Chapter 49: On the Road
Alistair Bowmore had not expected to be seated in the back of the little rackety wagon strung to the train, freezing, with a chatty Soviet spy the next morning. He'd thought they'd be riding coach, but apparantly the train to the border didn't allow spys and foreigeners as passengers. Vitia Malinkow seemed utterly untroubled by the cold. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, complaining how these were German ones, cheap ones, and weren't worth the money. There were no windows and the door was more of a hatch you had to crawl through, so Alistair had no view and no distraction from the Russians cherry cheeks, and, his past fear of claustophobia returned. As a kid he'd hated tight spaces, he'd grown out of it by age fifteen, but now he felt that same crushing feeling as if the walls were slowly inching towards him, ready to crush his spine and let his blood flow out, through the hatch, to dye the railroad tracks crimson red.
"The view is quite beautiful isn't it?" Vitia asked with a smile. He puffed out a breath of smoke. Alistair wanted to ask him to quit the smoking, but he knew he wasn't in the place too; this man was risking his life for him.
"Which view, the one we can't see?" Alistair asked, guessing that the Russian was referring to the route neither could see do to the grey walls.
"No, the walls." Vitia responded with a wink. For a second Alistair thought that he was joking, but then he continued, rambling on about their enclosure. "I think it's quite poetic. And poetry is always beautiful, especially when we find it all around us."
"I'm not following..." Alistair said slowly.
"Cigarette?" Vitia offered, as if that answered Alistair's confusion. Alistair took one for the heck of it. He could be dead in a matter of minutes; or hours, or latest, in a matter of years. Vitia struck a match and held it up to the end of Alistair's cigarette. It caught fire quickly and the President dragged a breath in, filling his lungs with smoke. The match lit up the Soviets face, and for the first time, Alistair noticed how weary he looked. He looked run-down, like a traveller on a deserted road who reckoned someone might drive by but nobody ever had. The flame exstinguished and in the darkness that followed Alistair could only make out the rise of his friends cheery cheeks which gave him the look of being content and light-hearted.
"I think it's poetic." Vitia said again, taking up the conversation he himself had left off. "The third Reich is just like this...you can't see the outside world, although you're sure it's beautiful." He paused. "And although you hear and know that things are going forwards you can't feel it, not in the slightest. Excpet for the bumps in the road...those you feel very strongly, and every time they almost throw you against the enclosure which might creak but won't break..." Malinkow's explaination had taken a toll on Alistair. He started to feel the same way. He regarded his aquaintance with a new desire to learn more about him. The Soviet was obviously a writer, or even a poet, and not a bad one at that. Alistair, intrigued, waited for Vitia Malinkow to continue speaking, but the Russian didn't. He simply rested his head against the side of the wagon and stared at the wall. His eyeballs moved gently from left to right, as if he was watching the world race by outside. For some inexplicable reason, Alistair had the feeling that Malinkow could see the world outside.
"So, you need to start to plan what to say to Comrade Stalin." He said all of a sudden, snapping out of his peacefull state. "I assure you, he will listen, probably won't speak a word until your done. But if you didn't convince him he'll send you out without even glancing in your direction."
"I was thinking about telling him some dates in the near future, so to say 'predicting what will happen' and when these things do, then he'll believe me."
"Alright. Share them with me." Vitia Malinkow said amusedly.
"On the 20th of March Ribbentrop will pronounce an ultimatum to Lithuania."
"You could know that, you could have worked on it." Malinkow cut in. "This is not proof; it doesn't convince me so it'll never convince Comrade Stalin."
"On the 23rd of August the CCCP and Germany will agree to divide Europe between themselves in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact-."
"That's good, precise, but very far away. Over half a year..." He interrupted. "Is there anything that will occur sooner?"
"On May 11th the battles of Khalkhin Gol will start, that concerns the Soviets, and is a precise date."
"Still far off, but pitch that one too. And, if you know so much, when will the Second World War start?" The Russian asked with a dangerous glint in his eye.
"On the 1st of September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland."
"Well, we'll see if those things happen in good time." Vitia answered. "And if they do, I'm sure Stalin will listen. But, if WWII is truely going to be as terrible as you told my friend Bernd, then it won't give our Comerades in the East enough time to prepare for Nazi Germany's invasion.
"I could also admit to knowing details about Stalin's personal life; but I fear I'll be shot dead."
"That's a reasonable fear to have." Malinkow agreed.
"Have you met him?" Alistair asked. Once again he felt a surge of panic and excitement at the thought of meeting the Soviet Dictator.
"I did, once. He told me a joke about spies, it was quite funny actually." Malinkow said. "That was the only time I ever saw him. He's a great man, Comrade Stalin. But," here he lit another cigarette, "you're going to have to wait until the stuff you predict comes true, he'll never believe you unless you get everything right. So you can wait until the 1st of September to expect him to want to speak with you again. And, if he feels any threat at all, you'll be sentenced to the mines. So please, Alistair, pay exact attention to what you say and do. And never, ever, mention personal things about him."
"Thanks for the heads-up." Alistair said. He sighed. "I hope it'll give us enough time..." But he didn't know if it would. Could the Soviet Union build up a strong enough military to beat Germany much faster in the little time there would be left? "Can I have another cigarette?"
"Of course." And Vitia Malinkow gladly handed him one.
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