To the Lake

22 UNLEVEL CROSSING

I dozed off – probably because of the oppressive, almost hostile silence in the air – it was a light sleep, when you can still feel every bump on the road your car goes over, and your right temple is cold from the chill of the window; if somebody had said something, I would have definitely woken up, but Sergey concentrated on driving, the doctor quietly sat at the back, and even the radio was silent – there was nothing to talk about in the middle of the night on an empty road. But as soon as we stopped, I opened my eyes and looked around:

“What happened? Why did we stop?”

“We’ll find out in a second,” Sergey answered and picked up the radio. “What happened, Dad?”

“There’s a level crossing.” Dad answered immediately.

“Level crossing? So what?” Sergey was surprised. “You don’t think a train’s going to run here, do you?”

“I don’t know about a train,” said Dad gloomily, “But the crossing is closed.”

“Oh come on,” Sergey pressed on the accelerator, the Pajero overtook the hatchback, rolled forward and stopped by the Land Cruiser, on the oncoming traffic lane; the beams from our headlights ran into the lowered, red and white level crossing gate, which was shaking in the wind.

It looked like this was a secondary rail track – it was hard to believe, looking at these narrow, snowbound rails, that, even if they went on for a thousand kilometres, they would lead to a big, brightly lit, noisy train station; I would rather believe that these thin strips of metal, zigzagging, going nowhere, would end up suddenly ending somewhere in the middle of the woods, their rusty stumps sticking out of the snow. The dark signal light, a tiny boarded up cabin – everything suggested that this was an abandoned crossing; however, straight after the stripy gate, there were two massive iron slabs, rising menacingly from the ground – a built-in system preventing any vehicle from crossing the rails – as unfriendly and secure as any fence would be.

“Don’t even think about leaving the car,” Dad said tensely. “I don’t like the look of this.”

This must look quite funny from outside, I thought: our cars stationary with their engines running, while we stared ahead into the darkness until our eyes hurt, not daring to step outside: three cars by a closed gate in deserted frozen woods somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea about the existence of this place until a few weeks before, and it very much looks as if the last time people were here was decades ago.

“I can’t see a damn thing”, Sergey said into the microphone, “we’ll have to get out. Mishka, give me the gun.”

“Wait,” Dad said. “I’ll come with you.”

Mishka sleepily struggled trying to find the gun, and as soon as he fished it out from under the seat and opened the door ready to pass it on to Sergey I sensed the sharp, bitter smell of the fired gunpowder – and as soon as I breathed it in, it suddenly hit me that this was all not funny at all.

Before he got out of the car, Sergey turned to me and said seriously:

“Anya, I want you to sit in the driver’s seat.”

“Why?” I asked, frightened.

“In case something goes wrong,” he said, “Do you know what I mean?” And then he looked at me carefully and said: “Imagine we’re going to rob a bank. Somebody must be in the driver’s seat, that’s all,” and smiled, and opening the door, stepped out onto the road.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, ready to press the accelerator at any moment, I watched Dad and Sergey slowly walk up to the gate, looking back all the time; they ducked under it, and then Sergey tried to push down one of the heavy platforms blocking our way, which didn’t give, didn’t even budge a centimetre; then I saw Dad push the door of the cabin with his shoulder – to no avail, then they both pushed it and the door gave way, opening into the cabin; while Dad waited outside looking around and holding the gun ready, Sergey disappeared into the cabin and came out several minutes later; and then I watched them hurrying back to the cars. When they were several steps away I lowered the window:

“So?”

“No good,” Sergey answered helplessly, “even if I knew anything about these automatic conundrums, there’s no electricity anyway. We can’t lower them.”

There was suddenly polite coughing at the back:

“I might be wrong, but I think this is Pialma,” the doctor said, “Did anyone notice the sign? To be honest, I dropped off for a moment.”

“And what are we going to do?” I asked Sergey.

“I don’t know yet,” he answered. “Let me think for a minute.”

“What if we ram it at high speed?” I asked but he shook his head: “We’ll smash the car – and then it’s curtains for us. These concrete slabs are meant to stop trucks, not small cars like ours.”

“I’m sure this is Pialma!” the doctor exclaimed from the back seat.

“Oh just wait with that Pialma of yours!” Dad growled. “Pialma-shmialma, what difference does it make? There could be an ambush anywhere here! They’ll shoot us like rabbits!”

“Guys, shall I come out?” Andrey’s voice said in the radio, and without getting an answer, his tall figure appeared on the road and started walking in wide steps towards us. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, coming up, “We’ll need the spares from our cars and several boards.”

Sergey simply cut up the wooden barriers with an axe – they were impossible to lift just as it was impossible to manoeuvre the heavy concrete platforms – first the barrier on our side and then the other one, which was vibrating in the wind opposite. We only had two spares – coming back from the Land Cruiser, Dad told us angrily: “This idiot doesn’t have a spare! The cover at the back’s empty! Andrey, do you think two’ll be enough?”

“We’ll put them straight under the wheels,” Andrey suggested, “And the boards will go on top, should be enough.”

“I told you we should have got the tyres from the Vitara,” said Dad, upset.

“Come out, Mishka,” Sergey interrupted him, “Take my gun. If anyone comes out – anyone at all, shoot without any warning, you understand?”

Mishka nodded excitedly and came outside, the dog following him, and the doctor and I stayed in the car, watching the men unscrew the spare tyres, put them under the sticking up corners of the slabs; watching Dad hurriedly cut the wooden door of the cabin, splitting it into long, uneven parts with ragged edges and all this time Mishka stood with the gun by the side of the road, looking tense and important; none of us risked turning the engine off, and feeling the gear stick vibrating under my hand, I thought, Christ, what a dreadful, cheap horror movie, Z category, how did we get ourselves into this, and also I thought – if this really is an ambush and the people who raised these barriers haven’t attacked us yet because they’re waiting for us to get distracted and stop looking around, would Mishka’s thin figure be enough to scare them off? What if somebody invisible, hiding in the dark has him at gunpoint, just waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger? And even if they have no cartridges – what if they appear on the road out of nowhere, jump out from behind the trees, will he be able to shoot? And if he does shoot – how many shots does he have – one? two?

“…our clinic, we’ve just skipped the fork,” the doctor had been obviously talking for some time, his voice was calm, not in the slightest alarmed – on the contrary, there was a clear excited impatience in it, and I kept looking through the window not even daring to blink – being afraid to take my eyes off Mishka, yet glancing from Dad to Sergey. Where will they come from? Maybe they’ll appear from behind Mishka’s back, not letting him notice them in time? Or perhaps from behind the hatchback – it was so dark, I couldn’t see the road in the rear view mirror, and perhaps somebody was quietly getting closer to us at this very moment. The damn gear stick kept vibrating under my hand and the doctor kept rabbiting on:

“…it’s not far, just a couple of kilometres, I should have told you earlier, I just dropped off, you see, we haven’t slept for two days…”

“For heaven’s sake, just be quiet!” I yelled. “Just be quiet, ok?” And he stopped straight away, without finishing the sentence.

The whole operation took no more than ten minutes – finally, returning the gun to Sergey, Dad sat in the driver’s seat, and the Land Cruiser carefully crawled up the makeshift bridge, built out of two spare tyres and a wooden door cut into two parts – we heard an alarming cracking sound from the wood but the seemingly flimsy construction survived; the second slab, sticking out on the opposite side of the crossing, came down by itself under the crushing weight of the car, whirling up a cloud of snowy dust. The next to go over was the hatchback with the trailer, dangerously swaying from side to side, and before it reached the end, I put my foot down on the accelerator and moved off – despite Sergey’s indistinguishable shouting. I risked missing the shaky boards and getting stuck, only I was desperate not to stay on my own on this side of the rails; stopping on the other side, I realised how wet my palms were and a streak of sweat ran down my spine.

“I’ll just go and pick up the tyres, and we can go,” Sergey said and winked at me.

Just at that moment, the doctor, who had been sulking at the back seat, suddenly perked up and started climbing out.

“Wait,” he called, but Sergey was already busy with the tyres and must have not heard him, and that’s why the doctor went back to the rails. He walked clumsily and was visibly limping – the iron rod that the man had thrown at him by the hospital had hurt him quite badly. When he caught up with Sergey he started talking to him – it was impossible to say what he was saying, but I saw Sergey stand up and listen to the doctor, who was looking up at him, excitedly waving his arms. Finally, Sergey shook his head and holding a heavy tyre in each hand, walked back and the doctor started limping behind him.

“…I can walk, it’s not too far,” he said, smiling unsurely, “as you see I haven’t got any luggage, so…”

“Stop talking rubbish,” Sergey interrupted him – he stood by the car, putting the tyres on the snow, “What clinic are you talking about, you strange man? There’s no clinic left. Get into the car and stop distracting me,” and he turned away and started fixing the tyre. The doctor’s shoulders slumped, and he waited for a moment and then sighed and climbed back into the car.