Kolymsky Heights (18 page)

‘I know a place.’

‘You can’t just steal one – they’re all registered. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Of course I know it.’

‘So how would you get one?’

‘I could put it together, if I had a friend with the parts.’

The Yakut smiled. ‘You think you could do it on your own?’

‘With a manual, why not? It’s a toy, you said.’

‘One man can’t fit an engine on his own. It’s too heavy.’

‘With a block and tackle?’

Vassili mused. ‘The block and tackle would be for borrowing only? I can’t make a deficit out of a block and tackle. I only have two.’

‘Of course for borrowing only. What do I want with a block and tackle?’

‘It’s a strong heavy engine. The block would need a strong roof to support it.’

‘I have a strong roof.’

‘Well, I’ll see. Don’t bother me with it now.’

Kolya began taking parts for the bobik the same week. Vassili gave him a printed specification of the car and they ticked off the parts as he took them. The first parts he took were the wheels. He had been angling now for regular deliveries to the area.

To Anyuysk was no problem. Scattered developments there meant frequent trips by light truck. The problem was the further leg to Provodnoye. Factories and apartment blocks were going up there – top class ones, an inducement for
European Russians to stay in the wilderness; good heating, big boilers, triple glazing. Heavy loads, and for a big Kama. As the season went on, and the drivers could pick and choose less, big Kamas would regularly do this journey. Two-man crews. No good. He had to be on his own.

He saw he was going to have to do it at night. He could always get a bobik for the night. But there were difficulties here, too. He could get a bobik, but how about the parts? The Light Vehicles depot wasn’t open at night. He would have to take the parts during the day and keep them somewhere. Where? Not in the apartment. How could he run an engine up there, gear box, transmission?

He thought about it while taking the wheels, and a load, down to Anyuysk. He dumped the load quickly, and took off with the wheels towards Provodnoye.

Off the made road and on to the tributary; round and round the tight bends. It took him sixty-five minutes from Anyuysk to the cave. With a bobik he could cut that to maybe forty-five. And from Green Cape to Anyuysk itself – another hour and a quarter. Total, two hours. Four hours there and back. If he started at nine at night when nobody was about, he could be back soon after one in the morning. Nothing.

It would take time to build up the parts before anything could usefully be put together. The heavy engine would be a problem. He would need help getting it in the bobik. Vassili would help him get it in. Then he would have to take off immediately with it, in the lunch hour – whatever other jobs were scheduled for him. He couldn’t leave an engine dumped in a bobik. He would have to take it right to the cave. And then? How to get it out of the bobik and into the cave? A block and tackle could raise and lower it. It couldn’t get it
in
.

The ptarmigan had shot up again as he approached.

He left the engine running and walked over to the cave and parted the frozen branches. The entrance was wide, far wider than it looked. He tried to find a way of keeping the shrubbery held back but couldn’t. He got back in the truck and, with his
headlights on, drove slowly through the screen of branches, careful not to break any off: the screen effectively hid the cave.

He got the nose of the truck in and climbed out and looked about him. The headlights brilliantly lit up the place, a hoary ice box: roof, walls, floor, all glittering like diamonds. A spacious ice box, too. Plenty of room to build a bobik, and also to drive one right in. He looked up at the roof, and the hole he had drilled. In the wrong place, but yes! Of course. A piece of cake! He could fit the block to the roof at the rear of the cave. Then
back
the bobik in and
hoist
the engine out. No problem.

He wasted no more time, got the wheels out and stacked against the end wall, reversed the truck on to the river and drove back to Green Cape.

He’d build up the supplies fast; on as many days as he could. And night after night if possible. Yes, he’d start seriously now.

And this he did, by day and also by night.

The Despatch depot: ‘Kolya – Yura wants you. Run down and see him now.’

‘But I’ve got a load here, ready to go.’

‘Leave it. He’s in a temper, very excited. Take the bobik there – the key’s in.’

He drove down to the Kama hangar, puzzled and cautious.

The place had greatly changed, he saw. No longer the vast array of vehicles lined up row on row. Only a dozen or so of the giant trucks were scattered about now; most being worked on by mechanics.

Yura was in his glass booth and on the phone again. He frowned at the Chukchee and motioned him in.

‘Kolya, what’s this?’ he said, putting the phone down. ‘Piddling about all the time to Anyuysk – and with little Tatras and Urals. What
is
it?’

‘It’s trips. It’s okay. They give me the jobs.’

‘They’re taking advantage of you. This is no good, Kolya.’

‘I don’t complain, it’s fine.’

‘You don’t complain, but it bloody isn’t fine! You’re picking up no money! And getting no time on a 50! What experience are you getting?’

‘I didn’t come for experience. I’m filling in.’

‘You’re mine! My driver! I told you so. There’s a good distance man in you – young, stamina, plenty of go. You need time on a 50. Piddling about locally is no good. It’s no good, Kolya!’

‘They want me, what can I do?’

‘You can go to Bilibino. Tomorrow. I’ve cleared it with Bukarovsky. You’re down on the sheet. No arguments. It’s done!’

Well, if it was done; on the sheet. He couldn’t make a fuss about getting off it. To Bilibino and back was 1400 kilometres – a plum three-day job for the drivers, and soon to be scarce as the backlog cleared …

He cursed as he drove back. Three days away, and what shape would he be in for his night work afterwards? To hell with Bilibino!

But to Bilibino he went.

They left at eight in a snowstorm and day didn’t dawn till almost eleven. They drew a twenty-ton trailer, with another one hitched on behind, and were in a convoy of four, all big Kamas. The two in front could not be seen through the wall of snow in the headlights, but as the day slowly came and the dim shapes emerged lumbering ahead, Vanya relaxed. He was a grizzled elderly fellow, specially selected as a mentor for the Chukchee.

‘You’ll take over after the first stop,’ he said. ‘There’s a
straight stretch coining, but plenty of uphill shifts. Mustn’t lose your footing – it’s a long slide down for these bastards.’ His yellow teeth showed in a grin.

The first stop came soon after eleven, No. 1 of the road stations. The two trucks in front had pulled in, together with another couple going the other way; and behind them, as they parked in a clutter of bobiks, came the fourth of their convoy.

A radio was going and it was very warm and smoky in the log hut. Cooking smells drifted from the kitchen, and cigarette smoke hung over the tables where the drivers sat so that in the fug it was some minutes before he saw that one of them was a woman. She was also smoking, and in conversation, and his eyes were drawn in that direction because he heard his name mentioned. The drivers were grinning as he looked over.

‘Sure, that’s him, our Chukchee … Kolya, come over here. She wants to meet you. Medical Officer Komarova.’

Her eyes gazed at him coolly as they shook hands. She wore an open parka and a cap like the others, and was sitting with a cigarette over a cup of coffee.

‘You’re new here, I understand.’

‘Yes, not long. A few weeks.’ They had made room for him on the bench opposite, and his smile flashed brilliantly at her. He decided to take his fur cap off.

‘Tea or coffee?’ the old waitress said. She had slapped his plate of kasha and gravy down, and was also staring at his shaven head.

‘Coffee.’

‘From Chukotka?’ Medical Officer Komarova said.

‘Chukotka. I’m filling in for a friend.’

‘They haven’t sent your papers in yet. Have you had all your shots?’

‘Sure.’

‘Tetanus, polio, yellow fever?’

‘Sure, sure.’ He forked in the kasha, smile still flashing.

‘Don’t worry about his shots. He’s getting all his shots in,’ one of the drivers said.

‘The condoms come from her place. She calls the shots,’ another said, as the laughter continued.

Medical Officer Komarova smiled thinly herself. Under the cap her face looked paler, longer, slightly anaemic; but the eyes were as uncompromising as he remembered.

‘Check into the office, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’ll see they have your papers. Are you outward bound now or coming back?’

‘Outward. Bilibino.’

‘That’s three days.’ She held the cigarette in her mouth and with her eyes screwed up opened a zipper bag and took out a notebook and a pen. ‘Today’s Tuesday? … Make it Friday. The afternoon, 4 p.m. You’ll need a lie-in in the morning.’ She wrote in the book and on a card and gave him it. ‘It’s the administrative building in Tchersky. Anyone will tell you.’

‘You want to check me over or what?’

‘I won’t be there. They need to update your papers and get you on our records.’

She went soon afterwards and he finished his breakfast, still in doubt.
Had
she recognised him? Would she so specifically have mentioned the yellow fever if so? Surely not. It was the Chukchee interest: he
looked
different from the others. And totally different from the Korean seaman. No. He was a new face in town, a new driver. A matter of papers.

He finished his coffee and in twenty minutes was out with the convoy again. The snow had stopped. He took the wheel and steered the big rig into place in line.

‘We keep two hundred metres,’ Vanya told him. ‘Give him plenty of room to get off in front. And practise the gears. You’ll be running up and down them soon.’

‘Okay. She seems a decent sort, that medical officer.’

‘You think so? Don’t bet on it. The slightest thing wrong with you, she has you off the long runs.’

‘Does she check all the drivers?’

‘See, the company sick bay is hers – the nurses, the supplies,
all from Tchersky. They keep the medical histories there. She’s a strict manager, Komarova.’

‘To me, she was like one of the boys.’

‘Try getting a dose of clap, and you’ll find out. All this is her district and she knows what goes on in it. Change down now. Watch him in front – he’s climbing.’

They were climbing, and they continued climbing, the ice road running through a series of passes, first between hills and then mountain peaks. From Green Cape they had ascended 2800 feet, and now went much higher – on all sides the icy crests smoking in clouds. More snow was waiting in the clouds and Vanya silently observed it through his window. But the road was straight, and continued straight, even in the switchbacks that now came. After the climb, a sharp drop, and then up again, and down again, and up and down, a glassy and treacherous ribbon of ice.

‘Not your brakes! Only the gears!’ Vanya yelled. ‘And leave him room – two hundred metres.’

The convoy pulled on, stopping every hundred kilometres at the road stations. At each one they replenished the flasks of tea and coffee, and the day slowly went. The straight also went, and with night came the snow, and Vanya took over; and sharp bends now began to zigzag through the mountains.

Between stations the men were supposed to alternate in sleep. But with the bends and the snow, Vanya now drove from every station. And there was no sleeping through the constant roar of oaths that came from him as they swung and lurched behind their headlights in the white dazzle of snow; only a few metres of track visible ahead. He drove through the night, and he drove the first turn of the day as well, until the road straightened out. At one o’clock Kolya took over, sleepless himself, and he drove into Bilibino, Vanya snoring beside him.

Bilibino, named for Bilibin the geologist who first assayed the reefs, was the centre for the most northerly goldfields of Siberia, and the big trucks and the ice road were the only
means of getting heavy equipment there: this was what they carried. Scores of thousands of tons of it had built up, shipped from St Petersburg and Archangel in the summer. Only in summer could it be shipped, and only in winter could it be hauled. And now it was here, Bilibino.

They reached it at four in the afternoon, left the trucks for unloading and reloading, and went to bed at a hostel. Eight hours later, after a meal, they left again on the return journey; midnight; the night black, road white in their headlights.

A hard country, an exhausting routine, and he took the first leg. Over thirty hours of driving still ahead – thirty-two, in fact, the timekeeping good through all difficulties – and nonstop except for brief rests at the road stations. Which would get them in – what? – late tomorrow. No, not tomorrow; the time confusing. All tomorrow they would be driving. The next day. Friday, early.

Well, after a good rest he’d organise a bobik for that night, see Vassili in the afternoon. But in the afternoon, Jesus, the medical centre at Tchersky! Well, he’d do it, wouldn’t make waves, an administrative matter. Nothing wrong with Khodyan’s papers; they just hadn’t received them. He’d handed them in himself when Bukarovsky had signed him on. In the early confusion, the start of the season, they hadn’t been sent on. An administrative matter.

He would sleep all morning. Get up and see Vassili. Arrange a bobik. With the bobik run into Tchersky and get his papers settled at the medical centre. Then the time was his. Yes.

He finished his stint at the first road station and Vanya took over. And now he tried to sleep, and managed it, no curses coming, just slow steady driving through the zigzags.

The next turn, still in the mountain labyrinth, still not snowing, Vanya put him on the wheel again but remained awake himself to watch. And the night went, and the day went, and the following night; and at eight on Friday morning, seventy-two hours after leaving it, they pulled back into Green Cape.