I felt like I was in a four-wheeled aquarium. I listened to the man tell his story and thought about my own tale, which wasn’t much more than a series of accounts noted on a calendar. A banal story. Common. Narrow. Heard a thousand times through the din of bars and train stations. Or in the masked confusion of books. The story of a man travelling through an empty, borderless place, knowing that the lies he faces are often far more real than truth.
KILOMETRE 3594
We passed a few gas stations with handwritten signs indicating they were bone-dry. Weathered, the ink on a number of them had washed out and we guessed the words far more than we could read them. We needed gas, and fast.
Behind us, clouds still gathered and darkened on the horizon. Here, however, the sun was heavy and a strong stink of bitumen rose from the asphalt. It felt like the asphalt became sticky as we passed over it, liquid, viscous. As if the car slowly sank into the tar of the road, or that our journey was slowly swallowing us up, with the patience of a reptile swallowing its prey.
For more than two hours not a single car passed and we met a line of vehicles all packed to the roof, coming the other way. In the cab of the pickup truck that led the way, five men watched us approach. We passed by them, feeling ourselves under surveillance. A convoy of a dozen cars, three vans, and a school bus. They too had luggage tied to their roofs but, unlike us, they seemed to prefer not to travel alone. They were like a caravan, preparing to cross the desert.
I emptied my can of beer and slid it under the seat. The man told me from the backseat that people were fleeing westward. Life wasn’t easy in the cities. They were running from what awaited us on arrival in the city. A few days prior, someone told him that the soldiers tasked with protecting electrical infrastructure were requisitioning all the food they could find and establishing fenced-in camps. Emptying every cargo truck and train they could get their hands on.
The man gave me another beer, telling me he’d always dreamed of robbing a train. That he’d often clandestinely ridden trains. And that he’d learned to hide from security guards who patrol marshalling yards. And yet, at the time, he’d always been fleeing something. After all, victors always find a place to call their own.
The strange convoy disappeared in the dark sky of the rear-view mirror. Without a moment’s breath, the man continued, saying that, in the end, you always get caught. And that if you didn’t want to finish your days dead in some ditch on the side of a highway, you had to learn how to get by and sneak in anywhere. Through doors and windows left unlocked at night, along the walls of huge mansions, among thick crowds … In speechless beds, under countless gestures, in the drum of washing machines, along deserted roads, in obscure one-ways where the hours are long in the darkness of the baggage compartment of a bus.
I remained silent. Meanwhile the woman seemed to be lost in the passing of anonymous scenery, all woven of needles. I had the impression she was listening distractedly to our new passenger. And that she let herself nonchalantly lose herself in the details. I turned towards her several times and caught momentary glimpses of understanding that revealed the space between her body and mine to be like continental drift, constantly shifting and unpredictable. My father always told me you couldn’t trust people who talked too much. My father.
The more I looked at him, the older the man in the backseat seemed to become. His grimaces seemed to be well-practised mimics. He exaggerated. When I asked him his age, twice, he was careful not to interrupt his story. I stopped talking and soon enough his voice became one with the engine’s vibration, and I could no longer distinguish anything but the woman’s breathing and the long, slow whistling of the road. I missed my cat. Even if I hadn’t liked him. At least he didn’t talk.
KILOMETRE 3677
We arrived at the outskirts of a small city. I slowed at the sight of a barricade made of two huge tree trunks and several metal barrels. A dozen men were on guard. They were armed. I turned towards the man in the backseat. What do we do? He told me to advance slowly, hide my beer, and just talk as if everything was normal. He said I shouldn’t turn off the engine. We would need to move quickly if it was a trap. I sighed and stopped the vehicle a few metres from the militiamen. As one man approached the car, examining the bags tied on top, the man in the backseat told me to not mention him at all. I lowered my window.
What are you doing around here? I’m going east, I need to pass through. What’s waiting for you there? My father, he’s sick, he needs me. Do you have a way of communicating with him? No. Where are you coming from? Out west. And there’s no power over there? No, not that I know of. Did you have trouble making your way here? Some, I had to find gas, food, and a place to sleep. Do you have weapons? No.
At my side, the woman was like a statue. Her eyes were empty as if she wasn’t really there anymore. In the backseat, the man listened, without saying anything. For once.
What are you carrying? Clothes, tools, a bit of food. Do you know anyone in town? No. You have no weapons, is what you told me? Right. Sure, yes. Can you open your trunk?
The militiaman had a look and came back to my window.
Fine, you can drive on in, but you can’t stay more than a day if you don’t have any family inside, that’s the rule. I just want to get on my way, there’s still a lot of road ahead me. Fine, here’s your pass, don’t lose it.
As the other men opened up a path for me through the barricade, I called out to the militiaman. The man looked me over, suspicious. I told him to come back, for a moment. His colleagues observed us, arms crossed over weapons strapped to their shoulders. I asked him what was going on. He looked at me before leaning against my door.
Listen, he said, you know as well as I do, probably. We haven’t had power here for three weeks now. At first, like everyone else, we thought it would come back. They were saying all sorts of things on the radio. That it was caused by bad weather up north. A minor mechanical failure. Then they started talking about a major incident at a hydroelectric dam. Human error. Maybe some conspiracy. The government gave new explanations every day. Then, all communications just failed. Since then we’ve gotten a bit of news, here and there, from people passing through. Like you. A lot of people speak about a wave of attacks. Of incredible violence near big cities. And completely disorganized emergency assistance. But it’s nothing more than rumours, we can’t be sure of anything.
Another car arrived behind us. It stopped while two militiamen walked towards it. In my rear-view mirror I could clearly see bullet holes in the windshield.
You know, the man continued, I heard that there was fighting between the army and people who didn’t want to leave their homes. And supposedly our neighbours are putting up refugee camps on the other side of the border. You hear so many things you just can’t know what’s true anymore. Here we’re organized, trying to get ahead of whatever trouble might be headed our way. We’re already thinking about what we’re going to do over winter. The city is secure. We control every entrance and exit. And we’ve imposed a curfew.
Behind me, I saw the militiamen helping the driver out of his vehicle. He was injured. They laid him out on the ground and called for the first-aid kit. The man talking to me straightened up. Surveying the scene developing behind us, he told me to keep moving. That I could stock up on gas and food in town, at reasonable prices. One last thing, he said, I don’t know what you’ve seen or done on the road, but things are good here, so don’t go around town professing doom and destruction.
Understood? Understood.
KILOMETRE 3679
We entered the city by way of a large boulevard lined with car dealerships and superstores. Parking lots were empty, traffic lights didn’t work, but there were people in the streets. And on their faces we could see emotions other than panic and fear.
It was a beautiful afternoon. We slowly drove down the main street, looking at the arrows on cardboard posters nailed to telephone poles. gas. clothes. foo
d. tools. new arrivals. There were few cars on the road. Most people were on foot or bicycles. We wanted to pass through unnoticed, but the road dust caked on my car and the luggage strapped to the roof betrayed us as outsiders.
I turned off the engine in front of a gas station. Tacked to a post, a sign informed us that every ration ticket was worth three litres of gas. On the other side of the street, three small tents sheltered fruit and vegetable stalls. The woman told me she would take care of the food and slammed the door behind her. I turned towards the man in the backseat and told him he’d reached his destination. He looked me over, watched the woman walking away and told me he still had a ways to go, and that I was his driver. A young pump operator approached, asking me for my ration ticket. The man whispered to me not to move from here, that he would find us a drink for what little road was left.
I don’t have one. You just got here, right? Yes, as you can tell. If you don’t have a ration ticket, you’ve got to pay by the litre. Okay, no problem. It’s twelve dollars a litre. Really? Yes. Right, okay, I’ve got enough, the pumps are working? Yes, the generator is out back. Fill her up, then. I can’t, we got a ten-litre limit.
I stared at the young man.
I’ve got a lot of road behind me and a lot more left to go. I need gas. I’ve got money. Do I need to say anything more?
He smiled, telling me there was no reason to raise my voice. That he understood, but I should keep it quiet. We shook hands.
Carefully filling the jerry can, the young man asked me questions about the outage. As if I knew more than him. I told him that three days ago there’d been power out west. Surprised, he asked me how that was possible. I shrugged. Then, lowering his voice, he insisted. He asked what I’d seen on the road.
Fields and roads, and a few abandoned cars. That’s it? Yeah, pretty much, except for a few details. What details? Nothing important, people are a bit worried, but it’s going to be all right. Right, it’s going to be all right, it’s summer.
I paid him with the cash on me and searched the car to count up what money I had left. My two companions were still wandering, somewhere. I decided to quickly examine what the man was lugging with him. In his hockey bag, I found a sleeping bag, clothes, a few books, toiletries. Nothing surprising. However, the contents of his guitar case were another story entirely. Methodically organized were hunting clothes, vacuum packed food, a small coal water filter, a first-aid kit, medications, a deck of cards, a revolver, two boxes of bullets. I closed everything carefully. Raising my head, I saw the young man at the pump observing me from the corner of his eye.
The woman came back. We placed the water bottles and food in the back. She told me we could hold out for more than a week with the supplies she picked up. But we would have to be careful, since it cost her a lot. I nodded.
The man still hadn’t returned. I started the car and told the woman that nothing held us here any longer. She warned me that that might not be a good idea. That I didn’t know what he was capable of. She said I should be patient, that everything would be fine. I grasped the wheel and let my head loll back. At the same moment, the man opened the back door and sat down, a case of beer on his lap.
Not long after, we arrived at the roadblock at the far end of the city. Quick questions, short answers, waves, and good lucks. As soon as I shifted into fifth gear, and the trees began flying past us, the man offered us a beer. We accepted. And the sky darkened.
KILOMETRE 3788
The light was fading. The green of trees becoming black. Fog banks were landing among the swamps around us. Before me, the road rolled out its red carpet along curves and vales. Fatigue buzzed constantly in the back of my head. I could feel the alcohol in my veins keeping it at a distance. We were now crossing through the endless forests of the north. Except for the militiamen as we left the city, we’d seen no one, only trees and lakes.
The man hadn’t said anything more than a few words since we’d gotten back on the road. He kept looking outside, drinking his beer. I asked him to play us something on his guitar. Silence is fine, I told him, but it lacks a bit of flavour. The woman smiled. The man answered that he was missing strings on his guitar.
That’s a shame.
But he said that he always had another story to tell. Spring hadn’t yet begun, it was still the end of winter. Two shapes on a snowmobile, father and son. They were crossing a lake when suddenly the ice gave way. Though stricken by the countless daggers of frozen water, the man had enough strength and quick enough reflexes to throw his son out of the fissure. Before foundering in the dark waters, he told him to turn around and get on his hands and knees so the ice wouldn’t collapse under him a second time. That the town wasn’t very far. That he would always … Night fell as quickly as the man disappeared. In shock, the young boy was unable to leave. He was found only a few steps from the broken ice, the next morning. Unfortunate survivor. His voice gone, cold to the bone, but alive. It happened not far from here.
The woman asked the man whether all his stories were true. After a mouthful of beer, he told her that truth was only what you decided to hold on to, to believe. That if you didn’t know how to lie you were still a child. And that children didn’t live very long. Then he stretched towards me and asked whether we could stop a moment, one minute, not very long at all.
KILOMETRE 3793
Standing on the side of the ditch, the man said that, in the old days, when it was time to place the markers that separated two pieces of adjacent land, fathers would bring their sons with them. They then buried a large stone at the agreed-upon border and, in the very next moment, each father gave his own son a beating. So that they never forgot the place.
I coughed a few times. Okay, let’s go. But the man took his time returning to his seat and stood there in the indefinite landscape of dark sky and black spruce.
KILOMETRE 3847
The man then told a story of a couple of small-time thieves, without ambition, two jewel thieves who had a gun, just in case. Two friends of his who dreamed about crossing the border one day and heading south. A short time before the outage, a robbery had turned sour and the two partners in crime were running downtown in broad daylight, chased by a security guard. It was noon, and the streets were full. They slipped into the crowd, but behind them the strident sound of the whistle came closer and closer. Then the door to a laundromat opened and closed three times. A few moments later, the slower of the two robbers, the older one, had his cheek against the cold ceramic floor while a breathless man insulted him and put him in cuffs. Meanwhile, the younger of the two colleagues observed the scene through the porthole of a washing machine’s drum, holding on to the revolver for dear life. Then the power went out. And a few days later, when the man returned home, after walking two hours in dreary streets that already smelled of chaos, she had left. Without warning.
It was dark. I worked to stay attentive. I drank my beer in small mouthfuls and watched the white line climb towards me, tossing its hips under the glare of my headlights. Despite the man’s stories, I felt the boredom of a numb body trying to stay steady while my mind simply absented itself for long periods of time, without anyone noticing.
A sign of life. Or almost. Three loaded lumber trucks were parked on the side of the road. Clearly abandoned. I slowed down. The scent of cut wood made me think that if I were to commit a theft I wouldn’t bother hitchhiking on trains, I’d steal one of these truckloads of wood and drive straight into the forest with it, as far as possible, and build myself a house next to a small lake or river. And I’d survive in peace, living off hunting and fishing and berries I picked in summer.
The man asked us what we would do if the power never came back. The woman answered it was the least of her worries. Her answer seemed forced. I added that I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. The man laughed, there won’t be a getting- there, the future is behind us, where are you going to hide, if the civil war breaks out?
&n
bsp; KILOMETRE 3921
We passed a few houses. Squat homes covered in ugly vinyl siding. It was almost night and I kept my eyes open for cars without headlights. In the rear-view mirror I only saw the red ember of a cigarette, moving. Our impromptu passenger was telling the story of an old man who lived on the fourteenth floor. When the new year started, the man hadn’t sent his rent cheques to cover that year’s lease. He was sent a notice. Then warnings. And threats of eviction. One day, the concierge of the tower knocked at his door. Knock knock knock. No answer. The next week, he got the door broken in. Not a noise in the apartment. Not a hint of life. Only a dried-up silhouette, mummified in the immaculate solitude of bedsheets.
Suddenly, after a short silence, the man announced that we were almost there. I told him to speak up when he wanted me to stop. He put his hand on my shoulder, telling me that it was only a slight detour. I told him I still had a lot of road ahead of me and it was best to take advantage of the night to drive in peace. But he insisted. Speaking to the woman, he said that a little break couldn’t hurt. That he knew a well-organized place, without danger. That he had friends there. We needed to rest at some point and driving any longer would just be dangerous.
I wasn’t so sure. For now, I simply accelerated with the impression that my car was a raft adrift. That I steered the wheel of oblivion.
Running on Fumes Page 8
