Yura, settling himself, slammed the door and handed over the keys. ‘You’re sure you can handle her?’
‘No problem,’ Porter said. His smile was dazzling. Right away he saw the bastard didn’t have sixteen gears. It had twenty. Reverse in the normal position, though.
‘She’s warmed up, take her right out. Hard on the wheel, remember, she’s heavy.’
Porter started up, slotted into first and pulled slowly out of line and along the aisle.
‘Down the ramp and to the right.’
The cow was heavy. And the brake was heavy, and snatched when he stood on it.
‘Easy, easy, you’re pulling nothing,’ Yura said. ‘Keep rolling now. To the trial ground, at the end.’
The trial ground was beyond the warehouses, and lay under unmarked snow, already iced. He took her round the perimeter at varying speeds, slow, fast, slow, working up and down through the gears. He’d done all this at the camp, as also the emergency stops and the figure of eights that Yura now put him through. But the extra gears flustered him and he fumbled the positions, though he was certain it didn’t show.
‘All right, now back and park where you found her,’ Yura said.
This one had him sweating as he manoeuvred and reversed in the hangar to get tight back in line.
Yura switched off for him and took the key.
‘You’re sure you drove a 50 before?’ he said.
Porter decided his smile had better go.
‘What are you calling me?’ he said.
‘You drove a 40 before,’ Yura told him, ‘with sixteen gears.’
‘I drive anything! I drive sixteen gears, twenty. Any boat you got I drive! You’re saying I’m a liar?’
‘Easy now,’ Yura said. His little pug’s face had suddenly opened up in a great smile of its own. ‘Easy, Kolya. You a Chukchee?’
‘Never mind what I am! No business of yours what I am. I drive. You don’t want me, I go home.’
‘Easy, Kolya,’ Yura said, still smiling. ‘You’re okay. You’re fine. I’m passing you, Kolya. Give me your songsheet.’
‘Bukarovsky’s got my songsheet,’ Porter said sulkily.
‘So I’ll call him. Don’t get so hot, Kolya. I like you. I never had a Chukchee before. You just need a little more time on the 50, you’ll take the right-hand seat a few trips, it’s nothing. Come on, smile now.’
Porter sheepishly gave him a smile.
‘That’s better. You’re on, Kolya. You’re with friends here, we want you. Go back there and sign now.’ The little man was chuckling as he scrambled down the ladder. ‘Hey, you got transport?’
‘Sure. A bobik,’ Porter said.
‘Good. I don’t like my drivers walking. Never had one of you before,’ Yura said. He was still chuckling as he limped away.
Porter got in the bobik, and drove back. He felt dizzy. A lot had happened in just over twelve hours. He had arrived in Green Cape and installed himself in an apartment. He had taken on a housekeeper. He’d got himself on the strength of the Tchersky Transport Company. And he had taken in some new lore. Songsheets, bobiks, soft tyres, twenty-gear trucks, ‘or’ …
He’d also learned a few things about Ponomarenko they hadn’t told him. Before leaving that morning he had removed a plinth under the kitchen unit and found a hidey-hole there. Under two floor tiles, grouted in with a slightly newer-looking mastic (and finding a tube of the stuff in a cupboard had set him off on the hunt), was a taped-up plastic bag. Other bags were inside it. He had found a few grams of what looked to be cocaine, together with a sniffing reed. An ounce, maybe an ounce and a half, of gold dust; and, oddly, twelve South African Kruger rands. There was also a photo of Ponomarenko, slightly younger than in the ones he’d seen but not much. He and a woman were sitting smiling stiffly at the camera, each holding a young child, each child the image of Ponomarenko. The raised lettering on the bottom of the photo gave a studio address in Kiev. Porter parked the bobik back in the shed and thought about this. He was a funny, fellow, Ponomarenko. He had a wife and kids somewhere. Was he the one who’d drawn the lipstick on the panda?
Or?
25
As the last man to sign on, Kolya Khodyan joined the reserve list. He had seen the short block of names at the bottom of the wall rosters — men who were sick or for some other reason not assigned to a team. Now he saw his own name added there, as available for general duties. At the beginning of a season, with nothing yet rolling, this was not important; but from the other drivers he heard that to stay with General Duties was bad news.
Under union agreements the men were paid whether the ‘boats’ ran or not. But once they were running, the teams were eligible for bonuses. With the distances involved here the bonuses were huge — easily outstripping the already high basic pay. The trucks ran through storms, through blizzards, through every kind of hazard the country could offer, and they ran twenty-four hours a day. Any hour over the week’s norm was an overtime hour and paid double. Long hauls were obviously much in demand, and General Duty men rarely got them. They got short hops and road maintenance jobs, seldom running into overtime.
The new Chukchee driver accepted his listing with good grace, and this together with his cheerfulness soon made him popular. He was very cheerful; he smiled all the time. He took on any job without argument — and in fact volunteered for one the same day when a call was put out. He could stand on his dignity (and it was understood he wasn’t to be addressed as a Chukchee), but in general he was a good comrade and, as a Chukchee, almost a mascot.
The job he volunteered for was to haul freight up from the dock. This was, strictly speaking, the work of the Green Cape port authority, and the men doing it were dockers. But when further snow made the task urgent, he took a Tatra flatbed down and joined the shuttle. He had seen right away that many of the workers below were Siberian natives and he wanted a closer look at them. He saw that several were Evenks or Yukagirs; this was the end of their seasonal work and soon none would remain in town. Ponomarenko had given some information on this.
He jockeyed his truck into line and saw he’d won a team of Yukagirs. He climbed out in the swirling snow and stood by, beating his gloved hands as they loaded the truck in front. It didn’t take long to identify the likeliest man; a cackling bundled-up little fellow, robustly swearing, the wit of the gang.
‘Warm work, brother!’ he called to him.
The man glanced round in surprise. He had called in Yukagir.
‘You got the tongue?’ the man said, looking him over.
‘A few words. Glad to see the end here, eh?’
‘You’re right. Except for the money. And the booze. Here the bastards keep it to themselves. We don’t smell it where we go to.’
‘Where do you go — traplines or the herds?’
‘Traps. But first the collective. The maniacs here work you till you drop. We need a rest.’
‘There’s a collective here?’
‘Sure. Ours. Novokolymsk. You don’t know the area?’
‘Not so well. A few friends who work up at the station, in the hills. You know that place?’
‘With the scientists?’
‘That one.’
‘See, it isn’t any use now,’ the Yukagir told him. ‘They don’t allow traps there any more, not for years. It’s useless.’
‘You could make it up there on foot?’
‘Sure — a few kilometres, no distance. But it’s useless now. Your friends are Evenks?’
‘Evenks.’
‘Yes. It suits them. They do a few weeks with the herds and a few weeks there, turn and turn about. They fly them in, they don’t want whites, and not bad money. But it isn’t for us. This is good fox country, and ermine — the best ermine. Not prime for a couple of months yet, but the best when they come on. You speak the tongue nice,’ the Yukagir told him.