6. The First Night

In Third Class, Weiwei helps the stewards wrangle passengers to and from the dining car, while trying to bring some form of order to the sprawl of belongings already spreading over the carriage. There are procedures to be followed, but she feels a sense of detachment from it all, an awkwardness, as if she has forgotten the steps to a dance that had once been second nature to her. She has lost the beat of the music.

She puts her fingers to the window. It calms her, the eager, hungry pull of the engine, the rhythm of the rails, as though the glass is charged with energy, dancing beneath her skin. She lets it drown out the clink of the Crows' shoes, the cracked, fragmented memories of the last crossing.

But it was because of the glass, the Company says. There had been flaws, cracks in the glass. That is what let the Wastelands in.

She snatches her hand away. The Company has replaced the windows now; has found a different master glassmaker to take over the glassworks, a better one, they say, though she cannot tell the difference. ("A cheaper one," says Alexei.)

But she thinks of Anton Ivanovich, masked in the railyard glassworks; bent over his lenses in the scientific carriage; alone in the crew mess; always frowning, unsatisfied, as if he could never meet the exacting standards he set for himself. She thinks of all the times she saw him checking and rechecking the windows. A man who paid more attention to detail than to the people around him. He hadn't been well-liked—he was like his glass, the crew used to say. Hard. Unbending. He rarely felt the need to speak to her. But she remembers him saying, once, standing here, just like this, "There is a certain pitch, a certain point where they all breathe together—the iron and the wood and the glass." She tries to feel it, but she doesn't know what to listen for.

"What's that?"

She spins around as a woman's voice, panicked, cuts through her thoughts. What's that? A refrain that echoes through every crossing. The crew have taught themselves not to react. A crawler, a specter; some familiar strangeness. They are accustomed to unpredictability, the dangers changing, warping from journey to journey, like the crossing a few years ago when there was a kind of yellow that caused an intense nausea in the observer; it appeared where it was least expected—in the branches of trees or in clear river water; a color that was wrong, that was where it should not be—and the crew had to spend much of the journey looking after those who had inadvertently caught a glimpse of it.

Weiwei follows the woman's gaze and sees movement outside—a shape, twisting toward her, and she jerks backward. But then the woman gives a shaky laugh, and Weiwei sees herself in the glass, her peaked cap turning her monstrous.

"Close the curtains, for goodness' sake," says the Third Class steward, appearing beside her. "People are jumping at their own reflections."

She has always hated the first night. The passengers are argumentative or clingy or drunk or often all three at once. On this journey more than ever, the train is wakeful and on edge. No one wants to close their eyes for fear of what they might see there—the thin fingers of nightmares crowding in at their eyelids; the stories, the rumors, and now the reality, that they are past the point of safety now; that the darkness outside is unbroken by friendly lights or open doors and welcoming fires; that they have unimaginable distances to cross.

A passenger is playing melancholy songs on a battered violin. "Play us something happy, for God's sake!" someone calls.

"Ah, but all Russian songs are sad," says the Professor.

He sits in his habitual place by the window, though she can't help but notice that he is quieter than usual.

"Why did the Crows mention the Society?" she demands.

"Oh, I don't understand all the politics involved," says the Professor.

She gives him a hard look. "That," she says, "is not true at all," and is relieved to see his lips twitch. But she knows him too well to push, so says, instead, "Do you have your usual bunk?"

It is a middle bunk, right in the middle of the carriage. From here, the Professor can survey all that goes on, while also keeping a comfortable distance. The lower bunks are used as communal benches during the day; the upper ones are uncomfortably close to the ceiling. The middle is best. She teases him for his predictability, his love of order.

"Yes, the same as usual," he says, standing up rather suddenly. But she has already seen what is different. He usually travels light, leaving spare clothes and belongings at the boarding houses in Moscow and Beijing where he stays between crossings. But here on his bunk there are bundles and bags, and an open case containing dozens of books.

"I should have spoken to you earlier," he begins.

"Are you—" She stops.

"I am getting old, child. I will have to stop travelling sooner or later."

"But there are plenty of crossings in you yet," she says, trying to hide the quaver in her voice.

The Professor smiles. "I am not so sure. I think it is time to return home to Moscow. To rest these old bones. I will still see you, fear not. I will be there each time the train comes in."

"Home? Your home is here." She hadn't meant it to sound so much like an accusation. "And what about your work, your writing? People rely on you…"

"My work," he begins, and she sees the tiredness on his face. He has aged, faster than he should have. "I have endeavored," he says, "over these past months, to make sense of what happened, but I cannot seem to do it, however hard I try, so what good will writing do? What use is it to theorize and pontificate when all that remains is empty space?"

"But… isn't that what the Society has always done?"

He bursts out laughing. "Ah, how little you think of us. Have I not always said that you should follow it more closely?"

"No, I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant, child, and I take no offense." He wipes his eyes. "But you can see, can't you, what has changed?"

She thinks about the jumble of memories from the last journey—memories that she cannot put into order. A man crying. Someone scratching at a window, scratching and scratching until there is blood on the glass. Someone calling her name.

"Nothing has changed," she whispers. Everything she needs is on this train. Everything she cares about. Nothing has changed.

He shakes his head. "If only that were true."

The noise in the carriage is growing louder. The violin player has started to play a jig and a handsome man with yellow hair pulls his wife into a dance. Another couple joins them, and other passengers clap and shout encouragement, even the priest. It is always like this, on the first night. They think that the music and laughter and noise will keep the shadows outside at bay.

But Weiwei feels the shadows pressing in. She needs to get away from the noise and the nervous chatter of the passengers, from the Professor's sad smile. "Nothing has changed," she had told him, but she had lied. For the first time in her life, she has begun to feel that the strong walls around her may not be enough.

Weiwei knows all of the train's hiding places. Some she has outgrown. Others she must share with kitchen boys looking for a quiet place to nap, away from the shouts of the cooks, or with the train's caretaker, who trails the scent of tobacco behind him, maddening the animals in the garden carriage where he stretches out for a smoke. It is hard to find a private place, sometimes, even on the biggest train in the world. But Weiwei is the child of the train, and she knows a hiding place that is hers alone.

The dry storage car is where the barrels of rice and flour and pulses are kept. It is cool and windowless, with rows of little wooden drawers along the whole of one of its walls, each one labeled in Russian and Chinese with the names of herbs and spices and teas, all waiting to be opened and smelled by a curious girl, and tasted; peppercorns that numbed her tongue, spices that set it on fire. Here too are the goods to be traded, teas from Southern China, much in demand in the salons of Moscow and Paris. In the dim light of the hurricane lamps the carriage appears as a mountainous landscape, perfect for climbing, irresistible to a child. It was during one of these expeditions that Weiwei discovered the trapdoor in the ceiling.

It was almost invisible, painted over to appear as innocent as the rest of the carriage. Only someone who happened to be clambering over the boxes below would notice it. She had been puzzled by it at first, then realized that the ceiling was lower than in other carriages. She eased it open and looked into the space above her, and it was only when her eyes adjusted to the darkness that she understood. Packed into the space between this false ceiling and the real roof of the carriage, barely enough of a space for a grown person to kneel upright, were yet more goods—barrels and sacks and boxes, bundles of silks and furs.

Secret, hidden. Smuggled.

She had burned with the pleasure of discovery. She had waited, and watched, and spied Nikolai Belev and Yang Feng, two of the porters, surreptitiously unloading the hidden goods in Moscow, through a skylight in the roof of the train, even more carefully disguised than the trapdoor itself. She had tucked this information away with all the other morsels she gleaned about her home for when she might need them, as currency or reward. But most importantly, she had realized that during the journey itself, no one approached this hidden space, either out of ignorance at its existence or out of a wish not to draw attention to it. And so it became her hiding space, somewhere to curl up amidst the furs, with adventure tales borrowed from Alexei, and where, in the warm circle of light from her lantern, she could be alone.

But on this journey the smuggling space is empty. Belev and Yang are two of the crew who have not returned, and it seems they had kept their secret to themselves. All that remains of their illicit trade are some empty barrels and sacks, and spilled peppercorns that crack beneath her knees. Now that it is empty the space seems less welcoming and, oddly, more cramped. She is more aware of how close the ceiling is to her head, how the light doesn't reach the far walls, making it seem as though the darkness is waiting to close in. But it is such a good hiding place, and she has found nowhere else so private or so good for thinking, when thinking gets difficult.

She crawls over to where she has stashed her box of treasures, safe from the prying eyes of the under-stewards and the kitchen boys. In it there is a copy of The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands, given to her by the Professor when she was seven years old, and far too young to read it. On the first page he has written a note—But not too cautious. She runs her fingers over the faded letters and smiles. This was the first book she ever owned. She had told him, when she opened the brown paper it was wrapped in, that she didn't need a guide. He had looked her in the eye and told her that it was just for emergencies—for if ever he wasn't there. She closes it and screws up her nose. Blinks quickly. Beneath the book are yellowing newspaper articles; artists' sketches of her as a baby, then photographs marking her fifth birthday, then her tenth. "The Child of the Train, Under the Watchful Gaze of Her Guardian," runs the heading under one, which shows her wearing a tiny uniform and standing in the engine cab, trying to reach up to a lever. The Captain stands beside her, unsmiling. Yes, here is the perfect image of the Captain as her guardian—she is not helping her reach the lever, but simply watching as she works out how to do it herself. This has always been the Captain's way; undemonstrative, demanding, but always there. Present. Ready to catch her if she fell.

Then where is she now?

It had been a slow, almost imperceptible vanishing. During those first difficult weeks after the train had returned to Beijing, many of the crew had retreated to their own quarters near the station or into the city's song halls and inns. Their habitual discipline had faltered, the ties binding them together had loosened. The smooth clockwork had stuttered and come to a halt. When the news had come that the train would run again, Weiwei had been sure that the Captain would put everything back together. But she had barely appeared from her quarters since the announcement had been made, and even now that they are on board, she is just a disembodied voice over the train's speakers.

She sniffs and quickly folds the papers away, closing the box again, picking up instead one of Alexei's penny-dreadfuls from the flea-market in Moscow, and preparing to lose herself in the story of the pirate queen and the sea monsters. She moves the lamp closer, and startles as the shadows in the far corners of the roof space waver. "Don't be fanciful," she mutters. "Fanciful thoughts lead to dangerous thoughts," they are told on the train. But she turns the lamp up higher, anyway, against the darkness.

—And the darkness moves, quiet as a whisper.

Weiwei freezes. The seconds pass. Perhaps she imagined it. This is what the first night can do—unsettle the mind, unleash its worst fears. You cannot trust yourself on the first night. It is not good to be alone. She starts to let herself uncoil.

And the darkness turns, and turns into a face, pale and framed by a deeper darkness. Two inky eyes stare, unblinking.

"Who's there?" she calls out, feeling foolish, poised for a kitchen boy to jump out at her, shrieking with laughter before running back to tell the others how he made the child of the train scream. She has done enough hiding and pouncing herself to know that among the younger crew you are measured by the steadiness of your nerves, your ability to meet a sudden, hideous, masked face with a blank, unimpressed "Good evening"; to not cry out if your bare feet should touch something crawling and damp in your bunk. So she stays still, stares back.

A long moment stretches out, congeals. Her breathing sounds unnaturally loud and there is a ringing in her ears.

And then the eyes are gone. There is no face in the darkness, no other breath, nothing moving at all. The carriage sleeps, undisturbed.

She sags against the wall, then scrambles back down into the carriage. There is nothing here, only first-night specters; only her imagination, skittering in panic.

When she finally creeps into her bunk she sleeps badly, falling hourly out of unsettled dreams.