The Color of Rabbits

I think I’m in Asia, but there’s no way to tell for sure. There was no grand ceremony marking the epic milestone that this beast of steel and iron officially crossed the boundary dividing Europe with its gigantic distant relative to the East. No voice calling out over the intercom (not that I would have entirely understood it anyhow) that the known, more or less civilized world had been abandoned in our wake and we were now, like it or not, subjects to the exotically barren expanse of the Siberian tundra, in all its romantic, intimidating mystery.

Asia could use a welcoming sign. Nebraska has a welcoming sign. They even include a fun fact about the state’s character on the sign greeting drivers eastbound from Colorado: “Welcome to Nebraska: the Arbor Day State.” Its a genius of a sign, actually, because there are, everyone knows, no trees in Nebraska and thus, one would presume, no apparent reason for the entire state being named after a day that exonerates the deciduous. It may screw with your mind but it’ll at least give you something perplexing to think about; the alternative being suicide by sudoko, which some road-weary passengers have been driven to in maddening attempts to ease the boredom of the tortuous drive across Interstate 80.

No ceremony, no announcement, no sign. But I’m over it.

Asia. I’ve gotta be in Asia by now.

If I hold onto the luggage rack and twist my neck down and to the side, I can make out vague shadows blurring and bouncing and—damnit that was my f*#@ing[1] head hitting the window—darting in and out of view, depending on the angle of light sprayed out ahead and behind and above us from a platform lamppost or half moon reflecting. Snoring, footsteps and soft chatter are drowned out by the constant opening and closing of the door to the bathroom, which is conveniently positioned directly at the foot of my bed/rock-hard sleeping platform. The background noise behind it all is the ceaselessly erratic grinding of steel on steel occurring somewhere between twelve and fifteen feet below me, mixed with an occasional but far too regular jolting smash of a misaligned rail, alarmingly yet vainly calling into question the workmanship of the tracks themselves (were we actually airborne just there?), of which the worrying about is merely another mildly curious attempt to pass the time.

The foothills of the Urals and a brief pitstop at the train station in Yekaterinburg have been the highlights of the past hour. At a kiosk on the station’s main platform, I bought a beer (Baltica 3) and a carton of the Russian equivalent of Ramen noodles[2]. I ate the noodles and drank the beer on the bench in the semi-enclosed compartment I was sharing with five Russians. The bench has now been converted into a bed for Yana, a 26-year old lawyer by degree who is now scribbling notes in a Czech dictionary so she can better understand her Slovakian fiancé who she met at a New Year’s party nearly six months earlier while on vacation in Prague. Across from her sits Aleona, a 20-year old tourism student at a university in Petersburg (I couldn’t catch which one), just finishing up her 3rd year away from her family and just now heading home to the Siberian city of Irkutsk for the first time. My previous companion on the upper bunk across from me, Jhoura, who had just graduated in politics from Moscow State University, left us a few hours ago in Perm, replaced now with a short, mustached man in a light blue, oily button-up shirt who looks like a car mechanic and hasn’t said a word since hoisting himself up into the bunk upon arrival. Across the walkway, a middle-aged woman is tucking her four-year-old daughter into her sheets on the top bunk. I have not spoken to either mother or daughter yet, and I’m slightly terrified in engaging the four-year-old in conversation, lest my guise as a semi-fluent Russian speaker be uncovered by a toddler’s question about the color of rabbits.

“Hi.”

“Hello, little girl. How are you?”

“Good. What color are rabbits?”

“Ahh, yes.”

“---“

“Hmm?”

“Rabbits? I’m coloring rabbits.”

“Ohhh-kay...”

“What color are they?”

“Umm, flowers? You like flowers?”

(Giggling) “No, color. Of rabbits!” (Laughing hysterically)

“Ohh, color! Ha. Yes, yes. Color… my favorite color is green! What’s yours?”

(Rolling on the ground, uncontrollably laughing) “Rabbits, silly! HAHAHAHA!”

“Hmm. Haha. Yes. I have no idea what you are saying.”

At this point the whole car will join in rip-roaring laughter and frolicking through the hallways at the silly American who doesn’t know what rabbits are. It will be terrifying. I will have to jump from the train in the middle of Siberia. How far does one need to walk to find a town out in the middle of Siberia? If I was still in Eastern Europe, there’d be a chance. There’s trains and towns and taxis and haggard old grandmothers with hearts of gold that would take me in and cook warm pel’meni and greshka and adopt me as a second son to their only child who has been away as a sailor in the Russian Navy, stationed in St. Petersburg. At least I know a bit about Eastern Europe. But I’ve crossed. I’m in Asia. Surely, this is what Asia is like. I will be stranded in the wilderness and will need to fend off wolves and bears with a crossbow I will construct out of pine cones and tree sap. My beard will grow long and no one will know what has happened because no one is expecting to hear word from me until the end of this train ride, seven days from now. I will wander the endless expanses of secluded forests, hunting squirrels and gophers and—and rabbits! And then I will remember this twisted, demonic little four-year-old girl and I will be rejuvenated in spirit and will vow to track her down. I’ll find a caravan of gypsies and I’ll get them to bring me down through Kazahkstan, after several years in the process of becoming a gypsy myself, then they will smuggle me into a freight container full of wheat grains bound for Pakistan through the Indus River. There I’ll disguise myself as a fisherman and win a fishing vessel from a rug dealer in a high stakes poker game in the dark underground poker rings of Islamabad. I’ll bet my life as an indentured servant and he’ll bet the fishing vessel and I’ll win with just three queens. I’ll take the boat and hire a sidekick who calls himself Johnny after rescuing him from a footrace pursuit with the Pakistani police. Indebted to me for saving his life, together Johnny and I will sail undetected past Iranian pirates and U.S. submarines in the Red Sea up into the Mediterranean. We’ll sell the vessel to a merchant in Istanbul and hitchhike in the back of a Turkish immigrant-smuggling semi-truck all the way back to Moscow, where I will find this girl after hacking into the former KGB intelligence mainframe from the rooftop of the huge toy store across the street. I’ll find her at the cyber café at Moscow State University, chatting to friends and sipping a cappuccino with her black leather Gucci purse, four-inch leather print heals and hair pulled up tight in a twisted, stylized bun.

I’ll find her and I’ll say, “Tsaiytsii.”

Rabbits.

Ah, yes. That’s the word.

“And they are brown.”


[1] For my inaugural footnote, I’d like to direct attention to the restraint shown in the self-imposed censorship on profanity I have decreed for this work out of respect for the millions of children this book will inspire while it is read aloud to Kindergarten classes the world over. You can thank me later.

[2] Of particular note on the circuits of worldly travel is the universality of plain, just-add-hot-water blocks of noodles which are available for purchase in just about every grocery store, train station kiosk or street vendor from London to Singapore; the taste of which varies little yet each has a corresponding quality befitting its extreme thriftiness, making this style of noodle extremely popular among broke college students and backpackers alike. The sight of a broke college student on a backpacking trip must be a goldmine to noodle vendors.

Flirting in Czech

The narrow walkway runs down the length of the car, separating our enclave from the others. On the other side of this walkway is another bench/bed and above that is another bunk (in which the four-year-old is now thoroughly tucked in). So each “compartment” potentially accommodates six passengers and there are nine compartments making up this third-class car. Essentially, traveling in third class Russian trains is like one big slumber party with 54 of your friends minus the fort-making, chocolate chip cookie eating and the fact that they are actually all strangers—nice strangers, mostly, but still strangers and Russian strangers at that, meaning strangers who don’t shower (not that there are showers in third class to give them the option to shower anyway).

I twist and kick until I’m on my back again, staring up at the blank white underside of the luggage rack an arm’s reach away. My right leg is turned awkwardly at the knee to avoid the chain attaching the bunk to the wall at my feet. I’m still wearing the lightweight khaki hiking pants and 100% polyester T-shirt purchased by my mother at a specialty backpacking retail store that I’ve had on since I boarded last night and it’s still too hot to lie under the only covers I have: a single, hospital-ish, plain white sheet. I try not to move around too much so I stop sweating, but that’s been a lost cause since I stepped onboard. I also have to pee but there’s a line for the bathroom and I don’t feel like going through the ordeal of hoisting myself back up here just yet. Russians have an innate talent for bunk-hoisting. I have already been shown up by a pair of four-foot-tall, eighty-year-old Russian grandmothers whose gravity-defying leaps into upper bunks would qualify them for Ripley’s Believe It Or Not if one of the producers of that show ever decides to take the Trans-Siberian railroad and happens to witness the feat. Maybe when it’s all said and done, I’ll be able to hold my own but for now I’ll just hold it and remain staring at the luggage rack above my head.

This lasts for all of three seconds. “Are you asleep?” I say, peering down at Yana.
“Yes,” she whispers.
«What are you reading?»
«Czech. I'm learning how to say 'I'm asleep'.»
«How do you say it?»
«Well, I haven't learned it exactly yet.»
«Ok, try.»
(shurpelnighgya).
«That's not it. You made that up.»
«Oh, so you speak Czech now?»
«Of course.»
«Say something.»
«What?»
«Say something in Czech.»
«I can't hear you.»
«Say something you know in Czech.»
«I could, but you probably wouldn't understand it if you can't say 'I'm asleep'.»
(Laughing) «Ok, well I'll keep practising.»
«Good. There will be a test tomorrow.»
«So I can test you in Russian, too?»
«Hmm?»
«I test you in Russian tomorrow, also?»
«This isn't a test already? You should probably just learn English. It would be much easier.»
«For you!»
«Yeah, for me!» I smile, looking upside down at her sitting up in the bed below me. She has a personal light on over her right shoulder and the dictionary is propped up on her knees which are tucked under her sheet.

I am flirting with an engaged Siberian girl but I don't care. She's sweet and nice and is, not to mention, currently the only one I can understand clearly on this whole damn train.

On an unspoken, creepy telepathic mind wavelength, Yana understands me. It’s the wavelength between two people who have walked down the frustrated path of handicapped communicative abilities that I imagine would exist in a similar manner between people who have lost the ability to properly express their thoughts, say, after a freak attack by an escaped hippopotamus from the San Diego Zoo renders a paddleboating couple temporarily deaf and mute, or between a prison inmate and his brother who comes to see him during prison visiting hours but knows that the whole conversation is being recorded because they are secretly running an underground cartel for importing illegally-accurate news reports on the dependence of the United States’ economy on Canadian donut hole recipes.

I had the same relationship with my first pet goldfish, Speedy. On a fundamental level, we understood each other’s thoughts even if we didn’t have a common avenue for expressing them. For example, Speedy’s way of communicating that he wanted to be placed back into his bowl was to flop around on the floor several times in the upward direction of his glass home. Likewise, my way of showing him my appreciation for his loyal friendship was to chase him around the bowl with my open-cupped hand (until he jumped in) so I could show him off to my jealous friends.

So, it’s basically the same thing. Yana’s fiancé does not speak Russian and she does not speak Czech. Their entire relationship is an exercise in patient diligence to the endeavor of mutual understanding, regardless of having a common medium of a familiar language, which is, as I am learning, all-to-easily taken for granted among people who speak the same one.

How much do you really need sounds organized into what we call ‘words’ and ‘sentences’ to understand someone else? Maybe the whole deal is over-hyped to begin with. Maybe meaningful understanding comes more from what is unsaid than from what our mouths can blabber on and on about in ever more creatively crafted ways, concealing our true intentions and revealing them again, manipulating at times then cursing when our own are twisted unknowingly, dancing about the flickering flames of the primal fire of ultimate reality and examined truth, of which we were born and to which we will always seek to return.

Sideways

A bell is ringing.
Shut up bell.
Ring ring ring.
Shut up, I mean it.
Ring ring ring.
Hey bell, stop it.
Ring ring ring.
Are you—
Ring ring ring.
—f---ing serious?!?
Ring ring ring.

My eyes open. There is a round sideways woman staring at me. Two seven-year-old boys sitting next to her, also sideways, also staring. She has two gold teeth. I know this because she is also smiling while she is staring. One of the gold teeth is the left front tooth. An incisor. The other is a pointy tooth, oddly pointed, not at all appearing in any type of organized formation with its fellow yellow-brownish brethren.

Ring ring ring.

The boys have empty eyes. They’re wearing the same faded yellow shirt. Not twins though. Their feet don’t hit the floor.
In an act of sheer courage, I’m sitting up. The sideways people are no longer sideways. My brain is a bit slow catching up with this move, swishing back and forth in my skull like a pair of jeans in a washing machine.

Ring ring ring.

Oh. China.

The ringing stops and a voice is jabbering in my ear. I think its coming from some speakers, somewhere. I’m on a plastic chair next to my backpack, surrounded by scattered paper napkins and a flower pot. I don’t even wonder what the flower pot is doing next to me. Six years of college have killed this curiosity in me entirely.

Why am I in a train station?

I look at my watch.

Ring ring ring.

SHUT THE HELL UP BELL.

My train out of China has left two hours ago. I consider myself a hero for standing up. The backpack is slung over my shoulder, the flower pot glanced at once more and a close-lipped smile/semi-nod combo is offered to the upright folks across from me as I make for the exit out onto the street.

There is another option for getting out of China. I need to find the bus station. Conveniently, this bus station is situated on the other side of the city and I will first need to find a bus that will take me there.
My guidebook says bus six will do the trick.

Actually, my guidebook did not say that at all. Guidebooks, loyal and compassionate as they may be, cannot speak.

On the street, I see a man in a suit with a briefcase in hand.
“Excuse me, sir, where is bus SIX?”
“---“
“Six? Bus? Bus number six?”
“---“
A woman walks by, pushing a stroller.
“Do you know bus six? Ma’am? Six?”
“(something in Chinese I don’t know)”
“Ah, sorry. Shye shye.”
Next, three more women, all potentially midgets, stride past at breakneck speed.
“Bus six? You know where bus six? Six? Six? …Bus six?” I’m almost running after them to keep up, these tiny power-walking midget women. This time, I hold up six fingers and then pump my fists up and down like my name is Big Stan at the helm of a nine-ton 18-wheeler hauling spark plugs.
“This… bus there,” the center woman points over her shoulder at the street corner across the big public square from us.
“There? Bus six? Ah, shye shye! Shye shye!”

I’m plowing through a pedestrian underpass, trying to find a way out of the country while vendors tout their counterfeit Rolexes and the white-collars are headed for another day at the office. My pocket contains just enough money to pay for the bus ticket. It is immediately obvious I’m the only white person on the bus .
Nanning is a tiny city by China’s standards, home to just over a million residents. It probably barely makes the cut to show up on maps in this land of sheer extremes. Outside the bus window, skyscrapers rise high and huge steel signs tout the names of American and Chinese banks. We drive past three McDonald’s and a steady stream of local shops, garish sentries lined up like dominoes.

I have an idea how big the city is. Yesterday I made two trips on a similar route on my way to picking up my Vietnamese visa at the consulate on the other side of the river. It takes over a half hour to get to the other side of this “tiny” city. My bus is stuck in gridlocked traffic at 9:30 am. There are no seats left and I’m forced to twist my back such that my pack is not thrust in the face of a teenage girl typing madly away on her cell phone.

After picking up my passport with newly acquired visa inside, I headed out to meet up with Vicky, who had already planned a night out with her friend from England who had moved here several years earlier to avoid credit card debt back home.
Tom is a tattooed, skin-tight black tank top wearing bartender who led us on a bar crawl of the city which stretched out into the unremembered territory of blurred images, bar games, the slamming of beer and (I think) a stop at a local diner with a whole contingent of Chinese characters who were amused, or possibly enthralled in a way that makes people watch the kid who could turn his eyelids inside out back in second grade, enough to follow us around as we went from bar to bar to club to bar to club to diner and on and on into a crazy night on the other side of the planet.