Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  ‘A bobik?’ Porter said. A bobik was a terrier.

  ‘So now I’m telling you! I’m sick of your problems. I’ve got my own problems,’ the man told the phone. ‘And I’m sick of talking about them!’ He was groping in a tray of keys. He tossed one to Porter. ‘Give him the book,’ he said to the woman across the desk.

  Porter looked at the key on its leather tab, and at the book the woman shoved across to him. She pointed where he had to sign. It was against one of a row of numbers. He signed N. D. Khodyan and left as the roaring continued behind him.

  Below he threaded his way through the foyer, and at the door asked a man, ‘Where do I get a bobik?’

  ‘Back of the building, right behind here.’

  The number he’d signed was the number on the key, a car key. He went round the building and found the cars, in an open shed. There were four or five pickups and a number of jeeps. There was nobody there. He walked around examining the registration numbers and found his bobik. It was one of the jeeps, a solid enclosed job, very square and ugly like a little tank. The tyres looked half flat. He walked round, kicking them, and saw that all the tyres in the shed were half flat: evidently it was intended.

  He got in the car, found the ignition and turned the key. It sparked immediately, a rough throaty snarl. It was dark in the shed and he couldn’t see the display on the dash. He fumbled the gears and got the thing moving, out of cover and into the light. In the light he saw there was no display on the dash, and hardly any dash: a speedo, a switch for the wipers, and that was all. There had to be a switch for the lights but he couldn’t find it. But the thing was powerfully heated, and had a motor that surged at a touch with a satisfying grating bark – evidently accounting for the name. He took to the terrier at once, and got it moving again, to the front of the building. Someone was coming out, and he hailed him out of the window.

  ‘Hey! Where do I find Yura?’

  ‘Which Yura?’

  ‘For a Kama. A Kama 50.’

  ‘Straight on, half a kilometre, turn up the ramp, you’ll find him.’

  He kept on along the line of warehouses, dodging in and out of the path of spinning forklifts, and found the ramp. The whole massive hangar was up on short piles, evidently as air insulation for the permafrost below. Inside, as far as he could see, was an amazing army of trucks, row upon row of them, all lined up, waiting, and bearing the logo of the Kamaz Auto Works: Kama 30s, 40s, 50s. The front line, he saw, had laden trailers already attached, but farther back were just the tall cabs.

  He parked the bobik and emerged into a rush of warm air from big blowers spread out over the area. Around the walls work was going on at long benches, and nearby the spit and flash of welding gear. He walked over to the man there.

  ‘Where’s Yura?’ he yelled in his ear.

  The man put his visor up. Who?’ ’

  ‘Yura.’

  ‘The boss? In the office – the glass booth at the end.’

  He found the booth, and a white-overalled Yura, on the phone, busily scribbling, on an inventory pad. He was a little brawny pug of a man with a shock of grey hair. Porter waited till he’d finished, and flashed his smile.

  ‘I’m Khodyan – Kolya. Bukarovsky wants me to try a 50.’

  The man looked him up and down.

  ‘Ever driven one before?’

  ‘Sure.’

  At the camp all they’d had was a 40, but he’d been assured it was the same. Sixteen gears; almost identical to a Mack.

  ‘Where have you driven?’

  ‘Chukotka, Magadan – that circuit.’

  ‘Roads.’ The man grunted. ‘None of that here. Here we run soft, low pressure. Better traction, but a heavy wheel. All right, then.’ He opened a tall cupboard. It was neatly laid out with several lines of hooks, keys hanging from them. His scarred hand flitted about the keys and selected one. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of,’ he said. He put a fur cap and leather jacket on and led the way.

  An experienced ex-driver, evidently, and an injured one, Porter saw: one leg was shorter than the other. The man limped down a row of cabs, their umbilicals hooked up at the rear, and stopped at one. He went rapidly up an iron ladder, and Porter took the other side. He climbed the six or seven feet and swung himself behind the wheel.

  Yura, settling himself, slammed the door and handed over the keys. ‘You’re sure you can handle her?’

  ‘No problem,’ Porter said. His smile was dazzling. Right away he saw the bastard didn’t have sixteen gears. It had twenty. Reverse in the normal position, though.

  ‘She’s warmed up, take her right out. Hard on the wheel, remember, she’s heavy.’

  Porter started up, slotted into first and pulled slowly out of line and along the aisle.

  ‘Down the ramp and to the right.’

  The cow was heavy. And the brake was heavy, and snatched when he stood on it.

  ‘Easy, easy, you’re pulling nothing,’ Yura said. ‘Keep rolling now. To the trial ground, at the end.’

  The trial ground was beyond the warehouses, and lay under unmarked snow, already iced. He took her round the perimeter at varying speeds, slow, fast, slow, working up and down through the gears. He’d done all this at the camp, as also the emergency stops and the figure of eights that Yura now put him through. But the extra gears flustered him and he fumbled the positions, though he was certain it didn’t show.

  ‘All right, now back and park where you found her,’ Yura said.

  This one had him sweating as he manoeuvred and reversed in the hangar to get tight back in line.

  Yura switched off for him and took the key.

  ‘You’re sure you drove a 50 before?’ he said.

  Porter decided his smile had better go.

  ‘What are you calling me?’ he said.

  ‘You drove a 40 before,’ Yura told him, ‘with sixteen gears.’

  ‘I drive anything! I drive sixteen gears, twenty. Any boat you got I drive! You’re saying I’m a liar?’

  ‘Easy now,’ Yura said. His little pug’s face had suddenly opened up in a great smile of its own. ‘Easy, Kolya. You a Chukchee?’

  ‘Never mind what I am! No business of yours what I am. I drive. You don’t want me, I go home.’

  ‘Easy, Kolya,’ Yura said, still smiling. ‘You’re okay. You’re fine. I’m passing you, Kolya. Give me your songsheet.’

  ‘Bukarovsky’s got my songsheet,’ Porter said sulkily.

  ‘So I’ll call him. Don’t get so hot, Kolya. I like you. I never had a Chukchee before. You just need a little more time on the 50, you’ll take the right-hand seat a few trips, it’s nothing. Come on, smile now.’

  Porter sheepishly gave him a smile.

  ‘That’s better. You’re on, Kolya. You’re with friends here, we want you. Go back there and sign now.’ The little man was chuckling as he scrambled down the ladder. ‘Hey, you got transport?’

  ‘Sure. A bobik,’ Porter said.

  ‘Good. I don’t like my drivers walking. Never had one of you before,’ Yura said. He was still chuckling as he limped away.

  Porter got in the bobik, and drove back. He felt dizzy. A lot had happened in just over twelve hours. He had arrived in Green Cape and installed himself in an apartment. He had taken on a housekeeper. He’d got himself on the strength of the Tchersky Transport Company. And he had taken in some new lore. Songsheets, bobiks, soft tyres, twenty-gear trucks, ‘or’ …

  He’d also learned a few things about Ponomarenko they hadn’t told him. Before leaving that morning he had removed a plinth under the kitchen unit and found a hidey-hole there. Under two floor tiles, grouted in with a slightly newer-looking mastic (and finding a tube of the stuff in a cupboard had set him off on the hunt), was a taped-up plastic bag. Other bags were inside it. He had found a few grams of what looked to be cocaine, together with a sniffing reed. An ounce, maybe an ounce and a half, of gold dust; and, oddly, twelve South African Kruger rands. There was also a photo of Ponomarenko, slightly younge
r than in the ones he’d seen but not much. He and a woman were sitting smiling stiffly at the camera, each holding a young child, each child the image of Ponomarenko. The raised lettering on the bottom of the photo gave a studio address in Kiev. Porter parked the bobik back in the shed and thought about this. He was a funny, fellow, Ponomarenko. He had a wife and kids somewhere. Was he the one who’d drawn the lipstick on the panda?

  Or?

  25

  As the last man to sign on, Kolya Khodyan joined the reserve list. He had seen the short block of names at the bottom of the wall rosters – men who were sick or for some other reason not assigned to a team. Now he saw his own name added there, as available for general duties. At the beginning of a season, with nothing yet rolling, this was not important; but from the other drivers he heard that to stay with General Duties was bad news.

  Under union agreements the men were paid whether the ‘boats’ ran or not. But once they were running, the teams were eligible for bonuses. With the distances involved here the bonuses were huge – easily outstripping the already high basic pay. The trucks ran through storms, through blizzards, through every kind of hazard the country could offer, and they ran twenty-four hours a day. Any hour over the week’s norm was an overtime hour and paid double. Long hauls were obviously much in demand, and General Duty men rarely got them. They got short hops and road maintenance jobs, seldom running into overtime.

  The new Chukchee driver accepted his listing with good grace, and this together with his cheerfulness soon made him popular. He was very cheerful; he smiled all the time. He took on any job without argument – and in fact volunteered for one the same day when a call was put out. He could stand on his dignity (and it was understood he wasn’t to be addressed as a Chukchee), but in general he was a good comrade and, as a Chukchee, almost a mascot.

  The job he volunteered for was to haul freight up from the dock. This was, strictly speaking, the work of the Green Cape port authority, and the men doing it were dockers. But when further snow made the task urgent, he took a Tatra flatbed down and joined the shuttle. He had seen right away that many of the workers below were Siberian natives and he wanted a closer look at them. He saw that several were Evenks or Yukagirs; this was the end of their seasonal work and soon none would remain in town. Ponomarenko had given some information on this.

  He jockeyed his truck into line and saw he’d won a team of Yukagirs. He climbed out in the swirling snow and stood by, beating his gloved hands as they loaded the truck in front. It didn’t take long to identify the likeliest man; a cackling bundled-up little fellow, robustly swearing, the wit of the gang.

  ‘Warm work, brother!’ he called to him.

  The man glanced round in surprise. He had called in Yukagir.

  ‘You got the tongue?’ the man said, looking him over.

  ‘A few words. Glad to see the end here, eh?’

  ‘You’re right. Except for the money. And the booze. Here the bastards keep it to themselves. We don’t smell it where we go to.’

  ‘Where do you go – traplines or the herds?’

  ‘Traps. But first the collective. The maniacs here work you till you drop. We need a rest.’

  ‘There’s a collective here?’

  ‘Sure. Ours. Novokolymsk. You don’t know the area?’

  ‘Not so well. A few friends who work up at the station, in the hills. You know that place?’

  ‘With the scientists?’

  ‘That one.’

  ‘See, it isn’t any use now,’ the Yukagir told him. ‘They don’t allow traps there any more, not for years. It’s useless.’

  ‘You could make it up there on foot?’

  ‘Sure – a few kilometres, no distance. But it’s useless now. Your friends are Evenks?’

  ‘Evenks.’

  ‘Yes. It suits them. They do a few weeks with the herds and a few weeks there, turn and turn about. They fly them in, they don’t want whites, and not bad money. But it isn’t for us. This is good fox country, and ermine – the best ermine. Not prime for a couple of months yet, but the best when they come on. You speak the tongue nice,’ the Yukagir told him.

  The line moved then, so he got back in the Tatra, and no further opportunity offered. But he’d heard enough …

  In summer, in the camp, he had watched week by week as the research station had been repaired. He had watched it from satellite photographs, a world away. Now he was there − a few kilometres, no distance … And now the planning was his; and now he was on his own.

  He learned something about the bobik that week.

  He had been sent out with spares and some instruments to a road gang fifty kilometres out. The road stretched 700 kilometres to Bilibino and it had been out of use all summer, a bog. Now it was hardening, and this was the first section to come into condition. When fifteen centimetres of new frost showed, treatment could begin. The heavy equipment for it was kept at road stations 100 kilometres apart; the stations served also as rest centres for the drivers, and as bases for the rescue and recovery service, tracked vehicles that patrolled the route all winter.

  Porter ran out to the gang, dropped his supplies and headed back, and was halfway into the journey when the bobik stopped.

  He got out and had a look at the engine. Nothing wrong with the supply or the plugs. Or the points. No shortage of fuel. He turned the engine by hand – the little brute also packed a handle. Nothing. The weather was not yet tremendously cold, maybe fifteen degrees below, but his fingers were freezing up without gloves. He swore. He tried everything again. Fuel okay and getting through. Distributor okay. Spark. What the hell!

  On all sides the dreary taiga stretched for miles, snow covered, iced. He must be twenty, thirty kilometres along the way and nothing whatever would be coming past. Not for several hours at least, until it occurred to somebody at Green Cape to come and look for him. He had no communications set. He couldn’t walk to Green Cape. He couldn’t walk back to the road gang. The road was like a rink. He’d had to use a gentle hand just to keep the thing moving.

  You bastard, he told the bobik, and took a swig at his hip flask; and while doing it thought of something. In midwinter, he’d heard, they often had to start the engines with White Dynamite, high-proof vodka. He had no White Dynamite in his flask but plain vodka might help. Maybe the fuel was contaminated or the carburettor faulty; a drop of the volatile spirit might fire and clear it. He warmed his hands in his gloves first and beat them together before fumbling with the carb. Then he gave himself a small swig and the carb one, and got a kick and a cough, and the thing rumbled hesitantly into life. He kept it running, revving cautiously by hand till he was sure of it, and then closed the hood and got back in and started off again.

  It happened twice more on the way, and he knew it was the carburettor. The trick worked with petrol, too. He’d sucked a bit out of the tank with a plastic tube, and he dripped it in and got the kick and the cough. The fuel was okay. The carb was dodgy.

  He drove back to the Light Vehicles depot where he had picked up the loaded bobik in the morning, and looked around for Liova. Faults had to be reported to the chief mechanic. But Liova and all the mechanics were at lunch and only Vassili, the old Yakut storeman, was there, eating out of a pot on a kerosene stove. He told Vassili the problem.

  ‘This isn’t a problem,’ the Yakut said. ‘I’ll give you another carburettor and you’ll fit it. It takes two minutes.’

  ‘I’m reporting a fault. I don’t need a carburettor,’ Porter told him.

  ‘You do. You have another load, a rush job. There’s no spare bobik, and they have no time to repair it. Here, I’ll give you it now.’

  And the old man left his meal, wiping his mouth, and took the Chukchee into the storeroom and gave him a carburettor; and Porter’s eyes popped. A whole bay, neatly arranged, was stuffed with bobik spares. Gearboxes, shafts, clutches, doors – engines, even. The old man looked at him and shrugged. ‘It’s a toy,’ he said. He hunted around and found a greasy manual.
‘A child can do it.’

  And Porter did do it while the old Yakut, picking his teeth, pointed out the details on the exploded diagram. It took a single spanner. The carb worked right away.

  ‘I told you, it’s nothing,’ Vassili said. ‘Did you eat yet?’ They had been talking Yakut which had intrigued and pleased the old man.

  ‘Not yet. What have you got there?’

  ‘Proper food. My old woman’s. Not that garbage in the canteen. Join me.’

  Porter joined him, and grunted favourably over the food, and presently signed for the carburettor, and the Yakut helped him load up. He was gone before Liova and the mechanics returned. He drove down into Tchersky, listening to the engine. Not a thing wrong with it. A workhorse, robust, primitive, and all of it put together the same way, with a spanner. He thought about this. A number of plans had been prepared for getting him out. They were neat enough plans, but obviously someone else must know of them. It might be an idea to have other plans. He thought about this all the way there, and all the way back.

  That same night the doorbell rang and a young woman stood there; of considerable development; he saw, and had already gathered so from her underwear.

  ‘Nikolai Dmitrievich,’ she said, ‘you don’t know me. But I have a request to make.’

  ‘Is it Lydia Yakovlevna?’

  ‘Ah, you know!’ Both hands had gone up to her mouth, but whether with embarrassment or amazement at his shaven head he could not as yet tell. ‘You have a small parcel of mine, I think.’

  ‘The linen you lent Alexei – yes indeed. Anna Antonovna said you might call. Please come in.’

  The old lady had cooked up the story herself. She had laundered the goods and asked if she should return them; the girl only worked in the supermarket below. No, he had said, if she wanted her pants and bra she could come and get them. But Kolya, Kolya, Anna Antonovna had said, cackling and nudging him, only think of her feelings! I’ll put them in a parcel as if it’s handkerchieves or something she lent Alyosha – it will spare her blushes.