Having nursed Roxanne over Chinese tarmac and the rutted despair of Mongolia’s Gobi Desert and Asian Steppes, we just may be undone by the Trans-Siberian Highway. Even worse, we can’t find our friends. When we were in China, everyone stayed in the same huge hotel each night. Once into Mongolia, the only hotel available to us was in Ulaanbaatar; other than that, we had all camped together outside small towns. One way or the other, we knew where everyone would be at nightfall. They were either working on their car or eating in the dining tent. There was no other place to be. In a bizarrely contradictory way, that was reassuring. Here in the belly of Russia’s vast interior we are again in hotels, except that none are big enough to house the entire Rally, so we’re split among three or four lodges every night. With people so scattered, sometimes we don’t see our friends for days.
Since we’re now driving mainly on the highway, and my navigation job requires me giving Bernard a direction about every thirty miles, I have ample time to gaze at the Siberian scene outside my window. We’ve left behind the bucolic greenery of Siberia’s southern borderlands and are entering the heart of Solzhenitsyn’s gulag archipelago. Gulag is an acronym for the agency that was officially created under the auspices of the secret police on April 25, 1930 and dissolved on January 13, 1960. It stands for Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies. According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the gulag from 1929 to 1953. Some were political prisoners. Others were imprisoned in a gulag camp for crimes such as petty theft, unexcused absences from work, and antigovernment jokes. In 1940, the year Roxanne was built, there were 53 separate camps and 423 labor colonies in the USSR.
The scenery around me gives no clue to that history. Day in and day out there’s a continuous field of growing wheat, the green flatness relieved only now and then by a copse of green birch trees. In its monotone texture and color it feels much like Mongolia, though I’m still grateful to see green instead of brown. It’s early summer and the air is fresh, moistened each day with several hours of drizzle. It all seems benign and cultivated, but I can see how this flat landscape, when whipped by winds during Siberia’s subarctic winters, would be a more impenetrable barrier than anything man made. In areas such as this, more than a quarter of the gulag population died of cold and starvation during World War II. Today, in this massive monoculture landscape, there’s no animal life to see, no shaggy Mongolian goats chased by skittering motor bikes, no shedding Bactrian camels pacing toward greener pastures. The only life along the road is an occasional black and tan raven scavenging road-killed bunnies. For all the greenery, this landscape feels more empty than Mongolia.
Occasionally, we whiz by a tired Russian hamlet, just a huddle of low, bedraggled wood cottages with filigreed shutters whose blue or green paint is cracked and peeling. Overgrown weedy yards line each narrow dirt lane. No general store, no personable fuel station, no family run cafes, dilapidated or otherwise. Sometimes I glimpse a round babushka, tight black wool dress hugging her hunched back, black kerchief over her hair. As she shambles slowly up the lane, she reminds me of a tiny, earthbound dirigible. These are places that the twentieth century forgot. If they’re any indication of the might of Russia, we have nothing to fear.
Russia is huge, and we have correspondingly vast distances to cover each day if we’re to get out of the country in the allotted two weeks. There are no amusing distractions like time trials planned for Russia. The organizers guessed rightly that no one would be in the mood. The only times we stop are to register our existence at a passage control and to fuel up at one of the many brightly lit, modern Yukos gas stations that dot the Trans-Siberian Highway. Even with keeping our out-of-car time to a minimum, it’s all many of us can do to complete each day’s route in time for a late dinner. Still, I am pleased to be in Russia. In a sense, it’s my birth right to feel like I belong here. Even though Roxanne is continually in need of suspension repairs and I’m sagging with fatigue, I still want to smile, look that gas station attendant in the eye, and say, “Spaseba,” thank you, as much like a native as I can manage.
The Trans-Siberian stays well away from towns, but I sometimes see one on the horizon. From a distance, they look like a set from Dr. Zhivago, with whitewashed houses and the gold-clad onion domes of a Russian Orthodox church glittering in the sun. One day, though, our route takes us through the center of one such town, and I see something I’m not prepared for, not because I didn’t believe such a thing still existed, but because I never expected to see one myself. It’s a prison, whether a gulag relic or not I couldn’t say. I don’t implore Bernard to stop so I can ask. This is one place I want to get away from. Fast. The rot I see on the outside speaks of the conditions in which those who are inside live. Nothing about the structure tries to disguise its intent. I see guard towers jutting up from the inner courtyard and small blackened windows piercing the long building behind, like vacant, beseeching eyes. A skin of graying paint peels off concrete walls stained with black mold and topped with tangles of rusting razor wire. The concrete may be crumbling and the whole thing may speak of decay, but the armed guard at the gate makes it clear that once you go through those menacing doors, you’re not getting out without their say-so. He’s alert, at attention, and fierce in his gaze. Usually the sight of Roxanne makes people smile, but this guard’s mouth doesn’t even twitch.
We have three more weeks of intense driving to complete before we reach Paris. Roxanne’s formerly roomy quarters are starting to feel cramped, though I’m certain she has not changed physical dimensions. When we reach our hotel each night, Bernard and I become two dogs fighting over a bone. I want to look around whatever city we’re in, if only to stretch my legs and move about in a space wider than five feet, after which I want to flop on the bed in our room and not move. The main thing on Bernard’s mind is checking Roxanne, and then he wants to have a beer at the bar.
These days I carry with me a wish that our car problems could be someone else’s, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them myself. Better yet, I wish to become a person who simply didn’t worry. Though I’m beginning to feel resigned that I’m the worrying sort, I’m also discovering the benefits of being an active, helpful worrier. Now, when Bernard makes trenchant pronouncements about the state of Roxanne’s underbelly, I say,“Guess I’ll start checking around for a truck to haul us tomorrow.” This simple statement makes me feel amazingly good, far out of proportion to what any twelve words should. It seems to lift Bernard’s spirits, too, because when I say it, he grabs my waist, gives me a little whirl and a kiss, and says, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of things later. Let’s go check in.” His arm snugging me tight, we head for the lobby together, walking hip to hip like Siamese twins.
Early evening, after reaching Omsk, I sit next to a majestic white marble stairway in our hotel lobby, happily alone in the swirl of Rally check in, while Bernard gets the key to our room. Sybil walks by and gives me a high five. It delights us both to see that the other has made it in for the day. “Doing all right?” she asks.
“Fine. Just sitting still for a few minutes. You know. Not moving.”
“Sounds lovely. I’d join you, but my hair has been screaming ‘wash me’ for days. I better get to it.”
Perched on my marble step, doing a fair imitation of a gargoyle, I zone out, not daydreaming, but not paying attention to anything. I’m pleasantly sated with caffeine and sugar, courtesy of the wife of an auto parts shop owner.
We’d pulled up to their shop before dusk, in search of the usual. While the owner and Bernard discussed shock absorbers, she invited me into the back room to relax. Like many Russian women below the oligarch class, she was portly, her rotund body squeezed into beige polyester slacks, the short sleeves of a size-too-small apricot sweater pinching her arms and stretching across a chest made pointy by a 1950s-style push-up bra. Her broad face was full of friendship, and after setting the omnipresent kettle to boil, she motioned me to sit on a dark brown love seat pushed against the wall, its cushions stained and misshapen from too many heavy buttocks resting on it. A small color TV was on, with a talking head delivering what I assumed was the evening news. Handing me a cup of tea, she sat down, then jumped back up and began changing channels. Even in Russia, the news isn’t very entertaining. At each station, she turned to look at me. I shook my head. Finally something I recognized, something truly international made me nod. “Pinocchio,” I said, smiling broadly to show how much I love cartoons.
“Pinocchio!” she replied and clapped her hands together with pleasure.
Even as a child I couldn’t understand what Geppetto was saying, so it was no loss to me that he now was speaking Russian. My hostess grabbed her own plastic mug and plopped down next to me, the couch sagging noticeably as she settled her plump self on the cushions. Immediately she was up again, bustling around her desk, tugging open drawers. I thought maybe she’d make popcorn, but no. It was even better. Extracting a large, flat box from the bottom drawer, she lifted off the lid, rustled aside gold tissue paper, peered inside with obvious relish, then offered me first pick from the precious box of chocolates. She took one herself and we both bit in at the same time. Then we both laughed with delight when, like old friends, we simultaneously held up our half-eaten chocolate to show each other what was inside. We passed the time eating candy, sipping tea, and laughing as Donald and Daffy, then Bugs, followed Pinocchio on the screen. For once, I hoped the repair to Roxanne’s suspension problems would take longer. This was one half-hour that had gone by too fast.
Brought back to the present when Bernard hands me our room key, I look around for something to do while he heads back out to check something on Roxanne. Instead of going to our room, I walk to the bar, where a sharply dressed young bartender is busy pouring draught beers and mixing cocktails. When we entered Russia, each hotel’s bar became the Rally’s home, the place where everyone would go at some point, to find a willing ear to bend or a friend to regale with the events of their day. I recognize Nick’s tall body draped at the counter. “Hey good lookin’,” I say, tapping him on the shoulder.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Bartender, a gin and tonic for this lovely lady.”
I don’t really want a gin and tonic, but I want to be a person who has a gin and tonic ordered for her.
“Where’s your handsome French husband?” he asks me.
“With the car, of course.”
“C’est bien. Then you can keep me company.”
At this point, Hans, who’s been driving the most unsightly, bedraggled Bentley on the Rally, lopes our way. His wispy blond hair glows like a halo, backlit by a ray of late afternoon light streaming through the bar window. The two of them put their heads together for a moment, and then Nick turns to me.
“We’ve decided to tell you something,” Nick says. I know what’s coming. It’s about our car, and it’s not going to be good.
“We’ve been watching you,” says Bert. Oh god, it’s not about the car. It’s about me, and they’ve seen I’ve been faking it, that I don’t know how to be a proper navigator.
“We have been discussing this for some time, and now, we must tell you, we agree you have the best ass on the Rally.” They both blush slightly, broadly pleased with themselves.
This is the sort of sexist compliment that normally I’d never tolerate. I’m a woman who says no to the supermarket clerk when he offers to carry my grocery bags out, because it implies I’m too weak to do it myself. Forget about letting any guy call me “babe” or “sweetheart” or “hon” unless he’s my husband. Here, in the insular world of the Rally, this statement has a different meaning entirely. It’s a badge of merit, a declaration that we’ve been through so much together, barriers are down. The feminist in me does a discreet withdrawal. I gulp down my drink and order another. I explain to them the merits of Disney cartoons in Russian, they tell me about strange people they’ve met on other rallies, we do a communal gripe about how difficult this Rally is. By the time Bernard returns, I’m feeling that my mission to improve my social abilities is definitely showing promise. So much so that when James, who’s ensconced with his mates at the back of the lounge, sees Bernard and hails him over, I toss away resentments and join them. I even manage to say a few words before my uncertainty about where I stand with this group turns me into someone with a need to inspect in detail the shape of the ice cube in my drink.
A gin and tonic and a half later, we cluster at the door to an immense private dining hall, where the guard glares at my chest under the guise of scrutinizing my P2P badge. It’s been this way ever since we entered Russia. Each hall is the same, floors padded in gray carpet, tables covered with stained white tablecloths, walls and windows obscured by heavy wool drapes that puddle on the floor. My hopes of eating local meals each day are now but a dim fantastical memory. The last, in fact the only, truly Russian meal we’ve had was lunch that first day in Siberia, at the tumbledown roadside cafe. Since then we haven’t even stopped for lunch, making do with chips and soda in the car, our gorp having run out and bottled water no longer quenching our thirst quite as much as a Russian Coke.
Our dinner that night is a vast buffet. On order of the organizers, every hotel has one. This is great for those crews who arrive well after dark. If you’re exhausted and famished, there’s nothing like being able to dig right into your food. There are always at least eight hot dishes, offering Continental preparations of pork, chicken, beef, and fish. One night the fish is sautéed with onions and the pork is sliced. The next night green peppers adorn the nameless white filets and the pork is cubed. The fish always sports a white sauce, the pork a thick brown one. Then there’s a table with platters of roasted, boiled, mashed, or sautéed vegetables. The potatoes, carrots, and beets that have nourished centuries of hungry Russians have pride of place. I’m happiest at the table that holds bowls of pickled, briny, or sour-cream slathered salads, which at least seem of Slavic origin. There’s always a dessert table heaped with tiered glass trays of chocolate cakes, marzipan-iced petit fours, whipped cream confections, jelly rolls with mysterious neon whorls, packaged cookies, and more. So we are not going hungry. Yet each hotel buffet is so similar to the next that the food alone, normally a beacon of my locale, gives no clue as to where we are. We could as easily be eating a mayonnaise-y pea and carrot macédoine in Paris as in Nizhny Novgorod or Des Moines. Every once in a while, I wish we were.