no. It’s not that. I eat them for this,’ and she pulled off the wishbone. ‘Come, Englishman, let us pull and see if you will be lucky. If not, we will drink your other bottle.’ From the outcome, it was clear she had pulled that trick before.
By the time we reached the third bottle, the Siberians were swinging between glee at having got into Belarus and gloom about how much it was going to cost to get home. By the end of it, chicken bones had been thrown around the compartment and we were all out in the corridor, laughing, wise enough to stay off the gambling tables and drunk enough to try dancing to the rhythm of Russo-Balkan dance anthems.
The bunk was short and the celebrations long, but I was eventually lulled to sleep by the rocking of the train on the Russian track. I woke to silence (earplugs), to the sight of snow, and to the sweet, smoky smell of cold roast chicken. But Katya was not eating again. She was not even in the compartment. Instead it was sweet, slender Svetla. Thinking I was asleep, she had the chicken out of the bag and her hand inside its cavity, extracting a small plastic wad. I couldn’t see clearly what it was, but it was definitely not giblets or other innards. She wiped it quickly, divided it into two smaller wads and used them to pad out her bra.
The small-town factories and villages of wood-clad houses looked derelict after all I had seen further west, in Belgium and Germany. At each country railway station, there was only one sign, a red arrow pointing to Moscwa.
Moscow came up fast and suddenly we were out of the empty snow-white countryside and into the city. The roads alongside the track were jammed. When Katya tried to open thecompartment door, it was already too late; the corridor was full. ‘Ah, Moscwa,’ she said, excited. ‘Ah, Bolshoi,’ I added. ‘Kremlin,’ said Svetla. ‘Pushkin,’ I said. ‘McDonald’s,’ said Katya. ‘Chicken burger,’ said Svetla. We all laughed.
At Moscow’s Belarus Station, a porter forced his way in and tried to grab the nearest, lightest bag – mine – but we chased him out again. Cases went flying through compartment windows. On the platform, people carried clothes, electronic keyboards and other Western, capitalist produce past statues of Marx and Lenin.
This was the end of my journey, but not of Katya and Svetla’s: Siberia was still far, far away. The formality that had hung over our first meeting was now forgotten and when we parted, we kissed and hugged. I watched them disappear into the crowd with their many bags and their two wads of – what? Cash? Drugs? Forged papers?
That night, unpacking my bag in my hotel, I found a chicken bone among my clothes, a reminder of the party. The bone was soon discarded, but the memory remains.
The Scent of Love
STANLEY STEWART
Stanley Stewart has written three award-winning travel books:
Old Serpent Nile, Frontiers of Heaven
and
In the Empire of Genghis Khan,
the last about his journey by horse across Mongolia. He is also the recipient of numerous awards for his magazine and newspaper articles. Stanley was born in Ireland, grew up in Canada, and now divides his time between Rome and Dorset.
The smell was the first thing I noticed about Outer Mongolia. It is a smoky aroma; a sweet, slightly rancid scent with strong milky base notes. Woods with campfires and tepees and drying reindeer meat might have smelled like this. An Irish dairy with jugs of cream and a peat fire burning in the next room might have smelled like this. In the end, love smelled like this.
I was on the
Trans-Siberian Express.
Not long after crossing into Mongolia from Russia, the train stopped at a deserted country station in the grey pre-dawn. When I stepped down tostretch my legs, the air was freighted with that haunting aroma.
The day brightened and the train clattered southward. I sat by the window and gazed out on the vast emptiness of Mongolia. After the claustrophobic forests of Siberia, this landscape was a
By the time we reached the third bottle, the Siberians were swinging between glee at having got into Belarus and gloom about how much it was going to cost to get home. By the end of it, chicken bones had been thrown around the compartment and we were all out in the corridor, laughing, wise enough to stay off the gambling tables and drunk enough to try dancing to the rhythm of Russo-Balkan dance anthems.
The bunk was short and the celebrations long, but I was eventually lulled to sleep by the rocking of the train on the Russian track. I woke to silence (earplugs), to the sight of snow, and to the sweet, smoky smell of cold roast chicken. But Katya was not eating again. She was not even in the compartment. Instead it was sweet, slender Svetla. Thinking I was asleep, she had the chicken out of the bag and her hand inside its cavity, extracting a small plastic wad. I couldn’t see clearly what it was, but it was definitely not giblets or other innards. She wiped it quickly, divided it into two smaller wads and used them to pad out her bra.
The small-town factories and villages of wood-clad houses looked derelict after all I had seen further west, in Belgium and Germany. At each country railway station, there was only one sign, a red arrow pointing to Moscwa.
Moscow came up fast and suddenly we were out of the empty snow-white countryside and into the city. The roads alongside the track were jammed. When Katya tried to open thecompartment door, it was already too late; the corridor was full. ‘Ah, Moscwa,’ she said, excited. ‘Ah, Bolshoi,’ I added. ‘Kremlin,’ said Svetla. ‘Pushkin,’ I said. ‘McDonald’s,’ said Katya. ‘Chicken burger,’ said Svetla. We all laughed.
At Moscow’s Belarus Station, a porter forced his way in and tried to grab the nearest, lightest bag – mine – but we chased him out again. Cases went flying through compartment windows. On the platform, people carried clothes, electronic keyboards and other Western, capitalist produce past statues of Marx and Lenin.
This was the end of my journey, but not of Katya and Svetla’s: Siberia was still far, far away. The formality that had hung over our first meeting was now forgotten and when we parted, we kissed and hugged. I watched them disappear into the crowd with their many bags and their two wads of – what? Cash? Drugs? Forged papers?
That night, unpacking my bag in my hotel, I found a chicken bone among my clothes, a reminder of the party. The bone was soon discarded, but the memory remains.
The Scent of Love
STANLEY STEWART
Stanley Stewart has written three award-winning travel books:
Old Serpent Nile, Frontiers of Heaven
and
In the Empire of Genghis Khan,
the last about his journey by horse across Mongolia. He is also the recipient of numerous awards for his magazine and newspaper articles. Stanley was born in Ireland, grew up in Canada, and now divides his time between Rome and Dorset.
The smell was the first thing I noticed about Outer Mongolia. It is a smoky aroma; a sweet, slightly rancid scent with strong milky base notes. Woods with campfires and tepees and drying reindeer meat might have smelled like this. An Irish dairy with jugs of cream and a peat fire burning in the next room might have smelled like this. In the end, love smelled like this.
I was on the
Trans-Siberian Express.
Not long after crossing into Mongolia from Russia, the train stopped at a deserted country station in the grey pre-dawn. When I stepped down tostretch my legs, the air was freighted with that haunting aroma.
The day brightened and the train clattered southward. I sat by the window and gazed out on the vast emptiness of Mongolia. After the claustrophobic forests of Siberia, this landscape was a
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