“I live with my daughter. It’s just the two of us.”
This was followed by another silence. In situations like this, the hitchhiker doesn’t even have to respond. If they want to, they’ll tell you more. It’s a kind of unspoken rule that the driver is allowed to interrogate his passenger on the most personal subjects (and usually takes great pleasure in doing so), whereas the hitchhiker has no right whatsoever to poke his nose into the driver’s business. Does that sound a bit unfair? Well, they’re doing you a favour by giving you a lift, at the end of the day. It’s their prerogative.
“Her mother was a whore. We split up six years ago.”
Vadim immediately adopted his most understanding and sympathetic expression, whilst simultaneously thinking to himself, “Nice one! He’s a talker. At least he won’t hassle me.”
“We were classmates. I studied history at college. Gave it all up later, though… Anyway, they sent a group of students to work on a collective farm, and that’s where it all started. I bet they don’t send you to collective farms any more, do they?”
“Of course not! Some friends of mine at teacher training college had to go, though.”
“We went out together for about three months. Her parents were against it, and so were mine. Her mother was a real bitch. She had gold teeth and everything! She didn’t even come to the registry office, can you imagine that? But we had a party for everyone in our course… A real Komsomol wedding, it was. You know what I mean?”
“I can imagine. With vodka in the teapots?”
“Exactly! That sort of thing. Then we got a flat, had a baby… Then the arguments started, the bickering and the rows… Maybe it was that old cliché, just a ‘clash of personalities’… Probably. You know what annoyed her most of all, what used to really wind her up? This’ll make you laugh… Me not putting the lids back on.”
“What?”
“Seriously! I was always forgetting to put the lids on shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes after I’d finished using them. Same with the shaving cream. It used to drive her absolutely insane!”
“That’s a bit…”
“Then she started going out with other men, drinking too. ‘You carry on, sweetheart,’ I said to her. ‘As long as you’re having a good time, eh?’ Eventually we split up. And do you know what sums it up? Marinka was only little, and when I asked her who she wanted to live with she chose me. Can you imagine that? What kind of… How bad does it have to be for your own daughter to…”
They were silent.
“While we’re on the subject, Vadim, let me give you a word of advice. Whatever you do, don’t rush into marriage. You’re a young lad, your hormones are all over the place… You’re bound to fall in love sooner or later. Fair enough. But whatever happens, don’t let her drag you to the registry office! It’ll only end in tears. Student relationships always do!”
“I wasn’t planning on getting married just yet.”
“And if you do get married, don’t get her pregnant. Otherwise it’ll be a disaster. Make sure you tell her right from the start that you want to live together for three years, without any children. And don’t give in, even if she cries or tries to persuade you!” The driver paused for a moment before saying, “You must have a girlfriend. Do you?”
“No!”
Vadim always answered this question, which came up quite a lot, with a look of casual indifference and a stupid half-smile. As if to say, “So what if I don’t? What’s the big deal anyway?”
The driver turned to look at him.
“Why not? What’s the matter with you? How old are you, anyway?”
“Here we go,” thought Vadim. He began to change his opinion of the driver. His face continued to bear an expression of calculated nonchalance, though it was now mixed with a kind of helplessness. No one likes to be thought of as past it. He couldn’t bear the thought of justifying himself or entering into a complicated explanation.
“Let’s just say that I just haven’t found the right person yet.”
This cliché and the pause that preceded it indicated that the subject was closed. The driver got the message and turned his attention back to the road. He threw a quick glance at Vadim.
“You’re taking the whole business very seriously, aren’t you?”
The way he pronounced it, ‘the whole business’ was loaded with innuendo.
You might be wondering whether Vadim had ever been in love… Oh, he had — head over heels! She was in his class, a languid girl with beautiful eyelashes and curly hair. And as for stupid romantic gestures… At 5.00 a.m. one morning when his chosen one, along with the rest of the city, was still asleep, he took a can of paint to the courtyard of her building and stood beneath her window with the intention of leaving her a message on the tarmac: “Good morning, my love!” — the eternal greeting of all would-be Romeos.
The outcome was so comic and humiliating that he preferred not to think about it any more. There was no happy ending to this particular love story. Vadim was caught in the act by the yardkeeper, and this is how it happened…
The sun was already up but the city was still empty, full of echoes. Vadim felt as though he were in some kind of parallel universe. It was a revelation, being out in the city this early in the morning, and subsequently he would make a point of getting up at first light, just to go for a walk. But on this particular day he was on a mission. He sneaked into the courtyard and marked his message out on the tarmac with chalk. Just as he started going over the enormous letters with paint, the yardkeeper turned up! No one could have predicted that he would start work so early. He was a big strong man with bad teeth, a hereditary alcoholic, and, more importantly, he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Vadim could still remember the sound of the yardkeeper’s voice as he yelled at him, and his own swift departure! He didn’t see the yardkeeper attacking his handiwork with a stiff broom. The letters “Good m…” hadn’t even had the chance to dry.
As he mooched about that morning the thwarted young Romeo decided to drown his sorrows, but even that mission was doomed to faiclass="underline" at 6.00 a.m. the 24-hour bars and kiosks were decidedly shut. Fate was not smiling on him. He could remember how the streets had been illuminated by the slanting rays of the rising sun… God, how many years had passed since then!
The car approached the city. Interspersed among the heavily laden long-distance lorries were an increasing number of suburban Moskvich and Zhiguli cars, full to bursting with family members, with the occasional rusty old barrel strapped to the roof. Why on earth did anyone need a barrel like that in the city? Or in the suburbs, for that matter? Ufa’s industrial landscape was painted crimson by the setting sun and crowned with smoke from the factory chimneys.
“You’re a good lad,” said the driver, giving Vadim an appraising look. “Shall I just drive you straight to Chelyabinsk? It makes no difference to me where I spend the night. I can manage another five hours, and I can just set off a bit later tomorrow. What do you say, eh? Shall we just keep going?”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it, but you should get some rest. I’ll be fine here — I’ve got the address of a good squat. And anyway my friend Nikita will never catch me up if I carry on to Chelyabinsk! So, thanks but no thanks… Are you stopping at the police checkpoint? You can drop me there.”
3
The last lorry drove past, rumbling with the sound of disappointed hope. There’s something unpleasantly predictable about heavy-goods vehicles when you’re standing by the side of the road. They make such a noise when they rush past that even seasoned hitchhikers experience a moment of panic — will it squash me like a fly?