At Sukhumi railway station I join up with another ‘Vassya,’ a tubercular lad named Artur. We discuss the difficulties of working in the Caucasus.
“It’s worse in the mountain villages,” says Artur. “The Svan people lock you up at night. If you try to escape they’ll cut off one of your fingers. Even if you make them pay up the villagers take the money back off you as you leave. What can you do when you’re alone? They all know each other and the police are their cousins. Yes brother, it’s real slavery up there.
“It’s true no one forces us to work in the mountains, but we can’t earn anything in town. When someone wants to hire me I say to them: ‘I’ll work for you, only no skullduggery! I have no house or car to lose; you won’t have either if I don’t get my pay!’
“But I must say there are some really stupid tramps. Some of them only take jobs so they can nose around for something to steal. They grab whatever they can find, run off, sell it, and get picked up right away at the nearest beer-stall.”
I don’t linger in Sukhumi as I fear the old man’s son might find me. I go back to Sochi and my old haunts.
My legs are tired after drinking for the whole morning. The woman who sells pies on the sea front has shut her stall and gone off to lunch. I park myself on her stool. Holiday-makers stroll past on their way to the beach. A lad detaches himself from his group: “What you sellin’ here, uncle?”
“Jokes!”
“How much you charge?” he asks in an exaggerated peasant accent.
“Roub’ each,” I answer in the same tone.
“So much!”
“Why, I’m almost giving them away. Roub’ if you don’t know the joke and I’ll give you a roub’ if it’s already grown a beard.”
“Go on then!” The group gather around my stall. I am heavily under the influence of Bacchus and quickly earn 15 roubles, not because my jokes are so good but because the youths are in high spirits and pleased to be entertained.
The next day, after drinking my hair-of-the-dog, I go to collect the baggage I left behind in spring. Much to my surprise, the man who was looking after it has not sold all my things, although he hasn’t left much. He gives me a small rucksack in exchange for my suitcase. Into this I put underwear, photographs, two novels and a cloth-bound exercise book in which I write the crosswords that I like to devise during my sober periods.
I set off for Central Asia, where work is easier to find. Luckily most trains run at night so I’m able to sleep on them and spend the days wandering around Sukhumi, Samtredia, Tblisi and Kirovbad. I travel without tickets. Although I have money I think it’s as crazy to pay for a ticket as it would be to drive my own Mercedes.
Baku reminds me of Central Asian cities, with its cafes serving black tea in tiny narrow-waisted glasses. But I’m not interested in tea. From first thing in the morning I’m drinking beer and the local Agdam fortified wine.
After quenching my thirst I lean against a wall to watch the local people. A passer-by stops to pick up a crumb of bread from the ground. The man presses the crumb to his lips and places it on top of the wall. “So the birds can reach it more easily,” he says, seeing my astonishment, “in Azerbaijan we respect bread, my friend.”
In the bazaar I make the acquaintance of some local tramps and together we earn 15 roubles loading a trailer with oranges. Learning that I have nowhere to spend the night they invite me to come with them. “We have a splendid place. Safe as a tank and warm as a bathhouse. The police don’t check — it’s in the basement of the officers’ flats.”
We buy several bottles and take the tram across town to our lodging place. Going down to the basement, we open a thick steel door and scramble over the central heating pipes, so hot they turn spit into steam. The shelter is as dark as the Pharaoh’s tomb. My new friends light candles and drink themselves to sleep.
I spend the whole night awake, sitting in total darkness after the candles gutter out. I haven’t had enough to drink; it takes a lot to give me a couple of hours’ oblivion. In this state I daren’t even close my eyes or the nightmares will begin. The air around me is heavy with foreboding. I feel like an animal who senses an earthquake approaching. My new acquaintances snore happily while I goggle into the darkness. Rats scurry past. They are not part of my nightmare, for one of my sleeping friends wakes with a yelp: “Bastards! We’ll have to bring some sausage tomorrow or they’ll grow too bold altogether!” He drops off again.
It seems as though the night will never end. When a radio in the flat above us begins to broadcast morning exercises I feel as joyful as if I’d seen the second coming of Christ. We crawl out of the basement and I part company from my acquaintances forever. “Lads, if that basement were stacked with vodka and it was thirty degrees below outside you’d only get me back in there under armed escort.”
“What did you expect? The Astoria?”
“But it’s full of rats!”
“So what? Did they eat you alive?”
“Who knows what was on their minds. I’m not hanging around to find out.”
I wander off to the port. Sailors stand by the gangplanks of Caspian ferries scrutinising tickets. They turn me back a couple of times as I try to sneak aboard. An Azerbaijani notices my unsuccessful attempts: “Do you want to earn the price of a bottle?”
“What must I do for it?”
“Carry these two suitcases on board this ferry. Your hands will be full so you can tell the controller that someone behind you has your ticket.”
But the two suitcases seem too large for me to carry.
“Pick them up, give them a try,” urges the Azerbaijani, seeing me hesitate.
The cases are extraordinarily light. “What’s in them, cotton wool?”
“Walnuts.”
The Azerbaijani has been kicked out of Baku by the local police after they stung him for 50 roubles for illegal trading. I pick up the cases and board the ship without any trouble.
When we dock at Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan I help the man unload his cases. As we step ashore cops surround us. The Baku police must have radioed ahead to their Turkmen colleagues who have now come to collect their bribe. Ignoring me, they take the Azerbaijani to the station, leaving me with the cases. After waiting several hours for him I go to the market and sell the walnuts for 80 roubles. My lucky day.
In the evening I catch a train to Tashkent, slipping the carriage conductor some money. Like all conductors in Asia he regards the railway as his personal fiefdom, except when it comes to cleaning; then it belongs to the state.
Beyond the windows there is nothing but desolation. The desert may be lovely in spring, but this is winter and there is nothing but an expanse of grey dunes stretching between horizons, unrelieved by grass or bushes. Occasionally the train halts by a few wretched clay hovels with mangy camels tethered behind them.
Ashkhabad may mean beloved city, but it doesn’t deserve the name. In the autumn of 1948 it was destroyed by an earthquake so severe that only one building remained undamaged. The town was built afresh, with buildings no higher than three stories. They look as though they were hatched from the same incubator. The streets are only slightly less depressing than those of Krasnovodsk; some are lined with trees but, this being December, it makes little difference.
At the station buffet I fall in with a local alkie called Kerya. Together we banish our hangovers with a bottle of wine then go down to the Tekinskii bazaar. The stock exchange, as the bazaar is called, is a lively place where local alkies congregate. It is easy enough to earn a couple of roubles hauling baskets of apples. As soon as we have a few coins in our hands we take care of our drinking requirements. Only after that do we think of food. We help ourselves to apples, capsicums, Chardzhou melons, and dip our dirty paws into great barrels of marinated garlic.