It started snowing. When we ran out of space in the cars, the last few boxes had to be fixed with duct tape on top of Sergey’s car. Last to be packed were the rifles, one of which Sergey gave to Lenny. “Can you shoot at all?” he asked, but Lenny only mumbled something grumpily and took the rifle to his car. Finally, the cars were all packed and Boris stood in the doorway and shouted into the house: “Come out, everyone, we could go on packing forever but it’s half past four, we can’t wait any longer.” And then Marina and Ira brought the children out. When everyone was outside, Sergey said to me: “Let’s go, Anya, let’s go and lock up.”
We turned off the lights everywhere and stood in the corridor for a few moments, near the front door. Through the big windows, the dim, soft, moon-like light of the street lamp was flooding the inside of the house, creating long, pale shadows on the floor, which was mottled with wet footprints. In the corner of the corridor was a crumpled piece of paper. Under our feet, a group of abandoned slippers sat in the small puddle of melted snow, looking sad and soaking wet. There were five of them, and I leaned down to pick them up and find the sixth one. I was determined to find it, it must be somewhere around here, I needed to put them together in pairs.
“Anya,” Sergey said behind me.
“Hang on,” I said, and sat down to look under the shoe rack. “I just need to find…”
“Don’t,” Sergey said, “leave it. We need to go.”
“Wait half a second,” I started, without looking back, “I’ll just…” and then he put his hand on my shoulder.
“Get up, Anya, it’s time,” and when I stood up and looked into his face, he smiled and said: “You’re like the captain who’s the last to leave the sinking ship.”
“How funny,” I said, and then he hugged me and said into my ear: “I know, baby. Let’s not delay, we need to go,” and he walked out of the door and stopped there, waiting for me, with the house keys in his hand.
Lenny and Marina were strapping their little girl inside their car, and Boris, Mishka and Ira with the boy were standing a bit further away, watching us lock the door.
“Ira, Anton and you will go in Anya’s Vitara,” Sergey said, “Dad, take Anya’s keys, Mishka, get into the car.”
“Let’s go, Anton,” Ira took the boy’s hand and he obediently followed her, but in front of the car he suddenly pulled his hand away and said loudly: “I want to go with Daddy.”
“We’ll go in Granddad’s car, Anton, and Daddy will follow us, we’ll talk to him on the radio.” Ira bent down to him and put her arms around him, but the boy pushed her away.
“No!” he shouted, “I’m going with Daddy!”
Mishka, who was already inside the car, popped his head out to see what was going on, while the boy stood looking up at our faces. All of us – four adults – were standing round him; it was awkward for him to look at us with the hood fastened under his chin, so he arched his back to be able to see us better. It was almost a threatening pose, with his fists clenched, but he didn’t cry. Eyes wide open, and lips tight, he looked round at us one by one, and shouted, again:
“I’m going with my dad! And with my mum!”
“He’s had a difficult couple of weeks,” said Ira quietly. Sergey crouched down next to his son and started talking to him. He was visibly cross and clueless about what to do, and the boy didn’t want to listen and vigorously shook his hooded head. Then I said: “Boris, give me my keys. Mishka, come out, we’ll go in the Vitara, and Ira and Anton will go with Sergey.”
The boy immediately turned, grabbed Ira by the hand and started dragging her towards the car. Sergey looked at me helplessly and said:
“Just until Tver, Anya, then we’ll swap.”
I nodded, without looking up, and reached my hand out for the keys. Boris came up to me.
“Anya, shall I drive? It’s dark,” he said, and I replied before he’d even finished his sentence.
“It’s my car, I’ve been driving it for five years, and I’ll drive it now, too, let’s not argue about that at least, OK?”
“She’s a good driver, Dad,” Sergey started, but I interrupted him:
“Let’s not waste any time. Please open the gate and let’s go,” and I sat behind the wheel. And even though I tried to close the door quietly, it slammed loudly.
“You rock, Mum,” Mishka said from the backseat. I caught his eyes in the mirror and tried to produce a smile: “Looks like it’s going to be some trip, Mishka.”
While Sergey was opening the gate, Boris came up to the Land Cruiser and shouted to Lenny through the open window:
“Lenny, we’ll drive in single file, but since you haven’t got a radio, make sure you keep us in view. We’ll get onto the New Riga road, and then take the motorway towards Tver. If we’re lucky, we’ll be there in one and a half to two hours. We’ll go through the villages without stopping, no pee breaks for the kids or anything – let yours pee in her pants, if she’s desperate. If you do get lost, we’ll meet you near the entrance to Tver. Oh – and we’re going to check all petrol stations. Anya’s car won’t take your diesel, so if any of them are open, we’ll buy all the fuel we can get on the way.” If Lenny said anything, I couldn’t hear it because of the noise from the running engines; Boris tapped on the roof of Lenny’s car, turned around, and climbed into the passenger seat next to me.
“Let’s go,” he said.
And we went.
6
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
I wanted to stop myself from looking back at the lonely, dark house we were leaving behind, so I opened the glove box – its lid flipped open and fell on Boris’s knees – and felt inside it for a pack of cigarettes. I lit one, and when Boris also clicked his lighter and the car filled with eye-stinging smoke, I angrily wound the passenger window all the way down. It wasn’t very polite, and I felt his eyes fixed on me, but nevertheless, I left the window down, and he, without saying a word, started tuning the shortwave radio. We drove slowly to the end of the village, Lenny’s Land Cruiser at the front, followed by Sergey. I don’t know if anyone looked left or right, but I saw only the red lights of Sergey’s car, until we left behind the sign with the crossed out name of the village. Five hundred meters, until the turning, the familiar bus stop (if I turned my head now I’d see our little village over to the right, a bright area in the middle of dark surroundings, framed by two tongues of woods, with mismatched houses, among which my eye picked out one very familiar roof.) I can’t turn my head yet for another hundred meters, no, two hundred – and then suddenly the forest encroached on both sides and it became dark; the motionless trees, the snow-sprinkled road and the two big cars ahead: it was OK to turn my head and look around, but I couldn’t see anything. All the roads in the unlit forest look the same, and it doesn’t matter if they’re a kilometre from your house or a thousand kilometres, your world immediately becomes restricted by the thin shell of the car, which stores the warmth and lights up a narrow strip of road in front of you.
The radio, which Boris had placed on the leather arm rest between our seats, started flashing lights and crackling – and then we heard Sergey speaking, in mid-sentence: