Off The Rails

by Chris Hatherly

  After a short introduction we told our story and the rest followed. When I produced photos, the 200 or so children broke into wild excitement. Instead of passing the pictures around the semi-circle they rushed forward, wanting the best view. The teachers elbowed their way through the waist-high crowd, also fighting for a look.

  The idea of waves, surfing and sunny beaches in Australia seemed beyond imagination. Many of the children had most likely never been much further than the village surrounds. The boys’ slicked-back hairstyles, britches with belts and buttoned shirts reminded me of another era.

  We chatted for hours, signed autographs and got through the waiting list of those wanting a ride on the bikes. By the time we had signed the last of countless autographs, I could barely stand on my feet. I was starving.

  After lunch we watched a dance performance put on by a group of younger students. It was a traditional dance of the Udmirtskaya Republic. The Udmirtskayan people, now a minority, are related to the forest-dwelling cultures that inhabit the north, like the Finns and the Karelians.

  Little boys daintily skipped about like gentlemen with straight backs and looks of intense concentration. The girls, with their frilly dresses and large eyes, smiled proudly as if they were conscious of their elegance even at such an early age. Leaning against the ribbed log wall, the bearded teacher strummed away on a balalaika. Beside him a woman played an accordion.

  The playfulness and innocence was reminiscent of children anywhere. The purity of the occasion was what affected me most.

  When the clanging of the old school bell rang out, it was sadly time to leave. As the children assembled to wave goodbye, we were presented with a wooden-face carving as a gesture of good luck. An inscription on the back read: ‘To Tim and Chris – We thank you for your courage and inspiration and hope to see you again one day.’

  There was just one nagging issue that had surfaced during the visit. The teachers had been shocked to hear that we were camping in the forest.

  ‘We Russians don’t even go near the forest at this time of year. Don’t you realise there are ticks everywhere? If you get bitten, there is a high risk of getting infected,’ the bearded teacher had told me.

  These warnings added another piece to the puzzle that was ‘travelling’ in Russia. In autumn we had been told to wait until the snows came and the mud froze. During winter we were advised to start cycling in spring. As the snows slowly melted we were politely told that what we were doing was impossible, and that we would have to wait for summer. Now that it was the end of spring, the ticks were reason enough to put off the journey until midsummer, when the tick season would be over. It was reasonable to expect that mosquitoes would put the remaining summer under a cloud. Yet by the time they were dead, it would be too cold and wet again!

  In reality, it seemed there was no easy way to ride across Russia. No matter what, the elements would be unrelenting. It was frightening to think that Russians had to deal with these conditions all year, every year. Even in the three short months of warm weather the insects conspired to make life unpleasant! By comparison, the Australian climate was far more favourable. The very concept that cows could live outside all year round was something the Russians marvelled at. Now I knew why Baba Galya and her friends erupted with laughter when we called Russia rai, paradise.

  The road east continued through the forest. From above it must have looked like a river meandering through a sea of green. We now considered the narrow strip of gravel a tick-free oasis. For so long the forest had provided a refuge after a hard day’s cycling.

  Two days after the school visit we found several ticks crawling on our clothing while we sat at a forest camp site. Later, I felt something crawling up my back. I removed my shirt in a panic and Chris flicked away the critter that had been making for my head. We knew that they loved the dark, hard-to-get-to crevices of the body, like the crutch, armpits and hair. We discovered that these are also the hardest places to inspect. As the riding progressed, we found at least four ticks crawling on us a day. Only a miracle would see us through without being bitten again.

  I was sad to replace the loue with the tent, but under the circumstances there was no choice. Before going to sleep, we’d check each other with a torch just to make sure. And during the day it was common to see us slide a hand into our pants and after a bit of reconnaissance retrieve it with a look of relief.

  As we neared the city of Perm the landscape transformed from the pancake-flat forest plains into undulating hills. Rarely was there a time when we weren’t rising up steep slopes or rushing down the other side. It was a sign that we were finally nearing the fabled Ural Mountains. This range, which is a mere wrinkle in the earth’s surface, forms the geological divide between Europe and Asia. More significantly for us, it represented the border separating western Russia from Siberia, which roughly includes all land east of the Urals as far as the Bering Strait, and as far south as the semi-steppe land on the borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. Our planned route through Siberia ran roughly along the southern fringe of the taiga forest. From Lake Baikal it left the northern environment altogether and passed over the high, arid steppe of Mongolia.

  For the first time in ages, we had a string of uneventful days. Besides tick sightings, the only scare happened one afternoon when I discovered that my urine had turned a fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark yellow. I was drinking a lot, so it couldn’t have been due to dehydration. Over lunch, I told Chris.

  ‘What? You too!’ he exclaimed. For the rest of the day we discussed the possible causes; the most frightening being that we had been eating radioactive pryaniki. If that was the case, we were sure to have a high radiation reading. We also recalled the many times we had collected water from drains, and chewed over the prospect that we were destined to become mutants by journey’s end. What with the Soviet Union’s terrible waste management record, heavy-metal pollution and chemically enhanced crops, it didn’t seem that far-fetched. Not to mention the widespread nuclear testing program and the fallout from disasters like Chernobyl.

  A couple of days later, after some simple tests, we were relieved to discover that our extraordinary urine was due to the vitamin-B tablets that we were taking to supplement our diet!

  According to Chris I looked especially dishevelled and dirty as we rode into the city of Perm. Judging from the looks I got, he was probably right. Once again it was a shock to be in civilisation. Perm was the largest city we had been in to date; it positively bustled with activity. We passed a square in which scantily clad girls walked hand in hand with their partners. Drunkards sat on park benches and boys on roller-blades circled around a statue of Lenin. Outdoor cafés emblazoned with the Coca-Cola trademark were an unavoidable eyesore.

  We were both looking forward to a well-earned rest. Unfortunately, we discovered that the only hotels with free rooms were going to blow our budget of $AU4 a day. The Kirov hotel and the cost of the gamma gobulin for my injection in Glazov had set us back substantially.

  On my return from another fruitless hunt for cheap accommodation, Chris was talking to a couple of guys and a girl. They were probably in their early twenties. They greeted me with vigorous handshakes, and it wasn’t long before we took up their invitation to stay with them.

  Our living quarters for the night turned out to be a rust-bucket cabin surrounded by a tall, barbed security fence. Squeezed between our cabin and the security fence were hundreds of lockers where workers at a nearby market kept all of their goods overnight. There were no taps, so we washed our faces with the scummy water from a rusty metal drum.

  Of the three hosts, one seemed to be making all the decisions and looking after us. He was a short and stocky man with a crewcut and a remarkable scar that ran down his forehead to below his left eye. His dark skin and bushy eyebrows were distinctive among the mostly Caucasian Russians. He said he was of Indian descent and that his name was Sergei.

  While Chris dumped his gear and took off, I sat on the doorstep and talked with Se
rgei. He told me that he had spent six years in a Russian jail, and had first been locked away at the age of sixteen. He recounted his experience with pride and explained that his family and siblings had all done their time as well. Apparently, he had been arrested for smoking and dealing marijuana. Nowadays, he was a sports trainer at a school.

  There was something about the way he spoke that suggested he respected our journey, and even envied us. I thought that he was about to open up when he shook my hand and took off.

  Later in the evening I realised something wasn’t right. Two men burst through the door, changed their clothes, washed their hands, placed a pair of scissors under a cushion and ran off again.

  When Chris returned with a loaf of bread and some jam for dinner, Sergei came running in with the girl we had met earlier. They hassled us for a spoon and minutes later I watched the girl inject something into her arm with a syringe.

  In the early hours of the morning, we were woken from our sleep by an erratic banging at the steel door.

  ‘Who is it?’ I yelled, trying to sound infuriated.

  ‘It’s me!’ came the crazed voice of a woman, followed by a sickly giggle.

  I let her in and for ten minutes she traipsed around the cabin shrieking unintelligibly before disappearing into the night.

  Obviously, it was not going to be a night for sleep. When I did manage to close my eyes, I was plagued by a familiar dream. I was sitting on the couch at home in Australia. I tried to move but couldn’t. I felt powerless, hopeless, mute. My family and friends milled around, looking on with growing concern. They seemed happy that I was home, but somehow surprised, as if my return was unexpected. I sensed that they assumed I had plans for the future, and wanted to know what they were.

  All I could say to them was, ‘Let’s see what is next.’ Suddenly, I was left alone, waiting for eternity, as if I had stepped off into a great swamp of grey nothing. The future was a blank. It dawned on me that by returning home I had cut off my ties with the life I had built in Russia and Finland.

  I didn’t need any help to work out what the dream meant. Here in Russia, I knew who I was, what I wanted and had found freedom. And yet day by day, as we cycled east towards Beijing, we were nearing the end of the experience and moving away from the place that I loved. I imagined the flight home would be like spiralling back to earth, completing the process of self-administered exile.

  The following afternoon I was browsing through a market stall when someone shouted from behind. I turned to see Sergei and his friend running towards me in a sweat. They looked panic-stricken.

  ‘Tim, c’mon, let’s go back and have a chat with Chris. Where have you been?’ Sergei shouted.

  Back at the cabin he looked grave. ‘Tim, understand, I have already told Chris. My grandmother died today, and I desperately need three hundred roubles for the funeral.’ Three hundred roubles was the equivalent of AU$18.

  I reached into my pocket and handed over thirty-five roubles in change. He snatched it without a word of thanks.

  ‘No, Tim, you don’t understand. Thirty-five is nothing; I need three hundred. I will pay you back tomorrow.’ He clenched his fist and looked away for a moment before glaring back at me. His eyes had turned a darker shade. ‘Tim, I just can’t imagine what will happen if I don’t get the money.’

  He was pretty small and between Chris and I, he didn’t pose much of a threat. But then again his experience in jail had probably toughened him up. Hoping to get some breathing space, and stave off coming to blows, I thought of a temporary solution. ‘Well, we haven’t got money. But maybe I can get some using my credit card.’ I had been speaking in Russian and Chris looked at me in confusion. He knew that I didn’t have a credit card. What he didn’t know was that I did have an expired card. I produced the card and asked Sergei if he knew the whereabouts of an automatic teller machine.

  ‘Be careful, Tim, be careful. There are criminals everywhere. I will help you protect it. You can trust me. Don’t show it to anyone,’ Sergei said, his eyes glued to the card.

  With Sergei in the lead, we went in search of a bank. We spoke only in Russian. Fearing that Sergei would sense something was afoot, I did not tell Chris my plan.

  ‘Let’s see, if I withdraw five hundred roubles, when you pay me back tomorrow I will have just enough money to get us on the road to Ekaterinburg,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, of course. I will pay you back tomorrow morning,’ he replied.

  ‘Please send my deepest sympathies to your family.’

  ‘Yeah, I know it’s just awful. I rang her this morning and she was fine. This afternoon she passed away. Now they are digging her grave,’ he said. He shook his head sorrowfully.

  Eventually, we came to a teller machine. It was enclosed in a special room that could only be opened with a swipe of a card.

  My mind raced. Sergei glared impatiently through the glass door. I knew that the card wouldn’t work. It dawned on me that if I typed an incorrect PIN number it would cause the machine to eat the card. To my dismay the card was spat straight back out. ‘Card expired, call your bank’ read the message on the screen.

  I eyed the disposal slot, but the card was too thick. ‘All right then, it looks like you are going into the receipt slot,’ I muttered. Frantically, I pushed the card into the slot.

  ‘Tim what are you doing in there? Where is the money?’ shouted Sergei, banging on the glass. Halfway in, the card jammed. I pushed harder but it wouldn’t budge, and now it wouldn’t come out either.

  The banging came again. I pushed the card harder and it disappeared from sight. Then I stepped through the door looking bewildered and upset. Under the circumstances it came pretty naturally. ‘The machine ate my card!’

  Sergei fell for it. Unfortunately, so did Chris. Before I knew it there was a crackle over an intercom on the wall. ‘What’s the problem?’ a voice enquired.

  ‘Tim, tell the lady what happened!’ Chris shouted, angrily.

  ‘Chris, Chris, mate, it didn’t really eat my card,’ I whispered.

  ‘The machine ate this man’s card. What are you going to do about it?’ Sergei demanded.

  Meanwhile, Chris stormed through the door and withdrew money with his own card. When he emerged, Sergei grabbed the money, waved down a car and disappeared.

  Chris and I walked back to the cabin, agreeing that we should leave the city as soon as possible. We’d barely had time to reflect on the journey from Kirov, let alone take in Perm and rest our bodies. Worst of all, we’d been hoodwinked out of a substantial sum of money – more than the hotel would have cost. And we hadn’t even had a decent wash!

  ———

  I felt jaded. How could someone spoil the perfect lifestyle we had been leading to this point? For days, as we rode east, the image of Sergei’s steely eyes was branded into my head. The worst thing was that I had seen the caring and genuine side of him. How could he lie so blatantly and not be ashamed? I put it down to the drugs, but really there was no excuse. In hindsight it wasn’t a lot of money, but it meant a great deal to us – five days of living costs and a further depleted budget.

  It wasn’t just Sergei we were escaping, but the city itself. Perm had felt like an island of unhappiness cast like a stone into the paradise that was Russia. Come to think of it, all cities had the same effect. It usually took an hour or so of riding to get through a city, from one end to the other, before we were back among the solitude of lonely roads. In that hour we encountered more problems than in weeks of riding.

  For hours we rode in silence. The landscape seemed to have irrevocably changed; the northern forests were a thing of the past. Fields stretched to every horizon, ploughed by old Soviet machinery. Rusty signs proclaimed each former collective farm a ‘paradise’. The phrase Slava Trudu was forged in steel along the roadside and painted onto the rooftops of houses. Roughly translated it means ‘hail labour’. Most of the old propaganda was peeling off and rusting.

  With the dry earth and hint of summer growth, I w
as suddenly overcome with chronic hayfever. This seemed to be a substitute for the ticks that we encountered in the forest. I wondered if there would ever be a time when the environment gave an ounce of mercy.

  We found some comic relief from our problems by discussing the superhuman strength that overcomes a person when they desperately need to find a toilet. We had both been in such situations, in the midst of considerable traffic and with no private place to relieve oneself. When you could no longer hold out, you would dump the bike on the roadside and make a desperate dash for the nearest bushes or cluster of trees. When it was all over, you would turn around to find that in the process of getting there, you had jumped two-metre ditches, pushed through brambles, even squeezed through narrow gaps between trees, which, under normal circumstances, would have been physically impossible to fit through. Getting back to the road was often near impossible. It reminded us of stories about people who had suddenly found the strength to lift up a tractor or car to rescue someone trapped underneath.

  A refreshing wind brought relief as we finally hit the Urals. The small rounded hills were a welcome change from the treeless plains. Once again the road carved a path through the forest. The birch had begun to sprout fresh translucent leaves. Several lakes dotted the valleys like blue gems and on their shores sleepy little villages looked as timeless as the hills themselves.

  Two hundred kilometres from Ekaterinburg, we awoke to the patter of light snowflakes falling onto the tent, as soft as ash from a distant forest fire. It had gone from thirty degrees to below zero overnight. It was like the good old times, warming the toes by the fire and shivering violently as we rolled down the first hill. I wondered whether this unseasonal weather was a sign of things to come in Siberia.

  Later that day, I found myself lagging far behind Chris. The return of cold weather had sapped my energy and the pryaniki had disappeared at a frightening rate. Chris was having a good day and for some reason decided to stop for lunch fifteen kilometres further than our agreed location. I suspected that it was the usual build-up of energy that boosted him as he neared Internet access. By the time we met again, I was ready to strangle him but didn’t have the strength.