november 14 [part two];
Elisabetta Carson, Sveta reflects, was made not of smoke and mirrors but of discernible pieces that one could pick up and put off, of tied-back hair and a soft accent with Yorkshire lilts around the edges, of clear nail varnish plucked from the end of rows of peacock colours in the drugstore, of shades of brown and the camel-hair coat with the tired fur collar that she wore on gloomier days, the pile flat against the downward tuck of her chin and cheeks. She had been a woman that no one had questioned, not even Tallard, who had a bloodhound nose and distrustworthy eyes and who, if she hadn’t been busy, could have been truly irritating to her. She had been a woman who said little, who had had little to say.
Sveta had worn Elisabetta Carson not like the coat but like the veneer: clear and invisible and light.
Still: Elisabetta Carson had been a paper doll, and Svetlana Mikhailovna Lebedyevna would see that the papers went up in flames.
november 12: CALAIS, FRANCE; 9:45 central european time /20:45 gmt
In her last night in the bare little Paddington flat, she had made a fire in the sputtery little stove, had watched the bonfire of her six-month-borne identity, her MI6 track record, curl itself into ash. The passport, the papers of Western identity, she had kept in hand.
She had taken herself across the ferry to Calais with them-them and a handful of quick francs tucked into their fold. When the ship pulls into the harbor, it is just dark, and she chooses to take herself and her small suitcase and sleep out the night until the morning train to Brussels. There is a small inn not a full road’s length away from the docks that smells faintly of fish but whose gruff little proprietress asks few questions: Sveta greets her in easy Parisian-accented French, flashes the passport peripherally, signs in Carson’s neat hand. The woman is perfectly silent after that, save acquiescing to bring her a bowl of slightly cooling mussels, a torn-off round of bread, a half-full bottle of white wine. She takes the tray of food offered and eats in her room, looking out the window and watching the ships, night drowning out the promise of white cliffs across the way. Sleep feels far-off; she drinks just one glass of wine, slowly, not enough to make her feelings fuzzier or quieter, much as she might like that. Instead, she sips and watches the sweep of stars clear and bright over the harbor and ignores, as best she can, the quick, travel-itching tick of her heart.
She makes four hours of sleep, in the end. It is enough.
In the morning, she takes time to watch the first ships of the day make their way in and out of the harbor, weak early sunlight breaking on the water. The wind tugs at the pins of her hat, at flyaway pieces of hair that have begun to stray from their net. As she eyes the tick of her wristwatch, promising twenty, then ten more minutes until the train to Brussels arrives at the nearest station, she finds herself removing the pins, untucking the net, idle fingers occupying themselves loosely with her hair. When she leaves, she drops the slip of netting in the water, tucking the hat into her pocket. She thinks, with a brief, surprisingly whimsical smile, that perhaps the current shall wash it back towards England, and the veneer of Carson chips, deliberately, just that much further.
november 13: BERLIN, GERMANY; 1:27 central european time/12:27 gmt
Once the long track of the train progresses into Germany, the number of stops increase until it turns local, halting village by village before tracking its reluctant way into the split city. Just as well. She gets off the train in Magdeburg and takes a quick moment to wait, ducking into the bathroom, for the train to leave. Splashing a handful of water on her face, she takes a moment to look at herself properly. Her face is delineated in white lines under the stark electricity of the bathroom light, tight and tired and tied up with waiting, with the endless passage of the rails.
On her way out of the station, she slips the coat from her shoulders, hangs it in the coatroom and leaves it behind. Outside is a shock of cold, but warmer than Calais had been, the air not salted but smoked with the old commingled breaths of exhaust pipes. A car waits, sleek and black and unobtrusive in one corner of the lot. She recognizes the license; she does not have to ask to climb into the back.
She does not speak to the driver; he does not ask. A slow, silent pair of hours passes. He drives her into the city and across the border and when she steps out, she is wearing the familiar weight of a black wool coat that she has not touched for six months. She settles into her stride, into the weight of herself.
Boarding the train to Moscow, she carries her papers in hand: the others tucked into the waistband of her skirt, passport lamination sticking to her flesh, these are heavily creased, these have been hidden tucked tight into a drawer’s false bottom since early May. The ink leaves powdered bluish shadows on her fingers as she smooths them for the conductor.
“Svetlana Mikhailovna,” she says, “bound for Moscow,” and her accent falters closer to Frankfurt than Munich, so surprised is her tongue at the taste and shape of the truth.
november 14: MINSK, BELARUS; 3:55 eastern european time/1:55 gmt
Her papers are embossed with a single stamp in the upward left corner, star and sickle in faded but still starkly lined red. Once she has passed the Wall, no one will ask questions of her.
(No one, and rightly, would dare.)
God is in the details, as the English say, as she knows perfectly well. As the train pulls into nighttime towards Russia, she thinks of home, of the details of home and the details with which she has just dispensed. Tucking up into the sleeper cart with her suitcase bouncing ominously over her head, she thinks of the comparative comfort of her own apartment a block off of Lubyanka Square, the way it will settle around her. She had never made Paddington a home-six months does not. She feels the queerness of such sentiments acutely, but she is far too tired not to feel. When she drifts off to sleep, her mind is far, far away-in Tver, even, in her childhood, following her mother about the kitchen as she put out milk with a drop of vodka for the domoviye. Always in the same chipped saucer, she thinks drowsily, what’s that about details, what’s that about home.
She sleeps on the train and dreams a few menial chipped-saucer dreams, waking to the smell of rather burnt and watery coffee that proves to be comfortingly black on her tongue. She has slept in her clothes, her still-English clothes, and when she sits up and stretches, she can feel the print of the passport against her skin, still tucked beneath the crumpled line of her blouse.
She changes in the car, peeling on fresh stockings and smoothing a satin slip over the map of crumpled reddish prints that fabric and paper have left flushing her skin. She brushes her hair until her scalp tingles rigorously, and the clothes she folds into small careful bundles, the last of Elisabetta Carson-name and face and signature-tucked demure and unsmiling among them.
november 14: MOSCOW, RUSSIA; 5:55 moscow time/13:55 gmt
She feels, as the train rolls into Moscow, altogether herself.
Sveta had worn Elisabetta Carson not like the coat but like the veneer: clear and invisible and light.
Still: Elisabetta Carson had been a paper doll, and Svetlana Mikhailovna Lebedyevna would see that the papers went up in flames.
november 12: CALAIS, FRANCE; 9:45 central european time /20:45 gmt
In her last night in the bare little Paddington flat, she had made a fire in the sputtery little stove, had watched the bonfire of her six-month-borne identity, her MI6 track record, curl itself into ash. The passport, the papers of Western identity, she had kept in hand.
She had taken herself across the ferry to Calais with them-them and a handful of quick francs tucked into their fold. When the ship pulls into the harbor, it is just dark, and she chooses to take herself and her small suitcase and sleep out the night until the morning train to Brussels. There is a small inn not a full road’s length away from the docks that smells faintly of fish but whose gruff little proprietress asks few questions: Sveta greets her in easy Parisian-accented French, flashes the passport peripherally, signs in Carson’s neat hand. The woman is perfectly silent after that, save acquiescing to bring her a bowl of slightly cooling mussels, a torn-off round of bread, a half-full bottle of white wine. She takes the tray of food offered and eats in her room, looking out the window and watching the ships, night drowning out the promise of white cliffs across the way. Sleep feels far-off; she drinks just one glass of wine, slowly, not enough to make her feelings fuzzier or quieter, much as she might like that. Instead, she sips and watches the sweep of stars clear and bright over the harbor and ignores, as best she can, the quick, travel-itching tick of her heart.
She makes four hours of sleep, in the end. It is enough.
In the morning, she takes time to watch the first ships of the day make their way in and out of the harbor, weak early sunlight breaking on the water. The wind tugs at the pins of her hat, at flyaway pieces of hair that have begun to stray from their net. As she eyes the tick of her wristwatch, promising twenty, then ten more minutes until the train to Brussels arrives at the nearest station, she finds herself removing the pins, untucking the net, idle fingers occupying themselves loosely with her hair. When she leaves, she drops the slip of netting in the water, tucking the hat into her pocket. She thinks, with a brief, surprisingly whimsical smile, that perhaps the current shall wash it back towards England, and the veneer of Carson chips, deliberately, just that much further.
november 13: BERLIN, GERMANY; 1:27 central european time/12:27 gmt
Once the long track of the train progresses into Germany, the number of stops increase until it turns local, halting village by village before tracking its reluctant way into the split city. Just as well. She gets off the train in Magdeburg and takes a quick moment to wait, ducking into the bathroom, for the train to leave. Splashing a handful of water on her face, she takes a moment to look at herself properly. Her face is delineated in white lines under the stark electricity of the bathroom light, tight and tired and tied up with waiting, with the endless passage of the rails.
On her way out of the station, she slips the coat from her shoulders, hangs it in the coatroom and leaves it behind. Outside is a shock of cold, but warmer than Calais had been, the air not salted but smoked with the old commingled breaths of exhaust pipes. A car waits, sleek and black and unobtrusive in one corner of the lot. She recognizes the license; she does not have to ask to climb into the back.
She does not speak to the driver; he does not ask. A slow, silent pair of hours passes. He drives her into the city and across the border and when she steps out, she is wearing the familiar weight of a black wool coat that she has not touched for six months. She settles into her stride, into the weight of herself.
Boarding the train to Moscow, she carries her papers in hand: the others tucked into the waistband of her skirt, passport lamination sticking to her flesh, these are heavily creased, these have been hidden tucked tight into a drawer’s false bottom since early May. The ink leaves powdered bluish shadows on her fingers as she smooths them for the conductor.
“Svetlana Mikhailovna,” she says, “bound for Moscow,” and her accent falters closer to Frankfurt than Munich, so surprised is her tongue at the taste and shape of the truth.
november 14: MINSK, BELARUS; 3:55 eastern european time/1:55 gmt
Her papers are embossed with a single stamp in the upward left corner, star and sickle in faded but still starkly lined red. Once she has passed the Wall, no one will ask questions of her.
(No one, and rightly, would dare.)
God is in the details, as the English say, as she knows perfectly well. As the train pulls into nighttime towards Russia, she thinks of home, of the details of home and the details with which she has just dispensed. Tucking up into the sleeper cart with her suitcase bouncing ominously over her head, she thinks of the comparative comfort of her own apartment a block off of Lubyanka Square, the way it will settle around her. She had never made Paddington a home-six months does not. She feels the queerness of such sentiments acutely, but she is far too tired not to feel. When she drifts off to sleep, her mind is far, far away-in Tver, even, in her childhood, following her mother about the kitchen as she put out milk with a drop of vodka for the domoviye. Always in the same chipped saucer, she thinks drowsily, what’s that about details, what’s that about home.
She sleeps on the train and dreams a few menial chipped-saucer dreams, waking to the smell of rather burnt and watery coffee that proves to be comfortingly black on her tongue. She has slept in her clothes, her still-English clothes, and when she sits up and stretches, she can feel the print of the passport against her skin, still tucked beneath the crumpled line of her blouse.
She changes in the car, peeling on fresh stockings and smoothing a satin slip over the map of crumpled reddish prints that fabric and paper have left flushing her skin. She brushes her hair until her scalp tingles rigorously, and the clothes she folds into small careful bundles, the last of Elisabetta Carson-name and face and signature-tucked demure and unsmiling among them.
november 14: MOSCOW, RUSSIA; 5:55 moscow time/13:55 gmt
She feels, as the train rolls into Moscow, altogether herself.