The Elephant Box

This is the first in a three-part series. Check here for parts two and three.

I knelt packing my bag on the floor of the London townhouse of Andrew Fox, a British businessman and friend from when we both lived in the Russian Pacific seaport of Vladivostok. I had come here to interview him for a memoir piece on the 1990s and early 2000s in Russia’s “Wild East.” This was a turbulent era when mob-linked political bosses kidnapped journalists, a shipping industry whistleblower was blown to bits by TNT planted under her bed, and the governor threatened to jail Andrew, who also happens to be the honorary British consul general to the city.

I was double-checking my passport, wallet, and other essentials (My hearing aids! Oh, in my ears) when Andrew came thumping downstairs with a leather suitcase. As scuffed as old shoes, it was peeling open and dusted with dried mold that rubbed off like chalk on one’s clothes.

Unidentified photograph found in the suitcase, likely of George Walton, his wife Natalia (Tata), and his Russian mother.

“Before you go, did you want to take a look at this?” he said.

That’s right; he had mentioned something about a suitcase full of old British documents concerning Russia. I was heading to St Pancras to catch a train back to Belgium. Yet who could resist this strange object? “Suitcase” translates as chemodan in Russian, a word as ordinary as its English equivalent. But when applied to this curiosity, it seemed to describe a magical object that might pop up in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story.

“Sure,” I said. “We have time.”