ERIC VINCENT
EDEN EXPRESS
EDEN EXPRESS
Site: http://ericvincent.no-ip.org/
© Eric Vincent 2008. All rights reserved. All resemblance with situations or characters having existed, existing or to come, would be fortuitous. 2
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Sensation to be rattled in an old diligence, a coach with worn-out suspensions due to never ending travels in the Arctic steppe. Characteristic bangs of a repetitive rolling. A train, undoubtedly, one of these ancient wheezy boneshakers, having reddening muzzle crammed of coal shoveled in the tender. Some shapes filtered between the lashes of the hesitant lids. Benches without age, covered by leatherette, scraped until the seating springs. Mirrors with crumbled silvering and windows fouled by the tallowy steam vomited by the loco. Curtains fissured, jagged, because of to many manipulations made to conceal the alcove secrets of travelers cloistered or of chilled lovers. The curtain fell on the unconsciousness. Some movement at twelve o'clock, on the seats facing each other. Long white shape with calm and measured gestures. A voice. - Piotr? A man's voice, imprinted of wisdom and self-confidence. He unfolded himself, approached the sleeper who awakened slowly and crouched down to his sides. - Remain stretched out, take enough time to come back to consciousness. Considering the speed things jostled his head and his body, he would follow the order to the letter. - I am Doctor Sergei Anatoli Mendeiev. You fainted in the wagon-bar. The practitioner had his instruments close at hand, in the satchel. Stethoscope around the neck, sphygmomanometer in hands, he measured Piotr’s constants with all means he’d got and tempted to determine the reason of the uneasiness. - Open your mouth. Spatula made of wood, pocket-size lamp, the physician inspected the patient's throat, searching indications. He scraped the palate with a cotton wick disposed at the end of a steel stem and placed it in a reactant. - I’m looking for a staphylococcus. Some tonsillitis are vicious: they sometimes generate some syncopations. When you’ll come to Vladivostok, I give you the advice to do a blood analysis. Maybe you endure calcium or magnesium deficiencies, or something else. I hope for you nothing serious but you have an awful look. Reassuring words, sterilized medical speech… - Vladivostok? - Yes. It is the terminus. Is it your final destination? - I… I… don't know anything about it. - Oh! 3
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Sergei frown the eyebrows. - What’s your? - My first name is Piotr. You told it. - Well, more… your birth name? - My birth name? It was a one million roubles trap-question. - My name is Piotr… Piotr… Sergei became pale. - How old are you? Where do you live in? There, it was the questioning overdose. His brains had been misbehaved but it was operational! Darn! Why did it come up against enclosed doors? He didn't even feel this frustrating sensation to have information on the tip of the tongue. There was only the emptiness. Every question was like to bend forward above a never ending precipice. An awful attraction toward the radical plunge. - I don't know… The compartment door opened up after a serenade of grindings. A young woman, Estonian type marked, blond hair, slanting blue-eyed, prominent cheekbones, manifest plumpness, appeared in the framing with a smile of fashion magazine. - Piotr! How do you do? Better? - Are you his wife? - Yes. Sergei turned toward the patient, always stretched out. - Do you recognize her? Piotr stared her, tracking every ounce of information in his memory. Nothing to do! He infuriated, choked, unwell by the ridicule of the situation. How could he have lost the memory with a simple syncopation? It challenged the understanding! - No. The Russian doll decomposed herself visibly.
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- But… Piotr! It’s me, Svetlana! Your wife! - Sorry… The physician auscultated the young man’s skull from every angle. Visual and tactile exam but no visible or sensitive anomaly explained the amnesia. Svetlana uttered exclamation screams, poured their common life in the patient's ears, as many proofs of their ties, as missiles dedicated to explode the defensive walls erected by his subconscious. Facing her irritation, her exhaustion, Sergei asked her to leave the compartment and came with to calm her. He drummed to her that the state of Piotr was, he would nearly bet it, transient, ephemeral. In some minutes, he would have regained his minds and the puzzle of his memories, scattered by the shock of the fall or by any symptomatic virus, would reconstitute itself progressively. She was stunned, resigned and little convinced by the physician's dogmas. She had always dreaded this marital dismissal. And it occurred by the way. *** Piotr had straightened up with one thousand difficulties and was back to back in the angle formed by the bench and the window. The landscape paraded at goosestep, with slowness and majesty. No building, no human or animal soul, didn't break the monotony of the gloomy and plane steppes. The nose glued at the window, the young Russian let himself win by an ocean of icy solitude, a mad gangrene of fright and excitation scrums. How could he embody life and birth in one all, in only one fraction of second? He had a wife, Svetlana. Pretty but totally unknown! What did they share? She had produced names, places, dates but he had not kept anything, too shattered by his state. He examined his fingers. The left ring-finger decorated itself with an alliance. She didn't lie. Did they have some children? Where did they live? What did they do in this train? Where were his luggages? All jostled itself. And an unexpected event ended to nail him on his seat. - Darling! I searched in the whole train to find you! But where did you have disappeared? The voice came from a small blue-eyed Caucasian type brunette. She entered in the compartment, sat down to his sides and snuggled up against him. He tempted to clear himself, to her big surprise. - Piotr? But… why do you avoid me? This time, he exulted: - But who are you? What do you want to me? Doctor! Doctor! He screamed without restraint, very close to the apoplexy crisis. Sergei ran. - What’s happening?
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Piotr was under panic, he trembled, he stuttered, looked for his words, stumbled on the verbs, out of self-control. Through the information bombardment, the physician understood that Tania, the young woman with the Ural accent, was the Piotr’s wife. Facing the medical emergency, doctor Mendeiev managed a tranquillizer by intravenous way. Without effect, he doubled, tripled then the stake before calming his patient. Half fixed, Piotr captured scraps of conversation. Sergei tempted to untangle the imbroglio: the two wives argued sharply and bitingly the statute of official wife! They furbished documents, wedding excerpts, exhibited some photographs in company of their man, showed receipts of rent, telephony invoices, as if they had embarked the entirety of their administrative and domestic archives in their luggage. Worse: the masculine clothes belonging to Piotr, with identical sizes, colorations and similar cuts, nested in their respective suitcases. Svetlana like Tania pushed vice to sew the first name and the name of their dear to stretch lover on every tee-shirt, briefs or sock! Sergei was unable to determine who lied. He harangued while imploring them to be quiet or to calm themselves, to preserve the tranquility and the health of Piotr. Lost pain! The couple of harpies chewed out themselves as much as possible so much so that two train controllers, alerted by the scandal, were rushed and elected to separate the belligerents. As soon as they were sent, weapons and hand-held luggage, in compartments separated by two whole cars, Sergei couldn’t stop from thinking about with a high voice: - A mad story! Two wives! And this poor boy doesn’t remember anyone. He came back to more matter-of-fact considerations and took care of Piotr. - Do you hear me? The lowered young man nodded the head appreciably. - Listen, I am going to try to find someone able to help you to untangle this hornets’ nest. Me, I take care of your health. I’ve got one question: do you have any worries with the police, according to you? - I don't know… - Ok. We are going to do such as if you didn't have some, I am going to tempt to contact the authorities thanks to the radio of the train and we will know well what your situation is. Calm down, keep quiet, rest yourselves, I take care of the formalities. The essential is that you come safely and in good health. Okay? - OK. Piotr was not able to contest whatever. His brain was unable to analyze the least information, nor to take the least decision. It had become a machine to distill a syrupy molasses, nearly useless. He penetrated in the bench and closed the eyes, shattered by the sedatives. *** 6
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Angular face, steel grey look, imposing stature and shapka driven until the ears, Nicolaï Illitch Anastasiev was the portrait of a zealous gulag guard. And for a good reason: he had really exercised this activity in his early youth. With the perestroika, the glasnost, the downfall of the soviet union and the belated advent of the capitalism, he had gotten involved in the activity of private detective. Little by little, his Muscovite office had known a success or even based on serious methods, discretion and reasonable attractive tariffs. Five years later, this actor had opened three other "Hammer" agencies through the country. His business was flourishing but he kept cold head and measured his professional expenses. Thus, he preferred the economic Trans-Siberian to the expensive but fast Tupolev to drive him to the others areas of the country. A controller entered in his compartment. Natural reflex, he stretched his ticket. The railroads employee declined the stamped cardboard. - Are you a private detective? - Yes. Why? - A doctor would need your lights to solve a delicate business. Could you dedicate him some minutes? An investigation in a train? Why not! After all, didn't he hold his own version of the Orientexpress crime? Would he embody the Hercules Poirot of the modern times? He held the opportunity to reach the celebrity! He left his seat, seized an anthracite leather suitcase and fit together the controller's step. They crossed several wagons with rare occupants, the bar where leaned some dandies of the Muscovite bourgeoisie, the underpaid civil servants and the poor workers. They reached their goal, wagon number 13. A man was spread on a berth, inert. A crime? *** The driver of the convoy, the eyes nailed on the rails, split the newborn fog with his hardened eyes hardened and thanks to the powerful lights of his loco. Aboard the train 7457, nothing escaped him. He was the only master on board, the only one to hire his machine on the way, the only one to decide all litigations and the unique employee authorized to lead the passengers to their final destination. Without leaving the ballast and the crossbars from the eyes, he seized the radio. He pressed a button and said: - Hello? Do you hear me? A feminine and sweet voice cut the sizzling: - I listen you. - We have a problem on board. - What kind? 7
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- We have an additional passenger. - It is excellent news. - A… clandestine… passenger. He climbed during the travel. The voice choked, suddenly mute. Swallowing, short breath, the time to accuse the shock. Analysis, reflection, first questions. - Did you identify it? - Impossible. The unique guy, who could do it, is in inability. - Temporary? - Not easy to say. - You must determine who belongs to our services. - We try it. - How? - A private detective is on board. He drags a ferocious reputation and… Damn and blast it! - What’s happening? The driver became pale while reading his dials. He controlled once, two times. He manipulated the brakes pedal. No slowing. He pressed on the wastes of the radio: - The train speeds, I don't have the control anymore. - Did they pirate it?! - I don't have another explanation. They want to do faster than us! - Your man must raise the veil on the truth and quick! - Yes, Majesty. The loco hiccupped and made a sensitive and straightforward swerve. The needles panicked. Some eyes spies had interfered on board. They acted with determination. The shippers didn't agree with it. *** The petrified landscape paraded top speed. Nicolaï, despite his long experience in the art of the cross-examination, had not extracted any exploitable information of Piotr. However, he had noted a fundamental difference in the reactions of the young man. As much he tempted to pierce his memory, as much he invited him to unite the pieces of the puzzle, Piotr stayed quiet. As soon the detective dragged him on the land of the two inferred wives, the amnesiac exulted, panicked and trembled like a leaf, thwarting the effects of the tranquilizers given by the doctor. That’s the reason why Nicolaï supposed to face an illegal but banal bigamy story. The two women had been surely wheedled by the young Russian with the piercing eyes. Nevertheless, he had to control the veracity of his theory while cooking the two wives with his manner… He freed two adjoining compartments and took care to overlook them in totality. He asked Igor Stravinski, the controller of the convoy, to pick the two flowers in their respective 8
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wagons. Whereas the employee of the train entered into the bellows separating two cars, he was interrupted by a call on his walkie-talkie. He went back the same way and gave the radioemitter to the former gulag guard. - It is for you. - For me? Who is it? - The train driver. - Ah… Hello? - I am Vassili, the driver. We have a problem… well… very serious. And its resolution depends on your investigation. - What is the problem? - Hey well… a terrorist problem. We don't have the mastery of the convoy anymore. The declaration took him by surprise. Terrorism? The theory of the bigamy appeared him sudden very flavorless. His professionalism took the over. - I see. - One of the women is a liar and the instigator of the piracy act. - How much time do I have? - Considering the rhythm we’re progressing, if they don't increase the loco speed, one hour. Maximum! - Okay. Nicolaï appreciated the accurateness and the pressure to work. - I want to see them, now, quick. - Ok. I bring them. The controller hurried up. Nicolaï rolled up his sleeves. He never made omelets without breaking some eggs. *** The East and the West, despite the Communist empire fall, kept deep dissimilarities. However, the methods to fight the terrorists confounded them. The detective had padlocked Svetlana in the adjoining compartment to the one dedicated to the cross-examinations, to allow her to enjoy her competitor's howling. She had been served beyond all her imagination. Nicolaï had used the psychological terror, the bodily cruelties whose main appeals were the cruelty without too many visible traces. The door opened up with clash. Tania was precipitate against a bench, without care. Svetlana, despite of their dispute, was not delighted to note in which state she was. Her face was swollen, turned blue. By dint of strokes? She didn't yet bleed… She was stupefied, shattered, and hardly recognizable. The Russian doll had let several layers of her will.
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Nicolaï grasped Svetlana with brutality. He had let her the necessary seconds to quiver, to make herself an idea of the torture but not enough to give out some hypotheses. He cloistered her in the first compartment. A Siberian cold weather filled the compartment. And for a good reason! The window was wide opened and the snow-covered wind, hardened by the speed of the convoy, engulfed itself without shame in the life space. The ritual question came like a Scud: - Your birth name and your first name! - Tataiev Svetlana, the young woman answered. A masterly slap punished the retort. - Bad answer! I am going to refresh your memory, small terrorist! He clutched her by hair and plated her, the bust and the head out of the train. She struggled, uselessly. Nicolaï was a giant with the hands carved like jaws of bulldozer. The detective's slap was only a caress compared to the surge of cold on skin. Svetlana implored him to stop but he didn't care about it as his first shapka. He maintained her a good minute, until she changed color and she swelled like a windbag. He straightened her up and gave her smacks again: - Your birth name and your first name! The litany carried on with the same conviction. Nicolaï cut up the declarations of Tania and some witnesses thanks to subsidiary questions. Svetlana was as tough as Tania. He pursued the rhythm of cold terror during about ten minutes. At the end, he must surrender: the two women unpacked the same story. Impossible to overrule them! The time played against him. Their testimonies agreed to perfection and considering his investigator memory, he had never heard some depositions rigorously twin. A doubt seized his guts. Provided with his cell phone on which he had taken some photos of Piotr and the legitimate wives, he crossed quickly the wagons, stopping at every traveler and sacrificing to the ritual question: - Did you see this man? If yes, with this woman or this one? Either the interviewee had not noticed Piotr, or he remembered to have crossed him in a passageway or at the bar, but never accompanied by Tania or Svetlana. An old professor gave him an answer that awakened his suspicion. - I perfectly remember him! I had some difficulties to bring up my suitcase in the compartment for luggage. He designated the object in the net. Nicolaï shrugged the shoulders: the cardboard suitcase didn't seem heavy. 10
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- He and his companion nearly argued to help me. Finally, I exaggerate but they are bent in four to relieve me. - His companion? Was it this woman or this one? The photos paraded under the teacher's nose. - Nor one, nor the other. It was a small young woman, the Finnish type, dark redhead, hair attached in chignon, with red-faced cheekbones. Another woman! A third! Was it some trigamy? No, he didn't believe it one second. Besides, where did this red-haired hide herself? A strange sensation took his stomach. A thing sounded forgery. Was is due to the landscape that turned in buckle, as in an old detective novel of the fifties? Was it this overbid of married life? The staffs of the Trans-Siberian? The travelers of the train? He surveyed the wagons, staring the travelers, auscultating their behaviors, faces, luggage. Their faces… All had waxy complexions and chalky faces, as if air was polluted. He raised the eyes. An old cardboard suitcase. Aside, another antique, the same kind. The following didn't spoil. He turned the head, close to unscrew his cervical. Only old suitcases made of moldy, boiled cardboard, worn-out to the rope, with similar sizes and shapes. It was as unlikely as possible. He spun in his own compartment and noted with stupefaction that his own effects had been wrapped in a suitcase come from the same manufacturer, with as many hours of flight. It was certain to have used one of these suitcases with roulettes and telescopic handful. A navy blue model, with a system of scratch to clutch and to transport his laptop computer. Nothing more! He left in whirlwind and hailed the controller of the train, Igor. - Hey! You! - Me? - Yes! What is happening in this train? - What do you want to say? You mean about the terrorist attack? - No! I speak of something else! There is… a… suspicious thing. - In your investigation? - Yes but not only. He would seem the two wives are as false one than the other. There would be a third person. - It complicates itself and the time is urgent. - The time is urgent but this train doesn't run a terrorist danger. This train is not normal. Where are the luggages? Where do these old suitcases come from? I don't have my suitcase anymore! All passengers have the same endowment and worse, they have all same face of funeral. Do you have an explanation? Look at the head I have! The night fell little by little. The windows of the Trans-Siberian served as mirrors. The faces revealed themselves gaunt, sickly and traced on caricatures. Igor, the controller, escaped the
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rule. He remained dapper, comely, quick. The other passengers were dejected, resigned. Nicolaï smelled like to weaken, floored by a sudden weariness. - What’s happening? - You solved the enigma. - How? - The two women are the two terrorists. They eliminated the real lady Tataiev, surely in the idea to divert this train of its goal… well… We are going to expel them. - To expel them? To throw them in walk? - Yes. No choice. - But… Even the terrorists have some rights! - We thank you for your help. Stay in your compartment. We are going to take in charge the bustles. - We? Who? You only? Against terrorists? Do you want to make confess them how the train is manipulated? - No. We are going to expel them, that’s all. - It won't return you the control of the train! - We will have it. Sit at your place, Nicolaï. - You are crazy as a loon! Or then… or then… you manipulated me… - Sit down! The detective received a new fainting fit in full legs. He vacillated and collapsed on his bench. - What… what’s happening? Igor sighed and ended up conceding. - You approach the end of the journey. - The end? Do we arrive at Vladivostok? Already? - No. Not this journey. Another. - I die, it’s that! We all are dying. It is a lost train of the death! We have been drugged? Gassed? - Nicolaï… Let me settle this business and I come back to illuminate your lantern. Rest yourselves some instants. The controller left him. Nicolaï tempted to regain his minds and to rush to his pursuit, in order to understand, in order to ascertain the elimination of all threat. But he was incapable of it. His brain boiled without able to align two coherent ideas in a row. *** The door opened up with a dry stroke, retiring him from his sickly torpor. Igor raised a joy smile.
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- The train is saved. - Saved? - The female demons have been ejected. - The what? - Satan's messengers. - You call terrorists “Satan’s messengers”, here? - Ah… you remained with this story… I promised you the truth: I give it you. This train doesn't spin right to Vladisvostok. He is rolling… toward the paradise. This train is the Eden Express. - What? - Yes, I know, it is hard to understand and especially, to admit. The two false wives Tataïev were two agents of the Evil assigned to infiltrate the train, to take its control… how to say… while instilling the absolute Pain in the escorted souls and while controlling mentally its destination. They eliminated Irina Tataïev, the legitimate wife. We recovered the rests of her soul, shattered, shut in a technical part of the loco. While withdrawing a passenger, the two accomplices drove us to the hypothesis that one of them was the true and the other an usurper. The time to distinguish the true from the false, the time would play in favor of the Evil. With both agents, they increased their odds of success. Thanks to your investigation, to the testimonies, we understood Satan's schemes to corrupt and to divert the convoy. - But… will I die? - Yes. - Will we all die? - Yes. The surprise swallowed, Nicolaï pursued: - But… but why does Satan want this train? - Do you know professor Mendelsohn? - The geneticist of immortality, the quadruple medicine Nobel prizewinner? Of course! - Since his works, the humans don't die anymore of old age or illness. Mendelsohn provoked a shortage of souls in the paradise and in hell. In fact, he put a term practically to the process of reincarnation known by the Hinduist. The Good and the Evil fight to seize the souls of the rare defunct. The criteria of admission to the Paradise have been changed and have been reviewed bearish. The hell reacted while tempting to corrupt, while sending his lieutenants on the Earth. They incite the Earthmen to eliminate by the violence, the fire arms, their similar that the science had deprived from a death programmed to less than ten decades. Until this new act, a real sabotage. - The souls became rare… The Devil wanted to divert a convoy of souls. - Precisely, Nicolaï. - Do we go toward the paradise? - Yes. Astonished? The detective sighed. His past was blemished of blood, of violence, of hate, of corruption, of execution. He didn't have the profile of an angel. 13
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- I thought to burn in Hell. With my past… - Our Lord gives you a new luck. - I see… He marked one pause and questioned: - Where landed the two enemies, after their ejection? - In Hell. Nicolaï reconsidered the cross-examinations, the screams of the women. How would God forgive his violence? How? Did the security of the convoy justify this violence? The end justifies the means, only the result counts, as we say. He made a dubitative pout. He had solved the mystery with no conviction. All sounded forgery. Except the women, nearly… sincere?! His compartment locked itself instantaneously. He threw himself on the handful of door. His hand consumed itself until the wrist. The pain propelled him in the unconsciousness. At the front of the train, in the pilot cabin, the driver took contact with his mysterious interlocutor: - We come, oh Lucifia! - Perfect! Our Master Belzebuth will be magnanimous with you. The Eden Express bifurcated on the right, at the height of a switching. He dove in innards of the Earth. It spun in the heat of the night with on its board, among others, Piotr Tataïev, a awful serial killer, doctor Sergei Anatoli Mendeiev, famous inventor of biologic weapons, confirmed tester on human populations and a cohort of souls all more damned than the others. ***
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