The compartment was hot and stuffy and smelled of cheap vodka and BO. The air was heavy, like just before a storm, only the clouds in this couchette were made of vodka and the thunder was my roommate’s snoring. He was sleeping off the effects of the alcohol as the train rattled through the snowy Russian landscape. If it was freezing outside, the atmosphere in this couchette had certainly been frosty before my traveling companion had fallen asleep.
I’d unwittingly started a new Cold War earlier in the evening
when I had turned down Ivan’s offer to share his spirits. My refusal was well
meaning but it obviously wasn’t the done thing. Comrade Ivan had huffed and
puffed and clanked and clattered as he drank on his own, giving me the noisiest
silent treatment I’d ever had.
I could never sleep on these damn trains and
this one was no different, although I’d been feigning sleep since just after the
vodka impasse 3 hours before. Now my comrade was snoring, I no longer had to pretend. I could open my
eyes and watch the shadows creating shapes on the compartment walls. God knows where
we were or what was outside the frosted windows. All I knew was that I wished
we were already 9 hours in the future, so I could be breathing in Miss Dior by
Dior rather than his shoes by the door. Seconds
ticked into minutes, minutes became hours, time ate the kilometres as we inched
towards our destination.
Finally I fell asleep and then 3 minutes later the guard
hammered the door telling us it was time to get up. Time to get up meant time
to arrive. Comrade Ivan and I ignored each other as we drank our tea and busied
ourselves making ourselves look beautiful for the people meeting us. I couldn’t
wait to see Valerina again. Christmas in her arms would make this journey seem
worthwhile.
Her beauty took my breath away, her smile made my knees go
weak and the kiss she planted on my lips was more delicious than anything I’d
ever tasted. Her perfection made me self-conscious of my bedraggled, 3 days of
travelling state but she didn’t seem to care. She did seem a little distracted
though; like she was looking for someone. Then she smiled.
‘I’d like you to meet my father,’ she said. I took a deep breath, I
didn’t have to look around to know comrade Ivan was standing behind me.
Recurring dream of Russian beauties?
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