10
Just before sunrise everything in the city faded to grey and seemed to swell up and fill with shadows. Even Squire’s apartment was full of transparent silhouettes and unreliable outlines. Everything seemed exactly as they’d left it a few hours ago. They tiptoed straight into the kitchen, so as not to wake the others.
Nastya poured herself a glass of cool water from the kettle. She was dying of thirst. It was the dregs from the very bottom, and lime-scale deposits swirled thickly in the glass. She would have been able to see them if it hadn’t been so dark.
Vadim went over to the window.
The street lamps were waning against the sky, which had started to grow pale. There were no lights on in any of the windows. It was just after 5.00 a.m.: the deadest hour. When it grew a little lighter, the birds would all start singing simultaneously and then it would seem strange that anyone could sleep through such a racket. But this moment was yet to come. For now, silence reigned and the only movement was the swaying of the trees in the grey half-light before dawn.
“It’s so strange…” began Vadim, clearly unable to get over the way fate had brought them together. “Meeting you here, in this random city… In the Urals, in Asia…”
“Actually, we’re not in Asia,” laughed Nastya. “Ufa’s still in Europe, but tomorrow — today, I mean! — on the way to Chelyabinsk, about two hundred and fifty kilometres from here, you’ll pass a funny monument. It’s like a massive slab of stone, saying Europe on one side and Asia on the other. It’s so weird! Wait till you see it. It’s really off the beaten track. The Ural Mountains… The road twists and turns like a snake — it’s all rocks and ravines, and you won’t come across another living soul. The enormous electricity pylons are the only sign of civilisation. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, you’re at the border between two continents! It’s like something out of a sci-fi film.”
Vadim stood at the window, crushed and helpless. He was barely listening to her inspired speech. It wasn’t her description of the Urals that had this effect on him…. “You’ll go past,” she’d said. “You,” not “we”.
“So you’re saying that tomorrow — today! — we’re going to go our separate ways?”
This was followed by an awkward silence, during which Vadim couldn’t bring himself to turn away from the window and Nastya couldn’t work out what to say.
“Well… you’re travelling from St Petersburg to E-burg, right? And I’m travelling from Tyumen to Moscow. Neither of us is going to change our plans. We’re each going to stick to our own path. It’ll be better that way. Trust me.”
“But why?” He turned to her, distraught. “Why does it have to be like that? I’ll change my plans for you, if you want me to! I’d be happy to turn around and go to Moscow with you. I don’t care where I go…”
“But what about your friend?”
“What about him? He can go to E-burg by himself.”
They fell silent. Desperate to find a solution, Vadim found himself clutching at straws.
“Or we could stay in Ufa together! Why not? It’ll be like, I don’t know, a kind of impromptu honeymoon! When we got here yesterday evening, we didn’t know any of this was going to happen… Then we found each other.”
“And you got your nose broken.”
“Well, at least you’re wrong about that!”
A forced smile. They can still bring themselves to joke about it! The human spirit is truly remarkable.
“The thing is…” Nastya’s voice suddenly sounded extremely tired and hoarse, from all the cigarettes. “I split up with someone recently, you know. Someone who meant a lot to me. I thought I meant something to him too, but he turned out to be a total bastard. It’s… I don’t really know how to explain it, but it’s like everything inside me is scorched and barren. I felt as though I had nothing to live for! I tried to slit my wrists and cried for months. I can’t go through that again. Getting involved in another complicated relationship right now would be like throwing myself back into the fire! I simply don’t have the strength to fall in love again. Can you understand that?”
Vadim didn’t know whether he understood or not. He didn’t really have a clue what was going on. Since yesterday evening nothing had made any sense.
“See, you say that you’ll go with me to Moscow…” Nastya suddenly became animated, her words tumbling out erratically, emotionally. Her cheeks may well have been flushed; it was impossible to tell, because it was still quite dark. “I don’t care about Moscow! I just want to go somewhere, anywhere! It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s away from home, as far as possible from everyone I know! I need new places, and I need to keep moving… The main thing is not to get attached to anyone. I know I’ll meet people along the way, and that’s fine — I just don’t want them to stick around! I need to be alone. It’s my way of healing my broken heart. And I can only be truly alone when I’m out on the road. Drivers don’t count — they pick you up, they drop you off, and you never see one another again. But I don’t want anyone else trying to get to know me, asking me who I am or where I’m going. Freedom and solitude — yes, that’s what I need right now. Nothing else.”
Vadim didn’t respond. He rested his head on his arms, and to anyone else it might have looked as though he were sleeping. Nastya had nothing more to say either, so the dawn broke that day in complete silence.
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.