We didn’t talk much the next day because Liz was sick and I was tired, and the marine biologist who replaced Sasha in our coupee was content to read most of the time. The one short conversation I had with her let me know she was quiet but cheerful, and her main work was in the Sea of Okhotsk.I napped around and read most of the day. Sometimes I got up to stretch my legs and watch the mountains of Manchuria float by, looking as misty and surreal as they do in Chinese paintings. A few feet down the hall I noticed a tall, clean-cut, thoughtful-looking guy also gazing dreamily out the window. He once said in English, “Pardon me,” as he walked by, and of course I took notice. English words were hard to come by out there.
Liz was getting sicker and sicker, and I didn’t know what to do. At some point she asked me to find a plastic bag in case she got sick. She had gotten very sick on the train ride back from Murmansk, so I didn’t blame her for being careful. I was looking for a bag when the provodnitsa walked by, and I asked her if she had any. She gave a typical Russian response, first a “No,” to get herself off the hook, then a “Why?” to see if it just might be worth her time. I told her my cabinmate was sick, and she surprised my by going completely ballistic. She backed me up against a wall yelling at me as if I had poisoned her or something. She demanded to know why I had kept this a secret and let a poor girl suffer all this time, and why didn’t I tell her before the last station, because we could have had a doctor come on and attend to her, and maybe it was contagious and her whole car would get sick now, and on and on. She made me go check and see if she had a fever. When I found that she did, I felt very guilty for some reason.
All this commotion aroused the interest of the entire train car, and people started coming in and offering advice and drugs of all sorts and telling her which end of the bed to put her head on and what temperature of water she should be drinking. One guy gave us some pills and said they were Soviet medicine, even better than Russian. I tried to read the instructions, but they were in Chinese. The room was complete chaos by now, I had a bagful of drugs I didn’t understand, and dozens of people were yelling at us in Russian about how to heal the poor girl. Amid all the confusion, an angelic voice said in English, “Can I help?” I looked up to see my tall gazing partner from the hall.
I told him the situation, and he gave me some throat lozenges to give to Liz. After we finally herded everyone out of our compartment, there was nothing to do but wait until the next station where a doctor would come on board and examine her. The guy and I started talking, and he said his name was Aleksei. He was an engineer from somewhere west of the Urals, and he had a three-month job assignment designing the ventilation for a building in Chita. He was around 23 years old, had studied in St. Petersburg, and had a young wife and no children. I knew more Russian than he knew English, but he wanted to practice his English. I’d had plenty of Russian language practice recently, so I obliged, although we usually had to revert to Russian when he got confused. We walked down to the restaurant car to talk some more. He said the biggest change since 1990 was that now you could do and say what you wanted, and now people who had a better education could make more money. Under communism, everyone got about the same.
We were done eating about the time the train was stopping at the next station, and I went back to my cabin to find Liz in bed and a young female doctor trying to find a light switch in our darkened coupee. All the lights were turned off at the stations for some reason, and they had to make do with a big industrial flashlight, the kind they use to check under the trains. The doctor checked her throat with the flashlight, then took her temperature and confirmed that she had a fever. She pulled out a three-inch syringe and filled it with a yellowish clear liquid. Liz couldn’t speak, but her face registered something like terror. I translated for her: “Um… shto eto?” (what’s that?) It’s possible that she said it was to reduce the fever, but neither of us was really sure. She told me to shut the door, told Liz to turn around and pull down her pants, and stuck her in the butt with it. The doctor wanted to give Liz another medicine for her throat, but it wasn’t available. And that was that. We were on our way again soon, and we arrived in Vladivostok early the next morning. In all the confusion I never got to say good-bye to Aleksei, but he was really nice to talk to.
Day 11--Welcome to Vladivostok