Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

"I used to be an English teacher," I said. That got her attention. "Mind if I look?"

It was a letter of introduction, to accompany an application for a job at a tobacco company based in Switzerland. The dense full-page paragraph, rather old-fashioned in expression and handwriting flourishes, was scattered with grammatical errors. I made some suggestions, corrected the grammar, and advised her to break it into shorter paragraphs, to make it easier to read.

"Thank you," she said.

"It would help if you got it typed and printed."

She shook her head. "That is too expensive."

"It would make a better impression. I'll pay for it," I said, and took out some rubles and looked at her signature. "An investment in your future, Anna."

She became fierce and snatched up the letter. "I will never accept charity from you!"

This attracted the attention of the other people at the big post office table—some old women, a young woman with a baby, and a bearded old man in felt boots who'd been sleeping on his arms. They looked at me and then at Anna, and they waited for another outburst.

But Anna began to whisper in a harsh voice. She was strangely stubborn and full of warnings. She wanted to leave Vladivostok. She said I should do the same.

"I'm leaving tonight," I said.

"Leave now. You are not safe here," she said. "People will steal your mobile phone. They will find the password. Yes! They have so many ways to do it. You don't know. Why did you come here?"

"To take the train."

"There is so much crime in this city. You can write me a letter, but maybe someone will steal it out of my mail container."

"What about this letter?"

"It will be stolen! I want to work. I have sent five letters. But my dream? It is to have my own business. Information technology."

In this cold and chaotic place, she sat in the stinking post office in her old coat, sending out letters, plotting to leave, as I was. I tramped around the snowy streets as soot drifted from the sky, and I encountered the inevitable pair of American Mormons. One of them, Elder Hogue from Salt Lake City, was buttonholing strangers and passing out invitations.

"What's happening?"

"A film," Elder Hogue said. "You're welcome to come and see it."

I glanced at the leaflet. It was a screening of a film dramatizing one of the great events adumbrated in Mormon doctrine, the visit of Jesus Christ to Central America after he was crucified, in the year 33. Jesus had preached to the Mayans.

"I've seen that film already," I said. "Jesus giving a sermon on the pyramid. I'm wondering if it really happened."

"Surely it happened," Elder Hogue said, chuckling at my doubt. He had the torpid smile and steady gaze of the evangelist, which was also the expression of the car salesman sizing up a flat-footed customer. I was impressed that, in this terrible place, he looked so presentable and healthy, and he and his fellow missionary were possibly the only people in Vladivostok wearing a white shirt and a necktie.

"How's things in Vladivostok?"

"We're meeting some people," he said. That seemed ambiguous. I asked him to explain. He said, "We knock on doors. But it's a sad place. Gangs. Drugs. Corruption. Thievery. I've been robbed. They took my computer. The place is going downhill—just look at it. I've got another whole year."

"You can set them on the right path," I said.

"I know we can," he said, and made a dive at a passerby, an old man who took the leaflet, and Elder Hogue began chatting with him in fluent Russian, framing the Mormon message.

***

VLADIVOSTOK STATION BULKED against the harbor, a weirdly pretentious example of Russian railway design, with dense walls and great sloping roofs and cupolas and steeples wearing witches' hats, and a clock showing the right time. The whole thing was impressive until I went inside, where its bare interior was echoey and cold. The waiting room was filled with wooden benches, like church pews. Although the station was unheated and rather stark, some of the public rooms had colorful murals of railway scenes.

I was leaning on the banister that led to the outside platform, reading Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart. A young Japanese man approached me.

"I like Dance Dance Dance,"

he said.

His name was Nobuatsu Sekine. A persevering traveler, Nobu was taking the Rossiya to Moscow and doing a grand tour of Europe. Like me, he had arrived a few days before in Vladivostok.

"What do you think so far?"

"Very primitive. Very dirty," he said.

He pointed out that the station had no conveniences, no shops, no bar, no newsstand, not even any heat. He was burdened by a heavy backpack and a bulging shopping bag.

"What have you got there?"

"Noodles, beer, bottles of water. You don't have any?"

I said no, it hadn't occurred to me to buy provisions. "But I have half a pound of powdered green tea from Kyoto."

"I'll watch your bag if you want to go buy food. There's a market across the street."