They were reluctant to say goodbye, gave us their telephone numbers and insistently invited us to drop in on them for kebabs on the way back. Grand agreed, and I could tell from his expression that he really would visit them any time he was returning along that road.
From Omsk to near Novosibirsk we were driven in a passenger Gazelle from Krasnoyarsk with a Moscow number plate. Two drivers were taking it in turns to drive. The one who had the day off sat in the back with a bottle of vodka. I was in there with him and our rucksacks, and Grand was in the front. Judging by his by now very thick beard, the strange look in his eyes, and some singular Siberian propensity of their own, the guys decided Grand was an Old Believer and asked which community we were heading for. The whole way they were preoccupied with the Church Schism and wanted Grand to tell them why it happened and why some had refused to accept the new faith 400 years ago. At first Grand just smiled, but then he started talking about the oneness of God, freedom of choice and predestination. He didn’t deny being an Old Believer.
We drove for a long time before making a stop. The men produced something along the lines of a Primus stove but couldn’t get it to light. They splashed petrol over it and ignited it. The stove burst into flames. We were shocked, but the guys said that when the petrol had burned off their stove would work well, and in next to no time they had cooked up Siberian pelmeni dumplings on their contraption.
During the second part of our journey with them, my companion finished the vodka and lost interest in philosophy. He kept beckoning me over, pressing his vodka wetted-lips to my ear, and asking over and over again, “You sure you know where you’re going? How long’ve you known this character? Come on, you can tell me, aren’t you afraid? Oh, what a pretty state of affairs. Young people have their eyes shut. Can’t you see he’s making off with you? Abducting you!”
I forced a smile and moved away. The geezer dozed off, opening his eyes now and again to give me a knowing wink, then drew me over and whispered, “Where do you come from yourself? Go back home, lassie. Come on, I’ll give you the money for the ticket. Want that? Ohh… no-o… Come on, I’ll give you the money. You’ve no idea where you’re going, no idea. You’re sectarians, I can tell.”
I said nothing and moved as far away as I could. The road seemed endless. Grand carried on talking about the Schism, freedom of choice and the spiritual path. I had never asked him about his faith, and he had never before volunteered any information about it.
Grand said, “Women are infinitely more gifted than men. A woman needs only to be given impetus and direction for her then to guide her teacher forward.” I longed to be a woman like that. I longed for a teacher to give me direction and then everything else could go to hell. For some reason, though, nothing I did ever impressed Grand. He took it as only to be expected. In the tales he told, girls who were remarkable were either witches or wise women, or at the very least ‘gifted’. I never advanced beyond ‘Titch’.
Then suddenly on my road the witch appeared, hung like the sword of Damocles over my head, and my days were full of anxious, dispiriting anticipation. She appeared when, for the first time, Grand gave more than a vague answer to my repeated question of where we were going. “East”, he said, and then added, “We are going to a Lake. Someone will meet us there. I think it will be right for them to come with us.”
My heart sank. In that genderless ‘someone’, as Grand always referred to everyone, I suddenly saw unambiguously that this would be a girl, and not just any girl but one I (and Grand) had come the length of Russia to meet. I wanted and at the same time was reluctant to ask about her. I wanted and was reluctant to set eyes on her. She had become our goal and my question of ‘where’ had now changed to ‘who’. Every time Grand answered, I tried pathologically to detect something that would tell me more about her and about what kind of woman Grand was in such a hurry to get back to.
I pictured her as wise, calm, someone who knew life’s reality, someone with a warm, open smile, a gentle light in dark eyes, imposing, engaging and attractive. In other words, I pictured her as much the same as Grand, only even better. She was, after all, Woman, the embodiment of everything in the world that is beautiful. When I thought of her like that my very soul couldn’t wait to get the road behind us, the sooner to exult in this meeting.
Alas, I then immediately imagined Grand and me meeting Her, and wondered where I would fit in when she was finally there. I, after all, am me, Titch, the eternal teenager, a puppy with big eyes, the spirit haunting the gallery on Yakimanka. What was there in me of real Woman. How could I possibly stand alongside Her? In any case, what need would there be for me next to Grand when she was there? Thinking along those lines, I stood at the roadside like a weary donkey and not a single vehicle saw fit to pay us any attention.
One of those nights I had a dream: a very tall, bespectacled girl, plump and chubby, approached, towered over me, held out her hand and wanted to introduce herself. In my dream I was horrified. I woke up totally perplexed, recalling that within a day, or at most two, I would be meeting her in the flesh. If we didn’t wait for Sasha where we had agreed, it could be even less. She was already expecting us. I knew that because Grand had had a text message the day before which put a smile on his face like none I had seen before. He started replying, a dozen times erasing and re-typing every word. I bristled like a hedgehog and retreated to the tent.
I decided to take definitive action to resolve everything once and for all. It might kill two birds with one stone by demonstrating to Grand how remarkable I am, and at the same time at last reveal to me something about Her. I resorted to subterfuge. I was so scared that Grand with his shrewdness would immediately see through me and felt I was throwing myself in desperation into a whirlpool, but my curiosity got the better of me.
“Last night I dreamed we had arrived,” I said and paused, watching Grand out of the corner of my eye. We were having breakfast in the tent because it was overcast outside. He said nothing, knowing I would continue, which I did.
“We met a girl,” I said, keeping my eyes on him. Grand munched. “She came over to shake hands,” I ended pointedly. Grand finished what he was eating and asked, “What did she look like?”
I didn’t want to tell him the truth: the lanky creature in my dream could not possibly be Her, I was sure. I started making it up, watching his expression. “Well, she was tall… Maybe not as tall as you, I’m not sure, but taller than me for sure. And she wasn’t skinny but neither was she fat. Average. She had long hair — dark or brown — I don’t remember. And glasses.” I broke off. Never mind if some of the fine detail didn’t fit, I would be able to see that straight away and get a better picture of her. It wouldn’t bother me at all if he laughed and said, “No, she does not wear specs, and her eyes are blue, she has blond hair, and in any case… Come on, get ready. This is all just drivel.”
Something really did light up in Grand’s eyes, though, but it was hard to tell quite what. He said, “What else do you remember?” “Oh, nothing.” “Perhaps she said something? Introduced herself?” “Hmm,” I prevaricated mysteriously. “I think she did. Yes, I remember now. She did tell me her name.” “And?”