Day 8: Eat Those Words

Tuesday May 13 - deep in Siberia

The staff in the restaurant car are still reeling from yesterday’s public service gesture by Fizle. It began when she was reading the menu and I was asking her to translate every item. I said: ‘Hey, you could do all the English-speakers on the train a huge favour if you did a written translation.’ She agreed but said she would ask the restaurant manager first. She did, he agreed and she went to get her dictionary.

Fizle ploughed through the three pages of the menu for the next hour or so. She rubbed her head, pulled her face, looked for inspiration out of the window and flicked through dictionary pages, juggling words, context and meaning. Some items defied coherent conversion and some translations were baffling – ‘Coffee Three in One’, for example – but in the end, the job was done. ‘Right,’ said Fiz, pushing her notes towards me, ‘This was your idea. You can write it out neatly.’

So I took my A4 pad and went through the list, making sure that the subheads – cold courses, hot courses, side dishes, etc. – corresponded with the Cyrillic equivalents on the opposite page. The first item was ‘sandwich with butter’ and although subsequent direct translations were a little more appealing, it was unlikely that the diners would be enticed by the poetry of the descriptions.

I suggested jazzing up the items. Boiled tongue, smoked chicken, and steak needed something more. We laughed at the idea of ‘medallions of salmon, in a jus of Siberian crème with parfait potatoes’ but decided that it was inappropriate. Fiz did, however, urge me to add a qualifying statement to avoid law suits, so I wrote ‘All translations are approximations’ at the top of each page. Safety in brevity seemed to be the order of the day.

The manager, Dima, came over and seemed agitated. He pointed to the fruit section, took one of the large red-orange apples from the table and pretended to cut it in half. ‘Oh,’ said Fiz translating, ‘It says ‘apple’ on the menu but you only get a half apple.’ She checked with Dima that the same principle applies to other items. He nodded emphatically. So I added another disclaimer to the effect that the prices quoted are for the portions quoted on the Russian menu.

With everyone happy, I slid the three sheets of A4 into the plastic wallet, opposite the corresponding pages of the original menu. Joe, Fiz and I were the first to order – she went for a plain omelette, we opted for beef stroganoff and fried potatoes. Other English-speakers came into the carriage and we told them about the new translation. Word quickly spread.

The Irish boys arrived and ordered. Next, Jan and Jaroslav, the German father of Czech extraction and his basketball-playing son, who at one metre ninety eight is the second shortest in his team. Then, Paul and Helen, the young farmers from Oxfordshire. The restaurant hadn’t been so busy since we left Moscow. Dima was in a state of perpetual motion. The kitchen was clanging, banging and occasionally sending out plates of food.

Our stroganoffs arrived – a handful of fried potatoes, some salad (with the ubiquitously gouged out tomatoes) and a meagre spoonful of meat and sauce. The taste was fine but the quantity was puny. As Fizle looked in vain toward the kitchen for her omelette, other meals started to appear. Fergal had his steak kebab which turned out to be a simple pork steak and Shane had pork escalope. Both said they were fine.

More people arrived, read and ordered from the new English menu. Dima took orders and the kitchen soldiered on. Joe and I finished our meals quickly (not hard considering their size) and Fizle finally gave up on her omelette and returned to her cabin. ‘You would have thought Dima would have given you preferential service considering the favour you have done him,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why I am not getting fed,’ said Fiz. ‘They used to have a nice quiet life until the menu was in English.’

I stayed in the restaurant until it closed at midnight, playing backgammon and talking nonsense with the Irish guys. Just before we left, the hook-nosed, bespectacled chef appeared out of the kitchen. He wore an exhausted and stained apron in front of an open, baggy, sweat-laden blue checked shirt. His three-quarter length striped cotton pants, short socks and flip flops had all seen better days and infinitely better sartorial combinations. His face is not a naturally happy one, but never before had its cheekbones sagged so much, eyelids been so heavy and hair so convincingly slicked back over his bald patch.

As he staggered in sympathy with the rocking train, it was hard to imagine any sport that his body would excel at, even if it were half its age. With apron strings dangling, he slumped into the nearest seat with the force of a meteorite. His flabby arms dropped to his sides, his cheeks flopped, mouth flapped open and his legs splayed inelegantly. He was beat.

The chef, Dima and a rather savage looking woman, dressed in tight black lycra, with a pneumatic waist and gelatinous butt, who sporadically barks masculine orders at the men, sat in unified silence. One might expect them to be happy with such a busy night but they seemed numb. As we passed them on the way back to the sleeping cars, Fergal said: ‘I bet that English menu has disappeared by tomorrow morning. The last thing they want is another busy night. That chef looked totally bollocksed.’