any acknowledgement, as if he hasn't
seen me. And then he is gone.
It seems somehow right that the
only life in this place are feral dogs
and a man more at home within the
disturbed workings of his own brain.
Reluctantly, I leave the stray dogs
and the houses watching me with
their vacant windows and press on
into the rain that has started to fall
again. And it stays with me for the
next three long, cold days, a grey
drench of water pouring from a lead-
en sky through mist-shrouded moun-
tains and rivers rimmed with ice …
The backhoe stands next to the
trench it has dug across the road
to channel the previous day’s flood
and I have to pick my way through
deeply puddled back roads to make
my way out of town. Although it's
already clouding over, there are still
hopeful patches of blue in the sky.
The road shimmers ahead of me like
hammered silver in the low sunlight
reflecting off its wet surface ...
On the third day my rear tyre punc-
tures and I sit flapping mosquitoes
and miserable in the roadside mud
and repair it, alone, my bike balanced
precariously on a piece of plank. At
last the spindle slides home and the
job is done. I ride on through the
pouring rain …
TRAVERSE 45
Magadan. It is early morning and
I am confronted in the kitchen by a
very hung-over young man, his head
shaved clean as a spoon. He digs a
hole in a raw egg and offers it to me
to suck - "Give Russian strong!" he
assures me. He wants to compare
tattoos, flexes his biceps then adopts
a boxer's stance before embracing me
as drunken young men do …
The road back … I come across
deep snow high above a long scree
slope, pull off the track and switch
off. The silence is crisp and pure as
I strip off my riding gear because of
the heat and begin to climb. Sharp
rocks slide and tumble as I struggle