We are legion, dots scattered along the road, romantic followers of our guru Jack Kerouac, members of the same mendicant order, and the motto on our crest could read, In via veritas or, more simply, “The Road Is Always Right”. Our destinations differ and the routes we take, but we are as one in our sense that only here, on the road, are we truly free.
We are twenty years old, give or take, do not yet have a past, do not look to the future, and in the present have only the road ahead, the asphalt, and the jubilant knowledge that everybody else has lost track of us.
We emerged only recently. We are still only starting out. We are on a high and embrace our road, anticipating its gifts, not knowing where it will lead us.
And you, capricious road, now smiling, now incensed, how are we to detect the moment when your mood changes? You are life, and destiny, the unique instance of all possible combinations. Right here, right now, with this person, and we know no alternative.
What an ordeal our way back had been! A wearisome ordeal, as though the mountains and the Enchanted Lake did not want to let us go. If up to the Urals we were on a roll, after them our way was difficult but it was too late to do anything about it. Why that was, what caused it I have yet to understand, but at the very beginning of our progress Grand said, “The road is a continuous test for us. It is always waiting to see our reaction. We are always facing a choice, and what happens next depends on each step we take.”
“But what about luck?” “Luck on the road is not a matter of chance. It depends directly on you yourself, how open you are, how ‘beyond reproach’, how capable of transcending yourself, of accepting and loving everything around you. That will determine how easy and enjoyable your way will be. Ask yourself whether at this moment you’re loving what’s around you.”
I looked around and shrugged. We were walking in Omsk, the weather was great, the rucksack wasn’t feeling too heavy. I supposed I was loving it all, why not?
We went to the market. Grand decided to buy food. He left me looking after the rucksacks and disappeared. He had left me in a corner near empty stalls where nobody needed to come and with two rucksacks, each of which was up to my waist, yet within five minutes some lanky character showed up and started telling me how much he liked tourists.
“I was a tourist once myself. The Caucasus, the Khibin Mountains, the Sayans. I travelled all over the place, but now those years are gone. I am completely past it.” As he said all this, he assumed a suitably mournful expression, although his face, haircut and everything about his lithe figure indicated that here was a man who took very good care of himself. His hair was still impeccably black, with a single bleached strand flopping over his forehead. Above his silkily gleaming black shirt, flirtatiously open at the collar, lay a flat gold chain.
I had seen him in the distance, while he was still a couple of rows of stalls away. He was quite a height and towered over the stallholders. I noticed him because he was so unlike the kind of people you usually find shopping for groceries at the market.
“I’m past it and need to make money,” he went on. I tried to deduce his intention in approaching me from his expression. “Make money, feed the family. I used to have my own business but then we had the currency default, one thing and another. I work as a shipping agent for an Irish restaurant now.” To prove it he incongruously shook a goodly bunch of leeks.
“Ah, youth!” he sighed. “You must let me buy you a meal. There is a place over there, nothing special but clean. Everyone knows me there. It’s on me.” For some reason I was reluctant to go and eat with him. I played for time, hoping that when Grand came he would decline to share our company with this oversized ex-tourist.
But he didn’t. The three of us took ourselves over to the diner, bringing our rucksacks. Our new acquaintance ordered food, and vodka for himself. While we ate he talked. “You should get married,” he said, looking Grand unblinkingly in the eye. Grand only smiled. “Get married and get on with having children. They will be there to support you later on. Myself, I married at nineteen and already have a son helping me. I’ve got a daughter too. What a stunning little daughter I have!”
Grand was not directly facing him and his smile was fairly non-committal. I could tell he didn’t believe a word of it and, like me, was trying to work out what all this was leading up to. Our man started getting into his stride and telling us about an accident he and his family had been involved in. His mother-inlaw had been killed and after that his much loved little daughter had developed a stutter. He didn’t know what to do about it. His face was flushed, his neck too, and the part of his chest you could see through the unbuttoned collar. A swollen vein was throbbing under his cheekbone. We listened in silence and when we had finished our meal he produced a wad of banknotes.
“Tell you what,” he said, “Why don’t I give you five hundred roubles? Money always comes in handy when you’re on the road.” We exchanged glances and started protesting rather feebly that we couldn’t possibly, but our benefactor was emphatic. It was a wad of fifties. He counted out ten, put them on the table and looked at us. “My name is Pyotr,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll remember me one day.” He downed what was left of the vodka and left.
After waiting long enough for him to get out of sight, Grand stood up and said quietly, “Let’s get out of here”. He swept up the money, crisscrossed the two rucksacks over his head and rushed out of the café. I looked longingly at our sugar daddy’s untouched meal and helped myself to the remaining slices of bread.
We fled from the market and made our way through back alleys, doubling back on ourselves. We changed the fifties in kiosks, buying trivial items. Grand was constantly looking back, focused and purposeful, but nobody came after us.
We left the town as unproblematically as we had entered it. The driver of a foreign car who picked us up asked loudly and incredulously where we were going and why we chose to travel this way. “I can’t understand you,” he said. “I like comfort and independence.” “This is independence,” we replied. “The freedom to go where you like and sleep where you like.” “No! It’s far better to have your own car.” “Property is unfreedom,” Grand said, and the driver laughed.
He had a sturdy black Jeep which was spacious, soft and quiet. Sounds sank into the beige leather upholstery. The way he drove meant you had no sensation of the roadway beneath the wheels and could forget about everything outside the windows. It was like flying. In the blacklist of vehicles renowned among hitch-hikers for never, or only exceptionally, giving lifts, Jeeps occupy the number one spot. To every rule, however, there are exceptions and this was one of them. He shrugged off our questions about where he had come from and where he was going. “Compared with you, just across the street.” Then he started talking about all the countries he had visited. He talked a lot but in a great rush, and gaps suddenly appeared in his tales. As if forgetting what he was about to say, he would fall silent, carrying on after a pause from the same place.
At the boundary between two provinces he stopped, leaned back in his seat and said, “That’s it. I’m not driving any further. I need to sleep.” “Aren’t you going to Tyumen, then?” “I’m going to Sochi. From Irkutsk. Do me a favour, I’ve been driving for eighteen hours. It was good talking to you, but there are limits.” We dutifully got out. He stretched and started doing some relaxation exercises. The road was empty, the sky cloudy, and it was evening. I miserably breathed in the damp air.
“Get you a meal?” he asked, heading for the café. We’d already put on our rucksacks but were tempted. Grand shrugged uncertainly and looked across at me. I thought he felt it was awkward to refuse and wanted me to do it for him. “No,” I said firmly. “We’re in a hurry to get to Tyumen.” “As you will,” the driver said, shrugged and walked away.
We went back to the roadside but got no further that night.
“Turn, look them in the eye and say to yourself, ‘Stop!’” “And what will happen?” Sergey asks, looking at me anxiously. “Everything depend
s on your intention,” I reply seriously. “If it’s strong a vehicle will stop for you.” “I just say ‘Stop’ and nothing more?”
I feel mildly irritated. It’s quite early and we’ve just come out. “No, you have to raise your hand as well. Get it?” He shrugs uncertainly. “Let’s get started, then. It’s best to put the bag down. No, not too far away or you won’t be able to find it again. Put it beside you. Now turn to face the traffic, look the drivers in the eye and say: ‘Stop!’”
“Stop!” Sergey says obediently. “You don’t have to say it out loud. It’s an order you’re transmitting. You can do that mentally. What matters is that you should want it. It’s a good idea to raise your hand or they won’t know what you’re standing here for. And smile.”
“Should I have my hand open or closed?” Gods give me patience! Now I’m glad I took Roma’s advice and came here by train. He said that if we wanted to hitch, it would be better to do it on the way back or we might spend all day getting here and not have time to get home. Sergey is not someone it would be a bundle of laughs being stranded with on the highway at night.
We stand there and Sergey dutifully holds out his hand. He’s in front and I can’t see his expression. I try not to think about him and focus on the vehicles. It’s the hottest part of the day, there’s a lot of traffic, but they all drive by without so much as a glance in our direction. Oh, road, could you not just send us one car to take us straight back to Moscow? A nice long-distance one. Actually, no. This mole would learn nothing from that. I’m going to have to put up with getting covered in dust with him on the verge.
What a great, happy feeling this is! Even the wind, that special highway wind that gusts with every vehicle which passes, pleases me, even if it does sometimes snatch the cap from my head. The smell here is so familiar and dear to me. It’s just Sergey… He is a sorry sight, standing there with his arm limply outstretched. In the morning he was in the kitchen waiting for me, looking ready for inspection, all washed and ironed and the only thing missing was the customary bunch of flowers. Instead he had an empty travel bag in his hand. His tone of voice and his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept all night. We fare-dodged on the train. He had actually done that before in his life. In the city he was gallant and pretended to be my boyfriend. He talked enthusiastically about a forthcoming tour of the chamber orchestra he was playing in now, and tried surreptitiously to take my arm. I found that comical, removed my arm and put my hands in my pockets. I felt bereft without the familiar rucksack on my back.
By now his spirits are failing and he is starting to regret having got involved in all this. He stoops with embarrassment and is almost certainly worrying now about what the driver in each car is thinking of him. He needn’t worry. Nobody is paying us any attention or they would have stopped. Before you brake, you need to have opened your heart. How can I explain that to him?
“Sergey, ask yourself what you’re offering these people. What do you have that you’re going to give them?” “What? But I asked you if we have to pay? You said we didn’t and I’ve brought almost no money with me.” He turns to face me, upset. “I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about you.” “What about me? What do you mean? Is there something wrong with the way I look?”
He examines himself and nervously brushes down his trousers. I feel that wave of irritation rising in me again. “Sergey, there are three rules you must remember if you want to hitch: we don’t owe anyone anything; nobody owes us anything either; we are fun, and that’s why people give us a lift.”
I see uncertainty in Sergey’s face. Have I convinced him? We’ll have to wait and see, but if he pays anyone, I’ll kill him.
It was raining in the morning so it was after midday when we emerged. We stood there for a long time without getting a lift. It was a boggy area and the road surface was incredibly cracked and rutted with potholes. The vehicles were swerving all over the place to avoid them and had no time for us. We walked on to find a smoother part of the road but it didn’t help.
Eventually, an old dirty white Lada stopped. Its driver told us God had spoken to him. “He told me you were good people. He said, ‘Give them a lift and take them to the city because they are good people.’ What God tells me to do, I do.”
He told us one should desire nothing and have no ambition because, if God so willed, everything would come to us. “God has promised me He will resurrect my father and my sister’s husband. Where are you from yourselves, not from Tyumen? Never mind, even you will hear the tidings when the Lord performs this miracle.”
It was night in Tyumen and he dropped us off at the turning for the city. There were trees on our side of the road and a brightly lit petrol station on the other. We crossed.
It was well lit and empty. Our footsteps resonated crisply on the concrete apron, echoing back from the service station’s dome. Out of the shop came a little drunk geezer in a T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops. We recognised him as a trucker and he recognised us as hitch-hikers. Looking pleased, he headed our way.
“Where are you going? Why, we’re going that way too! Come with us. We’re parked over there, three trucks. We’ve already got one of yours, a kid going from Vladivostok to Petersburg, and now we’ll have you as well. There’s room enough and it’ll be more fun with us all together.”
“Where are you going yourselves?” “All the way to Moscow.” “When are you aiming to get there?” “We’ve got a full load. Right now we’ll be crossing the Urals, then drive on to Chelyaba, so we should be in Moscow by Friday.” We could hear the pride he took in his slow, heavy truck.
“Okay, we’ll be right back. We’ll just get some water and come over,” I said. “Come on now! We’ve got everything already. We’re just going to cook up some pelmeni.” “We won’t be a moment. You go on ahead.” “Okay. You’ll find us with no trouble.”
He went off. We cleaned our teeth in the filling station toilet, got water, and retreated to the other side of the road to hide in the freshness and shade of the trees. We pitched the tent among marvellous ferns. I really didn’t want to spend five days in the company of truckers, and also didn’t fancy sharing with another hitch-hiker. I thought we’d get to Moscow faster by car. Grand just shrugged.
The next morning we found we were near a factory. There was heavy traffic but we struggled for half a day without going anywhere. It was hot and dusty and the trucks driving into the plant were deafening. We eventually had to recognise that just standing there and thumbing wasn’t going to work, so we started running up to every truck which stopped at the factory entrance and asking them to move us on away from here.
“Just take us into town, anywhere. We’ll make our own way from there,” we pleaded and eventually a KamAZ truck driver nodded without looking at us. Equally silently, without once looking at us, he drove us through the city, let us out on the roadside and, waving straight ahead, grunted “Sverdlovsk is that way”. We were happy.
In the evening we got a lift in a new Lada. “I can’t take you far. Sorry,” the driver apologised. “I live quite near here.” We nodded and expressed profound gratitude nevertheless. ‘Not far’ proved to be around two hundred kilometres. The whole way our driver evidently felt like a host trying to look after unexpected visitors. He asked what kind of music we liked, and selected only those songs. He gave us a plastic bag with chicken, vegetables and bread, urging us to eat the food or take it with us because he was home now and wouldn’t be needing it. He asked us very politely about our travelling and didn’t ask everybody’s standard question of why we did it. On the contrary, after hearing our enthusiastic explanation, he said respectfully, “Yes, it is a good thing to travel like that. You get to know the land, and people, and you get to know yourselves.” We nodded in delight. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
“Well, this is where I live,” he said, passing through a small village. “But I’ll just show you a lovely spot. You’ll enjoy spending the night there.” He drove a little beyond the villag
e and stopped. There was an unscythed meadow with tall, dry grass, and a stream about a hundred metres from the road.
“This is a good place. I come here swimming in the summer. There’s fishing too,” our driver said as we parted, adding, “You know, this is actually the first time I’ve ever given anyone a lift. All sorts of people try to hitch-hike. I’m nervous of stopping, but just yesterday I read in the paper that it’s a kind of sport. Good luck to you, guys.”
The night was cold and starry, the stream dark and silent. For the whole night nobody drove along the road, so we were able to forget about it. It was as if we were back in the mountains, alone and far away from other people. Coming out of the tent and looking up at the stars, I thought this really was a gift to us from the road, and that now I truly did love everything around me.
“They sometimes make signals. Have you noticed?” Sergey asks, turning round to face me. I’m pleased. Perhaps he will work up some enthusiasm now he’s started noticing their signals. “What sort of signals?” “Some of them circle with their fingers like this.” “That means they’re turning back soon.” “Others point left.” “That means they’re just about to turn off the road.” “And they wave.” “That just means they’re pleased to see you.” “Come again?” Sergey asks in puzzlement.
Ekaterinburg was a delight. After edgy, marshy Tyumen it was a joy to burst into the summery warmth of such a splendid, beautiful, sunny city. The driver who brought us, knowing it was our first time there, drove us on a sightseeing trip through the main streets, telling us all about the old buildings and churches. Afterwards we walked back to the centre, ate ice creams and walked along the river embankment. It was 1 September, the beginning of a new school year, and the holiday atmosphere was everywhere. We walked oblivious of the weight of our rucksacks.
In a pedestrian subway there were guys bumming. A lot of them. One boy with a guitar was singing while his girl took a cap round the onlookers. Others stood around nearby looking disaffected and talking loudly. They surrounded us, asking where we had been and inviting us to stay with them. Grand meticulously wrote down the address of the local crash pad.
Off the Beaten Tracks Page 20