BioShock Rapture

Andrei and his father are standing at the windswept train station, shivering in the cold. It is early morning, and both of them are staring down the tracks. His father, heavily bearded, his lined face grim, is holding their single bag in his left hand. His large right hand is resting on young Andrei’s shoulder.

The dawn sky, the colors of a deep bruise, is closed by clouds; the cutting wind is serrated by sleet. A few other travelers, huddled in long dark coats, stand in a group farther down the platform. They seem worried, though a woman with a round red face, her head in a fur wrap, is smiling, talking softly to cheer them up. Beside the door to the station, an old man in a tattered coat and fur hat tends a steaming samovar. Andrei wishes they could afford some of the old man’s hot tea.

Andrei listens to the wind hiss along the concrete platform and wonders why his father stands so far from the others. But he guesses the reason. Some from their village, on the outskirts of Minsk, know that father was against the Communists, that he spoke up against the Reds. Now many who’d once been their friends were beginning to denounce all such “betrayers of the People’s Revolution” …

His father had word from the priest the night before that the purge was to begin today. They were first in line when the station opened, Father and Andrei, purchasing a ticket to Constantinople. Father carries traveling papers, permissions to purchase Turkish rugs and other goods for import. The papers might be good enough to get them out of Russia …

Father fiddles with the money in his pocket he’d brought to bribe customs officials. They will probably need it all.

His father’s breath steams in the air … the train steams as it approaches, a big dark shape hulking toward them through the grayness, a single lantern above the cowcatcher projecting a rain-scratched cone into the mist.

Andrei glances toward the other travelers—and sees another man approaching. “Father,” Andrei whispers, in Russian, turning to look at a tall lean man in a long green coat with red epaulets, a black hat, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Is that man one of the Red Guard?”

“Andrei.” His father grips his shoulder, brusquely turns him so that he looks away from the soldier. “Don’t look at him.”

“Pyotr? Pyotr Rianofski!”

They turn to see his father’s cousin Dmetri standing with his arm around his wife, Vasilisa, a stocky, pale, blond woman in a yellow scarf, her nose red with the cold. She rubs wetness from her nose and looks at Andrei’s father imploringly.

“Please, Pyotr,” she whispers to Andrei’s father. “We have no more money. If you pay the soldiers…”

Dmetri licks his lips. “They are looking for us, Pyotr. Because I spoke at the meeting yesterday. We have train tickets, but nothing more. Not a ruble left! Perhaps a bribe will make them let us go.”

“Dmetri, Vasilisa—if I could help, I would. But we will need every kopek! I have to think of this boy. We have to pay our way to … our destination. A long journey.”

The train chugs into the station, looming up rather suddenly, reeking of coal smoke, making Andrei jump a little as the engine furiously sprays steam.

“Please,” Vasilisa says, wringing her hands. The militiaman is looking toward them … and another Red guardsman and then a third step onto the platform from the station door, all of them carrying rifles.

The train is grinding slowly past. It slows, but to Andrei it seems it will never completely stop. The militiaman is calling out to Cousin Dmetri, his voice a bark. “You! We wish to speak to you!” He takes his rifle off his shoulder.

“Dmetri,” Father hisses. “Keep your peace—do not make a sound!”

The train is still shuddering as it finally stops, and Andrei feels his father’s hand clamping the back of his neck—feels himself propelled up the metal stairs, onto the train. He almost falls on his face. His father clambers on after him.

They bang through a door into a smoky car, the windows greasy and steam-coated. They find a seat on the wooden benches, and, as father hands the scowling conductor their tickets, Andrei wipes the window enough to see Dmetri and Vasilisa talking to the militiamen. Vasilisa is weeping, waving her arms. Dmetri is standing stiffly, shaking his head, pushing his wife behind him.

The discussion goes on, as the armed men frown at the travel papers.

“Andrei,” Father mutters. “Don’t look…”

But Andrei cannot look away. The tall militiaman tucks Dmetri’s papers away somewhere and then gestures with his rifle.

Dmetri shakes his head, waving his train tickets. The train shudders, a whistle blasts …

Vasilisa tries to pull him toward the train. The soldiers wave their guns. Andrei remembers Dmetri coming to the feast for his tenth birthday, smiling, bringing with him a wooden saber carved as a gift.