The fellow traveler who outplayed me

Those were hard times, but charming in their own way. I was working at the time for a company that sold everything from Turkish knitwear to computer diskettes. There was money, but there were also plenty of headaches. That's how I found myself in a reserved seat carriage on the Moscow-Kurgan train with a briefcase stuffed with cash. An astronomical sum by those standards—about twenty thousand dollars, I think. I was taking it to a business associate with strict instructions: don't meet anyone, don't drink, and don't leave the carriage. I chose a reserved seat on purpose—to blend in among the common folk, rather than be seen in the sleeper car, where every Tambourine punk identifies business travelers by the scent of their cologne. I rode on the bottom berth, pretending to be a tired worker, and gazed out the window at the passing birch trees. The boring town of Kurgan was still about eighteen hours away. At one of the stations—somewhere beyond Murom, I think—SHE floated into the train car. No, not the blazingly beautiful diva from the magazine cover. Something else, something far more dangerous for a man my age. She was about thirty-five, with a modest but shapely figure, like a retired ballerina's: narrow hips, small breasts, a long neck. She wore glasses with thin gold frames, her hair pulled back into a strict bun at the nape of her neck, a peach-colored blouse buttoned up to the top, and a skirt that fell below the knee. In one hand, she held a faux-leather satchel, in the other, a volume of Tsvetaeva. She sat down across from me, nodded politely, and buried her face in the book. I looked at her and felt a long-forgotten thrill awaken within me. Not the animalistic call of the flesh that drives you to the bar counters to feast on girls in miniskirts, but something more hunter-like. Like a fisherman who spots a wary trout in clear water. I decided that eighteen hours on the train was too tempting to simply sleep through them in prison underwear. He started the conversation carefully, like an intellectual. He introduced himself as a railway engineer. He asked about her book, complimented her taste, and lamented the prevalence of pulp fiction. One thing led to another, and she warmed up. Her name was Marina (a poetess's namesake, mind you), and she was going to visit her aunt in Kurgan to unwind after a difficult divorce. Her husband, she said, had turned out to be a jerk and had dumped her, an art history PhD, for a butcher shop assistant. "You see," she said, taking off her glasses and wiping them, "the most hurtful thing isn't the betrayal. It's the fact that he destroyed my self-esteem. Now I feel useless, like a defective object." Here it was, the moment! Fanfares blared in my head, and the Program kicked in. I pulled out a bottle of Armenian cognac, a Vdokhnovenie chocolate bar, and a lemon sliced by the solicitous barmaid at the station. Marina was reluctant at first, but after the first sip for her shattered self-esteem, things got more enjoyable. By the time it got dark outside and our fellow passengers in the compartment began snoring, we were sitting very close. I whispered compliments in her ear that would make any woman bloom like a May rose: I compared her to Akhmatova in her youth, said her ex-husband was impotent and blind, and that I personally would never allow such a woman to grieve alone. I had prudently handcuffed the briefcase with the money to my leg and hung the key around my neck—an old trick, but a reliable one. Marina melted. In the dim light of the train car, to the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, she laid her head on my shoulder and whispered, "You have no idea how long it's been since someone said those words to me. I want... I want to feel like a woman. Right here. Now." I confess, I was taken aback. A reserved seat is no place for carnal pleasures. But Marina was persistent. She pulled me toward the restroom, the one with the perpetually damp floor and the smell of carbolic acid. And there, in that cramped stall, with the clanking of wheels, something happened that I can only describe as "a train in a tunnel." It was passionate, rushed, with the risk of being caught by the conductor, but it was precisely this risk that inflamed us both. Back in our seats, we giggled and huddled together like mischievous teenagers. I felt like a winner. My money was still there, my spirits were skyrocketing, and Kurgan was just a stone's throw away. I woke up an hour before my arrival. My head felt like cast iron, my mouth felt like a squadron of hussars had spent the night. I looked at my leg to check my briefcase and was stunned. The handcuffs were unfastened, the briefcase was gone. In a panic, I rummaged through the shelf, looked under the mattress, even in the trash can in the vestibule. Empty. Marina bukvoeb.run was also gone. Her shelf was stocked as if no one had ever lain there. The suitcase, the book—all vanished. I rushed to the conductor, that Cerberus in the blue uniform. She yawned lazily and said, "Oh, that one? The one with the big eyes and the glasses? She got off in Zlatoust around four in the morning. She was in a hurry. She said her husband suddenly fell ill. Are you her husband?" I couldn't think of anything to say. I arrived in Kurgan with a wooden face and empty hands. Explaining to my companion—a man of the land with fists like sledgehammers—that some twenty thousand bucks "were stolen by Tsvetaeva in glasses" would have been pure suicide. But I had to. To my surprise, he didn't kill me. He was silent for a long time, smoking out the window, and then said, "A woman? In a reserved seat carriage? Who knows about the money? You're a real loser, my friend..." For the next six months, I worked for this man for free, working off my debt. I went on the same business trips, but no longer like a tough macho with a diplomat, but like a beaten dog, flinching at every female voice on the train. I never saw Marina again, although sometimes I think I see her in every other woman reading a book on the commuter train. It was professional work, meticulous. She took the key from my neck while I was fast asleep after cognac and sex. And the main thing is, not a single piece of evidence. There weren't even any condoms left, because I, the old fool that I am, decided this time that "it would be fine on the train." That's how I learned that the best con artists don't wear miniskirts and red shoes, but glasses, a modest button-down blouse, and a volume of Silver Age poetry. Since then, I can't stand Tsvetaeva and always pin my money to the radiator in my compartment. And I remember my business trip to Kurgan as the most expensive sex of my life.