Trans-Siberian Express Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cousins,” he said, putting out his hand.
    “Mary Peterson, Miss Peterson,” she responded, smiling primly, putting a delicate cool palm in his. “Youngstown, Ohio.”
    “Bethesda, Maryland.”
    “First trip on the Trans-Sib?” she asked, the shortened version indicating a possessive familiarity.
    “Yes.”
    “Second time for me. I did it in 1960 on the way to Australia. It was all steam then. Now we don’t get steam, even after Lake Baikal.”
    The waitress arrived with the borscht, annoyed that Alex had changed his table. He began to eat. The borscht was good. Why not? he thought. They invented it.
    “Exciting, isn’t it?” Miss Peterson said, looking out of the window. He followed her eyes, seeing nothing but her reflection. She watched his mirror image, then directed her conversation toward it, as if it were a wholly different person.
    “I’m getting off at Khabarovsk, going just for the ride. Then I’m flying back to Moscow. Foreigners have to change there for Nakhodka. They don’t let us go to Vladivostok.”
    “Yes, I know.” He sipped his borscht.
    “The line goes five-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-eight miles to the Pacific. That’s a general term, since technically it’s the Sea of Japan. Imagine, nearly six thousand miles. We pass through eight time zones and, if we stayed the whole way, we’d be making eighty-three stops and go an average speed of thirty-seven miles per hour.”
    “My God,” Alex said, “you’re a walking encyclopedia.”
    “I’m a travel freak,” she whispered, obviously proud of her knowledge. “When you work in a library, you take many journeys in your mind.” Her eyes sparkled with alertness.
    Alex eyed her coolly. Perhaps she might be persuaded— He checked the thought. Had he the right to create new victims?
    “You must be a doctor,” she said, looking at the medical journal that lay unopened beside the plate of black bread that had come with the borscht.
    “Yes,” he answered.
    “You must be here on some medical meeting.”
    He wondered if Dimitrov’s admonition to be cautious extended to nice gray-haired American ladies traveling alone. He decided again to defy their paranoia, at least in this instance. Or was she one of them?
    “I was,” he lied. “This leg is strictly for pleasure. My grandfather helped build this railroad; then he settled in Irkutsk. My grandparents came to the States just before World War I. My father came back as an interpreter for General Graves.” He marveled at his own explanation. It all fit so beautifully.
    “So that accounts for your Russian?” No, she was an innocent, he decided. They could hardly have manufactured her.
    The little man in charge of the restaurant car eyed them curiously. Alex saw him talk to the red-haired man, then move toward their table. Standing over them, he quickly wrote out a check and put it before the gray-haired woman, who ignored it. But the stocky man continued to stand over them. The sweat was gathering on his upper lip.
    “I’m terribly sorry,” he said in Russian. “We expect a large crowd. Would you pay the check please?”
    “What did he say?” the woman asked pleasantly.
    “He said you should pay the check. They need the space.” Alex looked around the half-empty restaurant car. No one was waiting.
    “I’ll be happy to make room when the parties come,” Miss Peterson said politely.
    Putting down his spoon, Alex looked up at the man, who lowered his eyes. He appeared frightened.
    “The lady said she’d be happy to leave when your people come,” Alex said, dipping his spoon again into the thick red mixture before him.
    “I need the space now,” the man said. His voice had a whining, pleading tone. “It requires preparation.”
    “What did he say?” the woman asked again. She opened her large pocketbook, pulled out a Russian dictionary, and began thumbing pages.
    “He says you should leave now,” Alex said. He watched the resolve grow in her face, the chin rise,