BATS
After three stretches of track, our rumbling train of empty freight cars stopped on a reserve track in some forest steppe station. We woke up from the silence. It was morning. All the tracks turned out to be filled up with trains like ours. It was essential for Mitka and me to get out of the wagon without being noticed, without being seen by the railway people, and disappear for three or four days. We shifted the heavy door together, jumped on to the ground, and crawled under our wagon to the other side. We passed several more trains in the same way. Once we found ourselves past the tracks of our station, I saw the bend of a river half a kilometer from the road, and beyond it a grove or forest. We were lucky again – we could wash ourselves, even swim, and most importantly wait for a
