The Gimmicks by Chris McCormick

Author:Chris McCormick [Chris McCormick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

14

Kirovakan, Soviet Armenia, 1980

A white bus with a pale blue roof came to a hiss beside the fountain in the square. The door opened, and a line of children filed out. The old Russian church with its golden dome welcomed them as if to the great hereafter, but instead of a saint at the gate, they were welcomed by their teacher.

“This way,” Mina said, and the children followed her the short distance to the train station. Mina walked backward, facing the students, counting them. Twelve. Like Jacob’s sons, she thought. Like the apostles. Like the number of days she’d gone without speaking to her parents.

Now she and her students were off to Tbilisi, a six-hour train ride through the northern forests. Rumor had it that Byzantine and medieval ruins lay at the bottom of those rolling thickets, but Mina had never seen them for herself. She hardly strained to look out the window. There was too much undiscovered history at the surface of the world, she thought, to go digging for it in the woods.

Not thirty minutes into the journey, the train screamed to a stop. An attendant came though the cabins, explaining that a mudslide up ahead had blocked the tracks. The delay would last overnight, possibly two days. Apologies, he said, but the train was heading back.

The twelve students groaned. They would miss their exhibition, and their parents would not be pleased. Somehow Mina would take the blame, as if she could control the rains of Lori province. As if anyone, especially her, had control over a single droplet of her own destiny. The train began to move back in the direction it had taken her away from, and she had nothing to do but watch the world in the windows reverse.

From one of the adjoining cars came a man her age, bearded and open-collared, who took a seat facing her. He didn’t seem from around here, but he said hello in Armenian, and she nodded. He had that open look in his eyes, the same look she’d noticed in the man in Paris. Handsome with ideas—that was what she’d called it in her journal. This man was handsome with ideas, too, and she knew he’d start a conversation before he’d even fallen into his seat.

“You don’t look like a woman who’s given birth to this many kids,” he said.

“I’m their teacher.”

“Yes,” he said, “that was a joke.”

Mina covered her chin. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. My delivery, probably. Where were you taking them?”

“We were supposed to go to an exhibition in Tbilisi.”

“In what sport?”

“Backgammon,” she said.

“Ah. I always preferred chess. You have to use every string bean in your brain.” His accent was strange. She couldn’t place it.

“Maybe,” she said. “But backgammon is more like life. Luck and skill together.”

The man smiled. “What’s your name?”

She told him.

“Monte Melkonian,” the man said, and reached across to shake her hand.

“I can’t place your accent,” she said.

“I’m traveling around, picking up new accents every day. I’m from the United States originally. California.

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