Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [88]
He chatted amiably and we followed. The three of us crossed the windswept street, dodging handfuls of snow lobbed at us by fir branches roused by particularly frisky gusts. I only smiled into my new collar that smelled faintly of milk and barn warmth, immune to such shenanigans.
The post office was a log building, single-storied, with shuttered windows, like everything else in this street. Trubkozub unlocked the door and let us inside with significant sighing. He took his place behind the counter and took off his hat. “What can I help you with?” he said in a much more official voice than the one we had been subjected to so far. It was almost as if he truly believed he became a different person, a postmaster instead of a furrier, the moment he stood behind the official counter.
“I need to mail these.” I handed over six envelopes and paid, as he laboriously calculated the exact price of delivery and tax for each of the letters. He did not seem surprised they were all addressed to the same person—all except one, that was heading back to St. Petersburg and addressed to Eugenia, a letter in which I said very little but did my best to convey the emotional drain this journey had been subjecting me to.
Trubkozub collected money and promised my letters would go out that night, with the first train heading west. It perplexed me still, this single line of travel and communication, this rut of steel and creosote-soaked wood along which we traveled, constrained by the rocking trains on their iron tracks. How could one not long for the three dimensional freedom of airships and submarines in a world such as this? I wished I had the plans Jack had spirited away. I also felt guilty at the thought that I should be missing Jack more than I actually did.
True, I was concerned about his well-being—as I would be concerned for any friend whose whereabouts were unknown and surrounded by danger; but I did not miss him in a way Olga and my other friends would expect, in a way that Jack himself might have liked. It occurred to me that by traveling with him I took a significant social risk; it would be a pity to ruin one’s reputation for a man one was not romantically interested in.
“Well,” Volzhenko intruded upon my reverie, “maybe now we can go and have a drink.”
“And get something to eat,” I agreed. “I haven’t eaten in three days.”
“Come on then!” Volzhenko bounded for the door like a very large and a very enthusiastic puppy, and I followed in a more sedate manner.
At the door, I waved goodbye to Trubkozub. “Thank you.”
He smiled, and lit a kerosene lamp—I hadn’t realized it was getting dark despite it still being afternoon. “You be well now,” Trubkozub the elder said. “And if you ever need any furs or pelts, you know where to come.”
I promised I would, and ran after Volzhenko, my new fur boots squeaking on the smooth snow, colored lavender by the long slow shadows.
The tavern was noisy, smelly, warm, and welcoming. The rotmistr presided, as one would expect, over several tables pushed together. It was a Roman bacchanal in spirit if not in exact letter, and there was shouting and singing and spilled wine and awkward dancing cut tragically short by gravity, the cruel mistress of drunks and children.
Right away, I realized that as much as the rotmistr was always kind and welcoming, I would be better off trying to find some food by myself rather than joining the party already in progress. A young man, his dirty apron betraying his occupation as a scullery helper, loitered by the kitchen door but did not dare to venture into the tavern hussars had taken over so completely. I smiled at him. “Say, fellow,” I asked. “Is the kitchen still open?”
He scratched his freckled button nose thoughtfully. “The cook is there, only he has some friends with him since no one here seems to care and winters are generally slow. But go right in, see if he will make you something.”
I pushed the door and entered a cloud of steam smelling of sesame oil, and plowed through the dense artificial fog toward the sound of voices speaking Chinese.
I found the cook