Day 9: The Love Birds Have Landed

Wednesday May 14 - ever deeper into Siberia

I didn’t sleep well last night. Two cups of black tea while writing my blog, passing thru two time zones and an excited mind, conspired to keep me awake until sunrise. A few hours into uneasy slumber, the door opened and through my sleep-deprived eyes, I saw a shape muscling a pair of bags into the compartment. Thanks to the motion of the train, the carrier nudged my head. ‘Hey! Watch it!,’ I said. The culprit said something apologetic in Russian and then added: ‘Entschuldigung, bitte.’

Our new room-mate had arrived. This was a pity because we had hoped that we would have a four person room to ourselves for the duration of the trip. This was not to be, but it was no surprise. But what was surprising, and rather annoying, is that people often assume that I am German. Maybe it’s my accent, maybe it’s my appearance but on this occasion, in the half light of a cramped railway compartment, with a sheet pulled up to my neck, and having spoken just three words, it is impossible to know how the newcomer could get it so wrong.

Later, while sharing smoker’s corner, in between the restaurant carriage and the open plan dormitory carriage where most of the Russians sleep, I was chatting to three Russian national servicemen. They were young, spoke only a handful of English words and swaying with too much vodka. I smiled as I entered the muggy space and offered them each a cigarette. One accepted, one glared and the other just gazed benignly through unfocussed, heavily lidded eyes.

I pointed to myself and said: ‘Gary.’ I looked and nodded at the most intelligent and least drunk looking youth. ‘Dimitris,’ he said. The slightly-built, blonde-haired man, who had previously glared, lightened up and said proudly ‘Alexander.’ The wasted lad, dark-haired and spotty, just swayed and mumbled. The other two laughed.

Then Dimitris asked a long-winded question in Russian. I shrugged my shoulders and offered an apologetic face. He then pointed at me and said ‘Germanski!’ Not again, I thought. Twice in a day. I assumed he spoke some German so I said, foolishly, ‘Ich bin nicht Deutsch. Ich bin Englisch.’ I licked my finger and attempted to draw a Union Jack on the thick grey paint of the wall. ‘Ah. Da. Da,’ he finally got it.

Later still, the carriage attendant, Natalia, pushed the snout of her vacuum cleaner into our compartment and managed to nudge my bare foot. ‘Entschuldigung.’ I shook my head in disbelief. I had spoken to this woman on several occasions, each time in English and yet she still thinks I am German.

This doesn’t worry me per se. It could be worse, I could be mistaken as French. But it does concern me that Russians think I am of the same nationality that perpetrated such atrocities on their forbears. Especially where Natalia is concerned, I worry that she has a deep seated hatred for all things Teutonic. This would explain her perpetual frostiness toward me.

Anyway, our new room mate is called Viktor and he is going all the way to Vladivostock. Yesterday, after he dumped his bags, he changed out of his well pressed jeans, casual jacket and blue striped polo shirt into a blue T shirt, black pyjama-style pants and flip flops. At mid-day, I finally got up and went to the loo. Viktor was sitting on one of the pull down seats in the corridor, cross legged, slowly reading a thin blue book. He looked up briefly, I nodded and smiled. He almost replied in kind. I was struck by how much he looked like Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Viktor is man of few words. Fizle found out his name and destination but that was about it. She also wondered if we would have a fourth person in the compartment. He said we would; a woman would be getting on the train later that day. Fizle assumed that Viktor, being a man who likes to keep himself to himself, had spoken to the carriage attendant in the hope that we three would remain three.

For the rest of the day, Viktor alternated between the pull-down chair and his book, his upper bunk for brief naps, and the mirror on the back of the door, in which he regularly checked his hair. And then in the early evening, the train pulled into Novosibirsk for twenty minutes or so.

I went for a walk on the platform. There were no traders, so I simply enjoyed the air, the feel of terra firma and the casual banter of my travel buddies. We were ushered back on board by Natalia, as usual, five minutes before the train departed. I meandered along the corridor and was met mid way by an animated Fizle, eyes agog, energy to the fore. ‘It’s his girlfriend!,’ she announced in the loudest whisper this side of the Urals.

‘Who? What are you talking about? Who is whose girlfriend?’

‘The woman in our compartment is Viktor’s girlfriend...’ Fiz nodded her head backwards.

I looked along the corridor and saw two bodies standing entwined by the window. The centre of gravity was the hip. They embraced with the casual passion of two long term lovers thought something suggested that it was a little staged.

The woman had chin length, loosely curled, blonde hair. She wore slightly too short jeans; diamante slightly heeled, strappy shoes; a grey and pink top that was slightly too tight and too short; and a kink-legged stance that exuded sex. By the way that she was tossing her head and giggling, she was obviously enjoying Viktor’s affections.

Viktor – the man of few words – was speaking volumes with his stance. As I got closer, I could see that his right hand was gently stroking the many moles on her right, bare hip. His groin was pushed against her left hip bone and his face was aglow with restrained desire. Chavez was turning on the charm and the woman was lapping it up.

I wanted to introduce myself there and then but I thought it best to leave them to it. A little later, I returned to the compartment and they were about to sit at the table and eat. I hesitated but Viktor beckoned me in. ‘Gary,’ he said, gesturing with a Swiss Army style knife, ‘Eat.’ I gladly joined them and saw the woman’s front for the first time. I held out my hand and said, ‘Hi. I’m Gary.’

‘Olga,’ said Viktor as he sat and began hacking into some raw fish.

Olga looked up at me with a cosmetic face and a well versed smile. Her hand was soft and limp but highly convincing. She had white but gappy teeth, a random mole, large eyes, outlined by mascara, and carefully chaotic curls that framed her wide angle face. She had an ersatz Monroe appeal, albeit rather downmarket, adipose and enforced. Her fragrance was indefinable, heavy and heavily discounted.

Olga was in her mid-thirties but she dressed fifteen years younger. As she sat, I noticed just how tight her jeans were. She had naturally broad hips and her doughy tummy bulged over the waistband.

Fiz joined us as Viktor poured, and Olga handed, me a very frothy beer. Viktor then gave me small plate with a palm-sized piece of very bony, and unscaled fish. It looked raw but it smelt smoked. Viktor confirmed that it was both, if that is possible, and that it came from a huge inlet in Northern Ruissa. Fiz couldn’t find the name of the fish in the dictionary and I wondered if it was a new species, created by a nuclear accident. It seemed to be glowing, but it tasted like sushi and I ate it.

After a few minutes, I decided to leave the love birds to it. I thanked them for the food and drink and they got back to their romantic dinner. Later that night, Olga had changed into a tight pink, velour track suit that made her butt and tummy look even larger. The pants were so tight that you could see the lace of her pants and the dimples of her cellulite. Only the diamante-trimmed sandals could take the eye away.

Wherever I saw them after that, irrespective of outfit, time or location, Viktor’s arm seemed magnetically locked to her waist. Olga’s hip bone was never further than a centimetre from his groin and their libidos were joined in unholy harmony. It was, agreed Fiz and I, only a matter of time before their connection became carnal.

And they have plenty of time; it’s still three days and four nights before Vladivostock. Fiz and I each hoped that, if they can’t resist the urge, it would happen in the bunk above the other’s bed. The combined weight of this rutting pair would do some serious damage.