Leaning his rifle against the wall he pulled a notebook from his tunic and, peering close, slowly copied the strange letters of the licence plate.
I got out and asked why he had stopped me, but my Russian wasn’t good enough for him to understand. His gestures indicated that I must reverse the car and go back in the direction of Viborg.
I thought of pushing on over the bridge, but the consequences of a couple of live rounds put paid to that. Galled at the possibility of not reaching Leningrad, on a day that was already half gone, I saw myself answering questions for a fault I knew nothing about — a not unfamiliar situation, but only tolerable if it came at a time of my choosing.
Not paid to talk, he stabbed his rifle as a further sign that I should turn round. But why? And where to go? He posted himself again at the bridge, as I drove away wondering what would happen now.
I saw, on looking at the map, that I had missed the signpost for Leningrad, had made a left instead of a right fork, and taken a route not on the Intourist itinerary. The forbidden road ran northeast towards Lake Ladoga and Kamenogorsk, and I would happily have followed it — venture adventure — had the Gorshek soldier not pointed a bayonet at my guts.
A mere eighty kilometres since breakfast left a hundred and fifty to go, but the road was empty, the weather good, and I went fast, glad to be on the loose at last in Russia, on a straight though not too wide highway between lush pine woods. The responsive wheel took in space that seemed for me alone.
I imagined a Tsar of All the Russias, keen on motoring and out for a spin in his latest car. He had forbidden every other vehicle from the road, and an army corps lined his route from end to end, though sooner or later a band of Nihilists would elude the cordons and lob bombs which would kill him. Or, realising the danger, the tsar would have a well-lit tunnel built from St Petersburg to Moscow, and enjoy his practice runs in that until, again, the inevitable explosion shattered his windscreen.
A man stood by the roadside, cap on, haversack over one shoulder, and fishing rod at the trail. Offering him a lift, I saw he was about sixty and pale faced, with a broad forehead narrowing towards the chin, and wore black hornrimmed glasses. His teeth were obviously false, and he took off the cap to scratch his bald head, brow deeply lined, thin lips breaking into a smile of greeting. I asked where he was going.
‘Along the road!’ He pointed onwards, ever onwards, so I told him to stow his tackle in the back, and opened the door. He banged my shoulder, at such good luck on hearing my destination was Leningrad. When I added that I would be going on to Moscow, Kiev and Chernovtsy his eyes sparkled with admiration and envy, as if he had dreamed of such a journey and would have given both arms to go with me. But I was wrong. He had been to all three places and many others, had done more travelling that I had, proved when he stabbed his chest: ‘Berlin! Soldier!’ which made me glad to be giving him a lift.
We didn’t speak for a while. Having another person in the car, I tended to look more back than forward in my life, which I didn’t much like, so I concentrated on the way ahead. There was a language difficulty of course, certain key words being absent from my vocabulary, while it was perilous to use hand signals at the wheel. I gathered that his name was Vanya, and he had been fishing on the Gulf of Finland, but hadn’t caught anything as far as I could see, though he may have sold his catch in Viborg. He talked as if I understood every word, and I drew on my intuition, using a few words and bits of rudimentary grammar, but mostly with little success. I regretted not studying more in London.
Speeding along pleasantly enough, he remarked that the car was a very good ‘machine’, and wanted to know — I assumed — where it was made, the horsepower, how much the fuel tanks held, what its consumption was at top speed, its age, and the price paid for it. Liking his company and amiable curiosity I explained as much as possible. I’d have liked to know about him, and cursed Nimrod’s Tower of Babel for making things so difficult.
More than halfway to Leningrad, we came to the Gulf of Finland, the island fortress of Kronstadt visible in the distance. Beyond the 1939 frontier at Belo Ostrov more cars and buses were on the road. Seeing people strolling along the sidewalks near the beach I realised it was Sunday. Villas, datchas, hotels, cafés and filling stations were frequent at Sestroretsk, the chief place of the resort coast and open-air lounge of Leningraders. Big houses from the old days that had belonged to the upper classes of St Petersburg had been turned into rest homes.
I stopped at a modern cafeteria providing bowls of rich borscht with meat and sour cream, bread, cakes and bottles of cherryade. Women at the next table in plain frocks and kerchiefs were tackling an enormous meal. Most diners were young men and girls in shirtsleeves and summer dresses, and I thought how interesting it would be to speak to them, but I was content enough to observe. Should I try to make contact they would no doubt have looked puzzled and turned away. Never an easy or habitual part of a group, I preferred to be anonymous, to look and listen, like a fish in water, storing up images and memories for the future.
Vanya tried to pay for our meals, but I had enough Russian to indicate that since he was a passenger in my car he had the status of a guest, and I was the one to fork out.
Repino was named after Repin the landscape painter, who lived in the village till his death in 1930. We raced by the place near which Pushkin had fought his fatal duel. When the road broadened into a motorway — light standards, bridges, blocks of flats to either side — Vanya confirmed that he wanted to be let off in the middle of Leningrad. Traffic signals were too high to see at times, so I sharpened my sight and slowed down. I must have drifted into the wrong lane, and funnelled left instead of going straight on. Being lefthanded, it was another unintended fork taken that day. A treacherous instinct led me to assume I was still on the right track for the centre of town, expecting to be at the Astoria Hotel in fifteen minutes.
Vanya tapped me on the shoulder: ‘Abratna!’
I smiled, not knowing what the word meant.
‘Abratna!’ he repeated.
A beautiful word, which I thought might signify handsome or pretty. He tapped his forehead, as if to show I’d gone crazy, and that he would soon be in that state if I didn’t take in what he was trying to say. He resigned himself at my ingrown dimness, till calling again: ‘Abratna! Abratna!’
Assuming the word to mean other than it did exposed a vital fault in my restricted vocabulary. He used it so often in the next ten minutes that I was sure I’d remember it for the rest of my days. What was he trying to say? ‘Abratna!’ — bollocks to abratna. Never heard such a word. How should I know what it meant? But he was trying to tell me, in all kinds of ways and the waving of hands. I couldn’t see him face on, though didn’t suppose it would have made much difference. He shrugged, and pointed to the heavens, for which I didn’t blame him when I looked up the word later. He thought I was either off my head, or realised only too well what he meant and, in my barmy foreign way, didn’t care. He tried every method of semaphore to make me understand, while I endeavoured to read what was in his mind. I knew Russian for turning left or right, but the verb ‘to go back’ (abratna) I hadn’t yet come across, possibly because in my ever-feckless way I hadn’t foreseen the use of it.
Blocks of city flats gave place to flimsy cottages in acres of uncultivated flatness. By turning left so soon I had lost the main road into the city, and was heading out of the conurbation. Vanya was in glum despair at my not understanding, assuming in his cloud of pessimism that I may even plough on as far as Murmansk, him unable to stop the car without killing us.