It is only 4:30 in the morning but the train car is filled with light. From my position on the top bunk--head near the window, feet almost sticking out into the corridor--I can pull back the thick curtain an inch and see the green blur of the landscape rushing past us. The train sways, and it is as though there is only this moment. Yesterday I saw St. Basil’s cathedral and walked through the Red Square. Yesterday in Frankfurt I met an Israeli girl who knows people I know. I watched Captain Marvel on the plane from JFK. None of that matters now, none of it seems real.
In four hours the train will arrive in Kirov, and we’ll try to wriggle our bags out from where the nice Russian girl in the opposite bunk helped us stow them. We’ll eat breakfast and (finally) take a shower. Tonight, an impossible tonight, we will sleep in real beds, our beds for the next three weeks. The bunks creak and whatever it is that is clanging clangs. The Trans-Siberian railway moves forward, carrying us on to Kirov.
In four hours the train will arrive in Kirov, and we’ll try to wriggle our bags out from where the nice Russian girl in the opposite bunk helped us stow them. We’ll eat breakfast and (finally) take a shower. Tonight, an impossible tonight, we will sleep in real beds, our beds for the next three weeks. The bunks creak and whatever it is that is clanging clangs. The Trans-Siberian railway moves forward, carrying us on to Kirov.