Last updated on 2024-10-20
Chapter 10: Sudislavl, Confluence
The highway to Sudislavl was in remarkably good shape. Rudy revved the bike past 90 kph in places; the bike and the pavement ran smoothly beneath them. The traffic calmed, and so did Rudy, coming down from the maniac road warrior high of the Kostroma and the clashing sour frustration prompted by the gas station creep. Rudy did not want to chase through traffic all day, and he didn’t want to deal with such rank extortionists; he just wanted to lay down miles, every mile one farther than Ashley and the rest of his American companions would ever cover on the Russian highway. Sure, they would get their own taste of the road touring around Vladimir, less than an hour south from Suzdal on the bus, but every mile north he rode, especially now past the Volga, past the Golden Ring, was a mile farther than most American tourists ever ventured from Moscow.
Sudislavl came faster than Rudy expected. The town was smaller than Suzdal, and the highway followed the edge of town. Rudy slowed enough that Ksenia was able to shout, “To the right here! Bakery downtown!”
Rudy turned right on what looked like a country road. It dropped into a valley, then turned into a wide pitted street lined with old wooden houses. Another minute, and they found themselves amid a cluster of shops. Sudislavl looked more like a rough collection of old villages scattered in the woods than a town of 5,000, and not one new building in sight.
One drab building bore the standard Soviet sign: KHLEB—BREAD, in heavy block letters, gray where their faded blue paint had peeled off. The only promising sign this bakery offered as they stopped was the smell. Fresh, hot yeasty smells wafted out of the building and lingered on the breezeless street. But the windows were cloudy, the inside grim. The shelves bore baskets of golden bread but little else. Rudy and Ksenia bought one white loaf. Three doors down was a milk store with no milk but small blocks of fresh cheese and dark bottles of mineral water.
Ksenia carefully tucked their lunch into what little space remained in the rucksack and hefted the pack back onto her shoulders. She hadn’t complained about the weight at all.
Back on the bike, Rudy started to turn back the way they’d come, but Ksenia nudged him. “Wait! South yet!”
Rudy dropped a boot and pointed. “But the highway…?”
“This road circles back. Trust me!”
Rudy checked for traffic, then U-turned and headed south. The central buildings gave way quickly to forest again. In a minute, the trees opened to reveal a lake in the middle of the town. The road followed the south edge of the lake. Long lines of cars were parked halfway in the ditches; numerous dirt trails led down to the water. Trees deeply shaded the road, but the lakeshore was wide and bright. The sun was high, the temperature in the 70s (20s for the Celsius Russians), and half the town appeared to be swimming and sunning and picnicking. A herd of boys scuffled on the sand, then burst apart running when a dusty soccer ball shot out from amidst the tangle of legs. Rudy could hear their shouts over the slow rap of the motorcycle. He drove slowly: children and parents were stepping out from between cars and crossing the street, lugging their old picnic baskets. He passed an old man in swim trunks and sandals pedaling a bicycle slowly back toward the town center. Bright white eyebrows and hairs the same color on his bony shoulders glowed upon his brown skin. He leaned steadily into each pedal stroke.
Past the lake, the forest was cleared for an industrial neighborhood. A salvage yard, construction cranes, long rows of storage units… Rudy sped up and reached the highway at the eastern edge of town. The highway led them back to the Galich road, just as Ksenia said. There was even clear signage, something he’d noticed he couldn’t count on as firmly as back home.
The road northeast was smooth; Rudy opened the bike up. Ksenia tightened her grip around his chest, confidently, the way he tightened his grip on the throttle. They flew down the road for just ten minutes before reaching another dense stretch of forest. Ksenia leaned back and patted his ribs with her left hand. As he slowed, she pointed to a wide shoulder on the other side of the road. A couple of Ladas were behind them, but no one was in the oncoming lane. Rudy signaled and leaned into the left lane. The cars whizzed by them as Rudy eased over to where Ksenia had pointed. Leading from the shoulder was a narrow gravel trail. Rudy paused.
“Yes, that way,” Ksenia said over the idling engine. Rudy continued. The gravel was new, not packed down. It grabbed at his wheels. Rudy managed to keep the machine on the path, which quickly gave way to a cinder-covered circle next to a meadow. A handful of picnic tables were scattered in the shade. At the lower end of the meadow stood an outhouse.
Rudy shut off the engine and dropped the kickstand.
“I’m sorry about that gravel,” Ksenia said immediately. “I didn’t think about how slippery it would be.”
“No problem. We made it… but on the way out, I might have you walk up. That climb will be tricky.”
Ksenia swung off the back of the bike. The sun shone onto them over the clearing. It was still and warm here. Ksenia dropped the ryukzak and peeled off her gloves, helmet, jacket, and sweater. She stretched her arms above her head, looking rail-thin in her plain grey t-shirt.
“This is one of my family’s favorite places along the highway,” Ksenia said. She pointed across the meadow. “Just over the rise, behind the trees, is a stream. It runs to a lake off to the west. Trails run for kilometers in all directions through the forest. One trail runs all the way back to Sudislavl. Others lead to the villages. Just for hikers and horses.” She turned back. “Come, let’s picnic by the stream.”
Ksenia went for the pack, but Rudy hoisted it to his shoulders. “Your shoulders deserve a rest.”
She smiled, then trotted off to a dirt path through the tall grass. Rudy took a step, but then it hit him that maybe leaving the bike out of sight was a bad idea. Back at the bakery and at the milk store, it had been parked right outside the window.
“Don’t worry,” Ksenia said from the trail. “The bandits aren’t out here. They have much easier targets in town.” She spoke of the bandits with the same confidence with which she gave directions.
The gas cap did have a lock. He used the other key on the small ring the captain had given him. He patted the shining gas tank. “Attagirl,” he whispered. He picked up Ksenia’s helmet and jacket, hung them on the left handlebar (his own helmet was on the right; his jacket lay over the seat), then turned to follow Ksenia.
They hiked for just a minute, got out of sight of the parking area, and stopped beside the stream, a few meters wide here, mostly ankle deep, burbling unhurriedly over shiny stones. Back in Suzdal, one of their guides had mentioned some superstition about sitting on the ground, which was supposed to make you sterile. That hadn’t stopped the Russian students from picnicking with them at lunch yesterday or enjoying the campfire on the hilltop. It didn’t register with Ksenia here, as she sat quite comfortably with him on a soft mossy patch beside an old felled tree trunk. They leaned against the trunk, quite mossy itself, and enjoyed their meal. Ksenia broke off chunks of white bread, still bakery warm inside, still soft, utterly unlike the stiff, crusty slices of bread that usually greeted Rudy and his fellow travelers in the dining halls. Rudy unknotted his red bandana, spread it out on the soft turf between them, and laid out cheese he sliced from the small blocks with his red pocketknife. They steadily devoured the entire loaf and the two little blocks of cheese and washed them down with the warm mineral water.
“We have camped here,” Ksenia said between bites. “Well, not here, but down the trail, at the lake a few times. Once we stayed here and lived in our tents for four days. The first day it rained without a pause, but my cousins and I still spent the entire day exploring the trails around the lake. We came back muddy and laughing and not even realizing how badly we were shivering. Even in all that wet, my father and my uncle managed to build a roaring bonfire. ‘Now we’ll bake those shivers right out of you, like little sausages!’ my uncle roared. We squealed as they chased us around the camp, shouting ‘Sausages! Little sausages!’ They stripped our wet clothes off us, hung them on a line by the fire. We grabbed towels and stood bare as savages before this fire twice as tall as us, shivering wildly as the heat replaced the cold inside us. The rain quit, and the fire quickly baked us and the ground around us dry. My father and his brother sang as they kept stoking the fire. I woke up in the tent, next to my cousins, at dawn, smothered in blankets and the smell of smoke.”
When the bread and cheese were gone, Ksenia took hold of Rudy’s wrist and consulted his watch. “Would you like to walk for a bit? We have time.”
Rudy needed no persuading. They were making good time. Kostroma had been exciting but not as complicated as he’d feared. It was easy to forget that, all morning, the bike had done all the moving, and they had sat mostly still. They could use the exercise before settling in for the last push to Galich.
Rudy brushed crumbs off his lap, shook out his bandana, and tied it around his neck again. Ksenia was already up. She extended a hand. Rudy gamely took it, and she held on just long enough for him to get to his feet. He shouldered the pack, and Ksenia led the way down a path alongside the stream.
“You know,” said Ksenia, “you could be the first American to come here, to see this stream… that rock—oh! that rock with the stripe in it.” She pointed at a small boulder half-submerged on the other side of the stream, gray granite with a smooth stripe of pale quartz running straight up.
“There’s so much like that,” Rudy said, looking across and up the stream. “So much we don’t notice. So much we never have the chance to notice.”
“That’s how it is for everyone. Even me. I’ve been in Galich most of my life. I’ll go to Moscow and Peter and…. but we live most of our lives in messy little dots, with thin, fading lines between them. I’ve been here, but back where we came in, I’ve never set foot on the other side of the road. I’ve never seen where this stream comes from. My own Russia, and these heres and theres that I know are still such tiny parts.”
The trail came to a ladder of well-worn roots up a steep bank. They climbed for a bit with hands and feet, then hiked on through thick birch forest. Rudy shuddered. The first American… a year ago he might have been arrested, interrogated by the KGB, become a New York Times headline for being here, away from the tourist minders, on his own. He still could be arrested for deviating so far from the itinerary his visa permitted. But that assumed anyone at the KGB or the militsiya or whatever office handled such things was even bothering to look anymore. The paperwork brought money to the country. Its job was done. A local policeman out here could try to turn that visa into more money. Rudy didn’t think he had to worry about that until the trip back; Ksenia had some magic, it seemed, to keep the road clear, the bandits away, the gas station attendant at arm’s length… or eye’s length. He hadn’t seen a police car on the highway yet. Maybe that magic would rub off on him, just enough to carry him for one fast, straight shot back to Suzdal…
…but that was tomorrow and for now that magic made her long strides longer, loping between the trees, over fallen branches, every step sure. He followed happily. In Moscow and in Suzdal, he had been happiest when they could escape the monastery, the school, the dorms, and cover ground, see the city, command the streets, get away to the hilltop. He had chafed under Brenda’s new nervousness at being outdoors, even in the group. He understood—her encounter with the hooligans was a first, it cracked her hoop—but it pained him to see her seem to draw away from the country, to want to outrun it.
Ksenia was leading through the woods almost as quickly as Brenda did on the streets of Moscow and Suzdal, but it was not a fearful hurry. It was a regal stride, filled with certainty and belonging. The trail, the trees, the country were hers. And as he walked, he imagined he could land each step where hers had fallen, touch the ground still resonant with her step, and absorb… a sense of that sureness, an embrace of that place.
She stopped next to a fallen log. “Ostorozhno,” she said, almost in a whisper. Careful.
“What, bear?” The thought formed as a joke, but an instant of reflection on how little he knew of nature beyond Moscow made the word medved come out of his mouth for the first time in all seriousness. He came up beside her and saw the drop-off, maybe fifty feet into a bushy ravine. To their right, the stream became a waterfall, straight down fifty feet, splashing a great rounded upcrop of rock, then recovering its wits and strolling on into the brush. And beyond, to the north, maybe two hundred feet away, another, taller cascade from another stream. That cascade was rockier, with the water splashing on several landings. The bank there was clear of trees, and the spray flung colors into the sun.
“These two streams join here, run to Sudislavl,” she said over the soft rush of the waterfalls. “The lake we saw is a reservoir. Past the dam, you can paddle down to the Volga.”
And from the Volga, he thought, upstream to the canal and to Moscow, or down, down to Astrakhan. It was the bell tower all over again, the same chill, the same sense of the vast landscape rushing in all directions around him, calling him to run farther than he could ever run.
Rudy could feel a howl at the sky welling in his chest. He and his friends had done crazier things back at the work site—singing as they broke up the concrete, stripping and swimming in their underwear after work at the stream south of the monastery, bathing together on that platform in the river in Suzdal. What was there to stop you in Russia? Who was to stop a crazy American from howling at the sky?
But keenly aware of Ksenia beside him, gazing quietly at the cascades, he checked himself. What more madness did he need than to be here, with this Russian girl, seeing these hidden falls? She knew this place well. He would not stamp it with some gross gesture of his own.
She snaked her arm around his, leaned just a bit into him. A few days ago, the gesture, from Ksenia or almost any other woman he knew, would have surprised him. After a whole morning together, it seemed perfectly natural and unprovocative.
“Remember this place,” Ksenia whispered. “When you get home and tell your friends about the Kremlin and St. Basil’s, tell them about these falls too.”
When I get home… for two weeks, home had hardly registered in his thoughts. He’d answered the standard Russian-class practice questions in conversations with his new Russian acquaintances—”I live in New Jersey, I work in construction” (he didn’t bother talking about the dull detour into banking) “I have two sisters…”—but not once had he slipped into anything close to his usual train of mundane thought about job prospects or the next apartment. The thought of translating these sights into past tense summaries jarred him. He didn’t like it. Ksenia rightly recognized this place as worth equal billing in his memory album with Moscow’s walls and domes, but right now, right now, right now, he celebrated this place’s status as not a memory but as his location, his being.
“Are you thinking of home?” Ksenia asked.
“Not at all,” Rudy said, and by the time he said that, it was true. “I’m thinking of nothing but right here.”
They stayed for some time—uncounted time; he didn’t look at his watch—hearing nothing but the waterfalls. Then a troop of boys came marching up the trail, giggling and goofing off. Behind them were four adults, two men, two women. The bald man carried a baby in a backpack, the little one’s bonneted head bobbing happily behind the man’s bare noggin. The other man and both women carried packs laden with tents and blankets. The boys all carried bundles of various sorts. One dark-eyed boy marched along with what looked like two bedrolls and a big lunchbox lashed together and roped over his shoulders. The whole troop hiked up to the lookout beside them to see the falls.
The dark-eyed boy took in the falls, then turned to Rudy and Ksenia. He looked at their jeans, their t-shirts, their faces. “Cool motorcycle!” he grinned, and gave them a thumbs-up. The boys around him broke out in giggles, repeating his compliment and scampering away amidst variations on the theme of a revving engine. Their thumbs expressed no crude meaning.
The adults dutifully turned away from the falls to keep their boys in sight. But the bald man paused, his brow sweaty, moisture spreading on his shirt beneath the straps of the baby pack, and looked Rudy in the eye. “He’s right,” said Bald Dad. “Very cool bike. Safe trip. God be with you.” The baby reached out a chubby arm and patted the side of Bald Dad’s head.
“And with you.” The Russian words came automatically to Rudy’s lips, at the same time as Ksenia, a wish he’d never said in English, never said to anyone before coming to Russia. Now he’d said it to both of the strangers he’d spoken with today. Rudy watched the hikers drop back into the forest.
“Walk a little more?” Ksenia asked.
A little more? Rudy thought. He could walk, ride, run all day. He looked again at the falls and took a long, deliberate breath, in and out. “Yes. All you wish. Lead the way.”