Elena's invitation to the hitchhiker was not encouraging. 'We'll give you a lift if you want,' she said. 'But honestly I wouldn't get in this car with us. For a start, the thing's a wreck. The lights aren't working. We don't know what's happened to them. We've already had one crash, and it was all my fault because I can't really drive. And none of the rest of them' - she gestured to me - 'has the faintest idea where we are.' The teenager looked nervous, but only for a moment. She handed her wicker basket to Oksana and squeezed into the back beside her. As we pulled out into the Sunday evening traffic heading towards Moscow, she was tearing an enormous gingerbread heart into four pieces and chatting happily about the fatal accidents she had seen. 'Last week was awful,' she announced with a grin. 'There were bodies all over the road.' We had two hundred miles to go and it was getting dark. 'It's really boring around here,' she added through the crumbs. 'I'm glad I've met the three of you.'

LRB 5 April 2001 | PDF Download