Compartment No 6 by Rosa Liksom Read Free Book Online

towers with their black flames receded into the distance. In spite of many signs of spring, it was still winter in Siberia. Here and there on sheltered south slopes melted by the sun jutted last year’s grasses. The innocent smell of wood smoke drifted into the carriage. The train slowed its speed and was soon moving at a crawl. As it passed an abandoned warehouse the trail of smoke thickened. Small fires danced in the grass right next to the rail track, beyond them the flames reached greedily towards the turquoise Siberian sky. Next to the train, in the middle of the cloud of smoke, an old woman ran around in a panic, her head bare, without a coat. Not just the grass but also the railway sleepers were burning, and the ruins of an old building as well. The wind whipped a cloud of red sparks against the iron bulk of the train. The flames flared for a moment, handsome and strong, but the Siberian frost dampened them. A young mother crumpled by life lifted her child in her arms and pointed at the smoking building receding behind them.
    â€˜Look, that’s how granny’s house burned down.’
    The train skulked along for a considerable time before speeding up again. As darkness fell, the man came out of the compartment and stood next to the girl. Together they looked at the Irtysh River. The snow on the shores had shrunk; bare, snowless patches appeared among the drifts. At a narrow point in the current, in the middle of the channel, stood several immense concrete pillars. There had once been a bridge there, or else a bridge was being built and was abandoned. Far off on the horizon a power-plant town glimmered.
    The man looked at the girl with a wary smile. ‘I’m sorry, my girl. The devil got into me again. Lucifer himself. I just have such an urge to fuck. Go back in so you don’t catch cold. Let me know when I can come in. I still have hope. When Ivan the Terrible turned eighty, he took a sixteen-year-old wife.’
    The girl smiled in token of a sort of dry understanding and went into the compartment. She took a bottle of nail polish remover out of her bag, emptied it into his vodka glass, and slumped onto her bunk. She liked the man’s Gagarin smile. She fell asleep to that, hungry, with all her clothes on.
    The man gazed wistfully at the muddy river, sawmills along its shores, open, empty land around it as far as the eye could see. Under the cover of the ice the river rushed and swirled, a roiling current. In the wee hours the girl awoke and kicked the compartment door so that it hung half open. The man stepped immediately inside, gulped the contents of his vodka glass, and went to sleep without saying a word.

A RUDDY LIGHT PRESSED BRAZENLY in through the compartment window and divided the space. The man’s bunk was left in shadow, the girl’s in light. The man was fiddling with his nose. There was no sign whatsoever of the effect of the nail polish remover. Two tussell-feathered sparrows pecked at the corridor window.
    â€˜Arisa was here screaming about the engine needing a rest. So they’re giving it a rest. What do you think, my girl, shall we go out? Take a look at the vodka shops of Omsk?’ the man asked with solid self-certainty. ‘Not on an empty stomach, though. First munch on a little something and then hit the streets. Hurrying can kill you. Remember that.’
    The icy fog on the platform seized their breath so that they had to stand still for quite some time. Two hungry, nimble-footed dogs were barking on the platform. The station yard was filled with the bustle of work and the noise of travellers, screeching train engines, rattling luggage carts, clanging rails, curses, roars, and old women’s uninhibited laughter. Among the stew of people a granny waving enormous mittens sold thick apple juice in large green bottles. The war in Afghanistan was accelerating and instead of food supplies the Soviet government was concentrating on arms production, and the