Life on the train was gradually becoming more relaxed.
The foreigners, who had left Moscow in collars that were as hard as pharmaceutical ceramics and in heavy silk ties and woolen suits, began to loosen up.
The heat was overwhelming.
The first to change his uniform was one of the Americans.
Giggling sheepishly, he emerged from his car in a bizarre outfit.
He wore thick yellow shoes, knee-length socks with golf breeches, horn-rimmed glasses, and a cross-stitched Russian-style shirt—the kind a state-farm official would wear.
And the hotter it got, the fewer foreigners remained faithful to the concept of European dress.
Russian shirts and tunics of all imaginable styles, Odessa sandals, and casual slippers completely transformed the newsmen of the capitalist world.
They developed a striking resemblance to veteran Soviet office workers, and one was just dying to subject them to a purge, to drag out of them what they did before 1917, to question whether they were bureaucrats or, by any chance, bad managers, and whether all of their relatives were clean.
Late at night, the diligent ovechka locomotive, decked with flags and garlands, pulled the special train into Roaring Springs—the site of the joining.
Cameramen were burning Roman candles, and the director of the Line stood in the harsh white light, looking at the train with deep emotion.
The cars were dark.
Everyone was asleep.
Only the large square windows of the government car were lit up.
Its door opened promptly, and a member of the government jumped off onto the ground below.
The director of the Eastern Line took a step forward, saluted, and delivered the report which the whole country was waiting for.
The Eastern Line, which linked Siberia directly to Central Asia, had been completed a year ahead of schedule.
After the formalities were over, the report delivered and accepted, the two men, neither of them young or sentimental, kissed.
All the correspondents, both Soviet and foreign, including Lavoisian who, in his impatience, had sent the telegram about smoke billowing from the train’s stack and the Canadian woman who had rushed across the ocean—all were asleep.
Only Palamidov was dashing around the freshly built embankment in search of the telegraph.
He calculated that if he sent an urgent cable immediately, it would make it into the morning edition.
Finally, he located the makeshift telegraph shack in the dark desert.
“Stars twinkling,” he wrote, irritated with his pencil, “line completion reported stop witnessed historic kiss of line director by government member palamidov.”
The editor printed the first part of the telegram but dropped the kiss.
He said it was inappropriate for a member of the government to smooch.
CHAPTER 29 ROARING SPRINGS
The sun rose over the hilly desert at exactly 5:02:46 A.M. Ostap got up a minute later.
Menshov the photojournalist was already decking himself out with bags and belts.
He put his cap on backwards, so that the visor wouldn’t interfere with the viewfinder.
The photographer had a big day ahead of him.
Ostap was also hoping for a big day, so he leaped out of the car without even washing.
He took the yellow folder with him.
The trains that had brought the guests from Moscow, Siberia, and Central Asia formed a series of streets and lanes between them.
They surrounded the reviewing stand on all sides. Steam engines hissed, and the white vapor clung to a large canvas banner that read THE EASTERN LINE IS THE FIRST PROGENY OF THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN.
Everybody was still asleep, and the cool breeze was rapping the flags on the empty stand when Ostap noticed that the clear horizon of the rugged terrain suddenly erupted with bursts of dust.
Pointy hats appeared from behind the hills on all sides.
Thousands of horsemen, sitting in wooden saddles and urging their long-haired horses on, hurried toward the wooden arrow that was placed at the very spot which had been chosen two years earlier as the future site for the joining of the rails.
Entire clans of nomads were approaching.
Heads of household were riding, and so were their wives, straddling their horses like the men. Kids rode three to a horse, and even the mean mothers-in-law spurred their faithful mounts forward, kicking them under the belly with their heels.
Groups of horsemen rustled in the dust, galloped around the field with red banners, stood up in their stirrups, turned sideways, and looked curiously at the unfamiliar wonders.
The wonders were many: trains, rails, the dashing figures of the cameramen, the latticed dining hall that had suddenly risen up out of nowhere on what used to be an empty space, and the bullhorns that carried a powerful voice saying “one, two, three, four, five, six,” testing the loud-speakers.
Two track-laying trains—actually, two construction sites on wheels, complete with warehouses, diners, offices, bathhouses, and workers’ quarters—stood facing each other in front of the reviewing stand, separated by a mere sixty feet of ties, which had not yet been stitched together by rails.
That’s where the last rail would be laid, and the last spike would be driven.
A banner at the head of the Southern Site said TO THE NORTH!; the one on the Northern Site said TO THE SOUTH!
Workers from both sites mixed together into a single group.
They were meeting in person for the first time, even though they knew and thought about each other ever since the construction had begun, when they were separated by a thousand miles of desert, rocks, lakes, and rivers.
The competition between them brought the rendezvous a year ahead of schedule.
During the last month, the rails were really flying.
Both the North and the South were striving to get ahead and be the first to enter Roaring Springs.
The North had won.