Finally there were movements in the living room and Nikita shuffled into the kitchen. Still half asleep, he stood and stared at them in the weak morning light.
“What the hell are you two doing? Are you out of your minds?” He scanned the kitchen for a clock, but there wasn’t one. There never had been. “I can’t believe you’re still boozing. We have to be on the road in a couple of hours!”
His disapproval was obvious from the way he pronounced “boozing”. He was right, none of them should have been drinking in the first place. They were all dehydrated. Nikita turned the tap on and bent his head down to it. The pipe made a loud noise and started shuddering as though it were about to explode. He had to turn it off quickly so as not to wake up the entire block.
“Yeah, you’re right,” declared Nastya. “We probably ought to get some sleep, Vadim. Even a little is better than none. You know you’re going to feel like shit later on.”
Of course he knew it! Lack of sleep is always an issue when you’re out on the road, whether you’re huddled by a roadside verge or spending the night in a rowdy squat. But the real challenge starts when you get into a warm car with soft seats, and the road is nice and smooth… Then you have to fight to stay awake! It’s generally a losing battle, to be honest, but you have to give it your best shot, particularly if your equally sleep-starved long-distance driver is in the mood for a chat. It’s the worst kind of torture. Vadim had on two occasions managed to hold conversations with drivers in his sleep, whilst dreaming that he was talking to someone else entirely… so of course he had no idea what he might have said. He didn’t even want to think about it.
He’d been there enough times to know exactly how he would feel! But he couldn’t help it…
Now the matter was taken out of his hands. After washing her face and rinsing her mouth out (setting the tap off again in the process), Nastya went into the living room to sleep. Nikita had already gone back to bed. So what choice did he have? He wasn’t going to sit there alone listening to the birds. It felt as though both his body and his mind had been wrapped in cotton wool. Vadim followed them into the living room and automatically unrolled his worn-out old sleeping bag. He looked around for somewhere to lie and chose a spot under the table. Now he just needed to find his jumper and fold it up like a pillow… That was the only reason he carried a jumper in July. Where was it? Oh, sod it. He’d have to try and sleep without it.
The sun’s first rays were unbearably yellow. They climbed in through the windows, gradually taking over the whole building. It wasn’t time for alarm clocks yet, and the city was still and quiet. The empty tramlines ran off into the distance, shining like polished gold.
The state highways never slept, although there weren’t many cars out here either at this time of the morning. The sun reflected off the clean, smooth tarmac, turning the roads into mirrors and making it difficult to focus on the road. Most long-distance drivers were still resting, and their KamAZ trucks stood in idle herds at every police checkpoint and roadside café.
It was early in the morning, and things were looking good.
Right now the highway was deserted, and it was hard to imagine a better place than this to put on your rollerblades and skate to your heart’s content, the wind whistling in your ears.
The first ray of sun looked in through the window of Squire’s living room. They were all fast asleep… Or were they? If someone was still awake and crying, it was nobody’s business but their own.
11
I heard once that we only dream in colour when we’re young. Is that true? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that when you’re older – when your life is taken over by nappies… OK, maybe not nappies but the school reports of your growing offspring, when you’re stuck in a rut at work and there are arguments every evening at home, when you crawl into bed knowing that you have to get up again in just a few hours, cursing your alarm clock – maybe then you’re not capable of dreaming at all. Biologically speaking you are, but not in any real sense.
Once people get past that stage and start heading for senility, when they forget the medical term for the condition they’re suffering and reality contracts and recedes like skin, very often all that’s left is the dreams of their youth. The kind of dreams in which they soared through the sky and saw the world from above… Doctors believe that these dreams are a sign that we’re growing.
I had a dream like that recently. I was climbing a ladder up the side of an enormous factory chimney in the city centre. It was shaky and very high up, with red clearance lights fixed to the sides. And I was up there! I’ve always had a pathological fear of heights, but in the dream I just kept on climbing and climbing. My hands were freezing, because it was winter, and the city lay beneath me enshrouded in frozen, pearl-coloured exhaust fumes. Because of the frost, the smoke from the chimney wasn’t dissipating and stretched into the sky for tens of kilometres. It was thick and soft, like cotton wool, and not all toxic. I know this because I dived into it. Yes, right into the middle of it.
Can you dream the future? Is it possible? Nobody knows for sure, but in his dreams Squire saw the coming winter. There was nothing special about it, incidentally – just another cold, grey winter in Ufa. Cities are pretty much all the same at that time of year. There are the same two types of snow – one is pure white and falls silently, and when you’re far enough away from the factories you can catch it on your tongue; the other is the kind you have to wade through, and its colour is indeterminate. The same trolleybuses, the rank stench of exhaust fumes, the occasional blue-tit and hoarfrost on the trees in the morning. A typical city winter.
That winter Squire was finally kicked out of university. I say “finally” not because I think it’s something you’ve been waiting to hear but because his spectacularly inadequate academic performance had to be addressed sooner or later. On the one hand, it was most unfortunate, but on the other hand by that point he was thoroughly disillusioned by his chosen profession… so it wasn’t worth getting upset about it. At least, that’s what he told himself. He tried his best to reassure his friends too, affecting nonchalance and laughing it off.
What happened next was all too predictable. The cunning zeal of the university’s military department; the uncommon efficiency of the military enlistment office, willing to accept him ahead of the following spring’s conscription round-up; the cold, degrading medical check-up… And basically, that was it. Conscript Squire was told what time and where he had to report for duty and given two weeks to say goodbye to his family and friends.
Squire did actually go back to Sibai, but his parents didn’t shed any tears. It made no difference to them where their good-for-nothing son was – at least this would make a man of him. Once he returned to Ufa the winter days felt long and grey. He managed to fill some of the time retrieving his documents from the university, washing his underwear and buying essentials such as a new razor and a flask. He’d already stocked up on toilet paper.
In a state of mental and physical exhaustion, Squire spent these days on auto-pilot. He spoke in a monotone. He couldn’t believe it – was this it? Was there no way to get out of this stupid situation? He didn’t care about his studies, but really, was this all his life amounted to?
His friends were full of sympathy. Their appalled faces betrayed their horror. Each of them was thinking, “It could have been me!” They spent the last few days before Squire’s conscription wandering aimlessly about the city. They took random trolleybuses to the end of the line, where they would drink beer or vodka before turning around and coming back again. Sometimes they spent the night together. It was a kind of ritual, a farewell send-off.
There’s no point introducing you to Squire’s friends. You wouldn’t remember them anyway, because they’re virtually indistinguishable amongst the thousands just like them – hippies from good families, experimenting with ‘alternative’ lifestyles. Some of them were students who were also about to be kicked out of their academic institutions; one of them, like Squir
e, already had been. They all looked the same, too: leather biker jackets, heavy boots, shoelaces woven into their hair… They used to congregate at Squire’s place, and now he’d been conscripted they would have time on their hands and plenty to think about during the long winter evenings. Or maybe they’d just find somewhere else to hang out.
In fact, Squire’s friends did have something to occupy them right now, besides wandering aimlessly around the town. They had come up with a plan to sell Squire’s hair. Now, I should probably explain… As we all know, Squire would have his head shaved as part of the army enlistment procedure. In other words, this precious asset that he had been cultivating for over three years would be destroyed by an electric razor in a matter of seconds. They couldn’t allow it! So they decided to cut his hair themselves and sell it to the highest bidder, so that it wouldn’t “fall into enemy hands”. They had to salvage something from the situation.
There were plenty of buyers in the city. Squire’s friends dragged him round, gathering contacts and haggling.
They stopped by a lamp-post to investigate yet another flyer proclaiming ‘We Buy Hair!’ This was followed by the dubious but even more familiar assertion: ‘Best Prices Paid!’ The wind had picked up, causing the edges of the advert to flutter. Squire seemed to be the only one not showing an interest in any of it. His attitude was one of complete indifference, while his friends crowded around the advert, arguing, calculating, showing off their business skills – how their teachers would love to see them now!
“Shit! Is that how much they’re paying these days?”
“Read what it says next… They’ll only pay that if the hair’s thirty centimetres or longer.”
“Damn! His isn’t that long yet.”
And it never would be.
The situation was complicated by the fact that hair shorter than thirty centimetres was accepted by weight, and weighing this particular asset while it was still attached to Squire’s head was clearly going to be a challenge. There were a number of other issues to contend with, as well – for example, almost a third of Squire’s hair would have to be combed out because it was of inferior quality. The whole business was enough to make your (unshorn) head spin, and the owner of the relevant ‘commodity’ was the only one who simply didn’t care enough to try and understand it. He just listened to his friends when they specified the days he ought to wash his hair, because a certain amount of grease would make it heavier.
This ridiculous aspect of his enlistment was probably what Squire found most alarming. The longer they spent hanging about by the advert, the more he began to wish that they would hurry up and cut his hair off so that everyone could finally stop going on about it. This thought was enough to induce a wave of panic – he’d been growing it for so long! Oh, but what did it matter now? He himself had been growing for even longer, and look how he was ending up.
Meanwhile it was decided unanimously that they would call the number on the flyer. The number was duly copied down onto the palm of someone’s cold, dry hand, and they set off in search of a phone booth. None of them had a phone card, so they decided to try and borrow one from someone once they’d found a phone.
In the event, they didn’t have to try too hard. They approached a booth they’d spotted, which was making a soft, metallic noise in the wind and the snow. Just at that moment a pretty girl stepped away from it, wrapped up against the cold, and she kindly lent them her card. This group of strapping lads in leather biker jackets must have made quite an impression on her. They reacted with a great show of enthusiasm – with the possible exception of Squire, who suddenly felt like a ‘non-person’. Why was this happening to him? Why?
Was there any point trying to understand it? Was there any point tormenting himself by thinking about his future and what it would be like? No. There was no point to any of it. He’d messed things up, and now it was all over.
The flat that he’d been subletting had already been returned to its legal owner, Mrs Hassanova, a corpulent, taciturn old woman whose clothes were always covered in the husks of sunflower seeds. On Sunday, his last night of freedom, Squire collected his old posters, his cassettes, the material trappings of his former life, and took them out to the rubbish tip. New tenants would be moving in and redecorating soon – they wouldn’t want his old junk lying around. Squire thought of the confused stares that would greet countless young hitchhikers from all over Russia, who would mutter their apologies before crossing this address from their notebooks.
Towards evening the temperature dropped, and the chill in the air officially became a frost. The park was partially illuminated by the few street lamps that remained intact. Although the paths were empty there was every chance that they might run into one of the street gangs, so perhaps they should have chosen a different route… Never mind! Squire and his friends walked through the park, chatting quietly, the hair had been cut off and sold. Are you wondering what Squire looks like without his hair? Well, I can’t tell you, because he’s wearing a woolly hat. And he’s walking in silence.
His friends continued their half-hearted conversation – discussing how much money they’d made, how much they could have made, how much had been combed out, how much it weighed, and so on. But none of it mattered any more – the deed had been done, and the bottles were clinking in their bag.
They sat down on a bench under a street lamp. This place was just as good as any other.
Squire produced the first bottle of vodka. It was a good one, too – none of that lethal fake rubbish from the workers’ districts.
Their disposable plastic glasses crunched like the snow.
“So, what are we drinking to?” His friends were determined to remain optimistic. “Let’s drink to things working out OK for you!”
They didn’t clink their glasses, but this was purely out of practical considerations – when the air is so cold sometimes all it takes is an awkward touch, a tremble of the fingers, for the plastic to shatter in your hand.
If you have to drink vodka outside in subzero temperatures you might as well not bother, because it doesn’t have the slightest effect. It doesn’t get you drunk. You can’t even feel it! But they had to drink, and that was what they were doing day after day in the run-up to Squire’s departure – an inevitable and compulsory ritual.
Squire heard the jackdaws squawking aggressively and looked out at the darkened park, at the illuminated façade of the House of Culture… The street lamps lining the main road disappeared into the distance, and the factory chimney was adorned with red clearance lights.
Squire cried in his sleep.
12
The alarm went off at 7.00 a.m. and Squire hit it with a groan. At 7.10 a.m. the plumbing system broke into a cheerful grumble as Nikita began his morning ablutions.
Maintaining your oral hygiene can be quite a challenge when you’re on the road. Most hitchhikers tend to solve the problem with chewing gum: minty fresh breath in seconds! But that wasn’t our Nikita’s style… Even if he woke up in a forest somewhere, chilled to the bone, after a good stretch he would ceremoniously extract his toothbrush and squat down by a ditch. As for rinsing his mouth out, well, why do you think he carried a bottle of mineral water? It had the added benefit of preventing terminal dehydration on a hot day on the road.
While we’re on the subject, Nikita’s washing accoutrements really were something to behold. Particularly in contrast to Squire’s filthy bathroom, with its grimy surfaces, stray hairs everywhere, and the cracked toilet seat. Nikita Marchenko always carried a plastic wash bag containing his shaving equipment, his deodorant, a travel toothbrush in its own little protective case, a bar of soap and a barely dented tube of toothpaste. He even had a pair of nail scissors. Good for him! A snagged nail is enough to ruin a holiday.
Nikita belonged to the glorious generation of hitchhikers from good families, with smart clothes and plenty of pocket money. Their life’s path was already determined, and there were no potholes to navigate – just a nice, easy ride
.
These boys took to the road, to the anguish and dismay of their doting parents – when they knew about it, of course. You should read Nekrasov’s Russian Women, about Princess Trubetskaya who followed her husband into the depths of the Siberian wilderness – it’s exactly the same impulse.
At 7.15 a.m. Nikita was still brushing his teeth. He knew that he was going to be successful, to get on in life. He knew that it was worth preserving a perfect, white smile, because it could be a valuable asset in years to come.
At 7.20 a.m. all four of them finally sat down at the table for a breakfast of boiled pasta without salt or butter, or any particular enthusiasm on their part. They couldn’t tell whether it was tasteless because Squire had overcooked it or because it was cheap pasta. Either way, they had to eat it. They needed the energy.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any ketchup, have you?” asked Vadim, who was having trouble swallowing.
“I’m not sure… Have a look in the fridge. Maybe someone left some.”
They continued their breakfast in complete silence, lost in their own thoughts. They all felt apprehensive about heading out to the highway. In their minds they were already out there, on the road, so they didn’t feel much like talking. Or eating, for that matter.
At 7.30 a.m. they began making their final preparations, rummaging around in their rucksacks and tightening the straps on their sleeping bags. Then just one tradition remained. Nikita went up to Squire.
“Have you got a bit of paper? We’ll leave you our addresses in St Petersburg.”
“Just write them on the wallpaper over there in the corner – see?”
Nikita went over to the corner and saw pictures of naked girls mixed up with scrawled addresses, names of cities and so on. He carefully wrote out his address. He always carried a pen with him.
“Vadim, shall I write down your address?”
Off the Beaten Tracks Page 7