Kolymsky Heights (15 page)

The Tchersky Transport Company, at this season, had the running of Green Cape. The river had frozen, not solidly as yet, but solidly enough for all the shipping to have vanished. The half-mile length of dock showed no trace of a gangplank, and would not show any for eight months. Now it was crammed with freight, the last frantic unloading of ships that had dashed for open water before the ice trapped them.

Not only the dock but the sheds that lined the dock were crammed; and the huge warehouses on the hill above the dock, acre upon acre of them; all crammed. Through this one small Arctic opening all north-east Siberia was supplied: its gold and diamond mines, its processing plants and power stations, and all the industrial settlements that had developed round them.

In the short summer, when the Kolyma flowed, barges carried the supplies south, for distribution through the river’s tributary system to east and west. But that was in summer, and in the south. Up here no long-distance tributaries ran to east or west. To east and west the area was impassable in summer, and had to wait for winter.

In winter the Tchersky Transport Company took over.

On the steep hill above the dock, Porter watched them doing it. From here he could see the spread of warehouses on top as well as the frenetic activity below. Below, some dozens of teams were at work freeing the crates jamming the dock. The crates towered crazily, dumped one on top of the other as the ships had hurried to leave. Snow had fallen and an icecap had formed, freezing the stacks together. The bulky figures, earflaps down in the bitter wind, were chipping them apart,
while cranes and forklifts shifted them on to trucks. A steady stream of trucks was grinding uphill and churning into the storage area. Here the loads were being stowed under the last of the cover – a roofed and pillared overhang extending the length of the warehouses.

He watched for some time, and then turned and trudged through the rutted snow to the administrative block. He had identified it immediately, a squat two-storey building on short piles at the beginning of the warehouse row.

In the dismal morning all the lights were on inside, and the draughty foyer bustled with activity. Clusters of men were going from one wall roster to another; others gathered round the samovars, talking and smoking. He stood for a while, jostled on all sides, and presently made his way to a double set of glass doors at the end. He peered through to a large room filled with desks. Men and women were writing, phoning, passing papers to each other over glasses of tea. He couldn’t make out anyone noticeably managerial, and turned away to get himself some tea at a samovar. There were no glasses here, just paper cups and a drum of somewhat grubby lumps of sugar. He reached for a couple of lumps, and as he turned jostled another man, spilling his tea.

He apologised.

‘It’s nothing.’ The man wiped his leather jacket.

‘Some crush here!’

‘Start of the season. Nothing’s rolling. You new here?’

‘Just got in. Is Bukarovsky still here?’

‘The road manager? Sure. Upstairs.’

‘I suppose he’s the one to see.’

The man was looking at him curiously. ‘For driving, or?’

Porter noted again the ‘or’, evidently local style. It hadn’t appeared on the tapes.

‘For driving, sure.’

‘Then it’s him. End of the corridor up there. You’ll tell by the noise.’

Porter sipped his tea, looked around, and shouldered his
way to the rosters. There were several of them, listing the teams and what they would be driving. The lists showed three drivers to a truck, two on, one off. He saw that Ponomarenko’s name wasn’t there. There was a large variety of trucks, different models of Tatra, Kama, Ural. He knew about this. They had some hundreds of heavy trucks, almost 1500 drivers and mechanics: close on a million tons of freight to be hauled.

He finished his tea, threw the cup in the bin and walked upstairs. Even at the stairhead he heard the uproar; and as he neared it, a nameplate on the end door confirmed the source:
P. G. BUKAROVSKY, ROAD MANAGER
. He paused there, uncertain whether to knock or enter, until a girl emerged in a hurry, and left the door for him, and he went in.

A sunken-chested man with a haggard face was shouting into a phone, his feet on a desk. He was doing several things at once: drinking tea, furiously smoking, coughing, pointing out something to a girl hanging over him with a clipboard, and offering advice to an older woman who sat talking on another phone at the other side of the desk. ‘Tell them to rot at Bilibino!’ he told her. ‘With my compliments. Not you,’ he said into the phone. ‘I
promised
you! Two-three days. When I see fifteen centimetres. Not a minute before! What do
you
want?’

The last was to Porter, who was standing before him, flashing a smile. He’d hesitated whether or not to take his fur cap off and had decided against; the men below had kept their caps on.

He carried on smiling, waving the manager on with his conversation, and looked around the room as it proceeded. The walls here were also covered with rosters; and with large maps. A phalanx of coloured flag pins was stuck neatly at the bottom of each map. No flags were yet distributed on the maps. He turned as the phone smashed down.

‘What’s your problem?’ the man said.

‘You want a driver?’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Chukotka.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘A favour to Ponomarenko. We met at Batumi. He can’t come for a few weeks.’

‘That bastard will stretch his holiday once too often! What can you drive?’

Porter offered his papers. ‘Whatever you’ve got.’

The phone rang again, and the man picked it up and laid it on the desk, where it angrily chattered. He glanced through the papers.

‘You’re square with the union?’

‘All square.’

‘What trouble are you in at Chukotka?’

‘No trouble … Look,’ Porter said amiably. He hadn’t stopped smiling. ‘I’m doing Ponomarenko a
favour
. You also. You want me, it’s okay. You don’t – also okay. I’ll go.’

‘Bukarovsky!’ Bukarovsky said into the phone. He continued glaring at Porter. ‘Leave your songsheet here,’ he told him. ‘And go round to the sheds. Not you,’ he said into the phone, between spasms of coughing. ‘Tell Yura to try you on a Kama 50, and to call me back. The 50, right? Hello – Pevek, what the hell is it now? … Here,
you
– take a bobik,’ he said to Porter.

‘A bobik?’ Porter said. A bobik was a terrier.

‘So now
I’m
telling
you
! I’m sick of your problems. I’ve got my own problems,’ the man told the phone. ‘And I’m sick of talking about
them
!’ He was groping in a tray of keys. He tossed one to Porter. ‘Give him the book,’ he said to the woman across the desk.

Porter looked at the key on its leather tab, and at the book the woman shoved across to him. She pointed where he had to sign. It was against one of a row of numbers. He signed N. D. Khodyan and left as the roaring continued behind him.

Below he threaded his way through the foyer, and at the door asked a man, ‘Where do I get a bobik?’

‘Back of the building, right behind here.’

The number he’d signed was the number on the key, a car key. He went round the building and found the cars, in an open shed. There were four or five pickups and a number of jeeps. There was nobody there. He walked around examining the registration numbers and found his bobik. It was one of the jeeps, a solid enclosed job, very square and ugly like a little tank. The tyres looked half flat. He walked round, kicking them, and saw that all the tyres in the shed were half flat: evidently it was intended.

He got in the car, found the ignition and turned the key. It sparked immediately, a rough throaty snarl. It was dark in the shed and he couldn’t see the display on the dash. He fumbled the gears and got the thing moving, out of cover and into the light. In the light he saw there was no display on the dash, and hardly any dash: a speedo, a switch for the wipers, and that was all. There had to be a switch for the lights but he couldn’t find it. But the thing was powerfully heated, and had a motor that surged at a touch with a satisfying grating bark – evidently accounting for the name. He took to the terrier at once, and got it moving again, to the front of the building. Someone was coming out, and he hailed him out of the window.

‘Hey! Where do I find Yura?’

‘Which Yura?’

‘For a Kama. A Kama 50.’

‘Straight on, half a kilometre, turn up the ramp, you’ll find him.’

He kept on along the line of warehouses, dodging in and out of the path of spinning forklifts, and found the ramp. The whole massive hangar was up on short piles, evidently as air insulation for the permafrost below. Inside, as far as he could see, was an amazing army of trucks, row upon row of them, all lined up, waiting, and bearing the logo of the Kamaz Auto Works: Kama 30s, 40s, 50s. The front line, he saw, had laden
trailers already attached, but farther back were just the tall cabs.

He parked the bobik and emerged into a rush of warm air from big blowers spread out over the area. Around the walls work was going on at long benches, and nearby the spit and flash of welding gear. He walked over to the man there.

‘Where’s Yura?’ he yelled in his ear.

The man put his visor up. Who?’ ’

‘Yura.’

‘The boss? In the office – the glass booth at the end.’

He found the booth, and a white-overalled Yura, on the phone, busily scribbling, on an inventory pad. He was a little brawny pug of a man with a shock of grey hair. Porter waited till he’d finished, and flashed his smile.

‘I’m Khodyan – Kolya. Bukarovsky wants me to try a 50.’

The man looked him up and down.

‘Ever driven one before?’

‘Sure.’

At the camp all they’d had was a 40, but he’d been assured it was the same. Sixteen gears; almost identical to a Mack.

‘Where have you driven?’

‘Chukotka, Magadan – that circuit.’

‘Roads.’ The man grunted. ‘None of that here. Here we run soft, low pressure. Better traction, but a heavy wheel. All right, then.’ He opened a tall cupboard. It was neatly laid out with several lines of hooks, keys hanging from them. His scarred hand flitted about the keys and selected one. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of,’ he said. He put a fur cap and leather jacket on and led the way.

An experienced ex-driver, evidently, and an injured one, Porter saw: one leg was shorter than the other. The man limped down a row of cabs, their umbilicals hooked up at the rear, and stopped at one. He went rapidly up an iron ladder, and Porter took the other side. He climbed the six or seven feet and swung himself behind the wheel.

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?