In 'Complexities in the Mundane,' I mention Peter's travel bag, which was given to him by an old woman in Russia. Piratesmiley requested the story behind that and thus was born a three chapter story. As with any tale, we shall begin at the beginning...
Voskresenie
Verkhoturye, Russia… 1999
The word, a tripping mass of malicious consonants, refuses to leave his mouth, clinging to his tongue like a drunk clutching a bottle. It's disconcerting, the sensation of verbal stumbling and the grins of an amused audience aid nothing. A quick study, Peter Bishop figures it will take another week to achieve passable conversation in this guttural language. For now, the man wielding four days of practical application needs only an eager camera to polish the tourist image.
Ekaterinburg had felt a bit like Boston, old architecture mingling with the airs of a mobile society. Earlier he'd landed in a modern airport, greeted by attractive clerks and an English-speaking cabby. His temporary tour guide dropped him off at a contemporary train station, containing a restaurant and gallery on the upper deck. Riding the rails to his destination would consume several hours and when he finally arrived in Verkhoturye, any concept of mobile society died.
And he still can't say the damned word.
As night paints the under-industrialized town in a somber stroke, nearly improving on the worn colors that day provided, Peter stands among guarded strangers. He's waiting, following the mood of the place because while his cautious pronunciation labels him a traveler, his interests raise suspicion. It's polar cold and his body, so recently lathered in radiant sun, protests every inhalation of this frigid atmosphere.
The warmth of France is more than weather.
Three days removed from an extended job in a city so bold as to tilt toward garish, Peter had arrived in this time warp locale to hunt for a man with a large debt and a severe face. Not unlike many patrons of this drinking establishment. Even the women are roughhewn, resembling the peasants in every Flemish painting he's ever quoted to impress a girl. The men chuckle at the American's halting inquiries and the sound, born of cigarettes and government oppression, is five miles from pleasing. Despite a scant few days speed reading a battered English to Russian dictionary, Peter knows enough to judge his chances of leaving this bar with information. He's more likely to be tossed after they administer souvenir black eyes and break something vital.
Fortunately, they're a people starving for charm.
A scraggly trio of teenagers, barely out of school and already laid off from the mine, grow rowdy in the corner, their aim at the dart board suggesting they've been here the better part of all blessed day. As the volume increases, nearby table are bumped, several drinks losing precious drops and the collective temper simmers to a perilous boil. Peter doesn't mind the pimply rabble since they've taken the general focus off himself. They're lanky kids, a listless bunch with easy motives that Peter recognizes in every decision he's ever made. When the barkeep, a bearded man burdened by boulder-thick biceps, approaches the ruckus, Peter quickly rises and puts up a surrendering hand. Summons the appropriate smile. Wills the stalking mountain to cooperate.
When the lads look to the angry mass halted by the insignificant American, Peter points to his table, making a circle gesture he hopes they'll take as an invitation. Failing to arrive at clear understanding, Peter resorts to the capitalism for which the states are bashed. A wad of bills is pulled from a concealed inner pocket and laid on the square wood slab. Snared in an instant, three teens toss chairs in the money's vicinity, the stack nearly trembling beneath their heavy, hungry stares. One of the boys has a a deck of cards in his hand. Playing a tourist is the fastest route to free cash, which will be immediately funneled into all the alcohol this place stores. Peter's not worried when the wild-eyed trio falls into age-damaged chairs and licks figurative chops. He hasn't mastered the language but there's no game he can't play.
It's simple to know prey such as this. He's been these boys. He's still these boys. And they're a few hands in before they realize it. That he takes the delinquents' remaining coins earns cagey praise from the spectators, though the smiles aren't so much approving as vindictive. One local, who passed drunk on his way to smashed, slaps Peter on the back in an unpleasant welcome that sends a coughing fit spiraling from Peter's lungs. In Côte d'Argent the victory over nuisances would have garnered a free drink but he's satisfied that knowing mouths open a bit wider for him, delivering tiny hints of the severe man's whereabouts. After several arguments too rushed and loud for Peter to follow, the general consensus is that a gutter a mile out has served as Mirand's most recent housing.
Fishing for vagrants is his least favorite job.
Leaving the nameless shell of a business, Peter crosses the oft-patched roadway and spots the temporary lodging the barkeep suggested. Small quarters, he was warned and when the middle-aged owner swings open the thin door, Peter decides that small needs a better translation. Still, he's made homes of less. The transaction consists mostly of clipped attempts at pleasantries and charade-like sign language. But no translation is needed for his new neighbor across the hall.
A scream is universal.
Issuing forth from rusty lungs, the old woman's shriek is amplified by a narrow, empty hall. She backpedals on quivering legs and slams a particle board door shut, the warped blow echoing quite possibly into oblivion. Smiling, the owner's face recedes from pale gums, displaying a cavern of rot meant to comfort the new tenant. Peter is a prize, that much is clear by the flashlight brilliance in the gruff man's eyes. Portioning the money that card trickery had netted, Peter allots the super his due and retreats into the peeling refuge of his room. Even as he cooks an instant meal by the sole functioning burner and settles at a rustic writing table, Peter is troubled by the scream still ricocheting in his ears.
He's stuck in the middle of the Ural mountains at the 'gates of Siberia,' but as night presses on, the chill comes from within.
…….
Two days and three leads later, the shining promise of a hefty reward slips gradually through desperate fingers. Russia is not an ideal place to get stuck. There is, his employer assures him, a glorious future in global bounty hunting for a loner with quick wits and language proficiency. The prospect should be appealing. Except that yet again he wakes in a coffin of a room choking on disorientation. The baseboards haven't worked since Stalin and his sleep-addled brain registers that the sweat encasing him isn't natural. Either he's sick or God fixed the furnace.
Or the building's on fire.
It turns out that heating bread over a series of unstable candles is not, in fact, the safest way to prepare breakfast. The far end of the two-story building suffers the majority of the damage, which might be a measured improvement. Having acquired a hasty remodeling by fire, the owner spits damnation as he throws the book, the furry hat and a wad of aerodynamic pantyhose at the culprit. Shuffling back to his fume-tainted room, Peter wonders if there's any experimental bread left.
Peter and his pocket knife had spent last night dislodging caked grime from the lone window, an uneven square assemblage of old wood and older glass. The cleaning uncovers a decent escape route if broken legs are the goal. Through the glass he peers down upon the loitering residents. The free show that the flames had presented is over but the senior population remains gathered, heads bowed in gossip. It's a reenactment of a boyhood schoolyard. The largest clique surrounds the building's owner, a useful membership that makes late rent more forgivable. But it's the blue haired hens that interest him. The screamer is waiting with the other spindly biddies, widows of war practicing a thrift of resources and energy to be envied.
Maybe it's compassion, a dreadful thing to keep packing into the luggage. Maybe it's admiration for their durability in this environment. Maybe it's their apparent custom of welcoming foreigners with the dulcet tones of a banshee. He's fond of them instantly.
Indulging in people-watching is a hobby that serves his varied professions well. But he's not the only one scrutinizing. The Screamer looks up, her head bobbing skyward like a marionette with loose strings and sets a squinting glance on his second-floor window. Her mouth doesn't open. It doesn't need to. Horror etches deeper lines into skin already marred by crows and the strings are cut, her neck snapping downward in accordance to cruel gravity. A taller woman nearby drapes an arm across the frail shoulders in consolation. Sneaking a look down the front of Screamer's apron, the comforter gently avails herself of the coin she finds there.
A scammer after his own heart.
…….
The coffin will be cramped tonight.
Fire extinguishers aren't common items in the average shop but the benefit to morning rounds is a strolling purveyance of local wares. It is Peter's intention to store a little red device in every corner, easily accessible for the next time someone plays chef with flammables. Increased fluency loosens the tongues of shopkeepers, a hearty group maintaining outdoor sales regardless of snow accumulation. A two hundred year old comrade not only lugs the latest model of stored-pressure canisters from a backroom for the nice young American but points him in the direction of Mirand's acquaintance. By the description, the wanted man's friend is the rough equivalent of a shaved grizzly who lives above a house of accommodation.
A part of Peter, the section of his twenty-four year old brain that regulates his base impulses, cheers at the hint of release he can attain before apprehending the debtor. He's not entirely promiscuous by his estimation but it's been a long week. A phrase book in his hands hardly replaces the slender hands of female companionship.
Exotic locations with stately women is his notion of a glorious future but he'll take the first inoffensive farm girl he can find.
And take her. And take her. And take her.
Voskresenie – Russian for resurrection.
Chapter two is complete and shall be up soon. Thank you for your kind visit and stay tuned...