Off The Rails

by Chris Hatherly

  As I rode, I pondered what seemed like a strangely circular contradiction. We needed to stop in a city every few weeks or so to recharge our bodies, but after a few days of resting in a city, I needed a few weeks of riding to recharge my brain! It didn’t seem to affect Tim in the same way, and as the miles passed I wondered why.

  One of the beauties of cycling is that pedalling alone on a long, empty road allows a lot of time for protracted and uninterrupted trains of thought. After the first few thousand kilometres, the riding becomes second nature and the body can cruise along on autopilot, leaving the mind free to drift and roam. And even if such thoughts are mostly just a mixture of unimportant, irrelevant jumble and are less profound than I always hope they might be, they do inevitably reveal the odd titbit of wisdom. The reason that cities screw me up so much, I decided in the end, has got a lot to do with my being away from Nat.

  Away from the towns, I’d go for long stretches without any contact with her. Starving for details, I’d spend hours trying to imagine what she was up to, and creating faces and personalities for the new friends that she mentioned in her letters. This would go on for weeks, until all in one burst I’d be hearing her voice through the phone and spending hours chatting to her over the Net. A lot of love and energy went into those exchanges and more still into the anguished partings. I left every city feeling like I’d severed a connection just as we were starting to get to know each other again.

  On the other hand, as much as these stops meant to me, I always felt a kind of impotent frustration while stationary in a city. I’d come over here to ride. To ride, to meet Russians and to experience life in the villages and countryside. The cities were good in that they let us stock up on supplies, but for me they never held much fascination. It was only on the bikes that I was really in my element and I think that Tim felt the same way too.

  As the days passed, my mood improved immensely. By the time I got close to Tyumen, I was feeling inspired and ready to get into the next leg of our journey with new gusto. The time apart from Tim had been a boon. I’d gotten over many of my petty frustrations and although I hadn’t exactly been lonely, I was looking forward to having a friend with whom I could share thoughts over the campfire.

  I pulled over by a dusty embankment exactly twenty kilometres from Tyumen and found a scribbled note in a plastic snap-lock bag tied to the base of a road sign.

  Chris, mate, it read, got here last night and got bitten by another fucking tick. Trying to hitch into Tyumen to go to the hospital this morning and will hopefully be back tonight or tomorrow morning. Left my bike on the other side of this embankment, hope it’s still there.

  When will this shit end?

  Tim

  I pushed my bike over the embankment to find Tim’s bike in a heap on the other side. There was another note attached. This one told the story again, in case I hadn’t found the first message, and also told me how to find the spot where he’d camped the previous night.

  About ten o’clock, I was on the verge of brushing my teeth and hopping into bed, when Tim strode down the slope against the sunset-painted sky. He looked tired but successful. I quickly stoked the fire and warmed some soup and macaroni while he told me of another day of adventures in the Russian hospital system.

  We pedalled into Tyumen the next day and left our bikes in a private carpark under the care of a bemused-looking security guard, before taking a bus into the centre. It was a public holiday and the crowds were out in force. The day was meant to be a celebration of the Allied victory in the Second World War – a good couple of months before similar celebrations in the west – but the people in the cafés and on the streets seemed more interested in celebrating the eternal glory of the vodka bottle.

  We found an Internet café and visited the post office before making our way to a central park to have a bite to eat. There was a paved area and a fountain nearby and we watched in horror as an argument between teenagers developed into a brutal bashing. A group of young thugs wearing Reeboks and gold chains stole a Discman from a guy on roller-blades then pulled him to the ground and savagely kicked his head until he managed to get to his feet and skate away. This was not what we’d come to expect from Russia. Although the news bulletins on the television invariably showed gruesome corpses and graphic war footage, we’d never encountered any hint of such public demonstrations of violence. These teenagers were the younger generation of the gopniki. Everything, from their dress to the roller-blades, was lifted straight from MTV, and the shocking violence was chillingly reminiscent of a Bruce Willis movie.

  We bussed back to the outskirts, picked up some groceries from the market, collected our bikes and gratefully pedalled away from town.

  ———

  Ahead, the road stretched over 1000 kilometres to our next destination, the city of Omsk. We rode through areas of undulating hills and low, cleared grazing land. The weather closed in and for three days it alternatively rained and hailed. At one stage, we passed over a huge, recently flooded plain. Dead trees stood in metre-deep water with their lowest branches tugging violently in the swirling current. In other places, the tips of old fence posts protruded above the surface, choppy wind-driven waves lapping incessantly against them.

  The road ran straight through the centre of this unexpected lake, on top of a massive, banked-up causeway that stretched to the horizon. A roaring gale whipped horizontal sheets of rain and hail over the road and we struggled right into the teeth of it. Stinging streaks of water and ice lashed my arms and legs, forcing me to pull my cap down hard to shield my face from the barrage. I was being rained on from underneath too! Eventually, I realised that it was the bizarre wind currents created by the causeway that was tearing water from the surface of the lake and hurling it vertically up at me.

  I struggled along, pedalling in my smallest gears and wobbling dangerously around the road. Tim was somewhere behind me, no doubt finding it tough going, too.

  The countryside changed but the weather remained uncertain. Day after day, we travelled south-east. Soon we’d passed through the southern extremes of the taiga forest and into the vegetation region known as the semi-steppe. Fields of long wild grass replaced the endless expanse of pines and spruce trees and all around stood small and medium-sized forests of white-barked birch trees. There were no fences and the spring leaves were a glorious, fresh bottle-green. We would leave the road after our day’s ride and bounce, often for miles across the open plains to find the perfect camp site on the edge of a forest. Sometimes, a curious stockboy on horseback would drive his herd of lazy cattle towards our campfire for a chat. Often, we saw thin tendrils of smoke rising skyward from a village on the horizon.

  We were woken at dawn on one such morning by the sound of a horse’s hooves outside the tent door. I looked out to see a young guy who’d visited our camp the evening before. One of the cows from the village herd had wandered off and he wanted to know if we’d seen it. We hadn’t, but it didn’t take him long to find out where it was.

  The cow had been killed by a truck on the road during the night, and as we wheeled our bikes out of the forest, we saw that an old woman was already busy gutting and skinning the carcass. She was anxious to get the meat preserved before it went to waste. Helping her was a man who’d brought a tractor to haul away the remains. Our young friend, the cowherd, was standing nearby in tears. He told us that he’d have to work for six months without wages to repay the owner. We gave him a bottle of vodka that had been given to us by an overexcited driver a few days before. Maybe he’d be able to sell it and start raising the sum that way, or maybe he’d just try to find a solution at the far end of the bottle.

  As the skies finally started to clear, we met a great number of people drawn to the outdoors by the warmer weather; they were all amazed by the spectacle of our weird recumbent bicycles. Kids who’d never even heard of Australia pedalled frantically beside us on ancient, oversized bicycles, firing breathless questions. Middle-aged men in sturdy grey clothing waved us down
to share a quick shot of vodka, or a pocketful of unshelled sunflower seeds.

  There was an art to eating these sunflower seeds – semichki, as they are called – that I never quite mastered. The little black seed is popped into the mouth and a clever nip with the teeth opens the shell so that the tongue can extract the kernel. Then, all in one fluid action, the husk is spat out onto the ground – or the floor, or the bus seat, wherever the person happens to be.

  Eating semichki is something of a national pastime. There are little weather-beaten babushkas standing on virtually every street corner selling them for a pittance. Almost everyone we met had a stash and was willing to share but it took months before I came close to getting the technique right. During that time, I threw countless crowds into roaring fits of laughter as they watched the Australian splutter and choke on his bloody semichki. Usually, I’d get fed up and simply swallow the darned things whole until, months later, I learnt that the husks are carcinogenic. On the other hand, I’d also read that due to the potent fertilisers used during Soviet times, the average middle-aged Russian would have consumed sixty percent of their bodyweight in heavy metals and toxins. With the huge appetites brought on by riding we were probably eating at least three times as much as the average Russian and, doing the maths, that meant we’d had up to 1.5 kilograms of lethal chemicals each over the year! With all that inside me, the sunflower seeds were hardly going to make any difference.

  With the warmer weather and our improving fitness, we were soon covering up to 100 kilometres a day. Just to add spice, a few days before reaching Omsk, I caught a stomach bug that had me regularly sprinting to hide behind the first available tree, with my pants down and retching at the same time. I spent a day groaning in the tent and cut my diet to bread and water before I improved enough to ride again. All the same, during the final days into Omsk, Tim would often come across my bike hastily dumped by the roadside, with me nowhere to be seen. We covered the distance steadily and reached the city in the nick of time. I’d just used my last square of toilet paper.

  Bruce

  Omsk – Scotland

  Late Spring 2000

  ———

  Tim

  The apartment blocks were coming to life. Windows glittered like golden gems embedded into concrete monoliths. I paced along the banks of the Irtys River, growing tired with each slap of my boots on the pavement. We had only been in Omsk for two days but I felt the need to escape. There was just too much to digest. The streetscape was a constantly spinning kaleidoscope of people and events, traffic and shop-fronts. I found it easier to cope in the countryside where each village scene was vivid but not cluttered.

  For a while I almost gave up hope; the river appeared to be all but strangled by a network of bridges, buildings and outdoor cafés. It was with relief that I eyed a narrow beach below the embankment and out of sight of the traffic. I scurried down a flight of stairs, took off my shoes and collapsed on the sand.

  There I lay listening to my heart calm down. The sand gave way to the contours of my sore body and I felt the tension begin to drain. I always began these moments of therapy with the most basic observation that came to mind, feeling that this would be the foundation for making sense of a complex world.

  When I sat up, resting my elbows in the sand, I found myself engrossed by the river. The same breeze that tugged gently at my hair ruffled the open, murky water. The riverbanks were steep and rose ten or fifteen metres to the base of buildings perched close to the edge. This steep terrain was the only stronghold of nature; scraggy bushes and trees clung on for a shot at life. Carried along in the current I noticed some driftwood and tried to imagine its journey; passing through the city would be a fleeting moment as it wound its way north for thousands of kilometres, joining the Ob River, one of the longest in Siberia, and journeying through forest and tundra, to eventually drift into the Arctic Ocean. I sympathised with the bushes and envied the driftwood.

  Then the words came back to me as bluntly as I had read them half an hour earlier on e-mail: ‘Basically, bouncers and an undercover policeman beat me up. My nose and cheekbone were broken and my teeth knocked severely. My nose was put back into place but is now permanently bent. My teeth are still numb.’

  It came from my nineteen-year-old brother, Jonathan. Jon has always been like a best friend to me. He has the muscular body of an athletic hero. As we were growing up, his build highlighted my weedy figure, typified by my kneecaps that are wider than my thigh muscles. Yet behind Jon’s broad shoulders and beefy chest, I knew him to be a soft and caring person.

  I pictured the bewildered look on his face as some brute mistook him for a thug and smashed his face, knocking him unconscious. It brought back flashes of the incident in Tyumen when we had watched a boy on roller-blades being attacked.

  I thought of my mother. She had probably been more hysterical than Jon about it all.

  When the air began to chill I made my way back to the hotel room where Chris was still lying in bed. His bouts of diarrhoea had worsened in Omsk and he couldn’t keep food down. I had spent two days trying to find a tent for the solo journey to Novosibirsk. Failing that, I bought some material and befriended a family that owned an old manual sewing machine. I was quite proud of the fly netting I had subsequently made, which would hang inside my loue shelter and protect me from ticks and mosquitoes.

  ‘Hey, Chris, mate, what do you reckon about this?’ I asked, unravelling the netting.

  He rolled onto his back and groaned. ‘God, I feel like crap,’ he said. ‘But I think I am getting better, and there is no way we can spend more time in the city. It’s hell watching you munch down ice-creams and greasy pies when I can barely stomach bread!’

  ‘Yeah, it must be. But check out this fresh batch of potato pies. They’re steaming hot, came straight out of a babushka’s handbag. Divine!’ I replied, provoking a grin across his pale face.

  We agreed that we would leave the following day and split up for the 800 kilometres or so to Novosibirsk. We had been talking about going our separate ways for months. Not only would it be a chance to clear the air between us, but it would also give us the chance to experience Russia alone.

  At midday the next day we were in a parking lot making final arrangements. Dusty Ladas rattled over the bumpy tarmac on the nearby street. The parking lot was boxed in with rusty old lockers and portable garages. The manager wandered about in the sweltering heat, grazing on an ice-cream.

  There was just one more thing to do, and then we could leave the wretched city behind. We only had the one road atlas between us and needed to make a photocopy so that we could each have a map.

  Feeling a little irritated, I made my way to a crooked watchtower where a bored security worker sat brooding over his desk. He responded blankly to my questions. In the meantime a short bearded man shouldered up beside me. ‘What do we have here, a traveller?’

  His name was Misha. Minutes later I was in his car, roaring from one commercial centre to the next. In a city of more than a million people, it was possible to find top-of-the-line luxury cars and hi-fi equipment, but not a single bike-tube repair kit or photocopier.

  Unexpectedly, Misha pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘Go on, ring home to Australia!’ he insisted, as he swerved and overtook another Lada.

  ‘No, do you realise how expensive it is? I can’t,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Go on, just do it!’

  I dialled home. ‘Hello, Dad. This is Tim, just calling from Omsk,’ I said.

  ‘Tim, have you heard the sad news?’ he asked almost immediately.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your Scottish friend Bruce Cooper, he passed away on Thursday night. He committed suicide.’

  ———

  At 5.30 a.m. the next morning I slid my putrid travel clothes on, flipped a small rucksack over my shoulder and left for Omsk Airport.

  ‘Chris, I have never been so frightened in my life,’ I whispered.

  The Lada that took me to the airport broke
down and I left the driver cursing and kicking the tyres in the morning greyness. By the time I stumbled into the airport, I was dripping wet from heavy rain.

  Within twenty-four hours, I was in London waiting for a bus ride to Scotland. Bruce’s funeral was to be in a week.

  From Victoria bus station, I called some friends who I hadn’t spoken to in a year or two. I hoped to find some comfort in a familiar voice, but midway through my first call I felt something peculiar in my pocket. As the money began to run out on the phone, I felt for more change only to realise that someone had stolen my electronic address organiser. I had no other records and couldn’t ring my friend back to finish the call. Three years of accumulated contacts and friends disappeared. I had AU$100 left, no credit card, and no phone numbers. I spent the evening in a police station filing a report. At 12 a.m. I boarded a bus for the twelve-hour journey to northern Scotland.

  An eternity later, the bus wound and jerked its way through the Highlands. I crouched over the toilet bowl in the tiny cubicle at the back of the bus, being thrown from side to side against the flimsy plastic walls. My body felt limp and battered. I hadn’t eaten in fifteen hours or so, and watched without expression as the bile dribbled out my nose, down my hairy chin and into the discoloured bowl.

  At 10.30 a.m. the bus pulled into the small town of Aviemore. Neil, Bruce’s twin brother, had come to meet me. ‘Bruce!’ I almost cried out.