She stood at the train car window wearing a large black hat with a veil. Beautiful, with a proud posture that spoke of her noble heritage. Her presence on the dirty train smelling of cheap tobacco and sweat was, however, very odd. And this extravagant “bourgouise” hat particularly stood out, almost challenging the poverty and ascetism of the gray mass of padded jackets and the khaki military uniform of this place and this time.

The train “Kirov – Lesnoe” strained and puffed as it passed a neverending string of dull looking forests. These were the places also generally known as “not so distant”, their name being a product of cruel irony of the time. The Kirov region was infamous for it’s numerous GULAG camps. Wilderness, mosquitos, and prophanity. A colorful mix of inhabitants, of whom the aborigines – “vyatichi” – seemed outnumbered by the countless prisoners in the camps, by the settlers, who had done their time, yet did not have the right to leave, and by the people in the iniform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who guarded all of this.

Meanwhile, the train continued its long journey. During the rare stops the passengers would all run out to the stations to get some boiling water. Then they would drink tea from their aluminum mugs, gnawing on shapeless lumps of sugar.

Where did this woman come from, among the faceless gray mass, in this small train car dating back to the times of the civil war? Why is she here? What has drawn her into this wilderness?

I loved to stand at the window: looking, thinking, dreaming. Easily impressionable and amorous boy, I already valued and understood the meaning of beauty back then. Standing at the window and holding my breath, I eyed the wonderful strander at the other end of the railroad car. Hours were flying by just like the neverending telegraph poles outside, and the beautiful passenger continued to stare into the distance. What was she thinking about, dreaming about, what was she lamenting while listening to the rattle of the wheels and the roar of the fire-spitting black monster which was cutting through the pitch-black doomsday darkness? I lost my appetite and my peace. I feared that she would disappear forever. That she would get off somewhere in timbered Kotel'nichakh, or at any other tiny station of the vast Kirov region. My mother had long made the bed, but I used various excuses to remain at my post. I waited, and I felt that something was going to happen. And it did…

Unharriedly, holding on to the handrails, the beautiful stranger was walking down the train car. Closer and closer to me. My heart is racing. I could already feel the fine smell of her perfume, the touch of her clothes, and was no longer able to look away, shocked, paralyzed, and completely in love.

Accustomed to adoration, the woman could have laughed at the boy contemptuously, or simply arrogantly ignore him. But everything turned out otherwise. She stopped near me, lifted her veil, and touched my blazing cheeck with her exquisite lips. I can still remember her bright sad eyes, and a small birthmark above her upper lip.

For many years to come I agonized over what had compelled this beautiful women to kiss a schoolboy wearing his green, carefully patched ski pants. And I cannot figure out the answer…

And the train flew on toward the the distant edge of the infinite night. I could not close my eyes, waiting for the dawn so that I could again see her silhouette at the window.

In the morning, however, the stranger was no longer in the railroad car. She probably had gotten off at some station during the night.

But because of the tense silence in the railroad car, and the cautious whispering of the passengers I understood that something had happened. It wasn’t until later when we already were at home that I accidentally overhead a conversation between my mother and my father. Although there were no strangers in the apartment, they spoke quietly and frequenlty looked around. I managed to hear only a few words: NKVD and “wife of a traitor”.