seeing things. He hoisted up the wood panel he was holding, read the label, then dropped it back down. “But . . . am I crazy, or is that—”

  “Food!” Emilia exclaimed.

  “Well, sort of,” I said, walking forward and running my fingers over the hundreds of shiny turquoise tins, stacked evenly to the very top of the crate. It was a logo I recognized: a fish leaping over yellow block letters that read Fine Beluga Caviar. I’d had it hundreds of times at parties, luncheons, fancy dinners, though it was something that usually garnished platters of sugared fruits and fancy cheeses. I looked over at Leo. “I guess we’ll be freezing to death, rather than starving.”

  Leo reached forward, grabbed a tin from the top, and pulled it down. It was the size of his palm, and he stared down at it like it was something wondrous. “In the middle of a revolution, they’re trying to smuggle caviar into Moscow?”

  “What would a revolution be without a party?” I muttered. Emilia joined us, pulled one down for herself, and immediately wedged her thumbs underneath the lid to pry it off, shivering violently from excitement and cold.

  “It’s frozen on,” she said, frowning. “That, or my hands are frozen off.”

  Leo tried to pry his open, though with his bad arm, I suspect Emilia came closer to actually breaking in. They turned to me in unison; Emilia held her tin out first. She dropped it into my hand, cold and heavy. I ran my thumb across the top, then clamped it between my palms, squeezed the sides, and—

  “It won’t budge,” I said. “It hardly even feels like two separate pieces.”

  I sighed, drummed my fingers on the tin, fought the urge to pry at it with my teeth. If we couldn’t twist them open, perhaps we could break the metal itself . . . I walked to the edge of the train, by the doors, and smashed the tin against the frame. Pain rocketed from my palm to my shoulder, a bright, stinging feeling. I shouted and dropped the tin, glared at it as I held my palm to my mouth and tried to warm my fingers. I turned back at Emilia; she looked like she would cry, if she had the energy, and Leo, who stared at the tin of caviar like it’d betrayed him. He gritted his teeth, stormed to the door, and slung the tin into the wilderness. It bounced off the ground then exploded open into the dirt. Leo and I groaned in unison.

  I dropped down, letting my feet dangle off the edge of the train—something I never would have done the day before yesterday, but now seemed no more life-threatening than our current situation. I winced as my legs swung a little too far back, struck the icicles that coated the underside.

  I frowned, looked at Leo, who was leaning against the doorframe beside me. He looked confused, especially when I suddenly swung my legs inside, spun around to my stomach, and grabbed underneath the train. I grabbed hold of the first icicle my hand slid across; it burned from cold, but I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled until it cracked from the metal undercarriage. I rose, kneeled by the door.

  “Emilia,” I shouted—she was back in the sun, staring down at the tin of caviar in her hand. “Give me one.”

  Emilia’s brown eyes found me wearily. She looked at the icicle in my hand and slid the tin across the floor to me. I caught it, centered it just in front of my knees, then brought the icicle down hard in the center of the tin.

  The icicle slipped from my hands as soon as it hit the metal. Worse yet, it didn’t break through the tin, but rather dented it lightly. I sighed, lifted the tin, prepared to whisper words of concession. Instead, I blinked.

  The edges—the edges had lifted. Like the point where the icicle struck was the center of a flower, the edged tilted up around it, breaking the seal. I grabbed it tightly and turned.

  It opened.

  The lid fell away so easily that for a moment, I couldn’t process what had happened. But then I saw it, an even plane of tiny blue-black pearls, glossy and perfect. I stared, unable to move, unable to do anything until Leo began to laugh.

  I looked up, alarmed. I didn’t think he was actually capable of genuine amusement. But there he was, laughing loudly, cheeks flushing as he grabbed his broken ribs in pain, unable to stop. The car was moving so slow now that his voice overpowered the train, bounced around us, out and over the lake outside. It was bright, airy—it was a boy’s laugh, not a Red’s, and it shifted something in me that made it impossible for me to hold in the smile pulling at my lips. He wiped his eyes, shook his head and reached down. He took the caviar from my hands, then handed it to Emilia.

  “Mr. Uspensky,” she said, now grinning. “I’m so ashamed to admit I left my silver caviar spoon at home. Forgive my indelicacies?” She reached in with her fingers and scooped the caviar from the tin. It clung to her fingers like wet sand, the whole scene as unappetizing as I’d ever seen caviar and as unattractive as I’d ever seen Emilia. Leo didn’t notice, however, as he was handing me another tin, then another. While Emilia ate with her hands, social graces be damned, I opened eight more tins. Leo rejoined Emilia in the patch of sunlight, the tins laid out before them like a feast. I ran my index finger through a tin, slumped down between them.

  “This part,” I said as I licked the caviar from my finger. I closed my eyes, relished the prospect of food for a moment before continuing, “we should leave this part out, when we tell it in Paris.”

  “I, on the other hand, will tell everyone about this. But no one’s ever going to believe me,” Leo said, finishing a tin. His hands were dotted in stray pearls, which clung stubbornly to his skin as he chucked the tin out the door and into the lake.

  “I don’t know, Leo,” Emilia said. “Compared to the story about a magical Fabergé egg, this one might sound flatly sane.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Caviar, unfortunately, was not meant to be eaten by the tin. It was a garnish, perhaps an appetizer at best. But an hour later, we’d eaten two dozen tins worth, washing it down with snow melted to water in our hands. Our fingers were stained gray and we were lying out across the boxcar floor, clutching suddenly swollen stomachs. Emilia, somehow, fell asleep, lying atop the remains of the crates to give her some small distance from the frozen floor. Leo and I were awake, studying the fading light as the sun set on the far side of the lake. The train was clicking along slowly, at a walking pace, but there was no getting out now—we were in the center of the bridge, with a respectable drop to the pale blue water below.

  “We should be ther
e by now,” Leo said, sighing.

  “Believe me,” I said, “I’m well aware. One time I was on a train that made the trip to Moscow in fifteen hours.”

  “You go to Moscow that often?” Leo asked.

  I frowned. “Not terribly often. Often enough to have assumed we’d only be temporarily uncomfortable in a boxcar.” I tried to reposition my hand under my cheek to cut down on the train’s vibrations, which were giving me a tremendous headache.

  “This is the second time I’ve been on a train,” Leo said after pausing for a moment. He shifted, sat up, rubbing his cheek. “First time was when I came to Saint Petersburg from my farm. It’s the only city I’ve ever seen.”

  I lifted my eyebrows, tried not to let too much of the surprise register on my face. “The sunflower farm?” I asked. I gave up trying to lie down, situating my dress under me to keep the cold steel from touching my skin.

  “We grew more than sunflowers,” Leo said, sounding mildly defensive. “We grew potatoes and wheat and raised sheep. But the sunflowers were easiest, usually.”

  “Did you really pull the plow yourself?” I asked.

  Leo looked at me hesitantly, then out the train door. “I have the scars to prove it.”

  I wanted to see them, but the idea of asking him to show me seemed lewd. Leo didn’t speak for a long time, long enough for the train to come to a complete, easy stop. We looked at each other, then out across the lake. Everything was silent, quiet, still. We seemed to be surrounded by brown and gray fields, sandwiched between the blues of the sky and the lake; the only movement was the breeze running across the grasses and dotted birch groves. I could still feel the vibrations of the tracks in my feet and palms. Leo brushed a handful of stray hair from his face, then rose. He walked to the edge of the car, held onto the side, and leaned out.