Compartment No 6 by Rosa Liksom Page B

Deal with that,’ a young man with a drinker’s red nose roared.
    â€˜Not everybody can stand an easy life. Some destroy themselves,’ the old man said tepidly, pulling the earflaps of his fur hat down tighter.
    â€˜Pure ignorance,’ the red-nosed one threw back.
    â€˜Suffering is what gives life its flavour, thank God. Want and emptiness are good for you,’ the old man grunted.
    â€˜It’s true that a person can get by on little, but without that little, you’ve got nothing,’ the young man shouted.
    â€˜Shithead. I won’t discuss this with you,’ the old man said with a sharp swing of his hand clad in a dogskin mitten.
    â€˜It’s just a joke, old man. No need to get all worked up about it. Think of your heart,’ the girl’s companion said soothingly, his voice cordial.
    The old man walked up and gave him a long, critical look.
    â€˜Listen here, comrade,’ he said. ‘A simple life keeps the spirit wholesome.’
    â€˜And suffering purifies,’ the man answered, giving him a wink.
    He bought a frozen watermelon, she bought a speckled frozen apple. They walked past a tattered phone booth where a woman with a yellow throat was speaking excitedly into the receiver. A man with red, bony ankles tapped a coin against the glass, trying to hurry her. There were deep cracks in the walls of the blocks of flats, snow-covered balconies that sagged and dripped, rows of doors hanging open, their handles stolen, an entrance filled with snow. Street lights buried in snow, extinguished, bent, broken. Electric power lines hanging in the air, open manholes, heaps of cables lying jumbled in the snowdrifts. And over it all shone an oversized sun in a clear blue sky. They made their way side by side to the dark fairgrounds. The paths had been ploughed, icy asphalt poked through the snow. They sat down on a snow-covered bench. The man took his folding knife out of his pocket, snapped open the sturdy blade, and cut up the melon.
    â€˜Shall we go for a drive? There’s always time, and always will be. I’ve got a master plan that will cost us a bottle of whisky. Have you got it with you? I have an acquaintance here, or rather a good friend, who can arrange things, but even in this country, not everything’s free. You can wait here.’
    The girl thought for a moment, dug a litre bottle of whisky out of her backpack, and handed it to him. He gave a satisfied whistle, popped the bottle into his breast pocket, and left. The girl sat on the bench shivering. Her cheeks glowed red and there were little drops of ice hanging from her nostril hairs. A crow, stiff in the morning frost, landed hard on the bench next to her. She offered it a piece of the frozen melon. The crow turned its head proudly away.
    She had been fifteen when the train rattled through a Moscow neighbourhood in the early morning. She had watched from a window as the sun rose slowly from beyond the horizon over the red flags, stretching the shadows of the endless modular highrises to a surrealistic length. They were staying in the Hotel Leningradskaya on the edge of Komsomolets Square – her father, her big brother and herself. The ornate lobby of the hotel was bewildering. She had never seen such a fancy hotel, even in pictures. From the twenty-sixth floor there was a stunning view of the entire enormous city. They had full board, which meant that they could eat three times a day in the ornate hotel restaurant. She hated the black caviar, but was happy to listen to the gentle clunk of the abacus on the counter. They walked along Leningrad Prospect and watched the women street sweepers, something they’d never seen in Helsinki. In the evening they took a taxi to the Lenin Hills and looked down at her future seat of learning, the festively lit thirty-four storeys of the new Moscow University main building. Lit with floodlights, the monumental university complex and the red star on the sharp