Chapter 16: Thieves, Journal, Bandana and Scarf
Another horn roused him. This car wasn’t honking at him. Yellow radio-Lada and milk truck were long gone. A fish truck driver was complaining about another dawdler in the line. Two of the women looked up from the television and shouted at the truck driver, at the same time, “What’s with you?” The truck driver honked once more. The line at the pump did not move.
Rudy drifted away from the television, shuffled across the gravel, and climbed onto the bike. For a numb moment, he couldn’t find the kickstand, couldn’t find the starter, couldn’t remember where he was supposed to put his hands. He had to move, but how could this thing move? How could he move?
The air smelled of smoke.
Reflex pushed through the haze. The kickstand clicked up, the bike started, the motor growled past the fish truck and roared back onto the highway. The town rolled past him—tower park market shop—sights Rudy knew, but no people he recognized.
The Captain’s iron gate was shut and locked. Behind the black metal bars, the mechanics’ benches were empty. The bike carried Rudy down Lenin Street another 50 meters, then veered into the alley and past the goat pen. The bike stopped in the dorm’s small parking area. It was too small for their tour bus to enter and turn around, but a small, dingy blue van was parked near the door. Rudy’s boots touched gravel; the motor switched off. As the pistons gave their last thwap, the dusty, shabby courtyard went silent for a few seconds. Then a Russian voice burst out the dormitory door—”stupid goat!” and the speaker did not mean goat—followed closely by a pale, scarecrow in coveralls and scuffed brown boots who skidded bleeding forehead first out onto the concrete. “Put it all back before—” Looming above the bleeding scarecrow was the Captain himself, filling the doorway, crowbar in hand, eyes fixed on Rudy. Rage blinked to surprise and grief, then blinked back to rage as the Captain turned to the trash he’d thrown out. “See now!” the Captain barked at the man on the ground and kicked him in the ribs. “He sees you, thief!”
The scarecrow rolled over, saw Rudy on the bike, and groaned. The Captain glanced over his shoulder into the cool gloom of the dorm lobby and stepped out; another bedraggled man came out, his face twisted in agony, his arm bent behind his back by the woman mechanic from the Captain’s shop. She brandished a two-foot crescent wrench in her left hand. She shoved the man. He stumbled forward, tripped over the groaning scarecrow, and crashed head and ribs against the edge of one of the van’s open rear doors. Both thieves looked Ken’s age.
“Amerikanyets!” the Captain shouted, and for a moment, Rudy thought he, too, was in for a beating. “These stinking slut-dogs tried stealing your gear. Help us make sure they put everything back.”
The Captain’s order jerked Rudy out of his shock and off the bike. He looked in the back of the van. Thrown against the rear seat, next to a grimy toolbox and the spare tire lay several mismatched suitcases and a U.S. Army green duffel bag—Ken’s bag, with his dad’s name on it, intact, Ken had bragged, since his dad had lugged it through France in the service 30 years ago.
The second thief was closer to Rudy’s feet than the groaning scarecrow. Rudy whirled on the second man and hauled him up by the collar. “What the hell?!” Rudy yelled in English, right into the man’s slack face. “Fucking bastards!” The man in Rudy’s grip didn’t resist. Rudy shook him, pivoted, thumped him against the inside of the other van door. The man winced and slumped to his knees. Rudy bounced back, seeing red, seeing the violence he could do to these thieves, seeing the violence the Captain might let him do. But Rudy froze in place, arms and legs stiff, hands curled into tight fists but not swinging, only trembling.
The scarecrow and his partner got up unsteadily. Shamefaced, the two thieves each grabbed a couple bags and set them out on the ground.
“Inside,” growled the Captain, pointing toward the door with the crowbar. “Where you found them.” The thieves complied. The Captain followed them in.
Rudy didn’t move. The instinct that had raised his voice and laid his hands on the second thief dissipated in a couple breaths. He just stared at Ken’s bag in the van.
The woman mechanic stepped out of the dorm into the sun. She stared at Rudy as she passed, momentarily uncertain. Embarrassed, she averted her eyes. After a long silence, the woman recovered her firm bearing and started thrashing the van with her wrench. The first crash of a shattering window snapped Rudy to action. He pulled Ken’s bag out from a shower of glass, slung it over his shoulder, and carried it inside.
The old woman sat at the concierge’s desk. Usually when Rudy and his friends came in, she issued some brief, cross, unintelligible harangue. Now she ceded all authority to the Captain and kept her attention entirely on the television, volume turned low, swimmers in Barcelona. The lights were off; the hall was lit only by the smoky evening light filtering in through windows of opened rooms. Rudy passed the showers and went to the room he shared with Ken, Brad, and Carter. He dropped Ken’s bag and his own backpack on the floor in front of the dresser and dropped himself onto Ken’s bunk. The guys had offered him one of the lower bunks when they arrived in Suzdal, but Rudy was smaller than the others—a lot smaller than wrestler Carter—and each night he enjoyed the last bit of exertion and acrobattery it took to haul himself up top, proof that hard labor and Russia had not worn him down, that he could spring to life for more the next day. He had no such spark now.
Scarecrow and the thug Rudy had cussed out made a second trip out and back in with the rest of the luggage they’d intended to steal. Then they stumbled into Rudy’s room with a shove from the Captain. Silently they emptied their pockets. Rudy heard coins and a few other objects rattle on the top of the dresser. The Captain told them to get lost, and they got lost fast. The window was closed, but down the corridor and outside he could hear the female mechanic offering a few more opinions on the men and the mothers and farm animals they disgraced before they started their battered van and rattled away with fragments of windows and lights..
Rudy sat with his head in his hands, but he could feel the Captain watching him from the doorway, waiting. The mechanic finally said, “You saw the news?”
Face hidden, Rudy nodded.
“The news says no one survived. The explosion, the fire… were intense. They can’t identify… well, they count you among the dead, based on the tour company roster.”
Rudy looked up, registering the words but not fully processing. The Captain continued, slowly: “The police may come tomorrow. I’ll leave you to explain why you are not a ghost. No one will bother you here tonight. I am sorry, about the thieves, and about your friends. Shameful, for all of us.”
Rudy let his head drop into his hands again. He felt unsolid, as if his body would give way and he would slide to the floor, through the floor, into the ground.
The Captain thought a moment, forming some solution for a problem Rudy was nowhere near conceiving, then took a pen and a folded newspaper, Carter’s Wednesday edition of Pravda, from the top of the dresser. He wrote for a moment. “Here,” he said. “My name and phone number. Also…” pen tapping, dresser wobbling a little under the Captain’s firm, crisp hand “…name, address, phone number of a friend in Moscow.”
Then the Captain held out the key to his motorcycle. He had taken it from the bike while supervising the thieves’ retrieval of the last bags.
“Take the motorcycle to Moscow, or… well, if you take the bike to my friend, he will take you to the airport.”
The Captain held out the key until Rudy took it. The Captain stepped backward, tapped his knuckles on the newspaper on the dresser, on the notes he’d inked above the masthead. Then the Captain simply turned and walked out, leaving Rudy very alone, sitting among the belongings of 24 ghosts. The only sound was the soft, slow ticking of a ceiling fan in the hall and the faint exultations of sportscasters over splashing on the concierge’s TV.
Gone. Everyone. Gone.
The sun slid north. Weird northern sunset was still hours away, but Rudy’s window and room fell into shadow. In that dusky blue light, Rudy’s eyes fell on the small notebooks by his feet, Ken’s notebooks. Instead of a camera, Ken had brought a handful of pocket notebooks. Ken had toured Moscow and Leningrad a couple years ago. He’d shot nine rolls of film and spent what felt to him on his student budget like a fortune getting them developed. To save money, Ken had resolved this time to leave his camera at home and write down the things he saw. “Four bucks for paper, a buck for pens—heck of a deal!” he’d said as he scribbled away on the bus coming back to Moscow from their first day at the country monastery. Ken told him that taking notes made him pay attention to things differently, to not just what he saw in the frame but what he heard, what he smelled and tasted, and what he was thinking as he and his friends survived what felt at times like a joyful circus and at others like a den of wounded bears.
There were five notebooks on the floor, scattered like cards when the thieves had pulled bags from under the bed. There were three small spiral notebooks, one red, one yellow, one blue, still with their K-Mart stickers on the covers. Ken had thought they’d be enough for the trip, but while the group went souvenir shopping on the Arbat the Sunday before leaving for Suzdal, Ken had hunted for notebooks, writing paper of any sort, and had found these small brown journals, DNEVNIK printed in red italics amidst stylized flowers on the covers, among the two carts of books that a man in a gray suit was selling on the sidewalk. Ken had bought three and was reaching the end of the second at the campfire Friday.
Rudy dropped the key on the floor and picked up one of the brown Russian notebooks. He opened to the middle and started reading.
Taking a bath outside, in a river. I ought to be lost in R-rated thoughts. I mean, come on: Lily, Kate, Maddie, Constance, crowding the raft with us guys, scrubbing, sunlight glistening, bare skin. But… I’m thinking of how we shared Maddie’s shampoo and now the bunch of us smell like apples. I’m thinking of sitting there with Rudy. If I hadn’t started shivering, I’d have sat there joking with him all night long.
No, Russia is not turning me gay. I’m also thinking about helping the girls up out of the water, Constance especially holding my arm so tight after she got out of the water, shivering like I was, this girl who looks like she doesn’t need anybody, just hanging on to me for no obvious reason. But I don’t have a clear image of any of those girls in that moment. I wasn’t scoping them out, committing curves to memory like I usually would (and keep these notebooks tucked away so the girls don’t get evidence of what a sleaze I am, right?). I was just being with these people and being happy about it and being happiest of all just sitting there with Rudy, happy that he’d think I was cool enough to sit with.
Is it Russia that makes us feel… innocent? Alive? Or would we feel this anywhere, mostly strangers thrown together in a strange place with beauty and danger around all the corners?
I’ve never felt as happy and alive as I feel right now. Work all day, even to get our water. Play in the river. Rise, eat, walk, work, bunk down at night surrounded by friends. Everybody working together, looking out for each other… tell me again why communism failed?
Five notebooks filled. Six for sure by the time we get to Moscow. Got to buy a couple more for the plane ride, catch it all before familiar ground makes me forget.
My backpack smells like bread, not the heavy dry rye from the cafeteria, but the good stuff, the fresh bread from the bakery. How long can that last? Every morning….
Rudy flipped ahead, looking for the last dated entry. Saturday morning, several pages, all the way to the end of the notebook:
…I just saw Rudy and Ksenia take off. I came out here to journal and heard that engine start. I walked out the gate and there they were, just pulling away from the curb, Rudy in a black helmet, Ksenia in a blue helmet, sky blue, with yellow and white flowers painted around it. Rudy shifted into second, and I could Ksenia lurch forward and back. I heard her shout over the engine, and she pulled herself closer, and off they went, golden sunlight through the trees flashing on them like rock stars.
Rudy, you lucky SOB.
But no, it’s not luck, is it, Rudy? You aren’t lucky. You’re ready.
Like that truck at the monastery. Marina comes and tells us we have boards to unload, we walk out and it’s that truck piled with big honking logs. We’re all standing there, jaws hanging, and you see that rope in the truck and figure it all out. You tell us where to stand, where to heave, and we lever the logs up, make three logs into a ramp, roll the rest off the side, and you rig the rope into a cradle so six of us can shoulder each log to out back of the building so the bandits can’t see them (but hey, sisters of the monastery, explain to me: if it takes all that engineering for us to move each log, what bandits with what truck are going to come steal those logs before you nuns come out and brain them?).
You made that happen, Rudy. Problem comes up, you just look at it for a moment, say, “Yup, here’s how we do it,” and you do it. The logs, the motorcycle… You think of what none of us would think of: walk down the street, rent a motorcycle (I can barely negotiate a loaf of bread at the bakery!), tell this girl we’ve known for just a couple days you can give her a ride to some town you’ve never seen, and she says “Sure, why not?” because she fucking believes you. She knows you’re ready to do it, and you can do it.
Ready… the word sounds funny, but it makes sense. You’re ready, for anything. You say do it, and we just know it’s the right thing to do.
But I keep thinking that something could go wrong. We could’ve dropped a log on Marty’s head. You could blow a tire, get robbed…
I’m not going to go full Ashley and get all jealous, though I am jealous, totally! Ksenia’s so pretty. All these Russian girls are pretty (see? not gay!), but Ksenia… alone with her, on the open road, on a motorcycle, for a whole day. That’s just awesome. And if anybody can handle whatever might happen out there, it’s you, Rudy.
But you’re on the road alone. Yeah, with Ksenia today, but tomorrow, on the way back, alone.
Brenda learned it, and we’ve lived by it since: we stay safe by staying together. You’re safer with us, and we’re safer with you.
I could have offered to go with you, but you probably found the only reliable, rentable motorcycle in Suzdal. Besides, I’ve spent all my money on bread and pryaniki ha ha. And Ksenia deserves your full attention, to keep her safe, to get her home. You don’t need me distracting you.
But when you come back (and you’re gonna come back, just fine, my writing here will make it so), I’m going to ask you everything, and you’re going to tell me everything, and I’m going to write it all down. And someday, maybe soon, maybe next summer, I’ll start saving money now, I’ll come back here. I’ll rent that same motorcycle, or I’ll buy one in Moscow, and I’ll ride up that same fucking road. I’ll bring my camera and I’ll take pictures of everything you tell me about. I’ll cut up this journal and paste the lines under the pictures, and I’ll send you a big old photo album, “Suzdal to Galich and Back”.
And if that sounds like the gayest thing you’ve ever heard, well, I’ll meet my own beautiful Russian girl, take her on the motorcycle ride, and get her to marry me. Pow! Just like that! Ha!
I should write about our picnic lunch during work, the concrete, the campfire. So much in one day, and so little time to write. I’ll catch up today on the bus. Last page—good place to stop, bring last fresh notebook on the bus today and tomorrow. Clean pages, fresh, wide open, ready for everything we see, and for everything Rudy tells me when he gets back.
By the time he read those last words, Rudy had lain down on his side, reading sideways, world at 90 degrees. Nothing beyond Ken’s journal registered. Rudy didn’t notice whether he actually fell into the full dark of sleep or remained in a lingering mental twilight like the long dusk of early August. He wasn’t thinking about, let alone deciding, what to do next. Empty room, empty hall, no one else, no one else… just Ken’s notebooks, himself and Ken and everyone else condensed by hand and pen into lines rolling across pages….
When something closer to consciousness returned, his eyes were puffy and blurry. The thin, rumpled pillow beneath his cheek was sodden. The lights were out; everything in the room was murky blue. His watch said 03:55. He struggled out of the bunk. Ken’s fifth notebook fell off the edge of the mattress onto the floor. The springs were not nearly as tight as the top bunk. He felt bad for making Ken sleep in that inferior bed. He’d offer to switch—
The other three bunks remained empty. Rudy had started to stand, but he fell back, sitting, on Ken’s bunk again. He breathed out all of his breath, waited, thinking very seriously about the possibility of not breathing again. Wait forever, don’t move, let it end. Only fair, right?
Rudy broke the silence, the ringing in his ears, with a long, deep breath. He held that in, tightened all of his muscles, scrunched his eyes shut, balled his fists in front of his chest.
No, he thought. Do move. Keep moving. He’d said that to himself, eventually, after hearing about his mom and dad last year.
But it was harder to say it now, facing 24 ghosts, 24 friends no longer moving, stilled forever, frozen in final moments like Ken’s final penstrokes.
What do I matter? I’m not actually dead, but the world will think I am. And I should be.
Much later, for much of his life, Rudy would think about the path he followed that week, from the park to the mechanics’ shop, from Suzdal to Galich and back, to that terrible Sunday evening and Monday morning. But at this moment, his thinking cap wouldn’t screw on. His raw, unpinnable thoughts just kept cycling around 24 lives, all gone, and one life, his, unbeknownst to most of the world for now, still going.
Moon. Bell tower. Move. Go.
This August morning, this grim, silent morning, Rudy stood up from the bunk, his head not at all clear but at least stable. Automatically, he stuffed his clothes into the ryukzak that he and Ksenia had shared Saturday. He tucked Ken’s notebooks next to his Pushkin and pocketed the cash on the dresser. He tore off the front page of Pravda and put that in his back pocket, not to use it, but to hide it.
Rudy paused just once in this quiet storm of activity. He saw a bandana, one of Ken’s, draped over Ken’s work boots. Ken had worn his Nikes on the bus. Rudy reached for the bandana, shook it out, grabbed opposite corners, and started to tie it around his neck. But he felt Ksenia’s scarf, still knotted at his throat, there all night.
Rudy crossed his closed hands right in front of the blue knot, pressed his chin against his thumbs. A chill coursed through him. North… Galich… could she…?
No. He couldn’t complicate… he couldn’t explain to Ksenia, to Pavel and Anna. He couldn’t explain to himself. He just needed to go.
Rudy put Ken’s bandana in his back pocket and buttoned his jacket around Ksenia’s scarf. He strapped the pack to his back and walked out.
The old woman was still at the concierge desk. The TV was still on, but the sound was off. A reporter and Boris Yeltsin traded pantomime. “Young man, where are you going?” the old woman squawked in Russian, but Rudy said nothing, and she did not repeat her question or move from her seat. He went out in the courtyard. The sky was clear. The moon glowed low and dusky in the southwest. A few stars shone meekly in the slow dawn. And the motorcycle waited.
Rudy got on the motorcycle. He started the bike and rolled out of the courtyard. Moscow was south, to the right. Galich north, left. Rudy went past the Captain’s locked gate, to the main intersection where he and his friends would turn west to the dining hall. He turned east and rode toward the slow sunrise an hour away.