MONGOLIA

I’ve left my heated nest at about ten in the morning. I’ve had some meat doughnuts at breakfast and I set off after exchanging some lines with few workers gathered around the bike.

I realize it’s still freezing, even before mounting. Siberia is showing its ice fangs again. But today I have my winter gloves on. I took them with me at a moment of high inspiration. Here you have, Siberia, fuck your glossy teeth! I’m on the road and I certainly can’t laugh at Siberia’s face, as I have to stop after fifty kilometers to put the gloves in the engine to heat them. A good thing though: the landscape is not the gloomy one I witnessed over the past few hundreds of kilometers, so I’m at ease now. I see a car passing by, someone in a hurry is overtaking us, well, there’s some action on the road.

Eugenyi is waiting for me at Novosibirsk today and the plan is to call him when I have one hundred kilometers left, to see how we meet. It will be easy. I only have to change the oil and buy some chain lube and Eugenyi told me there’s no problem, considering I’m heading for the capital of Siberian motorcycling.

I get to a café at about eighty kilometers from Novosibirsk and I stop to eat something and call my friend. Nothing complicated, a borsch. Then I get out. The cook comes after me. She’s small, stumpy and she’s smiling. She asks if I have some icons or if I believe in The Almighty, or at least this is what I understand, as she’s taking off her collection of icons. Hm, you’ve found your opponent at the stash of holly stuff. Look what I have here: one big icon of Saint Serafim of Sarov, from Gabi and Cristi, “The Talisman” – the little book of prayers I have from my grandmother, the little angel that haven’t left the tankbag ever since I have this white horse of mine, not to mention the two medallions at my neck that I have from Ortansa and Alex. I’m armored. And still… I’m not that impressive. I take out, as a last attempt to gain respect from the collector, from between my papers, “The Prayer for the Journey” that has always been with me until now. Weeeell… this might add some points. Lady’s eye balls are getting a little bigger, she takes the icon from my hand, asks me something and until I have the chance to do something, she stash it in her stash, the stash in the pocket at her chest, she says thanks and gets lost. Pfff… I’m feeling as if someone has taken the monkey wrench out of my tools kit. What am I supposed to do? Go after the lady and tell her to give me my icon back? How would that be? Would that be nice? Well, if the icon went away from me, it means it knew something. Not that I do not need it anymore, maybe someone else simply needs it more.

Well, what else was I supposed to do? A, call Eugenyi to tell him to make ready. I don’t get to dial the number that the lack of the icon starts to hurt. I take a stroll around Doyle and find out something I really didn’t want to find out. First thing – not a surprise for me or for him – the broken radiator. There’s only some cooling liquid at sight, so this is a fresh wound. Not very big issue yet. But, there’s something I really didn’t want to happen, although I kind of anticipate it along the way – the water pump. It has an aperture and if you see drippings coming out from that aperture, then you’re fucked. And I definitely am! I’m scratching my head when dialing Eugenyi’s number. My plan of staying for just one night is fucked too. Out of the bloom, in one minute. I’m not very worried, as I’ll handle all the issues I’m having, but they require heavy work. And there’s something about that water pump that the mere thought of it makes me wanna take the first plane home. It’s something very easy to be replaced, only two fittings, but you have to remove the left lid of the engine to get to them. And that only sounds easy, it’s very complicated in fact. Because of a certain German or Austrian guy or whatever he was, who thought to put an oil pipe in a certain place when designing the engine. And that certain place is exactly two millimeters away from letting you remove that lid. I’d congratulate the dude that made this stupid thing. I’d congratulate him with kicks in his butt. Before leaving, this maneuver took us, us meaning Alin, Ciprian and I, few hours, and there were three of us. Well, we have to do it again this time, there’s no other choice. For Doyle, to the end of the world! And back.

I give Eugenyi the bad news and I insist I want to stay at a hotel, as I don’t want to bother him. He’s only human, and I’m feeling uncomfortable, as I’m human too, I think. I have no chance. I’ll stay at his home until I finish what I have to finish. OK.

I get to Novosibirsk. The rain is waiting for me few kilometers before. I’ve got dirt of the visor, splashed by the cars, how cool. Marcel is taking me downtown to Lenin Square, where I meet Eugenyi. He tells me briefly that we go to change the oil and then see what else we can do. Waaait, wait to hear the updates. Aha, he makes a phone call. Well, we go home, you take a shower, I have to go to training and then we cross the street to the bar when I return. Ha, how easy, perfect! So Doyle’s gonna be fine. I take the shower and I tell Eugenyi I’ll take a stroll and we meet in two hours at the bar, as I know how to get there. I take the laptop with me, thinking I’ll write few words while drinking a coffee somewhere and then go to Eugenyi’s Irish Pub earlier and send a sms to Richard, the guy from Liverpool that loves The Beatles and play with him until Eugenyi arrives. I don’t find anything spectacular, so after a one-hour walk I’m opening the door of the pub where I was longing to get and, at the bar… Richard. He’s looking at me, he stares and “you’re still here?”. Me: “You? Still here?”. I sit near him and start telling my Mongolian stories, with bad road, beautiful people, beautiful places, the entire story with pictures on the laptop screen. It’s clear. “Gheroi” – that’s what I am. I’m Richard’s gheroi. Meaning “hero”. He tells me he told everybody about me, that he met a guy that was riding his motorcycle from Romania to Mongolia and back and told everyone I’m his gheroi. “Serioja, give this guy some vodka!”. The vodka lands in front of me, without me saying or doing anything. My Richard has been here for quite some time and he’s been busy. He’s manga. He speaks only Russian. I have no idea what he’s talking about. And so my chance of getting along with someone who natively speaks English has gone away. On Volga. I keep telling him I’d very much appreciate his talking English, so I can understand something as this Russian with British accent is above my powers of understanding, as gheroi as I am. Various people show up and Richard introduces me to everyone as “Mihai, my gheroi”. Gheroi here, gheroi there, I am the gheroi. I’m Richard’s gheroi, one-two-three, spasiba balsoi! Some extra vodka shows up and then I order a Bacardi rum, not to forget what I’ve kept dreaming about all the way till here, then beer and so on. At some point Richard decides it’s high time for him to leave as, no matter how hard he tries, he can only speak Russian.

He gets out and Eugenyi gets in. He also pours a couple of beers in me and then, guess what? Well… bye-bye, that’s right. I’m not getting too much. I’d speak Russian, if only I could articulate two words. We leave and, next thing, I’m in bed and the room is spinning. I’m like the water pump at four thousand RPM. This is how I feel, and like there’s an oil pipe designed by some stupid engineer, which doesn’t let me go to the bathroom to solve the problem like men do. Our gheroi, dear Mircea, is thrashed. He sleeps like a baby. He’s not even able to dream anymore.

It’s even harder in the morning. Now I’m a mega-gheroi. Because I have a mega-head. Haaaahaaa, what a déjà-vu I’m having. I woke up on the same couch, one month ago, having the same feeling. Alek is supposed to come this morning to take me, so that we take Doyle from the parking lot and then go to the garage to mess around. Eugenyi calls. Alek is downstairs, waiting for me. Aaaahhh… how I’d sleep twenty four hours more. I get down, aaaahhhh, whoever invented the spiral stairs, and I meet Alek, who’s by his car. We say hello and… it’s as if I’m looking in the mirror. He has the same look. I tell him beer, rum and vodka. He introduces himself – two bottles of champagne. Perfect, we’re thinking the same. We take the wild horse and the road to the garage is a rodeo. I think that the phial would have broken if I met one. I notice very relaxed there’s smoke coming out from Doyle while we stop at traffic lights. It’s the radiator that’s not leaking, but flowing like the Danube. Let me tell you something. Maybe someone else in my place would have cursed the hell out of this boy, with the troubles he seems to generate. Instead of that, I keep wondering how in the name of God he does all these exactly when we get in the places where they can be fixed, not in the deserts we’re riding through. I think my boy is somehow restraining himself. I feel like kissing him! I believe I’m the only owner of a vehicle who thinks his vehicle is cute when breaking down. And you say he’s not alive, ha?

On the way to the garage we stop and take oil and chain lube. Ready, we’ve done it and now the garage door is opening. First of all, Alek tells me we can’t work under these circumstances, that we definitely have to go across the street to grab some chicken and kefir. Great, the way to success is ours. This is how we proceed. First maneuver, radiator down. We latch it to the compressor and, surprise – two holes, one next to the other. We could glue it with some stuff, but Alek recommends me to do it his way, to take the radiator to a master that welds in aluminum, forty kilometers out of town. Ok, meanwhile I’ll take the oil out and start the ordeal with the water pump. Denis shows up to accompany me. I know him from the festival one month ago. I like him a lot. He resembles a little my uncle Titi, at the vision he has over the things and the world around him. He doesn’t speak English, but we get along surprisingly well and there’s no wonder about it. I show him I have to change the water pump, so I have to remove the engine lid, but there’s… problem. He’s looking at it astonished and we start unscrewing. In two minutes I have the lid in my hands and Denis in front of me. He shakes his head in disapproval and says something like “yeah… problem, right”. I keep my point of view and say to him that we’ve been lucky it went down that easily, but we’ll try putting it back until tomorrow morning. In other five minutes, I’m looking at the lid put back at its place and I get the same disapproving “yeah… problem, right”. I have a brand new water pump and Alek comes in with artistic embroidery at the radiator and we put it back as well. A, there’s something more, as we’re here. My front wheel bearing, the problem I’m having ever since I’ve known Doyle. The ex-owner, out of the maximum interest he showed for motorcycle maintenance, rode with the seized up bearing, which dug a beautiful ditch in the hub. We’re staring at the wheel and scratching various parts of our body. Here comes Godzilla, the head of the Honda Goldwing Club of Novosibirsk, who knows what should be done. Dear Mircea, Doyle’s wheel is letting me alone today, as it goes to visit a guns or airplanes factory, I don’t know for sure. The guys say that if you want anything, any kind of part, a carburetor, anything, they manufacture it for you. And then I mention that my head-light is loosen from a fastening and is kind of shaking, but I don’t think there’s any bug issue and anyway there’s a lot of work to do with two screws that are problem to be put back. I don’t get to finish saying that when my head-light is removed, fixed and put back to its place, scene followed by the well-known disapproval from Denis – “yeah, problem, right”. We say goodbye to Doyle and the decision is taken that, after a long-day’s work, we’ll end at Eugenyi’s home, swimming in beer. Shit, not again.

I wash my hands, I say Doyle goodnight and I get in the car, with Alek and Yura. We go to the beer pool. We are on the road. Wait a second… I have an intermezzo like I kept having along this journey, a moment when I’m leaving myself and go somewhere upwards and let Mihai smiling dumbly and staring into vacancy. I’m on the left seat of a car with the steering wheel on the right. I have Alek and Yura with me. It’s raining, the sky is grey, and it’s that time of the day when it’s getting dark and the day is kissing the night. The traffic is pretty heavy. We wait at traffic lights and we’re not hurrying, not even when we have an empty stretch of road in front of us. I’m leaning my head against the window and I notice my hands are still dirty, although I’ve washed them. I’ve worked all day long to make my Doyle well, that Doyle that has been working for two months to get me here and who is now somewhere hidden in a garage, resting, half taken to pieces, but alright. I’m few thousand kilometers away from home. I’ve been further than that. So alone, and no one is speaking. Only the wipers are lasciviously dancing in a slow and bored rhythm on the windshield. And above all this, from the car speakers, you hear this:

Spasiba, life on Earth…