Breakfast In The Ruins Part 13

Karl saw that they were nearing a station. The train howled.

The platform was deserted. If there were pa.s.sengers waiting for a train, they were hiding. People normally hid when Makhno's army came through. Karl grinned to himself. This was not an age in which the timid could survive.

The train slowed as it approached the station. Did Makhno intend to stop for some reason ?

And then, incongruously, a guard appeared on the platform. He was dressed in the uniform of the railway line and he held a green flag in his right hand. What a fool he was, thought Karl, still sticking to the rule book while the world was being destroyed around him.

The guard raised his left hand to his head in a shaky salute. There was a terrified grin on his face, an imploring, placatory grin.

The front part of the train was by now pa.s.sing through the station. Karl saw Nestor Makhno catch his revolver and c.o.c.k it. Then, casually, as his landau came level with the guard, Makhno fired. He did not even bother to aim. He had hardly glanced at the guard. Perhaps he had not really intended to hit the man. But the guard fell, stumbling backwards on buckling legs and then crumpling against the wall of his office, his whole body shuddering as he dropped his flag and grasped at his neck. His chest heaved and blood vomited from between his lips.

Karl laughed. He swung his machine-gun round and jerked the trigger. The gun began to sing. The bullets smashed into the walls and made the body of the guard dance for a few seconds. Karl saw that the placatory smile was still on the dead man's face. He pulled the trigger again and raked the whole station as they went through. Gla.s.s smashed, a sign fell down, someone screamed.

The name of the station was Pomoshnaya.

Karl turned to the fat Georgian who had opened a fresh bottle of vodka and was drinking from it in great gulps. He had hardly noticed Karl's action. Karl tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, old Pyat - where the h.e.l.l is Pomoshnaya?"

The Georgian shrugged and offered Karl the bottle. He was too fuddled to understand the question.

The station was disappearing behind them. Soon it had vanished.

The tattooed sailor, his arm around a snub-nosed girl with cropped hair, a Mauser in her hand, took the bottle from the Georgian and placed it against the girl's thin lips. "Drink up," he said. He peered at Karl. "What was that, youngster?"

Karl tried to repeat his question, but the train entered a tunnel and thick smoke filled their lungs, stung their eyes and they could see nothing. Everyone began to cough and to curse.

"It doesn't matter," said Karl.

- You're still looking a bit pale, says Karl's friend, fingering his own ebony skin. - Maybe you could do with another bath ?

Karl shakes his head. - It'll be hard enough getting this lot off. I've got to leave here sometime, you know. It's going to be embarra.s.sing.

- Only if you let it be. Brazen it out. After all, you're not the only one, are you? Karl giggles. -I bet you say that to all the boys.

What Would You Do? (9) You have been told that you have at most a year to live. Would you decide to spend that year: (a) enjoying every possible pleasure?

(b) doing charitable works?

(c) in some quiet retreat, relis.h.i.+ng the simpler pleasures of life?

(d) trying to accomplished one big thing that you will be remembered for in times to come?

(e) putting all your resources into finding a cure for the illness you have?

or would you simply kill yourself and get the whole thing over with?

10.

Hitting the High Spots on W. Fifty-Six: 1929: Recognition Trapped at sea in a violent thunder storm, the U.S.S. Akron, largest and finest dirigible airs.h.i.+p in the world, crashed off the Barnegat Lights.h.i.+p at 12:30 o'clock this morning with 77 officers and men aboard. Among them was Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics.

Only four of the 77 were known to have been saved at 5 o'clock this morning. At that time the wreckage of the stricken airs.h.i.+p was out of sight in the storm and darkness from the German oil tanker Phoebus, which first reported the catastrophe. A northwest wind blowing about 45 miles an hour was blowing the wreckage off sh.o.r.e and made rescue operations doubly difficult.

No hint of the cause of the disaster was contained in the fragmentary and frequently confusing reports received from the Phoebus, but it was considered highly likely that the great airs.h.i.+p was struck by lightning.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 4, 1933.

- You were bound to get depressed after all that excitement, says Karl's friend. - What about some coffee? Or would you rather I sent down for some more champagne?

He grins, making an expansive gesture.

- Name your poison!

Karl sighs and chews at his thumbnail. His eyes are hooded. He won't look at the black man.

-All right, then how can I cheer you up?

- You could f.u.c.k off, says Karl.

- Take it easy, Karl.

- You could f.u.c.k off.

- What good would that do?

- I didn't know you were interested in doing good.

- Where did you get that idea? Don't you feel more a person now than you felt before you came with me through the door? More real?

- Maybe that's the trouble.

- You don't like reality?

- Yes, maybe that's it.

-Well, that isn't my problem.

-No.

- It's your problem.

-Yes.

- Oh, come on now! You're starting a new life and you can't manage even a tiny smile!

- I'm not your slave, says Karl. I don't have to do everything you say.

- Who said you had to? Me? The black man laughs deridingly. - Did I say that?

-I thought that was the deal.

- Deal? Now you're being obscure. I thought you wanted some fun.

Karl is fifteen. Quite a little man now.

- f.u.c.k off, he says. - Leave me alone.

- In my experience, the black man sits down beside him, that's what people always say when they think they're not getting enough attention. It's a challenge, in a way. 'Leave me alone.'

- Maybe you're right.

- Darling, I'm not often wrong. The black man once again puts his arm around Karl's shoulders. Karl is fifteen and in his own way pretty good looking. He's dating the sweetest little tomato in the school.

- Oh, Jesus!

Karl begins to weep.