THE GOLDEN ROAD
By PETER FLEMING
AT the -dawn flight there were fewer mosquitoes than there had been the evening before, and also fewer duck. Without much reluctance we squelched back to the but in which we had slept, and had- breakfast. Breakfast was typical' of the kind of meal which the foreigner finds himself eating in out of the way parts of Russia ; it consisted of sardines, grapes, and brandy. Afterwards the Armenian and I, with a dead gazelle in a sack, drove to the nearest station and boarded a very slow train for Baku. I had a boat to catch.
I caught it without much difficulty. When I went on board at 4 o'clock the next morning the captain, who had an- abstracted air, asked me what the time was. I told him. " We are late," he said, frowning. He was twelve hours late.
When I woke the next morning the ship was steaming lackadaisically across the Caspian. There were a great many passengers on board. In the steerage Turkomans, Uzbeks,- a few Kirghli, and many less outlandish people packed the sunlit deeksimtee, sleeping, delousing, gnawing hunks of black bread, and being trampled on by their own and other peoples' children. The first class saloon was very small and was unfortunately equipped with a loudspeaker ; the folk-music of Azerbaijan dogged us relentlessly from Baku. Under the clock (which had stopped) hung the key of the lavatory. Everyone, when occasion arose, took the key with him ; but this was only ritual, a salute—half wistful, half resolute— to a Utopid not yet attained, for the lock of the lavatory was broken and the place itself was used, indiscriminately and unskilfully, by all classes.
Boris slept most of the day. I played a good deal of chess with three nondescript young men. On the saloon table stood a huge carafe of drinking water. The water was mud-coloured and thick with sediment, and when I suggested to the ship's doctor (who was a very large woman in a salmon-pink dress) that this was unhygienic and dangerous the 'idea was favourably received by many of those present. An animated self- criticism meeting was held, the prestige of the' U.S.S.R. was alternately impugned and defended, and the contents of the carafe remained as before: '- Late that night we docked at Krasnovodsk, missing our- connexion on the Trans-Caspian Railway by a eOrnfortable margin ; but they said there would he another train tomorrow, Boris and I slept onboard, - and, in the morning went ashore for a light breakfast of boiled fish-heads and sour milk. Then we settled down to wait.
Krasnovodsk is a very small town, brought into being on that hot desert coast by the Trans-Caspian Railway, of which it is the western terminus. It is shut in by . hills . which, because they are spectacular and moun- tainous, in outline, cheat the eye into overestimating their size : until suddenly you .see a man striding, on them like .a giant. In the refuse-littered outskirts stand a few dilapidated nomad yurts. Water is scarce, and the people wash their clothes in the sea if they wash them at all.
I walked over the, hills behind the town in quest of a place to bathe. I found a stretch of foreshore where men with guns, inadequately concealed in shallow hides, waited for some little flocks of duck to drift or swim .within range. The chances of this' happening were materially lessened by a party of laundresses, who splashed and chattered in the vicinity, filling the bright windless noon with sociable noise. Removing myself to the distance dictated by the twin considerations of decency and sportsmanship, I bathed. The process served - the purposes of neither recreation nor hygiene, for the Caspian at this point turned out to be only nine inches deep and its floor was covered with a layer of rich black mud. I dressed and walked back to Kras- novodsk, much dirtier than before.
The 'rest of the day was spent mostly in the station -waiting-room. Next door to it was a creche, provided by Soviet enlightenment for the children of workers. Next door to that was a public lavatory, differing from most cesspools only in its central position and in the fact that it was partially roofed over. The day passed • slowly. • Towards evening Boris and I found ourselves at a party. It was given by a high railway official in the private coach on which he was making a tour of inspection. The fare provided was sardines (belonging to us) and vodka (belonging to him). The other guests were an irrigation expert, a trade official who spoke German, and the manager of the Turkmanistan National Theatre, a particularly horrible young man. The irrigation expert declaimed a poem which he had written, could not remember the last verse, and burst into tears, Somebody announced that our train had come in.
Boris and I took our places in the four-berthed box which we were to share for the next three days with two railway engineers. There was not much room, and the tattered padding on the berths was ominously speckled with those bloodspots each of which com- memorates the annihilation of a bed-bug.
We discovered, as soon as we had settled in, that there was no lighting of any kind on the train ; the driving belt of the dynamo was broken, and the electrician had been put under arrest. There was also no water, either for drinking or washing, and I decided to buy some mineral water in the station before we started.
It looked as if I had time to do this. The Moscow time- table said that the train left at 6.85 ; the notice board on the platform said 6.28 ; local opinion hovered in the neighbourhood of 6.18 ; and the railway official plumped, authoritatiyely, for 6.30. , So I detrained and ordered a magnum. .
But during that long truce (which London taxi-drivers also observe) between the making of the payment and the delivery of the change, a bell rang, a whistle blew, and more than one bystander called my attention to the train, which had begun to move.
Clutching the bottle and cursing all Russians, I ran, sprinted, leapt, and found myself on board, en route for Samarlmnd. The time was 6.22.
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