The night rain had filled the many pot-holes along his way, but the holes were not hidden to Dima. They were mapped in his mind. A friend once joked that Dima drove left and right more often than straight. But in this, Dima was a serious man. A tire or axle could set him back a week’s pay and cost him a month of weekends to make it up.
The train station was typical of a mid-sized city station in America in the 1930s, when passenger trains were not yet unimportant. Unlike the larger cities, the Berdyansk station was clean and organized. Where the Kiev station had a marketplace atmosphere, mostly no one was here unless involved in travel. Dima parked outside the front entrance with the rest of the local competition. Someone had called him from Kiev needing a taxi available to babysit his American for the day. He still wasn’t sure how the man who called about the American got his number, but he sounded young and a little educated. However any lack of swear words qualified as that for Dima. The caller said the man would have red hair and would pull into the station at 10:30. An easy find.
So many bags, Americans. He worried as he looked around at the other taxis. Their foreign cars had the room for the bags and the man could change his mind. He left his taxi and walked through an exiting crowd to be ready. He would only have to watch maybe five people at a time to catch any with red hair. He barely caught the hair under an expensive ball-cap, but the man only had a small duffle bag. Italian? Then he remembered the man was just in town for the day, and maybe he had sense about him. Dima pushed his way through to the man and stepped in front of him, hat in both hands. “Excuse, sir,” he said.
“You my guy?” the man asked.
“Dima. I spoke your boss on phone. To pick you up.”
“Okay. Good. You speak English. He’s not my boss. The word is facilitator.” He averted his eyes when he spoke. “It doesn’t matter.”
Dima took the man’s bag and led him to the car. He realized he still had a cigarette in his mouth and quickly spit it out.
“This is it?”
“Da, sir.”
“Whatever. Take me to the Hotel Berdyansk. I need to check in and gonna need you to run an errand. You understand?”
“Da.”
On the drive to the hotel Dima opened his mouth to ask the usual, expecting the usual. He stopped himself not knowing why, only knowing that he was uncomfortable. Normally, he would ask why they were here and the plain-spoken Americans would say they were on a church mission trip. Or students there for a conference. Sometimes a stressed couple to adopt a child from one of the orphanages – there were three.
Dima sensed that this man was different. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and found the man staring back at him, directly. Dima bounced his eyes back to the road and straightened the icon on his dash as an excuse to touch it.
“Dima, right?”
“Da.”
“Dima, I’m on a tight schedule. Here is what I need. I may need you to translate for me at the hotel, maybe not. Then we make a stop at the courthouse. You know where that is?”
“Da. Khomyak Street.”
“Good. While I’m there you go to Soba. Have them reserve the best table, flowers, best wine. All that. For 4:00 dinner, okay?”
“Da.”
The drive was silent until they reached the hotel. Dima waited outside, paced, smoked. He was relieved that the man didn’t need him inside. He walked towards the hotel lobby windows, mostly to see if some of his associates were there. He saw two drivers he knew sitting in the lounge playing on their Nokias. After counting the number of prostitutes inside he guessed his friends were doing pick-ups from late-night drop-offs. He called his wife and talked about his daughter, as they lately often did.
“Dima, she’s missing three days of clothes, which is almost all she has. I’m scared she’s …”
“Katya is always trading clothes with her friends. You worry too much,” Dima said.
“Will you check on her?” his wife asked.
“Da, da.”
His passenger planned on running him hard, but he would make it work somehow.
The man finally came out and, already behind schedule, opened his own door to get into the taxi. Their next stop was five blocks away and traffic was not as bad as it would be soon when the town broke for lunch.
“Stop there. That store.”
Dima obeyed.
“Get me a good box of chocolates,” the man said. He pushed 20 hrivna at Dima, who took it as he moved out of the taxi.
Dima returned quickly and watched the man place 400 American dollars into the box. They arrived at the courthouse just as government workers were leaving for their early lunch.
Not early for them though, as the man removed his cap and combed his hair, seeming to force his whole demeanour into a more relaxed frame. As he slowly stepped out of the taxi, he perplexed Dima by saying, “Please go to Soba now. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
That was enough time for Dima to drive by the kiosk as he had promised. Seeing his daughter where she should be, he called in a quick report to his wife. The restaurant was fast work and gave him time to stop by a coffee vending machine – they had mochas that he liked for 2 hryvnia – before driving through lunch traffic back to the courthouse. He had fifteen minutes to spare. Fifteen minutes to think.
The man reminded him of a Lieutenant he had hated in Afghanistan. A man he almost killed. Trust was something Dima felt for most people on some level. To his way of thinking, many people had trust breaking-points. So it was life circumstances that had really failed him along the way. The wrong people in the wrong situations.
But this is life. Some men, like that officer and this man, did not present even a kernel of trustworthiness. He couldn’t relate to someone like that, no door to open to it. He checked all his mirrors. The man’s bag was still there. He hadn’t dropped it off at the hotel. Dima checked the mirrors and courthouse entrance again.
He isn’t one of the trusted. He doesn’t need my trust. It’s not a problem. Dima leaned into the backseat and unzipped the bag. A shirt, deodorant, shaving stuff. Train tickets, two. For that night at 6:00 to Kiev. Plane tickets. Dubai. Dubai? Time was up. He felt it. He zipped the bag and turned forward, working through possible excuses, but the man took another five minutes.
When they were on the road again, the man informed Dima he had two hours to kill before dinner.
“Take me somewhere where there are no people. No noise. You can keep the meter running.”
Dima suggested a section of the beach with an abandoned shipyard where it was often quiet and the cell phone reception was still good.
“Sir, I ask. What business you do?
“Nyet.”
“I understand,” Dima replied.
“Good.”
The man walked to a broken and graffiti-painted boardwalk bench, sat, and pulled out his cell phone. The solitary state seemed to fit the man, a cold and friendless object.
Dima found his thoughts returning to Afghanistan again as he habitually rubbed at the tattoo on his upper right arm. This day was becoming very unhealthy for him – he could feel it. He could ditch the man since he had paid at every stop they made. He wouldn’t really lose anything, just anything more. And maybe he could stop at the Market on the way home and catch