Compartment No 6 Read Online Free PDF

worry. Everything’s normal. Citizens, please stay in your compartments. There’s nothing to see here.’
    The man opened the door a crack. The passageway was filled with the curious. The girl looked out of the window and saw only forest smothered in snow. The man went into the corridor and she followed him. The door to the next carriage was open, the people crowding off the train, some bareheaded, some wearing slippers. The man shoved his way through the people and jumped into the snow among the staring, clamorous crowd. The girl remained standing in the crush on the top step of the carriage doorway. She could see drops of blood dripping into the pure white of the snow a short distance ahead. Her gaze followed a tree trunk up towards the sky. Among the pine branches hung an elk’s bloody leg.
    â€˜The animal’s suffering. We have to finish it,’ Arisa sputtered. ‘Bring the axe, quick!’
    The axe swung in Arisa’s hand as she waded towards the engine. The three-legged elk was breathing quickly, terror glittering in its eyes. Arisa lifted the axe and struck its sharp blade into the middle of the elk’s head. The blade sank into its skull, but it didn’t die.
    Shaking his head, the man strode over to the twisting, bellowing animal, grabbed his jackknife from the side of his boot, snapped the blade open, and stuck it into the elk’s jugular vein. Blood sprayed in an arc and landed in the snow, then it was very silent for a moment.
    â€˜The journey continues!’ Arisa shouted sharply, shooing the passengers back onto the train.
    On the train, the man wiped his knife on his bootleg, folded it closed, slid his hand up his side, looking for his trouser pocket, and slowly, with a slight smile, slipped the knife in. The girl waited for the train to roll into motion.
    â€˜Once we were on a trip to Pskov to renovate a convent. We were sitting in third class, drinking. The train was rattling quietly onward across snowy nature, just like now. In the middle of this game I felt the carriage shudder. Then it started to lean and the old ladies started screaming. I looked out of the window and saw shards of railway sleepers fly by and the snow on the ground getting closer and closer. One sharp turn and the ground under the train embankment filled the window, and then the carriage was on its side in the snow. I thought I’d died and everybody else had too. But it was nothing, just a few bloodied heads, crawling out from any exit we could find. Some genius who needed the iron had stolen a stretch of the rails. We walked along the tracks for three days before we saw the towers of Pskov Kremlin. We got there, put on a couple of new roofs, and in the spring when the rails had been replaced and the guilty party found and executed, we took the same train back to Moscow.’
    The girl dug her headphones out of her bag, flopped onto her bunk, closed her eyes, and listened to music. She fell asleep, switched from Louis Armstrong to Dusty Springfield, and fell asleep again.

THE TRAIN HAD SPED through the Udmurt Republic, and now was dragging limply past the Balezino station. The man rubbed his chin. The girl was listening to the choked puff of the small air vent and drawing. The morning stared sternly at them. The man opened up a draughts board and set out the pieces. The girl chose black.
    They played three games, of which she won two. He congratulated her with a fierce squeeze of her hand.
    The white sun rose high and hearty above the snowy woodland. Smoky clouds rushed to the centre of the sky looking for a resting place. The man and the girl sat silently. They sat in their own thoughts for a day or two.
    It had been a sunny turquoise summer day. When Irina’s girlfriend Julia left, the girl went into Irina’s bedroom and looked down at Bakunin Street. People were walking in their spring coats. The girl even saw a couple of stylishly cut, flowered summer dresses. Just as she was