her towards the exit.
OKSANA. I was so lost in thought I didn’t notice where we were. Never been to Oskol before anyway. We stopped at a bridge and he took my hand and dragged me off the bus. So there we were. Standing at the bus stop. Bridge on the right, road on the left, and a field all around us. «What happens now’, I said? «What’s next? Is this Oskol?»
ANDREW. Kind of. Look. I’ve had an idea.
OKSANA. I couldn’t work it out at first. He’d bought tickets going in the opposite direction. The complete opposite. Like a fool I hadn’t even looked at the sign on the bus. I’m fucked. What do I tell Seka?
ANDREW. She was pissed off, obviously. Maybe she was thinking I was taking her to the woods. Drown her in a lake or something.
OKSANA. He’s jabbering about his mama.
ANDREW. Do you get it? Mama will give me the money. I’ll pay Seka what I owe him and it’s cleared. I don’t have to kill anyone. Seka can find someone else to do it.
OKSANA. Right.
ANDREW. Suddenly she’s calm. Seemed she wasn’t into the murder thing either. She even seemed a bit happier, I’d say.
OKSANA. She’s definitely good for the money?
ANDREW. For sure.
OKSANA. Come on, then. Where’s your rich mother?
ANDREW. I wasn’t actually certain she’d give me the money. She opened a shop six months ago. Converted a trailer and invested all her cash in the stock. She even put my dad on an allowance for his smokes and his booze. But I had cast-iron argument. If only…
OKSANA. Are you a fucking idiot? It says it’s fifty kilometres to Shichengi from here.
ANDREW. Not my fault. This is as far as the money got us.
OKSANA. So what are we gonna do? Walk?
ANDREW. Hitch..
OKSANA. Who’s going to stop out here, shit-for-brains?
ANDREW. Don’t know. Truckers, maybe? They get pretty bored. They might want passengers.
– Road
OKSANA. Every trucker’s got a No Hitchers sign on the windscreen. In the blue paint on the bus stop, someone’s scratched «Davydov is an asshole’ It’s like the local paper. Today’s headlines, Davydov’s still an asshole. I wonder who Davydov is? Fat, bald, businessman. They don’t write about guys like that on bus stops though. Some kid. Pissed off a girl or something. Now he’s famous as an asshole on the Moscow-Arkhangelsk bus route.
ANDREW. When I was a kid we were playing with knives behind our house – me, Bor’ka and Nataskha Sigalyovy – Sigalyata. One finger, then two, then three. They lived upstairs, and she’d always play the piano until my grandma knocked on the ceiling with the mop. Things were easy from about four years old. My grandma had a headache – smashed her skull in the war. She’d been dying for years. Headache, then shoulders, chin, lips, nose, eyebrows, forehead. Natashka started hanging out with soldiers, got married, to a soldier I guess, I don’t really remember, but throwing the knife was tricky, must have been the sun – you had to throw it up towards the moon, catch it behind your back. Natashka went to see some guy, came back, her and the guy owed someone money, someone wanted to kill him. The knife wouldn’t go in. I lost the game and Bor’ka carved a piece of rowan, a tiny piece not much bigger than a matchstick, and used the knife to pound it into the ground, I had to pull it out with my teeth. My face was in the dirt.
OKSANA. You fucking asshole. Why didn’t you stop that car?
ANDREW. Nobody’s stopping. Can’t you see that?
OKSANA. You ass-hat. What are they seeing? Some psycho car-jacker waving a knife around. Would you stop for that?
ANDREW. So you go and stop one.
OKSANA. I fucking will, then we’ll see.
ANDREW. So a car comes along. A green Zaporozhets. Only not towards Shichenga but back towards Volokovets. She walks to the edge of the road, puts her thumb out, the car stops. There are two old guys in the car. Like, a hundred and fifty. They’re smiling. Get in little girl and let’s go for a ride.
OKSANA. I’m going back to the city. I’m going to tell Seka what’s gone on and I’m gonna leave him to deal with this shit on his own.
ANDREW. Fucking bitch. Are you trying to get away?
OKSANA. He got so pissed. Threw down his knife, ran to the car, grabbed hold of me – waved the grandpas away. Keep on driving oldsters. They laughed – youngsters’ issues, cough cough, puttered away in their rust bucket.
ANDREW. What the fuck?
OKSANA. What? I have to sit here with you all night? Get your fucking hands off me.
ANDREW. I felt myself gong red. Got even angrier. What’s up with her? Is she crazy or what?
OKSANA. Then he starts yelling. It’s my fault I’m stuck out here. If I didn’t want to go I should just have refused to come. I just wanted him to shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
ANDREW. I was trying to explain that it’s her that’s in the wrong. That actually she’s only got herself to blame for ending up out here. She’s a free agent and she made a choice to come here. If not consciously then unconsciously. But she wouldn’t listen.
OKSANA. I crossed over to the other side, stuck my thumb out again, straight away stopped a BMW heading the other direction.
ANDREW. She got in the car like she wasn’t hanging around. I ran to it and got in the other side. The driver was a guy in a white shirt. He told me to watch out for his suit. It was on a hanger next my head. I hadn’t noticed.
OKSANA. The car smelled good, and I was really conscious I hadn’t showered in two days. In the dorm there’s one shower for a hundred and twenty rooms, so the queue takes forever, and you can only really use them at night. And people just fuck in them all the time anyway. Although me and Seka never did…
ANDREW. He was obviously some kind of businessman. He said «I’m headed to Arkhangelsk, so I’ll drop you in Shichenga, as long as you tell the cops there’s been an accident back there. I’ve got business to take care of. I can’t go to the cops, there’ll be all these procedures and it’ll be a pain in the ass.
OKSANA. He said a Zaporozhets had gone up the embankment and hit a tree. Two old men. One survived.
ANDREW. Looks like that old man was destined to die today. But not Oksanka. So I wondered – why’s she here? I used to not give a shit about that stuff. Main thing was being remembered after I’m gone. Maybe I’m smarter now. Maybe I want respect while I’m still alive. Money too, although that’s just paper. I’m not a greedy person – not business-greedy – not my thing. Like this guy, he didn’t just give us a ride, he wants us to go to the cops in return. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, and I’ll make people believe that’s the way it’s working cos that’s how I’ll sell stuff. And then the ads start appearing everywhere. When there didn’t exist before. Before you worked for the people around you. Now it’s for the house, the car, the cash. Travel. I used to see myself walking, camping, seeing the world that way. Now I want a beach resort in the Maldives. This